Angel: Private Eye Book One (6 page)

Unless Benson planned on putting me up in
the broom cupboard, then he was intending to put me up in a
million-dollar apartment.

Even Cortez looked impressed.

Benson opened his mouth, possibly to sweeten
the deal further by offering to buy me some diamond slippers, but
what sounded like a fight broke out in the hall outside.

Benson swiveled his gaze towards it, one
side of his nostrils flaring.

“What’s going on out there?” Cortez called
across the room to a panicked uniformed officer who ducked their
head in the door.

“Vampire fight.”

“I’ll deal with it.” Benson turned hard on
his expensive loafer and nodded at Cortez. “I’ll deal with
this.”

They both hurried away.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think I had an
opportunity to escape. There was now nowhere in Hope City I could
go.

William bloody Benson III had his eye on me.
And a man like that never lost sight of you.

When they were out of sight, I turned my
head down to stare at the contract.

With a strange mash of exhilaration and fear
mixing in my gut like explosives, I grabbed it and brought it
towards me.

Before I knew what was happening, someone
darted over from my left and leaned in.

From the ruddy complexion to the perfectly
round pot belly, I recognized him at once.

The PI from this morning. The one who’d
kicked me out of his shop.

“What?” I frowned at him as I kept hold of
the contract.

“Mr Marvelous.” He ignored my question,
leaned over, and offered me his hand.

I didn’t shake it. Instead I stared at him
in suitable shock. “Ah, what are you doing here?”

“I came in on a case – heard everything
Benson just said. But that’s beside the point.” Mr Marvelous leaned
in, locked one of the pudgy fingers of his left hand on the
contract, and yanked it away from me.

I stared up, startled.

He surreptitiously shifted over his
shoulder, locking his wary gaze on Benson and Cortez. By now, both
of them were already out of the room.

“What are you doing?” I found my voice. I
also found my sense, and leaned forward, trying to snatch the
contract from Mr Marvelous.

That, right there, was my ticket out of
this. Hell, it was my ticket not just to freedom, but back to
normality.

I needed a job. If I didn’t get one, I’d
turn into all the desperate magical criminals around me.

No matter how hard I tried to snatch at the
contract, Mr Marvelous kept it locked in his pudgy, round, red
fingers.

His lips pulled back in a sneer. “Get a head
on you, girl. Who the hell signs a contract from a vampire king
without reading it?”

“I have read it,” I protested too quickly.
“Okay, I haven’t read it – but he summarized what it says. Plus,
this is the police station. They wouldn’t allow me to sign
something illegal,” I stammered.

I think I realized how stupid I sounded as I
said it.

Mr Marvelous chucked his head back and
laughed, though it wasn’t so ribald that he drew the attention of
everyone in the room.

Somehow he was keeping the contract away
from me, despite the fact he was the exact same height as I
was.

He leaned in and locked his calculating gaze
on me.

I swallowed and pushed back from the table,
the legs of my chair grating across the lined and marked
black-and-white linoleum.

“You came into my office today looking for a
job. I’ve got one for you.” Mr Marvelous stuck a hand behind one of
his suspenders. It was almost as if he was going to pick something
out of his jacket pocket, but he wasn’t wearing a jacket.

That didn’t matter. With a suitable twang
and a vibration that ran down the length of his suspender, he
pulled something out of thin air.

A crisp clean contract written in glistening
black pen on a piece of unmarked office paper.

He slammed it down in front of me, grabbed
one of the pens from Cortez’s pen holder, and handed it to me.

“What? I don’t understand—” I began.

“Keep up, kid – I’m offering you a job. Sign
on the dotted line, and you start as a magical PI right now. The
benefits aren’t great – at least not the medical and dental. The
security benefits, however, can’t be understated. As a full-time
employee of Mr Marvelous, you will be under my considerable wing,”
he motioned to one of his scrawny arms that stuck out from the
folds of his upturned sleeves, “You’ll be protected from the scum
of this city. You’ll also be inducted into a wide-ranging and
fascinating career. It pays a flat rate of $10 an hour, and you get
to keep 40% of any bounties or direct contracts you manage to bring
in and solve.”

