“I prefer to go by Zorah, thanks all the same,” I said sourly. “And who do I have the honor of addressing, pray tell?”
“My name is Myrial,” the demon replied without hesitation. “Please, forgive the familiarity... but may I ask what your mother’s maiden name was?”
“Hawkins,” I replied cautiously. “Why?”
She smiled, revealing white, perfect teeth. “Just idle curiosity, dear.”
“The number of cambions since the end of the war must be quite small,” Rans put in rather pointedly. “Given the treaty provision forbidding demonic interference on Earth.”
“Oh, indeed so,” Myrial said in airy tones. “Vanishingly small, I’m certain.”
I stared at her, trying to get some kind of handle on what might have brought her here. “So, you’re... what? Trying to get a scoop on the story for the demon gossip rags? Does the National Enquirer publish a Hell edition?”
She laughed—a rich, bell-like sound. “No, no. Nothing like that. I came to let you know that the latest Tithe has been delivered from Dhuinne. My understanding was that one of the tithelings is of... particular interest to you, shall we say.”
The words hit me like a Mack truck. Somehow, I couldn’t seem to emotionally keep on top of what was happening here on Earth, with random people popping up to try and kill me, while also keeping on top of what was happening with Dad. One or the other of those things continually reared its head when I wasn’t expecting it and threw me into a fresh tailspin.
“Oh,” I said brilliantly. “Yes.”
“I came to see if you wanted to leave right away,” Myrial continued. “Since I wanted to meet you anyway, I thought the least I could do was to offer you passage into our realm.”
I opened my mouth, but since I hadn’t figured out what answer I wanted to give, nothing came out. If Dad was in Hell, I needed to get to him as fast as I could. But I didn’t know this woman—this demon—at all, and so far my instinctive reaction to her had mostly consisted of wanting to slap her across the face.
A moment later, Rans came to my rescue, since coming to my rescue seemed to be his thing these days.
“It’s kind of you to offer, but we’ll need to make some further arrangements before she leaves,” he said carefully. “Thank you for informing us, though.”
She tipped her head. “Ah. You mean to speak to Nigellus first, no doubt.”
Rans said nothing, and neither did I.
Myrial shrugged, as though it were nothing to her. “As you like, though I’ve already spoken to him on the subject. Zorah, I hope we’ll have a chance to chat more in the future. There are many things I’d like to discuss.”
I shifted restlessly on my aching feet, which were still encased in the ridiculous fetish boots. “Yeah, um... I expect we’ll see each other around. Thanks for letting me know about my f—” I caught myself, probably too late. “About... the titheling.”
She was still watching me with a little Mona Lisa smile that was probably supposed to look friendly. “Oh, it was my pleasure, dear.”
Pleasure? Good god—that poor female security guard at the club had died tonight. My heart tripped faster with a combination of anger at her nonchalance, and delayed reaction to the events at the club.
A hard edge crept into Rans’ voice. “If that’s all,” he said, “then we’re obliged to you for the information. However, I fear it’s been a rather long evening. Not to mention a trying one.”
Myrial chuckled. “Well, I suppose I can recognize a dismissal when I hear one, vampire. Good night, then. My offer still stands, once you’ve spoken with Nigellus, Zorah. And my congratulations to you for managing to snare this one.” She tipped her chin toward Rans. “He’s quite a catch for someone with so much human blood. I’m impressed.”
“Uh...” I began, but she was already gone—popping out of existence between one heartbeat and the next.
I sat down rather abruptly on the edge of the bed. After a moment, I realized that it wasn’t the mattress shaking. It was me.
“Shit,” I whispered, feeling tears burning behind my gritty eyes. I pressed them closed.
Cool fingers ghosted across the scab on my shoulder before rising to cup my cheek. Lips brushed the top of my head, and Rans rested his forehead against mine. I squeezed my eyes closed even tighter.
He sighed.
“I’m sorry, Zorah. I was wrong about all of this,” he breathed into our shared air.
