“Does it matter now?” She wasn’t denying it.
“It matters to me. It matters to Holden. ”
“Is that because Holden matters to you?” Rebecca seemed genuinely curious.
“Yes. ” I let my face show nothing.
“How interesting. ”
“Tell me. ” I was barely touching my seat, I had shuffled so far forward. She sat up, mirroring my stance, and looked me right in the eyes. Her smile flashed fang.
“Your warden could not have done what they say he has done. ”
“What do they say he did?”
“In our council, a council you now count yourself a member of, there are some who need to be protected. Their safety is a priority to us all, because they know secrets or are keepers of power we cannot allow to be risked. ”
I nodded, but I was still a few mental steps behind her.
“The council, we have something akin to your human world’s witness protection. Only ours has always worked. Until recently. ”
“What changed?”
“Failure…is death. ”
“They were killed?”
“Not all, non. But two elders this year were, and another three last year. These were old vampires, well protected, who believed the council would protect them above all else. Protect them even from ourselves. And we failed them. ”
“And Holden is supposed to have killed them?”
“Apparently. ” But her tone told me she didn’t believe it for a second.
“Why don’t you think he did it?”
“I know he did not because he would never have had access to their locations. He was not powerful enough or trusted enough to be given those details. We would have been fools indeed to give the locations of our protected elders to the warden responsible for our council’s assassin. ”
“Bounty hunter,” I said, but felt stupid for it because both of us knew what my real job was.
“Your title is irrelevant, Secret. You are paid handsomely and your prey does not
come back alive. You are feared, but not respected. And because of that, Holden was not respected. You made an easy target of a good man. ”
I choked back the swell of guilt threatening to eat me alive.
“Holden was always loyal to the council,” I defended.
“And what a great lot of good his loyalty got him in the end. ”
I left the booth feeling flustered and burdened, with enough time to see Nolan disappearing up the staircase with a slight, blonde vampire. Just my luck. I strode across the floor, giving the bartender an accusatory glare on my way. She shrugged, but on her face I could see smug satisfaction wrestling with uncertain worry. That look told me everything. She was glad Nolan was away from me, his keeper, but she was worried he was out of the frying pan and into the fire.
There was no sign of them in the hallway, so I took the stairs two at a time back up to the main foyer. The gatekeeper was gone. I ran into the alley and was slapped by a wave of hot air. I breathed in through my nose, hoping to get Nolan’s scent while it was still fresh.
A sound at the mouth of the alley drew my attention, and I followed it, running down to the street and skidding to a halt under a streetlight. Nolan was backed against the brick wall, a blonde vampire latched on to his neck. At his sides his hands hung limp, and his eyelids were open so I could see the whites of his eyes from where they had rolled back into his head.
A thin trail of blood ran down his neck, but he looked for all the world like he was having the most pleasurable experience of his life.
“That’s enough,” I whispered.