Archangel's Viper by Nalini Singh
"Ah, Holly." No surprise in the pale hazel of his eyes, his features so even and unremarkable that Holly had the thought this man could blend in anywhere, become anyone.
"I'm being rude," he said right then. "Do come in." He led them into a spacious apartment decorated with furniture that was a little too dark and heavy for Holly but tasteful nonetheless. Three framed black-and-white prints lined one wall, all depicting people in clothing at least a hundred and sixty or seventy years out of date. Those people stood stiff and formal . . . and one of them was a young Walter Battersby.
"Were you born in the 1800s?"
Battersby smiled at her question. "1812," he said, before going to a decanter in the corner and pouring two glasses of blood. He offered one to Venom, the other to Holly.
When she demurred, he asked her if she'd like to try a "raspberry liqueur with bite" that he'd recently acquired from a collector in Bavaria. Still unable to pigeonhole this man into the category of "unscrupulous asshole," Holly nodded, and he poured the liquid into a beautifully cut liqueur glass with a short, faceted stem.
"You must tell me how you like it," he said after she accepted the drink. "I have a terrible addiction to all things fine and I couldn't resist when I saw this bottle on the market . . . But that's not why you're here. Please sit."
Venom took a chair that gave him a view of Walter in his leather armchair, while he'd catch any movement from the direction of the door with his peripheral vision. By contrast, Holly chose a chair that put her back to the wall but also placed her directly across from Battersby. She trusted Venom to kill any threat that came through the door, but this intelligent and cultured man, he was another kind of danger altogether.
"Five million?" she said softly, holding the clear hazel of Walter Battersby's gaze. "I'll get an inflated opinion of myself if you're not careful."
To the vampire's credit, he didn't attempt to pretend he didn't know what she was talking about. "The client's choice, I'm afraid." He took a sip from his glass. "I did try to advise said client to lower the bounty so as not to be inundated with false reports, but . . ." An apologetic shrug. "The client was insistent."
"Have you alerted this client that I'm currently in your apartment?" Holly asked, her eyes on him and only him. There was no view behind him, the windows blocked out by heavy blackout blinds. An interesting choice in a city where views fetched a premium. Maybe Walter Battersby didn't like looking out and seeing the twenty-first century looking back at him.
Everything in this room, from the handwoven silk rug on the floor, to the ornaments on the mantel, to the chair in which she sat, came from another time. There was even a candelabra on the writing desk to the left, and the melted wax on the candles as well as on the metal of the candelabra itself told her Battersby used it often.
"No, no my dear." Walter Battersby shook his head. "I would never dip my hand in the cookie jar." Setting his glass aside on a small occasional table that was probably a valuable antique, he steepled his hands under his chin. "My job is only to facilitate certain transactions. I get paid handsomely for that. I don't need to make enemies of mercenaries and bounty hunters by poaching their target."
"How about the Tower?"
Venom's silken question had Walter Battersby's face going stone-still for an instant. It was the first time the urbane male had shown any indication of fear--and he recovered quickly.
Spreading his hands, he said, "I wasn't aware that Holly was special at the time I accepted the commission. I knew she lived in the Tower, but word on the street was that she'd earned that room by dint of her work with the darker denizens of the city. No one high-end, so to speak." Another look of sincere apology. "No one the Tower would miss."
Holly knew the Tower kept track of all its people. No one was expendable. "How much did you get paid?" she asked as the unashamedly opulent scent of the liqueur rose to her nose. "How much was enough to risk going after even a small fish in the Tower pond?"
"Two million."
That meant someone had laid out seven million to get her. Seven fucking million. Her head spun. "How much is this apartment worth?"
Battersby smiled. "Fifteen million. No, I'm not hurting for money--but one must have intellectual challenges or one fades away into ennui and that's a waste of near-immortality, is it not?"
