“Proserpine,” a female voice said, “we meet again.”
Andre added the locations of the last two crime scenes to the map Gabrielle had started.
He knew what he was looking for, already knew what he was going to see. Still, he let out an oath at the sight of those four dots arcing across the map.
Not a ley line, but still a pattern of sorts. An incomplete one.
What did four crime scenes dozens of miles apart have in common with one another? Nothing, unless he penciled in a fifth dot as he did now.
He drew lines between them, joining each of the dots until a star formed. A pentagram.
Andre was the one who had reassured Gabrielle all those months ago that pentagrams weren’t evil signs. Not unless they pointed down as this one did.
Symbolism. Unholy symbolism.
The other Satanic versions usually had the Beast’s face inside, the tips of his horns represented the two topmost points of the pentagram. On the map those points were the cities of Cluj-Napoca and Bistri?a-N?s?ud, where the first two murders had taken place.
Beneath what would’ve been the devil’s chin rested the fifth point of the star, the dot that Andre had added in.
Andre leaned on his knuckles against the desk and stared at it. A crime hadn’t occurred there yet, but if he did nothing, then tonight one would. And his soulmate would be the last victim.
The woman’s footfalls crept closer to where I crouched on the bed. I recognized her voice from the club; she’d been the second attacker that night in Cluj, the petite one who’d shanked me.
Ho-bag.
I tracked the woman’s movements with the senses I still had. She came right up to me, and I stiffened. Her hand brushed the back of my head and I flailed against her.
“Stupid girl,” she hissed, “I’m removing the cloth from your mouth, so that we can talk.”
I stilled at her words. If she took off the gag, then I’d be able to glamour her.
She untied the material and the bed dipped as she sat down next to me.
Fear made my skin flare up quickly; the siren in me was especially receptive to dark emotions. “Untie the rest of me,” I beckoned in that eerie voice.
And she laughed.
“Proserpine, that does not work on me. Do you not remember our first meeting at the club?”
I hadn’t thought of it, but of course. Why would she allow a siren to speak if she could fall under my influence?
I worked my jaw, my mouth sore. “Are you going to take off the rest of the bindings?” I asked when she leaned away from me.
“You only need your mouth to talk.”
I ground my teeth together. “Fine, then if you want to chat, don’t call me Proserpine.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not my name.”
“It would’ve been,” she said, “had my sister not pressed your parents to change it to something else.”
“Your sister?” I asked, and then I cursed at myself. Stop chatting with the enemy.
“Yes. She and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye.”
“And she knew my parents?” I couldn’t help myself, curiosity pushed me to ask the question. That and the slim hope that I might be able to talk my way out of this mess.
“She knows you,” the woman answered.
I breathed in her scent, but I smelled nothing. “You are not human, are you?”
“No,” she said.
“Then what are you?”
“I’m a fate.”
Chapter 24
Andre stared at the map as he held the phone to his ear.
“Andre?” Ivan said when he answered the phone.
“What do you have for me?” Andre asked. No formalities. He didn’t have time for them.
“Grigori took the day off.”
Andre ran a hand through his hair. “He took her.” Grigori might’ve also taken the shapeshifter—perhaps even the fairy. Andre hadn’t seen either since he’d risen.
“Andre, be reasonable.”
“Don’t tell me to be fucking reasonable. Listen to me: I think I have an idea where they’ll be.”
“You are claiming that one of our officers has kidnapped and intends to harm another officer of ours.”
“Yes, I am, and I’m right.”
“Andre crime and punishment may work like that in your circles, but it doesn’t work like that—”
He wanted to throttle Ivan. This was exactly why he loathed the Politia, and why his word meant very little in this network of supernaturals. They were so goddamn dense, clinging to their classicist beliefs even in the face of evidence.
Andre slammed a fist against the wall of his office. “Take down the following information, or so help me Ivan, I will have you wrung out to dry within the week.”
“Fine,” Ivan responded gruffly, “but no promises that our officers can get to it.”
“Fuck you. When the crime is exposed, mark my words: I will make sure you pay for any inaction on your part.”
Andre ended the call and threw the phone across the room. The Politia was out; this would be solely up to him.
He left his office to grab weapons and ammunition. He’d need all the arsenal he could bring along with him. Tonight, Andre would be fighting the devil.
“Morta,” I whispered.
“In the flesh.”
She was the fate that cut the thread of life; she was also the fate that was in the devil’s pocket.
This was really effing bad.
Even tied up I managed to scramble away from her.
“You’ve made my life difficult these last few months,” she said. “Not that I don’t enjoy a challenge every now and then.”
“What have you done?”
She patted my knee, and I tried not to flinch at her touch. “Let’s just say that I’ve steered your life back on course.”
Back on course? “Back on course from what?”
She didn’t answer, and in her silence I thought of all the strange coincidences and unlikely situations I’d been in since I left Peel Academy. “How much of my life have you meddled with?” I asked, terrified of her answer.
“‘Meddled with’? You court my wrath, using those words. I am a fate. I direct the flow of life. Everything that has led you here, to this moment, has been my doing.”