I signed the contract, input into my cell phone the contact numbers Katie had included, and jumped the brick fence. I didn’t want the blasted Joe to know where I was. He was back in his hidey-hole, watching my yard, smoking another cigar. Making me wonder who he was working for, keeping an eye on me . . . Well, not for the rogue vamp. They were too mentally unstable to keep someone under thrall for extended periods of time. And the Joe—not Rick, just no-name Joe—hadn’t smelled of vamp. But Katie for sure had other enemies. I didn’t even have to ask. Vamps always had enemies, and the older the vamp, the more enemies. Living and dead.

I presented myself at Katie’s back door at seven p.m. on the nose. Troll opened the door and stood there, staring at me, blocking my way in. I feigned nonchalance, while wishing I had come armed, and said, “Evening. I’m supposed to interview the girls.”

“Join them for dinner. Not interview.”

“You say tomato, I say interview. But I’ll be nice. No broken arms or blood.”

I coulda sworn Troll wanted to smile. He pushed open the door, but still kept it blocked with his arm and body. “You disabled all Katie’s security devices.”

“Yep. Contractual agreement.” I slapped the contract on Troll’s chest. “No spying on the help. I’m sure she just forgot to have the cameras removed.”

“You found ’em all. Fast.” He took the contract, but didn’t step aside.

I touched my nose and quoted the short salesgirl. “It’s a gift.” I added, “I can smell security devices.” Which was a total lie. But I could scent out where a human had spent a lot of time in an odd place. Like over the mantel, in the closet, in the kitchen, installing the bugs. “Time for my question. Why did Rick LaFleur show up at my place today?”

Troll tilted his head, thinking. I could see things happening behind his secretive brown eyes, but his body language gave nothing away. Maybe working with a vamp teaches you to keep everything inside. “Rick wanted the job hunting the rogue.”

Okay. That was no surprise. “You ticked off that I got the job and not him?”

“I told Katie to hire you. Rick’s good but not good enough to take on a rogue. My family knows it and asked me to keep him out. Which I did. You tell him that and I’ll gut you like a pig.”

“Thanks for the warning. Any chance he’s working for Katie’s opposition?”

“No chance in hell.”

“So he’s watching my place because he finds me irresistible?”

Troll’s eyes went wide, surprised.

“Yeah. That was my feeling.” I tucked my hands in my jeans pockets and wondered how much longer Troll was going to make me stand in the heat and chat. Cool, air-conditioned air flowed out around us and dissipated fast while I started to sweat. I could feel the silver cross under my shirt, the only thing I wore that could be considered a weapon, gathering moisture. Even my scalp was sweating. “He wants to work with me on the rogue deal,” I said, “and I’m interested in someone with local contacts if he’s legit. And if the council covers the expense.”

“I’ll talk to Katie,” Troll said, shaking his head. “How do you like your steak? Baked potato with the works? Salad?” He finally stepped aside and let me in, shut the door behind me, and locked it.

“Light a match under the meat, and if it’s still mooing I won’t be insulted, anything full of fat on the potato, and salad is for cows. Cola, with caffeine, no alcohol.” I walked into the house, waiting for him to make a move. He didn’t. He just pointed to the right and said, “Katie will leave you alone with them for an hour. The girls gather for dinner in the common room.”

“Okay. And Troll?” He waited. “When I jumped the fence, I noticed that someone installed a security camera recently on Katie’s side of the fence, pointed at her house. Within the last month. The scratch is still fresh. They came in from my side of the fence.”

Troll cursed. He disappeared down a darkened hallway.

CHAPTER 5

It was wicked sharp

I’m sure television had cemented my ideas about what a hooker—a working girl—was like. Crass, hard-eyed, crude, probably diseased. And my Christian children’s home upbringing had pounded the image in. Katie’s ladies blew all that away in five minutes. They were seated in elegant chairs in a formal dining room, around a dark, carved-wood table, sleepy eyed and attired in brocade robes with tasseled belts, their hair in silken waves, their skin perfumed and oiled. They all looked and smelled healthy. Though with a distinct aura of vamp clinging to them.

There were six girls, and a seventh met me in the hallway as I entered. Three girls were Caucasian: a blonde, a crimson-haired beauty with emerald eyes, and a white-skinned, black-haired girl who caught my attention with the witchy energies around her. Three of the girls were dark skinned—one with skin so black it looked blue in the candlelight, one South Asian who looked twelve, and one with coffee-and-milk skin, hazel green eyes, and kinky blond hair. The seventh was different. She jingled as she took her seat, pierced, tattooed, and dangling rings from eyebrows, lips, nose, ears, navel, and nipples. She was wearing low-rise velvet harem pants and a peekaboo bra, so I wasn’t guessing. And she wore a braided leather whip over one shoulder. The whip looked so supple it likely left no marks on human skin.“I’m Christie,” she said. “You looking for work? ’Cause Katie already has a full house.”

