"So, we're going in there blind?" I gaped at her and then shook my head. "How did you even find out about this place?"
"Why? So you can go tell your boyfriends?" Tristan hissed from beside Mizuki.
Mizuki held her hand up, quieting him. "How we get our information is none of your concern. Your job is to help us kill vampires."
"Bad vampires," I corrected her. "Yeah. None of the humans here have been forced to do anything they don't want to do. They want to be here."
"And how do you know that?" Tristan snarled at me. "I bet you and your boyfriends come here all the time. Just rip open a vein and go to town."
"You don't know what you're talking about," I bit out through clenched teeth.
"Enough, both of you." Mizuki looked between the two of us and flicked her long black braid over her shoulder. "You're right. We don't have any information about this place. That's why we need you."
I jerked my eyes away from Tristan and frowned at her. "Me? What am I supposed to do?"
"You're a human servant. Surely, you can enter here without there being any suspicion?" Mizuki questioned, arching a perfectly shaped brow. "Perhaps, even draw some of them out so we can even the odds."
I gaped at her and took a step back. "But you don't even know what vampires are in there. You can't just kill them all."
Mizuki's hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, keeping me from moving further away. "This is what we do, Piper. We hunt vampires. This place is full of them. There's no such thing as a good vampire. They're just showing you the best parts of themselves. Underneath all those pretty faces are monsters. All of them."
I ripped my arm from her grasp and glared at her. "I don't believe that." I tried to turn away and leave, but Mizuki's voice stopped me.
"Are you backing out on your part of the deal?"
"What?" I slowly turned back around. "What did you say to me?"
She kept those dark orbs on me, her gaze hardened and cold. "Just tell me now so I can let the President know that Durand is back on the menu." The hunters behind her tittered with unreleased hostility. "They want them, you know. Just because we stopped hunting them doesn't mean that our blood doesn't still sing to find them. All it would take is one word and -" She drew her finger across her throat, her lips curling into a smile.
I let out a hard laugh, staring at the lot of them. "You call yourself the good guys, but from where I'm standing, you're just as bad as those you hunt or worse. At least, they don't pretend they're something they’re not."
"I need your answer, Piper. Are we hunting Durands tonight?" Mizuki provoked me, her tongue tracing her teeth as if she could taste them right now.
I pushed down all my anger and outrage and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I snapped, "Fine. Wait here."
"Wait, how do we know she's not going in there to warn them?" Bishop asked, his eyes locked on me.
Mizuki never looked away from me as she said, "She won't. Not if she wants to keep her precious Durands alive."
I shook my head in disbelief and turned away. How had I ended up in this mess? I should have just killed them all rather than striking a bargain with them. Now there was an idea. Realizing how bloodthirsty I sounded, I pushed the thought away and focused on what was in front of me.
Slipping out of my gun holster, I handed it to Mizuki.
"What are you doing?" She took the guns from me and held them as if they were babies.
"They'd never let me in the front door with all my weapons," I explained, removing the knives on my wrists. The one in my boot I kept because they couldn't see it, but all my visible weapons had to be gone. "I'll be wanting those back." Without another word, I walked away from them and into the nearby entrance of Club Dead.
The music pounded in my veins the same way it had the first time I'd been at the club. The long narrow hallway wasn't quite as ominous as it had been before. It gave me time to compose myself as I made my way into the club. I didn't know what I would do to fulfill Mizuki's request. It wasn't like I knew that many vampires. I couldn't just pick up a few and ask them to leave with me...could I?
In the central area of the club, the dance floor was packed to the brim. Vampires and their pets, dates, whatever they were calling their human companions, writhed against one another. Though most of the vampires kept their feeding to the booths and couch areas set up around the club, some didn't wait for privacy, sinking their fangs into their dates right there on the dance floor.
Thankfully, I didn't have to wait to find someone to trick into their untimely death. A pair of vampires, men, approached me just then.
The first one was taller than me by almost a foot, his eyes hungry as they swept over my form and settled on my neck. He was bald and had a crooked nose. I wondered if it had been broken when he was human. He flashed his fangs at me and reached a hand out to touch my face. I almost jerked away and then remembered why I was here.
"What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?"
I offered him a flirty smile, lowering my lashes and then peering up at him from beneath them. "Just looking for someone to party with."