“Is this about what happened to Connie?” Grimstar allowed his chair to fall back onto all four legs. “I warned her and warned her. She wasn’t ready.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“It was inevitable. Connie was the most self-destructive character I’ve ever known, and that’s saying something—I run a casino, after all. If it wasn’t the necromancy, it would have been the heroin, or the drink, or getting involved with the wrong man or woman. Or a combination of all of those things.”
“Was? She’s dead?”
“You didn’t know? I sent word to your family. That’s why you’re here, right?”
“Just making sure of the details,” I said, mentally cursing myself. “In our world, dead isn’t always dead.”
“In this case, dead doesn’t do justice to what happened to her.” He grimaced. “She was found with most of her innards and bones missing. Her body was almost flat. Her skin was completely intact, just with nothing inside it except her skull.”
I felt sick thinking about it. “How is that possible?”
“It’s not. Or it shouldn’t be.” Grimstar leaned forward and indicated the books on his table. “I’ve never read of anything like it. Connie’s ability with necromancy was such that she shouldn’t have been able to contact a demon, never mind create such a strong connection that it was capable of that.” Grimstar sounded impressed and intrigued rather than disgusted. “Just incredible, really.”
Perhaps that was why the books filled his desk. He saw Connie’s unusual death as a breakthrough in his field, and he was trying to understand it. “What about her mother’s ability with necromancy?” I asked.
“Do you know, it shouldn’t really be called necromancy. We don’t deal with the dead much. Demonology would be a better name.”
“I don’t care what it’s called.”
“Val was much better than her daughter. Mortissa removed her from the day-to-day operation of the Pink Palace so she could concentrate on both her both hood magic and necromancy.”
Why was I unsurprised that Mortissa was neck deep in what had happened? And she had told me none of this when she’d sent me to find Val. “Would you be able to undo a demon’s curse cast on me by Val?”
“Why would Val—” Grimstar blinked several times, thinking. “I bet Val blames Mortissa for what happened to Connie.”
I nodded. “She does. Can you help me?”
“You’re sure it’s a demon’s curse? Not hood magic?”
“Certain.”
Grimstar paused. “Are you definitely here on Mortissa’s business?”
“Of course. Why?”
“It’s just that Sistine said...It doesn’t matter. Every family has their infighting.” He shook his head. “I can’t undo something that Val did. It’s doubtful even Val has enough control to stop something she set in motion.” He smiled thinly. “Demons have a mind of their own. Once their magic is unleashed—” He spread his arms wide and shrugged.
“There has to be some way.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “If the connection to the underworld is broken...So, for instance, if Val...”
“If she died,” I suggested.
Grimstar nodded. “She doesn’t deserve that, though. She has been Mortissa’s loyal servant for decades. She hated dealing with demons, and only did it because she was ordered to.”
“I don’t want to kill Val.” Would I be allowed that luxury, though? “I need to find her and persuade her to end the curse. Do you have any idea where I can find her?”
“The Pink Palace, perhaps.”
“Where else?”
Grimstar spread his arms wide. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
I needed better than a guess; I needed to find her, and fast. “Thanks for your help.” I made for the door.
“Anything for the Colescus. Necromancers have to work together,” Grimstar said. “Especially now.”
“Of course.” I exited his office, frowning. Grimstar spoke of us as if we were a family of necromancers. Which made little sense, since, just as vampires were unable to even hear the language that mages incanted, we couldn’t communicate with demons. I rapidly crossed the casino floor.
Kingston sprang to his feet and intercepted me. “Forgetting something?”
I groaned. Why couldn’t he have collapsed in a drunken heap already? “I don’t have time for your shit, Kingston.”
“You promised,” he said, a hangdog expression on his face. He truly was pathetic.
“I didn’t need your worthless introduction.”
“You promised,” he repeated.
I ground my teeth. Kingston had lied about how much he could help me with Grimstar, but I still owed him. He’d been the only one I’d been able to confide to about my desire to give up killing. Plus, if I did end up needing to join the Huntleys, I’d need Kingston on my side. “Fine. Be quick.” I dragged him across to a darkened recess, and pulled down the collar of my leather jacket, baring my neck. Hot whiskey-breath filled my nostrils, and I resisted the urge to gag.
“I’ve long dreamed of this moment.”
“Don’t be any more creepy than you have to be,” I muttered. “Just bite.”
I jolted as a sharp pain sunk into my neck. Then, a moment later, my eyes widened, as the pain turned to pleasure. There was a reason vampires had no problem finding humans willing to offer their blood—people craved the ecstatic pleasure a vampire’s bite brought.
It had been a while since I’d allowed myself to be bitten, so I took a moment to savor the feeling, then I pushed Kingston off me. “That’s enough.” Losing blood meant losing life force, losing my magical energy, and I might need all of that before the night was over.
Kingston leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed with pleasure, his fangs elongated, a dribble of blood on his chin. I wiped at the blood on my neck, then lifted my collar to hide the wound, my pleasure quickly turning to a feeling of disgust. I started toward the exit, then stopped.
