Will looked at his feet, then up at me again. “Well, that’s good, because I lov—”
His voice was drowned out by the sound of horns honking as a woman zigzagged her way across the street, making a direct path through the cars for Will and me. She grinned when she crested the curb in front of me, a wide, thrilled smile that cut across her wrinkled face and pushed up her ruddy cheeks. She reached out and wound her fingers through my hair, still smiling.
Everything inside me told me to bolt, to put distance between this crazy woman and me, but I couldn’t. My legs were leaden and I was rooted. Her eyes raked over me and finally locked on mine—hers a filmy, water blue.
“He’s been looking for you for a long time, Sophie. He’s been looking and he’s so happy that he’s finally found you. It’s only a matter of time, now.”
I pulled back, stunned. “Who’s found me? Who are you?”
Immediately, the smile dropped from the woman’s lips and they went to a tight purse. She stepped back from me as if I had burned her and yanked her hand out of my hair, breaking a few strands as she did so.
“Get away from me,” she said, her voice sour, her eyes frightened. “I don’t know you. Get away from me!”
She reeled backward, then was swallowed up by the crowd. She was gone, but her voice kept swirling in my head: He’s been looking for you for a long time, Sophie. He’s been looking and he’s so happy that he’s finally found you. It’s only a matter of time, now. Only a matter of time . . .
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of the next installment of Hannah Jayne’s Underworld Detection Agency Chronicles coming soon from Kensington Publishing!
I could feel the cold stripe of fear going up my spine-like icy fingers walking slowly up vertebra after vertebra.
“Is she dead?” The voice was a faint whisper but it throbbed through my head, singeing the ache that was already there.
“Maybe we should go.”
I hoped that they would. I prayed that they would. I remained as still as possible, breath barely trembling through my body, willing my heart to thrum silently because I knew that vampires can hear everything. Every little whisper, every little thought. Please go, please go, I pleaded silently.
And then the icy breath was at my ear. “Sophie!”
Now the voice was incredibly loud and I jumped straight up until the tops of my thighs mashed against the underside of my desk. I missed the chair coming back down and flopped unceremoniously onto my ass.
“What do you want?” I glowered, rubbing my tailbone and seeing Nina and Kale through narrowed dagger-eyes.
“Were you asleep?” Kale asked, cocking her head so that her newly pink hair brushed against her cheek.
I pressed the pads of my fingertips against my temples, making small circles. My head kept aching. “I was trying to. I have a headache.”
Nina rolled her eyes and hopped up onto the corner of my desk, her tiny butt and weightless body not making a sound. “Are you still trying to claim PTSD for the whole back to school thing? It’s over, all right? You closed up the hell mouth or whatever, and never even had to wear the school uniform.”
“What do you guys want?”
Nina whipped out a nail file from I-don’t-know-where and began working on her right hand. She blew a bubble from the wad of gum she was chewing and after twelve years with Nina LaShay as my co-worker, roommate, and best friend, I’ll never get comfortable seeing a vampire blow purple Hubba Bubba bubbles. It just looks weird.
“I’m hiding out from Vlad. He’s got an all-fangs-on-deck VERM meeting and I have much better things to do than sit in a stuffy conference room with a bunch of dead guys talking about ascots and their graveyard dirt and glory days.”
I grinned despite the nap interruption. The Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement (or VERM, for short), was Vlad’s baby. Vlad, Nina’s 16-slash-113-year-old nephew, my boss, Kale’s paramour, and the roommate who would never leave, pushed the movement that sought to restore vampires back to their broody, Count Dracula countenance and insisted its adherents wear fashions that Nina couldn’t abide by. She was a member by virtue of being a vampire and being Vlad’s aunt, but she studiously avoided their meetings.
“And I came in to tell you that Sampson wants to see you.”
I straightened, my heart dropping into my stomach. Pete Sampson, resident werewolf and head of the Underworld Detection Agency, wanting to see me could only mean one of two things: I was fired, or yet another mysterious, gory, and seemingly supernatural murder had happened within San Francisco’s seven square miles.