“Holly, I’m really grateful to you for helping me out, but there’s something else.”
Predictably, Caravelli tensed, but Mac forged ahead. “What do you know about demon boxes?”
Holly lifted her eyebrows. “They’re kissing cousins to genie bottles. Sorcerers use them. Y’know, the whole makethe-demon-do-your-bidding shtick.”
“How interesting.” Caravelli looked like he was getting ideas.
Mac grimaced. “What kind of protection does a demon have from getting sucked into one? I don’t suppose they have, like, safety latches on the inside?”
The drinks came, Joe setting out little napkins before placing the glasses on the table.
“Do you think there’s a box with your name on it?” Caravelli asked, his hostile stare veering to the waiter for a moment.
“Don’t sound so hopeful.” Mac picked up his brew, wiping the condensation from the label. He didn’t really want another beer. He was feeling worse as the evening progressed. “There’s a case I’m working.”
Holly blinked. “You’ve gone private eye?”
“Yeah, right. Every ex-cop’s dream job. Nah, this is personal. There’s that vampire chick in the Castle—the one I was telling you about—who is trying to rescue an incubus from the guardsmen who kidnapped him. She has an in with a mad sorcerer who might be able to help me with my demon problem. Did I just say that?”
Caravelli took a long swallow of the wine, then set the glass down, looking almost amused. “It took six hundred years, but I think just now I finally heard everything.”
The piano player started another tune, the old one about a wonderful life.
Holly squeezed the lime perched on the edge of her mineral water. “It won’t be as hard to find out something about the boxes. I think there’s even stuff in a language I can read.”
Mac toasted her with his bottle. “I’d appreciate that. If the guardsman trapped the incubus in a box, I’d rather play it safe. I’m not eager to end up on somebody’s shelf.”
“So you’re really working a case?” Caravelli said, sounding skeptical. “Inside the Castle?”
Holly gave him an exasperated look, but held her tongue. There was a lot of fondness mixed with her frustration, and it made Mac smile. Caravelli’s one lucky bloodsucker.
He met the vampire’s eyes. “Yeah, well, crime happens everywhere. I believe in keeping order as much as you do.”
Caravelli picked up his wine. “Then why aren’t you in the Castle doing your job?”
Because Constance is there, and I had to get my head on straight before facing her again. “The answers I need are out here.”
“And when you have them?”
“I’ll work the case. Just because I’m part hellspawn, that doesn’t make me a bad person.”
“Strange as it may seem, I might be starting to believe you. Just starting, mind you.”
Glory Hallelujah, break out the fireworks.
People had been coming and going, the swinging doors letting in blasts of cool night air. This time, something compelled Mac to look up. A woman with dark blond hair walked toward them, dangling a motorcycle helmet in one hand.
All the male heads in the room turned, taking in the show. Just as quickly, they carefully looked away. She was a bad kind of dangerous.
She was tall and lean, dressed in dark jeans, dark jacket, heavy boots, and a long-sleeved T-shirt made of some elastic, sparkly fabric. The jacket was open and the shirt left nothing to the imagination. Neither did the hard lines around her mouth. She was ready for a fight.
Her gaze lit on Caravelli, then on Holly. Something crossed her face—disappointment, maybe, then speculation. Caravelli’s hand was resting on the table. It started to curl into a fist.
Interesting, thought Mac. The woman came straight up to Holly. Mac pushed back his chair again, this time ready to intervene.
Caravelli shot him a glance and a slight shake of the head.
The woman draped an arm around Holly’s shoulder. “Hey, sis.”
Mac nearly fell off his chair. Sis? Ah, so this is the vampirehunting in-law.
Holly’s face went dark, then carefully blank. “Ashe. What brings you here?”
“I saw the T-Bird outside. Thought I’d come say hello.”
Ashe set the helmet in the middle of the table, claiming all the available space. No one spoke as she pulled up a chair between Holly and Mac. Alessandro stared into the bottom of his glass.