“$10 an hour?” I scrunched my nose up. Then
I shook my head when I reminded myself it was completely irrelevant
how many dollars an hour this job paid – I had no intention of
accepting it.

I made another play at snapping Benson’s
contract out of Mr Marvelous’ hand, but he just tugged it further
from my reach. “Don’t be an idiot, kid. Don’t sell your soul to a
vampire king. You want honest work that won’t leave you in
damnation? Sign the contract.” As Mr Marvelous spat out his garbled
words, he always kept one wary eye locked on the door Benson had
left through. It was obvious he wanted to get this over and done
with before the city’s most powerful vampire could return.

“I’m not going to work for you. You already
ran me out of your office this morning. Now give me back my
contract—” I practically bent double over the desk as I made a bold
grab for it.

Somehow Mr Marvelous was a hell of a lot
quicker on his feet than he looked. He was like a practiced boxer
dodging a right hook as he shifted the contract just out of my
grip.

I was surprised we hadn’t drawn a crowd.
Then again, with the twin screaming banshees at the back of the
room, it would probably take an explosion and an impromptu dance to
turn heads here.

“Fine. $11 an hour, and I’ll let you bunk in
the storage room at the shop. It’s got a window, good view,” he
mentioned with some pride, as if that sealed the deal.

“A storage cupboard?” Again my nose
scrunched up. Then, almost immediately, I shook my head as I
reminded myself for the second time that he could take his window
and hang.

“Spare room,” he corrected smoothly.
“Reliable heating, a great view,” he mentioned pointedly once more,
“And above all else – safe. I’ve never had a break in, never even
had any threatening mail. Nobody in their right mind would dare
attack my fine establishment.” He brought his fingers up and stuck
them through his suspenders, pulling them out as his lips pulled
into an almost corny smile. I could bet it was the same smile he’d
use on his TV advertisements or on his mirror after he brushed his
teeth.

It didn’t work on me. “Mr Marvelous, I don’t
need your job. Benson has offered—”

“Benson wants you under his thumb,”
Marvelous’ tone dropped and the shadows along his face became
deeper as he ducked his head down and looked at me directly. “You
look smarter than that, kid. Do you really want to be under the
thumb of a vampire? Haven’t you stopped to ask yourself why William
Benson the bloody III is offering to solve your every problem if
only you sign yourself away to him?”

I snorted, though it was an unsure, kind of
rattling noise. “I’m not selling myself to him,” I tried to say
family. My voice was about as firm as unset jelly that had been
left in the sun to melt.

“You’ve had a rough night, kid. But you have
to think clearly here. Don’t make the kind of mistake you’ll regret
for the rest of your life, and your death,” he said pointedly.

“I…” I trailed off. My eyes locked on the
contract. “Maybe I should read it,” I muttered to myself. But what
help could that make? You had to have a PhD in magical law to
understand the complicated language vampires used in their
contracts. They’d probably been work-shopping them for centuries,
perfecting their circuitous, mind-boggling language until it felt
like every sentence was a maze and every clause a noose around your
neck.

“There you go. I’ll read it for you,” Mr
Marvelous began as he tugged the contract down.

He cleared his throat, but didn’t get a
chance to read the contract.

Instead someone smoothly snatched it out of
his grip. Somebody who appeared at his side like an unwelcome
apparition.

Benson.

I hadn’t seen him walk up.

I had such a visceral reaction to his sudden
appearance, that I doubled back so hard in my chair, I almost fell
off it. I had to scoot a hand out and latch it on the edge of the
desk to steady myself.

Mr Marvelous slowly turned around, crumpled
his arms over his pot belly, and tipped his head back to stare up
into the cold blue eyes of William Benson III.

“What are you doing?” Benson asked in a
falsely patient tone.

“Disposing of this unnecessary contract
here. My new employee doesn’t require your services anymore,
Councilman,” Mr Marvelous said with a real note of irony shifting
through his tone.

It surprised me. Hell, it practically
floored me like a hay maker to the jaw.

No one – and I mean absolutely no one, from
the heads of the werewolf clans to the strongest sorceresses in the
city – talked to William Benson like that. It was like shoving your
face against a hornet’s nest and opening your mouth wide.

