Chapter 36 Arabella
Arabella
Gideon: Lovely Arabella, I’ve decided on how I’ll make you suffer for losing our bet. You must endure a date with me. Ha, am I evil? YES I AM. Meet me at the elevators to Sanctus Club tomorrow night at the stroke of midnight. Wear something devastating.
“EVERYTHING LOOKS IN ORDER.” Morrie stands up from where he’s been inspecting my home security system and taps the screen of his tablet.
“I’ll run some checks on the camera feeds, but after I install my additional measures, no one will be able to get within a foot of this house without your express approval.
Plus, I’ve taken the liberty of installing a booby trap in your garden.
It’s simple, but should be effective against even the most bloodthirsty vampire. ”
“Moriarty, you are a wonder.” I shake his hand while extending my other arm so Cleo VII can slither into her favourite position, draped over my shoulders like a scarf. “And just what exciting trap have you installed?”
“For legal reasons, it’s better you don’t know. All I’ll tell you is not to stand in your fountain. Now…” He cracks his knuckles. “Onto that other little task you wanted me to tackle.”
For several minutes, he taps away on his tablet. The conceited smirk tugs downward as he frowns at the screen.
“Hmmm.”
“What?” Cleo VII and I look over his shoulder but I don’t understand what I’m seeing.
“I’m inside the Sanctus network, at the deepest possible permission level. None of the members’ personal files are here.”
“Someone deleted them?”
“No. It means they’re not stored on this system.
Members are identified by numbers only, which seems like a complicated way to manage a property development.
Hmmmm. A company might do that as an extreme safeguard in case someone hacks their system.
That way, hackers wouldn’t get access to sensitive personal information. ”
Like intimate details about the vampiric lives of their members.
“But there have to be files, right? Gideon couldn’t have built all this without them. Are they on paper?”
“Doubtful. More likely they’re on a completely external system – a server or a hard drive that’s not connected to the Sanctus network. If you found the hard drive, I could poke around in it for you.”
I think back to something Gideon said when I deigned to accept him as a client. He has a safe in his apartment where he keeps the “heart of Sanctus”.
He must mean the hard drive.
Even with my powers of persuasion, I’ll never get Gideon to hand it over. His whole reputation is built on keeping the secrets of Sanctus members, and I’m coming to learn that when it comes to Sanctus, Gideon is a man of his word.
Which means that I need to find a way to steal it.
By looking at the hard drive, I can cross Alyra off the list. Or not.
Or Gideon.
The thought invades before I can stop it. Gideon was the head of the Vega crime family for decades. He has incurred the wrath of the Conclave. We know the killer knows everything that goes on at Sanctus.
I have to cross Gideon off our suspect list once and for all because the Conclave are making him their scapegoat…
Because I want to go on this absurd date with him.
Because he’s melting away the ice encasing my heart.
But before he thaws me completely, I need to know I can trust him. He’s broken my trust before. And if you’re not in my circle of trust, you’re in my pyramid of suspicion or rhombus of revenge.
Because, if he’s innocent, maybe I don’t need to take Sanctus from him any longer.
Maybe he’s the right person to create this sanctuary, after all.
But I’m still Arabella Lestrange, and he wronged me.
A little light revenge is good for the complexion.
I turn back to Morrie, who’s been waiting with an amused smirk on his face while I did my thinking. “I can get you the hard drive.”
After Morrie leaves, I send off a text to Celeste, explaining what I need from her.
Once I have a reply that she and Beth will help me, I head straight for my closet.
I ignore the way my heart twists in my chest, like it’s being wrung out by an overenthusiastic washer woman, as I plot how to bring down Gideon with fashion.
I don’t believe in dressing for a man. I buy my clothes for me. But as I run my fingers through the racks, I can’t help imagining which fabric Gideon will peel off me tonight.
There it is.
The dress.
I bought it on a trip to Paris about ten years ago.
I love that travelling to Europe is cheap, and fashion is always calling.
I usually go to Paris, Milan, Berlin and Vienna a few times a year to meet some of my contacts, sell some Merovingian gold, and fill my suitcase with exquisite clothing.
I enjoy the trips, but… I always go alone.
A memory surges, unbidden, of Gideon dragging me through the streets of Montmartre, twirling me beneath the moonlight, holding out treats that I could never eat, climbing into a fountain to kiss me…
The ladies in the Nevermore Coven are always talking about going on a weekend trip to Paris.
Sometimes I imagine taking them to my old haunts – blowing Celeste’s tastebuds with my favourite viennoiserie pastries, shopping for gorgeous books and art with Beth at les bouquinistes along the banks of the Seine, taking Isis on a ghost tour of Montmartre, showing Winnie all the paintings in the Louvre I posed for (seventeen in all), walking with Mina and Oscar down the avenues at Père Lachaise and helping her to touch the tomb engravings on some of my past suitors.
But I’ve never offered. I couldn’t be in Paris with them and not reveal my secrets.
They know your secrets now, a dissenting voice whispers. But that was never the issue, was it? The reason you kept it a secret in the first place is because you’re afraid that when they get to know you – really know you in your bones – they’ll find you unworthy of their friendship.
I finger the neckline of the dress.
I don’t want to do this.
