CHAPTER 1
Everything went according to plan until Bea actually drove the stake into the monster’s heart.
Sneaking in with the catering crew was smooth as warm butter, using the right bathroom on the fifth floor to change was no problem. Even fixing her hair to cover the top end of the stake and touching up her makeup was no hassle, though it caused a moment of mourning when she dumped the supplies. A necessary pang, since she couldn’t be weighed down, but it was such a nice color kit.
The red dress—low neckline, cap sleeves, tailored to hide the stake down her spine, strings of red crystals hanging in rows to match the Roaring Twenties costume theme—did its job, and the monster had zeroed in on her just exactly as Beatrice Dunlevy had hoped.
Even getting the monster alone was almost revoltingly easy. Bea had been so doggedly unobtrusive for over four long years, it was a relief to slip into something pretty and the resultant self-confidence had a near-magical effect.
Maybe it wasn’t precisely ‘near’. After all, the world held Mothmen, little green men, and bloodsucking monsters like the one collapsed under her in a mirrored elevator. Why not magic as well?
“That was for Jared,” she whispered, just as she had in so many dreams. No feeling of vengeful triumph, just simple nausea because the stake had gone in with the firm, crunching sound of biting a very crisp apple. All her practice in the meatpacking plant paid off, though she did have to brace both feet against the elevator wall, cracking one of the mirrors.
The monster—all six-foot-something of lean, sandy-haired fiendishness masquerading as a reclusive businessman—obligingly collapsed, and truth be told she hadn’t been entirely ready for complete success.
Bea had expected a blood fountain, a baring of fangs, a screaming hiss or puff of dust like in the movies or the stories circulating on tightly controlled dark-web forums. Something, anything other than the monster just...sprawled akimbo, reflected endlessly on polished glass. A soft mechanical chime sounded, the doors finished closing, and she had to reach the panel in time because getting caught in a box with a dead body was not in the plan.
Despite all the evidence her brother and Don had collected, Beatrice was suddenly, terribly unsure if she’d killed an actual monster. Which would mean she’d murdered a human being, an entirely different ethical dilemma.
Don’t panic. Stick to the goddamn plan. A cold, calm voice spoke up inside her head, and as usual, it sounded like so much like Jare she flinched. The motion rolled her off the monster’s body, her hip hitting blue industrial carpet hard enough to bruise; she was scattering red crystal beads everywhere.
Cop forensics were going to have a field day with that.
Come on, Bebe. You had a good plan and executed the biggest chunk. Freeze now and it’s all over.
Her shoulder hit mirrored wall just under the buttons, another impact hard enough to hurt through a fluffy cotton padding of shock, and she used it as leverage to get numb feet underneath her. For a moment she’d been certain the monster was going to shake off the stake and bite her, drain her like a juice box, and her extremities weren’t entirely sure how that had not happened.
“Right kind of wood after all,” she heard someone whisper. The cracked, singsong little voice was her own, and she would be able to laugh about that later, how all the arguing over what the stake should be made out of had landed on the proper choice. Considering it had only happened after Bea literally threw up her hands and told Don to just flip a fucking coin, get whatever, she wasn’t the one with the fucking folklore fetish.
Besides, I’m stronger than I look. She blindly muscled her way to standing, peered at the panel, and punched the roof access button. A private box, going all the way up to the top floor where she suspected ‘Chris Everly’ had a penthouse, given how the blueprints they’d been able to get their hands on were arranged.
So much research was useless until it came time for one tiny, critical detail to save your ass. The elevator began to rise.
Bea gingerly braced one red Saratrava stiletto heel between the monster’s legs; he’d really fallen in the best way possible, and his arm had somehow ended up underneath her stupid head so she didn’t get a concussion from banging the floor. All in all, she was luckier than she had ever thought possible, and maybe all the bad stuff before was so this particular moment would pay off? That was an interesting philosophical?—
Ohshit did he twitch?
“Jesus!” Her shoulder hit the wall again, hard; she slid down, landing on one knee with a fresh deep crimson-purple flare of ignored pain. Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. She finally decided he wasn’t moving, it was only the elevator’s motion and her eyes playing tricks.
Criminals got jumpy after a murder; she could now confirm monster hunters did as well.
Another pleasant mechanical ding, the elevator just doing its job, and the doors opened with a businesslike whoosh. Bending over to tug the monster’s legs straight was unpleasant since it made the rest of the body rock slightly, but the limbs were still supple and the longer she could put this box out of commission, the better. Lead time to escape was a priority—were there cameras up here? Didn’t matter, she was undoubtedly captured on a few, getting into the elevator with ‘Chris Everly’. Still, so far as she and Don could tell there weren’t any electronic eyes in the private lift, and that was a bonus.
Now she had to get out of the building with a minimum of evidence. Bea staggered from the square of golden light spilling onto the roof, Saratravas making soft sweet sounds, bead-strings swaying. Frigid October wind moaned between HVAC hoods and other hunched metal shapes; this high up the rush of air was probably constant even on calm days.
At least it wasn’t raining. Yet.
If ‘Chris Everly’ wasn’t a monster, what kind of guy would bring what he thought was a completely drunk stranger all the way up to his penthouse? Sure, she’d flirted him into it, but that wasn’t an excuse. Bea was well within her rights even if he was just a date-raping piece of shit. When they arrested her, she could claim both insanity and self-defense, especially if a defense lawyer would use the footage from Jared’s house. Your Honor, my client had reason to believe the victim was a vampire.
A brand-new legal precedent; she’d go down in history.
You know he’s not human. The evidence was incontrovertible—the property records, the pictures, the yellowing newsprint Don and Jared had pulled up when researching ‘Everly’, the records from the monster’s previous lives—always rich, always strange, the whole Chicago thing, disappearing after a bloody mass murder—and to top it all off, the security footage from just outside the stable.
After Jared’s death Don was more than convinced, though Bea was pretty sure he never thought she’d actually go through with this part of the plan.
The wind was a wall of knives. Teeth chattering, she groped along concrete facing, her dyed-black hair doing its level best to cover her face. The two silver clips were long gone—had she dropped them in the elevator?
Don’t care. Keep moving. Bea’s fingertips found a vertical metal handle. She yanked with terrific strength, absurdly afraid that this next-to-last part of the plan had somehow gone wrong, and nearly went flat on her ass when the fire door opened easily.
