Bloody Acquisitions (Fred Book 3) (34 page)

“I’ll be brief, Mr. Fletcher, as I’m sure you have much to do with your evening. Having learned what we did about your incredible achievements over the past few years, the House of Turva has decided to do something we’d previously ruled out: offer you membership in our clan.” Petre held out a hand, and one of the nameless goons sitting to either side of him slipped a large piece of paper into his fingers. He set it down and slid it expertly across the smooth wooden table, where it halted inches from my plate.

“Feel free to look things over—and that goes for you as well, good agent—the pertinent information is all there. We extend this as an olive branch to one who has been left alone for too long. However, as an abandoned vampire, you have little means to refuse the invitation. We wouldn’t want fear of something new to make you miss out on such a wondrous opportunity.” Petre smirked, a small gesture that wasn’t even properly suited for the amount of gloating he obviously wanted to do. No doubt, he expected this to be an easy win. Maybe he even hoped to walk out tonight with his new pet accountant—taken right out from under an agent, no less.

“It is a very kind, generous offer,” I replied, careful to keep civil. I was pushing my luck more than enough without adding a personal grudge to the mix. “Unfortunately, I must refuse it. Renowned as the House of Turva is, I’m afraid the invitation comes a bit too late. You see, I am no longer an abandoned vampire. I’ve already joined a clan.”

Petre’s small smile receded back into his sour expression as I reached under my chair and pulled out my first envelope of documents. Rather than slide it like Petre had, I merely held it up, allowing one of the waiters to take it from my hand and walk it over to the other side of the dinner table. Petre snatched it and ripped open the top, eyes darting down the pages as he took the information in. I used the brief moment of silence to take a deep gulp of wine from my glass. This next part was going to require all the fortification I could muster.

“Surely this is some poor attempt at humor.” Petre dropped the documents carelessly, as though he could no longer bear them sullying his fingers, and several slipped from the table to the floor below. “A temporary authorization for a one-person clan? That is what you would choose over the millennia-old House of Turva?”

“I’m really more of a modern vampire anyway, not much for older styles,” I replied. Not exactly the most neutral way to decline, but it was hard to tell someone you didn’t want to join their club without hurting their feelings in one way or another.

“This is preposterous.” Petre’s eyes danced to his muscle, who stirred at his gaze, but then his attention turned to Arch and the activity came to a standstill. He calmed himself, looking back at me and speaking with forceful intention in every word. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Fletcher, as I’m sure you didn’t truly understand what you were doing. Founding a clan is not something to be done lightly. Even assuming you correctly jump through all the hoops to be recognized under the treaties, what you have done is form a new a clan in territory currently being controlled by another, much larger house. The agent here can attest that such situations are very rarely amicable, and there are no shortage of treaty-sanctioned ways for us to deal with a rival on our territory.”

Petre paused, waiting for Arch to say something, either in agreement or disapproval. Instead, Arch merely nodded to a waiter for more water, staying devoted to his role as overseer and refusing to get unnecessarily involved.

“I’ll give you one more chance, Mr. Fletcher.” Petre wasn’t even hiding behind the veil of civility anymore. He leaned forward halfway from his chair, and as he spoke, I caught sight of his fangs, further extended than they had been in the hallway. “Throw off these ridiculous notions. Submit to the House of Turva now, while the doors are still open to you. Or is it truly your intention to fend off an entire house of real vampires with a clan consisting solely of yourself?”

And here it was, time to hit him with the sucker punch that would determine whether or not this plan was a total bust. “As a matter of fact—”

“As a matter of fact, you’re bad at counting, fuckface.” Krystal’s voice rang through the dining room, cutting me off and causing Petre’s goons to start in their chairs. She was no longer dirty or tired; in fact, she seemed to blaze with a light all her own as she strode into the room. Her rough boots stomped on Charlotte’s wooden floors, and the gun belt strapped to her hip jingled slightly with every step. I’d seen this Krystal before, only in fleeting glimpses, but it was unmistakable for any other version of her. This was Krystal in full-on, ass-kicking-agent mode.

