Chapter 17
Chapter 17
S winging out of the alleyway, Tuesday walked alongside Ethan this time. The man had a way of winning her when she most wanted to push him away. And it wasn’t even the power of his cock and kiss. It was something innate. She was a part of him, and she had felt his truth and honesty as he’d kissed her roughly. The desperation in that kiss had made her understand her own desperation for acceptance. It was a long time coming.
But she wouldn’t go all moon-eyed for the man and pledge her undying love to him. That way lay broken hearts and regret. Her heart broken. Men tended to wander off and never look back. Because love could never really fix in a man’s heart for her. She and Ethan had agreed to go with whatever came their way, and she was good with that. Because life was meant to be lived in the moment, and no one reminded her of that more than Ethan Pierce.
“Is the familiar’s place that way?” she asked, as he led her down the street. They passed a crepe hawker and she stopped. “I haven’t eaten all day. You got some cash?”
With a smirk he tugged out his wallet and handed her a twenty-euro note.
“You want something? A coffee?”
“I just had a drink. And I’m not talking about the whiskey.” His eyes glittered. It was a feeling that hit Tuesday in her very bones. And she couldn’t prevent a return smile. “I’ll wait over there. I want to check out the musician across the street.” He thumbed a gesture over his shoulder, where Tuesday saw a guitarist performing, then wandered across the street.
The night was chilly but not too cold with her big coat to shield from the elements. The instant the hot creamy chocolate and bananas hit her belly, Tuesday groaned with pleasure. No one could tell her this much sugar was not good for her. This gastronomic nightmare spoke to her soul the way no kiss or sex could.
Standing at the curb, watching Ethan listen amongst the crowd as the guitarist performed a dazzling flamenco number, punctuated by frequent cries of “olé!” from the onlookers, Tuesday couldn’t decide when she’d last been on a date with a man that hadn’t seemed like a date. Of course, they were not on a date. They were tracking a crazy demon who was dating Ethan’s ex-wife. But it felt date-ish. And certainly they had formed some kind of a relationship.
And then she realized she was laying claim to the man in a way that disturbed her. It was her reaction to the ex-wife all over again. What had become of the dark witch who preferred to fuck them and leave them? Who rarely trusted a man, and had been fine with her single no-commitments life over the centuries. Why was the idea of actually enjoying time spent with a man suddenly so alluring? Almost as if it was fulfilling a need she’d never thought to have.
A need she’d willingly sacrificed when at her lowest and near death.
It must be the Paris air. It was making her think. Too much. The City of Light was the city for lovers. So, yeah. Leave it at that, Tuesday. Just lovers.
Catching a drip of chocolate that ran down the side of her hand with her tongue, she traced her skin slowly, thinking to send the sensation across the street and to Ethan. She watched as he lifted his hand, shook it, then swung a glance over his shoulder, making direct eye contact with her.
She gave him a thumbs-up and a smiling wink.
He blew her an air kiss, then nodded that she cross over and join him as he wandered down the sidewalk. Hell, something crazy was going on between her and the man, but she didn’t want to overanalyze it. She would take each moment for what it was, as he’d suggested.
“You didn’t save me a taste?” he asked as she joined his side.
“I still have some on my fingers.” She held out her forefinger and he leaned down to lick it, stopping long enough to suck it into his mouth and draw up a sigh from her. “And here I thought the crepe was awesome.”
He winked at her and then clasped her other hand and led her onward. “The familiar lives near the Panthéon.”
“Is that the big place with all the dead people in it?”
“It is. Alexandre Dumas is even interred there now. He was moved a decade or so ago from another spot. Much against his wishes to be buried in his hometown.”
“You knew the guy?”
“Of course! Though I never could inspire him to try his hand at writing about vampires. Always the musketeers.”
“What’s wrong with a sexy musketeer? I knew a few in my time.”
“But dating a lawman? Wasn’t it difficult for you in the earlier centuries? Seems like the witch hunts have always been a constant.”
“I got smart after I got the sigil.”
“I bet you did.” He swung an arm across her shoulders and hugged her close as they strolled down a cobblestoned sidewalk, avoiding a crowd lingering outside the massive domed Panthéon building. “I never had much of a problem with witches until...”
