"We'll start with information. It'll be up to you how we go about getting it."
"What kind of information?" His gaze swung anxiously between Dante and Chase. "I don't know who you guys are, and I don't have any idea what you're talking abou--"
"Now, see," Dante said, cutting him off with a chuckle, "that kind of bullshit answer puts us off to a real bad start." As the human's right hand slid into the deep pocket of his down-filled vest, Dante smirked. "You wanna convince me you're an idiot, go ahead and pull that gun out. Just so we're clear, I really hope you do."
Ben Sullivan's face blanched as white as his apartment's unpainted walls. He pulled his hand back out, nice and slow. "How did you--"
"You expecting somebody besides us tonight?" Dante strode up to him and removed the beat-up .45-caliber pistol from his pocket without any resistance. He turned to Chase and handed him the safety-locked weapon. "Piece-of-shit-looking hardware for a piece-of-shit drug dealer, eh?"
"I just got that for protection, and I'm not a drug deal--"
"Have a seat," Dante said, and dropped the guy onto a fake-suede recliner, the room's sole piece of furniture aside from the computer workstation in the corner and the shelf of stereo equipment against the wall. To Chase, Dante said, "Give the place a good sweep, see what you can find."
"I'm not a drug dealer," Sullivan insisted as Chase moved off to begin searching. "I don't know what you think--"
"I'll tell you what I think." Dante got down in his face, feeling his anger flare in the sharpening of his eyes and the slight prick of his fangs against his tongue. "I know you're not going to sit there and deny that we saw you dealing Crimson in the back of that club three nights ago. How long have you been trafficking in that shit? Where are you getting it?"
The human glanced down, formulating his lie. Dante grabbed his chin in a bruising grip and yanked his gaze back up to him. "You don't really want to die over this, do you, asshole?"
"What can I say? You're mistaken. I don't have any idea what you're talking about."
"Maybe she can tell us something," Chase put in, coming out of the bedroom just as Dante was about to coldcock the human into a little honesty. Chase carried a framed snapshot in his hand, holding it out in front of him. It was a photo of Ben and a shorter-haired, still-stunning Tess, looking very much the happy couple as they posed outside her clinic's Grand Opening sign. "You two look cozy. I'll bet she can shed a little light on your after-hours activities."
The human shot a narrow-eyed stare at Chase. "Stay the hell away from her, or so help me, I'll--"
"Is she involved?" Dante asked, his voice a rough scrape in his throat.
The human scoffed. "You gotta ask me that? You're the one who had his tongue jammed down her throat last night in front of her apartment. Yeah, I was there. I saw you, son of a bitch." The news flash came as a surprise to Dante, but it certainly explained the man's simmering anger. Dante could feel Chase's eyes on him in question, but he kept his attention focused on Tess's jealous ex.
"I'm about out of patience with you," he snarled, then shook his head. "No, screw that. I'm totally out of patience." Drawing one of the twin curved blades out of its sheath in a split-second blur of flashing steel, he pressed the edge to Ben Sullivan's throat. He smiled thinly as the human's eyes went round with terror. "Yeah, that feels much better to me too. Now, I'm going to give your larynx a little room to breathe, and you're going to start talking. No more bullshit or stalling. Blink once if you're with me, Benny boy."
The human lowered his lids, then resumed his fearful study of Dante's blade.
"They told me not to say anything to anyone," he said, words rushing out of him.
"Who's they?"
"I don't know--whoever's been paying me to manufacture the shit."
Dante scowled. "You make Crimson yourself?"
The human attempted a nod, his movement restricted by the cold steel still hovering near his throat. "I' m a scientist--at least, I was. I used to work as a chemist for a cosmetics firm until I got fired a few years ago."
"Skip the unemployment record and tell me about Crimson."
Sullivan swallowed carefully. "I created it for the nightclub scene, just to make some extra cash. Last summer, not too long after I started dealing it, this dude approached me about stepping up production. He said he had contacts who wanted to get in with me, and they were willing to pay big for it."
"But you don't know who your business partners are?"
"No. Don't ask, don't tell. Never mattered to me, really. Whoever it is, they pay in cash, lots of it. They leave my payments in a safe-deposit box at the bank."
Dante and Chase exchanged a look, both of them knowing what the human was probably ignorant of --that he was dealing with Rogues, most likely tied in with the leader of the new faction of suckheads who, as of a few months ago, had been organizing, preparing for a war their leader intended to ignite among the vampire race. Dante and the rest of the Order had put a serious kink in those plans when they blew up the asylum headquarters, but they hadn't eliminated the threat completely. So long as the Rogues could recruit and increase their numbers--particularly with the aid of a drug like Crimson--the possibility of war was more a question of when than if.
"What's the big fucking deal anyway? Crimson's not hardcore. I've even taken it myself in my own trials. It's just a mild stimulant, not much different from X or GHB."
Standing next to Dante, Chase scoffed. "Not much different. The hell it isn't. You saw what happened the other night."
Dante pressed the blade a bit closer. "You got a front-row seat to that little freak show, didn't you?"