Chapter 1

The neon sign for The Purple Note hanging across Michigan Avenue pulsed a wet, erratic glow through the venetian blinds of my office, slicing the darkness into long, jagged shadows. It was past midnight, and the rain was hitting the windowpanes with a relentless, rhythmic hiss. It was the kind of late autumn downpour that helps Detroit wash away its sins, one rain-slicked alley at a time.

I sat back in my creaking leather chair, my boots propped on the corner of the heavy oak desk. In my hands, I casually turned the silver skull handle of my cane, feeling the cool, polished metal ground me. It wasn't just an ornament, or a mere tool for my magics; it was also assurance. Inside the shaft rested a mirror-polished silver blade, forged specifically for the times supernatural creatures like the local werewolf packs forgot the rules of the city. It assured me I'd never be defenseless.

Hidden safely beneath my dark trench coat were more assurances: a.38 revolver pressed against my ribs, and a brass flask containing the gin that kept me sane in an insane world. Between the silver, the lead, and the booze, I usually had my bases covered.

A slow simmer came from the hotplate on the filing cabinet, filling the cramped room with the scent of old paper, stale coffee, and the thick, earthy aroma of mugwort and crushed valerian roots. Resting open on the corner of my desk right next to my boots was a well-worn copy of Club magazine. My eyes drifted past the glossy layout of a busty blonde to the calendar hanging on the wall above the filing cabinet. It was Kitty Lovestuck, the gorgeous pin-up girl, clad only in a corset, thigh-high stockings, and an alluring "oopsie! I didn't see you there!" expression. Beneath the fold, May of 1992 was laid out, and my gaze settled on the day's date: the 22nd.

The 22nd. My hand slid into my coat and touched brass.

After a long pull of gin, I sighed and tried to push the day's date away from my thoughts and focus instead on my brewing potion. Magic in Detroit isn't about throwing glowing energy blasts or chanting in high-born Latin; the Seven-Witch Coven ensures that kind of theatricality stays mute. They maintain the Veil, keeping the humans completely blind to the fact that vampires throw galas in Indian Village and wolves roam the old automotive assembly ruins. The Coven protects the secret with an iron fist, but they don't protect me. Not anymore.

Not since I quit.

The frosted-glass pane of my door reads VANCE INVESTIGATIONS. To the Coven, I'm just Vivienne Vance: covenless, a pariah, the lowest a witch could be. They tolerate my existence because I clean up the messes that threaten to bleed into the human world, and for the forlorn hope I might come crawling back someday. For the nonce they look at me like dirt under their designer shoes.

I don't mind. Fuck them. Besides, the grey areas suit me just fine. But that didn't mean I was stupid; even I had to maintain the Veil, which meant my magics had to be subtle. Certain potions went a long way toward accomplishing this, like the tracer potion I was currently brewing.

Suddenly, the ambient temperature in the room plummeted. The steam rising from my hotplate stuttered, freezing instantly into a faint, frosty mist.

Then came the scent. Expensive, high-society French perfume, sharp and freezing cold, cutting straight through the heavy herbal musk of my potion.

A shadow fell across the frosted glass. Three sharp, deliberate knocks echoed through the quiet office. I didn't reach for the.38. I knew that chill, and I certainly knew that perfume.

"Come in, Eleanor," I said, my voice a low, smoky purr.

The door swung open, and Eleanor Laurent stepped into the room, closing the heavy oak door behind her with a soft, final click.

She looked like she had just stepped off a Parisian runway and directly into a rain-slicked Detroit midnight. Her silk trench coat was immaculate, her dark hair perfectly coiffed, and her pale skin radiant against the amber pulse of the neon sign outside. Despite the torrential downpour shaking the city, she didn't carry an umbrella; her elder vampiric aura was so dense that not a single drop of rain had dared to touch her.

Eleanor swept her piercing gaze across my cramped office, her perfect lips curling into a faint, amused smile.

"Still living in squalor, I see, Vivienne," she said, her voice smooth, chilly, and effortlessly elite.

She strolled over to the desk, her movements predatory yet graceful, completely unconcerned by the hour or the environment. We had some history, Eleanor and I, and the air between us immediately grew heavy with it.

I kept my boots on the desk, leaning my skull-topped sword cane against my chair, meeting her gaze dead-on. I intentionally let my eyes trail slowly down her elegant frame, drinking in the long, willowy line of her legs beneath the coat. As I did, I reached out with my magic. Witches can't read minds-- at least this witch can't-- but I could brush against the vampire's aura.

