11
I didn’t particularly enjoy leaving Asher alone in the desert. I’d offered to trace him to Grace’s (much as I hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near her), but he’d sworn he’d have no problem getting to her.
Fact was he was a big boy. Asher had gotten along without me just fine in the past, he’d do it now.
I shed the dusty layers of my clothes the second I got in the bedroom. I shucked off my jeans and tossed my used-to-be black, now mostly reddish-brown tank top onto the floor. Dusk was fast approaching. I’d be manning my Ferris wheel tonight, which was exactly what I needed, some freaking normalcy for once.
I smelled the sulfur a split second before a hard hand slammed down on the bathroom doorknob.
Closing my eyes, I waited for Luc to bark or snap or do something. But as the silence stretched tighter than a rubber band, I knew he was waiting for me to give him an explanation.
“Luc, please. I have to shower.”
“You look fine to me.” He wasn’t paying me a compliment, trust me.
Turning, pressing my back against the door, I lifted a brow. Luc had seen me naked more times than I could count, plus this body had never been much of a turn-on for him.
“I smell his stench all over you.” His nostrils flared. “Surprised to see you back.”
“Did you think he was taking me out there to slit my throat?”
Lips thinning, he just continued to give me the evil eye.
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have time for your crap tonight, Luc. I just can’t deal right now.”
He laughed, the sound dripping disgust. “But you sure as hell have enough time for him, don’t you?”
“What’s the matter, Luc?” I hissed. “Don’t like it that someone else is actually paying attention to me? Actually giving me what I need?”
“I can give you what you need. I always have!” His blue eyes began to swirl with bands of deepest lavender.
Flinching, I averted my gaze, in no mood to be sucked into his game. Not tonight. Not again.
“No, Luc, all I ever wanted from you was to admit even just once that you loved me.”
“Love.” He scoffed, shoving away from the door, and the air was no longer so charged or electrical. Having Luc’s eyes focused solely on you was like being trapped in the snare of an advancing predator that was ready to rip out your throat. “He loves you, oh how sweet. Why don’t you go tattoo his name on your ass while you’re at it?”
“Dammit, Luc!” I shoved him so hard he bounced against the mattress. Any other person would have fallen unceremoniously onto it. But not Luc, not mister cold, suave, and heartless. Somehow he’d managed to defy gravity so as not to appear foolish. “I never said he loved me, I said I only ever wanted you to give me that. It’s what I offered you, my bleeding, broken, shriveled-up heart on a platter. I wanted you and you almost killed me. Why? Why can’t you just let go of that demon pride and show me the truth?”
“You want to know the truth?” He snarled and then he was on me, pressing into my space again, hard body pinning me against the door as he breathed heavily.
My heart was a jagged, tearing thing trying to rip out of my chest. I sensed his wildness, his demon clamoring for release. But it wouldn’t have been for sex. Once, Luc had almost killed me.
The night I’d confessed my love to him. He’d taken my words and stomped on them, then stabbed me with a spelled knife that had forever left its mark on me. I now bore a jagged scar in the shape of a twisted heart on my breast, a silent reminder that I could never open myself up to another again.
Never allow my humanity to control me.
It was why what I was doing with Asher scared me to death. I wouldn’t survive it again.
A grinding rumble vibrated through my chest. I sensed Luc trying to gain control of himself, so I didn’t move, didn’t stir. Anything would unleash that wildness in him, and even though I sometimes hated Luc, a part of me would never stop loving him. He was my first.
And Asher would destroy him if he ever harmed me. So I let Luc breathe me in, let him do whatever it was that he needed to do to get himself contained. Cold. Detached.
A minute passed.
Then two.
On the third, he slowly released me, taking steady steps back until ten feet separated us.
Luc was about as beautiful a male as they came. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, with a five-o’clock shadow on his normally polished face. His eyes were bright, as if he’d been drinking himself into a stupor for hours, though of course we couldn’t get drunk.
“What did you learn out there?”
