"She didn't have to be." Carla swept her hand in an arc, from left shoulder, upward and over, as if she were drawing a rainbow in the air. A sparkling window of static appeared a few feet above our heads. "Watch."
The sound of that static swirled around the room. Sawyer woofed once and the silver, black, and white particles cleared.
Though the strega appeared to be in his thirties with olive-toned skin stretched tightly over fine bones, his onyx eyes were ancient. He brushed back his shoulder-length ebony hair with hands that ought to have been permanently bloodstained, but instead drew the eye with their long-fingered, supple grace.
His room had been decorated by Pashas 'R Us. Filmy curtains surrounded a low, round bed; a huge fountain poured water into a stone pool that had probably been stolen from a Roman bathhouse, back when they still hand them. The walls were equipped with several pairs of cuffs and chains. The only illumination in the room came from the large white candles blazing from several candelabra.
Obviously we were viewing the past since the strega was not only dead, but his lair was toast.
He set a bowl on the end table. The flickering flames of the candles reflected in the shiny, maroon surface. I knew a bowl of blood when I saw one.
He chanted in Latin, dipped a finger into the blood, then traced it around the edges of the framed photograph of the woman of smoke—the one I'd stolen and fed to the garbage disposal.
"I always meant to ask you about that picture," I murmured.
Sawyer growled as the photograph began to talk.
"We have the information we need. Send the shape-shifters after Ruthie Kane."
"Yes, mistress," the strega said.
That certainly didn't sound like him.
Her eyes flared, and her lips pulled back from her too-white teeth. "Make it bloody."
The strega lifted his head and smiled. "What other way is there?"
My hands clenched. Ruthie had died badly. Not that there was a good way to die—unless it was at the age of a hundred and nine asleep in your bed after having just had sex with your seventy-year-old boy toy—but it hadn't had to be the way it had been. The leader of the light dies, setting in motion Doomsday. Pain and blood and fear weren't part of the equation. Those had been added just for the amusement of the Nephilim.
Well, two could play at that game. I made a note to myself: Make it bloody right back.
"Once your son is under your control," she continued, "unleash the vampires."
The Strega bowed his head in an uncharacteristically submissive posture. He was either really scared of her or totally up to something.
"My identity will be kept a secret," she whispered. "It's better that way."
The photo of the woman of smoke became just a photo once more. The strega walked to the window and pulled back the curtains to gaze at the bright lights of the city against the ebony night. I could see his face reflected in the glass.
He was smiling.
"What's he so damn happy about?" I wondered. "She's ordering him around like her stupid little brother, not to mention offering him up to me like a—a—a goat without horns."
"Which is exactly what he was," Carla said. "Her goat. The sacrifice."
"I guess he was a stupid little brother if he couldn't figure that out."
"Oh, he did figure it out," Carla said. "That's why he's smiling."
"You lost me."
"He planned everything. He needed her to gather all the Nephilim."
"He couldn't do it himself?"
"I don't know if you noticed, bella, but he was kind of a dick."
I choked. "Excuse me?"
"Is that the wrong word?" She turned to Sawyer. "Asshole, perhaps?"
Sawyer's mouth hung open as his tongue lolled out. He had to be laughing.
"The strega was definitely that," I agreed. "How did you know?"
"Stregas are all the same." Carla shrugged. "He would have had a difficult time getting the Nephilim to follow him."
"But they'd gladly follow the psycho hell bitch?"
“They like to back a winner."
I shivered. She couldn't win. I had to stop her.
"So what was the Strega's secret plan?" I asked.
"You."
"Again I say, 'huh?'"
Carla wiped her hand from the right to the left, erasing our view of the past. The vampire, his lair, and everything in it, disappeared.
"Did he not try to seduce you to his side?"
"Doesn't everyone?" I muttered.
"Why do you think that is? You are powerful beyond anyone this world has ever known."
"But I'm not—"
"You can be, bella. You can be anything."
Silence settled over the room, broken only by the merry crackle of the fire in the oven. As much as I hated to admit it, Carla was right. I could be anything. If I'd given in to the strega, I could have been ... well, a strega.
"He didn't know what I could do," I said. If he had he would have realized that once I'd slept with his son, I would have the power to kill him.
"No," Carla agreed. "But he sensed the depth of your strength. I'm sure he thought that the two of you could rule the world."
Together we'll rule this rock.
Yep. That's what he'd thought.
"Why didn't Ruthie know the woman of smoke was pulling all the strings?"
"The amulet."