Deliverance by Dakota Banks Read Free Book Online

was as white as if the sun had never kissed it, and free of imperfections. Elizabeth slowly unbuttoned her coat, shook it out, and hung it on a peg on a rack near the door. By the time her stunning figure, in a sheath dress the same color as her fingernails and lips, had been displayed fore and aft, she could have her pick of men in the room. But that wasn’t why she was here tonight. When she did prowl, it wouldn’t be in a bar with congealed cheese dip on the tables.
    Elizabeth sat at the bar. The bartender, trying to be nonchalant, finished wiping a section of the bar before he came over to take her order.
    “What can I get you to drink, honey?”
    She waved away the prospect of a drink order with a small gesture of her hand. “I’m here for a meeting in the back room.”
    The bartender went to a curtained doorway and spoke to someone behind the curtain. He waved Elizabeth over with a nod of his head.
    Behind the curtain were three security guards. One grabbed Elizabeth’s arms and raised them over her head. Another searched her with a metal detector wand followed by a lingering, manual search. She pursed her lips and put up with it.
    If my demon Tirid hadn’t ordered me to do this, I’d . . .
    She allowed herself images of her pale skin streaked with the guards’ blood and their brains splattered against the walls, but it wasn’t as satisfying as the real thing.
    “Passport,” the oldest of the guards said.
    “Sorry, didn’t bring it. Doesn’t go with my outfit,” she said.
    The guard tensed and drew back his hand as if to strike her. His face reddened.
    Let the fun begin.
    Her nostrils widened and she noticed a fresh scratch on the man’s arm. She could smell his blood. Her eyes dilated with pleasure. Come to me, Red.
    One of the other guards pushed Red away. “No damage to the package.”
    Red’s shoulders drooped in disappointment. He had no idea what had just been averted. The three huddled around a computer monitor, looking at her and then back at the screen. They had to be satisfied with the visual match to whatever grainy photo they had of her on the screen. Red motioned her forward, and she walked with him down a short hallway. At the end was a steel door with a retinal security scanner and an intercom. Red pressed the intercom switch.
    “She’s here, sir. She’s uncooperative and wouldn’t show any ID. I recommend you not see her.”
    There was a slight pause, and a smile began to spread across Red’s face.
    “Send her in.”
    Red grumbled under his breath, but moved his eye up to the retinal scanner. Elizabeth was thinking along the lines of poking out his eye and holding it up to the scanner herself if he wasted any more of her time.
    It’d work as long as the eye is fresh. After a while, the vitreous clouds up so the scanner can’t read the retina through the murky gel. I wonder if the dead eye could be refilled with fresh fluid. After all, they do it on live people. I’ll have to experiment with that sometime.
    The steel door slid back. Red grabbed Elizabeth’s arm and tugged her inside. She reached out with her other hand and drew her fingernail across the back of his hand. Blood welled and he let her go, startled. He pushed her ahead of him instead.
    The room was sparsely furnished with a conference table, soft lights that circled the ceiling, gleaming steel walls, and a small but well-equipped bar in a far corner. One man sat at the table. There was none of the dinginess of the Nine Lives Pub that fronted this place.
    “That’ll be all,” the man at the table said.
    “But . . .” Red started. The man’s raised eyebrows convinced him to close his mouth and leave.
    Elizabeth sighed.
    “Sorry to put you through that, Elizabeth. Do you have a last name?”
    “Yes.”
    When the name wasn’t forthcoming, the man said. “You can call me Fred. Fred Smith.”
    She knew exactly who he was, and his name was not Fred Smith. She’d worked hard to find the channels that led to