He inclined his head in my direction, his eyes focusing on me hard, as they always did, with a mélange of curiosity and aversion. Yes, they were definitely important clients, because he usually didn’t leave his side of the city, where the homes cost more than the building that housed my rented office, and his home reminded me of a downscaled castle.

  He greeted each person as he languidly walked closer. Dark eyes glinted, and his lips beveled into a wicked smile. He guided me away from the clients, excusing us. I kept my voice low, aware of the vampire’s and shapeshifter’s enhanced hearing.

  “Satan.”

  I greeted him in the same manner I did every time we met as he closed the distance I had strategically placed between us. I put on a bravado that I didn’t actually possess when dealing with him. The unknown was always scarier than the known; I knew what every other person in the room was, but I had no idea about this man. I could feel his magic, but I didn’t desire it as strongly as I did Kieran’s. The same curiosity that piqued whenever I was around magic was present, but most times I was near him, my apprehension was enough to subdue it. I was skilled at controlling many forms of magic, but I wasn’t sure I could wrangle his enough for it to be of any use to me. Warning signs flashed through me at the very thought. I didn’t need Dr. Sumner when I had this.

  There was something dark and foreboding about his magic. The ominous air that surrounded him made it seem even scarier, but I worked hard never to show fear. He struck me as the type who thrived on people feeling uneasy around him, and I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

  A grin spread across his face, baring the edges of his perfectly aligned white teeth.

  “I still prefer my name, Mephisto, but for you, I will accept ‘Satan’ as a term of endearment.”

  He looked at me in the appraising way he always did, and seemed pleased. I hadn’t made an effort to look pleasing. Prepared for anything, I kept my hair pulled back into a ponytail. Makeup I only wore on special occasions, and I didn’t count seeing Mephisto as one of them. I’d settled on a simple fitted teal button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled mid-arm, jeans, and silver slip-on shoes. His gaze lingered on my lips, which must have been a little pink from me trying to bite back sardonic words, and then slowly over my curves, the few that I had. My tall, lean frame didn’t allow for the pleasing curves that many men adored. Long runs, constantly slipping into tight areas, and having to fight—often, for my life—had shaved off any voluptuousness that I could have possessed.

  When he finished his assessment, he seemed more wolf than man. For years, I thought he was a shapeshifter and was rather surprised to find that he was a mage—well, that’s what he’d told me he was. I suspected it was just to stop my questions. His magic wasn’t remotely similar to that of any mage I’d encountered. Mephisto was an award-winning ass and wore the title as if it held the same prestige as nobility. However, I couldn’t deny he was handsome. Midnight-and-indigo hair and a strong jawline so sharply defined it could cut metal. Winged cheekbones and clear, emotive eyes that sparked with knowing when he smiled, which he did a lot.

  I had tried to distance myself and restrict my interactions with him, but my business couldn’t thrive without him. It wasn’t like I had a line of people willing to give me work. Most people steered clear of me. If I wanted to work, I had to deal with him. I wasn’t his employee, but he often had more work than he could handle, so I got his overflow.

  But this job wasn’t overflow. I was surprised he was allowing me to work with these three. Then again, I had never failed, which was why Mephisto often tried to recruit me as an employee instead of a contractor.

  “I applaud your parents’ commitment to being unique,” I said. “Why in the world would they name you after the devil?”

  His lips lifted into a smirk. “My parents didn’t name me Mephisto,” he said in a low teasing tone, regarding my curiosity with a peculiar pleasure. “We’ve had this discussion many times.”

  “Then what is your name? It’s been three years. Don’t you think I should know it?” Even payments were made from Mephisto. It was frustrating. I wanted to know the man behind the name.

  Amusement played at his lips, and in seconds he had taken up all the space between us that I had managed to create. His tall, imposing body folded slightly as he whispered into my ear.

  “That’s something I only share with lovers and friends, and you are neither.” He took a step back and winked. “But I am willing to change that.”