“Until? Until what? Did one of them look at you the wrong way? Give you the evil eye?”
He grimaced, but they maintained their casual pace. “I had a lover in the early twentieth century.”
“Oh, yeah? Someone other than your wife? And the nameless woman with the tragic blood transfusion?”
“I’ve had many lovers. As I know you have. But this woman was different. She swept me off my feet, you could say. But we were only together six months.”
“Was she vampire?”
“Yes.”
“And?” They walked a few more paces, Tuesday sensing Ethan’s tension tightening the muscles in the arm across her shoulders. But he had brought up this thread of conversation. So... “Ethan?”
“She bit a witch when she was starving for blood. And you know that’s when the Great Protection Spell had rendered all witches’ blood poisonous to vampires. I watched her die. It took less than five minutes for the blood to eat her up from the inside out.”
Yeah, that had been the cool thing about being a witch before the spell had been broken early in the twenty-first century. A witch need not fear a vampire after centuries of persecution. The Great Protection Spell had been conjured to make all the blood in all the witches lethal to vampires. One bite and bye-bye vampire.
Tuesday had experienced a few occasions when a particularly vicious vampire had thought he was going to take what he wanted from her. No regrets whatsoever.
“She didn’t know it was a witch she was biting?” she asked.
“No. And neither did I. We were out partying and she rushed ahead to feed. She was an innocent. And rationally, I know the witch was also innocent of the crime of murder. That witch had not asked to be bitten by a blood-hungry vampire. But at the time I didn’t see it that way.”
“You murdered the witch?”
He nodded. “I was in a rage. My old warring instincts emerged. I didn’t kill her. I...couldn’t.”
“Of course not. If you would have made her bleed on you...”
“I’m not reckless with lives, Tuesday. You have to know that. But I did do some damage. Of which, I regret.”
He must have been a force on the battlegrounds. How times had changed. Not always for the best, but the end of the Great Protection Spell had helped to ease tensions between vamps and witches.
“The past haunts us ever and always,” she offered.
“That it does. But now you know about my witch thing.”
“Yeah, but I’m not that witch, Ethan. And vampires have no reason to fear our species any longer. So for as much as I can sympathize with you losing someone you loved? You gotta get over it, vampire. Live in the moment, remember?”
“Thanks for reminding me.” And then he smiled at her. “And I have gotten over it, apparently so much so that I’ve drunk from a witch twice within the last twenty-four hours.”
Tuesday felt as if the something that had started between them had sunk deeply into her marrow. There would be no walking away from this man after they had dealt with the demon. And how to accept that her staying in his life, possibly allowing him to consider falling in love, could only mean their end?
“You can tell me about all your lovers sometime,” she said. “If you want to. I’d like to hear about the women who captured your heart. Even if only for a day, week, month or year.”
“Really? You didn’t want to hear about Anyx.”
“That was...” Not all that different. The man had lovers and a wife over the centuries. Wasn’t as if she’d been celibate. Time to drop the jealousy. “We can share. But let’s take it slow, yeah?”
“Agreed. Past lovers don’t need to be doled out all at once. And they are the past.”
“I can agree with that. Been there, don’t need to look back.”
“But you still owe me a couple lover stories. Which I will collect on later. Right now, I believe that is the familiar’s building.” Ethan stopped across the street from a nondescript four-story building fronted by stone mascarons and weather-stained pink granite. “I’m never sure how to go about approaching a familiar,” he said. “Do I call out ‘Here, kitty kitty’?”
“That would be obnoxious,” a man’s voice said from behind Tuesday and Ethan.
They both turned to find a short man with tousled brown-and-gold hair, green eyes and a confident stance lift a questioning eyebrow.
* * *
The familiar bowed to Tuesday, then took her hand and kissed the back of it. Tuesday was not impressed. She could recognize a charmer from a mile away.
“Ethan Pierce,” the man said as he shook the vampire’s hand. “It’s been a few years, yes? How’s bites?”
“The usual. I need your help, Thomas. Can we go up and talk?” He gestured toward the building.
“No.” Thomas assessed Tuesday carefully, his green eyes narrowing, most likely reading her for powers or skills. Familiars had a thing with witches and could read them fairly well. “I’d prefer to stay outside. Was just heading out for a scamper anyway. Whatever you’ve got to offer me, make it quick.”
