Realization set in when the other vampire entered the room, and all Lysander could say was, “Oh.”
“My power engaged the exact moment he bit me. It provided the connection needed to turn him into a zombie.”
He looked from me to the other vamp. “This is not good.” Worry creased his brow, and then something else touched his eyes, raised his eyebrows: wariness.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn you into my zombie slave. You’d have to drink my blood.”
He shook his head and walked over to the window. “Does Ewan know about this?”
“No. Ewan is visiting other demons.”
“The breach?”
I nodded. “I want to pay Dominic a visit. Can you take me? I can’t go in that club alone.”
He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his pants and leaned against the windowsill. When he finally faced me, the indecision warred in his eyes.
“I know you have some kind of issue with Dominic,” I said. “I don’t think I can tell the demons about this, not yet.”
Lysander approached me and touched my neck where the vampire had bit me. My skin tingled, a sensation altogether different from the healing tingle of before. “I’m sorry he hurt you.”
“Yeah, what’s that about? I thought your club was all the rage because of the pleasure.” My hand trembled when I reached for my neck, finding Lysander’s hand. “Unless all your patrons are sadomasochists.”
“He wanted it to hurt.” He lifted my chin with his fingers. “Let’s do this. Come to the club just before it opens.”
* * * *
Lysander led me to the back of the club, past the hulking guard vamps, to a private room. We found Dominic standing beside a pool table, scraping a chalk cube against the tip of his cue, unimpressed with our presence. Another vamp stood at the other end of the pool table.
Glowing orbs mounted on a black metal chandelier surrounded us in an eerie, tarnished light. Another vamp stood next to a bar attended by the same blond woman I’d seen on the roof the first time I met Dominic. Did she even know what the hell was up, or did they glamour her into oblivion?
Lysander perched on a stool against the wall behind me. Dominic gave him a short nod, then turned to me. “What brings you here alone, without your demon?”
“You know why I’m here.”
Dominic bent over the edge of the pool table to judge the angle of his target ball. He shot the cue in a movement too fast to track. The balls cracked together, almost as loud as lightning when it hits the ground too close. The air felt equally electrified.
“Maybe I’ll let one of your associates explain,” I said.
I sent out my mental summons. After a few moments, the zombie vamp entered the room.
I savored the tightening of Dominic’s knuckles on the cue. Vampires guarded their emotions behind tightly composed bodies, but this time I could see Dominic’s fury flow from his eyes and breath, tightening the air in the room. Lysander stayed perched on his stool, but his stiff shoulders betrayed his casual demeanor. The other vamps left the room in the face of Dominic’s anger, dragging the woman with them.
“You sent this vampire to kill me, but your plan backfired, didn’t it?”
The first time I’d met Dominic, he’d warped my perception of him with his thrall. Now, no amount of thrall could disguise the cruel twist of his lips or the depravity tainting his eyes like dirty oil. Zombies killed out of instinct and mindless need. It wasn’t personal. With Dominic, draining someone to death was about pride and passion and pain.
Dominic glared at Lysander. “What’s your stake in this?”
Lysander cocked an eyebrow, not failing to notice Dominic’s choice of words. “She showed up, and I just happened to be here. She knows me.”
The two vampires exchanged another long look. Dominic returned his attention to me. “What do you intend to do with him?”
“Let him die—for real.” In the only act of faith I’d ever planned to give Dominic, I released the zombie vampire and watched him slump to the ground. Dead. “Stay away from me and our investigation. No vampires have been affected.”
His laughter held no humor. “Vampires have been very affected since you entered the picture.”
“I want nothing to do with vampires or vampire zombies.”
“You don’t know your supernatural history well. The demons will be very interested in this new development. I have no assurance you won’t use it against us in the future, as the demons have tried in the past.”
Before coming, I’d decided to hand Dominic a chip, even if it meant adding to the debris left behind by the limo wreck of this whole situation. “I won’t tell the demons about the attack or how I turned him into my vampire bitch.”