And just like that, we were back to where we always were—him denying that he ever felt a thing, me disgusted. At him, at myself, at the whole damn situation.
Flicking at a stray thread on the cuff of his white silk shirt, he was once again cold and immaculate.
I banged my head on the door and chuckled softly. Fine, he wanted to play that game? Whatever.
“I found three bodies out there. They were the ones missing from yesterday.”
“Juanita and Carlos?” His tone was cordial, sophisticated and almost polite, were it not for the slight growl in it.
“Yes. And the man at the taco stand.”
He licked his canine, then started pacing. “They were obviously planted there by the Order.”
“That’s what Asher thinks too.”
His eyes narrowed. “Who’s Asher?”
“The priest, that’s his real name. It’s not Billy.”
Why was he suddenly acting like he didn’t know? Asher had already revealed who he was to Luc, but then again, maybe Luc didn’t care so he didn’t bother to remember. That definitely seemed like a Luc thing to do.
He was so still I could visibly make out the throbbing of his pulse in his neck. “Yeah, I forgot about that. What else did you learn about your priest?”
From now on there’d be nothing but transparency between Luc and me, because I was done keeping secrets. In order for us to figure this thing out, to learn what the Order was really up to, there had to be trust. So I would share anything that mattered to the case.
“He’s working with Grace.”
Frozen. He’d gone completely cold. His eyes. His body. Luc wasn’t just pissed, he was volcanic. “He’s working with Grace? Do I need to remind you how that ended for you? For Kemen?”
I flinched. Didn’t matter that I’d thought the same exact thing, because Luc was saying it to hurt me. “Low blow, Luc.”
“Someone needs to wake you up. What the hell are you thinking? Do you honestly think you can trust him? He’s a death priest,” he bit out.
“He says Grace is still on our side, that they’re working together against somebody.” God, that sounded lame even to me. I rubbed my temples.
It was crazy that I was buying this. But I was, one hundred and ten percent. It wasn’t Asher’s words that had convinced me, because anyone can lie.
But a touch, a caress. That doesn’t lie. It never does. I’m skilled at the art of seduction, at doing and saying one thing while thinking another. And I would know if he was lying.
Yes, maybe I’m saying all this right now to force myself to believe it. But there was so much more than wanting his body. For once it wasn’t Lust driving this bus.
“He says, huh? Well, that’s just great.” Luc snorted. “Glad to know that’s all it takes these days. Tell me, Dora, how long did you make him wait before giving it to him?”
My hand was on his face before I even had time to think. Scarlet throbbed on his cheek and he just stood there, still and silent as death, staring at the carpet.
I covered my mouth with my still-aching hand and shook my head. “Don’t you ever imagine yourself above me.” I literally vibrated with anger. It was one thing to have another breed of Nephilim mock me for the demon I was slave to, it was another to have one of my own turn his nose up at me.
Glacial blue eyes rolled toward me. “You have ten minutes to change. Lilith took the night off—you’re taking the fortune-teller booth.”
“Luc, wait.” I grabbed his hand, wanting to make things right. He’d had no right to talk to me as he had, but I should never have slapped him. He was my boss, my mentor, and once upon a time, a friend.
Sliding his hand out of mine, he turned and traced away without saying another word.
This thing with Asher was so new, so scary, and Luc was my compass. And yes, the compass was cracked and broken, but it’d always pointed to true north. Now the dial was spinning and I wasn’t sure what to do.
I took a two-minute shower, dressed in my most garish, sparkly red mermaid dress, and applied an obscene amount of makeup to my face to heighten the mystique. Then I grabbed a lady’s top hat with a black lace veil and silky gloves that rolled up to my elbows and started for the door with barely a minute to spare.
Touching the wood of the frame lovingly, I glanced back at the bed. “Sandman, I sure miss you tonight.”
And for just a second, I could have sworn I heard the rumble of his snore. It was enough.
***
His eyes were old, his face weather hardened. The man sat across from me at the two-top fortune-teller’s table, wetting his lips and drumming his fingers nervously. I wasn’t a mind reader or seer.