He leaned forward. "Now that I know of the Tower's interest, I'll be returning the payment to my client and pointing out the clause in our contract that says they have to warn me of any unexpected dangers. Hazard pay is extra, you see--and this hazard, I do not wish to chance. There is a difference between acceptable risk and foolish stupidity."
Holly stared at him. "There's a contract?"
"I'm a businessman." Battersby rose--after glancing at Venom--and went to a sideboard where he picked up a document. "This is it."
Holly examined it first. It was a contract and it laid out the responsibilities of both parties "in the matter of the live capture of one Holly 'Sorrow' Chang." It was signed in blood on Battersby's part--the gold-banded fountain pen she'd noticed on his writing desk suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
The client had accepted the contract via a short e-mail that was attached to the contract. "There's no name on the e-mail," Holly said, handing the contract to Venom.
"No, my dear." Once more ensconced in his armchair, Battersby picked up his glass. "This client isn't unintelligent. I don't dig too deep, but I try not to work with distasteful types--for example, I don't truck with those who wish to do adult things with little ones, or who want to Make a mortal unwillingly--but I couldn't find anything on this individual. As he or she wanted to capture an adult vampire, there was nothing overtly wrong with the request."
"Except for the fact it was a kidnapping," Holly pointed out, the entire well-mannered conversation so surreal that she felt as if she'd fallen down the rabbit hole.
Battersby smiled at her dry tone. "Facilitating such things is part of what I do, alas." Pausing, he said, "If I may be indelicate . . . your fangs are rather small. Was your Making unsuccessful?" He actually looked distressed. "If you're under Tower care for medical reasons, I do apologize. I don't work with clients who target the unfortunate."
The unfortunate?
Holly looked at Venom, unable to believe this guy was for real.
Putting away his phone, Venom tucked the folded contract into his coat. "The Tower has accessed your technical devices. We'll wait while they verify your story."
Battersby leaned back in his seat, his eyes wide. "My protections are state of the art. I may have been born more than two hundred years ago and still prefer the mores of that time, but I've kept up with the changes in the world."
Venom didn't say anything, didn't explain. Taking off his sunglasses, he just waited in an unblinking silence that had Battersby's fingers going bone white around his glass. Holly, however, was deeply curious--and since they had the time . . . "How did you end up in this line of work?"
A touch of color returned to his cheeks. "It's what I did before I was Made--for mortals, you understand," the other vampire said. "After my Making, I realized immortals had a need of the same type of discreet service and began while I was yet under Contract. My angelic master at the time was intrigued by my ability to build connections and obtain information while facilitating transactions, and gave me carte blanche so long as I hid nothing from him. We are friends to this day."
"Why don't you live in the darker part of the city?"
"Fleshpots and pain citadels are not my drug of choice," he replied with a smile that didn't quite reach eyes tinged with fear so deep, it couldn't be hidden. "As I can afford to live near the art galleries and fine wine bars that are my drugs of choice, I do."
"But you retain your connections in the streets?"
"Yes. A man in my profession only needs a few trustworthy go-betweens to ensure the word gets out about certain matters. Such as the significant bounty on the head of a just-Holly."
Holly smiled at his gentle mim
"That, my dear, is the point." Battersby put aside his half-empty glass. "The thrill of risk." He turned to look at Venom. "If I may be so bold, why have you never displayed any signs of ennui?"
Venom's tone was impossible to read when he replied, his eyes still trained on Battersby, "Why do you perceive I haven't?"
"You've never been spotted in any of the usual haunts of those pushing their senses to the edge in an effort to feel something--and when photographed by the magazines that seem to enjoy following you, you are alert and aware. There's no sense of boredom to you."
It was true, Holly thought. Venom could give an impression of languid carelessness when he wanted, but he was never actually careless. He was interested in the world, noticed everything. Tonight, he smiled. "You are an intelligent man, Walter," he said. "But unfortunately, if you've crossed the Tower, that intelligence won't save you."
