Come on, you don’t believe in that shit!
Really?
The strig grabbed at Christopher’s hint of interest. I know about the serial killer! I can help with that.
Why would I want to know about a mortal killer?
’Cause he worked for a demon! You don’t want a demon war, do you? If that big old fucker goes after the new guy in town, the demon the serial killer works for, it’ll be bad for our brave new Chicago. All your happy nest vamps will be running for their lives.
As will everyone else.
Demons aren’t good for anybody. Let me help.
Worked for a demon? The question floated into Christopher’s head from Ivy, but he passed it on to the strig. Worked. Past tense?
Damn right. I killed him. Points for me, right, Ariel?
Perhaps. Explain more.
The guy was fucking crazy, but he had balls. He looked like Dan Rourke—
Who?
You know, the news reporter that disappeared in Lake Michigan a couple of weeks ago. He looked like Rourke, but he thought he was Ted Bundy. I swear. That’s who he believed he was. Demon crap, right?
Very likely. Go on. Christopher pressed claws deeper into the vampire’s throat. Hurry.
The bastard showed up at my place wanting to be a companion. He wanted me to bite him. Said he’d do whatever it takes to be immortal. He said there was nothing in it for him working for a demon.
He’s right there. And?
I told him I’d think about it. But when he left, he couldn’t stop from dragging one of my bitches behind the house and killing her. He literally couldn’t keep from killing. He had to know what I’d do to him when he grabbed her, but he had to murder. The demon must have driven him to make the kill.
And you killed him.
Tore him to shreds. Bitch belonged to me. It was my right. The strig attempted a winning smile, even though Christopher’s hand was still around his neck. I solved your demon problem for you.
Very civic-minded of you. But it’s not my problem. Not my species, not my problem. That’s how the saying goes, yes?
Ivy backed away, and continued backing away, step by step down what seemed like an endless dark block. She couldn’t help but hear what was going on in Christopher’s head whether he wanted her there or not. His mind was open to her—full of pain, anger, and hunger. Such hot, red hunger!
And with the strig—Christopher was a cat playing with his food.
And he couldn’t help himself, could he? The monster in him had to have its way.
This insatiable hunger, that was what she’d done to him.
Oh, it’s satiable, very, very satiable. Christopher’s thoughts were cold, evil, and happy.
Christopher took the strig into the even deeper dark shadows of an alley. Ivy turned her back. She saw what happened, anyway, from Christopher’s point of view. Felt it. Lived it.
She fell to her knees, retching. Her vomit tasted like vampire blood.
It was Lawrence who put his one good hand on her shoulder. “Time to go now,” he said. “The rest is for the Nighthawk to deal with.”
chapter thirty-five
Aunt Cate was still there when they got back to Ariel’s house. She had Ivy’s big purse with her. She also held out a glass of cloudy liquid as soon as Ivy came in the door.
“How much of that shit did you take?” Aunt Cate asked.
“A couple of crystals. I didn’t trust Grandma completely.” The memory of what even that small amount had done to Christopher sent a shudder through her.
“It’s a good thing your boy’s an Enforcer,” Aunt Cate said. “Or he wouldn’t have survived even that much. Drink all of that. Don’t you dare complain about the taste.”
Ivy gulped down what proved to be an absolutely hideous brew. She didn’t want to know what was in it. “What will this do?”
“Neutralize the poison running through your system. Otherwise, it will take days to cycle through you.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have drunk it. Maybe it’s safer for me to—”
“Ready to go, Cate?” Lawrence asked. He took the bag and handed it to Ivy. “You’re staying here.” He looked at his mortal lover. “It’s gone too far between them for her to run away from him now.”
“He’s tasted her, but she hasn’t tasted him,” Cate protested. She looked at Ivy. “You haven’t, have you?” Ivy shook her head. Cate looked back at Lawrence. “It’s not too late.”
“They’re inside each other. They share dreams and dream walking.”
“How do you know that?” Ivy asked.
“I have amazing psychic powers.”
“Don’t we all?” Cate said. She sighed. And she and Lawrence twined fingers. They looked into each other’s eyes for a few moments.
Ivy knew that this couple weren’t companion and master, but she’d never thought about just what their relationship was before. “Do you two—?”
“We call it dream partners,” Lawrence said. “It’s very rare, and special. It’s more binding than blood.”
Ivy remembered every wonderful, confusing, frightening, infuriating, funny, real moment she and Christopher had spent together in dreams. “Yeah,” she said. “I know what you mean.”
“Remember, you have more than this vampire to think about,” Aunt Cate said before she and Lawrence left.
Ivy hefted her purse, aware of the physical and psychic weight of the obsidian knife at the bottom of the bag. Oh, yes, she remembered.
“Thanks a lot, Aunt Cate.”
Ivy was asleep on the bed in Ariel’s secret room when Christopher came in. He’d known she would be there, and yet, somehow, hadn’t expected it. Poisoned or not, her blood was in him, how could he not know where she was? But he’d expected her to do something as stupid as try to run away. He didn’t know if her waiting to face his anger was a sign of maturity or stupid bravado.
He did find it endearing.
