Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

needed to find out what pack the Duboises ran and what their pull in the city was like. I’d reacted on instinct when the thug had grabbed me in the street, and I had to find out how bad of a hole I’d dug.

But first, I had a date with Johnny Boy.

I called Will and got him on his cell. “Hey, beautiful. You feel like Chinese?”

“Actually,” I said, sifting through my closet, “how do you feel about line dancing?”

“It’s freakish and unnatural and should be banned from the civilized world?”

“What if a bunch of drunk college girls in cowboy hats are doing it on a bar?” I used to have a collection of vintage clothes worth more than my yearly salary, but they had burned up along with my cottage. I was replacing it, but slowly. I pulled a stretchy black alligator-skin tank out of the closet and decided it would do.

“I’m listening,” Will said. “You’re getting my attention.”

“I need to stake out a witness and I’m looking for astrong, silent Eastwood type to do it with,” I said, pairing the tank with the trashiest skirt I own, a flippy red plaid schoolgirl number.

“Ah, I see how it is,” Will said. “You only want me for my body.”

“Pretty much.” I threw in thigh-highs and my motorcycle boots and called the undercover outfit complete. Sure, I was closer to thirty-one than twenty-one, but if the lights were dim and Johnny Boy was a few beers in, I could pass.

“I can’t say I’ve ever turned down an offer like that,” Will said. “Meet you when and where? And should I bring my .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world?”

“The OK Corral, off of Devere, around nine. And no, I think we’re going to get more out of Johnny Boy with breasts than bullets.”

“Your breasts, I hope. I have a hard time filling out my training bra.”

“I’m hanging up,” I said, and did so, but not without a smile. Will could usually make me smile. Another unique quality that he possessed, unlike all of my former boyfriends.

I dressed myself in my trampy outfit and shoved my .38 holdout pistol into the waistband of my skirt, puffing the tank over it. I wasn’t planning for things to get messy, but you never know when you’re dealing with men, their egos and booze.

Driving from my respectable, if seedy, neighborhood into the dangerous territory behind the university caused a shiver down my spine from the cool, misty air. The were in me thrived on danger, ate adrenaline, but the human in me was getting more and more cautious. I had a good life, for the first time—I had Will, I had the job. I had stability.

For the first time, I found myself unwilling to rock the boat. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

The OK Corral was hopping when I pulled up, far from the lackluster crowd of the morning. Smokers crowded the sidewalk, and a few prostitutes wound sinuously through the civilians like brassy sharks on the prowl in a school of bright tropical fish. I caught the smell of a few weres in the crowd, a few blood witches that stood out among the humans like bright copper pennies.

I parked in the side lot, under good light, and locked the car. Not that anyone would be keen to steal a pea-green ’71 Nova, but you never know what sort of freaks are out there.

Will was waiting for me in front of the club, twirling the keys to his vintage Mustang around his finger.

“You trusted the valet?” I said by way of greeting. “In this neighborhood?”

“I live dangerously, doll,” he said, sliding his arm around my waist. “Damn, look at you. I could get used to this.”

“You’ll get used to nothing,” I said with a grin, pulling his hand up from my rear end. “We’re here to work.”

“Nuts,” Will said, giving me a quick kiss. “Come on, then. Let’s find this numbskull and get down to the real business of the night.”

“That would be?” I said, as we pushed through the swinging doors to the honking of Garth Brooks. Nine P.M. and they were already playing Friends in Low Places. That should have been a warning right there.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out, doll.” Will grinned at me lasciviously.

No one carded us, ironically. Will could look practically any age he chose with a change of wardrobe and hair—the perks of being immortal—and I was hanging off him like a sorority sister three shots to the wind.

A different bartender was working, a muscular girl with spiked black hair and a riot of tattoos, full sleeves up either arm. Will steered me toward her and I fell against the bar with a giggle. “Hey, Joanie. You seen Johnny Boy tonight?”

The bartender cocked her eyebrow. “Joanie?”

“Joanie as in Jett? ’Cuz of the hair? And then…”

Will cut me off. “Is Johnny Boy here?”

“Yeah,” said the bartender. “Over there fixated on the tits, like he always is.”

I reached over the bar and patted her arm. “You’re cute. Hang loose, Joanie.”

Will guided me away before the poor bartender could slug me. “You’re unbelievable,” he murmured in my ear.

“Truly.”

“Hey, you gotta sell it,” I muttered. “I’m just doing my part.”

Johnny Boy wasn’t hard to spot once we left the bar and plunged into the cluster of horny frat boys and drunken cowboys surrounding the dancers’ platforms. He was the only one sitting back, calmly smoking a thin cigar and swirling a glass of vodka while a brunette in a black bustier and little else gyrated on his lap.

I waded through the crowd and tapped her on the shoulder. “Mind if I cut in?”

She turned around and bared her teeth at me. “Get lost, skank.”

Oh, irony. I grabbed her by the laces of her bustier and jerked her off Johnny Boy’s lap, taking her place, my thighs straddling his, rubbing against the cheap polyester of his suit.

He glared up at me through the haze of cigar