Read Online Raven Cursed: A Jane Yellowrock Novel by Faith Hunter - Free Book Online

reached for Fang’s key. “But I’ll still want you, Jane.”
    I looked up at that, but Rick was gone, fading into the lengthening shadows.
    Back in my suite in the Regal Imperial Hotel, I rushed through a shower, looking longingly at the whirlpool tub with its candleholders and plush towels. And at the bed I hadn’t used in a day and a half.
Maybe at dawn.
Which seemed a long time away. I braided my black hair, which was windblown and needed a scrubbing it wasn’t going to get anytime soon, and tucked it up into a tight, compact queue. It could still be used as a handle in a fight, but the bun was better than loose hair over three feet long. I wasn’t vain, and I could be called beautiful only by the most generous or the most inebriated, but my long hair was gorgeous.
    I was security on this gig, not chasing rogue-vamps, and the different job description had required a change in a lot of my possessions, from clothes to weapons. The clothes had been commissioned by Leo Pellissier to give me “elegance and utility,” his phrase. And I liked the clothes, which was such a girly thought that I’d not said it aloud. Dodging the bust of some long-dead founding father on its tall stand, I tossed clothes from the closet—all black, which made wardrobe decisions so much easier—onto the bed and drew on Lycra undies, narrow-legged pants, silk tank, tight vest, tall, leather boots, and slung an elegant nubby silk jacket over my arm.
    Rushing the clock, I strapped on the knife sheaths and silver-tipped stakes, and gathered three new handguns provided by Leo, which was one of the nicer aspects of being on vamp retainer—access to all the latest toys. Thanks to a big check signed by Ernestine, the financial secretary of the Louisiana Mithrans, I was fully accoutered with new .380s.
    Muscle memory giving me speed, I sat on the couch in the sitting area, handguns on the low table, and checked them all, holstering the new weapons. The .380s offered less stopping power than my 9 mils, and significantly less thanmy Benelli M4 tactical 12-gauge shotgun, currently hidden in the closet, but were perfect for this job where the possibility of collateral damage was not acceptable, meaning accidentally shooting a tourist or bellboy. So I loaded varied kinds of ammo in the new magazines. The Walther PK380s, I loaded with standard rounds in the event of a human or blood-servant attack on the talks between vamps. One went under my arm, its twin at the small of my back. Matching guns. How cool is that? The semiautomatic handguns were lightweight, ambidextrous, with bloodred polymer grips, and reengineered so the safety block wouldn’t break off, a serious flaw of the first ones in the series.
    Into my boot holster went a six-round Kahr P380, a small semiautomatic with a matte black finish. It was loaded with silver in case of vamp attack. I had strict orders not to tell the other security or the vamps at the chats about the silver ammo, and not to fire it unless “extreme measures are called for, in the event of unforeseen violence.” Leo’s words. I translated them to mean, “if the vamp-poop hit the fan,” because with vamps, violence was always foreseen.
    I stood and checked myself in the long mirror. Of course, if the vamp-poop became airborne I wasn’t well prepared, not even with all the weapons on me. I wasn’t wearing my protective gear, my armored and silver-studded leathers. And I had yet to replace my sterling silver neck, throat, and décolletage collar that protected me from the most common vamp killing techniques. I had nothing defensive on me at all. I was logistical and overall security for the hotel, transportation, any protesters who decided to make a point and kill a vamp, and the talks themselves, so I wasn’t supposed to need my vamp-hunting gear. Yeah. Right.
    I threw on the jacket, straightened my gold nugget necklace, and paused. I spun to the closet and stretched up on tiptoe. Spotted the wooden box in the