Under Pressure Read online

  The ticket would be via El Al, Israel’s flag carrier airline which, due to terrorism concerns, was known for its stringent security procedures. She would have to pass an interview, a thorough baggage check, and a scan that compared her personal information against the databases of various major intelligence agencies and police forces.

  None of which concerned her much. The one potential risk was that Kendra Gilmore, her contact in the FBI, might have allowed her superiors to begin investigating the mysterious Ms Steele.

  But even if that were the case, she had ways to convince mortals to do as she wished.

  As she considered the trials to come, Taylor resumed packing. Well before the night was over, she would board a plane en route to Ben Gurion Airport, El Al’s headquarters, which was partway on the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

  Moswen had invaded her rightful turf. Now, she would return the favor, but only long enough to get what she needed.

  Chapter Two

  Taylor’s House, Harrison, Westchester County, New York

  Presley stood beside Taylor’s ebony china cabinet, which was tucked discreetly into the far left corner of the kitchen, and dutifully polished the windowed doors with a rag and a bottle of glass cleaner.

  The case probably could have gone another week or so before it really needed touching up. But the old man had caught up with all the other household chores for the moment, and cleaning things pleased and relaxed him.

  A security device set into the first-floor ceiling emitted a low beep and outside, he heard a car coming up the driveway. That would be Remington, returning home from work. He must have had a long day.

  The butler finished his task and returned both rag and bottle to their usual abode under the sink. Then, he stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the foyer, his hands folded behind his back, and waited to deliver Miss Steele’s instructions.

  Footsteps approached the front entrance and the door banged open. In trudged David Remington, scion of one of New York’s wealthiest families—albeit nouveau riche by society standards—or, as the young man preferred to be known in his professional capacity, Remington Davis.

  Remy stank heavily of sweat, despite the chilly weather, not to mention the other fluids soaking his suit—mainly blood and a foul, pungent black slime. His hair was mussed, his jaw seemed to trail slackly, and his gait was slow and shuffling.

  For a moment, Presley tensed. He feared that something might truly be wrong—that their enemies might finally have transformed young master Remington into something unthinkable.

  “Christ on a cracker with extra shit-sauce,” the young man blurted, his voice ragged and almost fading with exhaustion at the end. “Where the fuck is Taylor so I can thank her for giving me such a fun, fun, fun case to work?”

  The butler sighed with relief. Clearly, everything was normal. He cleared his throat.

  “Miss Steele is here but is occupied with important matters of an unspecified nature,” he explained in his leathery yet dignified Old World English accent. “As such, she has quite specifically requested that I ask you not to disturb her until further notice.”

  As Remington crossed the foyer, the butler saw that he carried a sword—Holy Roman Empire, Oakeshott Type XVIa, by the looks of it. It smelled enchanted and a slight residue of some repulsive black ichor lingered upon its blade.

  “Yeah.” Remy sighed. “Well, that’s fine. Whatever. I need a goddamn shower first before I deal with anything—and I mean anything—else right now.”

  Presley nodded. “That sounds like a splendid idea, sir. Do, however, leave the sword where all that mess won’t get on the carpets, if you would, please.”

  He made a vague grumbling sound and continued down the hallway toward the staircase and presumably, the second-floor shower.

  Of course, he’d left the door open, and his bodyguard, Conrad Warfield stepped through it. Like Presley, he was a lycanthrope.

  “Hello,” Conrad said, waved a hand, and smiled his customary proper, public-relations-friendly smile. “We did have our work cut out for us today, so try not to mind him too much.”

  The old man nodded. “Quite all right.”

  The bodyguard looked about twenty-eight or thirty by human standards but was in fact almost thrice that age. He was tall, fit, and handsome, with a neatly trimmed goatee and a pleasant, professional manner, having gone to America’s best schools during their heyday. He even spoke with a slight Mid-Atlantic Accent.

  As the younger werewolf traipsed past, he added, “I heard what you said about Taylor. I won’t bother her.”

  “Splendid.” Presley did not move from his position in the kitchen doorway. “It might be best if you simply found your way to Mr Remington’s room to finish your last hour or two of bodyguard duty in seclusion there, as Miss Steele may require the run of the house.”

  Conrad hesitated for only a moment, as though curious as to what was going on. Finally, he gave a faint shrug and followed Remy up the stairs.

  The butler returned to the kitchen and double-checked to ensure everything was in order—which, of course, it was. He contemplated reading a book from their considerable library before retiring for the night himself.

  Soon, the shower upstairs began running.

  A moment later, a door opened, the sound gentle, and light, almost imperceptibly soft footsteps moved down the second-floor hallway before descending the stairs.

  It was Taylor, of course. She had waited until Remy and Conrad were safely out of the way, her sensitive hearing picking up their every movement before emerging.

  He looked over his shoulder and saw her wearing her coat, scarf, and sunglasses and carrying a single heavily laden suitcase. Clearly, her current course of action involved slipping out undetected. Or, at least, undetected by Remington or Conrad.

  The vampire turned her head slightly and inclined it in his direction, the movement subtle and casual. She did not break stride. In almost total silence, she glided across the carpet of the foyer and passed out through the front door and into the night.

