"You gonna tell me your name?" Marco asked the tall black woman.

The woman bristled and answered without looking at Marco. "Call me Franz," she finally said.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, Marco carefully noting the carefully hidden bulge under Franz' left arm that could only mean the woman was strapped with a gun. 

By the time she and Franz exited the elevator, Marco had developed a limp.

She had also developed a simple cover story, some injury gained while she had been running for her life, but she already knew that Franz would never ask. The limp was solely for show, just in case she needed a two-second head-start, since no one expected a limping woman to go very fast.

In a life or death situation, two-seconds could be an eternity.

The floor was in night-mode since it was the middle of the night, 3:14AM according to the clock above the desk that during normal office hours would have been occupied by an imperious secretary; the last line of defence before anyone was granted access to the seat of power.

There was no secretary there, just a tall handsome man in a grey suit who was busy shredding a stack of paper. Some of the paper appeared to be smeared with dried blood.

"We found the intruder sir," Franz said loudly and clearly.

"Oh good," the man said without turning around. He fed more paper into the shredder. "I hope Angus didn't make too much of a mess."

Franz glanced at Marco, perplexed. She looked back to the man who was clearly her employer. Marco was still trying to get a good look at the man behind the desk. He was in two parts of what looked to be an expertly tailored three-piece suit, the grey jacket hung on a nearby coat-rack. He was in his waistcoat, sleeves on his crisp white shirt rolled up almost to his elbows. Even from behind, there seemed it be something different about the man, something otherworldly that Marco couldn't quite put her finger on. After her experience downstairs with the werewolf, she wouldn't have doubted if the man was a vampire or something equally impossible.

"We'll need to shut down the fourth floor while they clean it up—"

"Take care of it then Franz," the man said impatiently. He fed more paper into the shredder." Why are you coming to me with this? You don't need me to tell you what to do with the body do you?"

"Sir," Franz said firmly, hidden meaning in her tone, that was enough to get his attention. "There is no body. She is standing right here."

The man turned and got to his feet in one fluid motion that Marco would have sworn was not humanly possible. He turned to them, his intense and impossible pale blue eyes immediately locking onto Marco and drilling into her soul. Marco felt a chill as she felt something brush across her mind, something probing her memories, forcing its way—

"NO!" Marco yelled and pushed back with all of her will.

The tall vampire who was pretending to be human, shook his head, clearly irritated by the unexpected pushback from this mere human, and was he surprised? Surprised and angry, angry enough that his fangs were clearly showing now when they hadn't before. Had she done that? She rather thought she had.

"What the hell was that?" Marco gasped, unable to do anything else. She was aware that Franz had already pulled her weapon and had taken a step backward, the gun pointed right at Marco's head.

"Make a move and I put you down right here, no more questions," Franz snapped. She looked to her employer. "Gabriel, are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Gabriel snapped, his eyes intent on Marco. "She surprised the hell out of me. Please bring me up to speed on what I'm looking at here?"

Anyone looking at the woman who called herself Marco would have seen only what she wanted them to see.

The first thing they saw would be the mane of thick curly black hair that stopped about halfway down her shoulders, hair that many men had no doubt dreamed of running their hands through and maybe sometimes gripping in the throes of passion. She was very attractive with dark smoky eyes and chiseled features that could have been carved from marble. She was around five foot ten, slim without being skinny, her lean muscle not too obvious; it was the kind of muscle you got through hard work, not from any gym. A look at her hands would have revealed hands more used to hard work than manicures, despite the short perfectly trimmed and painted nails she presented. She looked caucasian, but something about the curve of her hips spoke of a mixed ancestry. If anyone had thought to ask, she would have told them that her father was black and her mom white; she had taken after her mom in terms of looks.

"I don't know what we're looking at sir. She fought off and survived a werewolf attack without a scratch—"

"Are you kidding me?" Gabriel was incredulous. "Was he drunk or something? Am I going to have to fire Angus? Is that what you're telling me?"

Apparently Franz was used to this type of behaviour.

"No sir," Franz insisted, "It's her. She's got huge potential. I thought she might be a valuable asset—"

"Because she got lucky and survived a werewolf attack?"

"Because she survived a werewolf attack without a scratch! Nobody does that."

Marco glanced around at Franz, and then back to the incredulous Gabriel, trying to calculate her chances of survival. As Gabriel regarded her, even as she came to terms that her world had completely changed, first with a werewolf and now what appeared to be a vampire who also happened to be the CEO of the company she worked for, Marco realized that her survival rate had already dropped to zero.

"Kill her," Gabriel said, looking deep into her eyes. He didn't even look away, and neither did Marco.

There was no gunshot, only silence, then—

"I can't do that sir," Franz said with deep regret, and lowered the gun to her side. "I want to hire her. I think she should work for us."

Marco slowly turned to Franz, realizing for the first time that her heart was pounding in her chest more than it had been even with the werewolf about to rip her head off. She looked at the woman who had refused to kill her and made the only decision she could.

"I'll want at least a hundred twenty thousand a year, full medical and dental, a corporate apartment paid for by the company, first month's paycheck upfront and a written promise that nobody tries to kill me for a year."

There was silence and then Gabriel blinked.

"You don't even want to know what the job is?"

"You're a vampire, there's a werewolf downstairs, I have no idea what Franz is, but right now, this job offer seems to be my only option other than leaving here in a bodybag. I figure that whatever the job is, Franz already knows I can handle it. Since she's currently not trying to kill me, I'm trusting her, so whatever it is, I'm in. I just want to make sure she cannot change her mind about not killing me."

Gabriel looked from Marco to Franz, who only shrugged.

"See what I mean?"

"Welcome to the company miss—"

"Marco. My name is Marco."

<<<>>>>