Uncertainty filled the other woman's eyes, and she turned to Bria, asking her a silent question.
Bria sighed and nodded. "Go ahead, Callie. You can trust her. Gin's . . . used to situations like this. "
I raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm in her voice. Bria snorted and started pacing again.
Callie looked back and forth between the two of us for several seconds before shaking her head and starting her story. "There's this guy named Dekes who wants to buy my restaurant. Pete and Trent work for him, along with several other men. Giants, mostly, private bodyguards, that sort of thing. "
I nodded. I knew exactly the type of muscle she was talking about. Lots of giants in Ashland and beyond hired themselves out as bodyguards to rich folks, since it paid so well. Of course, for those rich folks who dabbled in things that weren't quite legal, the giants acted more as enforcers than bodyguards, which was exactly what I was willing to bet Trent was.
"Anyway, Pete, Trent, and the others have been coming in for a couple of months now, offering me more and more money every time if I'll close down the restaurant and sell out to their boss. Lately, they've gone from being pleasant to what you saw tonight. Tough. Threatening. Violent. "
"And your arm?" I asked in a quiet voice.
Callie sighed. "It was something of an accident. I told Pete to leave, and he shoved past me to get to the bar. I stumbled and hit my arm. "
"But Pete didn't exactly apologize, now, did he?" I asked.
Callie didn't say anything.
"Wait a second," Bria said. "Did you say Dekes? As in Randall Dekes?"
Callie nodded. Bria cursed and quickened her pacing, moving from one end of the bar to the other with sharp, precise movements.
"I take it you've heard of him?" I asked my sister.
She nodded. "Unfortunately. He's a real estate mogul and developer who's had a home here for more than a century. Remember all the mansions and shopping centers that we drove by today? Dekes built all of those. "
"He's practically bought up the whole island," Callie added in a soft voice. "He plans to build a big resort complex on Blue Marsh - a casino, golf courses, spas, restaurants, the whole nine yards. It'll put everything else on the island to shame and probably out of business as well. There were a few initial holdouts like me, but everyone else has sold out to him already. "
"Why?" Bria asked. "Because of the money he was offering for their property?"
Callie nodded. "That and the fact that there have been some . . . accidents. Vandalism, mostly. Another business owner was beaten up pretty badly one night when his store was robbed. "
Accidents. Right.
"Where is Dekes going to build this resort?" I asked.
"He's adding it on to the Blue Sands hotel. " Callie held her hands out wide. A brittle smile tightened her face. "According to the plans that I've seen, we're sitting in the middle of the main floor of his casino. He's supposed to break ground on construction in two weeks, but he's having a press conference tomorrow at the Blue Sands to formally announce the project. He owns the hotel, and his mansion adjoins the grounds. "
Bria let out another curse, one that was longer and louder than all the ones she'd muttered so far. I eyed her. My sister wasn't much for swearing, not like I was, and it took a lot to get her riled up. Usually, only Finn could ruffle her feathers like this.
"There's more, isn't there?" I asked her.
There always was in situations like this one.
"Real estate isn't all that Dekes is into," Bria said. "I started investigating him just before I left to go back to Ashland. Extortion, intimidation, gambling, prostitution, murder. He's got quite a racket going, and his hands are in practically every legal and illegal business on the island. And it's not just here. He has interests up and down the East Coast, from the Outer Banks of North Carolina all the way south to Key West. "
"In other words, Randall Dekes is the Mab Monroe of Blue Marsh," I said.
Bria nodded. "Only he hides it a lot better than she did. He's buddy-buddy with all the local politicians, gives money to the fire and police departments, sponsors kids' sports teams, things like that. He's a very slick salesman that way. He also happens to be a very old and very powerful vampire. Some folks say that he has elemental magic too, although I don't know if that's true or not. "
Despite all the popular myths and stories out there, vampires were born, not made, just like everyone else was. They had heartbeats, breathed air, and could walk around in the sun just as easily as I could. Vamps could wear as much silver as they wanted, and garlic didn't do any more than give them bad breath or the occasional case of indigestion.
Just about the only myth that was true when it came to vampires was that they all needed blood to live, in addition to more mundane food. To them, sucking down a pint of O-positive was just like regular humans chowing down on a steak. Animal blood would do in a pinch, but most vamps preferred people blood, and there were dedicated vampire blood banks that paid folks very well to come by and donate as often as they could. The blood banks then turned around and distributed all those precious pints like cartons of milk, with a slight markup, of course.
The twist was that vampires got more than just nutrition from blood, depending on whose platelets they were dining on. Regular old human blood was enough to give most vampires enhanced senses, extra strength, and lightning-fast reflexes. It was when they drank from other magic users that things got really interesting.
A vampire who chugged down the blood of a dwarf or giant would take on characteristics of those races and become just as strong as dwarves and giants naturally were - at least until the blood cycled out of the vamp's system like food moving through a human's body. Vampires who drank blood from elementals got the ability to use that person's power, whether it was Air, Fire, Ice, Stone, or one of the offshoots of those areas, like electricity, acid, water, or metal. And of course some vamps were elementals themselves - they had the inherent magic flowing through their veins already, just like Bria and I did.