But all Neph are intuitive, some more than others. Lilith was by far and away the best at it, and I hated having to take up the mantle. I didn’t suck at this gig, but it was my least favorite in Diabolique. Mainly because humans came to me to fix their problems, and it was easy to bullshit my way through when all they wanted was sex or drugs or something else vain and stupid.
It really bothered me though when they came to me with the stench of desperation, not for worldly gain, but to simply figure out a solution for how to survive.
“My crops.” His aged voice trembled. “It is all my grandson has to survive on. I am an old man; my time comes any day now. But my grandson is only thirteen. Last year our crops failed and this year the cabbage and beans both are disease riddled. Please, Madam Mariposa (which meant Madam Butterfly in Spanish), please tell me this nightmare is going to end soon. We will not survive another failed year.”
I swallowed and took a deep breath, remembering to sit up straight, shoulders back, and stared deep into his eyes. Lilith was always in character, always on. She’d told me once that an air of confidence was what sold it. What kept the crowds clamoring night after night to her red-lit tent.
But Lilith was also a Greed demon and those sapphire-eyed freaks took their job of gain very, very seriously. This wasn’t just a job for me. It’s why I hated doing this crap, because every time I got a client like Mr. Moreno, I wanted to make the impossible possible.
Pursing my painted, ruby-red lips, I grabbed his hand and squeezed. I tilted my chin haughtily and spoke an octave lower than my normal range. “Arquimedes.”
His crinkled eyes grew huge and his breathing hitched; the pounding of his heart was a turbulent bump bump in my ears. No, I didn’t know him and hadn’t known what his name actually was until Lilith’s assistant—Greta (an Envy demon with mad pickpocketing skills)—had whispered it in my ear just seconds before the man sat.
“The ground is angry.” I was totally winging it here. “You’ve planted atop an ancient burial site...”
It was so easy to sell superstition in this part of the world. It pricked my conscience that I was gaming this poor man. But this was part of the deal—make them buy what you were selling.
“I did not know that. Dios mío, what do I do?”
“An offering of blood.”
His hands shook and I backed off just a little bit. I didn’t want to give the poor man a heart attack. Just then, the candy-cane-striped flap fluttered from a stiff breeze. He jumped, grabbing his chest.
“Not much, just a prick of your thumb over the worst of the blight and they will be satisfied.”
Rubbing a leathery hand (evidence of years of hard labor) over his shock of gray hair, he emitted a sound that was a mix of sob and joy.
Screw this. I knew for Luc and Lilith and all the rest this job was just about the bottom line, how much money we could make, but I’ve never been into lies.
“Look into my eyes,” I commanded him.
Instantly his entire body went rigid as his eyes became tranced. Thanks to Asher’s and my recent sexcapades, Lust was firmly in the dominant position inside me. I poured my will against his. Cracking into a mortal mind was no harder than slicing through a watermelon. Being Lust, my natural ability to peer into someone’s soul is generally to discover their most wicked desires and exploit them to my own ends.
But tonight, I wasn’t in search of sex. I was in need of information.
“Where do you live?”
“On the windward side of the kissing ladies,” he answered in a robotic tone.
I knew exactly where he was talking about. It was a craggy mountain range about thirty miles away that in silhouette almost appeared to be two women kissing. Knowing just how far he’d come for help only made me more determined to do what I was planning.
Narrowing my eyes, I snarled, filling him with panic, with fear and terror. Not because I wanted him to have nightmares, but because I was about to wipe his memory clean. However, I was not as skilled at is as Bubba or some of my other peers were. Sometimes the memories I implanted fragmented. If that happened with Mr. Moreno, I wanted him so terrified that he wouldn’t dare to tread too deeply into this dream.
The key to living an open and free life is to leave no footprints behind.
“You will forget I ever asked you that, you will go home, and you will prick your thumb. Rest easy, Viejo.” Old man.
