Vampire Money (Paranormal billionaire erotic romance)

Vampire Money

by Delia Dirk

Copyright 2012 Delia Dirk

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and locations are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental.

You gotta watch for people who get to the top in five months or less, that's how you catch 'em. Don't get distracted by the little things: some people just prefer their blinds closed. Believe me, I would know.

Anyone who's way too experienced for their age, that's a red flag. But they're sneaky, vampires are. They've been in the game longer than we have. They know how to hide themselves from being caught out easy. But it's the numbers, y'know, it's not like they're all math professors or anything. You can't hide from data mining. When it comes down to it, they leave a big ol' trail of stats. And you can't hide that.

Yeah, vampire hunter's the right phrase, I guess, y'know,
technically
. But there's no, like, stakes or blood or messy stuff. Like, don't get me wrong, they're still vampires, but they're not really into the whole murder thing any more. Nice thing about capitalism is that people have other things in their lives with almost as much power over them as their blood does.

What? Why did you think I was here? You've got a vampire racing up the ranks of your company. Christ, he's the guy you were talking about promoting to CFO. Yeah, you think he's helping you out now? Wait three months, tops. He'll vanish along with half the money invested in the place. Believe me, you want him out and you want him out as fast as possible.”

Gretchen Lemming, CEO of Seward, Morris, and Holmwood, inc. eyes me mangily. “And you said your name was?”

“Lola Luz,” I repeat, “Look, I've got all the statistics right here. I've been following you guys for months.”

“That's not your real name,” says Mrs. Lemming.

“No, I gotta keep a really low profile. I come in, I flush 'em out, I'm gone. One of these guys tracks me down, you think I'm ending up anywhere but dead?”

She's got bags under her eyes, I've probably caught her on her way to bed, but she's like a wall in the doorway. “I think the access you're asking for is completely unprecedented.”

“Just to the one guy! Look, you can keep all the tabs on me you want. I'll be totally transparent. Here, I'll even give you the stuff I've got on him so far. Let you look it over for a few days, y'know. Whatever you need. I'm just- I'm trying to save your ass, here.”

“I'm not trying to dismiss your claims, ma'am, but it's 11:45 at night.” Lemming runs brittle fingers through greying hair. “We've got our own men watching for internal attacks and they've said nothing to make me think the situation requires outside consultation.”

“Look, look, um, have you seen the movie Superman III? Or, like, Office Space?” I fumble with the file folder, nearly dropping the stupid thing before I find the one I need. She stares at me, of course she hasn't seen the damn movies. “It's like, when you make a transaction, usually there are tiny fractions of a penny that the machine has to round to the nearest cent. This guy's put something on your system that makes sure that doesn't happen, makes the machine forward that money into his bank account.”

She eyes the document humorlessly. “If, as you say,, he is going to cut and run in a few months with half our investments, why would he be wasting his time with these bits and pieces?”

“Because he's a vampire! I mean, the guys gave up blood, they gotta survive somehow. He's practically starving himself at this rate, but he's made a couple slips, stolen bigger amounts out of hunger, or desperation, or whatever. I've got a couple other guys in here he matches up with really well.” I thrust the folder at her.

She sighs, refuses to look at me. “Alright, alright, I'll... I'll look it all over in the morning.” My first victory of the night: she takes the folder. “I'm not saying you're right about Solomon, but I'll give the matter some thought.” Her hand on the door, stepping back into her house.

“Thank you so much, ma'am. You don't know what this means to me. I mean, a girl's gotta eat.”

The nice thing about the higher ups of Fortune 500 companies is that they've all got their names on their doors. Makes it way easier than when I'm going after one of the small-time operators. Hell, executives are falling so hard over themselves to let the world know who they are that sometimes they have crap like photos of themselves in their offices. Though it can be kinda hard to tell them apart, and let me tell you that can lead to some ugly situations.

Ah, there's our boy, Solomon Luria. He must be running out of names to use, too. Hah. It's a nice place, big window, some gold stuff, you know how it is. At least there's no framed self-portraits or anything this time.

I make my way around the oversized desk to plop myself in front of the computer. This, I've done a million and a half times. Not that it wouldn't be easy even if I'd never tried it before. Just gotta bring a USB key with a couple programs on it and copy those files over somewhere a person would never look.

The whole thing should only take a couple minutes, but I've mistimed myself. Misread the schedule or maybe the whole thing's running a bit off, I don't know, but damn it if the man himself doesn't suddenly loom in the office door. Terrible.

He's a tall guy, well built but pale, tailored suit, slick hair, easy to picture a cigar in his hand. Bit different from your average blood sucking freak, but totally normal for your big money grubbing one. Reminds me a bit of Gordon Gekko, and I've always had a thing for Michael Douglas.

