A small flash of amusement shone through the blanket of sadness that seemed to muffle the light in Guthrie’s eyes most of the time.
“I guess so,” he allowed. “Though god knows what other kinds of therapy you’ll need after spending any appreciable amount of time with this fucker.”
“Charming,” Rans said. “Do you kiss your business associates with that mouth?”
“Not generally,” Guthrie replied, unperturbed. “Are you hungry, Miss Bright? If so, there’s a plate made up in the fridge.”
“Call me Zorah,” I said. “And thanks. Yeah, I could definitely eat.”
Guthrie waved me over to the stainless steel monstrosity of a refrigerator. “Help yourself. Ninety seconds in the microwave should do it.”
I retrieved and heated the food, trying not to think too hard about the other meal that had just taken place in this room. The plate held scalloped potatoes, steamed vegetables with a light sauce, and what looked like... duck breast?
“Wow,” I said, my stomach rumbling.
Guthrie grabbed some silverware out of a drawer, and set it next to the plate along with a napkin. I dug in.
“This is delicious,” I told him after swallowing a bite of crispy duck skin flavored with orange. I pointed the tines of my fork at him, and then at Rans. “So, tell me how you two know each other. How did you meet?”
“Through a mutual acquaintance, I suppose you’d say,” Guthrie replied. “Ransley here has a penchant for collecting human casualties of the war.”
“Not just human ones,” Rans said under his breath.
Guthrie shrugged acknowledgement. “True.”
“The war,” I echoed around a mouthful of potatoes. “You mean the one that supposedly put people like Caspian Werther in charge of things?”
FIFTEEN
“YUP,” GUTHRIE SAID. “Not that the other side winning would have been all that much of an improvement.
And there it was... a trace of the kind of bitterness that belonged with such a beaten-down demeanor. Rans’ face was still, giving nothing away, but I sensed a degree of tension from him that hadn’t been there before.
Of course, that meant I had to pick at the scab a bit more. “Oh? Who’s on the other side, then?”
“Demons,” Guthrie said.
Okay, that was a bit awkward... assuming I was buying into the whole succubus thing, which I wasn’t ready to commit to quite yet.
“Right,” I said slowly. “Demons. And Werther and his bunch are... what? Angels? Because if so, angels suck and I was sold a lie when I was growing up.”
“No. Your good friend Caspian is Fae,” Rans said. “Unseelie Fae, to be specific. If angels still exist, they don’t seem to have any interest in the mortal plane these days.”
“Fae? As in... faeries? You realize how all this sounds, don’t you?” I asked, my eyes moving between them. “All right, then. So... demons and faeries. Where do vampires come into all of this?”
Rans’ tension returned. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a clue, luv,” he said, the careless tone at odds with the tight line of his shoulders.
I looked to Guthrie for some kind of explanation, but he shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I’m just a lowly human. I get all this shit delivered secondhand.” He eyed Rans. “If you’re all set with the ID and credit card accounts, I’m turning in now. Some of us still have to be at work in the morning.”
Rans gave a short nod. “Sure. I’ll contact you next time I’m in the area, and you can collect on that lunch. I’ll leave the bike here out of sight, if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Guthrie said.
“Thank you,” I said as he rose and rolled his sleeve down. “For the food, and... well... everything.”
He hooked half a smile in my direction, but it didn’t make a dent on the sadness he carried around like an invisible weight. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “Take care of yourself, Zorah—I’m sorry you got caught up in this mess.”
“Back at you,” I said, though I still had no idea how Guthrie was involved in any of this, beyond being Rans’ friend.
He disappeared through the archway and into the depths of the sprawling apartment, waving the words off carelessly as he went. I turned my attention back to the vampire across from me.
“Finish your duck,” he said.
I nodded and got back to eating before the plate got cold again. “What did he mean about IDs and credit card accounts?” I asked.
“That’s why we came here. Guthrie has an obscene amount of money, along with an obscene number of useful contacts.” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “For the next however long, you are JoAnne Reynolds from Crystal City, Missouri, and I’m your husband, John.”
A manila envelope slid across the table to me. I put down my knife and fork so I could open it, revealing a driver’s license, a passport, and a credit card, all in the same fake name. The photo on the ID was of a light-skinned, mixed race woman who looked superficially similar to me.
I looked up, meeting blue eyes. “That accent of yours doesn’t exactly say southeast Missouri, you know.”
“Hush your mouth,” he said, in a passable impression of an American Midwest drawl. “Not that it matters, really. Easy enough to make people forget to worry about it.” The last was delivered in his more familiar English accent.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this,” I said.
His eyes never wavered from mine. “You’re a loose thread, Zorah Bright. I have a bad habit of pulling on those, just to see what happens. Does the thread come free, or does the entire jumper unravel?”
I stared right back. “And what happens to the thread afterward?”
“With luck, it has a better future than it would have had if Golden Boy and his cronies had taken a pair of scissors to it.”
I considered that for a moment. “Fair point,” I mumbled, remembering the moment of absolute clarity I’d experienced as Werther’s goons had shoved me toward the open door of the black Mercedes.
A fate worse than death.
That blue gaze looked right through me, seeing
