The Games of Enemies and Allies (Magic on Main Street, #2; Magiford Supernatural City #14)
K. M. Shea
CHAPTER
ONE
Jade
“By the scenery in this café, am I to assume you have aspirations to become what the humans refer to as a cat lady in your dotage?” Connor’s rich voice floated over the top of a bookcase.
I looked up from the cat I was petting—a beautiful, pristine white feline who was stretched out on a plush bed arranged in a nook of the second to lowest shelf on the bookcase—and stood up. “I like the cats, but don’t forget we’re here for you. You said you had to have a blood pack, and this was the nearest location that sold them. You got one?”
Connor was so tall even his shoulders were visible over the bookshelves, so he kept eye contact with me—his vampire-red eyes were hypnotic in the low light of the café/bookstore that was Cat Tails—as he strolled around it. When he was on my side of the case, he held up the snack-sized pouch of blood he’d purchased. “Consider me satiated.”
Instead of using the straw that was stuck to the blood pouch, Connor pierced the package with a fang tooth. Then he folded the pouch over to the spot he’d pierced and sucked it out with more finesse than was fair considering that I would have spilled my drink everywhere if I’d tried something similar.
“Did you want anything?” Connor looked back at the small counter.
“Nah, I still have my smoothie.” I held up the travel mug that contained today’s green sludge-like smoothie. The flavor was peach-carrot. (I was not the best cook. Or any kind of cook. But I had mastered the art of making smoothies for survival.)
Connor made a gagging noise. “That dreck hardly counts as edible.”
I took another swig—it was a little gritty since my blender had failed to pulverize all the shredded carrots. “It doesn’t taste so bad. I added honey today, so I can’t even taste the spinach.”
“Oh yeah, that’s really selling it.” Connor managed to look ridiculously handsome even while scoffing—a vampire trait. Being good looking, I mean, not scoffing. “Do you want anything that is actually pleasant to consume?”
I glanced at the chalkboard menu, considering the offer.
Cat Tails only sold the basics—coffee, lots of tea for fae, and water, with a few bakery items, salads, and sandwiches. The food was good, and it was the closest supernatural-focused eating place to the Curia Cloisters, so it was popular with wizards—and more recently, fae.
It was more bookstore than café, but I still loved it for the papery smell of new books, the maze-like arrangement of stuffed bookshelves and cat towers/beds, the dramatic gold and green striped wallpaper, and—admittedly—the cats.
“I’m good,” I said. “I’m going to wait here. I got a text while you were ordering. Sunshine—a friend from work—is going to stop by and walk with me to the Cloisters for work.”
Connor placed a hand over his heart and staggered backwards in dramatized shock. “You actually have work friends?”
I nodded. “Miracles do happen. Sunshine has the patience of a saint. She was willing to listen as I stammered my way through our first few conversations together until I got to know her. It’s tough work for both parties, but I can make friends.”
“I was aware of that.” Connor sucked down the last of the blood in his snack pack, then crumpled the packaging in one hand. “You have me after all. In all possible ways.”
I cocked my head and squinted, trying to make sense of him. “I assume that’s your vampire need for mystery that’s making you talk oddly?”
“It’s true,” Connor said. “As time passes, we vampires don’t age. Instead, we grow insipid or raving mad.” He slipped a hand into the pocket of his navy-blue trench coat.
With his black dress pants and white undershirt, his perpetual five-o-clock shadow, and his olive-toned skin, he looked more like somebody who would get scouted by a street photographer than a vampire.
Vampires usually favored fashion from past eras, spanning everything from petticoat breeches a la Europe in the 1600s to the wide-legged pants and the red colored handkerchief of historic gauchos in Argentina. (You could tell a lot about a vamp based on the kind of clothes they favored, which was why I’d spent multiple years learning historical fashion from my family as part of my slayer training.)
It was Connor’s clothing choices and his relatively modern way of speaking that marked him as a newer vampire—which was surprising, considering he lived in my human-owned apartment building, and young vampires were rarely allowed outside their Families since it was so hard to turn humans and create new vampires these days.
“It’s not nice to criticize your elders,” I said. “Do you want to stick around and meet her or do you have to head out?”
Connor’s dark hair was so luxurious it seemed to shine under the bookstore’s fluorescent lighting. “As much as it pains me to admit it, I should be going. There are boring people to meet and greet, when I wish they’d just skip off. Have fun at work.” He chuckled, amused at some private joke I didn’t get—he’d been doing that a lot lately, which did make me wonder if the typical vampire bewilderment of social niceties was starting to set in.
I gave the white cat one last appreciative pet, her white fur silky soft on my fingertips, then followed Connor as he made his way through the maze of bookshelves heading toward the front of the store.
“Have a good night,” I said. “I hope you enjoyed the boardwalk?”
“Every moment.” Connor’s smile was extra big as he tossed his empty blood pack into a garbage can.
Earlier in the afternoon I’d dragged Connor onto the wooden walkway that cradled a good portion of the two lakes that squashed against Main Street.
As he was a vampire, it had been asking quite a bit of him since that meant we were out and about while the sun shone—the sun drastically weakened vampires, which was why they were nocturnal creatures.
“Goodbye, Snack.” Another smirk and Connor leaned in, briefly wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
My slayer senses sounded the alarm that a vampire was so close but Connor was my friend, so I brushed the concern off. Besides, by the time I raised a hand to pat his back, Connor was already slipping away sauntering out the door and disappearing into the cool, gusty afternoon.
Yeah, he definitely still has the vampire propensity for dramatics.
I took another swig of my smoothie, finishing it off, then wandered toward one of the high-top tables to wait for Sunshine.
When I sat down at the table, easing into the tall, wooden seat, I picked up the day-old newspaper a previous customer had left behind.