This elicited a few oohs and ahhs. The gun looked pretty, but for those who could sense magic, its intricate web of integrated auras would be even surer to impress.
I let them step forward to admire it, though I watched them carefully in case anyone tried anything. Dimitri lurked nearby, not looking like he knew if he should threaten them on my behalf or stay out of the way. Fortunately, he opted for the latter.
It was possible the men would give me trouble, especially if I’d killed a friend, distant relative, or childhood schoolmate of theirs, but Nin’s was considered neutral territory by most in the community. I hadn’t seen many fights break out here. Muggings by mundanes, sure, but not battles among the magical. Nin sold guns to normal people who were afraid of the magical, but she also sold weapons to the magical, so they could settle their grudges with each other.
The side door opened, and Nin walked out, her blue hair swept up in two perky pigtails, and a unicorn on her pink T-shirt. A few smudges of grease and weapons-cleaning oil marred the hem, but it didn’t keep her from looking ridiculously cute, especially standing next to the present company. She carried in her slender arms something that looked a lot like a Civil War Gatling gun complete with a crank handle. Everyone turned, their attention riveted to it. Even I, not a weapons enthusiast despite my armament, had to admit it looked awesome. I wanted to find someone to fire it at. A black dragon, perhaps.
The men listened with rapt attention as she described its dimensions and automatic function, demonstrating how to load and fire it. There was something ludicrous about someone who looked so sweet and with such a polite, earnest voice rattling off the morbid details.
“The bullets are in these packages.” Nin grabbed paper wraps off the shelf of the food window that looked exactly like the ones she used to pass out her meals. “These are tipped with a paralysis poison.” She handed the first wrap to the shifter. “These are incendiary and will blow shit up when they hit. And these will just kill the motherfucker.”
“Perfect.” The shifter handed over a wad of cash.
Nin carefully counted it, then slipped it into her jeans pocket, the seam lined with rhinestones. “A pleasure doing business with you gentlemen.”
The shifter handed the big weapon to his sock-ball-owning buddy to carry and headed for the street. Sock Ball winked at me, hefting the machine gun. “Now whose weapon is bigger?”
“You win, buddy. Don’t forget to lube it.”
“Never.” He winked again, and I was positive he believed we would inevitably get horizontal the next time we met.
“Nin,” I said as the men left, “I like your lunch customers better.”
“Yes, but my night customers pay so much better.” She smiled and patted her pocket.
“You getting close to having enough to bring your family over yet?”
“Not yet, but one day. My family is very large, and I want to bring everyone to America. Now, there is Grandma and Mother and my seven sisters all living in a two-bedroom apartment. Only my brother has been able to afford to move out, but he does not make enough to help them. I want to be able to buy my family a house here, so they do not have to worry about working and paying rent right away, but it is very expensive. A house costs much more here than in Bangkok.”
“Maybe you can set them up in the suburbs, and they can open a restaurant. Didn’t you say your grandmother was the one to teach you to cook?”
“Yes, this is true. And my grandfather taught me to make magic guns.” She smiled. “It is sad for my family that he disappeared, and everyone had to move into the city. There are so few opportunities there. Not like here. I am living the American dream.”
“I’m not going to argue that. You make more than I do.”
“An entrepreneur must be a marketer, Val. You should make clever videos and advertise on the socials. This is what I do for my food truck.”
“I think they arrest you if you advertise assassin services online. But hey, with the way this week is going, it probably doesn’t matter.”
She tilted her head, one of her pigtails flopping onto her shoulder. “You are in trouble? Did you break Fezzik again?”
“No, Fezzik is good.”
“You have acquired the services of a bodyguard?” She looked at Dimitri.
“No, a chauffeur. This is Dimitri. Listen, I’m trying to find out who’s been tinkering with dark-elf alchemy to poison my boss. You have any dark elves for clients?”
“Oh, no. I have only heard rumors about them. They do not come up here.” She waved to the street and the square. “And they do not purchase goods from outsiders. Have you spoken to Zoltan?”
“Isn’t he the guy with the continuum transfunctioner?”
Her brow furrowed.
“Never mind. Who is he?”
“A vampire alchemist who lives in the basement of an old barn in Woodinville. Do you have any information about the poison? With a few ingredients, he may be able to identify it for you.”
