“They have the same powers as sirens, but they’re different beings,” Oliver said. “They can use glamour to get what they want.”
“And what is it that they want?” Caleb asked.
Oliver shrugged, checking out his nails. “Beats the hell out of me. Probably the same things as everyone else—money, sex, power.”
“But not love?” Caleb asked.
Oliver’s eyes flicked up. He peered at Caleb through his lashes, a sardonic smile on his face. “Love? Now that would go against everything the Politia believes about dark creatures, wouldn’t it?”
Caleb held his stare. “I don’t agree with every belief the Politia holds.”
“Hmm,” was all Oliver said.
“The real question, we need to answer is this,” I said. “Why would a cambion wish to kill rather than seduce?”
After Caleb and Oliver left, I grabbed the papers on dark creatures I’d Xeroxed back at Peel Academy and began flipping through them. My fingers paused when I reached the page on cambions.
Cambions, or Black Death Beings—named so after the song “Ring Around the Rosie” because they are said to smell like flowers and ash—are the children of incubi and humans.
Exceedingly rare, cambions are nonetheless dangerous creatures. Like their cousins, the sirens, cambions can use glamour to ensnare victims. However, like their parents and unlike sirens, cambions feed off of sexual acts to gain power.
Next to the writing was a woodcut image of an overtly sexual female, a rose in her hand and a snake curled at her feet.
Had there been any lingering doubt about the woman’s identity, this had dissolved it.
We now knew the identity of one of our suspected killers, but what of the second one? The woman who stabbed me, the one who moved faster than a vampire—what was she?
And why would either of them kill? And why angels? I twisted Andre’s ring round and around my finger, trying to divine the answer, but nothing came to me.
A shadow outside my window moved, catching my attention. I glanced up at the stormy scene outside and jolted in my seat when the shadow coalesced.
The devil had come to visit.
Chapter 15
I stood up abruptly, the chair I sat in tipping over in my haste. I’d seen him plenty in my dreams, but the last time he’d appeared in the real world was on Samhain.
Evening, Gabrielle. His voice slithered along my skin. I forced my hands to stay at my sides though I desperately wanted to rub my arms.
Outside the snowstorm had become a full on blizzard, and in the midst of it the devil stood, his hands in the pockets of his dark gray suit, his hair perfectly coiffed. He would’ve looked magnificent if he wasn’t so goddamned scary.
But can’t the frightening also be magnificent? he asked, and I could hear the teasing note of his voice. That’s how close the devil and I had gotten—he teased me now.
That and he read my mind.
I was so screwed.
“Get out of my head,” I said, watching him. I noticed the snow pass right through him. He’s not really here. He’s not really here, I chanted to myself.
Oh, I can promise you that I am here, he said. Would you like me to prove it?
“No,” I said too quickly.
He laughed, and the sound raised all the hairs along my arms. You are delightful when you’re frightened.
“What do you want?” I asked.
To warn you.
I raised my eyebrows. “Since when do you care about my wellbeing?”
A slow smile spread across the devil’s face. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.
I felt lightheaded from breathing too quickly. I put a hand to the windowsill to steady myself, and only then did I feel the tremors that ran up my arm.
I’d run if I were you.
“Why?” I asked. Any command given by the devil was one I should ignore, but morbid curiosity won out.
The word was barely out of my mouth when a car plowed into the parking lot. The devil grinned at me, and his image blew away just as the car drove straight through him.
I didn’t do anything immediately, not until I saw the driver-side door open and a huge man step out of the car. A glint of fang caught my eye. That was all I needed to see.
The coven had learned of my existence, and now they’d come for me.
I turned from the window, letting my hair curtain over my face in case the vampire caught sight of me. Then I began moving. I slipped out of my room. The halls were quiet; most of the guests had already headed off to bed.
Behind me I heard the front door open. Now I began to run, throwing glances over my shoulder. At the end of the hall was a back door. I threw it open just as I heard a shout behind me.
Crap.
I sprinted out into the blizzard. Only once the fierce, icy wind hit me did I realize my critical mistake: I was much more vulnerable out here. Without a coat I couldn’t last long, and the snowstorm obscured both my hearing and my vision.
Newly fallen snow crunched under my boots—thank God I’d had shoes on—as I ran. Even as I sprinted away from the inn I knew that it was only a matter of time before someone caught up to me—my footprints in the snow guaranteed that. If I wanted to shake these vampires, I was going to have to use my glamour.
The snow around me brightened as the inn’s back door opened. I threw a glance over my shoulder and saw the vampire who’d exited his car moments before now gaze over the landscape. His eyes moved across the dark terrain until they landed on me. And then he smiled.
That was all the encouragement I needed to figure out a contingency plan. Andre, I needed to talk to Andre. I slipped my hands into my pockets and exhaled when I felt the bulge of my cellphone. Pulling it out, I speed dialed him.
He answered on the first ring. “Soul—”
“Vampire,” I gasped out as I ran, “one’s here, at the hotel. I don’t know what he—”
A dark body slammed into me, and my phone went flying out of my hand. All at once my fear channeled itself into action. I rolled as I fell, landing on top of my assailant, my side pressed into his chest.