Bathe In Fire - Shadows of the Night 2

Chapter 23

Hi!

A surprise chapter - I had free time on my hands and finished editing this one earlier than anticipated. For all of you who have been missing a certain someone: he is back and he will stay for a while -much to Anna's dismay. You know the drill. Read, vote, comment... ;-)

Lara

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Chapter 23

The digits changed, announcing that I'd reached the first floor. Great. My one-week suspension was coming to an end, and I hadn't found anything coming close to evidence against vampires. No prime time suspects sporting fangs, no pale faces under hoods selling drugs in the darker corners of the streets, no nothing. Could it be that I was wrong after all?

Whoever said there was justice in this world, was a bloody liar. There was no retributive justice – not in this city and certainly not for me. If there was, I wouldn't be on the verge of going to Brown and cave in just to stay in the force. If there was retributive justice, I wouldn't be in the Blood Line Hotel and on my way to the head vampire himself. He had summoned me for another meeting – another night as his unfortunate human servant. And I had come.

The elevator doors opened with a jingle and I stepped out, feeling uncomfortable. Movement from the edge of my vision. I turned around, my hand already on the spot where my gun used to be. Used to be, as in before I had to leave it in the car because of the Blood Line Hotel's security policy. The awareness of my empty shoulder holster made adrenalin spill out in a rush and metastasize directly into my metabolism. Two of Alexander's goons were approaching me. Contrary to expectations, they were human.

Just when I thought nothing could faze me, I was slapped in the face by another small detail I hadn't considered. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that death warmed up surrounded himself with a team of human muscle armor. Maybe he kept them around in case he was in need of a quick bite.

As if on cue the door to Alexander's office opened and out came Jack. As soon as he spotted me, his face contorted to a scowl. He gave a nod to the human muscle, signaling for them to retreat. He was followed by Zack, who gave me one of his trademark-grins. From the look on his face he was about to say something, probably to share one of his epic comments with me.

"Save it for later. There's no pleasure like anticipation," I said flippantly and walked past him, not even bothering to ask whether Alexander was in the office, or whether I could go in, for that matter. I closed the door with a loud bang, earning a disapproving look from New York's current number one bloodsucker.

"Little witch."

"Alexander." There was a strong tendril of disdain in my voice and I couldn't get rid of it. Then again, I didn't really care if he heard it.

He closed the folder he had been reading carefully, before giving me a long, hard stare.

"I heard that you have been suspended?"

I raised an eyebrow, crossing my arms in front of me. "I wouldn't call that a suspension. Brown merely gave me a few days off. I'll be back on Monday. No harm done."

The corpse stared at me as if I had insulted him in the worst way possible. The usual, steeled neutrality Alexander maintained at all times seemed fragile, if not non-existent this night.

"Is that really what you believe, little witch?"

I met his icy glare bravely. Somehow I couldn't help feeling Alexander was behaving more aggressively than usual, if that was even possible.