“And?”

“And what?” I sighed.

He just looked at me, daring me to defy him.

“Twenty-two and five months,” I told him. “Should I scribble my cup size on there too while I’m at it?”

Proving that angels weren’t human, his eyes didn’t even dip to my chest. “No need. You will be measured by our staff for your uniform.”

“So that means I’m in?”

“Not yet.”

Geez, the Legion didn’t reject anyone. Why was this guy giving me a hard time?

“The Legion accepts initiates starting on the first day you turn twenty-two,” he said coolly. “Why wait five months if you’re so eager to serve?”

“Sorry I’m late. I wanted to see my sister off to school before I left. Which I did early this morning, then came straight here.”

He didn’t look like he was buying my load of bullshit. Damn, I’d had it all worked out. It had sounded so convincing in my head.

“Why do you want to join the Legion?”

I was beginning to hate that question with the fury of a thousand burning hells. “I hear angels are great in the sack,” I told him, proud of myself for keeping a straight face as I said it.

My words made him pause for a few seconds as he stared at me in silence. “I will find out what you’re hiding,” he said calmly, lacing his fingers together. “You can be sure of that.”

“Honey, I usually save interrogations for the second date.”

His nostrils flared, and the air crackled with magic. “If you’re to survive the Legion, you will need to watch that mouth.”

“Does that mean I’m in?”

He continued to stare at me for a few seconds, then he stood from the desk and opened the door. “Follow me,” he said over his shoulder.

I followed him back down the hall, wondering what this was all about. Maybe I’d mouthed off too much this time. “Taking me outside to shoot me while the city looks on?” I asked.

“No.”

He led me through the double doors into the lobby, then out the front door. We walked for a few blocks, the crowds parting before him. Either they were as scared of him as I should have been, or he was using his magic to influence them.

He stopped in front of a club with a flashing sign out front. Their logo appeared to be a heart with a wing flapping on either side. Whatever this place was, it was popular. It was—I glanced up at the nearest clocktower—ten in the morning, and the line into the club extended around the block. My angelic companion walked right to the front. The bouncer took one look at him, then waved us inside. The bouncer seemed to know him. Of course he did. There weren’t a lot of angels in the world. If this angel was stationed here, everyone in the city must have known who he was.

Even though it was full daylight outside, inside the club, night was in full swing. Disco lights spun and flashed in every direction, bouncing off the gyrating bodies of the dancers on the dance floor. A few of the women stopped to smile and wave their panties at my angel. What the hell kind of place had he brought me to?

“I was just kidding about the date, you know,” I said as we sat down at the bar.

He gave me a frosty look. “This isn’t a date.”

Something in his eyes made me blush. I couldn’t explain it. It must have been more angel magic at work.

“You brought me to a club,” I pointed out. “That seems like a date to me.” I just couldn’t help myself. My mouth was running away with me again.

“This is your interview,” he stated.

“Here?” I looked around at the club full of daylight-shunning partiers.

“Yes, here. A lot of rogue vampires have been popping up in the city over the past few months. Someone is making them outside of the system.”

Uh-oh. The gods didn’t like that. They crushed all vampire-turning operations outside their control and punished the responsible party. Without mercy.

“I just captured one of those vampires who got away,” I told the angel.

“I know. That’s why I’m confident this test should be no problem for you.”

Just how much had he read up on me? We hadn’t reported Zane’s disappearance for obvious reasons, but what if the Legion had other sources? They’d start asking why the dark angels took him. And I didn’t have a good answer for them.

I tried to cover my nervousness with a smile. “So confident in my abilities? If I didn’t know better, I might think you’re flirting with me.”

“Then it’s a good thing you know better. You’re obviously smarter than you look.”

I didn’t know whether or not to be offended by that comment, so I said nothing more. In the meantime, the angel celebrated my silence by motioning to the exhausted bartender. The poor guy looked like his shift had been over for a long time, but my companion’s attention woke him right back up. He quickly put down two glasses of silver liquid in front of us. It didn’t look like alcohol—or anything else that I’d ever seen. It rippled strangely, like it wasn’t entirely liquid.

“There’s a rogue vampire in the bathroom, sipping on the replacement bartender’s neck,” the angel said, swirling his drink around with total calmness. “You will apprehend him. Apprehend, not kill. I want him alive.”

“I don’t have the right gear on me to take on a vampire,” I protested.

“You have everything you need.”