“Hi,” she said, turning to Mac. He got a better look at her face. Now he could see the family resemblance. She wasn’t bad-looking. If she smiled, she could be a beauty.
“Mac,” he said, offering a hand. Friendly neighborhood demon.
He thought he saw Caravelli smirk.
She took Mac’s hand in a grip meant to wrestle gators, then turned to the table in general. “Hope you don’t mind if I join you?”
Mac noticed she asked after she’d made herself at home.
“We’re having a quiet, private drink among friends,” Caravelli said with his special mix of sarcasm and Bela Lugosi.
Ashe snorted. “You know how to make a girl feel welcome.”
Caravelli shrugged and Holly winced. Mac felt sorry for Holly. She was the one caught in the middle. He looked for a diversion.
“What do you ride?” he said, nodding at the helmet.
“Ducati Monster 1100S.”
“Nice. I’m more of a Harley man myself.”
She looked him up and down. “How many strokes is your engine?”
Unfazed, Mac gave Ashe his most charming smile. “Trust me, the ride’s smooth, and the mileage is great.” And the scorching finish is a hair-raiser.
She stretched, sinuous as a cat, the jacket falling open to show off anything the see-through shirt hadn’t already disclosed. “I’m just tire-kicking tonight, or I might take a test drive.”
Mac wasn’t sure he was flattered. He sure as hell wasn’t interested, but it kept the conversation on a lighter note.
“Any reason you’re here besides hello?” Holly asked, her tone cool.
“We got off on the wrong foot, Hol.” Ashe looked at her sister, who was finishing the mineral water. “Is it okay if we try again?”
“Of course,” Holly said, more cheerfully. “We can do that. Do you want to meet for lunch tomorrow?”
“What’s wrong with here and now?”
“I was in the middle of something.” Holly pushed her glass away, looking weary.
Ashe’s fingers twitched, as if she’d been stung. “I’m family.”
A flash of temper lit up Holly’s face. “The world doesn’t stop because you decided to drop by and stake my boyfriend.”
Caravelli sat forward, his gaze on Ashe. “Perhaps it’s time to go.”
“You stay out of this, fang-boy.” Ashe turned on the vampire, and Mac saw the face of a predator every bit as dangerous as Caravelli.
I hate domestic disputes. “Is there something that can’t wait?” Mac asked tentatively.
“She wants to stake me,” Caravelli said, his tone mocking. “I tremble.”
Ashe leaned across the table, all but snarling at the vampire. “Sure, I want to. Why wouldn’t I? Swear to me you’ve never, ever bitten her,” she grated out, her voice barely audible above the noise of the other patrons.
“Ashe!” Holly snapped.
Caravelli sat like stone, his expression saying that he was guilty as charged.
Ashe gave a cold smile. “Thought so.”
She slowly got to her feet and picked up her helmet. Caravelli stood, tracking her every move. Her body said more of rage than any curse. Then she turned to Mac, her expression venomous. “And where do you fit in?”
Mac took in the violence in her eyes. Carefully, he resurrected the charming smile. “I’m a nice, quiet guy, but if I find out you’re going all Van Helsing on my friends, then I’m your worst nightmare.”
Ashe gave a lopsided smile. “I’ll look forward to it.” She
turned, recoiling when she nearly bumped into Caravelli. “Get the hell out of my way.”
He fell back a step and she swept toward the door. For the second time that night, the whole pub turned to stare.
Holly looked shell-shocked. “Oh, Goddess, what just happened?”
“We tried to reason with a madwoman,” Caravelli said, dropping to one knee beside her chair and raising a hand to her cheek. “I’m sorry, cara, but she won’t be happy until I’m dust.”
“She’s my sister,” Holly said quietly. “I want her to be the way she was when I was little. I want that Ashe, not this one.”
Caravelli hushed her.
It was time for Mac to go. He was a third wheel. He put money on the table for his dinner and got up. He touched Holly’s shoulder lightly, but he addressed Caravelli. “I’m going to make sure Buffy isn’t hanging around outside.”
