Vamp-Hire (18 page)

“Should I say thank you for that?”

“If you want to. I like it.”

“Good. I won’t shoot you then.”

Nick’s smile melted. Even though he couldn’t
have said where, he had no doubt she had a weapon somewhere in
there.

“I’m Ti. Lucky asked to me to look in on
you.” She offered her hand and he shook it. Despite the overtly
feminine appearance, she had a strong grip.

“I’m Nick. I guess you already know that.”
She smiled again and it looked as natural on her as the scowl had
before. “How did you find me?”

“I’ve been following you since the apartment.
Lucky said some military types might come looking for you.”

“Well, he didn’t tell me.”

“A better question is who did you go to lunch
with? Because they were following him.”

“I did some consulting with him. They invited
us to come—”

“Stop right there.” Ti held a hand up. “The
less I know the better.”

“Finding everything okay?” a short, pudgy
woman with a name tag that read ‘Alyssa’ asked. Her dark blonde
hair was braided to the side, draped down the front of her.

“We’re fine,” Ti said, putting her foot up on
the bench. “Trying to decide on these in either black or red.”

“Well, you don’t have to decide,” Alyssa
said. “It’s the last day of our BOGO sale.”

“No!” Ti’s brown eyes were huge. Nick had no
clue what BOGO meant, but apparently it made boots more special.
She looked at the boots on her feet, pointed at him, then over to
the racks of shoes. “Get me the red ones, love.”

Nick’s heart fluttered a little and he took a
step over, his hands hovering over a pair.

“Uh, what size?”

“All this time and you don’t know my shoe
size?” The singsong rhythm of her suddenly thick accent was
pleasing to his ear. She turned to Alyssa. “If he didn’t cook so
good I’d trow ‘im out. Go on, boy, and grab the shoes I want.”

The two women giggled and Nick found himself
catching up again. She was pretending they were a couple. He found
himself liking the idea for a different reason. She was attractive.
The first woman he could recall being attracted to since he could
remember. Nick had a desire to experience everything he thought
normal people experienced. Falling in love and being with someone
was definitely one of those. So he wasn’t in love with her; he
could learn.

It wasn’t as if he had nothing to go on. She
was the one who had chosen to pretend they were a couple. Did that
mean she had at least a smidge of interest in him? And the way she
had laughed before. That seemed so genuine, so… he didn’t know the
word. Whatever it was, it felt right to him.

“Come on, let’s go, love. Get your wallet.”
Ti handed him the shoebox with her old boots inside to carry. They
walked up front and stood in a short line before coming to a
register. The cashier rang up the shoes and the total surprised
him.

“I thought these shoes were on sale,” he
said.

“Silly, that is the sale price.” Ti shook her
head. The cashier stared at him and after a few seconds he looked
at Ti. “Now would be a good time for you to open up that wallet.”
Nick opened his mouth to complain, then thought better of it. It
was the least he could do. This was the woman who had saved his
life asking for him to pay for a couple pairs of shoes. At the very
least, she had kept him from being kidnapped.

The shoes stung, though. They set him back
about half the cash he had left. He wondered how long Dolph would
be out of commission. They had agreed for him to do some consulting
work, though with him in the hospital it might be a while before he
got around to making that phone call. His depletion of funds had
highlighted that he needed to do something ASAP to bring money
in.

He paid the cashier, thinking of Lucky. Nick
needed this new job he’d told him about more than ever. Hopefully,
it didn’t involve anything with a gun. There were people
surrounding the motorcycle as they approached the doors.

“How do we get out of here?” he asked Ti.

“We walk out,” she said, taking her jacket
from him. She turned it inside out and it was now a white leather
jacket. She’d ditched the helmet and he realized she looked
absolutely nothing like she had when they came in.

“What about me?”

She pulled a ratty blue baseball cap out of
the jacket pocket and slapped it on his head. He realized he didn’t
see anyone out there he’d seen before and they didn’t look like
police. Probably some kind of military security, dispatched to find
who had hit Lieutenant Leonard and Co.

Nick pushed open the door and held it for
Ti.

