Only At Night update

Thana smiled with an exorbitant glee I had never seen from her before. Her sunny smirk was perfectly at odds with her dark countenance. “You killed those suckheads. Ivan, I didn’t know you had it in you…”

“I didn’t kill anyone!” I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. 

Thana didn’t believe me for a minute. 

“Relax, Ivan. No judgment here. In fact, I think this calls for a drink.” She turned on her heel. “Come.”

I followed her through the cubicle farm until we reached her corner office. It wasn’t a lavish, CEO deal. It wouldn’t even rate with your average Silicon Valley tech bro. But the space was decorated with an elegiac touch. Dark, not overbearing colors to the furniture and carpet. Neutral tones on the walls and ceilings. A desk and coffee table that were all tinted glass. Potted plants that seemed to be all black, twisting branches. On the walls, art prints of Dracula movie posters. Thana’s Gothicism seemed to come with a trace of irony.

Thana walked to the desk at the far end of the room, perching herself on its edge. She leaned down, perfectly balanced without supporting herself, to open up a drawer in the desk. Then with one hand she brought up a whiskey bottle and two tumblers. She unsealed the cap with her thumb as well. Setting the tumblers down, she poured for us.

“I thought I told you to relax,” she said, pouting disapprovingly as she regarded me. I could only imagine how tense I looked. I felt as though I had swallowed something heavy, made of metal. “You don’t have to worry. If I wanted you dead, I’d do it quietly. No theatrics. It’d be very embarrassing for me to have an employee that goes off and kills ‘our honored brethren.’” She pushed a half-full tumbler toward me. “Drink. You need to loosen up.”

I picked up the tumbler from the desk, mostly to have something to do with my hands, if not to have something to use as a weapon. Thana looked on as I held it, not moving to drink. She snorted with amusement, then took a sip herself. 

“I’m speaking of public perception here, of course. Or at least as public as a vampire can be. We’re worse than the Japanese in some ways. The public face, the private face—it’s maddening. Personally, I think you did the world a favor. Four little bitches going around, drinking blood on the street like it comes in bottles with brown paper bags. That makes all of us look bad. I’m impressed more than anything else. How’d you manage it?”

I wasn’t about to give away that Carina had anything to do with it. “If I were you, I’d hope not to find out.”

Thana tittered. “Okay, hotshot—I’ve always loved a man of mystery. But if you didn’t want a drink, you should’ve refused in the first place. Not wasted my liquor.”

I took a compromising sip. It was a taxing drink. Harsh. But I was Russian. I managed with half a cough.

“Thank you,” Thana simpered, her voice somewhere between mockery and self-satisfaction. “Good, isn’t it? Yes, I know it is… you’re in luck.”

“How’s that?”

“Sit,” Thana said, gesturing with her glass to the couch and armchairs around the coffee table. “We still need you to be much more… sociable.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” I forced out, telling myself that my first foray into standing up for myself had met with her approval. It seemed more of a way to go than begging for mercy. Especially since I wasn’t yet sure if I weren’t dead either way.

Thana rolled her eyes. “Russians. Of course. Be uncomfortable.” She imbibed like it was part of a drinking game. “As it happens, someone is going around killing vampires. Not you, obviously. Some things are just too bizarre. But as long as there’s a pile of dead vampires in this city, what’s four more? Especially in exchange for someone as useful as you?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why aren’t you sitting?”

I considered whether to push Thana any further. She was already handling me with kid gloves. Truly testing her limits seemed like a bad idea if I could avoid it; I wasn’t so independent that I had to spit in every ally’s face to see if they’d let me get away with it. 

I sat down.

Thana curled in on herself, huddling around the tumbler with her legs hanging off the side of the desk. She looked curiously intimate to me. “We’re in a position to help each other, Ivan. I can see to it that those four vampires that got on your bad side are just another unfortunate set of statistics.” She drew a cross over her chest. “God rest their souls. And I can trust you because you owe me.”

“What if I disagree on that account?”

Thana’s face darkened. She took a deep breath, rolling her breasts in a delectable journey up and down. When she exhaled, her fangs flashed. “Make no mistake, Ivan. It would be… dispiriting for one of my employees to be responsible for dead vampires. But in certain circles, I’d be seen well for putting the greater good above my own advancement. There would be some social currency in bringing you to ‘justice,’ no matter how small. But I think collecting a favor from you would be a far better exchange. For me and most definitely for you.”

“Then how do I know you won’t turn me in after I’ve helped you?”

Thana lit up again. She pressed the glass’s cool bottom against her forehead. “Oh, Ivan, you’d make a good vampire. You have the head for it. You just lack an education. We’re going to work well together.” She brought the glass down and drank a long draught from it. Draining everything but an amber sliver at the bottom of the tumbler. “Using you and then turning you in would be double-dealing. Dishonorable. If you want to get anywhere in our society, your word is your bond. So you have my word: do this favor for me and we’ll consider ourselves even. Now, anymore questions, or can you trust me to explain things to your satisfaction? Believe it or not, I don’t enjoy the thought of being so cryptic you have no idea what you’re doing.”

I shrugged. “Explain away.”

“Good boy,” Thana teased. Coming down from the desk, she walked around to her chair, sat down in it, drained her glass, then opened the drawer again. She brought out a folder. “Personnel file. Chris Armstrong. An accountant in our finance division. He’s disappeared with half our budget for the next fiscal year. Find him and get me my money.”

I didn’t move to get the folder. “Why not—“

“Why not send some cool, badass vampire in a nice suit to get it?” Thana mused. “Oh, it would be satisfying, but… demeaning. This fiefdom of mine, it’s like babysitting a small child. A good babysitter doesn’t need to call for help for anything but the most dire emergencies. In fact, this problem shouldn’t be a problem in the first place. I’m sure if you ask any of the senior vampires, they’ll tell you I should’ve hired someone trustworthy.”

“Not very fair,” I reasoned.

“No. Armstrong’s credentials were impeccable. I can’t explain why he went wrong. I don’t care. Find him, find the money, you’re free and clear. From my people, at least.”

I could only hope my arrangement with Carina’s werewolves was enough to get the police off my back. I didn’t want to let Thana know about that either. “Doesn’t do me much good to solve your problem if I just get picked up by the cops.”

“I wouldn’t worry. Police in this town… they’re not exactly NYPD Blue. If you don’t have to worry about the vamps, you don’t have to worry about them. And you don’t have to worry about the vamps if we have a deal.”

I sighed. It didn’t look like I had much choice. What was that saying about the devil you knew? “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.” At the very least, it would give me a few weeks to get my shit together. 

Thana beamed. “Excellent. Let’s seal it with a kiss.” She pressed the intercom button on her desk. “Abigail, come in here. I have something fun for you to do.”