The vampire nodded. “A sound idea.” His face was unreadable.
Mac headed for the door, pushing aside the headache bashing the inside of his skull. With all the angry energy flying around, his demon should have been straining against its leash, but instead it lay queasy and still.
The fresh night air felt delicious against his baking skin. It was doing the raining-but-not-quite routine, tiny droplets stinging the skin with icy pinpricks. Mac ducked into the pool of shadow beside the Empire’s door and scanned the street. A Ducati would be easy to spot. He didn’t see it, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a tour of the block to be sure. He’d been listening and hadn’t heard a motorcycle.
Hunching against the dark, he walked to the corner, turned left, and went as far as the alley that led past the Castle door. The iron gate stood open and Nanette’s neon sign blinked an antiseptic blue from the other end of the passage. The flashing light made the dark corners of the alley even blacker. He could smell the damp bricks and the heavy pall of age that seemed to rise out of the ground—or maybe that was his imagination adding color to the scene. He’d heard once that the old town gallows had stood nearby.
They knew how to get rid of troublemakers back then.
Mac nearly passed by, but he took one last, closer look into the alley. Ashe was standing in front of the Castle door. He’d nearly missed her, except the faint light had caught the sparkles on the front of her shirt. He started walking toward her, the old cedar bricks sounding hollow under his feet.
“You really don’t want to mess with that,” he said, using the firm-but-friendly community cop voice.
Ashe didn’t look up, but laid one hand against the door. “What do you want?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, but moved her hand over the surface of the door. “There’s power here. Even I can feel it.”
“If you snuggled up to a nuclear reactor core, maybe you could feel that, too.” Mac jammed his hands into his pockets. “It’s about as dangerous.”
She trailed one hand down the wood like a lover’s caress. “What’s behind the door?” she asked. “It feels amazing.”
He suddenly realized the hellhounds were absent. Don’t those guys ever work? “It’s the back entrance to Nanette’s,” he lied. “She had a sorcerer put a spell on the door so no one walks in to see the bondage shows for free.”
Ashe pulled away from the door with a disgusted noise.
“I’d thought maybe you’d like that sort of thing.”
“It’s no fun unless I get to hold the whip. Besides . . . werecats? That would be like watching a kitten play with duct tape.”
That surprised a laugh out of Mac. Ashe gave a warped smile.
“Speaking of werecats, I heard something on the radio,” she said. “I think it was the university station. Something about a door in an alley leading to a big secret called the Castle.”
“Leave it alone.”
“You shouldn’t lie. It doesn’t suit you,” she said, and walked toward the other end of the alley.
Crap.
Mac watched her go past the kitchen exit of a Chinese restaurant, the door propped open with a big white pail. In the brief pool of light, her slim back and fall of blond hair looked like a teenager’s. The swing of her hips did not.
Mac had no reason to stay, but he lingered for a moment in front of the door, suddenly tired. It was time to go home and sleep off his headache, but he hesitated. What was Constance doing? Was she still in the Summer Room, thinking up new ways to bite him?
A twisted corner of his soul hoped so. It was a very stupid , twisted corner.
Mac bowed his head. He couldn’t need her. He shouldn’t want her. But he did. It wasn’t as simple as falling in lust with a set of fangs. There was also a woman there, just like he was still a man. He had looked into that woman’s eyes, and been smitten.
The same way, he was sure, Caravelli had once looked at Holly. They’d made it work, hadn’t they? He’d just seen them stand united against Ashe.
I so don’t need this. Even as he thought it, he felt a thread of resignation in his soul. Constance might not have gotten her teeth into him, but she was firmly on his radar, and she was in trouble beyond even the guardsmen-stole-my-baby problem. Crap.
It wasn’t in Mac to stand by and watch her flounder. Not that he was in favor of the whole Turning thing, but there had to be an easier way to go about it than jumping and biting a stranger. Unfortunately, Mac knew squat about the whole vampirization process. If she did manage to drink from a living victim, what exactly would happen? How would she change? Would her personality stay the same? Weren’t vampires supposed to have a sponsor, or a team leader, or whatever they called them? He should ask Caravelli. Maybe he could help.
