“I’m not exactly eager to rifle around.”
Aurora narrowed her eyes. “Like, if you touch my Tears for Fears cassette tapes, I will rip your head off and light you on fire.”
Rosalind’s stomach lurched.
Aurora stared at her. “It’s just an expression.”
“I won’t touch them.” Rosalind nodded at the casket, her skin growing cold. “I didn’t know vampires actually slept in coffins.”
“Most don’t. I just thought it was kind of cool, so I made a coffin. Only they’re not so good for shagging.” Aurora cocked her head. “I’ve never seen Ambrose take such an interest in a human before.”
“I didn’t enjoy his interest. He seemed a little off-key.” Insane, really. Then again, everyone here was obviously slightly mental.
“He’s six hundred years old, so he’s a little old school; that makes him different. Like, when he was a kid, there was nothing to play with but a wooden circle and a hoop. Public executions were entertainment in those days. But he’s sexy as hell, and he’s always been good to me. And if anyone messes with him, I would feast on their heart.”
Rosalind tried to force a smile. “Another vampire expression?”
Aurora blinked. “No. That was literal. Anyway, he said I’m supposed to be hospitable and shit. So what do humans drink?”
“Water is fine.”
“We don’t have that here.” Aurora rifled around on the desk, bottles clinking. “I know!” She unscrewed a cap from a bottle labelled whiskey, pouring it into a silver goblet, then decanted a measure of blood for herself, topped with whiskey.
She handed Rosalind the bloodless goblet and gazed at her, raising her own. “To the dark side.”
Rosalind lifted her drink. “To the… whatever.” She didn’t want to be rude, but she wasn’t about to toast to the dark side. She took a sip, and the whiskey burned her throat.
“You know,” Aurora said. “Vampires aren’t as bad as everyone thinks. People think that we’re horrible monsters, but we’re not really. We’re just like regular people.”
Right—apart from all the slaughtering, and walls made of human skulls. Rosalind scanned the room, and her eyes landed on something that churned her stomach: fingers poking out from below a pile of clothes on the floor. “Is that a human hand?”
Aurora turned and snatched a severed hand from the floor. “Oh, yeah.” She looked up at Rosalind, her face a picture of innocence. “But he was a very bad person.”
Oh gods. Do I really have to spend the night in here?
“Are you hungry?” Aurora asked. She dropped the hand on the desk and rummaged through the papers, pulling out a half-eaten Snickers bar. “We don’t really eat food, per se, but I took this off the severed-hand guy. He didn’t look like he had any diseases or anything, so it’s probably fine.”
Rosalind’s mind spun like a cyclone. She didn’t belong here, yet she’d willingly plunged into a city of the dead. Maybe the demented witch’s spirit had compelled her to do it. Either that, or she was a first-rate idiot like Caine had said.
Whatever the case, Rosalind was desperate for human company right now—even the evil kind. “Where is Caine?”
Aurora narrowed her dark eyes. “You’re not going to try to hurt him, are you? It won’t go well for you if you do. He’s a bit full of himself, but he also happens to be the most lethal mage I’ve ever seen. As you could probably tell from tonight’s slaughter.”
“I won’t try to hurt him. I just wanted to see another human face. Preferably one that’s attached to a living body.”
“Two doors down, past the portrait of Lord Byron.”
Rosalind shivered. In a world of demons, she was forced to rely on someone as terrifying as Caine for an ally.
Chapter 10
Rosalind walked down the hallway, pausing just after the portrait of Lord Byron dressed in some sort of orange turban. She knocked on the oak door, trying to figure out what she wanted to say to Caine.
She’d have to enlist his help to get the mage out of her body, but she couldn’t ask him about the exorcism here. Even the gargoyles were probably spying for the Vampire Lord.
Was Caine really any better than the vampires, just because he was human?
As his footfalls crossed the floor, she half wanted to turn around and run back to the serial killer suite.
Caine pulled open the door, his hair disheveled and wet, like he’d just stepped out of a bath. Droplets of water beaded on his bare chest, and her eyes lingered on his muscled body. Tattoos covered his flawless skin: constellations, a raven, a moon cycle, and Angelic script.
Washed clean of blood, he now wore only his black jeans. She tried not to stare.
For the first time, she saw a flicker of a smile. “Rosalind. It seems the only thing that can rob you of your formidable powers of inquisition is the sight of me without a shirt on.”