Page 11 of Red Rooster

Older than he’d thought. “Okay, so, you’re fifteen. And I think it’s fair to say you like pancakes.”

A shy little smile touched one corner of her mouth.

“And you don’t have a name.”

She shook her head, and another ribbon of red hair slid from beneath the cap, unraveling down the length of her throat.

“How about Red? At least until we figure out something better.” He’d never been good at naming things, and really, Red was stupid. Red was what kids named dogs.

But her smile stretched, wide and sweet. He heard the heels of her borrowed sneakers thump the booth as she swung her legs in a little circle. “I like that.”

“Okay. Red it is.” He held his hand out to her across the table. A formal introduction. “Hi, Red. I’m Roger, but all my friends call me Rooster.”

She slid her little hand against his, her skin warmer than it should have been. “Hi.”

“So,” he said, reaching for his coffee again. “You can set stuff on fire, huh? What’s that like?”

2

Manhattan, New York

Present Day

A phone was ringing. The gentle chiming of the iPhone’s alert was far preferable to the shrill call of the landline it had replaced, but it was still an unwanted disturbance at – Nikita cracked his eyes open a crusty millimeter and read the dial on the bedside clock – four-thirty in the morning. As Sasha would say:ugh.

Speaking of Sasha.

Nikita could feel his warmth and weight down near the foot of the bed, curled up like a puppy on top of the covers. That happened often; he had his own bed – his own room, even, small though it was – but he didn’t like to sleep by himself. He snored soundly now, comforted by proximity and the safety of pack.

The phone stopped, and was silent a moment. Then started up again.

Nikita nudged Sasha with his toes. “Sashka.”

He got an unhappy whine in protest.

“I know you can hear that. It’s yours.”

Sasha huffed, and snorted, but sat up and fished his phone from his hoodie pocket. “Yes, hello?” he mumbled sleepily without checking the screen. And then his eyes popped open and he straightened his spine.

Nikita felt a thrill of nerves go down his back and sat up too, swiping the sleep from his eyes. “What?”

“It’s Trina,” Sasha said. “You better talk to her.” He passed the phone over like it was a bomb about to go off.

Nikita took the phone with no small amount of trepidation. “Hello?” he asked when he put it to his ear.

Trina breathed raggedly through her mouth, suppressed panic clear in her voice. “I can’t find Lanny.”

~*~

Trina wasn’t an alarmist – she was Russian, for God’s sakes – so when she woke and found that Lanny was no longer in bed beside her, she didn’t panic. When she didn’t find him in the bathroom, or in the kitchen, though, and he didn’t come back after an hour and didn’t return any of her calls…then she started to fret. When she’d showered, nibbled on some toast, and checked in at the precinct, and there wasstillno sign of him? Then she panicked. A little.

And she called Nikita. Well, Sasha, really.

Her great-grandfather, it appeared, was not a morning person. (Though if myth and legend was to be believed, no vampire was.) He stood with one shoulder propped against the façade of his building, in rumpled clothes and unlaced combat boots, sporting bedhead and mirror-lensed shades, a Starbucks cup in one hand.

By contrast, Sasha looked bright-eyed, his own sunglasses nestled in his shiny, freshly-washed hair, his boots laced tight and his iced coffee down to the dregs.

“He came to you?” Trina asked, and felt her brows scale her forehead. “He asked you to” – a woman laden with shopping bags and two yelling children passed them on the sidewalk and she dropped her voice to a whisper – “turn him?”