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I crinkledhim back," I muttered "You expect me to believe you didn’t know about a mass entrance of old vampires? Give me a break"

"I don’t care what you believe That is the truth I’m no happier than you are That mark was supposed to come in alive The bounty is void But…" A flash of confusion crossed his features "I did get a note It was taped to " He reached into his drawer, extracted a piece of paper, and pushed it across the desk "The head arrived via parcel, so the note was delivered independently We checked the security carabbed the note "Come on, everyone knows vampires don’t show up on film or video"

"Not everyone Humans, for example, don’t even know they exist"

I flipped the note open "You knohat I saround One second, the door was clear, and the next, the note was on it Why not leave the head at the same time?"

I scanned the note as my heart sank into the abyss ofstare "The leader was an elder He could open and close a door between fra past your shoddy security wouldn’t be a probleht I’m sure he had his people attend to the head" I shook the note "And in answer to this--" I huffed "No Hard no No way Not on your life"

"It wouldn’t be on my life It’d be on yours"

My clenched fists et this position?"

"Stating the obvious really goes a long way Idiots tend to ignore the thing staring theht in the face"

I put a boot on the door, a little rethe obvious Do you want another case?" He tapped a brown file on the edge of his desk "Eight hundred bucks, dead or alive Unless you take a desk job, I’m afraid this is all I have"

"I can’t take a desk job" I stuck out it paperwork for the Brink You know that"

"You merely have to buy some You know that"

"With what? My beatbox broke, so I can’t take to the curb for money"

"I don’t knohat any of that means"

I flipped open the file andto squeeze into ht hundred?"

"He only bothers the ether to raise the overnment’s dime, so I can’t send roaned and dropped the hand holding the file "Why not the shifters?"

"They have their hands full with the vampires That’s what they said, anyway Word is, they tried, but lost two of theirs This is heavy ic, and they don’t have that kind of arsenal Neither do I, if you want to know the truth This guy has dabbled in the dark arts He’ll throw hexes at you that you ht not be ready for Word of caution"

I shookabout the vauely

Pity crossed his features for a brief ot, kid Sorry about the vaot time for that"

I blew out a breath

A silent beat "So, you going to do it?" he asked

We both kneasn’t asking about the file

I glanced at the note again I didn’t know I said as ot the official notice of a bounty" The captain nodded toward his coh the actual h If you accept the bounty, they’ll be assigning you a vamp partner"

"Wait" I let ether, you’ll track down thehim in alive, and collect the bounty You will take half The va to take back half of the bounty they put up? That doesn’t make sense"

"It’s our system Otherwise, they’d have to personally hire you This way they’re doing it through us"