Bloody Acquisitions (Fred Book 3) (36 page)

“Like I told you before, I just had a really good reason to not let go.” With that, I pulled my hand away and walked over to Lillian, still seated as she patiently watched the contest unfold.

She smiled, taking a moment to look over my hand herself before speaking. “That was pretty impressive, Fredrick.”

“I like to put on a good show,” I replied. “And hey, I won. Which means that what happens next is up to you. Go with Petre, stay with us weirdos, or strike out on your own.”

“Before I decide, can I ask you something? Why go to all this trouble for someone who was sent to spy on you?” Lillian asked.

Turning slowly, I pointed to my group of friends. “The first time I met Neil, he tried to sacrifice me and a bunch of LARPers for more power, and Albert helped. Amy had accidently created a bunch of monsters that nearly killed me more than once. Bubba got us drawn into a gambling debt that could have had us working for slave wages in Vegas. Charlotte threatened to kill a whole house of guests if one of the people didn’t off themselves. And Krystal is the catalyst the dragged me into all of those dangers, along with a whole lot of others. Honestly, as far as first impressions go, you made one of the best of the lot. You saved me from a vampire hunter, and spying doesn’t really stack up to attempted murder. As for why I’m doing it, well, I think we’re friends. And if you haven’t noticed, this is a group of friends that tends to stick together.”

“You are, without question, one of the oddest vampires I’ve ever met.” Lillian sighed. “But damn if this doesn’t seem like a lot more fun than doing yet another honeypot in a few weeks.” She stood from her chair at last, walking over to Petre and looking him square in the eyes.

“It would shame the House of Turva to rescind a gift of friendship, especially to a clan with such power and connections. Your pride has blinded you to this, Petre, but I can still see what is best for our people over my ego. I will stay with Fredrick Fletcher, and continue working for him as a member of his new clan. Thus, the friendship between our two houses shall remain intact.”

Petre’s eyes narrowed further with every word Lillian spoke. “Our leader—”

“Our leader will see that I made the right decision, when you tell him of everything that has happened here tonight,” Lillian said, cutting Petre off. “The alliance with Alderson’s therians and Wells’s mages is too much to have turned against us in this fragile time. Go make your report, Petre. And when they side with me, I hope you learn some humility during your fasting.”

Though he was barely repressing a snarl, Petre turned from Lillian, motioning to his cronies to follow. Krystal, Arch, and I walked after them, making certain they found their way to the exit. None of the three tried to stray, but after his goons had walked through the door, Petre turned back to face me.

“No doubt you consider this evening a victory, Mr. Fletcher. You’ve gotten everything you wanted, and we are being sent slinking away. Allow me to offer some advice, though, as one with far more experience: a single win can easily be nullified further on. Do not consider this matter settled just because of one well-played maneuver.”

“Petre, I thank you kindly for the advice. Now allow me to return some of my own,” I told him. “Winslow, Colorado is not a place for malicious threats and blood-soaked takeovers. This is a good place, where good people, human and parahuman alike, try to make their homes. And I welcome you to it, because that’s what you do when new neighbors arrive. Just remember that if you want to make trouble, you’re better off looking somewhere else to do it. This is
our
town, and we won’t just sit around if someone tries to ruin it. So be good neighbors. It’ll make things easier on everyone.”

Petre opened his mouth to reply, but before a word came out, the front door slammed closed in his face. A moment later, Charlotte was standing there, her usual formal gown ditched for something that looked like a party dress from the flapper era.

“If you’re all about done, I have a giant feast prepared, and it seems like we’ve all got quite a bit to celebrate.”

10.

“Be honest with me, are you a little bit sad that we didn’t have to move to Boarback?” I set the new laptop atop a modern desk, sleek and vastly more stylish than I would have ever chosen for myself. But this wasn’t about me, and it sort of fit with the room Charlotte had provided. This sizable chunk of space on the manor’s third floor was so bare that I half-suspected she’d created it just to fill our needs. I’d never gotten a good grasp of exactly how much control Charlotte had regarding what existed within her walls, and this was no occasion for me to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Sad isn’t really the right word,” Krystal replied, pulled a stack of files from the cardboard box and setting them carefully down next to the filing cabinets. If she knocked them over, then everything would have to be re-sorted, and that was a task neither of us wanted to undertake. “Part of me would have enjoyed it, and I think you’d have learned to love it there too, but this is what’s best for everyone, us included.”

“Best” might have been an optimistic term, but I didn’t raise any objections. Over the last few days, we’d seen all the paperwork continue making its way through the system, and as of yesterday, most of my temporary authorizations had been approved. Though the House of Turva had raised a few objections here and there, they lacked our passion and gift for paperwork, which made clearing their minor obstacles hardly any challenge. Things were settling down now, and with the threat of immediate, looming death momentarily pushed away, I’d had to turn my attention to more pragmatic issues. The largest of which was my office.

While I’d greatly enjoyed working from home for a long while, the truth was that I could no longer justify such a system. Between Quinn and Colin, too many people had broken into my apartment over the years, no matter how many security measures I implemented. Now that I knew the House of Turva had been interested in my client’s records, it would be bad faith for me to store them in a place so easily accessible through force. Thus, Krystal and I were handling part four of the Fletcher Accounting Services home office move. As of two days prior, I was leasing office space through Charlotte, meaning that my files—both digital and hard copy—would be stored in the safest location I had access to. Truth be told, Krystal was on me to let the apartment go altogether and move in myself, but I wasn’t quite ready to make that jump yet.

However, it had made sense to change the housing situation of someone else in the company. Much as I enjoyed having Albert around, renting him a room at Charlotte Manor made things easier, as he split his time between Arch and me. Now, he wouldn’t have to come to my apartment to handle any filing; everything he needed would be under the same roof. And the same held true for my company’s newest employee.

