Located down a back alley, the doorway was invisible beyond steam clouds puffing out from the active kitchens.
It was an unassuming, paint-peeling black door, and one where you had to know to remove the loose third brick along on the wall to the right of it to access the latch that would open it.
Miller and Degard were sat in their usual places behind the door, playing cards at the table. Without an appointment, Nate knew he wasn’t going to get in via any other means. Neither had time to reach for their guns that had rested on the table before Nate tranquillised each in the chest, knocking them both out cold before taking the keys from the table and unlocking the next door directly ahead.
At the end of the corridor, the guy instantly rose from playing on his phone. He removed his gun in preparation, making it even more important that Nate kept his strides casual and calm in order to keep his guard down until he got close enough.
And the closer he got, the more he could hear the music blaring from within. A genre of music that assured him the one he wanted was in.
He took the last obstacle out of the way in one more accurate tranquillising shot to his chest before opening the door.
Thrash metal echoed around the recesses, a tinging sound resonating in the air as it bounced around the plethora of pipework that dominated the space.
It had once been a maintenance room. Now nothing flowed through the pipes and nothing sparked on the switchboards. Now it was her office: a room as dark and grimy as her profession: one of the best and most skilled bullet creators in the locale. She was an artist as much as she was an engineer. And she worked for whoever paid the right price which meant, like him, she had no loyalty to anyone but herself. She called herself an entrepreneur. He’d called her worse things during sex – and she him.
She was sitting on a stool at her workstation, her back to him, her feet flat on the floor in her calf-length black boots that kept rhythm with the music. Her legs were spread as she worked, giving him full sight of her dusky thighs, her khaki shorts clinging temptingly into the curves of her full, rounded arse that he’d been up close and personal with in many an illegal way.
Her mass of dark hair was bunched up on top of her head, perspiration trickling down the back of her neck from the humidity of the room and escaping into the back of her vest top.
He grabbed a stool from under one of the pipes and placed it directly behind her as she continued to hum to herself, pouring the liquid she had just finished melting into the line of bullet shells.
Spreading his thighs either side of hers as he sat behind her, he knotted his fingers in her hair as he simultaneously placed his blade to her throat.
Daisy was always quick to act and it would have taken her a split-second to smash her head back into his nose if the blade hadn’t been there.
‘Visor off and hands flat on the table,’ he instructed against her ear. ‘Fingers spread.’
‘Nate?’ Her head twitched to the side slightly as if needing to see him to confirm it.
‘Hey, flower.’
She carefully removed the visor and dropped it in front of her before placing her palms flat on the table and spreading her fingers as he’d instructed. She knew better than to do anything to the contrary.
‘Being as creative as always, I see,’ he said.
‘What do you want, Nate? And how the fuck did you get in here?’
‘I knocked politely. As always.’ He let go of her hair to hold the bullet shell, now in a plastic bag, up in front of her. He gave her a moment for her vision to focus. ‘Your handiwork?’
She frowned. ‘I’ll need to take a closer look.’
‘No distinguishing marks,’ he said. ‘No ownership stamp. So you can deny it’s yours if you want to but this is quite the skilled engineering and I only know one who can pull something this sophisticated off. From what I can work out, it enters the body like any normal bullet, except this one’s silver, of course. On impact, the front disengages inside the body. An unpleasant dose of hemlock, garlic and grains of silver get into the system. The victim blacks out from the hemlock dose, the garlic ensures they can’t heal. They stand no chance of regaining consciousness. They lose too much blood. The silver grains gradually disperse. Vampire’s dead a couple of hours later. It was designed to kill a vampire irrevocably and indefinitely – and it ended up in my blood stream.’
She subtly licked her dry lips. ‘How the fuck are you still alive then?’
‘I got lucky.’
‘Luckiest bastard I know surviving this.’
‘And don’t I know it. Which is why I want to know who put it there.’
Her pulse picked up a notch. A trickle of perspiration crept down her temple.
‘You know how it works. Like you, I don’t ask questions, Nate.’
‘But unlike me, you fucked up. And when you screw up, the job bites you on the arse. And you know how hard I can bite, Daisy. I want to know who hired you to make it. I want to know who you sold it to.’
