Going Underground (Vampire Paranormal Romance Short Story)

By Selina Coffey

All she ever wanted was to sing... Leliana has wanted to be a singer ever since she was a little girl, entertaining people on stage to help them forget their worries while she basked in the glow of the stage lights. Though that never happened, she settled for the next best thing: living out her dreams as a private eye. The reality is far less glamorous than the radio shows used to make it, but the pay is good, so she can't complain too much. Typically, her cases involve someone running out on their spouse, or someone missing an item that was stolen. Tonight, however, she's in for the case of a lifetime. When a wealthy man's daughter goes missing, it's up to her to track her down. She expects it to be just another case in her cap, until the trail leads her into a den of vampires. As if that didn't complicate things enough, one of them takes a shine to her, and soon she's caught up in a broiling underworld conflict that she should have no part of for his sake. All in a day's work for Leliana Tornbeau, really.

 

WARNING: This book includes mature themes and language, intended for adults only.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lovy Books Ltd
• Release date: Aug 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223261438

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

So you're telling me, Leliana said as she leaned back in her chair, That your daughter has gone missing, she folded her hands in front of her and kicked up her feet on the edge of her desk as she stared down her most recent prospective client. He was a wealthy man, if naïve, and it didn't take much for her to see that he had been out of his depth long before he had made it to her doorstep. The man, one Mister James Cooper was seated opposite her, in one of the wooden chairs set up for clients to take a seat at while they told her of their woes. He fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable with her light scrutiny of his disposition before clearing his throat and sitting up a little straighter in his seat.

Err, yes, that's right, he said with a cough of embarrassment. Succinctly put, Miss Tornbeau. He fidgeted in his seat again. I fear that she has been kidnapped, but the police won't do anything about it! They assume that because she's been a trouble maker in the past that she's just run off! I feel like I have nowhere else to turn to! Leliana wondered if it burned him that he had to walk through Harlem to get to her, or even that it was her that he had to turn to. She smoothed out the sleeves of her peacoat, the heather gray fabric stark against her deep umber skin. Normally, it wasn't an issue for anyone who came here; almost all of the people that found their way here were the kindest people that she could have hoped to work with, no matter where they came from. But this man was clearly not used to venturing far out of his gilded community, and the streets of Harlem might have been quite the shock to his sensitivities.

Still, a contract was a contract, she thought to herself as she observed him.

And you want me to go and find her, and, preferably, bring her home? He nodded mutely. She sighed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. Do you have any evidence indicating that that isn't the case? That she hasn't run off, I mean, she said before realizing how that sounded. Not that I want to come across as insensitive – whatever the case may be, I'll find your daughter, she vowed as she straightened in her chair, pulling her feet down and tucking them back under the desk.

Oh! He evidently hadn't anticipated that line of questioning – perhaps he hadn't thought that she would consider his offer this seriously, or perhaps he was just used to being turned away by the police. Either way, he seemed to recover fairly quickly. Yes! Yes, just a moment, he fumbled in his briefcase beside his chair for a moment before producing a photograph and a piece of paper. Here, he handed the items over to her for her inspection. I found them to be quite curious, as I'd never seen anything like it in my life!

She gave the paper a once over first, curious as to what it could contain. It was a letter, a farewell letter, it seemed, written in deep red ink and told her father that she was running away to get away from his tyranny. It wouldn't have struck her as odd, but for the ink color and the hand writing – she could have sworn that she'd seen it somewhere before, but she couldn't put her finger on where.

I'm guessing this isn't her handwriting, she said as she inspected the paper closer. She could faintly smell the scent of copper off of the paper, confirming her suspicions that the ink was, in fact, blood. So, she thought grimly as she set the paper aside. At least one vampire was involved. That complicated matters.

Vampires, amongst other things that went bump in the night, weren't uncommon, and were usually not a problem – they all contributed to society, and there were ways for vampires in particular to find ways to feed without needing to harvest people. All in all, it was usually a non-issue when you ran into one. But there were outliers, ones that didn't like to obey the rules, and those were the ones that were hard as hell to deal with. Nobody liked them, not even