Stone Goddess (Isabella Hush Series Book 3)

by Thea Atkinson

  I took the hint and toed her toward my bedroom then slipped on a pair of running shoes. I slung my workout bag over my shoulder, complete with all the preparatory things I needed for an evening jaunt in the city: one pistol, a full can of pepper spray, and a burner phone.

  The Rot Gut Tavern was on the seedier end of the more nefarious parts of the district. The quickest route was along the waterfront, and a gal did not travel that way without a good deal of courage and a hell of a lot of backup.

  I took an Uber straight from my apartment steps: one lovely side effect of having made a deal with Scottie. I didn't need to spend unnecessary time and energy walking three blocks and backtracking before heading where I wanted. I momentarily reveled in that fact as I watched my building fade from sight in the rear view mirror. The bricks looked warm in the orange light of the setting sun.

  The tavern itself was a sort of mish mash. The bar took up most of the wall, with tables along the sides of the walls. He had carefully placed wooden kegs propped up here and there as impromptu tables and the windows—what there were of them—were painted black so no natural light entered.

  There were three doors that I knew of. One was the front, one in the back alley, and one that led to a part of the bar reserved for the basement and where he presumably let rooms for the day.

  Now that I knew Fayed was a vampire, and that his bar was a sort of hostel for all sorts of night creatures looking for a safe place to spend their days, I was careful about keeping the room within easy sight as I panned the bar for him.

  I kept the exits in easy proximity, never getting trapped between a chair and a table. I'd once come to this bar happily oblivious to the supernatural dangers. Regular human dangers, I was prepared for, and used the bar as a sort of sanctuary. No easy prey type of woman would be caught dead in there, so I assumed my acceptance had come from my brazen unaccompanied visits.

  I'd had no idea Fayed was holding the clientele at bay for my sake.

  He stood at his usual post, in intense conversation with a rather beefy looking woman. She had the look of a body builder, but her hair was braided back and her profile revealed delicate features.

  "Hey, Fayed," I said, careful to stay close to the end of the bar closest to the exit. A quick pan showed only three other patrons and while I wasn't ready to relax, I did feel a little more safe.

  Fayed swung his gaze at the sound of my voice and his own went dark and guarded.

  "I told you never to come back here, Isabella," he said, and the woman spun on her stool to eye me. She glanced down at my shoes before running her gaze up my yoga pants and jacket, then she dismissed me with a sniff.

  I supposed I deserved that. He had told me not to come back because it was dangerous, but I imagined the dark glare had more to do with the fact that to save me, Kassie had sacrificed his progeny to Lucifer.

  I held up my hands, showing an intent for peace.

  "Just stopping in for a drink," I said and pulled my workout bag in front of me to show him I'd been doing thirsty work. "Yours is the only place in the district I trust."

  He harumphed and signaled for me to cozy up to the bar. His gaze trailed over to the patrons in the room and I imagined he wasn't keen on them noticing me.

  "Sit here," he said. "One drink. Then you're outta here."

  His mocha skin seemed unusually flushed and the eyes I knew to be a mossy green had all but filled up with his pupils. He leaned in close to the woman he'd been speaking to and said something under his breath. She shoved a twenty dollar bill at him across the bar.

  "Red ale," she said, giving me a sidelong look. She was sizing me up, I realized, trying to figure out what kind of creature I was. What had he said about me, I wondered.

  I grinned at her but she sucked her teeth and turned away. Fayed placed a short tumbler in front of her filled with reddish fluid that had the slightest bit of viscosity. The red ale, I gathered, was blood watered down with beer. I tried not to gag.

  She took it from the bar and with a hateful glare, headed for the back room.

  I pushed onto the stool nearest him but still within easy access to the door. A gal couldn't be too careful in places where otherworlders congregated even if the manager of the place was a friendly.

  "Her knickers are in a knot," I said.

  "She doesn't wear knickers," he said. "Iron girded panties, more like it."

