“Okay,” Tyler replied, and then I could no longer see him as he was swallowed up by the crowd surrounding the bar.
Chapter Five
We had an hour before I was supposed to offer myself up to Charlie at the Columbia Hotel. Holden seemed inclined towards spending this time scolding me for not bailing out of my date with Tyler sooner. I reminded him he’d been the one who told me I shouldn’t cancel in the first place. That silenced him for the short term.
My thoughts were otherwise occupied. I hadn’t brought any weapons with me, with the exception of a small silver switchblade I had hidden in a garter holster beneath my dress. The weapon was designed so it was safe for me to hold, with a spiffy mother-of-pearl handle.
Unfortunately it was meant for protection, not as an offensive weapon. And since Charlie was being careful to stay in well-populated, human-heavy areas, there was no way for me to get away with using a gun.
We were going to need to stop so I could get something different. Since both my apartment and Keaty’s office were west, and the Columbia was comfortably nestled in Midtown East next to Bryant Park, I was going to need to do a little shopping. I wouldn’t have enough time to get home and back before the rendezvous.
Ignoring Holden’s sulky silence, I steered us towards Koreatown and looked for the most brightly lit, kitschy tourist trap I could find.
Unlike Canal Street, where every other store was designed for the sole purpose of taking your money, Koreatown was smaller, more insular and less inviting to Ma and Pa Missouri. Blessedly, a few stores bucked the trend, and even after eleven at night one enterprising shopkeeper was still open. And judging by the stuf
fed Hello Kitty in the window, he was just what I was looking for.
A smart Korean novelty shop in New York knows exactly how to rip off tourists who assume all Asian cultures are the same. By carrying a little of everything, they could cater to every whim and reap the financial gains of other people’s ignorance.
Inside, the shop smelled like incense and spice. One wall was crammed full of children’s toys, from plush animals to Chinese kites. Racks of Oriental fans and paper-thin bamboo umbrellas overwhelmed the aisles, and on the facing wall was every conceivable color of kimono.
Towards the back of the store, behind a beaded curtain, a shriveled Asian man peered out at me with inky black eyes. In that moment it became clear why the shop was so cloying with spicy smells. This man wasn’t human, and the smell of decay coming off him would be noticeable to even the most mundane nose. Humans would pass it off as body odor, but I knew better.
He was a lesser fae of some kind. I was betting on ogre, based on the smell, but from what I knew of the fae, most ogres preferred to destroy things rather than keep nice, tidy stores.
I shrugged off the question. It didn’t matter what kind of fae he was, because he had what I needed inside the glass cabinets at the back of the store.
I moved with determined focus towards the man, Holden trailing behind, and when he saw what I was after in the cases, his reaction said it all.
“Ohhhh. ” His eyebrows went up in surprise before he caught himself and returned to his typical aloofness.
The fae-Korean shopkeeper had been kind enough to stock a limited but functional selection of Japanese katana swords.
“That one. ” I tapped the glass above a black-sheathed katana, inlaid at the hilt with the pattern of a phoenix. It wasn’t the design that made me choose it—the cherry blossom one was prettier—but rather it had the longest blade of the bunch.
Reach counts for a lot when you’re five-foot-four and fighting a six-foot-tall vampire.
The old man eyed me but wisely said nothing. He must have known I was on to him. He pulled it out, and where the blade met the hilt, it was engraved with gold dragons. I took back my earlier assessment; it was the prettiest after all.
“Five hundred,” he announced, his words clipped and his voice rumbling with something that wasn’t an accent. If I could see through the shroud of magic hiding his true form, I was betting he was huge. Only something with a big lung capacity could growl their words the way he did. Now I was more certain than ever he was an ogre.
I unsheathed the blade, all twenty-eight inches of hand-folded steel, and the sword sang to me of age and violence. I plopped my credit card on the counter and thanked all the half-gods I knew it wasn’t declined, because I already had the weapon slung over my back.
“Let’s go kill a vampire, shall we?”
If the old man understood me, he didn’t seem to care.
The Columbia was one of several upscale hotels that popped up around New York from time to time. This one was owned by the Rain family and had been designed around the concept of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The walls were lined with redwood tree trunks, and light was filtered through dappled green sconces to give the impression of sunlight through tree leaves. The lobby floor was Plexiglas over river rock, with fresh water flowing under guests’ feet. Instead of music there was the ambient noise of babbling water and birds.
It made the wolf in me very, very happy.
My vampire half, on the other hand, was suspicious of even fake sunlight.
I’d managed to convince an off-duty bike messenger to sell me his empty travel tube, which hid the katana perfectly. It’s amazing what you can get when you show a little cleavage. Or offer to pay twice the value of what something is worth.
Now I was carrying a concealed weapon and brimming with murderous intent. I’d missed a call from Tyler while negotiating with the bike messenger, and since we’d already reached the hotel, I couldn’t call him back. What could I say if I did? Sorry, Detective, I need to kill someone quickly, but once that’s done, can we get to the smooching?
I doubt he’d appreciate that.