The man got off on the sixth floor with his two friends for the evening, leaving me alone with the third woman. I stared at her outfit. Bright color, flashy enough, not too tight, around a size six. It would work.
I hit the stop button in the elevator and turned to the other woman. Her hand drifted down to her purse, and she eyed me with the wary look of a high-priced call girl who knows strangers can be dangerous, especially in the nice part of town. Her fangs poked through her lips. Another vampire.
"I'll give you two thousand dollars for your clothes, shoes, and that purse," I said.
"The clothes?" she asked, her brown gaze even more uncertain now. "That's it?
Nothing weird? Nothing extra?" I flashed her a wad of bills. "Nothing weird or extra. " Five minutes later, the hooker got off on the ninth floor wearing my cheap jacket, jeans, and boots. A minute after that, I stepped out onto the eleventh floor. I went into the emergency stairwell and opened my duffel bag. Hairbrush, lipstick, compact. It didn't take long for me to paint my face, tease out my bleached hair, and otherwise transform myself into Gin, the ditsy call girl. I also grabbed three silverstone knives out of the bag, sticking the first against the small of my back and palming the second in my right hand. The third got stuffed inside the hooker's minuscule purse.
Girded for battle, I left the bag in the stairwell, got back in the elevator, and rode up to the twelfth floor-Finn's floor.
Investment banker, computer expert, and all-around shady character Finnegan Lane had done well for himself, which is why his apartment took up the entire floor instead of several thousand spacious feet, like the building's other housing units.
Finn didn't believe in hiding one's wealth, and he didn't care that his gauche, nouveau riche ways upset his older, more genteel clients. Those folks, especially the vampires who'd been around since before the Civil War, despised his flashy ways, but Finn made them enough money to get them to choke on their antiquated southern standards.
Still, I was always extra cautious when I visited Finn's place. He might not be as deep into the assassin business as I was, but he still made plenty of enemies with his banking and stockbroker schemes-legal and otherwise. People were more vicious about money than any other thing, even sex. Add Finn's rampant womanizing to the mix, and it was a wonder somebody hadn't hired me to kill him years ago.
The elevator opened, and I stepped out into the glossy antechamber that fronted Finn's apartment. Low walnut table. Two chairs. Gilded mirror on the wall. A couple of fake pecan trees planted on either side of the front door. Southern decor at its finest.
A guard stationed outside jerked his head in my direction at the sound of the elevator opening. A big man, tall and wide with a beefy neck that would have been a perfect fit on an NFll linebacker. Probably some giant blood in his family tree. Still, he was only one guy. I would have had at least three men out here. Maybe more, since I knew exactly what I was capable of-and how very determined I was to get to Finnegan before he quit breathing.
The guard frowned, but he didn't go for his gun or knock on the door behind him to alert whoever might be inside. Mistake number one. I ambled toward him, swinging my hips and letting my short, zebra-striped skirt ride up and show off my long, toned, fishnet-clad legs. I'd already undone most of the buttons on my scarlet silk blouse to let my five-dollar black bra peep through.
The floor of the antechamber was made of fine marble, and the stone's delicate murmur rang in time to my heels tapping across it. For the first time tonight, my spirits crept up. The vibrations would have been different if Finn had been dead already. Darker, lower, somber. Like the stones at the Pork Pit. A sound I'd never, ever forget.
Fletcher.
I pushed all thought of my mentor, all weak, devastating emotion aside, and focused on the man in front of me. On what I was here to do. I stopped about three feet away from the guard, struck a model pose, dropped my head, batted my lashes, and gave him my most flirtatious look. If there was one thing all southern women instinctively know how to do, it's flirt. It's encoded in our DNA, along with a fondness for grease, sugar, and oversize hats.
"Hi there, handsome," I said in a soft, breathy voice. "I'm Candy. I'm here to see Finny. "
"Mr. Lane is otherwise engaged this evening. Important meeting. " The guard's tone was gruff, but his pale eyes scorched a path from my breasts down my legs and back up.
I giggled. "Yeah, with me, silly. "
The guard let himself look a second longer, then shook his head. "Sorry. This is another meeting. You're going to have to leave. "
I pouted. "But Finny and I always have a date on Sunday nights. I'm his after-hours girl. "
The guard didn't say anything, but his gaze kept flicking between my breasts and legs.
If he did that any faster, he'd give himself vertigo. I pouted a moment longer, then widened my gray eyes and smiled, as though the most amazing thought in the world had just occurred to me.
I stepped forward. The guard stiffened, but he didn't back away. I looked at him through my lashes and trailed my fingers down his broad chest. He wasn't wearing anything underneath his blue pinstriped shirt. No vest, no protective gear. Bad for him, good for me.
"Well, what about you, sugar? Can I interest you in sampling some sweet, sweet Candy tonight? A girl's gotta pay her rent, if you know what I mean. " The guard opened his mouth, but he never got a chance to respond. Because I brought my right hand up and shoved the knife I had palmed there into his chest. His eyes bulged with surprise. I clamped my hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming, wrenched the knife out, and stabbed him again.
The guard should have shot me the second I stepped out of the elevator. Never mind the mistake of letting me within arm's reach. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. But a pretty girl is a pretty girl, and men always want to look at and talk to and fuck those. Even if his boss had warned him to watch out for any woman who came near him tonight.
The guard's eyes glazed over, and he quit struggling. I eased his large, heavy body to the floor and retrieved my knife. I also rifled through his pockets, pulling out his wallet and cell phone, and putting them on the walnut table for pickup later. He wasn't wearing any jewelry, not even a watch.
Underneath my feet, the light, dainty murmur of the marble floor took on a harsher note as puddles of blood sluiced on top of it. Another sound I was familiar with.
Once I had the guard taken care of, I turned my attention to the apartment door.
Since the walls themselves were constructed of metal and wood instead of stone, I couldn't use my elemental magic to sense what waited behind the barrier. But I wasn't leaving without discovering what was happening, or had happened, to Finn. I'd just have to take my chances.
I turned the knob and opened the door a crack. Voices drifted out to me, faint, low, indistinct murmurs. They must be in the living room.