“Thank you,” she said as they walked past the
group of beefy guard-types in leather from head to toe. One of them
glanced their way and he felt familiar, though his face was new to
Nick. Nobody stopped them as they left the lot and crossed the
street to a bus stop, where they stood until a bus arrived a few
minutes later. The whole time Nick kept expecting someone to jog
over and begin asking them questions or to point from where they
were and say something like, ‘There they are!’

It never happened. They got on the bus and
Nick dug in his pocket again for cash. Ti put a hand to his
wrist.

“I’ll take this one,” she said and paid their
fare.

They found a spot near the rear. There were
only five other people riding and Ti sat them right next to the
rear exit doors.

She didn’t talk, didn’t smile, didn’t laugh;
she was back to the steely figure clad in black, even if she was
dressed up like spring under her white leather jacket.

No, Nick was not in love with her and she
certainly wasn’t with him. It still stung.

They got off the bus about ten minutes later
and turned south. They walked a block, the small office buildings
and fast food restaurants turning into wide, industrial sized
buildings.

The one to the right had what looked like a
large crucifix affixed to its roof. It took Nick a few minutes to
realize it really was a cross and by the time they got to the front
entrance, saw the sign in bold read ‘Church’.

A tall man with lifeless dark eyes and
brown-tipped dreadlocks down to his waist stood by the entrance
doors in a brown leather coat.

“Wh’ham, star?” he said to them. Nick didn’t
know what that meant and didn’t want to ask. Ti walked past the man
but he put the fingertips of his upraised hand into Nick’s chest.
“All must pay d’tide.”

“Pay the what?” Nick asked. The tall man
didn’t repeat himself. “Look, buddy, I’m with her and you didn’t
make her pay anything.”

“Ladies get inta Church for free on weekdays.
All others pay the cover.” He pronounced ‘church’ like there was a
Y in there somewhere. The singsong rhythm of his accent agitated
Nick.

Ti said something in rapid French without
turning around and kept walking.

“C’mon, Ti, I’m just ‘avin’ a little fun,
‘ere.” He looked back at Nick and waved him on. “Go on,
killjoy.”

Nick caught up to Ti, looking around. They
were in a wide hallway with paintings on the walls. The carpet felt
thick underfoot and every few feet there were stands with pamphlets
stacked in them.

“What is this place?”

“Exactly what the name says it is. Church.
People come here to worship.”

“Is this one of those Imprean churches?”
Impreanism was a religion that had started after the Conflict had
ended. It had been created by Juke Kyander, a Finnish man who had
migrated to the U.S. shortly after the war. It borrowed heavily
from Christianity, but one of the major differences was that it
acknowledged no deity. He had also coined the term ‘oxitheistic’,
meaning ‘no god’. Nick wasn’t a follower. The way he figured it, if
he was going to reject religion he shouldn’t do it halfway.

“Sometimes.” She turned through a pair of
double doors and into what looked to be a decent-sized, yet
incomplete theater. There were several columns of seats to the left
and only three on the right, the naked concrete exposed beyond
that. At the far end was a raised stage with a pulpit. “Sometimes,
it’s a synagogue, or a mosque, or a temple. It depends on who needs
it.”

“What, do they rent out?”

“Yes.”

Ti continued down the aisle, taking the four
stairs at the side of the stage to get on top of it. Nick turned
and looked back. On the ceiling high above there was a chandelier
that caught the light and made it glitter in a thousand pieces. He
followed her behind the curtains and to another door. This one took
a key to get through and it opened into a big empty room. She made
sure the door was completely shut before they continued.

The floor looked like it was made of black
glass. There was a bar on the far end, stocked with several brands
of liquor.

“What is this?”

“This is Church. Open seven days a week, from
sundown to sunup.”

“How can this place run? I mean, I thought
only essential services could be up during non-peak hours.”

“And who’s to say Church isn’t essential
services?” She turned to give him a challenging stare. “There is a
loophole in the law that states religious institutions can be open
at any hour. We provide those kinds of services for anyone who
wants. There’s a group of monks who are going to be here within the
hour. Also, it’s a refuge to vamps who don’t do quiet parties.”
And, as if she realized what she’d said. “No offense. I use the ‘v’
word in front of my friends who are… like you.”