“Employee?” Benson sliced his gaze towards
me. His look was direct, so direct that I swore I felt his hands
against my neck.

I immediately twisted my fingers through the
collar of my torn blouse, closing it as tightly as I could.

“That’s right,” Mr Marvelous said in an
almost chipper tone. “The Miss here now works for me.”

“She does? Do you even know her name?”
Benson challenged.

“I don’t need to. I just need a signature.
You know how the magical courts work, Councilman.” There it was
again. That unmistakable note of sarcasm.

Just who did Mr Marvelous think he was that
he could take on the strongest vampire in the city? Was it nothing
more than a dangerous ploy of courage to get me on side? Or did Mr
Marvelous have some ace up his crumpled sleeve?

Benson smoothly turned from Mr Marvelous, as
if the man were nothing more important than an irritating fly. Then
Benson locked his full attention on me.

If his direct gaze was like two hands on my
neck. His full attention was like his fingers locking around my jaw
and holding me tight.

I couldn’t move.

Not a centimeter. Not a millimeter.

“Miss Luck, the sooner you sign this, the
sooner I can solve all your problems,” he said in a smooth voice
like old whiskey sloshed over ice.

It even sent a suitable quiver tracing down
my back. I sat straighter as a tightness gripped my firm
stomach.

The slightest prickle of a smile twisted the
corners of his lips.

And that smile – that tiny move – was enough
to make the tightness in my gut explode into tingles like I’d
swallowed a goddamn firecracker.

Mr Marvelous suddenly cleared his throat. He
also jostled forward, apparently inadvertently striking Benson with
the side of his shoulder as he bustled over the desk, grabbed the
corner of his contract, and shoved it over to me. The paper was so
new and shiny it slipped over the smooth desk and fell into my
lap.

I had no option but to catch it, and as soon
as my fingers wrapped around the paper, I could feel the magic
eating through every fiber.

“Sign the contract, Miss Luck,” Mr Marvelous
switched his pointed gaze to Benson, “And I can guarantee all your
troubles aren’t given your address and personal details.”

Benson swallowed, the move hard as he locked
his jaw stiffly. “Mr Marvelous, don’t you feel you are overstepping
your mark? Miss Luck here has had a run in with the vampire clan.
As the official vampire spokesperson for Hope City, it is up to me
to mediate a solution.”

“Run in? Can I see the police report on
that?” Mr Marvelous made a show of looking over the clean desk. “Or
did your lapdog detective forget to write one up again?”

“Who are you calling a lapdog detective?”
Cortez suddenly rumbled from behind Mr Marvelous.

To Mr Marvelous’ credit, he turned smoothly
and shrugged without a hint of embarrassment flushing his cheeks.
“You, Cortez. Dutifully playing the role as Benson’s right hand
again, are we?”

It was almost as if I wasn’t there anymore.
All three men stared at each other as if the world and all its
assorted problems had been whittled down to just the three of them
locking horns.

I thought of dropping down to my knees and
skulking quietly out of the station.

I didn’t get the chance. Benson shifted
forward, the contract still in his hand. Rather than reach over the
desk and hand it to me, he walked around until he loomed over my
seat.

He was like a great big storm cloud blocking
out the sunshine.

No… that wasn’t quite right. A storm cloud
blocking out the sunshine would block out its warmth, too. But as
Benson looked right at me, I felt the gentle caress of his
attention.

“Miss Luck.” He placed his contract on my
lap, careful not to actually touch me. Then he brought a hand up
and plucked an expensive pen from the neat, ironed pocket of his
shirt. He handed it to me slowly, reverently, keeping me in his
full attention all the time.

I was vaguely aware that my bottom lip had
dropped open and was wobbling like the knees of a gal staring up
into the gaze of her first crush.

When I didn’t pluck the pen from his hand,
he gave it to me.

In a thoroughly strange way.

He didn’t pluck up one of my hands and press
the smooth metal shaft of the pen into my fingers. Instead, he
hooked his hand around the corner of my sleeve and tugged it
forward, tapping the top of the pen into my palm.