I leaned in, hope rising. If the alchemist could identify it, maybe he would also know how to nullify it.
“There are vampires in Woodinville?” Dimitri asked. “That’s out in the suburbs, isn’t it?”
“Vampires can’t be suburban?” I asked as Nin pulled out her phone and looked up an address. “Maybe he’s a fan of the wineries out there.”
I would have to check the lore to see if vampires could drink anything but blood. I hadn’t dealt with many in my line of work. Like these quasi-mythological dark elves, they stayed under the radar—and the surface of the earth.
“I suppose,” Dimitri said. “He doesn’t drive a minivan, does he?”
“You can’t possibly have a prejudice against vans.”
“Here.” Nin texted me a link.
It wasn’t the map address I expected but a real estate listing for a house that had been on the market for nine-hundred-some days.
“Do people not want to buy from a vampire?” I asked.
“Nobody outside of the magical community knows about the vampire. No, let me clarify that. Nobody knows where he lives. He is quite famous online. He knows how to use the socials.” Nin gave me a stern look.
I lifted my hands in resignation. “If I manage to save my boss and clear my name, I will definitely look into social media marketing for my services.”
“Excellent. I want to make sure my clients do well, so they can continue to afford my services.”
“You’re a savvy businesswoman.”
“Yes.” Nin smiled. “Wait one moment, please.”
She hopped into the truck.
“My life has gotten very strange in the last thirty-six hours,” Dimitri remarked.
“I’ve seen your yard art. Your life was already strange.”
“Have we known each other long enough that it’s appropriate for you to insult me?”
“I don’t know. What if I buy you another tank of gas?”
“That’ll make it okay then. Also, will you ask your friend if she teaches classes on business stuff? I don’t know how to market my art. The people who come by the property only want to pay twenty dollars for it. But it takes me a long time to find the pieces that will work with my special touch.” He wiggled his fingers to indicate the enchantments his dwarven blood had allowed him to learn.
Nin returned with a brochure and several business cards. “Please give these to Zoltan and let him know that if he needs any weapons made, or if any of his fellow vampires need them made, I can accommodate him. Also, I am thinking of branching out into magical armor.”
“If he doesn’t try to bite my neck the instant we meet, I’ll give these to him.”
“Of course he will try to bite your neck. You are the hated Mythic Murderer. But please also give him my brochure as a favor to me. And then I will do a favor for you. This is how networking works.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Nin kept me in guns and ammo. If she wanted me to hand out business cards to vampires, I would do it.
“Thank you.” Nin waved to me and smiled shyly at Dimitri.
I wondered if he liked girls with blue hair. And if he was paying attention to her marketing tactics. Clearly, he needed to make brochures and hand them out.
“Mythic Murderer?” Dimitri asked as we walked back to the van.
“I hadn’t encountered that one before. Lovely to hear that there are so many variations of my nickname.”
“Are we driving to Woodinville tonight?”
“Yes.” I imagined Willard hooked up to IVs with electrodes attached to her chest.
“Is night the best time to visit a vampire?” Dimitri climbed into the driver’s seat.
“If you want him to be awake, probably.”
“And we want that?”
“It’s hard to question someone locked in a coffin.”
Dimitri put the keys in the ignition as I buckled in next to him, but then held up a finger. “One second.”
He ducked into the back and rummaged around in the crate under the bobblehead doll. He returned with…
“Why do you have a cervical collar?” I asked.
“My attempt to learn to snowboard last winter was problematic.” He buckled it around his neck. All he needed was a backboard, and he would look like someone about to be carted out of a swimming pool for a diving-board injury. “There. My neck will be safe tonight.”
As he drove off, I didn’t point out that vampires could probably use any vein to suck blood. It wouldn’t matter. Zoltan was sure to go for the Mythic Murderer first.
14
“This is a nice neighborhood for a vampire,” Dimitri remarked as we drove along winding roads that had once been out in the country but were now lined with well-lit McMansions with impeccable grassy lawns and immaculately trimmed hedges.
“Vampires are usually a few hundred years old. That’s a long time to accumulate wealth. Though it sounds like the house is vacant and he may be a freeloader.” I pointed to a driveway with a real-estate sign staked into the grass next to it. “That’s it. Park anywhere. Nin said the vampire lives in the barn out back.”