Free Blood Trade: A Jane Yellowrock Novel by Faith Hunter Page A

after dark when I got dressed for my interview with Big H. Going into the presence of unknown vamps was never safe, despite the PR that let the world think they were sexy and sparkly and only mildly dangerous fun. I wanted to go in to his presence armed to the teeth, but sometimes carrying a big stick could actually start a fight. For this howdy-doody interview there would be no leathers. I had brought dress pants in a winter-weight wool, and I pulled them on over stretch leggings, and stomped into my green snakeskin Lucchese boots. Into each boot went a sheathed knife, one with the hilt visible and one hidden deeper down. I wore a white silk shirt with billowy sleeves and a velvet vest with slits for the throwing knives and silver stakes, which I limited to three each. The loose-sleeved jacket was tight across my shoulders—all my clothes were, but I would put off a trip to Leo’s designer as long as possible. The old woman terrified me. My hair I braided and twisted up in a high bun, and put more stakes in it, pushed down so I could ride in the SUV without stabbing myself.
    From a shelf in the closet, I removed the box I used for my jewelry. It was a Lucchese boot box, old and starting to show the wear, but it did the trick, and though I had no intention of dressing up, the box also held some of my protective gear. I opened the flap, and sitting on top of the socks that protected my small collection of jewelry was a carved bone coyote earring. I had no idea how I’d gotten the earring, which was a mystery for another day. I’d woken up from a crazy dream and it was lying on the bed beside me. Just the one. And I didn’t wear earrings. This one tingled of magics, as if it had been spelled once long ago, but something about it was still magically active, literally. The little sucker moved around. I kept the coyote in a sock. I had put the two magical pocket-watch amulets inside socks too, and now they cradled the coyote on either side. Weird. But then, my whole life was weird these days.
    I dumped the pocket watches into a sock together again, and wiped my fingers on my pants. The amulets smelled like meat. Like thinned blood. Kinda gross. They were not something I wanted to keep, but since I had no idea what they did, I was loathe to toss them into a river or something. From beneath the socks, I removed a black velvet box. Inside was my chain-mail throat protector, which I latched on, the silver over titanium cold on my throat and chest. I put the boot box away.
    •   •   •
    At seven-thirty, Eli and I were driving through the dark, on our way to the meeting with Hieronymus, bristling with weapons and with Leo’s vamp med kit resting on the back seat. Though silence was usual between us, this time Eli said, “So. How do you want to handle this?”
    “Too many unknowns. When I do this kind of thing I just fly by the seat of my pants.”
    “And if the vamps go into a feeding frenzy for some reason and attack?”
    “We were invited, so I don’t expect trouble. That said, if something goes wrong we shoot, stake, and run.”
    Eli actually smiled. “I love my job.”
    I answered his grin with one of my own. “Yeah. Me too.” I went back to studying the photos of the vamps I was to meet, photos the Kid had loaded up into an electronic pad that looked like something out of the future. Big H reminded me of a bust of some ancient Greek king, but bald. Like, the guy didn’t even have eyelashes. And then there was his love and heir, Lotus, a lovely female vamp from somewhere in Asia. In one photo, she was standing next to Big H and she looked like a teenager, her black hair a veil of silk drawn to one side and hanging below her waist, wearing some kind of kimonolike robe and scarlet shoes. H’s sons, Zoltar and Narkis, were next in the file. Zoltar meant “life,” which the vamp no longer possessed, and Narkis meant “daffodil.” I shook my head. Vamp names were weird. The boys were prettier than their