  He gave her a long look and while I didn't take him for being attracted to a muscled female, he certainly looked as though they'd shared time together.

  "Do tell me," I said. "I never once thought about the mating habits of the rarely seen otherworlder." I flicked at a crumb. "Might make a great reality show," I said. "Lifestyles of the dead and deadly."

  He canted his head at me. "You came to poke fun," he said and I quickly backtracked, holding up my hands in surrender and assuring him I didn't want to make trouble.

  "What is this term," he said.

  "Reality Show?" I fluttered my fingers over my drink, swatting away a fly attracted to the aroma of liquor. "It's a new kind of television—"

  "Otherworlder," he said. "What's that?"

  My eyebrows drew together. "Seriously?" I said. "It's you." I twirled my finger in a circle in front of him. "You and your ilk. All you things that aren't human."

  "Ah," he laid both palms down on the bar-top on either side of my drink. "We call ourselves Kindred. You might want to do the same unless you want one of our 'ilk' to decide they need a bit of flesh and bone for dinner."

  He pushed the glass sideways so that I had to grab for it.

  "Now," he said. "What brings you here, really?"

  "I left in a bit of a rush last time," I said.

  "Indeed."

  He wasn't going to make this easy, it seemed. I expected a bit more from him, being that he'd told me never to come back because it wasn't safe, but he didn't offer more than the single triangle his eyebrow made over his left eye.

  "I thought I should repay you for all your help."

  He made a noncommittal sound deep in his throat.

  "A repayment of the getaway money I gave you might help," he said.

  I shifted on the stool, remembering that he had given me a load of cash, expecting me to quit the city.

  "I can get that back to you," I said. "Plus a few more bucks in your pocket. All it will cost is a bit of your time."

  "What I need is information," he said. "I don't need a few more bucks."

  "What about a few thousand more bucks?"

  He rocked back on his heels then leaned his forearms on the bar, easing in close enough that I could smell the coppery tang of blood on his cheeks. I tried to lean away without offending him.

  "Where would a girl who was running from a bad situation all of a sudden come into a few thousand dollars?"

  I explained the predicament with Scottie, starting with the night I'd run from him in my pajamas, and ending with the way Alvin broke into my apartment on Scottie's orders and put a decent beating on me.

  In between, I stuffed in the parts of the story that held the deal I'd made with Scottie for him to grant me what we termed, a sabbatical.

  "I have to pay tribute to him once a quarter until I have divested all the intel out of my weapons contact," I said, putting air quotes around the weapons contact.

  "He sounds like a douche-bag," Fayed said and reached under the bar for my favorite liquor.

  The Rot Gut, named for the tavern, was a mix of leftovers from the various bottles and had a crystal of absinthe at the bottom. Patrons could order the Rot Gut but they paid extra for the crystal and it wasn't cheap.

  I declined with a shake of my head. I wanted to be focused.

  "He is a douche," I said. "But there were times when he wasn't. Indeed, there were times he was sweet and affectionate; they just grew more sporadic and less frequent as the years went on."

  Fayed grunted. "I've heard that song before," he said. "A dozen women's counselors have heard it too, I bet. You need to br
eak that piece inside you that pines for the times he was a good guy. He's not a good guy. No good guy would do those things to another human being."

  "Says the vampire," I said and he shrugged.

  "I've done some awful things in my blood-life, but we're not talking about vampires or near immortals," he said. "I was talking about mortal men. Human beings are born with a soul. They have consciences. All sorts of roadmaps for how to behave and moral compasses to keep them going in the right direction. I'm old, but not so old I don't remember that."

  He reached over the bar to run his thumb along my cheekbone. "Any man who could order this delicate bone structure to be broken is no man. He's an animal. Get rid of him."

  "That's what I'm doing," I said and rested my palm against his hand. His skin was cool but in a way that made me feel tingly. "It's why I'm here."

  He curled his fist over my hand and squeezed before letting go. "You want me to kill him?"

