Before I could say anything else, about how relieved I was that he wasn’t bolting for the hills, I caught a familiar scent. Cloves and sweat, the smell that was his alone.
“Hello, Luna,” Dmitri said.
Will cocked an eyebrow. If there was one thing he was good at, it was picking up on weirdness. “You all right?”
“No, I…” I stared at Dmitri, at the court reporter who passed through him, lugging a briefcase. “I’m a little dehydrated,” I finished lamely.
“Should have said so,” Will told me, and went down the steps to a vendor selling water and soda.
“So that’s Will,” Dmitri said with a smirk. “I thought he’d be taller.”
I folded my arms. “You’re dead and you’re still an ass.”
“What can I say?” he told me. “Don’t have a lot of time for chitchat.”
I knew from Lily that my new mojo didn’t work unless the dearly departed in question had serious unfinished business. “What’s wrong, Dmitri?” I said, and earned looks from everyone passing by. I ignored them.
“Margarita and Masha are on their way to the States,” Dmitri said. “Maybe Los Angeles, maybe San Francisco … somewhere on the West Coast, where the pack will protect them. I need you to look out for them, Luna. You’re the only person I can trust to do it.”
“I…” That hadn’t been what I was expecting. “Of course I will, Dmitri. She’s your daughter, after all.”
Dmitri reached for me, dropped his hand just as his fingers would have passed through my cheek.
“I miss you. Seeing you in Kiev, it just … it hammered home what a mistake we made. I wish I’d had time to give it another try.”
I gave him a tired smile. “I didn’t want to be that woman, Dmitri. You’d always have the daemon in you. You’d always need a pack. I couldn’t…” I sighed, trying to find the kind words. “That isn’t the life I could live.”
“So you just move on down the line?” Dmitri demanded hoarsely, cold air prickling around us. “To Will? ”
“No,” I said. “I have moved on, Dmitri.” My eyes were hot, stinging, and I looked at my feet. “But I can’t forget you, and I’m so sorry it had to end like it did.”
Dmitri dropped his own gaze. “I’m not. You know I loved you, Luna. Maybe we couldn’t be together, but I’d’ve done anything for you.”
“I know,” I said. “I do.”
“Good,” he said, starting to shimmer like a heat illusion. “I’m done, then. I’m free.”
He tried to reach for me once more, but he flickered and disappeared before he could. I swiped a hand over my face, sweat and tears coming away. I barely got out the whisper, “Good-bye, Dmitri.”
I turned my back on the spot where he’d stood, and walked down the steps toward Will, who was holding an Evian water aloft like he’d just won some sort of battle trophy. I had to smile a little. I’d never forget the way Dmitri and I had ended, never stop seeing or feeling it, but I also knew that I’d made the right choice with Will.
The voice stopped me halfway to him, a hiss against the air, hotter than the sun sending zephyrs up from the pavement. A promise of an ending to something I’d set in motion and had no chance of stopping, even now that the man he’d marked was dead. Now I was the only one, the one he was fixed on, the one he would have.
Asmodeus spoke to me, and I could hear him smiling.
“I see you, Insoli. And I’ll be with you. Soon enough. ”
I turned back to him, met those gold eyes looking not out of the face of a man I’d loved, but out of my own face, a copy of my body, looking at me across a vast distance of power.
“You come right ahead,” I told the figure of Asmodeus. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Kittredge knows how to create a believable world, and her fans will enjoy the mix of magic and city grit.”
—Publishers Weekly
Don’t miss these other novels in Caitlin Kittredge’s
extraordinary Black London series
STREET MAGIC
ISBN: 978-0-312-94361-5
DEMON BOUND
ISBN: 978-0-312-94363-9
Available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Daemon’s Mark Page 28