When I released his hand, he sat back and wiped his brow with a twitchy hand. Then a jubilant smile tipped the edges of his lips and it was easy to see the handsome man he must have once been before time and the sun had beaten him down. Grabbing my hand, he came around to my side and kissed the back of it reverently.
“Gracias, Se?ora, gracias.”
I tipped my head at his gratefulness and then watched as he walked out with a bounce in his step that hadn’t been there before.
“Greta!” I called the second he was gone.
She poked her dark head inside. Greta was as beautiful as the next Nephilim, with olive-toned skin and raven-black hair, piercing blue eyes and a lush mouth that man or beast would covet.
“I need a break.” I stood and yanked the hat off my head, shooting the pins that’d held it in place in every direction. Walking over to the fog machine, I turned it off and switched the brass chandelier to high, which immediately brightened the gaudy interior. Lilith was all about the drama.
The tent was a menagerie of clichéd sophistication, from its oriental throw rugs to its red gauzy drapings undulating gently from strategically placed fans. There was even a crystal ball with an antique silver holder that I’d refused to bring out because I found it all impossibly stupid.
“Dora,” she hissed, “you’ve barely just started. You’re only an hour in and the line is fecking long.”
Pinning her with a smothering glare, I shrugged. “All I’m asking for is ten GD minutes. Can you just freaking give me that? Okay?”
She snarled, showing me her baby fangs.
“I hope you don’t think I’ll be intimidated by that?”
“You know I can’t stop you, you’re the boss, but Luc’s the big boss and he’ll be—”
“You just let me handle Luc. Watch the crowd, tell them the madam needed to recharge with a quick orgy.”
“Ugh.” Her voice dripped contempt. Funny how most Neph looked down on a lust demon when we each had our vices. Talk about living in glass houses. “You know I can’t tell them that.”
“Then tell them whatever you need to.” I yanked off my gloves, tossed them onto the center of the table, and with a parting withering stare, traced to Mr. Moreno’s farm.
The night was rich with the sound of hooting owls and chirping crickets. Silver stars dusted the navy-teal sky, and I took a moment to develop a mental picture. I could see why he was so desperate to save this legacy for his grandson.
A small white farmhouse that looked old but was still well maintained sat before an expansive field that should have been overflowing with cabbage and corn and beans, but most of the plants were as wasted as he’d said.
It wasn’t easy walking in heels through the fallow soil—I probably should have left them back at the carnival. Reaching a row of large, green-petaled plants I knelt and touched a cabbage sprout. It was rotting, visibly molding, and the leaves were full of enormous holes.
I knew immediately what it was. Mr. Moreno’s patch was infected with cabbage white butterflies, which only attacked brassica. But if this was infected, then I didn’t doubt the rest of the garden had similar problems, as everything looked sickly.
Butterflies were such beautiful bugs, and it wasn’t so much them as their pupae that were destroying everything. The laid eggs hatched into ravenous little caterpillars that couldn’t care less about a man’s livelihood or a grandson’s hope of continuing the family legacy.
Curling my nose, I stabbed my hand through the soil and hummed, concentrating on driving all the power within me into my hand, transforming it into a glowing rod of mass destruction for the tiny bastard colony wreaking havoc on his crops.
Heat sizzled from my fingertips, and shot through the ground so that it in the night you could visibly see the red glow of death spread up and down each row.
There was nothing I could do for what had already sprouted, but at the very least I’d save the seeds that hadn’t yet bloomed, and that should hopefully be enough to keep him afloat through the year.
The moment I returned to the tent, Greta was shoveling people through so that I had no chance of escaping again. It went on throughout the night, and deep into it, so that by the time it was nearly over I was exhausted and spent. Thankfully no one else came in for anything other than selfish wants and needs, and those I could easily ignore.
There were maybe two hours max before sunrise, just enough time to catch a catnap before the fun started all over again. Not to mention that the Día de Los Muertos festival parade was tomorrow, and thanks to Vyxen, I was heading the decoration department.
She really did hate me.
I was just unfurling my exhausted self from the chair when Greta walked in. Damn woman didn’t look nearly as exhausted as I did. Her fire-orange gown looked just as pressed and tidy as it had at the start of the night.
