Immortality Stolen (The Mortal One Series Book 2) (2 page)

Chapter 2

“I DO HAVE to work tonight,” I said, looking over at Antonio. I didn’t know what his plans of babysitting were, but he wasn’t keeping me from going to the bar.

“I figured as much. You know I’m not going to tell you what you can and can’t do while they’re gone, right?”

I shrugged. “Even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to stop me from doing what I wanted to do.”

He laughed. “Trust me, I know.”

There was some awkward silence around the apartment. Finally I got up and headed towards my room. “I’m going to get ready. Want to walk with me over there?”

He nodded and I went into my room.

“I get off around two,” I said.

***

“Want me to meet you here?”

“Sure.”

We both knew I didn’t need him to walk me back to the apartment, but it was nice to have a mortal friend in the midst of everything that was going on. We were both marked and neither of us had taken the plunge to become immortal yet.

He took off around the corner and I went into the bar. I breathed in a sigh of relief once I stepped inside. No matter how crazy life got around me, being inside the bar was a way to relax. Being surrounded by bottles of booze was comforting to me. It was something I knew and something I was comfortable with. Maybe it had to do with control. I could control what went on inside the bar to an extent and that was desperately needed in my life.

“New boyfriend?” Giancarlo, my brown-haired bartender pal was always wondering what was going on in my life. If only he knew.

I shook my head. “No, just a friend.”

“Sure,” he gave me a sideways grin. “When do I get to be just a friend?”

I came around the bar and gave him a jab in the ribcage. “You already are. You didn’t expect any extra benefits, did you?”

“Well if you’re offering…”

“I’m not.”

“Damn.”

I laughed and grabbed the list that he had started of things we needed to get from the back. It had been a few days since I had a shift and it was good to be back. It wasn’t the most glamorous work, but it was fun for me.

“Dylan!” Matt caught up to me in the walk-in cooler. His floppy blond bangs were hanging in his face. He swept them away but they fell right back in place.

“Yes?” I grinned because he was only that happy to see me when he wanted me to take extra shifts.

“Can you work tomorrow night?”

“Sure.”

“As manager?”

“Oh?”

He smiled. “I know you have the experience and I need a day off.”

“So you can get a haircut?” I teased.

He played with his bangs for a second. “It’s not that bad is it?”

I scrunched up my nose. “Yeah, it kinda is.”

“Hmmph. Seriously, though, would you mind?” He leaned against the door to the cooler, keeping it open for me.

With Costin and Nico out of town, it would be a great distraction. It beat sitting inside the apartment drinking wine and reading books I’d read a hundred times already. “Sure. Anything special I need to do?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’ll give you the keys tonight. Open up, give out the banks to the bartenders, collect the money from the servers at the end of the night, run some reports, and lock up.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“If you know what you’re doing,” he winked.

We talked about a few more details and then I grabbed up the jar of maraschino cherries and a case of beer before leaving the cooler.

The night was relatively uneventful. Drinks were made. Drunks were escorted out. Giancarlo flirted. I set drinks on fire. It was a good shift.

After we cleaned up and the last of the employees shuffled out, Matt tossed me the keys. “See you on Wednesday.”

“You got it,” I said, putting the keys in my messenger bag.

Giancarlo raised an eyebrow. “What’s that about?”

I dismissed it, not wanting to make a big deal out of it. “I’m just helping Matt out tomorrow.”

“As the manager?”

“It’s no biggie.”

“I’ve been here longer.”

I rolled my eyes. This is why I hadn’t mentioned it to him. “I have experience.”

“Back in the States?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“It’s really not a big deal. Nothing’s going to change.”

He shrugged. “Of course not.” He tried not to look hurt, but he couldn’t hide the expression that crossed his face before I saw it. “Your boyfriend’s here.”

I turned to see Antonio walking over to the back of the bar where a few of us were standing. Before I could argue with Giancarlo that he wasn’t my boyfriend, he had already started walking away. It was going to be weird tomorrow between us when I was managing, I just knew it.

“How was your night?” Antonio kept pace with me as we walked to my apartment. I told him about some of the highlights and he asked for details about a few different things. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“The drinks, the people,” he made a gesture with his hands. “It all seems overwhelming. I don’t think I could do it.”

“Eh, you get used to it.” We started up the stairs. “Have you heard anything from Costin or Nico yet?”

He nodded and waited for me to open the door before launching into a full explanation.

“They’re on their way back now,” Antonio said.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. Apparently they found out what they needed to and then Olivier asked them to leave.”

“What?”

“You know as much as I do.”

I can’t imagine Nico and Costin leaving Paris simply because Olivier asked them to do so. There would be no way that they would do that. Olivier didn’t leave Florence when we asked him to, so the same goes for why they shouldn’t when he did.

“So we wait?”