I swallowed, not sure what kind of sound would come out if I tried to ask what he was wrong about.
He paused, and his hand slid down to cover the healing wound on my shoulder. “I thought I could protect you. But if that bullet had hit you a few inches further to the right... if I’d been an instant slower to block the ones that followed...”
I stayed quiet. He dragged in another breath and let it out—and it wasn’t because of any need for oxygen on his part.
“You heal faster now that your inner demon is being fed regularly, it’s true,” he went on. “But not fast enough to survive a bullet through the heart. You could have died tonight. You could’ve been gone before I even had a chance to give you my blood and save you.”
“What are you saying?” I rasped.
The silence stretched for long moments.
“I was a selfish fool,” he said, “and Nigellus was right. Hell is the safest place for you.”
That startled me into opening my eyes. His loomed out of focus—too close, and so very, very blue. I pulled back until I could see his expression properly.
“You want me to stay in Hell? Permanently?” I asked, unsure how I was supposed to feel about that idea.
I’d argued for it, earlier. Or, rather, I’d argued that he should come, too, so we’d both be safe. And he’d immediately dismissed the idea. I almost opened my mouth to ask him again to come with me, but I caught myself just in time. If Rans went to Hell, he could never leave. At least, not without signing his soul over to a demon first.
He crouched in front of me, his hand falling from my shoulder and coming to rest on my knee instead. “Want isn’t the right word. But I need you safe.”
I tried to untangle my thoughts and organize them into something coherent.
“What if...” I began, only to trail off. After a moment, I tried again. “Rans, what if you asked Nigellus to bind you? He wouldn’t just randomly decide to harvest your soul one day. He loves you like a son—anyone can see that. Then you could go in and out of Hell as you pleased. You could be safe there—” with me, I didn’t add, “—but if you needed to leave to investigate some lead about the war, or to help Guthrie or something, then you could still do that.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment.
“Zorah, my life for the past several hundred years has, for all intents and purposes, belonged to the demons. I’m not in a hurry to offer them my death as well. At least as it stands now, I can still call my soul my own.”
He opened his eyes and I nodded, chewing the inside of my lower lip. It was the answer I’d expected, after all. And it wasn’t even an answer I could disagree with, on an intellectual level.
“But there’s another thing,” he went on. “Though I don’t know if anyone has ever been crazy enough to test the theory, it seems likely that if I bound myself to a demon, the life-bond would bind you to them as well, by default. Even if I were willing to sign my own soul over to Nigellus... I’m not willing to sign over yours.”
I didn’t even try to argue that I’d already intended to ask Nigellus to bind me—if that’s what it took to get out of Hell and back to Rans. Not only was it obvious that he and I had very different views about demon-bonds; it also appeared likely to be a moot point. If Rans wanted me to hide away in Hell, but he wasn’t interested in coming with me, what more was there to say, really?
“Okay,” I replied. “I understand.”
He stared at me intently, his brows drawing together. “I’m not at all certain you do.”
Then he was o
n his feet with inhuman speed, whirling away to cross the room, facing away. He rummaged in his coat and came up with his cell.
“Time to go back to... Guthrie’s place?” I asked. Jesus, I’d almost said home.
He nodded, not looking at me directly. “I’ve still got enough battery left to call a cab. Unless you’re in a hurry to spend a night here in the Roach Motel.”
I looked around the room and shuddered. “Yeah... no. Hard pass on that.”
Rans flashed me a ghost of a smile over his shoulder, but I had the sense he was putting up a wall between us that hadn’t been there a few hours ago.
“Good choice,” he said lightly. “When you have the option, always go for the accommodations with the Jacuzzi and the home gym.”
Right, I thought. Awesome. Now I just need to figure out how to give up the crazy vampire I’ve fallen for, so I can go live in Hell with my father who hates me instead.
