Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
W e didn’t speak until we passed the clicking cameras outside and finally slid into the backseat of the car, Bones at the wheel.
The passenger door opened and Mercury tensed.
“Beg your pardon,” a waiter with large eyes said, holding out a stack of boxes. “Mrs. Clarence insisted that you’d left these in the restaurant and said that I must give them to you before you go.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking them without hesitation and giving him a warm smile.
Mercury closed the door firmly while I sighed deeply and sank against the seat, opening the lids to find a world of bath and beauty products that I’d almost forgotten about. She probably expected me to start a proper skin regimen this evening. I probably would.
“What a mess,” I said once we had safely pulled out.
“What are you referring to?” Mercury asked, sounding more or less relaxed.
I looked at the dark sorcerer in the back of the car with me. Suddenly, the rest of the world didn’t matter so much. I was alone with Mercury. And we were courting.
I scooted next to him and poked his chest. “Our courtship. Now you’re embroiled in an unwanted engagement. You’ll have to take off the ring, but would you mind doing it while kissing me?”
He squinted at me. “No.”
“No, you won’t kiss me?”
“No, I am not in an unwanted engagement. I am very delighted at the prospect. Also, no, I wouldn’t mind kissing you. Also, no, I don’t have to take off the ring. All the no’s.”
I shook my head. “We can’t be engaged. You didn’t ask me to marry you. I’m holding out for a spectacular exhibition, you, a cliff, no shirt, an army of undead, the moon glinting off the aquamarine gem like they glint off the bones.”
“Yes, Miss Nova,” Bones said from the front. “I will pack the picnic while you and the Master perform the engagement ceremony.”
“Perfect.” I smiled and leaned my head against Mercury’s shoulder. “Now about this pretender with my face running around and murdering people. How do we lure her out before she does any more damage?”
“We don’t.” His voice was like doom and destruction rolled into one large ball of resolve.
I sat up and gripped his lapels while a sinking feeling grew in my stomach. “Oswald Mercury, I’ve been meaning to ask. What kind of magical business were you doing earlier today?”
He gazed back at me with those dark eyes, impossible to read, although the lightning flickered slightly, showing his unease. “I was arranging for your defense, naturally.”
“My defense against my murderer?”
“As well as anyone else who wishes to harm Mr. Good’s heir. Mrs. Clarence coming out and claiming you was a great benefit to you. That should keep the HOSTs or one of their renegade angels from acting against you while you are weak and untested. Still, your safety is far from certain.”
“How did you ‘arrange my safety?’ Hm? Did you hire a fleet of tanks?”
“Specifically, I commissioned some of my shadows to organize with some of Mr. Good’s associates in order to?—”
I put my hand over his mouth, cutting him off while my stomach lurched uncomfortably. “You don’t work with Mr. Good or his associates. They’re all cutthroats and traitors.”
He kissed my palm and then pulled my hand down, linking his fingers in mine. “Yes, but I won’t ignore any obvious assets when it comes to your safety.”
I studied Mercury, the dark sorcerer I was absolutely crazy about while my stomach churned. I’d been very clear about not accepting Mr. Good’s business or the people he owned. If I thought I could have freed them, I would, but I wasn’t an idiot, and Mr. Good wouldn’t make it that easy, not when he bound souls to him.
Mercury also wasn’t an idiot, and he knew that he was overstepping my boundaries. Yes, my mother was strong-willed, and in comparison I looked like a spineless jellyfish, but I’d been managing more and more of the business since I was fifteen and went to a factory to negotiate my first protest.
“You’ve put me in an uncomfortable situation,” I finally said with a sad smile I saved for dealing with stubborn, strong-willed leaders. “I can’t stay with you if you’re working with Mr. Good. I thought we were on the same page there, but apparently not.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not working with Mr. Good. I’m working with his former employees who now belong to you.”
I flinched. That was the rub. “But you see,” I said softly. “I don’t own people. I wouldn’t ever own another person. I’d rather die a thousand times than take one soul that should be free. Mr. Good and his business need to be dissolved.”
He raised a brow. “Now you want to murder him?”