Ethan said, “I need a familiar to help summon a demon.”
“Nope.” Thomas shook his head adamantly. “No can do. I don’t do that kind of subservient shit. No witch is going to use me to channel a demon to this realm.”
“The demon is already here. In Paris,” Ethan explained. “We need to summon him into captivity.”
Thomas quirked an eyebrow. “Why don’t you go after him? Don’t you head a troop of wild and crazy demon hunters?”
“We don’t hunt demons. Exactly. Besides, we tried that.”
“And failed? And why are you, the director of Acquisitions, asking me about this? Are you doing fieldwork now, Pierce?”
“I am. This is an important case. I don’t want to cock it up.”
Tuesday held back from mentioning that he’d already managed to do just that. She’d give the man a break. He was particularly cute, and she was still riding all the warm feelies after that quickie in the alley.
“You do have a partner that works with you, yes?” Ethan asked.
Thomas lifted his shoulders in affront. “Whether or not I do is none of your business. I won’t do it. I do have my dignity. Good day to the two of you.”
The familiar turned and strolled away, shoving his hands in the pockets of a summery white linen jacket.
Ethan called after him, “It pays!”
Thomas performed an agile turn—as graceful as a feline—and walked back up to them. “How much?”
Ethan shrugged. “How much do you charge?”
“A hundred thousand,” Thomas said without pause.
Curious to see how the man who had explained to her that he didn’t have a handle on the money would play this one, Tuesday listened avidly.
“Can’t do that,” Ethan said.
“Fifty grand.”
Ethan winced.
“Oh, come on! What can you give me, man?”
“Ten,” Ethan said.
Thomas turned and stalked away from them, but he flung out his arms and called without looking back, “Fine!”
“I’ll need you after dark. Tomorrow!” Ethan called after him. “At headquarters. Ready to go.”
Thomas delivered a thumbs-up over his shoulder and kept on walking.
“Ten grand?” Tuesday asked.
“His job isn’t that complicated. Having sex until he’s sated?” Ethan blew out a breath.
“Yeah, but it is dangerous. When the demon comes through, the familiar will shift to cat form and be left vulnerable. Not to mention whomever he works with will be in danger.” Meaning, the person he’d be having sex with in order to become sated.
Familiars were conduits for demons to bridge into this realm. A witch could summon a demon via a familiar by invoking a spell at the point in which the familiar was sexually sated and open to receive that demon into this realm. Bridging a demon already in the same realm? Should be a piece of cake.
“You want me to invoke the spell?” Tuesday asked as she joined Ethan’s side and they walked again. “I’ve conjured a demon or two in my day.”
“Yes, and I’ve met one of them,” he replied. “He almost brought down a four-story building on our heads. No, I’ll have Certainly Jones do it. I don’t want you anywhere near when the demon Gazariel is summoned.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Tuesday, I thought you said he’d rip out your heart if he saw you again. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I appreciate that, but I think you’ll need me to be there. My sigil will focus CJ’s and the familiar’s magic and abbreviate the process. The familiar might not even have to go through all his...gyrations, to achieve bridging mode.”
“You have something against watching a familiar have sex?”
“Do you want to watch? Kinky. The things I’m learning about you.”
Ethan grabbed her and kissed her. Hard. Claiming. Just long enough to make her glad for his need to silence her in such a manner.
“I’d rather not watch, if truth be told,” he offered. “Fine. I’ll talk to CJ about the possibility of having you close. But I need you to be protected. If we can’t ensure your safety, you’re out.”
“My, how your attitude toward me has altered in but a few days. Is it my dazzling personality? Or merely that you like fucking me?”
“Both.” The wink was the killer move to seal Tuesday’s crazy fall into something she wasn’t about to name. No, never. “Now come on,” he said. “We’ve a little over twenty-four hours until tomorrow night. I’m going to call CJ and get the ball rolling, then set up things to ensure the reckoner is on-site as well. After that, we’ll have a little time to spare.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Again? You just ate a monstrous crepe stuffed with an entire banana and enough chocolate to feed a classroom.”
“Are you judging my eating habits?”
He laughed. “Not at all. Let me make the phone calls, then I’ll take you to a place on the island. I’ve always wanted to taste their food.”