“Sorry, sir!” I simper, “I was told you were in an important meeting. I'm just doing a system upgrade. For some reason your machine wasn't letting us in remotely so I had to walk over from IT.” And if he questions me, I can always start throwing technical terms at him.

He looks at his watch – who the hell still wears a watch these days? “That's alright, I've got a few minutes to spare.” He smiles, and I get an eyeful of his pearly whites. My, what big teeth you have.

And I think I've about got away with the whole thing, but then the fucker starts up with the small talk. And that's just damn weird. “Have you been working here long? I don't think I've seen you around before.”

“Oh, yeah I'm just a consultant. They're doing system-wide modifications so they brought in a couple of us to help out. I'll be done here soon.”

“But, you know, you look familiar somehow. Have we met?” His brow furrows slightly and he's sort of – lounging? He's got an arm draped out and is twirling an embossed pen around his fingers.

“I doubt it, sir. I'm new in town.”

“Really? So am I, actually. I was in
São Paulo
for a few years.” His eyes stay on my face. I don't like it. “It's almost like moving to a different universe.”

5... 4... 3... come the fuck on...

“Where are you from?” he asks.

“Toronto,” I lie. The file's transferred, I'm done, I'm gone. “You can have your computer back now.” I'm practically running out of the room.

“Just a second.” His lightly cultured voice grips me like a fist. Vampires. “You really do look familiar. Are you sure we haven't met?”

“I've never seen you before in my life.” And that's not a lie.

It should be a lie, that's the frightening part. I've got a library of major players that goes back fifty years. Who the hell is this guy? He can't have come from nowhere, not with what he was sporting. He's got to have been around for at least a little while. Is he a holdover from the days when vampires were cold blooded murderers? A new convert to the business world? That'd make things complicated, ugly.

But the VNC software and keylogger worked like a charm so I can watch what he's doing at any time and have records of it all. And for the most part it's... less than enlightening. The guy works on business transactions, the guy corrects Wikipedia articles about historical events, the guy, believe it or not, runs a blog! I mean, kinda endearing for sure but it's not helping me out at all.

Here we go, banking info. Money shot. He's checking his accounts. But – before he gets his password in, he pauses. The mouse kinda hesitates on the screen, weird how you can see that. He opens a text document:

It just hit me who you actually are. I know you're watching me
, he types. Fuck. Now that is just the worst news I've had in a long time.

I can't believe I didn't notice it sooner, but then I guess you're as much of a professional as I am. You hid yourself well, but you're going after the last person you should be.
Quickly erased:
I may be a vampire but
– Replaced with:
I'm a bit like you, I'm fighting back. I'm making my money legitimately. I am not going to ruin this company. If someone's tripped your radar, it wasn't me.

It sits there on the screen for a minute longer than I take to read it, then is erased.

And so for the next weeks I sit and watch, trying to decide what I'm supposed to do with this. He's probably lying, but god damn does the idea eat at me. I can't just go and oust this guy if he's innocent. Even worse: he seems like a pretty good dude. I mean, here I am watching him go about his daily business and the worst thing he does is get edit wars internet losers on historical Wikipedia articles. Hell, I could see myself doing that if I were hundreds of years old too. But most of the time it's work or the news. He avoids his bank from then on. Once in a while, though, he sends me a little message.

Are you still there?

These files are classified. Does Mrs. Lemming know you're doing this?

I found your file. Don't know how to get rid of it. I hope you see I'm not doing anything untoward.

The weirdest thing is when he gives me an explanation of what he's doing. Those ones, I just can't figure out. Is the guy just lonely? Why does he think I'd care?

Written beside a chat window:
I've known this guy for three lifetimes and he hasn't gone one day without being an asshole.

Sometimes he even does explanations of the work he's doing, as if he knows I know my way around money. What's his game?

Eventually, I figure it out. He wants to endear me to him. He wants me to like him so I can't go through with my job. He wants me to decide he's a good guy and let him go.

But there's just – I can't just let it go. I can't just let him keep doing his thing. He's a fucking vampire. I didn't know they came in flavours other than 'soulless toolbag.' Everything in me is just so repulsed by the thought of leaving him alone.

I'm going through his filing cabinet when he walks into his office. My god, this guy's timing is good enough that it must be a sixth sense. Our eyes lock and I slip the folder back into the drawer.

Now, normally these guys look kinda amused when they see me. Y'know, like I'm being cute. But this guy, he- Christ, he just looks upset. Not angry or superior or anything. Kinda confused, actually. I guess he thought I fell for it.

“I thought you may have decided to track down whoever is really at fault here. I'm sorry to see you still trying,” he says.

“If you'd given me any evidence at all, I might've looked into it.”

An amused smile on his lips, he lets out a breath that makes him seem to deflate, walks into the office, sits. “In the American criminal justice system, people are presumed innocent. You need to prove someone's guilt.”