A fine layer of perspiration broke out over Walter's upper lip, but he didn't beg or plead. "I accept that I let myself down by not digging below the surface--I should've realized Holly was the Tower's." Returning his attention to Holly, he said, "In an effort at redemption, I'd like to warn you that much of my information on you came from an individual you may trust."
23
Holly trusted few people. And could see none of them betraying her. "Who?"
"David Shen."
Holly curled her lip. "That weenie? I should've guessed." He'd been a mistake during a period when she'd been fighting brutally hard to cling to normality. Of course, David hadn't known the truth of her transition at Uram's blood-soaked hands. His life would've been forfeit had she told him; she'd given him the same story she'd given her family.
David had been suave and sophisticated and onboard with dating a vampire. It gave him a certain cachet in his friend circle--composed of fellow financial advisors and other smug bastards. He didn't, however, have the balls to handle waking up five times in a row with his girlfriend staring at his jugular.
It wasn't as if she'd bitten him.
"What did this 'weenie' tell you about Holly?" Venom's tone hadn't warmed up, his form that of a predator who was keeping an eye on his prey but wasn't yet ready to strike.
Even Holly had to admit he was doing a good job of being coldly terrifying.
"Mr. Shen informed me that Holly was a failed attempt at a Making, and that she was only under Tower supervision because of the need to make certain she wasn't at risk of falling into bloodlust." Walter took a careful sip of the blood once more in his hand. "You haven't tasted your liqueur, my dear."
Holly tilted up the glass, looked at the astonishingly dark pink color that swirled within the crystal. It was pretty, no doubt about it. As for the taste . . . the first sip made her sigh quietly. "Definitely a drink you could use to seduce your lady friends." Holly had grown up in a cosmopolitan city filled with mortals and immortals both; she'd seen that love had facets as complex as the crystal of her liqueur glass--it couldn't be assumed that a man would always prefer a woman, or that a stable and committed relationship could only feature two people.
However, one of the black-and-white images on the wall was of Walter with his arm around a woman, his hold openly proprietary. Given the way he chose to dress and furnish his home in the fashion of another place and time, the broker struck her as a man who was very firm in his inclinations and desires. It'd be women for Walter Battersby.
Now, his eyes filled with a joy that was at odds with the fear that cloaked him. "That is good to know." Another sip of his own drink of choice. "The perfidious David also led me to believe that the Tower wouldn't care too much if you simply disappeared--you took up 'a lot more bandwidth'--his words of choice--than justified."
"Ass," Holly muttered, unsurprised . . . but hurt all the same. She'd thought she'd loved David once, enough to excuse his overweening ego and obsession with wealth and status. It was only after their relationship went down in flames that she'd realized the entire thing had been built on her desperate desire to be "normal."
She hadn't loved David; she'd loved the idea of him: normal, mortal, human.
So no, theirs hadn't been a grand romance, but to talk of her as disposable? What kind of person did that?
"I thought the same," Walter murmured. "I'm afraid your abnormally small fangs did lend weight to his words."
"You, of course," Venom said, "didn't rely only on the words of a weak and faithless man."
"No, indeed," Walter said as Holly caught the sharp edge of disgust in Venom's frigid statement. "I spoke to those who haunt the shadows where Holly works, and all were of the opinion that she wasn't a vampire Made by choice." Anger lit his expression as he returned his attention to Holly. "People said the circumstances of your Making had caused you to be angry and difficult to control, especially as those circumstances put you outside the Contract structure. You were an annoyance to the Tower."
If only this man knew how much she'd give to be on a standard Contract.
Venom's phone vibrated at that instant. Walter Battersby went motionless.
Taking out the phone, Venom scanned the message, then slid it back into an inner pocket of his suit jacket.
"So." Walter put down his glass. "Are my years of life over?"
"It appears you are to have a stay of execution." Finishing off the glass of blood Walter had given him, Venom rose to his feet and held out a hand for Holly.
She took it because . . . because, after hearing what David had said about her, she needed not to feel like a monster, and Venom did that for her. Warm and strong, his fingers closed over her palm.