The woman was obviously driving him insane.
“If you want to stay sane, don’t get involved with demons,” he murmured, gazing down on her. She looked anything but demonic, all pink-skinned and blond-haired, with a cute, turned-up nose.
She cracked one pretty hazel eye open. “Did your old pantomime-gypsy granny tell you that? To never get involved with demons?”
He sat on the side of the bed and pulled off his shoes. He’d washed blood out of them earlier. “That would be your granny. No, let’s not talk about your granny.”
“Feeling better?” she asked.
Christopher stripped off his clothes and lay down beside her. “Aren’t you going to rail at me about my killing a man tonight?”
Both eyes came open, and she sat up to look at him. “You’re still spoiling for a fight, aren’t you?”
He pulled her down on top of him, his arm an iron clamp over her back. “Hoping for one, yeah.” The Hunt had taken the edge off—but he was still burning.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Ivy said. “We’ve established that. I’m sorry, and I will always regret what my stupidity put you through. But if you think you’re getting a morally outraged argument about life and death out of me, you are sadly mistaken.”
“I should be kissing you to keep you from talking so much.”
“You can bite me if you want. Aunt Cate fixed the poison.”
“I’ll refrain for now if you don’t mind.”
“Probably wise. Once bitten, twice shy the other way around.”
Christopher understood that bit of convulsion, which was a sign of what this mortal did to him. “Why aren’t you morally outraged?” he asked. “I thought mortals in this territory were all about pulling the fangs of proper vampires.”
“You executed a criminal vampire,” she said. “Maybe you did it because you needed a snack, but that strig was your rightful prey. We magic mortals don’t dispute everything your kind do. He was a mortal-slaving pimp. One less of that kind on the street is fine with me. And he wanted me in his slave stable. I
would have killed him if you hadn’t.”
“And how would you have done that?”
“Let him bite me, of course.”
Ah, yes, he had Poison Ivy in his bed. In his arms. Her hot sexy body astride his.
He kissed her roughly, biting her lips, plundering her mouth with his tongue.
She hadn’t really meant to kill him.
I didn’t mean to hurt you.
I know.
The sex was still going to be on the rough side—if the sun didn’t come up too soon.
She bit him, a light nip on the shoulder, then again, then on his throat and chest. His skin was too tough for dainty mortal teeth to penetrate, so there was no chance of her taking his blood. But he liked the tiny lightning shocks that blazed through to his burning soul with every touch of her teeth and tongue on his skin.
Sparks of hell mixed with heaven.
She looked him in the eye. “You want rough? I’ll give it to you rough.”
“I meant I’m making it rough—on you.”
Her low laugh was sex incarnate. “Come and get me.”
He plucked her off him and rolled her onto her back. He started at her toes and began to nibble from there up her body, sharp bites but careful not to break the skin. The torture was more his own than to her, as his fangs began to ache as they sensed the blood beneath tender flesh. She squirmed and wriggled and laughed when she could have been complaining from the slight pain he caused her.
“Naughty child,” he told her. Then he caught the scent of dried blood.
“No!” she said sharply, and drew her leg away when he would have explored her calf.
He grabbed her injured leg and examined it anyway. Four long cuts marked the back of her leg. The cuts had been cleaned, but rusty lines of congealed blood ran the length of each cut.
“Don’t touch them,” she said. “There might still be poison there.”
“Did I do this?” he asked.
“Of course you did!”
Christopher didn’t recall setting claws to her tender mortal flesh, but it looked like his work. “Does it hurt?”
“Of course it hurts!”
He smiled at her outrage. “I’m not going to kiss it and make it all better.”
She smiled. Her eyes were bright with humor, and lust. “Of course you’re not.”
How could he stay furious with someone who accepted him for who he was?
“What are you going to kiss and make better?” she asked.
“Not me,” he said. He rose to his feet at the side of the bed and drew her up into a sitting position. Her mouth was level with his hard cock. He tangled his hands in Ivy’s hair and brought her head forward.
He groaned and began to rock back and forth when she took him into her mouth. Delicious sensation! This time he was determined the sun was not going to interfere with his sex life.
chapter thirty-six
Where are you going, John?”
Jack winced at the tone of the Master’s voice, soft, silky, vicious. Oh, yes, John was in trouble.
Jack wiped a tear away, mourning for Ted’s loss, and stayed quietly on the living-room couch. Usually he craved to be noticed, but not now.
“Where are you going?” the Master asked again.
John had been walking toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He turned his head but didn’t stop. He should have been on his knees. “I need some rest,” he said. “I’m a mortal, dude. I can’t go twenty-four/seven like you can.”
The sun had come up a few minutes before, but it was still dark outside. It had been a horrible night. Jack was glad it was over. But rest? How could he rest? How could John? The Master needed them now more than ever. Far more.
Dick gone. Ted gone.
“Don’t dare think about him!” the Master snapped at Jack. “He betrayed me. You led him into that. You should never have told him about vampires.”
Jack whimpered.