I glared at him. “I’m starting to want to murder you. Don’t intentionally misunderstand me. You went behind my back to make a deal that you know I already refused. You can’t do that. I love you too much to allow the affection you have for me to be buried in obsession and possession.”
“And I love you too much to allow your life to be casually ended.”
“What do you think I’m going to do? Run to the nearest ghetto and ask someone to shoot me? If you want me to be safe, then you have to work with me, not against me. Trust me, Mercury, if I could escape my mother’s watchful eye, I could also escape yours.”
His eyes narrowed as he considered all the methods he could use that my mother didn’t. Dark sorcerers had no idea how wily humans could be.
I slid into his lap and put my hands around his neck and ran my fingers through the ends of his beautiful hair. “Love me. Respect me. Trust me,” I whispered.
His eyes flashed with lightning as his hands came around my waist, gripping me uncomfortably tight. “I can’t protect you the way you deserve to be protected. You think Mr. Good’s associates are unpleasant, but you’ve only seen shadows of mine. Did you enjoy rubbing elbows with the undead in the bay? You deserve love, respect, and trust, but you also deserve to not be nauseated from the scent of rotting flesh. Also, the masses need to be tightly controlled, or they break out in savage violence that could rip you apart so easily. I’m prepared to be alone, Miss Nova. A dead girl I could protect, even a live girl without a name, but Mr. Good’s heir? For safety’s sake, you should be kept in my mansion at all times, but I have no desire to trap you there or anywhere else. I want you to live as well as you can, but I’m the master of the dead, not the living, and you are so alive.” He pulled me close to his pounding heart and breathed in my hair while I sank against his chest.
“These are all very good points that you should have brought up to me,” I mumbled against his skin, loving the feel of him. Honestly, he’d kind of won this battle with his wiles and adorableness. He cared about me. How could I resent that?
“But you are stubborn.”
I nuzzled his neck. “I take after my fiancé. Not that we’re actually engaged. I’m still holding out for something epic.”
“Hmph. I thought you were threatening to leave me.”
“No, I don’t make threats. I’m going to live in my old apartment.” Was I? That would require leaving his arms, and I was psychologically stuck.
He pulled away, staring at me with something like death and dismemberment in his eyes. “You are not living in your old apartment without any protection.”
“Agreed. I have my guns.” And at my apartment, I had so many guns. I’d missed every single one of them. Not as much as I missed his arms around me, but I did love my guns.
His scowl was absolutely terrifying. “You think that I’m dropping you off somewhere that isn’t secure?”
“It’s the safest apartment in the city. And who is going to think to look there for Mr. Good’s unwilling heir? I need to do a media statement tomorrow. Do you think Mr. Good should be obsessed with my grandmother, the infamous dancer, or should he be obsessed with someone who happens to look like the infamous dancer he was obsessed with?”
“How are those different?”
“One, I claim to be related to my grandmother, two, I refuse to be related. My mother went to so much effort to distance herself from her birth parents. She never does anything without reason.”
“She wanted money and power that their connections couldn’t give her.”
“That’s possible, and quite logical, but she’s not like that. She doesn’t waste anything, and my grandfather is wasting away behind bars.”
He cleared his throat, like he wanted to say something, but also didn’t want to say it. Like he should say something, but wasn’t sure which direction it would make me run.
I stared at him steadily. “Spill it, fiancé.”
“You said I’m not your fiancé until I give you an epic proposal. Not that I’m complaining. You can call me whatever you want.” He sighed heavily, shoulders sagging as he wrapped me more securely in his arms. “I looked into the Seven Sundry today. Fifty years ago, or so, they were seven mostly human individuals who worked together the better to get away with crime, but then about forty years ago, they were dissolved, as you so eloquently said, and replaced by Salina and her band of death. Anyone who resisted died in the coup. Your grandfather didn’t die and didn’t become one of her blood bank puppets. Instead, he went to the most secure prison in the world. The interesting thing about this new leader, Salina the vampiress, is that she hunts down the blood relatives of all who oppose her and drinks and drains their lives away. Your mother disappeared, took a new face, a new identity, and put her father safely behind bars. Does that seem like something your mother would be capable of organizing?”