Before I could answer, the walls vibrated as if electricity quivered through them. And a vampire screamed. The sound shivered, ear-piercing, like nothing in nature and nothing man had made. So high-pitched it came closest to sounding like a police siren. It was the sound they made when they died.

Beast flashed into me and I whirled, raced down the hallway, faster than a human could follow. I raced past Troll, opened the door, and slid into the room where I had been interviewed. Katie stood there, fully vamped out, claws extended, canines a good two inches long, pupils black and huge in bloodred eyes. The stench of wormwood filled the room.

Cripes. Beast slid to a halt. Troll pushed me aside and stood in front. The doorway behind filled with lovely ladies.

“Go back to dinner,” Troll murmured softly, a measured monotone. Katie’s face flashed to him. She raised her claws and hissed, animalistic. Beast understood. Fear. Killing frenzy. I got a single image of Beast attacking a doe. And her fawns. Raging, terrified, hungry. I backed out the door and closed it, standing with the girls in the dim hallway, surrounded by their perfumes and whispery clothes.

“I’ve never seen her like that,” one whispered.

“I have. Tom can handle her.” But there was a trace of uncertainty in her voice.

I said, “Let’s go back to the dining room. She can smell us out here.”

“How do you know?” Christie asked, close on my left.

I looked at her, my vision adjusted to the low light. Her eyes were wide and she cradled the whip in both hands, so tightly her knuckles were bloodless. I couldn’t exactly reply, “Because Beast can smell her.” I settled on a shoo ing motion and took a step in that direction, knowing that herd mentality would make them follow. Beast had once informed me that humans were hunters only by luck and because they had opposable thumbs. Otherwise they were prey. And not very tasty at that. I had been too scared of the inference to question her further. I really didn’t want to know if I/we had eaten humans. Really, really didn’t.

Back in the dining room, a black woman, distant relation to Methuselah, shuffled in wearing a floor-length black dress, a starched white apron, and loose house shoes, her sparse gray hair in a bun. She was pushing a cart laden with salad bowls. Without speaking further, Katie’s ladies filed around the table and sat. I took one of three empty places, in the middle, not at the foot or head of the table. “Thank you,” I lied, when a salad bowl settled on the spotless white tablecloth in front of me. I didn’t have anything against salads—especially when they came smothered in bacon dressing—I just didn’t crave them.

“You are most welcome,” she said, her soft voice accented, but with what native language I didn’t know. She placed a wineglass near the right side of my plate, and a water glass on a coaster to protect the dark wood beneath the cloth. I took one look at all the silverware and felt a faint panic. At the children’s home I used a knife, fork, and spoon. Drank milk. Prayed over my food. Washed dishes. Since then, I had eaten with fingers over the kitchen sink or with claws in the grass and not thought much about it.

I watched the girls as they each lifted a silver—cripes, real silver—fork and started eating salad with oil and vinegar dressing. No bacon. As a guest, I was gonna havta eat it too. It had been weeks since I remembered to bless a meal, which brought on a fit of guilt, and, though it probably made me a bad guest in a vamp’s home, I closed my eyes for thanks before selecting a similar short-tined fork and eating. As I chewed, I took in the room. Paintings hung in gilt frames, all portraits of Katie in various stages of undress. Heavy brown and black striped drapes covered windows on the far wall, tied in place with big tassels and fancy ropes. A thick, modern-looking rug in the same shades was beneath the table, black silky fringe on two ends.

When the salad was gone, I said, “Katie wants me to talk to you girls about the—”

Katie appeared in the doorway. Didn’t move into view, simply appeared. Vamp fast. Beast threw back my head and shoved my chair from the table with a squeal. Katie’s shaking hands braced on the jamb to either side of the door as if to hold her up. Her hair hung down in a snarl. Blood coated her lips and chin. “Jane. Come,” she said, breathless.

Her eyes looked human, and her canines were snapped back into the roof of her mouth, but she smelled of fear and fresh blood. Beast bristled. Not knowing what else to do, I followed Katie to the office, holding Beast down with an effort of will; she hated tagging along to another predator’s den. As I followed, the vamp turned on the sconce, brightening the hallway with a touch of human color. But the scent of blood was growing stronger. Beast fought to get free and my lips curled to expose killing teeth I didn’t yet have. Katie didn’t glance my way.