Chapter Nine #3
Shivers racked me. I hadn’t expected to stand outside in a sleet storm when I raced out of the apartment.
My brain had still been a little wonky when I ran into the night and hopped into a Chat-uber, no coat, no gloves, no warm hat.
My aunts had gone through a crocheting stage, and I had a dozen crocheted toboggans with matching scarves in my closet.
The lack of protective clothing wasn’t the smartest thing I had ever done.
It was way smarter than marrying Asshat, but still.
The T-shirt was silk and warm from EJ’s body. It smelled lightly of his cologne. The change in temp sent a second shiver through me, this one of relief.
“Thanks,” I said, accepting a second T-shirt from EJ’s BOBB bag.
The second one smelled as if it had been used for workouts for a week and then shoved under a car seat for the month of August, but it too was warm, so I wasn’t complaining.
If nothing else, it hid the fact that I was braless in the middle of a winter storm.
I yanked on the five-button jeans—equally smelly—and buttoned them.
“Thanks. I’m decent,” I said. The other two in the car swiveled their seats into conference mode.
My unicom sounded again. “Alex,” I said, answering. “Talk to me.”
“How’d you like those Falcons?”
“The Falcons haven’t had a decent quarterback since Marham, and the coaching sucks,” I said. “Tell me about Asshat.”
“I’ve counted a hundred and twelve people in his bedroom so far, and I’m only up to three months. He really likes group sex.”
“So I discovered when I came home early one night,” I said, bitterness and old hurt in my tone. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You know the former Master of the City of Knoxville? Ming?”
“Yeah. She and my grandfather had a thing, or maybe didn’t have a thing, it’s all kinda murky, when he wasn’t with Grandma. Ming had some kind of psychotic episode when her primo died and the current master of Knoxville defeated her and took her place.”
“That’s the one. She’s been banging your ex.”
“Eeew.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Anyway. So was your now-deceased client. And, EJ, I hate to tell you this, but so was Londyn.”
Into the silence of the car, I murmured, “Double ewww.”
“Sorry, kiddos,” Alex said.
“Yeah. Me too,” EJ said stiffly. “I have to do deeper, and more consistent, background checks on my partners.”
I frowned at my brother. That was…smart. And sad, that we both had to be that cautious. Caution was a big part of why I was celibate.
“Or,” Alex said, “Walter could bleed and read them for you.”
“No,” EJ said, a half beat before Walter’s equally pointed, “No.”
It took a lot more blood and time to roll a human since the Change, and the sharing of that much blood tended to result in sex on steroids. “Dinner” with my ex had been mind-blowing.
“Fine,” Alex said. “I’m creating a list of human donors and sex partners, other vamps who were either or both, and running backgrounds on them. Sending you a pic. You know this guy?”
A familiar face appeared on the unicom. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s Konstantin. He was an on-again, off-again part of Asshat’s court, but never slept the day in the lair. Always left before sunrise, all business and making money. Boring guy. I don’t remember his last name. Why?”
Alex’s voice changed, sounding hesitant. “Well. He’s a…he’s supposed to be true-dead, at the end of the war.”
A sense of icy certainty swept through me. I knew what he was going to say as my precog kicked in. I knew.
“Konstantin was a Rus witch,” I said, ice water running through my veins.
“Yes. One who claimed to be a direct descendant of Prince Oleg. And he’s been, uh, staying over lately.” Alex paused. “Sorta having…sexual relations with your ex too.”
“Oleg…” The word was strangled. My mouth was suddenly dry, my throat aching.
It hurt to talk as fury blossomed through me.
“There was a Rus witch. A demon monger. Visiting in my home, during the war. And I didn’t know.
Yeah. Now some things are making sense. Konstantin brought the демон в коробке that Londyn used.
” Fury and fear knitted together. “We’re up against a Rus. And he’s sleeping with Asshat.”
I let all that information settle inside me.
EJ reached over and took my good hand. His felt like a furnace.
Just as gently, Alex went on. “Walter. Willim Danil Yorath IV has been there as well.”
Walter’s face was impassive in the car’s interior lights.
I thought, All of our enemies. The queen’s enemies. Demons. In one place at one time. Except…I said, “What if the attack was supposed to be at the queen’s soirée and for some reason didn’t happen? We were all there except Walter. Alex. Is Edmund still in town?”
The quiet on the other end lasted too long, but I knew already. I waited. Silent. I glanced at EJ, who canted his head in understanding.