He heard a motorcycle start up about a block away, the engine revving to life.
Would it work if Constance drank from a guy who was only part human? And that part is getting smaller and smaller. Mac pushed away the memory of his demon rising, trying to claim her. It won’t happen again. It can’t. I don’t trust myself with that dark side riding me.
He put his hand on the door, feeling the swirling energy of the magic all the way to the bottom of his uneasy stomach. Maybe I can make a difference. Maybe I can save the incubus and kiss the girl, but what will be left of me by then?
Every time he went into the Castle, he came out less human. There was no denying it.
But there was work to be done. The kind he was good at and thrived on. If he didn’t go in and help Constance get Sylvius back, kick guardsman ass, and undo the crime that had been committed, Mac was denying the part of himself he valued most. The thing that made him human in the first place. The part that cared enough to become a cop.
Demoned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Lost in thought, he almost felt the velocity of the Ducati before he heard it. Mac spun around to see the bike barreling down the alley, Ashe perched on it like a Valkyrie on her steed. Mac’s headache cost him a split second of reaction time. He sprang aside.
He wasn’t even sure if she hit him, but it sure as hell felt like it. He bounced against the brick of the alley wall, smacking the back of his head.
Oh, God. Mac slid down the wall, his vision exploding in blasts of white. He heard the Ducati tearing away, the motor a distant snarl.
Now he finally had something in common with Caravelli. He hated that bitch.
Chapter 13
October 4, 7:00 a.m.
Mac’s Apartment
“Good morning! This is CSUP at seven o’clock for your local and world paranormal news bulletins. . . .”
Mac’s hand slammed down on the radio button before he opened his eyes. Blessed silence rang like the aftertones of a bell. He did a quick inventory. His stomach had settled and his headache was gone. Whatever bug he’d had yesterday had shoved off. Sleep had done the trick.
Good, because he had a lot to do. He wasn’t awake enough to remember everything, but the list ended with—if he could get it together—rescuing an incubus from the bad guys.
Mac threw the covers off, stifling. He sat up and nearly f
ell to the floor. Obviously, he was still half asleep. He caught the edge of the mattress, steadying himself. Need coffee.
For a moment, he thought the light-headedness came from smacking his head on the wall when Ashe had buzzed him with the Ducati. Then he realized it was hunger. He hadn’t eaten a lot of that god-awful stew, but he had made himself a sandwich when he got home. That should have been enough to hold him until morning, but he felt like he hadn’t eaten for a week.
Time for breakfast, then.
He stood up, feeling thick-headed and oddly clumsy, and padded into the kitchen wearing nothing but his pajama bottoms. The condo felt too warm. Still groggy and feeling all thumbs, he switched on the coffeemaker—he always prepped it the night before—and shoved bread in the toaster, eating another piece untoasted because he was too starved to wait. While he waited for the appliances to do their thing, he shuffled into the bathroom.
When he went to wash his face, he noticed the problem. Mac froze, the water gurgling down the drain as his brain groped with what he was seeing in the mirror.
What the fuck?
His brain backed up and tried again. His reflection wasn’t exactly him. For one thing, he had to duck to a new angle to reach the sink. Not much. Just enough to realize that he was slightly taller than when he’d gone to bed. And he had put on pounds of hard muscle.
Huh?
His mind went absolutely blank. He blinked, the confusion on the Mac-but-not-Mac’s reflected face multiplying his alarm. Aw, c’mon, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? I look like a fucking action figure.
Mac reached under the stream of water with trembling hands—hands that now felt too large—and splashed his face. His basic features, at least, hadn’t changed, though he looked like he hadn’t shaved for three days. Well, he probably hadn’t—and with dark wavy hair that had gotten far too long, all he needed was a loincloth and he’d be good to go for Mac the Barbarian. He sluiced water over his face again, and again, stalling while his brain scrambled for footing. No. No. No. I don’t need this!
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