Chapter Twenty-One #2
Villetti reared back and rammed his fist into the vamp bodyguard’s chest. Which was one way of getting a vamp’s attention. He placed the barrel of his service weapon at Walter’s eye and said, “Release your bite or lose an eye.”
Walter opened his jaw, tilted his head away from Pretty Thang’s arm, and clicked his fangs into the roof of his mouth. He licked the wound closed. Pretty Thang fell over, and Villetti barely kept the guard from banging his head. “How much did I take?” Walter asked, horror on his face.
Grizz said, “He needs a transfusion, but we have a couple bags of O neg upstairs. Peg, get the sex fiend upstairs for a transfusion. He’ll be horny as a stud in a room full of mares.”
“So, nothing new?” Boots asked.
“I can handle him,” Peg said. “I’m not his type and he sure as hell ain’t mine.”
“Want Boots,” Pretty Thang said, reaching for Boots’s boobs. “Always want Boots.”
Boots evaded the guard’s groping hands and Peg steered him for the elevator.
EJ was still sitting on the floor, too tired to move. The whistled note had drained him to the soul. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think.
Walter reached down to his own belly and felt. His wounds were healed. “I will give…Pretty Thang,” he said as if the nickname left a bad taste on his tongue, “a sufficient amount of my own blood to help in his healing.”
“Better make it soon. It’s dawn,” Boots said.
“I am well aware. May I rise?”
“If you are in your right mind,” Villetti said, his weapon still inches from Walter’s eye.
“And how would you determine such a thing?” Walter asked.
“Is his brand singing?” the cop asked EJ.
A headache rammed into his head as EJ drew on his magic to listen. “Not now.”
“I might add,” Walter said, “yes, I heard all that was said. I was, again, conscious.”
EJ would have laughed if his head didn’t hurt so much. Once again, no one had been concerned about discussing the vamp while he was staked. They were so tired they were making mistakes.
“Nyoka followed the others to this city,” Walter said.
“They would have had the working for a leviathan partition in place, long prior to the queen’s event.
They would not have left a third party to chance.
Therefore Nyoka was not originally one of three intended recipients of the working, and may still not be, as she would add an unpredictable element to a predetermined mix. ”
“Makes sense,” EJ said, massaging his head. If his brain were clear he’d have things to say, he’d be able to make deductions. His brain was too fuzzy to think and the headache was growing. He had to sleep for a few hours or he’d crash.
“As we have always wondered why Ivyanna was branded and taken,” Walter said, “I believe our original consideration was correct. She was likely a test subject, not a placeholder.”
“Sure,” EJ said. He closed his eyes, blood pounding in his head as he tried to calculate the participants in a Rule of Three working for demon magic.
He stood slowly, his body stiff and uncoordinated.
He opened his eyes and fought the blackness that swam through him, threatening to steal consciousness.
He motioned for Villetti to holster his weapon, but spoke to Walter.
“If they had gotten you at the reception, or here today, they wouldn’t need a human.
Right now, they still need a third, and you still being with us may be the only thing keeping our subject alive. ”
“They have Nyoka and Ivyanna and yet they are still after me,” Walter said. “I do not understand why the human hasn’t been eliminated.” His voice full of loathing he added, “Unless Ravensport keeps her alive to play with her.”
“The more I hear about Ravensport, the more she sucks,” Angie mumbled from the sofa. She sat up with a groan. “What’d I miss?”
“Your lover threatening to shoot out my eye and Pretty Thang—the names are disgusting—trying to paw Boots’s bosom,” Walter said.
Boots hooted and offered Walter an arm, pulling him to his feet.
“And?” Angie’s tone was mussy and sleepy.
“I came away with my dignity and purity intact,” Boots said primly.
Grizz snorted.
“Not all of them were at the soirée,” Walter said, “but, like the collection vessel, they could have been nearby. Grizz, will you have whoever is now on shift, go over more footage and rule out the telltale greenish glow on Willim and Karson at the reception?”
“Roger that.”
“Whilst I,” Walter said, “shall go feed the boy from whom I overdrank and thence upstairs to my bed.”
Grizz said, “Thence? Who the hell says ‘thence’?”
He both needed and dreaded sleep. After so long in Delta Mode, with it kept ready for use, and so little downtime, he was likely to dream. If he did, they wouldn’t be happy ones. They would be dreams of war. But he had to chance it. He was useless.
On the way to his apartment his unicom alerted him to a call.
Alex said, “Hey, little buddy. Section Seven has done a prelim inventory. A storage facility holding twenty-seven collection vessels is empty. An investigation is wide-ass open.”
“Little buddy? What…Never mind.” He cut the connection.
EJ took George out for his business, showered in ice water, took a painkiller, set his amulets on the battery to charge, and fell into bed before dawn.
It usually required a full eight hours to restore Delta Mode. He didn’t have eight. He set his mental clock for four.
He had things to do.
Angie
I slept hard, nearly eight hours. When I woke, the storm was finally blowing itself out.
The sun was dropping toward the mountainous horizon, casting golden rays through the last of the purplish clouds.
Even though it was only projected on the bedroom wall screen from the rooftop cams (since my room didn’t face west), it was glorious.
I yawned widely and stretched, and my heel hit one of the cats.
Which grunted.
That wasn’t a cat noise.
I froze. Didn’t turn my head. Just held my pose like an extended yoga position and inhaled silently. Holding the breath, I swiveled my eyes. I was not alone in my bed.
Villetti lay beside me, on his left side, his head resting on his curled arm, one of the extra pillows scrunched up between his head and biceps. His other arm was resting on the covers between us. Like me, he appeared to be…naked.
My memory returned, sketchy and incomplete. Everyone had left, only Villetti remaining. He’d been unable to get home. I’d said, “What the hell, Lee. Stay.” I had dragged myself to the bedroom, stripped out of post-battle clothes, and fallen into bed, instantly asleep.
I had meant, Stay on the couch.
He had taken my words otherwise.
But he hadn’t made a move.
Most men would have taken my nakedness as invitation.
So maybe I should offer one.
And where in all the dimensions of heaven and hell did that thought come from?
I watched his soft blue eyes as they opened, the rare golden fleck catching the light. He saw me watching him. Just that. The only contact was our eyes.
How did I offer sex…With Villetti it wouldn’t be just sex.
Not for me. How did one offer lovemaking to an ex who, by the look in his eyes, was no longer just an ex?
We had a lot of history. The young, horny, loving kind of history.
In-bed kind of history. On the table. On the floor.
That kind of history. What were we to each other now? Nothing casual. Not casual at all.