"However," he continued without glancing at her, "you now work for the Tower in the matter of the bounty on Holly."
"Of course." Walter got to his feet and bowed with old-world courtliness. "I will pass on any information that comes to me, though it's unlikely the client will contact me now that my part in this is over."
"It's a long game, Walter. Play it well." The warning was clear.
Venom didn't speak again until they were in the elevator. "You are unique, kitty. The Tower considers you many things, but the one thing you are not is disposable."
She squeezed his hand hard as her throat thickened. She couldn't speak, not until they were in the car. And then she didn't talk on the subject of David and his view of her worth. "You liked Walter Battersby, didn't you?"
"I've always had a soft spot for the hustlers of this world." He floored the pedal, zooming them out of the tony street and startling the drivers of the gleaming black town cars that prowled this part of the city.
Holly laughed, exhilaration in her blood.
Grinning, Venom threw his sunglasses into her lap . . . without slowing. His speed was deathly fast, his reflexes insane. As he displayed when he brought the car to a sudden halt in front of a crosswalk where a homeless man was pushing across his cart. Holly's seat belt had jerked her safely in place, but her heart thumped a bass beat. "How did you even see him?"
"Do you think I would drive this way if I couldn't?" He took off as soon as the man was safely past.
Holly screamed and it was a sound of sheer excitement. The roads were quieter at this time of night, but with New York a city loved by night-owl immortals and mortals both, they definitely weren't empty. Yet Venom made his car flow like liquid around all possible obstacles until she thought that if anyone was watching from above, his car would look like a lightning streak against the black of the tarmac.
They'd just hit a stretch of road that was miraculously empty when Venom came to a total stop. She went to ask him why . . . and glimpsed vivid flame red out of the corner of her eye. Dmitri's Ferrari, a low-slung crouching tiger of a car, sat on the other side of the passenger window. Dmitri's hair was windblown and he was laughing, a grinning Honor waving to Holly from the passenger seat. Holly waved back, astonished at this side of Dmitri.
He looke
Without warning, Venom gunned the engine and they were off, Dmitri streaking along beside them. Holly whooped as the two vehicles built for speed powered down the straight at insane speed. The waters of the East River rushed up at them.
Venom swung left and onto the road that paralleled the water.
There was more traffic here, but that didn't stop either Venom or Dmitri. They wove through the traffic as if it didn't exist. She glimpsed a flash of hot red in her peripheral vision before Venom pulled ahead and the other vehicle disappeared. "You're winning!"
"Dmitri's fast, but he's not a viper." Grin wild, and his own hair flying back in the breeze after he lowered his window, he pointed up without losing control of the vehicle. "Look right and up."
That was when she saw there was a third player in the game. Wings of brilliant blue edged with silver raced over the water alongside them, Illium's speed in the air a thing of beauty. "How can he keep up?"
"He's the fastest angel in the city, probably one of the fastest in the world." Venom swung past a lumbering people mover, slid in front of a sedan, then moved back into the other lane so quickly that she wasn't sure the other drivers had even seen him.
Dmitri's red Ferrari appeared behind them a second later. The leader of the Seven went to overtake, but Venom blocked his every move. Illium, meanwhile, kept pace as the two vehicles screeched into another turn that threatened to spin the Bugatti.
But the torque forces didn't win against Venom's handling and they rocketed away. All the way back home, where he brought his vehicle to a stop in front of the Tower itself. Dmitri pulled up two heartbeats later, looking over through the open window of his car. His grin was as untamed as Venom's, and when Illium landed in between the two cars, he completed the trifecta of beautiful, dangerous men.
Venom's fingers touched the back of Holly's neck, his arm stretched out and braced on the back of her seat as he leaned across to speak to the others. A sudden, sharp sexual awareness rippled through her body, the tiny hairs on her arms rising. She thought she'd caught it in time, but Venom's hand curled around her nape.
He rubbed his fingers gently over her hypersensitive skin.