“You didn’t put ideas about vampires in his head on purpose, I know,” the Master said, soothing. “He was sly and greedy and not worthy. And you—” The demon turned his fiery gaze back on John. “Lazy. Stupid. Nostalgic. Serial killers are romantics, I know, they return to kill sites to relive the fun of it.” He put his hands on John’s shoulders.
John’s scream and the stench of burning flesh filled the air. John finally sank to his knees.
The Master was in pain and gladly passing it on to his sulking slave. Jack would have happily offered himself—but this time he agreed that John deserved it.
If he hadn’t had to pick John up from the police station, perhaps he could have gotten to Ted in time. Talked him out of his stupid plan.
“Didn’t the bastard realize I’m in all of your minds?” The Master was looking at Jack again while he continued punishing John with his touch. “Did he think he could escape me? None of you can escape me.”
“I don’t want to!” John managed to moan between strangled screams. “Serve you!”
The demon pushed him away. “Then start packing. We’re moving. The altar, the ritual implements. That’s all we need. Leave everything else.” He looked at Jack. “You’re wondering why?”
Jack didn’t question, but he did nod his confusion.
“The vampire strig that killed Ted stripped his mind. He might decide to look me up, take advantage of me. I’m not being blackmailed by a stinking vampire outcast.”
“Of course, Master. I understand.” He stood. “I’ll start pack—”
“Not you, Jack. Prepare the beta site.” The Master came up to Jack and touched him on the cheek. “When all is ready, you will finally accomplish your special mission. You will find the woman. You will bring her to me. She is for both of us, I’ve planned this all along. We will sacrifice her tonight.”
Excitement rose in Jack, excitement and the hunger to please. “Yes, Master. Tonight.”
The demon patted his cheek, left a burn mark. “Good boy.”
chapter thirty-seven
S o there I am, in the middle of the best shag of my life, when everything goes black. The last time I woke up. This time I went to sleep.
Best shag of my life—you’d already gotten a truly fine blow job. Imagine my surprise, as well, suddenly having an inert body on top of me—in—
Do not be indelicate, my dear.
Christopher spoke in total darkness. Ivy’s answers glowed in black circles around him.
Dizzy in the dark, he thought. Nice.
Do you know that this is rare? Lawrence said so.
Your friend Lawrence can stay out of my sex life, thank you very much.
Not the sex, the telepathic communication between us while you’re knocked out stuff. This inside-each-other’s-heads thing is rare.
It’s not like any dream riding I’ve ever done, Christopher admitted. Light was growing in the dark. He lapsed into the memory of the moments before the sun rose to wreck the best part of his night.
He’d been on top of her, in her, thrusting as hard and fast as—
Yes, dear. My pelvis is killing me.
You really shouldn’t complain. I do believe you’d gotten off several times well before the sun stopped me.
They were seated back under the Shakespeare statue, alone in the park on a bright, sunny, warm summer day. He wondered which of them was imagining this scene. Ivy. He’d have them in a luxurious bedroom if it were his dream.
It was his dream, wasn’t it?
Black satin sheets? Ivy asked, noticing where his imagination had shifted them. Why must it always be black with vampires?
You look lovely on black—all pink and gold and pretty.
“Now, where were we?” he asked, holding her down.
“Having a shag.”
“She speaks English.” Christopher kissed his way up Ivy’s leg, bit the soft inside of her thigh. It was all right to bite her in the dream space.
“Not that soft,” she said. “I work out a lot.”
Her blood was honey here
.
She ground against his mouth when he turned his head and ran his tongue over her wet labia and swollen clitoris.
“You need longer hair,” she said. “So I can grab hold of it and hold on.”
Christopher lifted his head, laughing. She was wonderful! He couldn’t quite remember why he’d been furious with her, but he was sure it would come back to him. Or something equally infuriating would come up. That was how it was, dealing with mortals.
“It’s not any different dealing with immortals,” she said. “You’ve got fangs, I have toxic blood, but we’re still just people. People are pains in the asses with each other. It’s part of being alive.”
He snorted. “Philosophy, don’t get me started,” he said. “You’re getting me out of the mood.”
“You do talk too much.”
“You’re worse than I am.”
She shifted her position, wiggled down his body. She looked up at him from over his erection. Her lips and tongue teased the head of his penis for a moment. “I think you’ll like this better than talking,” she said, then settled her whole mouth over him.
You’re the first man I’ve known that wasn’t cir-cumcised.”
Christopher squirmed uncomfortably. “Um…”
“Were you always that way? Or did it grow back after you became a vampire? Like Lawrence’s arm is—”
“Your curiosity is not appreciated right now?”
Why must modern women be so open about matters of the flesh? “Let us not discuss anatomy, shall we? Vampire or otherwise. And yes, I really am a prudish Victorian.” And he did not want to know how many men she’d had sex with that weren’t him. There’d be no more of that from now on. Modern times or not.
Or not.
Keeping her was bloody dangerous.
“What do you mean, dangerous?” she asked. “Is it the demon blood?”
“No. I told you I like vinegar and spices. What did you think I meant?”
“Vinegar and spices— Oh! You meant the taste of my blood. I get it. You can taste it—because you’re not a regular vampire, but an Enforcer.”
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