Department 57: Bloody Crystal Read Free

stock up before closing time. Especially on a Friday night. Clubbers would drink in places like this to avoid the extortionate prices they’d have to pay later. “I’ll help. I used to work behind a bar.” He wanted to talk to her, needed to.
    Dave sniggered. “We’ll talk about it when we get these jokers out. Come on, gentlemen.”
    The ambulant one staggered, and he forced the other to his feet and frog-marched him out. He might have missed a meal, but he had landed in a much more intriguing place. Feeding could wait.
    Dave turned to him, offered his hand. “Thanks for your help.”
    “Want some help behind the bar?”
    “I don’t know you.”
    “I do.”
    He hadn’t expected her—Cerys—to say anything. He’d offered out of sheer boredom and a definite interest in the ethereal Cerys, especially now that she’d come out to him.
    He had no idea other vampires existed in Llandudno. Until he’d left, he’d only known one. Him.
    Cerys gave him a smile, a mere baring of her teeth. “He’s a Tryfanwy.”
    Dave stared at him with new interest. “I thought the last Tryfanwy died last month.”
    Rhodri shrugged. “My family left here a long time since. Looking for work, they were. They found it. But when old Gareth died, the lawyer looked for relatives and found me.”
    “So where have you been?”
    “Around. London, New York. My job takes me to a few places.” Anywhere Cristos or Will Grady sent him. He worked from New York for Cristos usually, but a recent operation had drawn him back to England. The rest was true. The lawyer had contacted him about Gareth Tryfanwy’s estate. He grinned. “I don’t know why he bothered, except that he needed someone to tie up his loose ends. Once the estate is sorted out, there won’t be much left.”
    “He was in debt?”
    No, of course he wasn’t. Rhodri had seen to that, even if he’d done it from a distance. “Not really. I get the house, apparently. Pretty little place, if a bit run-down.” To say the least. Gareth had been a collector. Newspapers and old bean cans were his specialty.
    The two staff left at the bar were coping, but already the place was fuller than it had been when he arrived. “Shouldn’t we get to work?”
    “Five pounds an hour, cash. You sign the book when you’re done,” Dave said. Meaning he wouldn’t use his real name, and he’d get the five an hour without deductions. Otherwise he could demand minimum wage. Five an hour was almost half that. As it happened, money was the least of the attractions in working behind the bar in a place like this. His background, his training urged him to discover more about the place, and what better way than to act in a role that many people hardly noticed? The fact that he’d be closer to the woman who’d fascinated him from the minute he’d seen her was only a byproduct. Didn’t matter at all.
    Sure it didn’t.
    “Thanks.” Did he look that indigent? He was sure he didn’t, but maybe Dave thought he’d come back out of desperation. Hardly. Which made him wonder something else. Why was she working here? Vampires weren’t usually short of money. His mentor had always said, “Show me a poor vampire, and I’ll show you an idiot.” They had family, and anyone who couldn’t make enough money to be comfortable in the first hundred years of their existence had to be doing something wrong.
    Maybe she liked it. Or maybe she had a thing for Dave. Big, strong motherfucker like that had to be attractive to women.
    He’d find out. It would enliven his so-called vacation.

Chapter Two
     
    Cerys kept sneaking looks at him. Big, bad vampire for sure. The man wasn’t as large as Dave, but he didn’t have to be. Few people were that huge, anyway. Rhodri had that brooding look that most women adored, and as far as she could tell, it wasn’t put on. Something was bothering him for real. It just added to that sexy aura he effortlessly projected. She wondered if he knew he was projecting it.
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