“Who in the nine hells do you think you are, interrupting a private meeting?” Petre motioned to the goon on his right, who started to stand. A very audible click filled the air, and all eyes turned to Arch, who’d produced a gun and had it expertly trained on the vampire halfway out of his chair.

“I’m going to have to insist that you not make any aggressive moves toward an agent. For everyone’s safety.” With his free hand, Arch helped himself to the last of the bruschetta, and a waiter whisked away the plate as if there wasn’t a gun suddenly out at the table.

“Sit down,” Petre hissed to his muscle, glaring at Krystal with a sudden influx of fear. A few seats over, Lillian grinned, taking a sip of her wine for the first time. She obviously couldn’t meddle or show me support, but the sudden appearance of Krystal had caused all our controls to slip a bit.

“I see, so you’re Mr. Fletcher’s lover.” Petre seemed to be regaining his self-control. He did know how to roll with the punches; I had to give him that. “Then, as an agent, you’d know that you are not permitted to interfere in conflicts that adhere to treaty conditions. Bluster about all you want, but if you so much as put a toe out of line in defending this one-vampire clan, I’ll have your badge.”

“First off, there’s a lot of shades of gray in those treaties, and you shitbags aren’t the only ones that can use them.” Krystal leaned forward, stopping inches from Petre’s face. Whatever aura of confidence and intimidation he’d spent centuries perfecting was wasted on her as she met his sneer with a grin. “And secondly, I just told you that you counted wrong. Freddy’s not the only member of his clan.”

“Ahem. Um. Is that my cue?” We all turned to find Albert, standing in the dining room doorway, talking to someone out of sight further down the hall. Evidently, he received an affirmative answer, because he stepped forward and looked the entire dinner party in the eye, one by one. “Fred—I mean, Mr. Fred, also has me.”

“Am I expected not to notice that’s a zombie?” Petre asked. At this point, I think he was temporarily more confused than anything else, which made two of us. While I’d certainly come to the meeting with a crazy, long-shot plan, this hadn’t been part of it. So when Krystal began to explain, I was paying just as much, if not more, attention than my adversary.

“Notice all damn day if you want. We checked the treaties up, down, and sideways. Any newly founded vampire clan has ten parahuman spots. It’s just that none of you ever bothered using them for anything besides vampires.”

“Why would we?” Petre turned from her to me, clearly under the misimpression that I was in on this spectacle. “Is that the best you can do? Padding your ranks with a mere zombie?”

Two heavy footsteps were the only warning we got as a new figure arrived in the doorway, this one far less concerned with protocol. Neil was decked out in a full set of robes, similar to the ones I’d seen the mages wear during Albert’s fight with the chimera—though his were darker, and he clutched a black tome in his thin hands. From how tightly he gripped the book, it was clear he was annoyed, even before he began to bark at Petre. “Watch your mouth, or I’ll make you rip your own tongue out.”

In a few steps, he’d joined Albert by my chair, resting his free hand on my assistant’s shoulder, near where the top of Albert’s sword poked up. “This ‘mere zombie’ happens to wield the Blade of the Unlikely Champion. Show some damn respect.” He paused, apparently remembering that he was supposed to do something other than just stick up for Albert. “Oh yeah, and I’m a member of the new clan as well. And no, I’m not a vampire, either. I’m a necromancer. I’m the puppet master who can pull all your undead strings.”

“You align yourself with the ones who can control us. How desperate are you, Mr. Fletcher?” Petre asked.

“I mean . . . honestly, right now, I’m a lot more confused than I am desperate,” I admitted. My eyes turned to Krystal, even I as heard heavy footsteps making their way to the doorway. “What is going on here?”

“I told you I was in the loop,” she said, unabashedly savoring the surprise on my face. “It was easy to figure out. And when I talked it over with everyone, they agreed that this was doomed to fail if it was just you. So we decided that if you were willing to go to this much trouble to stay with us, then the least we could do was have your back. Officially. Well, they can. I’m an agent, so we’re not really allowed to belong to any organization.”

“But . . . but I didn’t want any of you to be drawn into this.” Now that I finally understood what was going down, my mind was reeling, so forgive me if perhaps my word choice wasn’t quite as keen as it should have been.

