Lord yes, did it ever. “Yes,” I whispered, lowering my gaze, shaking like a leaf. “It does.”
As he moved away from me, I tried to put a lid on my raging libido. I was so close to climax, right on the edge. I throbbed in places I couldn’t control, teetering on the brink of sexual arousal, confusion, and uncertainty.
“Off you go.” Disco pulled me from the wall, swatted my ass, and retrieved my bag. I took it from him with trembling fingers, waiting as he lowered his head and kissed me. All things considered, it was a chaste kiss—a small swipe of his tongue, the metallic sweetness of our blood combined as we tasted each other, long enough to show Marius the affection between us was genuine—but I still felt totally exposed.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” Disco said, watching me closely. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
“I won’t.” My voice didn’t crack, and I didn’t melt into a puddle on the floor. Small points for the underdog, but points just the same.
Marius stayed where he was—standing in my path—as I walked to the door. I held my head high but didn’t look in his direction as I took a step to the side, breezed past him, opened the door and left.
Chapter Six
“You look like shit.” Sonja didn’t waste any time as I took a seat across from her at the small café we used for our meetings. It was a safe place to sit and chat, full of passersby, and no one noticed us.
“I’m sure I do,” I muttered and tossed my bag on the floor. “What do you have for me?”
“As it pertains to magic transfer? Quite a bit.” She tossed a folder across the table. “From what I could find, it’s fairly common. Of course, you asked for this at the crack of dawn, so I didn’t have a lot of time to do extensive research.”
“Sorry about that.” Calling her at six in the morning wasn’t very nice. “I wouldn’t have bothered you if I didn’t need this today.”
“Just don’t do it again,” she warned. “I’m not a morning person.”
“Duly noted,” I replied, gazing at the folder.
If anyone knew about the black arts, it was Sonja. When I’d ventured into the future, I discovered a lot about Rainbow Brite—thus dubbed by me because of her rainbow colored hair. She was the familiar of one of the most feared vampires in New York, meaning she wasn’t your average necromancer. Not only was she powerful, she also enjoyed dipping her toe into things that could get you sent straight to Hell. Not that I was complaining. Her information was beneficial to my cause.
As I opened the folder, I questioned, “Do you think it will work?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Will it take a lot of magic?”
“No more than normal. A blood offering, a binding—the usual. It’s not all that different from creating a zombie and trapping a soul inside of the host body.”
“It can’t be that easy.” I didn’t think it was possible to place something as powerful as Sucker into another item. However, from what I was looking at it could be done.
“Believe it or not, it is. Witches used to do it all the time with powerful relics they wanted to keep in plain sight. When their villages were attacked or destroyed, they usually managed to keep their most precious possessions intact. You’d be amazed at what a person can do with a knitting needle, for example.”
In an odd way, it made sense. “That figures.”
She went quiet and I disregarded the folder to give her my attention. Her blonde hair with strands of pink, blue, and purple was neat and tidy, her thick glasses in their proper place on her nose.
“You want to say something, so say it.”
“Joseph told me Marius has returned for the knife.” She took a deep breath and placed her hands on the table, her fingernails painted their usual bubblegum pink. “If you go through with this—if you transfer the power to something else—I can’t be a part of it.”