The moment our energies touched, a sudden, carnal heat flared between us. It dug up ancient desires buried in her dead heart, but the reaction in my own body was immediate, violent, and entirely unexpected. A tight, heavy ache bloomed right between my thighs, making me acutely aware of how my lace underwear was suddenly a pressing friction against my skin. My breath hitched slightly and I immediately regretted the simple spell. My reaction would be noticed and it was somewhat embarrassing.

But it did give me a read on her, too: she was concerned about something, about someone, actually. That was a new one. I'd never known Eleanor to be concerned about anything or anybody but herself.

Now I really regretted the spell. For such a backlash the payoff wasn't all that useful. She was concerned about something? Well no shit, why else visit a private dick in the middle of the night? At the end of the day I'd given her a taste of my power and for what?

A taste of my power for someone who could kill me in a heartbeat. And now here I was all wet between the legs and thoughts gone akimbo.

Eleanor caught the invisible magical ripple, of course. There's an intrusive nature to such magics. Her eyes flashed a dangerous, brief crimson before settling back to dark violet. She wasn't angry; if anything, she looked mildly entertained by how easily she could make me flush.

"If you wish to lay with me," she said, her taunting words a mix of boredom and amusement, "you need only ask, Witch."

She leaned against the edge of my desk, close enough for me to feel the unnatural, seductive chill radiating off her skin. This was a dead thing, I reminded myself, an immortal corpse that shared human qualities. And the thing about vampires is that you never know if you're reacting to their intrinsic beauty, because they are almost always beautiful, or to the magical nature of their undead existence. But as a witch, looking at the sharp, elegant curve of her slender waist and those impossibly long legs, I knew better. There was no need for magic here; my body would deliver good old-fashioned, mundane arousal to any pitch-perfect feminine form in such close proximity.

She was teasing me and my inner slut was practically begging to take the bait.

"I don't lay with the dead, Eleanor," I said, though my throat was so dry the words barely scraped out.

Eleanor threw back her head and laughed, a haughty, aristocratic sound. "Oh my dear mortal, you lay with the dead every night, when you go to sleep pining for that frail human man who died five years ago exactly."

I sat up fast, kicking my feet off of my desk. I would have reached for my gun had I not known the suicidal risk of drawing lead on someone who moved faster than a thought.

"It is the anniversary, is it not?" she asked, her voice carrying a genuine touch of curiosity. "Five years ago tonight. It's why you're up late drinking in this sad little office."

I didn't need her reminder about the anniversary and I certainly didn't much care for invoking him. That "frail human man" had been the love of my life, a love I had managed to keep on this side of the Veil, away from monsters such as Eleanor. He was never of our world and hearing her speak of him-- discovering that she even remembered him-- made me fume.

"Oh, cut the shit," I snapped angrily, my fingers twitching against my thighs. I hated being toyed with, borderline insulted, especially when my body was working entirely against my dignity. I leaned forward, looking her dead in the eye. "Why are you here, Eleanor? If the goal is to finally get into my bed, give it a rest. You've been trying to tease your way into my clothes for years, and I'm telling you again: I'm not going to fuck you. Not today, and not 'someday.' I don't fuck the dead."

Her expression hardened, her dark eyes narrowing to razor-thin slits.

And the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back.

It happened so fast I didn't even register the air leaving my lungs until I hit the desk. Eleanor moved with an even-if-you-don't-blink-you'll-miss-it speed, a violent blur of silk and muscle. With one ruthless swing of her arm, she'd cleared the top of my desk. My cane clattered to the floor, my brass flask slid away, and the open copy of Club magazine went flying, its glossy pages of naked women fluttering uselessly through the air before slapping face-down onto the floorboards.

Before I could even draw a breath, Eleanor leaped up, straddling my prone body and pinning me flat against the oak surface.

It was a terrifying, lethal position to be in. Even if I could reach my gun, it would do nothing but piss off an elder vampire. If she wanted me dead, I was already a corpse.

But my protection wards weren't the only things screaming inside my head. As Eleanor leaned down, the heavy, icy weight of her thighs clamping firmly around my hips sent a sickeningly hot shockwave straight through my lower belly. My heart was hammering against my ribs, and my mind was a chaotic mess of genuine fear and white-hot, submissive lust.

"I can smell your desire, witch," she breathed against my ear, her breath a freezing, intoxicating mist.

