Mack fell silent and reality slammed into my chest with both feet first.
“Holy hellfire. You didn’t meet him in person first?” I balled my hand into a fist and fought the urge to punch his face. “You’re supposed to vet everyone you send my way.”
Mack suddenly found the grooves of his desk very interesting. “Trust me. He’s on the level.”
Leaning forward, I splayed my hands on his desk. “He’s a vampire, Mack.”
Mack grinned. “What gave it away? The smoldering good looks? The expensive clothes?”
Straightening, I folded my arms and glared at him. “The fangs.” No need to tell Mack I had my own built-in vampire detector. Some secrets were meant to be kept.
Mack fiddled with a pen. “Truth be told I didn’t know I was sending you to work for a vamp and it didn’t occur to me to ask.”
“There was a middleman?”
He nodded.
Strange. Why use a middleman? “Someone you trust, presumably.”
Mack nodded. “When he sets me up with a job, I don’t ask questions.”
“Why send this one to me?”
“Because he asked for a specific set of skills and you were the best equipped for the job.”
“What skills did he specify?”
Mack eyed me closely. “What does it matter? Sounds like you didn’t take the job.”
“Now you’ve got me curious.” I settled in the chair opposite him and rested the heels of my boots on the edge of the desk.
“You know how it works. The information is confidential unless the job is yours.”
“So now I’m out of a job and gossip?” I clucked my tongue. “Mack, you disappoint me.”
Mack dragged a hand through his thinning brown hair. “You really walked out?”
“I really did.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t worry. He won’t blame you. I was clear about how I felt.”
He grimaced. “How clear?”
I ignored the question. “I’ve got a hole in my schedule now. Got anything else for me that doesn’t involve vampires?”
He expelled a breath. “I’ve got a job that’s just come in from Perth. If you want it, it’s yours.”
I pulled a face.
Mack groaned. “Seriously? What’s the problem with Perth?”
“His jobs always end with me doused in bodily fluids. I could spend forty-eight hours in the shower after a Perth job and still feel dirty.”
Mack arched an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”
“There was the dragon in Westminster that was terrorizing the people in a high-rise and someone shot its wing with a crossbow just as I arrived. Who happened to be standing below and got splashed with gooey dragon blood?” I pointed to myself. “That’s right. This girl.”
“But you like animals. They’re kind of your thing.”
“This one was one too angry to be won over and the people attacking it didn’t help matters.”
Mack tossed a file across the desk. “This one involves fluids too. There’s a creature in the Serpentine terrifying families. Last week some kid went on a picnic with his family and almost lost a leg. Thankfully the parents pulled him out in time.”
“Since when does Perth care about the safety of children?”
Mack shrugged. “You know how he is. He owns small companies that own smaller companies. There’s a food stall in Hyde Park and whatever’s in the water is hurting his business.”
I flipped through the file. “Probably a kelpie.”
“That’s my theory.” He tilted his head. “Can I make it official?”
I sighed. “Fine.” I really did need the money and a kelpie wouldn’t pose too much of a challenge.
He winked. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
“As long as you don’t give me a communicable disease.” All these foreign fluids couldn’t be good for my system.
“Not possible if you keep turning down my dinner invitations.”
I smiled. It was a running joke between us that he wanted to date me and I perpetually rejected him. The truth was Mack was happily married to Juanita, but he didn’t want that fact to be common knowledge. In our line of work, loved ones became a target for a vengeful mark. Loved ones also made us vulnerable. The closest I was willing to get to love were my animal companions.
Returning to my feet, I tucked the file under my arm. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
Mack flipped his pen in the air and caught it. “And next time bring me a scone too.”
4
A row of streetlights lined the path to the lake in Hyde Park. It was a good effort, but the faint glow didn’t do much to cut through the gloom in an area like this. Electricity could only do so much and frequent power surges resulted in blackouts. Crime was rampant in certain parts of the city and most residents were smart enough to travel in groups, even for leisurely outings like a picnic. You didn’t stop living your life. You simply crossed your fingers and hoped for the best. Sometimes people got lucky, like the boy who escaped. Sometimes they didn’t.
My mother once told me there was a brief period of time when the park was devoid of life. When the Eternal Night began, people cleared out of the city in droves. For some reason they felt safer in the countryside, which turned out to be a false sense of security.
When the dust literally settled, people thought it was over—that soon life would return to normal, but it was only the beginning. The supervolcanoes had spewed more than ash when they erupted. Soon creatures believed only to exist in storybooks crawled out of the earth’s belly. It was as though the goddess Gaia gave birth to the Titans all over again. It wasn’t until the monsters made their way here from their respective birthplaces that the true horror sank in.
Slowly the population became acclimated and adjusted to the new normal. Signs of life returned to the city and eventually people grew accustomed to perpetual darkness. They even resumed leisure activities, albeit with a heightened sense of awareness. If you wanted to picnic and go for a swim, you had to know there was a chance you wouldn’t be alone in the water.
Despite the afternoon hour, there was no sign of merrymakers or business operators. Word must’ve gotten out that Hyde Park had a monster problem. No wonder Perth was desperate.
Finally the lake came into view. The Serpentine was manmade, created in 1730 by Queen Caroline. It covered forty acres of land between Hyde Park and what was once Kensington Gardens. I spent an inordinate amount of time as a child admiring books in the library that featured gardens. My mother helped fuel that particular obsession. Gardens were a thing of the past unless you were a royal vampire. House Lewis, the ruling vampire family that controlled most of England, also controlled the growth of plants in the region. The House employed a team of witches and wizards whose sole job consisted of using magic to grow plants. Not all magic users possessed the same type of magic, so House Lewis made sure to hire employees with a variety of abilities. Witches with earth magic or water magic worked alongside wizards proficient in spells. The results were closely guarded and highly valuable.
A closer review of the file from Mack made me rethink the kelpie theory. Based on the marks on the boy’s leg and the witness testimony, my money was now on a selkie. Vampires weren’t particularly interested in preventing death by selkie, so it fell to organizations like ours to work on behalf of a client—and that client was usually motived by money rather than altruism, as was the case with Perth. That wasn’t to say vampires did nothing. Bodies of water in the city were treated by magic on a regular basis to keep out harmful bacteria and parasites. Unfortunately the magic wasn’t powerful enough to keep out the kind of creatures that preyed on people.