angled fang. “It was amazing. Ooh, this tastes so good. It’s from a young one!”
My liver quivered. “The date?”
“Gary Danko. Have you been there?”
Gary Danko is one of the most exclusive and well-reviewed restaurants in San Francisco. While in most cities, that wouldn’t mean very much, in a town like this one, where amazing food is common in restaurants from the Mission to the Marina, being “the best” was truly a compliment.
And I had never been there. I felt the corners of my lips turn down. “Tell me about it.”
Nina pulled the blood bag away from her lips. “It. Was. Incredible! The ambiance is almost French—and kind of reminds me of this little tiny bistro my father used to take me to, not too far from the house. Anyway, the lighting was soft and beautiful.” Nina fluttered around the kitchen. “And the food—oh, the food! It was to die for.” She wiggled her eyebrows conspiratorially. “Get it?”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the kitchen counter. “You ate food?”
“Well, I had to eat a little.” Nina inched her thumb and forefinger apart. “Enough to throw Harley off, at least. We ordered carpaccio, so I was able to stomach a little of that. The rest I just found ways to hide.”
“You found ways to hide hunks of raw meat—”
“And truffles and caviar. That Harley knows how to order. We even had oysters! We ended off the evening with a nightcap at the Mark Hopkins. I love that place. Harley is staying there all week. They served us petit fours!”
My mouth started to water and I thought about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had scarfed down while sitting on the kitchen counter watching Rachael Ray make coq au vin. I was probably cutting away the tuft of green mold on my Health Nut bread while Nina was hiding two-hundred-dollar-a-scoop caviar.
“Hey. Where did you hide the food?” I wanted to know.
Nina finished her blood bag and tossed the empty into the trash. “I stuffed most of it in my purse.” Another pirouette and she disappeared into her room.
I stood, openmouthed and sadly envious of my best friend. She made the most of her afterlife and I ... Well, I had spent the last four hours of my life in a chenille bathrobe while my dog licked crumbs from my chin.
“Hey!” I said, pounding on Nina’s door. “You borrowed my purse tonight!”
By eight-thirty the next morning, I had polished off my second cup of coffee and had had at least four imaginary conversations with Dixon, where he listened, rapt, to everything I had to say and declared me the head of investigating all the Underworld mishaps with a crew of shirtless men at the ready. So when Dixon actually sauntered into the agency at quarter to nine, I was shaking from a caffeine and sugar rush, and my practiced, impassioned speech sounded like “blahhhhhhh.”
Dixon cocked his head and smiled serenely. “Why don’t you meet me in my office and we can talk further?”
I nodded mutely and followed him. After breathing deeply and allowing my heart to return to a decaffeinated pace, I detailed last night’s events to Dixon, adding extra emphasis to the near stake-to-the-heart encounter.
He furrowed his brow, and wrapped one hand around his chin. “Well, this is very disconcerting.”
I gaped. “Disconcerting? Someone tried to shish kebab me outside of the San Francisco Police Department, Dixon! That’s more than disconcerting, that’s—that’s terrifying!”
Dixon pressed his palms together, pushing his index fingers against his pursed lips. “While I don’t disagree about how frightening your experience last night was, Ms. Lawson—with all due respect—in the last twelve months someone did try to set you on fire, bleed you dry, and frame you for murder.”
“So what you’re saying is nearly being staked through the heart pales in comparison.”
Dixon gave me that thin-lipped, “if the shoe fits” look.
“Fine. My experience aside. Mrs. Henderson. The centaur. Bettina. You can’t honestly tell me that all of these occurrences are just coincidence.”
“Certainly not. But what I can tell you is that as we speak, there is a team of Underworld detectors working on it. So I suggest that you stick to what it is you do best, and let us handle all of this bump-in-the-night stuff.” Dixon’s bloodred lips cut into a sharp smile, which started out placating and ended up menacing. The prickly heat that stiffened my spine last night was back and I edged out of my chair, not blinking or breathing until I was back in the comfort of my own office. I sat in silence. My mind was buzzing like a hive of honeybees, until Kale knocked on my door and poked her head in.
“You have a visitor.”
My heart did a little pitter-patter and my stomach fluttered.
“What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to stop in and check on you. And I brought you these.”
I felt my eyes widen, and felt a tiny prick in the back of my throat. “They’re beautiful.”
“Some are almond, some are plain. Those are dark chocolate.” Will handed me the bouquet of Hershey bars, and my libido and stomach perked up. “Thank you.” I bit my bottom lip. “Hey, I really appreciate your concern, Will, but I don’t need someone looking after me.”
Will sat down, kicking both feet up on my desk. “That might indeed be the case, but some nutter is out there stabbing perfectly good birds in the heart. Who’s to say he won’t come after me next? Safety in numbers, you know? And I can run faster than you.”
“My hero.” I rolled my eyes.
“So ...” Will clapped his hands, looked around. “This is the Underworld Detection Agency.”
I nodded. “It is.”
Will fingered the Post-it notes lined up on my desk, and scanned my bookshelves filled with old college textbooks. “Not all that mystical, is it?”
I shrugged. “What we do isn’t all that mystical.”
We stared at each other for an awkward beat. “So you’re doing okay, after last night? I didn’t want to leave you, but once you started snoring ...”
I felt my cheeks redden. “Oh, thanks for the blanket, by the way.”
“Did you talk to the head vamp about the whole ...” Will made a staking motion with his left hand.
“He didn’t seem all that concerned, but I am. I need to look into this.”
“How about we do it over lunch?”
I cocked my head. “We?”
“I’m not working this week, and there’s nothing good on telly.”
“Let me just buzz Kale and have her bring over the files.”
“Files?” Vlad, in all his Count Chocula glory, poked his head in my office.
“Sophie and I are doing some crime fighting.”
Vlad’s eyebrows went up. “Crime fighting?”
“We’re just looking into some of the incidents that have happened around here. Mrs. Henderson, Bettina ...”
Vlad stiffened and stepped into my office while I buzzed Kale.
“Front desk.”
“Hey, Kale, it’s Sophie. You know how I mentioned that Mrs. Henderson and a few others missed their appointments?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Well, can you pull their files and drop them off in my office, please?”
We all stood in silence, hearing Kale pop her gum on the other end of the intercom.
“Um, now?” I asked.
I heard Kale blow out a put-upon sigh and I would have been sympathetic if a) gathering files wasn’t her job and b) she hadn’t been a witch who had the power to extract files from wherever they were hidden with a simple tug of the ear. And the fact that she had been oozing her near nakedness on my couch, forty-eight hours ago, also took away from my sympathy for the teen witch.
“You can drop them off in my office when you get them together.”