Lionel stood there, staring at us.
Chapter 10
I hurried over to him. “What are you doing here?”
Lionel continued to stare at Kingston. “That’s a vampire.” He had found an overcoat to wear over his tattered clothes. He reached inside the coat to pull out his pendant.
I grabbed his hand and stopped him. “What do you think you are doing? You shouldn’t be here. And you certainly shouldn’t dream of displaying the Cressington insignia.”
“But what he was doing...to you...”
I dragged him toward the exit, opened the door, and pushed him through. “We have to get out of here. I told you not come.”
“Danielle and I discovered something. I came to tell you.”
“What did you find out?”
“What was that vampire doing to you?”
I ignored him, guiding him back to his car. “Get in.”
He didn’t, instead staring at me across the roof of the car. “It looked voluntary,” he said. “Like you wanted it. You aren’t one of those perverts who enjoy having their blood sucked. What are they called?”
“Fawns?”
“No, something else.”
“Bloodbags?”
“Yes, that. Are you one of those?”
“I’m not. Well, I kind of was just there. I’ll explain later. Just tell me what you found out first.” I opened the passenger door and got in. Lionel did the same on the other side. I spoke up before he had a chance to say anything. “We haven’t much time. Tell me.”
“Danielle and I were talking,” Lionel said, “and I asked Danielle what could possibly cause Val to do what she had. Danielle realized that something must have happened to Val’s daughter. So, I rang up a contact I have in the police force, and we found out that a Connie Beaugard, with a mutilated body and unknown cause of death, was stolen from the city morgue.”
“Stolen. Why would Mortissa...?” I remembered the photo of Val and Connie in front of the Colesc
u mausoleum with the words “together forever” written on the back, and it hit me. It wasn’t Mortissa who had stolen the body, it was Val. “I know where to find her. Do you know where Mount Moriah Cemetery is?”
“Sure. But it’s closed down.”
“Just go. Drive us there. Fast.”
“Are you sure?” Lionel asked, switching on the engine and pulling out. “If we don’t find her there, we’ll be all out of options.”
“I’m right.” Despite some doubts, I added as much certainty into my voice as I could. I was basing a lot on an old photograph with words scrawled on the back. Still, no one had any better ideas. “Unless you’ve thou—” I turned around only to discover the back seat was empty. “Where’s Danielle?”
“Before I entered the casino, I told her she should go home,” Lionel said.
“And she agreed?” I would have expected her to want to stay and help.
“She was reluctant. So I shouted her down, calling her a lowdown lousy hood mage, and told her to scram before I called Father.”
“You did not.”
“I thought about it, then decided you’d call it ham-fisted. So I instead explained that with her life force so low, she wouldn’t be any help. That she should rest up.”
“What did she say?” I wasn’t sure she realized we had to undo the curse by dawn.
“She gave me a cell number and made me promise to call when we needed help. Dumb fool. I wanted her gone so I wouldn’t be tempted to betray her to my family, and she insists on giving me her number.”
“She must think a lot of your good nature.”
“Yes, well.” He glanced my way. “Good nature is only good for being abused, I’ve found.”
“Are you referring to me?”
“How can you even interact with vampires, never mind letting one do that to you?” Lionel shuddered.
“In my work as investigator, I work with all kinds. Vampires aren’t even the worst.”
“So you are going to defend vampires now? What they do? What they are?”
“Just as all mages aren’t the same, neither are vampires.”
Lionel shook his head. “They might not all be the same, but they are all killers.”
“Do vampires really have a choice?” I asked quietly. “Imagine a young woman, or man, attacked. Killed, or so she thinks, until she opens her eyes and finds herself changed. More powerful than before, but reigned by dark desires. At what point does she make the choice? When she first decides to hide from the day and not let the sun burn her flesh to char?”
I closed my eyes, remembering back to that night centuries ago. I’d never discovered who had turned me or why. Heavy dewdrops bowed leaves low; the churned-up earth smelled of decay. I knew what I had become, could already feel the dark hunger lurking inside me. And as the glimmers of an orange dawn rose in the east, I had briefly considered letting the sun take me.
“Forget about vampires in general,” Lionel said. “What about that one in particular who nuzzled at your neck, sucking you up like you were a spoon of dirty heroin?”
My eyes popped open again. “What about him?”
“Did you think of me when you agreed to let him do that to you?” Lionel asked.
“Why would I?”
“I see.”
“It’s just...” I trailed off. I couldn’t exactly say it wasn’t sexual. The pleasure, the bonding, the intimacy was similar. “You don’t have any call on me. It was just one kiss between us.”
“Of course. I had forgotten where I met you. The Pink Palace.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My voice rose along with my anger.
“You’re the investigator. Figure it out,” he shouted.
I opened my mouth to shout back, then forced myself to calm down. I was in the wrong, not him. Vampires were always in the wrong, I guessed, though not thinking about Lionel when I’d agreed to let Kingston feed on me had nothing to do with my vampire nature. Lionel obviously felt more for me than I did for him. What did I feel for him? It had been so long since I’d experienced anything good in my life that I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling.