  I let go a nervous laugh, half expecting he was joking, but he looked serious. The wide pupils in his mossy green eyes pinched down to pinpricks and I thought I saw a glint of fangs peek out from beneath his full lips.

  "No," I said. "That would make me no better than he is."

  It would be easier, I knew, to finish off the Scottie threat with his body in the morgue, but I had never enjoyed the violence I'd witnessed at his hand. He was a bastard, but he was human. A life with a soul no matter how black it had grown. It was one thing to leave Scottie to his own fate by deciding whether or not he trusted me enough to check the stone in the velvet pouch was what I said it was, but it was another to snuff out his life.

  "I just can't," I said. "Best to leave him to his own fate, whatever it is he decides."

  I leaned back on my stool, fleeting a glance at the exit when I heard the door open, but I couldn't see who came in.

  Fayed pressed a cool glass against my fingers.

  Water.

  I nodded at him in thanks.

  "Speaking of fate," he said, clearing his throat, and I grasped that whatever was making his jump onto such an awkwardly segue meant that he had been biding his time before I came back to the tavern. He might not have wanted me to come, but now that I was here, he planned to make the most of it.

  "Yes," I said, carefully.

  "Have you seen her?" he said. "The Morrigan, I mean."

  I had. I chewed my lip. The last thing I wanted to do was admit I had seen The Morrigan. Fayed had been pretty territorial and fatherly over his new progeny and if he knew Kassie as the Morrigan had bartered her soul for mine, I wasn't sure how he might take it. He was a friend. A good one. One I had come to rely on.

  I couldn't risk that.

  "I don't know where she is," I said, offering the truth instead of an answer to his question. After the Morrigan had renounced her powers again, I'd not seen any aspect of her. He could take that at face value.

  He sighed. "I was hoping you'd say you had."

  He eyed me, and I thought he was trying very hard to get me to meet his gaze, but I couldn't. The tip of his nose let me look at him without the risk of him seeing the guilt in my eyes.

  "Why?" I said. "What do you need her for?"

  "She came here, the triad aspect, and she took my progeny."

  There was a hard edge to his voice and I was relieved I'd not confessed any more than I had.

  "I can't have a naive newborn out there all vulnerable and exposed."

  I traced a water stain on the bar. It seemed Fayed had some pretty rose-colored impressions of the sociopath who had in her days stolen possession of a woman's body to bait a vampire into making her.

  "I wouldn't exactly say she's naive," I said, daring to offer at least some of the truth that Isme had a pretty nefarious past. Maybe it would help him forget his paternal blindness.

  "What is that supposed to mean," he said.

  I shrugged. "How well did you know her before you turned her?"

  I tapped my finger in the water that dribbled down my glass to pool onto the bar.

  "Maybe she had issues. Maybe her past wasn't quite so linear."

  I knew she had issues. I'd been privy to a horrible blow by blow replay of her life, death, rebirth, and consequent death by vampire, finally. Namely, Fayed. Her past was stained the way blueberries ruined your teeth.

  He stiffened. "I made her," he said. "I'm responsible for her. I won't let her hurt herself or others."

  I wanted to say, too late, but I touched his hand instead, distracting him from his single-minded defense of the vampire. Going down that line of conversation would only open up other, more risky questions.

  "She did try to kill me, Fayed," I said.

  "That was just newborn hunger," he said as though distracted and then changed the subject, expertly rounding it back to me.

  "So then," he said. "What is it you need from me if not the final drink?"

  "Your muscle. Your presence."

  "How so?"

  "Scottie has something that if I steal, will bring in a few thousand dollars. Enough to pay my first tribute."

  "And you want me to steal it?"

  I shook my head. I'd thought about it the whole way over. If Scottie was still in this realm, it would prove he trusted me enough to not open the pouch and touch the stone. If he wasn't, then he'd handled it and gone straight to Hell. I had no doubt that if he entertained any small doubt about my sincerity, he would ignore them, because under it all, he wanted to trust me.

  It was the reason he'd agreed to give me the sabbatical.