FIFTEEN
WHEN RANS SAID he’d call Nigellus the following morning so we could meet and discuss details, I hadn’t expected the demon to appear from thin air outside Guthrie’s door less than five seconds after Rans got off the phone with him.
I stared at both of them in mild disbelief. “What would Guthrie say about this?”
“He’d be bloody livid,” Rans replied. “And I can’t really blame him. Which is why I intend for this not to take very long.”
Rans gestured for Nigellus to come in. He did, looking around the penthouse suite with mild interest.
“Moving up in the world, Ransley?” he asked with mild irony. “I can’t say the place really suits you...”
“I can’t say it does, either,” Rans agreed. “But it’s safe, at least for a given definition. Though you ought to know I’m on the hook for the repair bills if anything happens to it while the real owner is gone.”
“You certainly got here quickly,” I said. “And here I’d assumed I’d be white-knuckling my way through another airplane flight to Atlantic City.”
Nigellus gave me a thin smile. “I’d gathered time was of the essence.”
It wasn’t accurate to say that I’d come to terms with Rans’ new insistence that I run away to safety. But I’d at least managed to cobble together some degree of emotional armor overnight. I flopped down on Guthrie’s comfortable sofa, while Nigellus lowered himself gingerly into a chair across from me, and Rans took up pacing again.
I eyed our guest. “So, full-blooded demons can travel anywhere in the blink of an eye, then? No magic portals; no messy slogging from Point A to Point B?” I asked. “That’s handy, I guess.”
Nigellus crossed one leg over the other, leaning back as he regarded me over laced fingers. “Within certain limitations,” he allowed. “We can transport ourselves to a specific location if the directions are detailed enough. We can find individuals or objects if they are bound to us, or marked in a way we can detect. However, we find travel across vast expanses of saltwater difficult, and we can’t travel instantly from a random point in one realm to a random point in another. We must stop at the gate between realms.”
I nodded. “Good to know, even if none of it’s immediately useful for a part-blood.”
His deep-set eyes raked over me. “Perhaps not, though it appears you are coming into some of your birthright. You’ve been feeding recently, Zorah—and not merely from our mutual friend, I gather.”
Since I’d done nothing wrong, I absolutely refused to blush. “It’s better than starving.”
Would my bravado about feeding from other people’s sex energy hold up when I was living in an entirely different world from Rans?
“It can also be rather useful in a fight, as it turns out,” Rans said, with the air of someone who was trying not to let the conversation stray too far off topic. “Now, before we get much farther along, I’m certain you’ll be happy to hear me say that you were right and I was wrong, Nigellus. So, consider it said.”
Nigellus raised a swept brow. “Goodness,” he said mildly. “This is a cause for marking the date.”
Rans’ expression might have been carved from marble, and he didn’t rise to the small barb.
I cleared my throat. “Look. As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed.” I ignored the little internal voice that whispered liar, liar in singsong tones. “I’d already intended to visit my father in Hell, so that’s what I’m doing. What happens afterward is... still up for debate, I guess you could say. I gather Dad arrived safely with the last Tithe?”
Nigellus tilted his head in acknowledgement. “He did. You’ve spoken with Myrial, then?”
My expression must have soured, because Nigellus lifted a brow at me.
“Yeah, we had a brief chat,” was all I said.
When I didn’t add anything else, he consciously smoothed his expression. “I gather he did not endear himself during that brief chat. May I ask what was said?”
But I frowned, confused. “He? Hang on, are we talking about the same person? This Myrial was a woman.”
“Myrial is a succubus,” Rans corrected.
“Or, depending on her mood, an incubus,” Nigellus put in. “As was the case when I spoke to him earlier. It’s easy to forget how little you know of demons.”
The puzzle pieces connected in my mind. Right. Rans had told me early in our acquaintance that succubi and incubi could change their physical sex at will.
“Okay, gotcha,” I said. “Sorry—I’d forgotten. And frankly, for a human, that one’s a little bit difficult to wrap my brain around... but, whatever.”