  She could have taken the interior door to reach the garage, so she probably wanted to make a quick security inspection of the mansion before she departed.

  Presley made no effort to pursue her and ask where she was going. Taylor always had her reasons. He trusted that, when the time was right, he would discover exactly what they were. For now, he wasn’t troubled.

  They had been together, both professionally speaking and as friends, for a long, long time. Extended, wordy exchanges were seldom necessary anymore. He knew her moods and her ways, and she knew he would not ask silly questions.

  Something was afoot. But, as always, she would deal with it in her own way and at her own pace.

  Besides, at one hundred and eighty-two years of age, he was far too old to be wrapped up in this kind of potential drama. Slaying dwarven mobsters and vampiric thralls recently was about enough excitement to last him the next decade. Maybe two.

  Taylor’s House, Harrison, Westchester County, New York

  Remington allowed the hot, steamy water to run over his head and shoulders for a moment longer and soaked up the warmth. Not only that, he wanted to be sure that every last trace of that crap was washed out of his hair and off of his skin.

  Finally, he turned the water off, peeked around to make sure Conrad wasn’t nearby, and stepped out to wrap a towel around his waist almost immediately. He dried himself off with another and noticed that he’d need to do laundry in another day or two.

  Conrad’s voice called from somewhere across the hallway. “Oh, are you getting out of the shower, sir? Presley asked me to stay in your room until my shift was over. I wanted to warn you since I know how you are about nudity.”

  Remy frowned. “Only when you’re around. It might not be so bad if you shapeshift into a canine monstrosity. Can you shapeshift into a woman, by any chance? No, wait, forget I said that.”

  The lycanthrope replied with one of the annoying fake laughs of h
is and Remy ignored it.

  Quickly, he dressed in fresh underwear, socks, slacks, and a shirt and didn’t bother to put a tie on. He almost always wore one in public but when hanging around Taylor’s house—his new home away from home—there wasn’t much point.

  While he freshened up, he pulled his phone out, opened a music playlist he’d recently made, and set it to random shuffle. “Wolves of Chernobyl” by Municipal Waste began to play. The music calmed him immediately and dissipated the stress of the day’s labor.

  He emerged from the bathroom feeling almost human being again. The sword leaned against the wall just outside, its tip on a bed he’d made of empty plastic trash bags. Fortunately, it wasn’t overly sharp so he was fairly confident that none of the minimal remaining gunk had found its way onto the carpet.

  Remy picked it up. By now, Taylor probably ought to be done with whatever Presley had said she was busy with. He wanted to talk to her about a few things. The conversation might not be friendly, but it needed to happen.

  “Ugh,” he muttered and again tried not to think about that…thing he’d had to kill earlier.

  He descended the stairs and went to the door leading into the basement. After one sharp knock, he opened it. “Taylor? Hi. Mission accomplished, but I think we need to—”

  The cellar was dark and he squinted in an effort to see. Taylor’s coffin stood open, but the vampire herself was nowhere to be seen. He descended and checked behind the wine cases to be safe but found nothing.

  “Hmm. Sitting room, or her so-called bedroom, I would assume.” Still holding the befouled sword a safe six inches from his body—and clothes—he checked the first floor.

  The sitting room was empty, although it looked like Presley was leaving it to perform some errand.

  Shrugging, Remy went back upstairs and knocked on the door to Taylor’s nominal bedroom.

  “Taylor, hi. All objectives completed. We need to talk, though. Like, what was—”

  He turned the knob. The door opened to reveal the dark, silent, and definitely empty chamber. He poked his head in to make sure. Again, he found nothing.

  Disgruntled, he turned away and stood at the top of the stairwell, leaning on one of the intricate banisters. “Hey,” he called down the steps, “Presley. Where is she? You said she was still here. Did she leave for work already?”

  “Sir,” the butler’s voice replied, “do please come down here rather than shouting.”

  With a weary sigh, the young man did as he was asked and managed to corner the elderly lycanthrope in the no longer vacant sitting room, where he now reclined with a rather dusty and weathered book. It looked like the type written by someone with no sense of humor and printed by someone who used eight-point font to save production costs.

  The title was as uninspiring as the cover. Proper Maintenance of Topiary Gardens.

  Presley looked up from the tome and spoke first. “Miss Steele was compelled to leave early, and I’m afraid she didn’t say when she would be back. I am inclined to suspect she will be gone at least for the full duration of tonight.”

  “Oh,” Remy acknowledged. “Dang.”

  With a frown, the butler gestured to the black-stained blade. “Ah, we really must do something about—”

  “Right!” He cut him off. “This. It’s exactly what I wanted to ask you about. Or Taylor, rather, but I suppose either of you will do. What I mainly want to know is why the hell did she throw me against…that…thing without sufficient warning?” He glared at the old man.

  Breathing in through his nose, Presley set the topiary book down on the end table. “You’d have to ask Miss Steele to be positive, sir, but I would guess it means she had faith in your competence.”