I braced for a moment, waiting for the attack I saw in his eyes. His jaws tensed to a biting position, his fangs forming an imprint against his lips. Lysander straightened from his stool.
Dominic’s breath flared with the desire to kill me. I’m sure he thought my power would fail to best him, the master vamp. I almost—almost—willed him to test his arrogance. He gave Lysander a look full of savage intensity, but the response in Lysander’s eyes was cool, unaffected. Dominic allowed the tip of a white fang to lengthen and protrude from his lips. He licked the fang with his tongue.
“They don’t need to know you attacked me, which would normally demand a response,” I said.
He waved his hand. “He was a rogue vampire acting on his own. I would have punished him.”
Right. I’d be dead, and bubba here would be sucking on someone else’s vein tonight. “The demons won’t care if he was a rogue or not—they’ll hold you responsible.”
He drove the cue shaft along the crook of his hand and knocked the black ball down the side pocket. He straightened and spoke to me in a voice cold enough to make me shiver. “I’ll make sure no other vampire decides to take matters into his own hands and allow you to settle the supernatural deaths on the condition that the demons remain ignorant of this ugly attack.”
I ground my teeth. Lying bastard. He probably had another vampire waiting for his command to kill me.
“Anything else?” he asked in a dismissive tone.
Lysander stepped behind me and cupped my elbow, urging me past the burly vamp guarding the entrance and out the club through a side exit that opened to a one way street, away from the throng lined up to enter the club. I breathed deeply, glad to escape the cigarette smoke, pumping bass, and angry vampires.
“Why do I feel like he gained the upper hand when I was the one attacked?” I asked, exasperated.
“Because you don’t survive hundreds of years of vampire politics without developing mad manipulation skills.”
“How did you survive?”
“By staying out of the politics. Speaking of, you think keeping this from Malthus and Ewan is the best thing to do?”
“No. I don’t know much about anything anymore.” I rubbed my fingers over my eyelids. After all the secrets kept from me, the idea of keeping my own secret had me nauseous. Secrets are nasty tumors, hard to expel. The extraction leaves a painful scar that never fades.
“Whatever all this crap is between the vampires and other supes, the power plays, the history, I want no part of it. I did this to keep Dominic out of my shit,” I said.
“Dominic will never stay out of your shit. He may back off for a while, but he won’t let this go. Remember that.”
“Why is all this happening now?” I grimaced at my own pity-seeking pout.
He gave me a crooked smile and rubbed my cheek with his thumb. “You upset the balance, sweetheart. Congrats.”
I eased into his arms, his hard chest settling my overwrought nerves. We locked eyes. Desire? Sorrow? Regret? I couldn’t tell which emotion dominated the blue of his eyes. He continued to rub his thumb along my cheek, then my chin. Something sizzled in the air between us. Sparks landed on my skin in tiny jolts.
“Well, this looks cozy.”
; I flinched in Lysander’s embrace. He pulled away from me, and I turned to face Ewan. His words had sliced the charged air around us, equally as sharp as the sword he’d wielded against the Frerac. I shut my eyes to block out his look, full of brilliant hurt.
“Ewan, this is not what you think,” Lysander said.
I groaned. How cliché was that?
“Then explain it to me, because I’m seeing you with your hands all over her, so there’s only one conclusion I can come up with, especially since I have no idea why Ruby’s here to begin with. Let’s start there. Why are you here, Ruby?” His eyes glittered, his body barely able to contain the menace rolling off him.
All this time I’d included Ewan in Malthus’s deceptions, and now I was the deceiver. I wanted to jump into the gutter and roll around in the slime.
When I didn’t respond to his question, he said, “See, this is where you provide the reasonable explanation so I don’t think I interrupted a sordid rendezvous.”
“I was trying to find out more information on Cael,” I said. I was never a good liar, and the disappointment registering in his eyes proved that hadn’t changed. He needed something logical to grasp, and I’d given him crap.