  “No thank you, I have enough friends. I’m not looking for more. And regarding the other thing, the amount of liquor I’d need would cause alcohol poisoning. You don’t want to be responsible for my death, now, do you?”

  He continued to smile as he moistened his lips. He probably thought there was an implied “not yet” behind my denial. He looked back at the group of men.

  “I wanted this job, but they actually requested that I set things up with you.”

  I wished they had come to me directly, then Mephisto wouldn’t get his fee, and it might also pave the way for more direct clients.

  He was still too close, and when he directed me to our clients again, his elbow nudged me in a reminder to play nice. I wasn’t going to play too nice, because it was like petting an unfamiliar animal. I had to stay on my guard and not be dominated by people who were clearly used to dominating.

  “Landon, you lost a Dracon dagger. Why on earth didn’t you destroy it the moment you had it in your possession?” I asked the vampire. But I knew why. Staking a vampire didn’t lead to death if feeding was possible, and good luck trying to sever a vampire’s head without them taking a chunk out of your neck. But being nailed by a Dracon dagger ensured death.

  Ignoring the look Landon gave me, which clearly indicated he was unaccustomed to being called out on his behavior, I looked at Alex, the shifter.

  “And you lost . . .?”

  “A moon ring,” he admitted in a tight voice.

  I gave myself a headache rolling my eyes so hard. Those rings were invaluable. They helped shifters prevent changing, which could be quite helpful around the full moon if they didn’t want to shift. Because there were so few of the ancient rings, one could hold a price tag close to seven figures.

  And then my focus went to Kieran. His lips twisted and he took a long time to answer, which meant it was going to be a doozy.

  “Summoning stone.”

  My gaze moved between the three of them. “You all do realize most people play poker with money, right?”

  “Erin,” Mephisto said calmly, “they understand the severity. That’s why they asked for a meeting with you. You are one of the best retrieval specialists I know.”

  He made being a professional thief sound so eloquent. But I did have to admit it had a nice ring to it. I’d bet he called an assassin a director to the afterlife.

  I should have known that the items were going to be priceless when Mephisto offered me the job. He had his own company of investigators and professional thieves—or, rather, retrieval specialists. I wasn’t totally confident he didn’t employ afterlife directors.

  I crossed my arms and rested against the desk, my gaze sweeping over each one of them before landing on Landon. His tongue ran over his fangs and his hard eyes flattened. I narrowed my eyes at the way he kept eyeing the veins in my neck and wrist. Don’t even think about it.

  “What happened?” I asked Landon, since he’d hosted the game. Apparently, when you’re a century-old vampire, that’s what you did. You hosted poker games and bet with priceless magical objects like they were just junk you found around the house.

  He shrugged and approached me slowly as if he’d forgotten he was in my crappy office and instead was strolling down a catwalk. And he was still eyeing my neck. I wished I’d asked someone who was a little less dramatic. His slow and overtly seductive moves were too much for a morning meeting. I definitely should have had an Irish coffee.

  “It was a typical game,” he said in a tone as silky and refined as the Italian suit he wore. “The stakes had gotten rather high—”

  “Wait.” I glared at each one of them. “You all just keep priceless objects with you for the hell of it?”

  Alex nodded. “I keep mine on me, yes.”

  That made sense, but it didn’t make sense that he’d been irresponsible enough to bet it in a game. Maybe he’d been sure he had a winning hand. Among the benefits of being a shifter were acute senses that could be used to assess others’ responses. I figured he’d initiated the high-stakes bidding. I hated dealing with manipulative assholes, and I was dealing with three.… Wait, I forgot Mephisto. Four.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Lights went out, not even for a minute. A bright flare made things blurry, and when it cleared, everything was gone, the objects and the money.” Landon made a face. “They even took several bottles of 1850 Pierre Chabanneau.”