  “Welllllll,” Remy responded and took a moment to bask in the implication that he had finally received some proper recognition, “that sounds fairly accurate. But all she said was, ‘Remington, I’m sure you can handle it. You’re not in much danger.’ Danger. It’s not a question of how likely I am to die. It’s the fact that those godawful abominations are disgusting. I don’t even want to think about how my mother would react if she were to find out that they so much as exist.”

  “Someone,” said Presley, “has to deal with them. And the agency has to make a profit, does it not? Besides, judging by the spell on that blade—I assume Taylor procured it recently and without telling me—I’d imagine you made short work of the beast once you found it.”

  His jaw clenched in frustration. The butler was so calm and composed all the time. He was almost as bad as his mistress.

  “That’s not the point. Besides, finding it is bad enough. Do you realize what kinds of conditions that thing lives in? It makes me wonder how the client even found out the damn thing was there, to begin with. I’m merely glad it’s still winter. In the summer, there would have been…bugs. Hundreds and thousands of bugs.”

  The old man looked tired. “Kudos to you for your valiant achievement in vanquishing it,” he stated in a monotone.

  “I mean,” Remy added and raised one hand to adjust his tie at the neck, only to recall that he wasn’t wearing one at the moment, “it wasn’t really all that life-threatening. Especially with the big, impressive magic sword and all. I can see why Taylor actually trusted me to deal with it single-handedly. Well, me plus Conrad.”

  Usually, when the agency’s affairs required someone or something to be killed, Taylor handled it herself.

  “But,” he went on, “simply because something is easy doesn’t mean it’s…pleasant. In the slightest.” He shuddered and ran a hand over his face as though trying to wipe the memory from his brain with the same motion.

  Presley, to his great irritation, smiled. “That is quite understandable, sir. Of course, that is also why she entrusted the task to you. Now, we must do something about that sword.”

  “Oh, right,” Remy agreed. He shoved the blade sideways toward the lycanthrope. The old man almost flinched but accepted it gingerly. He tried not to get any of the trace amount of hideous slime on his white gloves.

  The young man smiled. “Thanks for letting me borrow it. Or thank Taylor, I guess. I already wiped the worst of it off, but I’m very sure that it’ll need further cleaning, sadly. I’m sure you’re the perfect man for the job.”

  With that, he spun on his heel and strode away before the butler had time to protest or try to give the sword back to him. He couldn’t imagine Presley would much look forward to the task but then again, Remy had already more than earned his pay for the day.

  In fact, as he traipsed up the stairs toward his room, he realized that he’d have the house all to himself for the night.

  Taylor was gone. Conrad would only be there for maybe another hour at most and then he’d have the privilege of driving back to his apartment on the Upper East Side and doing whatever it was he did at night. The butler would pass out soon after that.

  Life was good.

  “I still have a good three, maybe even four beers in the fridge,” he recalled out loud to better savor the sweetness of the words. “And there ought to be at least, say, two pizza places that will be open for another couple of hours. If I time it right, it ought to arrive a little after Conrad leaves.”

  His bodyguard probably heard him say that, not that he cared. It wasn’t like the fastidious bastard ever ate anything other than kale, Greek yogurt, and protein shakes anyway. Unless he was in werewolf form, of course. Then he suddenly developed a healthy interest in red meat.

  Remy pushed the door to his room open. Conrad had, horrifyingly, changed out of his usual dark suit and was now wore casual sportswear while doing some fairly impressive stretching exercises.

  “Conrad,” he said and slammed the door behind him. “Is there any chance you could bring me a beer from the fridge?” He picked the remote up and turned the TV on.

  The lycanthrope turned and looked at him with a blank expression.

  “Yeah, going up and down stairs is good exercise,” he continued. “But I had to
stab that thing, like, thirty-seven times and the hydraulic suction effect when trying to pull the blade free made it into a hell of a workout. Plus, my next mixed martial arts class is tomorrow, so that’ll make up for all the liquid carbs I’m about to drink.”

  The werewolf returned his limbs to a normal configuration. “Actually, sir, if you don’t need me for bodyguard duties at the moment, I’m a little busy. Technically, my contract only applies to activities that protect you from harm.”

  “Fine,” he grumbled and shook his head. “Do you have any pizza topping requests? I don’t know if you even eat that stuff anyway but might as well ask.”

  As he returned his attention to his next set of stretches, Conrad merely said, “Thank you, sir, but I try to stay away from pizza.”

  With a shrug, Remy whipped his phone out and called the nearest pizzeria while he wandered down to the refrigerator. It occurred to him that he probably ought to get a mini-fridge or at least a cooler so as to reduce staircase trips when beer was involved.

  “Hi,” he said into the speaker in response to the young lady’s tired-sounding greeting. “You guys are still open, right? And you still deliver to…” He gave the address

  There was a short silence and he could almost hear her cringe. They must have a new guy doing the driving. Taylor’s house lay at the extreme rear of one of those awful, labyrinthine rich-people neighborhoods and was not easy to find.

  “Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “Huzzah,” he said. “I’ll take an extra-large, regular crust, regular sauce, three-toppings. We’ll say, pepperoni, sausage, and…uh, green peppers. With a side of ranch. Not the Lite kind, please, and thank you.”

  The young woman confirmed his order and told him that he could expect his pizza in about forty or forty-five minutes.