The Den of Shadows Quartet - Amelia Atwater-Rhodes [122]
Turquoise shrugged. This job was worth too much to turn her back on. Besides, she had never met a vampire she couldn’t beat. “You say get inside,” she inquired, tacitly accepting Jillian’s terms. “How?”
“That’s one of the reasons the job isn’t cheap,” Jillian said, a slight smile on her face. “You’re on your own to get into Midnight. You’ll have to use any means necessary, Turquoise.”
Turquoise knew what Jillian was hinting at. “I need to make a call.”
An hour later, Turquoise found herself in yet another hotel room, this time with a fairly attractive, dark-skinned gentleman three or four hundred years old. It was hard to tell exactly, since in appearance he was twenty-five at the most. As broaching the topic of any vampire’s past could be dangerous at best, Turquoise had never asked.
“Milady Turquoise,” he greeted.
“Nathaniel, always nice to see you,” she responded sincerely. Nathaniel was a vampire, true, and that was not his only flaw; he was also a mercenary and an assassin, as necessity dictated. However, since Turquoise also fit most of those descriptions, she did not hold Nathaniel’s profession against him.
Luckily, Nathaniel’s line thirsted more for money than for blood. If anyone thought it strange that a vampire and a human had a close business relationship, no one had spoken of it. Nathaniel had taught Turquoise most of what she knew. He had taught her what a mercenary was, the value of her talents — among them hunting — and most importantly, where to find buyers for the skills she was willing to sell. He had also once saved her life, not to mention her sanity.
“I don’t suppose this is a social call,” Nathaniel stated. “You on a job?”
She nodded, debating how much she needed to tell him. Though he would offer her a chance to buy his silence, Nathaniel would be willing and able to sell any information she gave him.
“I need to get myself and another woman into Midnight.” The slight widening of Nathaniel’s eyes was the only sign that she had surprised him. “And I need to do it without getting tied up or beaten bloody.”
Nathaniel sighed and leaned back against the wall. “You don’t ask for much, do you, Turquoise?” he said with heavy sarcasm. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
She frowned at the tone of his voice. It was unlike Nathaniel to object to anything someone else was doing, especially if he was likely to get paid for it.
“Will you get us in?”
“I could sell you in,” Nathaniel responded bluntly. His gaze flickered down and up her body, a critical sizing up. “You would fetch a high number, I’m sure. Attractive, healthy, strong, intelligent … or I thought you were. Are you really so anxious to sell yourself back into slavery, Turquoise?”
No. She had been in once; she had no desire to return. However, to return with a knife, as an experienced hunter, was a great deal different than returning unarmed, as the innocent she had once been.
“Is there any other way?”
Nathaniel shook his head, and inventoried her price in a cool tone that sent shivers down her spine. “The scars on your arms will lessen your value by a couple hundred. Unless you would like me to offer you to Daryl? He would pay dearly.”
She recoiled as Nathaniel said her once-master’s name.
Gathering her pride, she stated, “If he’s involved in Midnight, I’m definitely going in. He’s deserved a knife for a long time.”
“You weren’t always so tough, Turquoise,” Nathaniel said softly. He had been the one who had given her the name Turquoise Draka, a new identity to replace the one Lord Daryl had destroyed. He had provided her with contacts to Bruja, and had taught her about fighting back instead of cowering. He had never told her why, and she had never asked. “I’ve seen you pull stunts that left me wondering if you had a death wish. You push yourself hard enough to kill a weaker human, and accept jobs that should be suicide missions just to prove you can handle them.”
She shrugged, and found that her shoulders were painfully tight. “I’ve never lost,