“Jesus, Ruby.” His eyes implored me. “What the fuck? I thought we’d moved beyond this.”
“Ewan, don’t blame Ruby for what you saw. It was my fault,” Lysander said.
“Don’t worry. I’ve reserved plenty for you,” Ewan said in a savage murmur. “This isn’t over between us.”
My throat and eyes swelled as I watched Ewan walk off, the shadows pushing him away from me.
“Don’t worry, he’ll cool off, and things will work themselves out,” Lysander said.
“I just wonder if anything will be left behind when the ashes settle.”
Suddenly, a knot of pain tightened in my chest, almost like the bond, but as far as I knew, Adam was at the demon lair. I hugged myself, lifted my head, and walked out to the middle of the street.
“What is it?” Lysander asked.
I looked back at him and shook my head. “Nothing. Jittery, I guess.”
Must be a delayed reaction to the hideous scene with Ewan. I hadn’t actually believed he would leave. I thought he’d take my hand and lead me to his place where we’d talk and make love, but he’d simply walked off into the night.
And I’d let him.
Something in me couldn’t exonerate Ewan from the past lies, and now I’d lied to him. Would he forgive me?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Breakfast the next morning turned into a failed experiment of runny eggs and burnt toast. I retreated to my study and ran my hand along the shelved books, remembering Ewan doing the same thing only a few days ago, or was it years ago?
I rested my forehead against the cool leather of the spines. Books comfort me. I love slinking between the towering bookshelves in libraries, in my own world where no one can find me, where I can sit on the thin, unpadded library carpet and escape.
But I have no musty carpet to sit on, only hardwood floor, and the necromancy and occult books on this shelf provided no escape. They mocked me, telling me I was no closer to resolving the situation with Cael and Brandon than I was to finishing my damn research paper.
I bumped my head against the books, knocking one deeper into the recesses of the shelf. I squinted and moved my head closer. Peeking out of a book on Necromancy in the Middle Ages were the missing pages from Cora’s journal. I stared at the cream-colored sheets and allowed them to taunt me a few more moments.
Cora hid them here? Why? On further thought, it made sense. She hid them in the middle of the necro books, where she knew I wouldn’t look. Until I needed to. I moved my hand over the slips of paper, hesitating, knowing that reading them would change everything.
I flexed my hand and pulled out the missing journal pages and read the first words that caught my eye.
Power spheres.
Cora had done more research. Research she didn’t want discovered. I spread the pages with my fingers like a hand of cards, then fell on my knees when I scanned the last sheet. I read the words again. The only sound I heard was my heart pumping furiously in my ears.
* * * *
“Fuck.” Adam stared at me wide-eyed. I braced for the snarky comment, the recrimination, but he walked to me and put his arm around my slumped shoulders.
My mind was spinning. I had not seen this coming. With all the life-altering revelations of the past week, this completely blew everything away. “I can stand here and be pissed at Cora, Malthus, and even my mother if she knew, but I share some of the blame.”
“Uh, no.”
“I avoided this part of my life—didn’t want to know about it.”
“Yeah, but, supernatural aside, this is your family. Your grandmother should have told you.”
“She was trying to protect me.”
“You’re making excuses for her.” He pulled away from me, hands grasping my shoulders, and looked at me quizzically. “Well, I’ll be damned, literally. This means you’re part demon. No wonder you’re so powerful. Damn, and this means I can only partly trust you,” he said, his eyebrows raised in mock seriousness.
“Like you have fully up to this point?” I asked in my driest of tones.
Adam dropped his hands from my shoulders at the knock on the door.
“It’s probably Kara. I called her,” I told him.
“What’s with the mopey looks?” she asked as she glided into the house. Neither of us answered right away, watching her settle down on the couch. “What’s up?”
I stared out the window. “I found the pages that someone removed from Cora’s journal. Seems Malthus—Cora—they were hiding the fact that Malthus is my grandfather.” The room was silent until Kara shifted on the couch.