“Knock, knock. I’ve got a lawyer with a hefty briefcase, boss.” Lillian pushed open the door, clad in a long skirt and strikingly green blouse. Though I’d told her she was free to do as she wished, the elder vampire seemed oddly taken with my line of work. Perhaps it was some debt she felt compelled to pay off, or maybe she merely wanted something a little more humdrum after the hecticness of her previous tasks. Either way, I needed the help, so I didn’t object.

“Fred, you’re lucky we go back so far. I would not put in these kinds of hours at the drop of a hat for just anyone.” Asha barreled past Lillian at the doorway, dropping her own briefcase down next to the laptop and popping the latches to reveal three large stacks of documents. She yanked all of them out, setting them carefully on the desk before shutting her case and moving it onto the floor. “These are the newest pages for review, not that you can change much at this point in the process, but rules are rules. Check them over and have the signature pages back to me by tomorrow night.”

“That’s a tight deadline,” I said. In my line of work, I was no stranger to loads of tedious paperwork, but this was quite the task even by those standards.

“Yeah, well, when you say ‘put the fastest rush possible on everything,’ you’re going to get some tight deadlines. And some heavy briefcases.” Asha was glaring, all but daring me to complain after the endless barrage of work I’d put her through.

In what I considered a wise decision, I let the issue of the deadline pass, taking a peek at the documents on top of each stack instead. These were to be the last in a long line of smaller batches, making my new clan finally official. Idly, I flipped through several pages, letting my eyes skim the hundreds of lines of inky text. One piece, bigger than the others, caught my attention, and I yanked the page free from the stack.

“Asha, please don’t hurt me for saying this, but I think there’s been a mistake.” Carefully turning the document around so that she could see it, I pointed to the bold letters that were at least three fonts larger than anything else on the page. “Right here, where it lists the official title of the new clan. This is supposed to read House of Fletcher.”

“Oh, yeah. I changed that,” Krystal called from the other side of the room. “Cashed in a few favors, said there was a mix-up, and got the name updated. House of Fletcher seemed way too stuffy for this crowd, you know?”

In a smooth motion, Asha snatched the page away from me and read the new name, her grip tightening on the pages. “House of Fred? That’s what you had the clan’s name changed to?”

“Fits much better, don’t you think?” She finished unloading her box and kicked the empty cardboard across the room, where it joined many of its already unpacked brethren. That done, she strolled over to where the rest of us were standing, giving me a quick peck on the cheek. “I can have it changed back if you really want. I mean, you’re the one who has to live under the name. But come on, House of Fletcher? Bleh. Lillian, is that the clan you want to be associated with?”

“Hey, I came from Turva, so pretty much anything is an improvement after that,” Lillian replied. “Although, for what it’s worth, I do sort of agree with Krystal. House of Fred seems like a better fit.”

Two against one was hardly insurmountable odds, but when half of that equation was Krystal Jenkins, I knew better than to fight without cause. “Asha, could you run it by the others and see what they think? Whatever the majority wants, that’s the name we’ll use.”

“Feel free to double check, but I shopped the idea around before I made the calls. Everyone either didn’t care or agreed with me,” Krystal said.

“Is there any reason why I wasn’t one of the people you shopped it to?” I asked.

“Because then it wouldn’t be a surprise. Geez, Freddy, you’re supposed to be smart, try and keep up here.” Given the sort of mischief Krystal often liked to cause, I decided to consider it a boon that she hadn’t altered the name to House of Freddy.

“If I have to run down opinions, I’m at least going to help myself to some food first,” Asha declared. “Charlotte, set a place for me, please. And put this one on Fred’s tab; it’s the least he can do.”

“I still can’t believe this is a living house,” Lillian muttered as she watched Asha head out the door. In the time since dinner with Petre, we’d brought her up to speed on almost everything about our group that she’d missed, the true nature of Charlotte Manor included. I’d even let her in on my silver immunity, though she’d been disappointed when all her questions of how such a thing was possible were met with honest ignorance. “Charlotte, would you set a place for me, too?”

“Hold on a minute,” I said, holding up my hand. “Have you done your studying for the day?”

“Like . . . all of it? ‘Cause you gave me a shitload to work through each day,” Lillian pointed out. “And that’s on top of all the online classes I’m taking.”

“You’re the one who wanted to get your accounting certifications as fast as possible. That workload will allow you to handle the basic exams in just a few months, but only if you stick with it,” I told her. It was, admittedly, a very aggressive timetable, far more ambitious than something I’d have undertaken when just starting out. Lillian, however, had little patience, despite what one might expect from a vampire as old as she was, and had insisted on racing ahead to become a full accountant.

“Fine, fine, you win. Charlotte, can you have someone bring me a meal up here? And some blood from the fridge. I’m going to need actual sustenance to get through this workload.” Lillian glared at me, but I took no offense. We both knew she was the one actually keeping herself on track. I just served as a convenient reminder and occasional foil.

As Krystal and I left the office, heading downstairs for night-lunch before another round of unpacking, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She matched my affection, squeezing my torso so hard that a living me might have gotten bruised ribs.

“Any word on how long it’ll be before I’m contacted to start work?” I asked. Thus far, the Agency had accepted my contractor application and said they would be in touch. Other than that, I was left completely in the dark as to what the cost of aligning myself with them would be.

“Still nothing so far; at least, that’s what I’ve been told,” Krystal replied. “We don’t always have work for our contractors, and I don’t know that we’ve ever brought in an outside finance person before, at least not for a long time. They’re probably trying to figure out what to do with you. Maybe they’ll never think of anything, and you won’t have to take any jobs.”