“Yep.” He flopped onto the couch, kicking off his shoes as he did so. He’s grown entirely too comfortable at my apartment, I noted to myself. “Any good wine?”

“Come see for yourself.” I walked into my room to get changed. I smelled like tequila and some of the other liquor that landed on me over the course of the night.

“Can I open any bottle I want?” He called.

I had my pants around my ankles, trying to step out of them. The thought of letting him open just any bottle made me want to run out there to see which. Then I remembered that I had already drank the best bottle out there. Whatever he opened could be replaced easily enough. “Sure.”

“You want a glass?”

“Sure,” I called out. I changed into a pair of capris and a t-shirt. The heeled boots got kicked into the closet and I opted for bare feet, trying to let them breathe for a little while.

Antonio had set a glass of red wine next to his own on the coffee table. I curled up on the couch next to him, my feet tucked under me. With the glass of wine to my lips, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The smell of the tannins calmed my senses.

“You have great taste in wine,” Antonio said.

“Thanks, I’m learning.” I set the wine on the table and turned my attention to Antonio. His olive complexion was the epitome of Italian breeding and I envied it. My own skin paled against his, quite literally. Now that we were getting into the fall months, there was even less opportunity to work on my tan than usual.

“What do you want to know?” He eyed me, waiting for the questions to begin. Damn, he knew me all too well.

“Tell me more about these zombies.”

He let out a yawn and leaned back into the over-sized pillows of the couch. “Not much to tell. Depending on the power of the necromancer, you probably wouldn’t even know they were dead. They can look just like you and I, especially if they haven’t been dead long.”

“Ugh, really?” There was no way to disguise the disgust in my voice. Vampires were always fascinating to me. Zombies were something I always tried to avoid in my fiction and my movies.

“I’ve never seen them firsthand but my research has told me enough about them. Costin has encountered them once or twice but he doesn’t say much. Like I said, it all depends on the necromancer.”

I didn’t like the idea that zombies were responsible for Henri’s death. I really didn’t like the fact that they could look human because that made it harder to figure out who was behind the whole thing. Whoever this necromancer was had to be working with Olivier and that spelled trouble. And yet again, I found myself waiting for Nico and Costin so I could get some answers.

“I wouldn’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Dylan,” Antonio said. “I know the look you get on your face. You’re worried about Nico and about your own safety. It’s okay to admit it, especially to me.”

He was right. I could talk to him about anything – and I had on more than one occasion. He probably knew more about me than anyone because we had one major thing in common. We were both mortals in a world filled with immortals.

It was almost dawn when Nico and Costin came in.

“Definitely zombies,” Costin confirmed.

“And?” I asked, eager to learn about what they had discovered in Paris.

“And we must use the back room until tonight,” Nico said, kissing me on the forehead and quickly retreating with Costin into the spare bedroom.

“I hate when they do that shit,” I said, looking at Antonio with my hand on my hip.

He busted out laughing. “They’ve done that to me more times than I can count. I’ve gotten used to it.”

I shook my head. “This whole daylight thing is a real inconvenience sometimes.” I was pissed. We’d waited all evening to find out what was going on. They finally get here and they have to go into the dark room because of the approaching sunrise.

“It’s 5 in the morning and I have to work tonight,” I announced to Antonio. “You’re welcome to crash on the couch.”

“Thanks.”

I walked into my bedroom, closed the door, and quickly fell asleep amidst a dozen pillows.

***

“You can’t go to work tonight. We have things we need to discuss,” Costin stated.

I looked over at Nico and back to Costin. “Sorry, but Matt’s out of town and I’m playing manager.

“And if I forbid it?”

My eyes narrowed on him. While I knew as Nico’s sovereign that he could forbid me to do something, he had yet to pull that kind of rank with me. I might have been the pet of one of his vampire’s but I was also given a little more freedom because of the relationship Nico and I had.

“Are you?”

Costin stared at me for a moment and then backed down. “You will come right here after work?”

I nodded.

“Fine.”

“Come,” Nico tucked my arm under his and we left the apartment. We walked to a nearby trattoria to get a bite to eat before I had to go in and open the bar.

As we walked over to the other side of South Centro, Nico slowed down.

“It’s getting complicated in Paris,” he said.

“What’s going on?”

He slid his hand through his hair. “It’s like nothing Costin or I have ever seen. There are several zombies walking around at night that don’t seem to be controlled by anyone. They are in constant search of something, though we’re not sure what that something is.”

“Have you tried talking to them?”

Nico shook his head. “They are mute.”

“Oh.” I hated being ignorant about these things. It wasn’t something that Antonio offered up when we talked about zombies. He didn’t seem to know a whole lot about them, so I had dropped the subject all too easily.

“Olivier knew when we arrived in the city. He allowed us to question some of the vampires that were willing to talk to us. Once we started asking about the zombies, however, he asked us to leave.”