Bennett made her way across the expansive room, sidestepping the bongs, glass pipes, discarded sex toys, and writhing bodies. She didn’t acknowledge the vampire bodyguards flanking the hall, for her eyes were riveted on the two doors at the end that led to Napoleon’s office, or rather the rear hall of the home. Half the size of the great room, if Bennett’s memory served, its walls were lined with books that were never read, for Napoleon’s interest in literature aligned with his interest in almost everything else. If it didn’t feed his hunger, make him more profits, or enable him to eject his sperm, what was the point?

Seeing no need to knock, Bennett opened the door and stepped inside, immediately wishing she had rapped on the door and done it with her fist. Napoleon sat behind his desk looking at the ceiling, and with his robe open wide, Bennett didn’t need a pencil to connect the dots.

Alerted by the creak of hinges, Napoleon lowered his eyes, and when he saw Bennett, he pasted on a smile. “Archer, you’re just in time. It’s taco Tuesday, or as I’d like to call it, burrito buffet…although it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?”

“You need to ask your fellatio flunky to leave.”

“And why would I do that?” Napoleon said, placing his hand on the head between his legs. “He’s marvelous.”

“Because unless I’m mistaken, that particular act requires a lower jaw, something your friend will direly need in a few minutes.”

Bennett bit off a laugh when she saw Napoleon flinch. Whoever was between his legs also apparently had marvelous hearing.

“Yes, well, why don’t you go play with the others, cutie, so I can talk to the mutant,” Napoleon said, pushing his chair back so the man could stand up. “We’ll continue this later.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bennett said under her breath as the man sashayed from behind the desk, and her disgust had nothing to do with the four-inch patent leather platform heels he was wearing. Preferring not to view the man’s dangling penis as it protruded from the opening in his latex silver-studded shorts, Bennett looked to the ceiling, and it wasn’t until she heard the door close her eyes returned to Napoleon.