“Don’t apologize.” He offered me a dish towel to dry my hands. No paper towels for Linus. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t,” I lied, searching for a new topic that wasn’t how much I distrusted his mother, and by extension, him. “So…do you know anything about a Detective Caitlin Russo with the Savannah Police Department?”
“The name sounds familiar.” He mulled it over then shrugged. “Who is she?”
“A problem.” I sucked in a breath and outlined her escalation from concerned officer with a soft spot for domestic abuse cases to a hard-ass with a hard-on for proving Maud did not go into that good night, gently or otherwise. “I’m not sure how tight she is with Cricket, but a friendship between the two would explain how Russo knew I was back in Savannah.”
“I’ll look into her.” A frown gathered in neat rows across his forehead. “Let me know if she approaches you again.”
“Count on it.” As much as I hated outing her to the Society, I couldn’t risk being the reason she outed the Society itself. “I told you about my night. What’s with all the drawings?”
“I’ve been working on a project.” He shrugged like it was a small thing and passed over an ornate sigil I had never seen before, the combination unknown though I recognized the individual parts hidden within the art. The drawing was a yew tree, one of Hecate’s emblems, and its black limbs stretched through a crescent moon. Its tangled roots grew to form a circle, a symbol of power, that encompassed the topmost portion of the design. “It’s not perfect yet, but I’m making progress.”
I traced the emblem with my fingertip. “What does it do?”
Linus decided the papers were in need of shuffling. “It’s a talisman against Last Seeds.”
“What?” I caught him by the arm. “Why?”
He studied where my hand touched him and made no move to escape. “Do you really have to ask?”
We were no closer to discovering the identity of the master vampire who had kidnapped me. Though it made sense he would be a Last Seed since they topped the vampire hierarchy. Not to mention other clans had volunteered their heritors, at least two Last Seeds themselves, to the cause. That required the kind of power you couldn’t amass in a made vampire’s lifetime. Or several of them.
And then there was Volkov. He hadn’t died in the massacre when I made my escape. Boaz had made certain of that. The idea he might escape one day… That he might serve out his sentence and be released…
Forever was an interminably long time to imagine until it came with an expiration date.
I noticed I was still clutching him and willed my fingers to let go. “You did this for me.”
“It’s a useful protective sigil no one has fully explored since Last Seeds are so rare most necromancers will never meet one, let alone interact with one.” More papers in a different pile also required extensive straightening. “I can patent its composition if I can perfect it. Patents can be quite lucrative. This one in particular, now that the Undead Coalition is hemorrhaging members.”
“True,” I allowed. “But thank you anyway.”
He shook his head, just once. “Don’t thank me.”
“Too late. I already did.” Even if the design was inspired by me rather than designed for me, the result would be the same. I could wear it on my skin as a protection, as a comfort that I would never be helpless against their compulsion again. Volkov would no longer be the monster under my bed. This was as good as plugging in a nightlight. “Can you teach me how to paint it?”
“Once it’s marketable, yes.”
The dream of wearing his sigil as a shield evaporated, and I deflated on the spot. If he was seeking to patent a new design, he wouldn’t want to share it until the paperwork was finalized. That could take months. Years.
“I didn’t design it for application in the field,” he explained. “I had a more proactive approach in mind.”
The impermanent nature of our ink meant all sigils were intended to be drawn the moment before their use. Otherwise, the blood dried and the ink flaked, nulling its power. “What do you mean?”
“Let me show you.” He unfastened the single button he’d been twiddling and parted the halves of his shirt, exposing the hard planes of his stomach. The yew tree tattoo covered his left hipbone in one of the few blank spaces left on his torso. The rest of his chest and abs were a masterpiece in progress, a canvas filled with loops and whorls, with magic. “I’ve been testing it on myself.”
I traced the design, mesmerized, and his abs clenched under my touch. Gooseflesh rose on his skin beneath my fingertips, and a hot wash of embarrassment singed my cheeks.
“You did that?” I crossed my arms over my chest and tucked my hands under my armpits where they couldn’t get into more trouble. “You tattooed yourself?”
That might explain the whine I still heard pumping from the other room. I’d sat with Boaz while he got inked often enough to be familiar with the process. Though his tattoos were nothing like this. These pulsed with magic that invited fingertips to investigate their purpose. They glittered, blood red and liquid, almost alive beneath his skin.
“I apprenticed with a local artist for four years while I attended Strophalos. I still drop by on weekends or fill in when they’re overbooked. It’s a good skill to have.”
And the ability to tattoo himself meant no one else saw what he was dabbling in. Win/win.
“You are full of surprises.” Of all the paths I might have predicted for Linus when we were kids, tattoo artist was not one of them. Then again, neither was mad scientist willing to experiment on his own, very valuable, person. “You’re nothing like how I remember.”
He studied me, weighing my words. “I take it that’s a good thing.”
“There are worse things in life than to be predictable,” I allowed, uncomfortable beneath his direct stare when his intense focus raised the black in his eyes. “Can I get one too?”
“Once the design has been registered, yes. Right now, it’s imperfect. A Last Seed was able to compromise me after prolonged contact.”
The towel dropped from my hands to fall in the sink. “You visited Volkov.”
We had just established how rare Last Seeds were, how beloved by their clans. None of them would volunteer an LS for experimentation, not in these troubled times when vampire politics were shifting. But Volkov was a prisoner, and that meant he got no say in how he spent his time or what was done to him.
Pity welled up in me, from one captive to another, but I stomped it down hard. He had lost the right to burden my conscience the moment he imprisoned me on his master’s estate. Whatever he got, whatever the Elite did with him, was no less than he deserved.
Volkov had forever to do as he pleased. His sentence, whatever it was, wouldn’t cost him any time at all, really. Perhaps learning his lessons young would help him spend the rest of his eternity wiser.
Or maybe this would hone him into a blade that cut down any who threatened to cage him again.
I hated having even that much in common with him.
“I did.” Linus pulled his shirt closed, his elegant fingers doing up the buttons. “Last week. I told no one.”
Clearly, my observation skills were negative zero since I hadn’t noticed him leaving or returning.
“Does that mean…?” I homed in on his face, wishing I could read this new Linus better. “Does your mother know?”
He huffed out a laugh. “No.”
One did not show one’s experimental magic to one’s all-powerful mother and then explain how you knew it worked because you’d tried it on yourself, her heir and only child, first.
“I might be able to help with your experiment.” And his mother would end me if she had any idea I was encouraging his self-destructive tendencies. “Volkov gave me an avowal when we first met.” The blood-filled glass bangle had protected me against the power of his lure so long as I wore it. “I still have it up in my room.”
Linus paused while tucking in his shirt. “He courted you?”