“I believe any friction arose from a succubus acting like a succubus,” Rans offered. “She was somewhat... forward.”
“I think handsy bitch is the phrase you’re looking for,” I muttered under my breath. In a more normal voice, I continued, “She also seemed to assume an awful lot for someone who’s never met me before—acting like she already knew me, offering to take me to Hell five minutes after we started talking. So, is she on the up-and-up, or what?”
Nigellus gave a small shrug. “She is one of us. Myrial and I are not close, but she did contact me to inform me of the arrival of an unusual human among the latest Tithe.”
“Did you send her after us?” I asked. “Because the Fae have watchdogs all over this city, and when she showed up where we were, things turned ugly real fast.”
“I did not,” Nigellus said. “However, it hasn’t taken long for news of your existence—and of the company you’ve been keeping—to spread among our kind. Demons tend to be well connected. I daresay finding you would have been no great feat for her.”
Wonderful. So my fake identity and all of my attempts to stay off the radar were basically useless, then. Had the murderous bikers shot up the fetish club last night because I was there, or because Myrial was there? I’d probably never know for certain.
“How did news about my existence spread, exactly?” I wondered. “You’re the only demon I’d ever had any contact with, before her.”
Nigellus gave me a thin smile. “Your presence in Dhuinne was hardly what one would call low-key, Zorah. Even during such a ceasefire as we now enjoy, both sides still have spies in place.”
“Bloody cloak and dagger nonsense,” Rans said under his breath.
“Information wins wars far more effectively than weapons,” Nigellus retorted in a mild tone.
Rans met his gaze sharply. “Try telling that to the rest of my race. Weapons worked pretty damned well on them.”
Ouch.
“You’re not at war now, Nigellus,” I pointed out. “The war’s over.”
“It’s more accurate to say that there is a lull in the conflict,” said the demon. “It’s easy to forget, sometimes, how young both of you are. Our races have enjoyed a few years of peace, it is true. It’s also true that both sides have been using that time in an attempt to strengthen their positions, since we all know the peace won’t last forever. It never does.”
I tried to get my head around the idea of Nigellus calli
ng a seven-hundred-year-old vampire young... or calling a span of more than two centuries a few years.
“All right,” I said. “Fine. So the demon gossip mill knows all about me, and everyone and their dog can track me down while I’m on Earth. I’ll try not to hold Myrial’s tendency to paw at someone first and ask permission never against her, but I’d still rather not rely on her as my ticket to Hell.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Nigellus assured me. “I will escort you and see that you are safely settled, though I must return to Earth afterward.” His speculative gaze flicked over Rans before returning to me. “I don’t suppose you’ve managed to talk our mutual friend into making the trip, as well?”
And that question shouldn’t have hurt so much. It shouldn’t. I had no claim over Rans; no reason to expect him to pull up the roots he’d set down over the course of centuries on Earth. It was unfair to ask him to follow me into a trap from which he could never escape—at least, not without selling his soul first.
“I think I’m the only one crazy enough to walk into a place I might not be able to walk out of again,” I said with forced lightness.
“We’ve had this argument many times, Nigellus,” Rans said, and there was steel in his tone. “Don’t try to drag her into it.”
Nigellus waved the words away. “Forget I even brought it up, Ransley. I should know your stubbornness by now, I suppose. Though, as I said before, I see no reason why Zorah should be trapped within the barriers of Hell. Second-generation she may be, but she is still demonkin.”
I hoped he was right.
“Just to be clear—I realize that staying in Hell is the best way to avoid situations like what happened at the club,” I said, “but I don’t intend to be stuck there forever with no way to get out.”
And that much was true, though I was still struggling with everything else. It was hard to see this as anything other than Rans sending me away. Intellectually, I might be able to convince myself that it was an altruistic gesture on his part to keep me safe. But a lifetime of being tossed away by men because I unknowingly took too much from them meant I had an ugly little voice living inside my head. That voice was quick to offer an alternate perspective.
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 44