I hated her immensely for it.
“What?” I snapped, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
“We have one more. She’s waiting outside.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? It’s damn near sunrise—send her away.” I waved my hand, ready and willing to trace the hell back to my trailer.
“You know that’s not how this goes. You stay until the last customer.”
Snapping my fangs at her backside as she walked out, I snarled, “You know I hate you, right?”
The sound of her laughter echoed behind her.
Immediately another body came in, but the way it moved had me instantly on edge. Gripping my armrests, I leaned forward.
The figure was swaddled in a dark poncho and moving not just in shadow, but with it, if that even made any sense—like she and the shadow weren’t separate entities but part of the same whole.
Then she sat and shoved her cowl back and I knew immediately who this was.
“You,” I hissed.
It was the old woman who’d been flipping tacos the night Tubby had disappeared on me. Her face was exactly as I remembered it. Sun-browned to a leathery finish, deep hooded eyes crisscrossed with deep grooves and wrinkles, a squat nose and a flabby-looking jaw. She wasn’t a big woman, but she had a presence about her that demanded attention.
“What do you want?” Because I seriously doubted she was here to have me read her future.
But the woman didn’t even blink, just continued to give me a chilly, almost vacant stare. And for the first time all day I felt Pestilence quirk up, unfurling as if from a long sleep to study the woman before me.
Lust didn’t care one way or another and ceded her position to Pest readily, which set my teeth on edge because I still wasn’t sure how to control that bastard.
“You gonna talk?” I snapped. “Or just stare at me like a dumb mute?”
It wasn’t often that a mortal unnerved me the way she was. In fact, I couldn’t remember another time when I wanted to tap my foot in frustration. Quirking a brow, I forced my nerves to calm down. With Pestilence so suddenly perky, I knew I couldn’t afford to let my emotions rule.
“Look, if you’ve got nothing to ask, then I suggest you go. Carnival’s already closed.”
Like a viper striking, she latched onto my hand, almost crushing my fingers in hers, and yanked me closer. Her strength was immense and the suddenly overpowering sweet scent of raw almonds flooded my nose, making me want to gag in response.
I hissed, baring my fangs.
Her black eyes snared mine and just as I was about to go balls-to-the-wall nuts on her, a whisper fluttered in my head.
On high alert and with nerves jangling, I forced my body to still and not react. That’s when the indecipherable fluttering became more distinct.
War is upon you...
That’s all the voice said, over and over again. “War is upon you? Are you telling me this? Is that you in my head?”
But the woman didn’t blink or release me.
War is upon you. War is upon you. WAR IS UPON YOU!
The final shriek had me jumping out of the chair, my claws sharpening as I growled and Pestilence’s slimy soul chortled that he wanted to sink his poison into her. My fingertips rushed with the tingling and I was trying to pull away, because as angry as I was, I didn’t want to infect her.
But my emotions were too chaotic and Pestilence too insistent. Before I could stop myself, I was pumping that poison into her.
Finally she released me and I knew I was going to have to take that out of her, but she calmly and deliberately reached beneath her poncho and extracted one small red mum and set it on the table.
“What is that?” I demanded. “Was that you the other night? Who are you?”
I snarled at her as she turned for the door flap, but no way in hell was she leaving here, not with the Black Death riding her.
Latching onto her shoulder, I twirled her around. Matte black eyes stared back at me, but that wasn’t because of me. The woman not only didn’t reek of disease, but Pestilence felt just as clueless as I did.
Suddenly the world around us erupted in screams and groans—some of it literally coming from right outside my tent. In the split second I turned to look, the old woman vanished.
It only took me a second to realize I had a lot more pressing matters to attend to than the fact that yet again someone had vanished right before me.
“Screw this,” I muttered, kicking off my shoes. I took off anything that would hinder my ability to fight should I need to. Grabbing hold of the hem of the gown, I ripped the fabric up to my knees and tossed it to the ground.
Then I walked out, right into bedlam.