“In her sleep. Which means that me coming out of the woodwork like I did with my grandmother’s recognizable face puts her at risk from this Salina character. Is she what really worries you?”
He stared at me with dark, desolate eyes. “Yes. I haven’t been working for the last thousand years to strengthen my borders and build up my armies. I should have, but I was lulled into a false sense of ennui. So what if I die? But now, I live to protect you, to adore you, to suffer indigestion from worry. If you are willing to accept Cassandra Clarence’s assets, why not Mr. Good’s? Business is business, and you have already inherited his enemies.”
“Including this vampire?”
“Particularly this vampire. Hm. Vampire doesn’t convey the depths of her depravity. She’s a vampire dark sorceress whose aura is death. That means that if you get in a certain range of her, you die. Just like that.”
I shivered and clung to him for a second while my heart pounded. She was scary enough to frighten my mother and Mr. Good? “You sound like you know her well.” I looked at him suspiciously. “Vampires are always incredibly beautiful.”
His eyes glimmered. “I’ve gone to war against her a few times. She encroached, I repulsed, she attempted seduction, I was repulsed. She is the main reason I dislike Mr. Good. He was supposedly her right-hand man before he distanced himself in a new country and then, strangely enough, got himself locked into the most secure prison in the world. He’s as safe as your grandfather, the former Calumny of the Seven?—”
“Calumny? Cordy Hood’s name was Calumny? How bizarre.” I kissed him, just a peck at first, but his lips captured mine, and the next thing I knew, I was crushed, devoured, consumed in the most delicate and delightful way. I grasped his hair and hung on for dear life as he stole my breath, persuasive lips parting mine until his tongue danced across mine, sending bolts of electric wanting through me.
I kissed him until my spine was melted against his hand, and all of me was on fire. He felt so ridiculously good against me, warm, strong, perfectly controlled, but with a passion that swept away every other thought, lost in that one, sweet and enveloping kiss.
When he pulled away, I was confused and shocked at the sudden disappearance of so much dazzling sweetness.
“What?” I asked, blinking at him like an owl emerged from a tree.
He smiled slightly, soft lips so absolutely tempting. “We’ve arrived at your apartment. May I walk you up?”
I stared at him, then looked out the window at Apple City’s finest apartment building, and my apartment was the finest in it. I felt a wave of happiness that had me throwing myself into his arms and squeezing him as tight as I could. He’d listened to me. He was doing his best to trust me, even when it went against his nature.
“Is that a yes?” he grumbled, but squeezed me delicately back.
I kissed his throat, trailing kisses up to his jaw.
He cleared his throat, which I felt against my lips. “Miss Nova, what are you doing?”
“I’m lingering in the back of the car with my fiancé. Yes, you can walk me up, but you have to kiss me the entire way and stay with me once we get there. I’ve always wanted to do that. I walked into an elevator once where this couple were kissing, and they didn’t even notice me.”
“You want me to be oblivious to the world around and the dangers that may come?” He pulled away and smiled politely. “We will die together.” Then he pulled me out of the car.
I stepped into a seething horde of undead rats with glowing eyes. I couldn’t help squeaking and leaping at Mercury, like he could save me. He caught me in his arms and continued towards the doorman, who stared at us with large eyes, the typically unflappable ogre clearly flapped.
“Hello, Moose,” I said brightly as Mercury carried me towards him, rats at his feet.
He took a moment to tip his green top hat that looked so beautiful with his green skin. “Miss Nova. Welcome to the Eagle’s Eye. Mrs. Clarence notified me that you might be coming by to pick up some things.”
I nodded, but I didn’t have time to say anything else, because Mercury strode past him into the lobby, with its plush green carpet and rich gold mirrors. The next thing I knew, we were waiting outside the gold elevator, him still not putting me down, and the rats still accompanying us.
“Mercury,” I murmured as one woman walking through the lobby screeched and threw her coffee in the air when an undead rat ran over her lovely Italian pump.
“My precious heart,” he replied evenly, not turning to look at the scene. His back was to the rest of the world, as though nothing could get to us, but the rats were watching every direction.
I sighed and put my head down on his shoulder. “It must be exhausting to be so many rats at one time.”