Alex finally said, “This was ‘need to know.’ You know he’s here? As in know know?” He meant, with my precog.
“I—Yeah. I know.”
“This complicates things.”
And it did. Because if I knew, then any enemy with a seer could know too.
Cop cars rolled up silently behind our vehicle. No lights. No sirens. Villetti got out of his car and came to Walter’s window. He tossed a bag into the back seat at me. “Jacket.” But he didn’t look at me. His cop eyes were on Walter. “Off the record. How many of you went inside?”
“I was alone,” Walter said. “I can show you exactly where I went and where I stepped.”
“Are you still under the queen’s banner?”
“Theoretically, yes.”
“Good.” The cop looked at EJ. “Hope those battle castanets have some leftover energy. Grab your bags of witchy and tech.” One hand made a twirling motion to include us all.
“Let’s go. I need to know if this place is safe for humans.
I need witch eyes inside. Ange, if that stick has any Merlin abilities, now’s the time to use them. ”
“Sorry,” I said, my voice more self-contained than I expected.
“No Merlin. But if a demon was called and collected here, I have the only tool that might help.” I slid from the car and pulled on the jacket.
“Thanks.” On top of the jacket that smelled of Villetti—a scent I had forgotten but that was suddenly familiar—I whirled my cloak around me and let the pain of the null energies settle deep into my cold bones.
I took my staff into my uninjured hand, turning it so the trigger was close to my thumb.
There was a time when I had tried to inlay more amulets into the staff, until I realized the null antimagic sucked all the workings into itself.
I needed more amulets, the kind I had created and carried when the bounty was placed on my head. The kind I carried when I had no choice but to kill. The amulets I had left in my apartment. Yeah. My thinking was off from the concussion.
I adjusted the tiara and snorted softly at my reflection in the dark vehicle windows. I looked like an idiot in the borrowed clothes, a blue cloak, a staff, and a freaking tiara. Please, dear God, don’t let anyone take a pic.
EJ
Sleet crunched under their feet and pelted against their already wet hair as they crossed to the house.
EJ tossed the palillos up and down in one hand as he followed his sister into the garage.
The castanets had a little power remaining, a soft chime of energy, sounding of F sharp.
It was enough to slow down a sprite—a mini-demon—but not enough to stop one.
Anything larger, even a chort, would blow right through the working.
He paused at the body because Angie did, mentally calculating their client’s wounds. Nearly beheaded by the double blades. Messy way to die.
“Do you agree that a Kogot did that?” she asked, her voice distant, remote.
His sister’s pale face reflected the light of her unicom flashlight. Her expression was detached, as though she stood outside of herself. It was the way seasoned cops—or warriors—looked at dead bodies.
An unexpected wave of disbelief flowed through him. Angie had been through something he didn’t know about. Angie had…secrets.
The only time she had been away from family was when she lived with Asshat. The asshat who had cheated on her. What if it went a lot deeper than that? Son of a witch.
EJ said, “Yeah. Not a vampire, though the resemblance is very close.”
“Could a vampire have done it and faked it in some way to make it look like a Kogot?”
From EJ’s other side, Walter said, “They could have faked it to the senses of a human or a witch.”
“But you?” Villetti asked.
“I can tell that no Mithran, no Naturaleza, did this.”
Mithrans were technically the good vamps, asking permission, signing contracts.
Naturaleza wanted the hunt, the pursuit, the thrill of chasing terrified humans.
The queen kept them in line, but there were always fangheads who hunted in secret.
Angie’s ex had been on the blade’s edge of going Naturaleza when she left him.
Now, Asshat was back, dragging her past with him like a taunt. Or challenge. Or bait.
“Layer upon layer,” Angie said softly. “I thought I was past all this.” She turned and walked toward the door to the house.
Past all what? With one part of his mind, EJ evaluated his sister, as he followed her inside. From the moment she heard that her ex was sleeping with the enemy, something had come over her.
With another part of his mind, EJ listened for the broken sounds of magical attack.
He hated that anyone else was going in first, but Angie had the only efficient weapon and the best defense.
Angie protecting him wasn’t something that had happened since they were children.
He was the one who had gone to war, had fought shedim, chorts, and djinn, not Angie.
“Three entering at our twenty,” Villetti said softly from behind them, his voice also sounding over unicom and headsets. He gave their names as they stepped into the darkened hallway. They were clearly on record, and officially part of law enforcement response, not pals doing a favor.