Revenge should be a pleasure, like savouring a fine vintage blood. But this feels like pushing my icicle heart over the edge of a balcony.
I’m falling, about to shatter and bleed everywhere, and I can’t do a thing to stop it.
I force the edges of my heart to harden, to freeze over again. This isn’t about Gideon or our history. It’s about protecting the people I love from the monster in our midst.
I need every weapon I have. I need to get into that safe.
I step out of my slacks and pull on the dress.
It fits perfectly. I find a pair of heels that look like they could sever an artery, and, thus attired, finish my makeup and hang a pendant of a silver-inlaid sword around my neck, briefly enjoying the way the blood-red garnets in the hilt sparkle against my skin.
I kiss Cleo VII on her cold, scaly head and lock her away in her enclosure, and stroll over to Sanctus House as if I’m not about to shatter another vampire’s glass heart tonight.
Sanctus House is eerily silent as I approach the lobby doors. The downstairs bar is empty. Sinead walks beside me to the private elevator. Gideon is nowhere in sight.
“Mr Blake says you can wait here for him. He’s been held up.”
“Where is everyone?” Suspicion clings to my throat. Does he suspect—
“Mr Blake ordered the entire building empty tonight.” Sinead’s lip curls in what might’ve been disgust. “He says you might be embarrassed when everyone hears you scream in pleasure.”
Oh, sweet Gideon. You may be good, but it’s you who’ll be screaming.
Sinead’s phone beeps. She checks her notifications, and I see a series of orders on the Sanctus app. Requests for her blood. She clicks on Alyra’s name, then pockets her phone when she sees me looking, spins on her heel, and stomps off.
With every minute that goes by standing in that empty hallway, the ice around my heart grows stalactites that dig into my ribs. Just as I’m about to tear the sword from my neck and run back to my place, the elevator doors slide open, and there he is.
Gideon steps out, looking absolutely sinful, in a dark suit that’s pure 1930s Parisian gangster chic. I’m reminded of the first night he caught my eye at my theatre, a human unaware that he was the mouse trapped in a cage for the amusement of the cats.
And now…
Now he is a feline, sleek and predatory.
“You’re ten minutes late.” I frown as he holds the elevator door open with his hand. A Cartier watch glitters on his wrist. “That means you forfeit your prize.”
“We never agreed to those rules.” He pouts. “Besides, I was always taught to show up fashionably late to pick up a lady. It gives her extra time to primp and hide the dagger in her purse.”
“Joke’s on you, Blake. I’m not carrying a purse. I have no intention of paying for a single part of tonight’s escapades.”
He frowns. “Then where will you keep your revenge dagger?”
I smirk, and the stalactites melt. Just a little. I cover the pendant on my throat with my hand. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
He gestures to the elevator. I step inside, willing my glass heart not to shatter too early, no matter what Gideon does or says. I need to withstand the onslaught of his charms, or I’ll talk myself out of this. It shouldn’t be too difficult. It is Gideon, after all.
Gideon gets in behind me and presses his hand into the small of my back, shifting me aside so he can press his thumb to the small electronic pad.
Warmth fizzes up my spine, something that happens too often when Gideon is touching me. The elevator starts so smoothly that I hardly notice the movement.
My tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth. The sword necklace weighs a hundred kilos.
“You said you had something to show me.” I need to fill the silence with bickering before I scream at him to run from me. “What grand gesture have you prepared tonight? Are you going to fly me by helicopter to the top of the Great Pyramid, where you have blood cocktails for two waiting?”
“No grand gesture.” Gideon tries to smile, but it comes out wobbly. “Although I’m taking notes about the pyramid date.”
“Please don’t. I don’t appreciate sand in my blood.”
“Noted.” He runs a hand through his golden hair. “Actually, maybe tonight is a grand gesture. But it wasn’t meant to be. I mean, maybe I did mean it, in my dreams, when I wished so fervently that I’d get a second chance.”
“You’re babbling.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Intriguing.” I straighten as the doors slide open. “I like you nervous.”
At first, I’m greeted with a darkness so gloomy and complete that I’m certain the elevator has taken us to the wrong floor. But then the lights slowly go up, revealing Gideon’s private Sanctus Club – a piece of his soul he’s offered me.
No, not a piece of his soul.
A piece of mine.
I suck in a breath as I step into the club, taking in the details that are so familiar to me even after all this time.
The velvet sofas trimmed with gold. The crystal absinthe fountains sitting on tables inlaid with tortoiseshell.
The white grand piano beneath one spotlight and the red clawfoot bathtub where Catherina and I once performed the Countess Bathory routine.
The curtained confessional booths that surround the narrow balcony with the ironwork railing.
Dark corners and romantic nooks begging to be sullied with wanton acts.
Monstrous stone sculptures of saints and gods above the empty stage.
It’s impossible.
It can’t be.
“Arabella.” Gideon’s breath is a whisper on my neck. “Please, say something.”
I can’t. I don’t have words for this. How can I speak when my heart is shattering?
Gideon steps out of the elevator, sweeping his hand around the room. His smile is just as smug as always but his eyes fix on mine, raw and panicked. “Welcome to Sanctus Club. Otherwise known as La Petite Mort, version two.”