A man came through a door behind the bar
ahead of them and Ti sped up. She looked over her shoulder and saw
Nick was still following her and stopped.

“I need you to stay here. I have to talk to
that guy for a moment.”

Nick nodded and figured now was a perfect
time for him to make a phone call. He dug his cell out of his
pocket and thumbed in Lucky’s number.

“Bruce’s Pizza,” Lucky said after two
rings.

“What the hell, Lucky?”

“What?”

“Ti?”

“Oh, so you two met. Hot, huh?”

“Unfortunately.” Nick’s response was intended
for the first question and he felt heat rush to his face at the
implication of his answer being applied to the second.

“What happened?”

Nick gave him a quick rundown including the
purchase of her boots.

“So they look good on her?”

“What?”

“The boots. They look good?”

“I guess. Why’d you send her?”

“I thought there was the possibility those
guys would try to grab you.”

“Any reason you didn’t tell me?”

“Didn’t want to freak you out. I could’ve
been wrong.”

Nick was silent a moment. He could feel
himself getting angrier without having a reason that satisfied him
as to why. “What did you find out about the other job?”

“You still want to?”

“Yes.”

“All right. It’s simple. A lady thinks she’s
got somebody in her walls.”

Nick made a face. “How am I supposed to help
with that?”

“Use those extra sharp senses of yours. Tell
her if there’s anything in there.”

Nick had never done anything like that
before, but he supposed that would work. In the walls? That made
absolutely no sense. She was probably a kook and wouldn’t be
satisfied no matter what Nick told her.

“Did you get paid up front?”

“Seventy-five percent,” Lucky said.

“When does she want me there?”

“Anytime. Actually, now would be good.”

“Okay. Where am I going?”

Lucky gave him an address on the city’s
northwest side. It wasn’t too far away from his house, still it was
a long way to hoof it from here. He looked at Ti, who was still
talking to the man behind the bar. The tall, Rastafarian-looking
guy came in and breezed past Nick like he was invisible and sidled
up next to her.

“It might take a while to get there if I have
to walk.”

“I can come scoop you in about thirty.”

“Okay.”

Nick made his way over to the bar. He might
not have been boyfriend material for Ti, but it bugged him when the
tall Rasta put his arm around her shoulders. He realized with
sudden clarity, like realizing the keys you were looking for had
been in your hand all along, that they were siblings. It was kind
of a built-in relationship detector that allowed him to perceive
connections between people. He didn’t know if it was an actual
Skill or if he was just perceptive; he put it on par with his
ability to predict when commercial breaks were coming to an
end.

Nick checked the time on his cell. Still had
a couple of hours before Phoebe got off work. He had no clue if she
knew about her grandfather and figured he didn’t want to tell her
that by phone. He could probably make this job and then walk home
and sit down with her.

“…going to need you to get those for me,
Coco,” Ti was saying. He felt himself tingle with jealousy even
though he had no idea what ‘those’ were and why she needed them. He
wanted to be the one to get whatever it was she needed. Nick
examined the thought. He felt like he was pulling himself in two
directions. Did he want her or didn’t he? She probably was much too
fast for him and she looked to be a woman of some sophistication.
No way could he afford the lifestyle someone as beautiful as her
probably demanded. He tried to stuff the whole line of thought into
some deep crevice in his mind.

“Ay, don’t call me dat!” the tall Rasta said.
He took his coat off and slung it over the bar.

“Cut it out with the accent. That’s enough
already.”

Coco said something so fast in severely
accented English Nick couldn’t make out the words.

“Okay. Keith.”

So Coco preferred to be called Keith. Nick
made a mental note.

He could see by their body language and
proximity to each other that they were more than siblings. They
were close out of necessity. Maybe they had had to fight for each
other, to stand up for one another. Siblings tended to be close
simply because of a blood tie. Maybe when they were children Coco
had taken Ti’s licks or maybe she had told a lie for him and gotten
caught and still refused to confess.