Page 39

Compared to what we’d faced the last few years, pushing a few cops was practically nothing, almost mundane, despite the ethical issues involved. The victim might be famous, but this was ordinary human darkness. No vampires, no fanatical seers, no ancient, god-like beings, no inter-dimensional portals. Shouldn’t I feel at ease with all of this?

Shouldn’t it have felt almost good to have ahumancase again?

Was it the illegality that was bothering me?

I wanted to believe that’s all it was, but somehow, I didn’t.

Black was looking at me through the windshield, though, and I could feel him waiting for me, wondering what I was doing. I released a breath. I gave him a half-smile and an eye roll, and reminded myself I’d signed up for this.

Then I slid over the seat and opened the passenger door.

Black had been right; Nick and I had to sign boilerplate N.D.A.s.

We had to read and sign before they’d let us past the reception desk on the first floor of the building, maybe twenty yards from the revolving doors that dumped us into the massive, steel-colored lobby dotted with rust-colored couches and burnished metal tables.

The fire, metal, and darkness motif definitely extended to the inside of the building, as well as its outside.

Once we’d completed all our paperwork, the receptionist, a twenty-something, model-looking woman with blond hair falling in soft curls down her back, led us into a private lounge filled with more leather couches, these dyed forest green. That room was painted a dark copper color, with copper fountains and what looked like original art.

Most of the paintings depicted mythical naked people in unnatural poses, either on fire, or with burning wings or burning swords clutched in their hands.

“No paperwork for you?” Nick muttered to Black, once the door clicked softly shut.

Black pulled his eyes off a painting that depicted a disturbingly realistic image of a centaur having relations with something that might have been a biblical angel. Both of them were on fire. Well, that was my guess as to the subject matter, anyway, given the wings and all the blinking eyes. I noticed the ceiling moving and looked up. The morphing, metallic-colored expanse made me feel queasy.

Everything about this place struck me as vaguely menacing.

What was even the point of a ceiling like that? Was it a projection? Or some kind of sound-stimulated liquid?

“The latter, I think,” Black commented to me. He glanced at Nick. “I filled out mine at the office. When I agreed to take the case.”

“Whydidyou agree to take the case?” I muttered, more for his ears than for Nick’s.

Nick was a vampire, though, and heard everything. He grunted.

“Good fucking question,” he muttered.

To call this whole thing a legal liability was an understatement in the extreme.

And sure, they had plenty of seers to clean this mess up if it went south, but why take the chance? Why do anything to make us more visible than we already were?

There had to be a reason.

There had to be aBlack-specificreason, something that mattered to him.

I guessed it must be the thing he still hadn’t told us, likely something to do with this mysterious tech breakthrough Prometharis was working on. Black was a pragmatist, despite his quirks. He wouldn’t put me, Nick, himself, and his entire company at risk of legal scrutiny and evenjailwithout a damned good reason.

As I thought it, Black glanced at me, a faint smile touching his lips. Behind that, a different look grew visible in his eyes. Like he was studying me. Maybe he really was worried this wasn’t the best way to spend my first day back working for his company.

The door to the lounge opened.

A new assistant stood there, this one a dark brunette with a deeper voice, but also twenty-something and equally gorgeous.

“Mr. Wicker will see you now,” she smiled.

Her blue eyes flickered between the three of us. I saw them pause on Nick, then spend a few longer seconds staring openly at Black. She actually licked her lips.

She caught my stare and her eyes flinched a little, which told me something about the way I was probably looking at her.