“Hey, guys,” I said, striving for airiness. “So, Len? You and Rans already know each other, obviously. And... this is Guthrie Leonides. Guthrie... Len Grayson.”
“Nice to meet you,” Guthrie said. “Though if you’d like some free advice from someone who knows what he’s talking about, you should run while you still have the chance.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Len agreed. “Honestly, though, its a bit late for that now.” He tipped a nod at Rans. “Hey, Bela Lugosi. Drained any good necks lately?”
A smile tugged at one corner of Rans’ lips, despite his general air of tension. “Several, yes. Nice of you to come, by the way. How’s your young man with the red hair faring these days?”
I didn’t miss the small flinch Len gave at the question, but he shrugged it off a moment later. “Eh. You know how it is. No lingering effects from being shot in the gut, at least.”
There was something lurking underneath the studiously casual words, but Rans didn’t appear to be in any mood to pursue it.
“Well, I did try to tell you there wouldn’t be,” he said mildly, ignoring the side-eyed look Guthrie threw him. “So. To business. There are two or three things I need taken care of, and I’m not really in a position to leave the penthouse for an extended period of time and do them myself. Do you have that little sedan from last time with you?”
Again, I felt more than saw Len’s flinch.
“No, I... picked up an old Lincoln Continental a few weeks ago. Not pretty, but it runs. Why?”
“As long as it will fit multiple people and some bags, the looks are immaterial,” Rans said. “But before we worry about leaving, I’ll need you to purchase some basic toiletries and clothing for Zorah. After which, I’m hoping you know of a private club or sex party taking place in the area tonight.”
Guthrie made a sort of cut-off choking sound.
Len just stared. “You realize... that whole clubbing thing didn’t go so well for you last time, Bela. Are you even being serious right now?”
“As a heart attack,” Rans said, adding, “which... probably wasn’t the most sensitive metaphor I could have come up with under the circumstances, admittedly,” under the force of Guthrie’s glare.
I sighed. “Here’s the deal, Len. You remember when you asked me last time, I told you that I was mostly human, right? But one of my grandparents was a demon. Well, to be more specific, he was a sex demon. Which means that I, as a human/sex demon hybrid, have to periodically feed off other people’s sexual energy, or else I get really sick and weak. Hence, the real reason we were at the fetish club where we ran into you and Tris a few weeks ago.”
Len stared at me with a decidedly strange expression on his face.
“I did say you should have run for the hills when you had the chance,” Guthrie muttered.
Rans took up the thread. “Quite so. Anyway, the practical upshot is this. I need Zorah topped up on succubus sex juice before we leave for wherever we end up deciding to go. You’re a shibari enthusiast. You also have connections in the St. Louis kink scene, and to top it all off, you’re constitutionally incapable of appreciating Zorah’s exceptional attributes on a primal level. All of which makes you the perfect person to go with her.”
“I... can’t believe I’m really having this conversation,” Len said.
“I can’t believe I’m stuck in the same room as people having this conversation,” Guthrie added.
“I can’t believe my seven-hundred-year-old vampire boyfriend couldn’t come up with a less humiliating way to have this conversation,” I muttered, glaring at him.
“Sugar-coating never helped anyone,” Rans said calmly.
“Right,” I told him. “Except for anyone who’s had to swallow a bitter pill in the history of ever.” I turned to Len and hooked my arm through his. “Len. Come on—enough of the sex stuff. You’re taking me shopping with someone else’s money now. We’ll talk about the rest of it while we’re out.”
“Um...” Len said, looking down at my hand on his arm with a deer-in-the-headlights expression.
I checked that I still had the untraceable credit card Guthrie had given me in the pocket of my sleep shorts, and steered Len toward the door, shooting Rans a final look as I did. He only raised an eyebrow and said, “You two crazy kids have fun, now,” in the sort of tone that made me want to punch him.
I contented myself with flipping him off, but he only flashed a brief leer at me in return. It looked forced. He was still way more worried by our circumstances than he was letting on, I knew.
We rode the elevator down to the underground garage in silence. When we got there, Len’s car was... wow.
Back when I’d been a kid, there were still a fair number of these late-seventies-early-eighties land yachts on the road. Today, not many of them were still running. The car was your standard ‘smaller rectangle set on top of a bigger rectangle’ design, with sharp corners and miles of hood in front of the windshield.
It had also been a pimp car at some point, with tricked-out wheels and a coat of pearlescent red paint that I was pretty confident didn’t come from the factory. The thing was so old that even its second career in the prostitution industry had happened long enough ago for rust to start creeping across the bodywork.
“Are those... bullet holes?” I asked tentatively, tilting my head to get