A silence grew between us. I glanced across at Lionel’s profile. He stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched, fingers tight on the steering wheel. Was I abusing his good nature as he’d implied? He thought he was falling for me, but all I had done was lie to him. “Lionel.”
“Yes?”
I sought for words to explain the truth and came up empty. “Nothing.”
Silence returned, a silence in which uncomfortable feelings swirled above us like swollen storm clouds. We needed to work together to defeat Val and her curse. It was better to put all feelings and unspoken truths aside, and just deal with that. Afterward...Afterward, we would go our separate ways. A longing for more than that surged up within me, but I forced it back. Everything between us was based on a lie, which meant there was nothing between us. I had to accept that.
After a forever that only lasted a few minutes, Lionel parked the car and turned off the engine. “Why are we going to a closed cemetery again? You never told me what you learned from Grimstar in the casino.”
I got out of the car and waited for him to follow. “Remember that photo we saw of Val and her daughter in front of a tomb?” I couldn’t explain that I recognized it myself. “I described it to Grimstar, and he told me it was owned by Mortissa. When I remembered what was written on the back of the photo and heard about Connie’s body being taken, I realized that Val must have brought her daughter to the tomb.”
We passed under an archway smothered by leafy vines. Beyond, silhouettes of tombstones, mausoleums, and tall obelisks stood sentinel, though those too were beginning to be overrun by vegetation. The brightening sky told me that less than an hour remained in the night. I quickened my step.
“What else did you learn from the necromancer?” Lionel asked.
Thin trees creaked in the wind. “That killing Val might be our only way to stop the curse,” I said.
“Killing her?” Lionel came to a stop.
“Keep moving.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him forward.
“I’ve never killed anyone before. Certainly not an old woman.”
“Don’t think of her as an old woman. Think of her as an evil person who is communing with demons, inflicting horrible curses on the world, and crushing people with old buildings.”
“Still.”
“We might not have to kill her. It’s possible we can persuade her to undo it. If not, I’ll deal with her.”
“Of course you will,” a voice said. I spun around to see a shadow rise from the overgrown grass. “You are a killer, after all.”
Chapter 11
The shadow took form, became me. I drew my katana, and the reflection mirrored my action. I stepped forward and struck out. Metal clanged against shadow, and Reflessa smiled her awful smile.
“I’m not a killer,” I said.
“You are trying to change,” Reflessa said. “But you can’t. It’s impossible. You are who you are.” Its gaze flickered across to Lionel. “He still doesn’t know, does he?”
I attacked it with a flurry of blows. I wanted to kill it, but I also wanted to shut it up. Reflessa blocked all my attacks without losing its smile. “You can’t shut me up. The truth will come out.” It took a long step backward, then addressed Lionel. “You aren’t afraid of the truth, are you?”
“What truth?” Lionel asked.
“You know,” another voice said. Lionel turned and scrambled away as his reflection emerged from the shadows. “Deep down, you know. What creature walks around in the night as if it’s day and is at home within the dark community? What has the strength to pull itself out of the rubble of a collapsed building and not need healing after? You’re an idiot for not figuring it out sooner.”
I turned away from Reflessa, and charged at Lionel’s reflection, striking Reflionel down with my katana. It disappeared. I glanced across at Lionel, but he wasn’t l
ooking at me. His gaze was glued on my reflection, who had started to transform.
Reflessa’s face turned skeletal as the skin tightened. Its fangs emerged. Its blood-red eyes gleamed. “The truth cannot be hidden forever.”
I leaped at it, and this time made no effort to conceal my speed. As I descended from my jump, I slashed downward. It blocked. I lowered into a sudden crouch, then swung at its legs. It jumped out of the way. I rolled after it and thrust upward just as it landed.
It disappeared. I scrambled back to my feet, glancing hesitantly at Lionel.
“Do they lie?” Then he shook his head. “No, I saw you move. It’s you who is the liar.”
I stepped toward him and he backed away. “I never...” I couldn’t say I hadn’t lied. “I never asked you to kiss me. I didn’t try to get you to like me.”
“Just poor judgment on my part, is that what you are saying? Who are you really, Essa?”
“Alessandra Colescu.” I took two swift steps forward, grabbed his arm, and forced him onward. “The reflections want us distracted. We have to keep moving.”
“Colescu. As in Mortissa Colescu. All this time, you’ve been behind this whole thing?” Lionel jogged to keep up as I rapidly strode up the steps to the mausoleum, holding his arm.
“Mortissa sent me, it’s true. But I knew nothing about Val or her necromancy.”
Lionel groaned. “Reflionel was right. I’m such an idiot. A paranormal investigator isn’t even a real thing. Inside, you must have laughed so hard when I told you I trusted you.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“I shouldn’t have trusted you, should I?”
“Probably not,” I agreed.
The Demon Mirror (Dragongods Saga, #0) Page 8