“I’m never exhausted with you, my darling.”
I smiled slowly and looped my arms around his neck. “Why do you like me?”
“You fit perfectly in my arms.” He squeezed me tight for a moment before relaxing his grip.
I poked his muscular biceps beneath his tuxedo. “That makes sense. I like you because of your bare chest. I think that you should fight Winston for me.”
He gave me a side-eye. “Shirtless, and with tickets? But I’m not certain Winston would fight for anything other than his own cause.”
“All we have to do is find his weakness and exploit it.”
The elevator doors opened, and he stepped inside. Another man came towards the elevator, then stopped abruptly when he saw the rats, and possibly also Mercury, with his intense gaze. The doors closed, leaving us alone in the elevator. That is, other than the seething undead vermin.
He dropped my legs and then kissed me, holding me by the waist and tugging me closer and closer. He was so strong, so urgent, like he’d die if he didn’t kiss me breathless. That’s how I felt, like I would die if he ever stopped tasting me, pressing his soft lips against mine, filling me with more warmth and happiness that I’d gotten from anyone else. I needed him. His taste, his touch, his everything.
Too soon, the elevator opened on my floor, and Mercury broke away to pick me back up and carry me to my door.
“How do you know which apartment is mine?” I asked, sliding my fingers through his hair, and then rubbing my thumb over his silky bottom lip.
He nibbled on my thumb while his eyes flashed as he gave me a look that made me five kinds of flustered. “I have no idea how I could find the only apartment on this floor. I guess I’m just lucky,” he growled and then bumped noses with me. Every contact was a shock of electricity and honey. He felt so good, strong, capable. I completely forgot about the zombie rats until he set me down on the floor.
He gestured at the door. “If you would be so kind. I need to see your apartment before I raise an army of dead and start building fortifications around this apartment building with the bodies from every cemetery in a hundred-mile radius. Moose would not appreciate the smell.”
I opened the door and gestured him inside. It was a lovely apartment, warm woods, greens and peaches, with dozens of plants hanging near the missile-proof glass windows.
I walked directly to the wall opposite the windows, ran my fingers over the lever, so the wall slid apart, revealing my beautiful gun closet.
“You seem to have quite a collection of firearms,” he said after a beat of looking at racks and racks of my collection.
“Absolutely. Ah. This is the one I wanted.” I picked up a large shotgun that was almost as sleek and stunning as my new pair of pistols. “This is for vampires. You can’t kill them with little bullets, but this will blow the head off Salina if she happens to feel like visiting. Most of my apartment is a firing range. Would you like to shoot with me?” I looked at him hopefully while I held the large piece of destruction in my arms.
He studied me for a long moment before he ran his fingers down the side of my cheek and then picked me up in his arms, gun and all. “You are very seductive, wearing a gun.”
I gulped while my heart beat rapidly. “Three guns.”
“Where is your bedroom?”
I inhaled sharply, because I’d never had another person in my bedroom before. I mean, housekeeping came in every day, but I wasn’t there. “My bedroom?”
“Unless you have several. I can try every door until I hit on the right one.”
I shook my head. “Only one bed. I don’t have any live-in servants, so I just have a few extra empty rooms.”
His eyes narrowed fractionally. “Then I shall use my brilliant necromantic skills to deduce which one is yours.” He shook his head slightly and then walked directly to the linen closet. He opened it, peered in suspiciously, then closed it, all without putting me down. He tried the next door, the powder room, then the next, the laundry, then the next, the kitchen, almost like he wasn’t trying to find my bedroom.
Finally, he hit the right door, the cream wood with elegant carving, and opened the door and walked in, then placed me on the edge of my bed with its apricot duvet. He knelt in front of me, rested his hands on my knees, and gazed up at me. “Miss Nova, would you aim your lovely weapon slightly to the left?”
I did so and noticed that it was pointed at the door. “Mercury, are you taking advantage of me?”
“No. And don’t sound so delighted at the prospect of being taken advantage of. You’re Cassandra Clarence, virtue’s shining golden girl. I’m making a point to not offend you.” He smoothed his hands down my leg to my foot, frowned at it and then slipped my shoe off, setting it on the floor next to me. “I’ll remove your holsters as well once I’ve gathered my resolve. You’ll need a maid that can assist you with the removal of enchanted accessories.”