  Because expensive cognac is what this is all about. Getting his cognac back wasn’t going to be a priority, although it seemed to be one to him. The egocentricity of vampires never ceased to amaze me. I wanted to point out that no one steals cheap cognac, so maybe he should waste his money on that. Instead, I asked Alex, “You didn’t smell anything?” Not too many things got past a shifter. I didn’t want to question him too much—I was sure this was embarrassing for him. A hunter being preyed upon couldn’t be a good feeling.

  “Magic?” I asked Kieran.

  He nodded but didn’t elaborate.

  I thought for a moment, then looked at Landon, from whom I’d garnered a great deal of attention. “I’ll be by your home later to check it out.” Then I addressed the others. “Give me a couple of days. I’ll get your items,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. This wasn’t just someone sending me out to steal stuff, or a run-of-the-mill acquisition where they told me what they wanted and I tried to find it. Those jobs were easy. I just asked around and usually found whatever it was without much effort. Rich people with more money than time paid me to find something they wanted. Most of the time they didn’t mind if I found it in someone else’s home. Usually I could negotiate a purchase . . . and if I couldn’t, well, sometimes things got “lost.”

  The thieves had managed to circumvent a shifter, vampire, and mage—they were good. And I wasn’t too arrogant to admit they were probably better than me.

  “What do you think?” Mephisto asked once we were alone. The olive tone of his skin deepened his dark eyes. Like Landon, he enjoyed his suits. He usually wore black, all black. He’d changed a little for this meeting. His suit was dark green, with a black shirt with one button open in an attempt to make him seem casual. I stifled a laugh. There wasn’t anything casual about him.

  “It would have been a great inside job. All the person had to do was up the ante. After all, he knew the type of people he was dealing with, men easily persuaded into showing how big their tools are and only too willing to have a size contest. ‘Look, my priceless object is better than yours.’”

  “Do you always have to do the eye roll?” He looked amused.

  “Do you always have to stand so close?” I stepped back.

  Mephisto considered personal space optional, and regularly invaded mine. He stepped closer again. His odd brand of magic prickled at my skin as if inviting me to test it.

  “You’re curious, aren’t you?” he whispered.

  I moved back. Again. “You don’t want me to be,” I warned him.

  He smiled. “It might be fun.”

  “I can assure you, dying is not fun,” boomed a deep baritone from the door. My best friend’s voice was just as commanding as his size. Six-five with thick, striated muscles that stretched the seams of his t-shirt. His dark-brown hair was cut scalp low. Tawny skin brightened when he smiled. His impressive presence was a clear reminder that he was an ex-Marine, but his gentle smile made it easy to forget. Our friendship had been forged out of convenience while I was learning to use my magic. He’d been the only person who managed to miss ending up on the floor, unconscious, with a team of people trying to bring him back from the clutches of death. Returning magic to its donor has nuances I hadn’t quite mastered back then. The moment a person starts to ease from the death state to true death, their body revolts, sending them into shock. Even when the magic was returned, most of the time medical attention was needed. I couldn’t blame the school for encouraging me to pursue my education elsewhere and abandon using my magic. The incidents should have scared me into compliance, but instead I perfected the technique. Now the donor didn’t revolt against the somnolence but welcomed it.

  “Hey, you said it wasn’t that bad,” I teased, grinning.

  “It’s cleansing,” Cory said. “Like being punched in the chest. It’s a reminder of how nice it is to breathe without it hurting. Every once in a while, people need a reminder of how good they have it.” He was still smiling as he took a position next to me, crossing his arms over his chest, mirroring my stance.

  “Satan’s here, where’s the check?” he asked as he looked at the desk. Cory helped me a lot between working at his full-time job. When I knew I needed magic for a job, he was there to help and, worst case, offer me his own magic.

  He looked up from perusing the desk. “What happened?”

  “Landon, Kieran, and Alex had a moon ring, summoning stone, and Dracon dagger stolen during a poker game.”

  “Most people play with money. Do they not realize that?”