  "He doesn't know what he has," I said to Fayed. "In fact, I'm certain he hasn't even seen it."

  Fayed looked over his shoulder toward the door as more patrons funneled in. I could see he was getting antsy about me being there.

  "So you're thinking that if you steal it, he won't know."

  "I'm thinking I can replace the item with a different one. But I need access. And I need to introduce you as a contact from the weapons intel to solidify his trust."

  "And because he can't kill me, I'm your muscle."

  I grinned. "Exactly. If things go wrong, you can muscle me out."

  "I can do better," he said, leaning in and catching my eye.

  I felt a warm flush all over, as though he'd poured warm, scented oil over my head and it was coating my skin. When he spoke it was in a hushed tone that reminded me of smoldering ashes and long languid drinks of Irish coffee.

  "Kiss me," he said. "Deep and slow. As thought the world turned on our desire."

  It was a sudden shift in direction, and there was no preamble or touch to ignite such a bald order. I didn't need to wrap my arms around his neck to kiss him, but I did. And why I pulled him to me and planted my mouth against his, I couldn't understand. All I knew was I felt compelled to do it.

  When his lips brushed against mine, I opened to him and savored his taste. It put me in mind of toasted marshmallows and chocolate. A slide show of images shuttered through my mind, some sexual, some frightening. I saw things of Fayed I knew I would want to forget later.

  I might have kissed him for hours if I hadn't felt the prick of something sharp against my tongue. I tasted blood and recoiled.

  I stared at him, my hands still around his neck, but feeling as though someone had just thrown a bucket of ice water over my back.

  "What in the Hell?" I said.

  I jerked away, my closed fist swung in an arc that grazed his ear.

  He chuckled darkly. "Compulsion," he said. "One of our greatest weapons."

  I scrubbed my mouth with the back of my hand. "You could have just told me."

  He shrugged. "I'm not so benevolent as that," he said. "Make no mistake, vampires let mortals live for a reason."

  "And the reason I'm alive is because you want me to owe you."

  "You're alive because you amuse me," he said.

  "But will you help me?"

  He swiped the corner of my mouth with his thumb and I was shocked to see a smear of blood against the pad o
f skin. He stuck it in his mouth and grinned around it.

  "I think I just answered your question."

  He leaned away from the bar and as I blinked stupidly, a raucous at the door made me turn.

  The sight of a slight woman with a short pixie cut left me gaping in disbelief.

  I knew that woman, if woman was indeed the right word.

  I believe Fayed and Maddox had both called her a fae.

  Finn the dark sorcerer had used the word assassin.

  Whatever term she preferred for herself, she was the one who hunted me down to retrieve the rune tile I'd accidentally stolen from Finn.

  She'd attacked this very bar in an effort to kill me.

  And now she was looking straight at me.

  CHAPTER 4

  I felt Fayed stiffen beside me. She'd torn his bar up pretty good last time in her search for me, but she'd also come in lights blazing back then. This time, she entered as though on cat's paws, soft and leisurely, with an arrogance that reminded me of my own rescued pet no doubt shredding my best socks in my absence.

  She paused in the doorway in an eerily reminiscent posture to the one she'd exhibited before. Feet splayed shoulder width apart, her diminutive size doing its best to fill as much space as possible. I got the feeling in those moments it was her normal stance. Always wanting to look bigger than she was.

  This time, however, instead of blasting the bar with destructive volleys of fae magic, she swung her gaze around the room in patient scrutiny. Her combat fatigues had been replaced by what must have been a sort of dress uniform in the fae realm. It glinted off the lights in shifting colors as though it had invisible Bedazzle rhinestones sewn in. One moment it was red, the next a pale yellow, the next a sea foam green.

  She looked stunning, to be honest, just in a terrifying way.

  No one seemed to notice her except me and Fayed.

  "That can't be good," he muttered.

  "How comforting," I whispered back. I was already edging sideways, slipping my right cheek off the stool in an effort to slip away unnoticed.

  I braced myself to duck under it or dodge to the side.