With the casual flick of a single pointed fingernail, she sliced right through the front of my blouse and snapped my bra apart. The cool air hit my bare breasts, my nipples tightening instantly under her gaze. I hated how easily she exposed me, and I hated even more how much I wanted her to keep going.

"Don't pretend you wouldn't fuck me if I allowed it," she whispered cruelly.

"Get off of me," I growled, trying desperately to swallow the trembling fear-- and the needy whimper-- rising in my throat.

Her cold lips brushed the sensitive skin just beneath my ear. She murmured, "Only ask. Right now. I won't even make you beg, little mortal." As she spoke, her hand caressed my bare breast, cupping the weight of it so gently, so agonizingly slowly, that my hips involuntarily twitched upward against hers.

My protection wards were practically deafening me at this point, screaming: Danger! Your life is in danger! Get away!

It didn't take magic to know that much, but my traitorous body was completely ready to risk the death sentence just to feel her mouth on me. Somehow, through sheer force of survival instinct, I forced my jaw to lock. I couldn't give her the satisfaction of asking. My pride wouldn't allow it.

Instead, I stared up into her crimson-tinged eyes and grated out, "Why are you here?"

I caught the briefest flicker of surprise in her narrow, knowing eyes before it vanished back behind her aristocratic mask.

"It's not to fuck me," I continued, my voice steadying as I risked placing my hands against her silk-clad waist to push her back. Surprisingly, she let me. I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the desk. My blouse hung in shredded rags, exposing my bare chest. As I stripped out of my coat, I added, "And you're certainly not here to comfort me."

"No, comfort is not what I do," Eleanor said, smoothing down her immaculate silk trench coat as if she hadn't just violently tackled a witch.

"You owe me a new blouse," I muttered, pulling out a wrinkled red button-down that I'd nearly discarded as a cleaning rag a couple of months back. I tossed my torn bra into the wastebasket and slipped the shirt over my bare skin, leaving the top three buttons undone.

"I'm here because I need your eyes, Detective," she said smoothly, her voice returning to its effortlessly elite chill. "Someone broke into my estate down in Indian Village earlier tonight. They took Julian."

Julian was her favorite human thrall, a gorgeous, sweet-faced young man she treated more like a prized showpiece than a personal blood-tap and slave.

I raised an eyebrow as I pulled my heavy leather trench coat back on over the wrinkled red shirt. I reached into my pocket, tapped a clove cigarette out of my pack, and lit it, letting the sweet, pungent smoke drift between us. "A kidnapping? Call the human cops, Eleanor. Why bring this to me?"

"Because it wasn't a standard human snatch-and-grab," Eleanor replied, her tone completely aloof, as if she were discussing a misplaced piece of vintage jewelry rather than a living person. She tilted her head, a genuine touch of curiosity finally breaking through her cold, high-society facade.

"The security feeds showed a single attacker before he took out the closed-circuit cameras," she continued, leaning a fraction closer, her dark violet eyes locked onto my lips. "But somehow, this single intruder tore through three of my mortal guards without breaking a sweat, then bypassed my estate's ancient wards, and left nonsensical graffiti written on the compound walls and inner foyer."

She leaned in just an inch further, her voice dropping to a dangerous, freezing whisper. "The graffiti in the foyer, I should add, was written in blood. My guards' blood."

She paused, letting the weight of the supernatural breach hang in the air.

"I'm not here to comfort you or to fuck you, about that you are correct," she said stoically, though her gaze still lingered on my open collar. "But darling, I am immensely curious to find out who possesses the sheer audacity to steal from me. I want to hire you. And I know you desperately need the money, so why not forgo the ego-saving protests and skip straight to the part where you tell me that you'll take the case?"

I really did need the money. Somewhere in the mess of papers she'd just violently swept off my desk-- hidden right beneath that face-down adult magazine-- was a past-due notice from my landlord that wasn't going to magically disappear. Plus, there was a pesky electricity bill, and, of course, my powerful, daily need to buy expensive gin. Oh, and food.

I knelt down, retrieved my silver skull cane, and used it to prop myself up.

"You tried to pin me down and force yourself on me just now," I said, blowing a stream of sweet clove smoke toward her flawless face. "Just for that, I'm doubling my usual fee."

Eleanor rolled her eyes, a faint, amused smirk returning to her lips. "Darling, despite what you might want I will never force you into bed. When we finally do fuck you will be willing, you will be eager... and you will be begging."

End of Chapter 1