Hunted By the Others. Jess Haines
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that already? Chilled, I pressed on, scanning the rest of the note.
I would be displeased to see our business relationship terminated prior to completion of your assignment. I will extend you some measure of protection against the W.H. element and give you an update on the missing boy.
The requisite forms are filled out and the warrant should be signed by noon. Call the number on the back of my card if something comes up during the day.
Please come to my office on 52nd as soon as convenient after sunset. Present my card at the security desk for entrance.
Cordially,
Alec D. Royce
A. D. Royce Industries
Well, that was a development. Why was he offering me protection now? What exactly did he plan to do to keep the White Hats off my back? Something about the letter struck me as off, aside from the fact that I was reading an e-mail from a friggin’ vampire. Royce was supposedly older than dirt, but he didn’t appear to be the technophobe I would’ve thought considering the height of technology at the time he was made a vamp was probably a sundial.
Reading it over a second time, I decided that there were two things about it that bothered me. First, he was being far more formal in writing than he’d been in person. Second, “prior to completion of your assignment” didn’t quite make sense. It was just a little too carefully worded. It was the sort of thing that made me think he might really know about the agreement I had with The Circle and that he was planning on using me to get to them somehow.
Maybe I was reading too much into everything.
I jotted down a quick “I’ll be there” reply and sent it. Just as I was about to turn off the monitor, another e-mail popped into my in-box. Veronica was an early riser, apparently. I opened the e-mail.
Come by at 2PM. Ask for Arnold at the front desk. He’ll get you whatever you need.
Nice. Things were starting to look up. Maybe when I met with Royce this evening, I’d actually be prepared for it.
Chapter 9
Even though I’d forced myself to lie down and take a nap so I wouldn’t be a complete zombie later that night, I was still feeling groggy when I entered the lobby of The Circle’s downtown office tower. I’d almost slept through my alarm and ended up hurriedly throwing on presentable clothes, fluffing my hair and slapping on some makeup before running out the door. Traffic had been hell, and even though I knew it was better to park somewhere and take the train, I just didn’t want to deal with it. So between traffic and finding parking, I was twenty minutes late.
The design in the lobby was impressive: lofty ceilings; high windows that allowed sunlight to stream in; low-slung red couches; and intricate arcane symbols inlaid on the floor. Feeling hassled, rumpled, and cranky, I approached a sleek, polished desk where a bored-looking receptionist tapped away at her keyboard. She didn’t bother to look up.
“Excuse me? I’m here to see Arnold.”
The girl slowly raised her eyes from her flatscreen monitor to look at me over the rim of her glasses with cool, studied contempt. I couldn’t help but notice that her clothes were all trendier and nicer than mine and that her expensively dyed blond hair framed a thin, elfin face with heavy, but expertly applied, makeup. She was stick-thin and pretty enough to be modeling those clothes on a runway somewhere.
She looked me up and down and cocked a dismissive eyebrow before sliding her eyes back to the screen. Obviously, I failed her inspection.
“You’re late.”
More tapping on the keyboard. A pause.
“He’ll come get you in a moment. Please have a seat, ma’am.”
The bored voice couldn’t hide the underlying irritation. I’d probably interrupted a game of solitaire.
Making a heroic effort not to flip her off, I hefted my purse higher on my shoulder and had a seat on one of the uncomfortable but stylish red couches. The magazines spread on the table were up to date, but stuff I’d never read. Arcana Quarterly and Familiar Fashion: How to Accessorize Your Fae Focus just isn’t my cup of tea. I pulled out my cell and started fumbling with the text messages, trying to find something to focus on other than the rapid clicking of nails over keys coming in rattling spurts every few seconds from the reception desk.
Arnold kept me waiting exactly thirty minutes. His way of telling me off for coming late, I supposed. I looked up at the sound of him clearing his throat from the glass double doors next to the receptionist’s desk.
He was tall, skinny, with thick glasses perched on a narrow nose and an untidy mop of sandy brown hair, and wearing jeans and a faded T-shirt that read JESUS SAVES. THE REST OF YOU TAKE DAMAGE. Oh great, a geek.
“Ms. Waynest?” He appeared distracted, glancing at me from a thick sheaf of papers he clutched in one ink-stained hand, offering the other to me to shake. His shy, somewhat weak smile was genuine, however, and I realized he hadn’t been keeping me waiting on purpose. He was probably just tied up in his work. He actually looked a trifle apologetic under all the distraction.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mr., uh…Arnold.” I realized I didn’t know his last name. “Veronica told me you’d be able to help me.”
He nodded, reddening a bit at the mention of Veronica. A crush, perhaps? Poor guy. That love was destined to remain unrequited, and for more than one reason if her hitting on me in the restaurant the other night was any indication.
“Yes, ah, Ms. Wright told me you were coming. She said you needed something from our security vaults, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
I found myself liking the guy despite his geekiness. He was nice enough. Too bad he worked for scum like Veronica.
“This way, please. Follow me.” The receptionist didn’t look up once, still tapping away as I followed the guy into the room behind the glass doors.
Inside it looked pretty much indistinguishable from any other cube farm in corporate America. Gray and drab, with a few amusing cartoons tacked to cube walls or mildly entertaining screensavers on the computers we passed, but otherwise unremarkable. I couldn’t hear the sounds of anyone working, and it looked pretty deserted. Guess even magi took the weekends off.
He led me to an elevator oddly stuck in the middle of the floor between two rows of cubicles. I wasn’t going to question it. Magi could do whatever the hell they wanted with their architecture.
As we stepped inside, he pressed the button for the lowest basement level instead of one of the double-digit high-rise levels I was expecting. All the corporate bigwigs must get the view.
He didn’t speak during the short ride, just zoned back into the papers he was holding. When the doors opened, he looked up with confusion, as if surprised we had arrived so soon. Weird.
Stepping out, he led the way down a damp, obviously underground hallway. Thick insulation pipes ran overhead and the paint was dull, institutional gray-blue. We passed a number of doors, one or two with strange inscriptions where one would expect a name tag or some such. Then I noticed we passed one that had a nameplate for the boiler room. Lovely. Poor Arnold must be among the lowest of the low on the corporate ladder to be stuck working down here.
We rounded a bend or two, then he abruptly stopped at an unmarked door with peeling paint. I probably would’ve walked right past it. There was nothing special about it that I could see, but he opened it anyway and stepped inside.
Following him into the room, I was a little disappointed to see it looked like an entirely unremarkable, if high-tech, security office. A collection of monitors gleamed against one wall showing various scenes inside and around the building. A guard in a slate gray uniform glanced over at us briefly at the sound of my heels clicking against the floor but soon returned his attention to the monitors. A couple of fans were running, keeping the computers under the table cool. I noted with some amusement