“We know you didn’t. And we know you’d never ask us to do somethin’ like this. Which is prolly the exact reason we all agreed to.” Bubba’s thick, deep voice resonated from the doorway as he walked into the room. “And for y’all in here who don’t know me, I’m Bubba Emerson. Therianthrope and currently a member of the tribe led by Richard Alderson.”

“This is getting beyond ridiculous,” Petre snapped. “A therian cannot belong to a clan and a tribe at the same time.”

This time, when the footsteps echoed, there was no mistaking their owner. Bubba might leave a hefty boot print, but no one in the room, or probably the city, carried the same kind of bulk as Richard Alderson. He ducked his head to step through the doorframe, and suddenly, the entire atmosphere seemed to change. Up until then, I’d have guessed that Petre considered himself to be dealing with annoyances, something he’d have to pick apart later. Richard, however, was a peer. This man wielded most of the power in Winslow, power the House of Turva very much didn’t want turned against it.

“As it turns out, parahumans can belong to multiple organizations, assuming the leaders of each permit it,” Richard told the room. “I personally signed my agreement to Bubba’s dual status this afternoon. Fred, you have any objections?”

“I’m just trying to keep up at this point,” I replied. “But since it seems like this happening with or without me, Bubba is free to be in both organizations, if it’s what he really wants.”

“Didn’t think you’d mind,” Richard said. “Also, Petre, though I obviously cannot join Fred with the others, you should know that my tribe has submitted an official mutual cohabitation and alliance agreement to Fred’s new clan. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that means if you decided to declare war on my friends.”

“I also wouldn’t count on the mage community for much support, unless you’re playing nice.” Amy had wandered in, practically unnoticed by any of us amidst the sea of vast personalities already present. “Since I joined the clan too, I reached out to a few friends in the spellcasting community. As of now, anyone on unfriendly grounds with my people can go elsewhere for all their magical needs.”

Petre was fuming, unsure of who to stare more angrily at, though I was certainly getting the most frequent bout of his attention. “And who the hell is this woman?”

“That would be Amy Wells, sir. I mentioned her in my report.” It was the first time Lillian had spoken since we sat down, and from the barely suppressed mirth on her face, I could only imagine how long she’d been waiting to slip a few words in, twisting the knife as she watched her superior lose control.

The rage on Petre’s face seemed to dim. He glared at us, more sullen than furious now, bathing us in unmasked hatred. “This is quite the coup, Mr. Fletcher. You present yourself as such a caring, innocuous man, but when the moment arrives, it seems you have no trouble throwing the might of your allies around.”

“Yo, dumbass, have you really not caught on yet?” Krystal snapped her fingers in front of his face, forcing him to look up at her. “Freddy didn’t ask us for this. We snuck around behind his back, meeting with his lawyer as soon as he left, getting the paperwork sorted and everyone officially registered. He would never use us to scare you. We made that choice all on our own, and it’s because we’re not his allies. We’re his friends.”

“Technically speaking, as of now, we’re also his family,” Amy added. I noticed that tonight, in one of the few occasions I could recall, Amy had no strange auras, glows, or magical effects around her. She’d shown up stone-cold sober, which meant more than words would ever convey about how important she considered this evening.

“Fine, you’re all friends, you’re all family. It doesn’t matter. The oldest of you is what? Perhaps a few decades old? I’ve been playing politics for centuries upon centuries.” Petre rose from the table, his goons following suite. Only Lillian hesitated. “You think an alliance with a therian will protect you? Or a little inconvenience from the mages? I am beyond patient, and I will find a way to gain retribution for this slight. And what will you do, Mr. Fletcher, when I strip away the protection of your precious family? How will fend for yourself when there is no one else to stand for you?”

“You know, I was actually getting to that, before my friends came charging in and did the most amazing, caring thing I’ve ever seen.” It was my turn to stand, because, with the momentum on our side, I had a new idea, one I’d have never dared try before. But the night was going well, and all of a sudden, pressing that luck didn’t seem quite so foolish. First things first, though, it was time to get my last card, what I’d thought would be my trump, down on the table.