“No way,” she said, enunciating each word, her tone wavering between disbelief and awe.
“Oh way.” I turned to face her, then collapsed in the chair next to me, burying my head in my hands.
“Christ. Did you see this coming?” she asked.
“Cora and Malthus having a fling? Never in a million years. I never had reason to question the story that my mother’s dad died when she was young. Cora even had pictures, which makes me wonder who the poor shmuck was who was supposed to be my grandfather.”
“Do you think your mom knew?”
“These days I’m not ruling anything out, but I think if she had, she would have milked the demon connection for all it was worth.”
“The demon? Oh . . . you’re . . .”
“Part demon,” I finished for her.
“Wow, a part-demon necromancer. That’s pretty hard-core.” She couldn’t hide the admiration that lit up her voice. “No wonder you were able to raise supe revenants without so much as a thought.”
“Being a demon isn’t something to be particularly proud of,” Adam said. “Nor is creating a revenant.”
“You can be such a self-righteous, insensitive prick,” Kara shot back at him.
“Okay, guys.” They were on the verge of turning my throbbing head into a full-blown migraine.
Kara glared at Adam while he gave her a blank look. Then he turned to me, his eyes softening. “Sorry, Ruby, that was uncalled for. It’s not your fault you’re in this position.”
“You think Ewan knows?” Kara asked.
I shrugged. After last night, I’d decided to give him time to cool off, then call him and talk, but now I couldn’t face him without wondering if he’d known about this, just like he’d known about Cael.
Kara’s cell chimed. She eyed the screen and frowned. She listened to the caller, ending the conversation with, “Shit.”
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“Sybil’s making a bid for Wiseacre.” She continued to stare at her smart phone. “Think there’s an app for that?” No one laughed.
I clutched the pillow lying next to me. It seemed everything was unraveling with brutal efficiency. If the coven elected Sybil as
their leader, we were all screwed, especially Kara.
“She’s been sneaking around the coven looking for your spell book,” Kara said, pointing at Adam. “Finding the book may sway some votes her way.”
“Need to burn that damn book,” he said.
“She won’t find it. Matilda hid it using some hefty spells,” Kara announced.
“Do you know where it is?” I asked.
“No, but I’m looking. I agree with Adam. It needs to get burned.” She stood. “I have to get back to the coven.”
Adam followed Kara to the door. I stared out the window, watching people pass on the street, then made my way to the downstairs bathroom.
I studied the towels folded neatly over the bar. The image of Cora holding Mom flashed before my eyes. I squeezed them shut, taking in the heavy smell of orange zest air freshener.
I slumped to my knees and traced the gritty grout in between the cold tiles with my finger. The blood had seeped through the pores of the bathroom floor. It took many hundreds of dollars of remodeling to remove the stain of her death. I could still smell the sharp copper taint of her blood, still see her sightless eyes imploring me. My chest and throat heaved—dry heaves—in an attempt to eject the pain of her death.
Footsteps approached.
“I thought you left with Kara,” I told Adam.
He leaned against the bathroom wall next to the sink and crossed his arms against his chest. “I changed my mind.”
I shifted from my knees to a sitting position with my back against the wall. “You know my mom killed herself, right?”
“I know she died, but not how.”
“She tried to help Greg, the cop, catch a serial killer. My mom convinced him they could reanimate the corpse of a woman killed by the serial killer to see if she could identity him. My mom reveled in the power of a necro and was cocky about her abilities. She was cocky about everything. Cora warned her not to raise someone who’d died violently, but that only increased her determination.”
“So what happened?”
“ The trauma born from a violent death stamps its indelible mark on a person’s soul. The minute the woman woke, she bombarded my mother’s mind with images of torture and death. Mom quickly put the corpse back down, but the damage was done. She spent her remaining nights and days fighting off the horrible images.” Images drenched with blood and filled with the cries of the victim. I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself.
The Necromancer's Seduction Page 21