  “That’s what I said.” I laughed.

  Mephisto didn’t find us amusing. He frowned. “As you were saying,” he urged.

  “It just seems like it would be ideal for someone to plan this game only to have things stolen and then claim innocence. What if Landon planned it?”

  Mephisto didn’t take a beat to consider it. “Something like that is beneath him. Despite the long-standing mythology, vampires and werewolves get along just fine, and Landon and Alex are friends. I don’t doubt that if he’d won the moon ring, he would have sold it back to Alex . . . at a hefty upcharge.” He smiled at the idea and I figured he’d probably do the same thing, too.

  I dismissed the inside-job theory.

  Cory was the constant skeptic. “It’s really odd that they came to you, Mephisto, and not the police.”

  I shook my head. “Think about the nature of the three objects. We’d be discreet. It’s doubtful the police would be, and then you’d have pandemonium. How many people would be hunting for them? You’re looking at objects that combined could easily command three million dollars. Let’s say the police found them. How long would it take for them to get the objects back to their owners? And you know the summoning stone is going to be confiscated. Technically, they’re illegal.”

  “There’s nothing technical about it. People just frown upon objects that can summon magic from other realms. You know the whole apocalypse-by-magic thing tends to make people a little jumpy,” Cory offered.

  “I know, and if the stone were owned by anyone other than Kieran, I wouldn’t be comfortable returning it.”

  Eyes narrowed, Mephisto watched the exchange. He smiled. “Do I detect desire? Kieran or his magic?”

  “Neither. He just seems like someone who could be trusted with it,” I said a bit too quickly.

  Mephisto snorted. “Yes, trust the man who used such an important and dangerous object as currency in a game,” he pointed out, derisively.

  He was right. Was my interest in Kieran’s magic—or even the man himself—clouding my judgment? I shook off the thought. I needed to be open minded and ready for anything, because there was definitely something to this story.

  “Is it possible they wanted all the objects, or just one, and the rest were easy targets since they were all there?” Cory asked.

  That, my friend, was a very good question.

  CHAPTER 5

  “You didn’t move anything,” I stated as I entered Landon’s house.

  “No, I did as you asked and left things as they were.”

  Any lingering suspicions I had about him being involved in the theft were put to rest.

  He couldn’t use the summoning stone—he wasn’t able to perform magic. Unlike Asher, he wasn’t known for collecting things he couldn’t use. The moon ring was no good to him, either, and I was sure he was very unhappy that someone else now had the Dracon dagger. There were very few people who could kill him, but it had just become a lot easier.

  He showed me around the spacious room where he’d hosted his guests. It was as nicely decorated as the rest of his home. A large wooden table sat in the center, and modern chairs were placed in the corners. A long sofa was a few feet from the table, and to the far right a bar was stocked with top-shelf alcohol and wine that I would probably never be able to afford. I scanned the room and decided it hadn’t been a job of convenient circumstance. There were other things that could have been stolen. Landon had magical objects casually placed throughout the space—as if they were afterthoughts. Some could be dangerous in the wrong hands. They might not be of any use to vampires, but if he entertained anyone who performed magic, they could be.

  I perused his collection. Affixed to the walls were katanas. They weren’t magical, but the blades were made of iridium, a metal that prevented magical beings from using their magic. Want to stop a magic wielder? Shove one of those in them. I supposed just being impaled by a sword would stop them, too.

  A calling stone, something necromancers used during spells and rumored to have the ability to compel vampires into compliance, decorated a side table. It didn’t seem like something you’d display willy-nilly, but Landon was egotistical. He practically begged someone to steal from him. If the rumors about him were correct, the thief would regret it dearly. Landon wasn’t the Vampire Master but was sired by him and one of the oldest vampires in the city. The Vampire Master was aged to the point he found humans and their more entertaining counterparts—other supernaturals—so dull he rarely interacted with anyone. And when he did, his boredom was blindingly apparent.

 

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