‘You know I can’t reveal that. I’ll be finished.’
‘I have a six-inch blade to your throat. So, rather than worry about the future, I’d focus on the here-and-now if I were you. Tell me who you sold it to before I put this six inch blade right through the centre of your hand. You have eight fingers and two thumbs after that, all of which would be a shame to lose, not least because I’ve never had any complaints about how you use them. Who did you sell it to, Daisy? And how many?’
Her jaw clenched. She kept her eyes fixed ahead.
Catching hold of her hair again, Nate stood from his stool before kicking away hers. He slammed her face first onto the table, jammed the knife blade down between her middle and forefinger, causing her to flinch and her eyes to widen.
‘Last warning. You know what the sight of blood does to me and you don’t want me summoning what nature gave me, do you?’
She gritted her teeth before exhaling tersely.
He slammed the knife down between her little finger and forefinger.
She flinched. ‘The Voys,’ she all but spat out. ‘The fucking Voys, OK? The Voys hired me to make it. I just sold them the one.’
He removed the blade, backed up a couple of steps and let her spin around to face him.
‘The Voys? What’s their issue with me?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask questions. You know my rules are the same as yours.’
‘I wonder how they’ll feel about knowing I’m still walking because of your dodgy craftwork.’
Her brown eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, come on, Nate. Look, I didn’t know it was intended for you, all right? I swear.’
‘So you say.’
He turned away.
‘Nate, we don’t need to fall out over this.’
‘One of your bullets nearly killed me, Daisy. I don’t know what else would constitute a break-up.’
‘OK, so I heard them saying the Hordas clan weren’t getting any favours. I’m guessing they’ve hired you again, huh?’
Nate stopped. He turned to face her again.
‘Whatever the clan want you for,’ she added, ‘the Voys didn’t want to risk you succeeding.’
‘You definitely heard them say that?’
‘You know me, Nate. I don’t repeat what I haven’t heard with my own ears.’
That much was more than true.
‘And what else have you heard?’
She tongued the outside of her teeth. She sighed before folding her arms. ‘Look, I’m sorry they came after you, OK? Honestly, I had no idea.’ She paused. ‘Shit’s getting bad out there. We all know the Hordas clan are taking over Lowtown chunk by chunk. The Voys are trying to sustain their territory but they’re losing ground. They’re forming a back-up plan. They want to spread their wings to Blackthorn.’
‘They’re thinking of taking on Blackthorn? The vampires there? Do they not realise the likes of Kane Malloy and Caleb Dehain will fucking eat them for breakfast if they get word of this, let alone if they step foot in either of their territories?’
‘Which is why I think they’re being left to their own devices. Between you and me, I’m hearing the Third Species Control Division are leaving this be for their own ends. They know the war is brewing between the two gangs. They know that if they let the Hordas clan get too big, it’ll force the Voys to get into Blackthorn to gain new ground. And if Malloy in particular does go for them, the authorities have got a valid reason to bring him in. We all know how badly they want him. You want to do us all a favour? Make the biggest collection of your life, Nate. Take them Malloy, let them tick him off their most-wanted list, and then maybe the TSCD will do what they’re paid to do and keep order in this district rather than letting it go to hell at the hands of the likes of the Hordas clan and the Voys.’
‘You’re suggesting I take on Malloy? And hand him over?’
‘If anyone can, you can.’
‘I’ll forget that crossed your lips.’
Her eyes glimmered with uncertainty. With regret. ‘I’m guessing maybe you should.’
‘Which I will, if you make it up to me by putting those skilled fingers of yours to some good use before I leave.’
She raised her eyebrows expectantly. He reached into the back of his jeans and pulled out the necklace that he’d found under the dead bodies of one of Ember’s attackers. He knew he should have left it there. He should have discarded it with them. It was just a cheap piece of costume jewellery. There must have been a load of them in circulation. But his gut knew better than that. What he’d seen with his own eyes two months before knew better than that. That nagging feeling that there had always been something familiar about her knew better than that.
‘And then we can both agree we never had this conversation.’
She exhaled curtly. ‘Just as we always do, Nate.’