Tempted by Blood. Laurie London

Democracy and shit. I like to spread the wealth evenly among the people. It’s only fair.”

      “Sounds like communism to me. Listen. Dom called. He … um … tried calling you directly, but you didn’t pick up. He needs your sweetblood report. Says it’s a week late and that you’re making him look like a lazy ass to Region unless he gets his numbers in soon.”

      Jackson stopped and pulled out his cell.

      Five missed calls—all from his field team leader. Damn. He must’ve been more engrossed back in that room than he thought.

      “How many sweetbloods do you have on your list?” Mitch asked. “If you want, I can do a few of the drive-bys.”

      He thought about the latest addition, a young human girl he’d saved at the Night of Wilding party. He’d always thought that keeping tabs on known sweetbloods was a waste of time—Darkbloods or other vampires would get to them eventually. It was a fate most of them suffered, despite the Guardians’ best efforts to keep them safe. Their addictive blood was almost impossible to resist and commanded the highest price on the black market. But the girl reminded him of his little sister who’d died many years ago. Old feelings of regret welled up but he quickly tamped them down. There was nothing he could do about Betsy now. “Nah, I can do it, but thanks.”

      He hustled down the hallway toward the main part of the Pink Salon, his boot heels pounding on the floor. Better return Dom’s call from outside and see if he could buy a little more time. Although the guy had mellowed out considerably since marrying Mackenzie and starting a family, Jackson didn’t want to chance it. His field team leader had a bitch of a temper if you pissed him off, for which Jackson seemed to have a knack. Plus, he could hold a serious grudge.

      Jackson pushed aside the rows of hanging beads and stepped into the alcove at the side of the dance floor. As usual when someone emerged from the entrance to the ultraexclusive salons, dozens of sets of eyes focused in their direction. He ran a hand through his newly highlighted hair—green and blue streaks this time—and his acute hearing picked up a few female sighs. Yeah, chicks dug the hair. Made picking up women as easy as going through a drive-through.

      His eyes locked onto a pretty thing sitting at the bar. He flashed her a smile, making a mental note to head over there on the way out. Clasping forearms with the muscle-bound bouncer who regulated the comings and goings of the salon, Jackson slipped him some green. “Thanks, Rocky. You’re my guy.”

      “You bet, man,” the human said, nodding appreciatively at the Benjamin before tucking it away. “Anytime. How was the meeting? Enjoy yourself back there?”

      Officially, the Pink Salon referred to them as meeting rooms; Jackson conducted a lot of “business” there. “Always.”

      Although the guy didn’t know Jackson and Mitch were vampires, on some level, he had to have realized there was something special about them. Most humans did. They instinctively reacted by giving them a wide berth or going along with shit. Besides, this place was like a home away from home for Jackson. They played his kind of music, and these were his kind of people—fun-loving, always willing to party and not into heavy conversations.

      He waited as Mitch brushed past him into the crowd and moved out of earshot. Then he turned back to the bouncer. “Hey, that gal I was with? Make sure her friends know she’s crashed back there.”

      Rocky nodded. “You wore her out?”

      “‘Fraid so.”

      He caught up with Mitch threading his way through the dance floor. “Yo, wait up. What’s the hurry.”

      “Come on. We gotta go.”

      “I’m not ready to leave yet.”

      “Seriously, man.” Mitch flicked his arm with the back of his hand. “Don’t you think you should call Dom first? He’s gonna rip you a new one if he doesn’t hear from you.”

      When you know something’s inevitable, why rush it? He considered the list of sweetbloods he still needed to do drive-bys on. Two here in town, one up north and one in an Eastside suburb. Then there was the girl. Mitch was right. He didn’t have time to do it all if he stayed much longer. He’d probably just lose track of time again.

      “Yeah, okay. I’ll call him from the road.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      INTERVIEWING BLAKE AND HIS brother had been a colossal waste of time and now Arianna was late picking up her cousin. She should’ve insisted on meeting Blake at the Devil’s Backbone rather than his house. But because the site was difficult to find and was surrounded by private property, you had to know someone to take you in. Instead, she’d spent the evening trying to pry verbal information from a couple of boys who clearly were better at texting than talking in person.

      She glanced at the glowing hands of the clock on the Caddy’s dashboard. Almost midnight.

      “Come on, Krystal,” she mumbled to herself as she waited in the car parked outside the apartment building. What kind of teenager studied on a Friday night, anyway?

      Warily, she watched the fog advancing off the sound a few blocks away as it searched for low-lying spots in which to settle. In the light from the overhead streetlamps, it took on a gray-green color and, if you blinked once or twice, it was suddenly thicker. There hadn’t been a trace of fog over at Blake’s house. She worried if she had to wait too much longer, visibility would be so bad that she’d have to drive away inch by inch because her piece-of-crap car didn’t have working fog lights.

      The two-story apartment building sat at the end of a long narrow driveway less than a mile from where Arianna lived—too far for her cousin to walk home, though she did try to convince Arianna it was no big deal. Maybe Krystal’s mother would’ve been okay with that, but this wasn’t a tiny farm town in eastern Washington and Arianna didn’t have substance-abuse problems. This was the big city and no one walked home in the dark around here.

      Her fingers twitched with the urge to blast the horn, but the neighbors probably wouldn’t appreciate that. She definitely wanted to avoid running up to the door—shadows were everywhere. Along the shrubs at the base of the windows, underneath the spindly birch tree in the front yard, next to the minivan parked in the driveway. In an argument repeated for years, her sensible self said this fear was unreasonable, but the memories of her five-year-old self were ingrained too deeply to forget. Most of the time, she was able to push past it—you couldn’t exactly be afraid of the dark and run a blog like Paranormalish. But tonight she felt on edge for some reason.

      She texted Krystal again: I’m still waiting. Where are you?

      Comingggggg.

      U said that already. Hurry. I’m tired.

      K. Grabbing backpack now.

      Yeah, right. Krystal texted that ten minutes ago, too.

      To kill time, Arianna opened her camera phone and flipped through the pictures she’d taken at Blake’s. Two teenage boys sitting on a couch with their grandmother’s colorful afghan behind them. Blake looking scared. His brother looking confused. She deleted some, keeping only a few of the best ones to post on her blog. Then she watched part of the video she’d taken. One boy talking. The other boy listening. Arianna asking questions off camera. Boring with a capital B. The whole interview was. So much for interesting blog content.

      She hit Delete and was about to set the phone down, when she remembered that videos were automatically saved to her cloud account, too. Carter had set it up for her in order to save memory on her phone and make them easier for her to access later. Once, when she’d been having all sorts of technical trouble with her website that she attributed to OSPRA, she took a chance and asked for Carter’s help. Since he was always bitching about Xtark—sometimes she wondered why he even stayed on with the company—she’d turned to him, trusting that he wouldn’t rat her out to corporate, and he didn’t.

      “Don’t let these