“Do I? Or you could come and help me undress every night.” I winked at him and wiggled my eyebrows while he removed my other shoe and studied me expressionlessly.
“Only once we are safely married. Do you insist on long engagements like the one you had with our dear Philip?”
I blinked at him and then wrinkled my nose and gripped my weapon more securely. “Are you using your infamous sex appeal to lure me into a quick and dirty marriage with you?”
He smiled blandly. “Quick and dirty marriage? I don’t think those three words go together.” He kissed my nose and slipped my jacket off my shoulders before he started on the holsters. “No, I’m not opposed to the marriage itself being a long affair. Sometimes they last days, weeks, and in the case of elves, decades. It’s the engagement lasting years that I object to. If you need a long engagement, it’s probably for the best. You only know the pretty side of me. I wanted you to like me from the very first moment my zombie rats found you.”
I nudged him with the butt of my gun. “You mean you saw how delicate and freaked out I was by the zombie rats and didn’t want me to have hysterics every other afternoon.”
“Sometimes I have hysterics, and I am the necromancer. Seriously, it’s not a pretty work flow.”
I snorted. “Work flow? Also, I get that I was Cassandra Clarence, surgically molded into perfection, and therefore more than slightly superficial, but that was the old me.”
“You couldn’t even look at yourself in the mirror, even though there wasn’t anything horrifying about this face.” He brushed my cheek with his powerful hand. “You’re still just as beautiful as you were. Not as symmetrical, but just as breathtaking. More, because you’re unique, real, and frankly, horribly sexy.”
I giggled. “Horribly? Wow! Um, speaking of horribly sexy, do you want to go to a cemetery tonight and dig up a corpse?”
He blinked at me. “I am not a necrophiliac, just a necromancer. I don’t actually find digging up dead bodies particularly exciting. Perhaps when I first started, before the glow of the dead had waxed pale.”
I laughed out loud, then captured his face in my hands to beam at him. “I want you to animate the late great news reporter, Barbara Benson for my media release. I think it would be basically the best thing that ever happened on National TV.”
“Even better than The Warlock Detective ? Sacrilege. You want to do an interview on national television with an undead reporter. Ah. I haven’t personally dug up anyone for centuries. That’s what minions are for. Rats are actually quite talented diggers. I have other matters I need to arrange if you’re serious about doing an interview on national television, exposing yourself and your parents to Salina in order to draw her out.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Is it that obvious?”
He laughed and caught me up against his chest. “You don’t want anyone there who isn’t immune to Salina’s death aura. That’s why you want a reporter who is already dead. You always aim to protect the weak, to bring the wicked to justice. How are you going to draw out the murderer?”
I inhaled deeply against his chest. I had to sound confident, even if I was having serious second thoughts. “Easy. No criminal can resist going back to the scene of the crime. I do need to make some calls tonight.”
He kissed my forehead and stood. “I’ll leave you to your work. The hall outside will be filled with my shadows, and…” He pulled a white rat out of his pocket and handed it carefully over to me. “You also have that lawyer you can summon with a drop of your blood. Although I am aware you are against working with him, you are already embroiled. Also…” He pulled out a bracelet and slipped it over my hand, then pressed a kiss to my inside wrist before he stepped back.
I stared at my old bracelet, the one I’d given to a ghoul, and then stared at him, speechless. I pointed at him. “And you weren’t obsessed with Cassandra Clarence? Why do you have my old bracelet?”
“Your mother asked me to retrieve it, but was so condescending, I decided to keep it in order to properly antagonize her. I didn’t realize that she was my future mother-in-law.” He tsked. “Also, who doesn’t want to keep a token from a saint? You know how it operates. Keep it on, skin-to-skin contact, and it will protect you from all evil, including Salina’s death aura.” He bowed, backed out, and then vanished in a black flickering shadow that smelled of strawberry ice cream.
Our next date was definitely going to involve the couch, bad television, and an entire tub of Neapolitan.