Blood Deal (Prof Croft Book 2)
Page 18
I couldn’t make out his face, but I recognized his voice. The butler.
“Oh, fine, Jasper,” the woman slurred. “We were just chatting with our new friend here.”
“Hey!” I called, swinging my revolver toward the butler. “Stay right there!”
“I suggest you come inside,” the butler said to the couple. “It is late after all.”
The well-dressed man staggered as he turned to me and bowed. “Very nice to meet you.”
“Yes,” the woman called over a shoulder. “And please tell Caroline hello for us. Such a dear.”
I tried to climb after them, but I couldn’t seem to lift my feet, which had suddenly taken on weight. The same leaden weight forced my revolver arm down until the weapon clicked against a stone step. I watched the couple disappear through the light and into the fae townhouse. The oppressive weight dropped me to both hands and knees, and I tried to crawl. Soon, I couldn’t even do that.
“Good evening, Mr. Croft,” the butler said with stern finality.
“Wait…” My lungs could barely fill the word. I strained to breathe against the growing pressure.
The butler receded into the townhouse, the light narrowing until the door clicked closed. Whatever enchantment he had cast released me, and I could inhale a full breath again.
I stood from the steps and whispered an incantation to test my magic. The barest force rippled through me. My powers were in remission again. Fan-flipping-tastic.
“Thought we might find you here,” a stuffy voice said.
I wheeled to see Floyd and Whitey stalking up the sidewalk, Floyd with a triangular cast over his busted nose. Both were wielding their vintage Colts. I backed away, wondering how in the hell they had known to come here, when I remembered my conversation with Mr. Reid in the Escalade. I’d given him the street.
“That was some stunt you pulled on the pier,” Floyd said. “And getting your buddies to jump in?”
I glanced around as Moretti’s men strode nearer, but something told me Arnaud’s blood slaves wouldn’t be bailing me out this time. Once Vega received her transfusion, she would be able to connect the final dot, find out who the mother was. Arnaud didn’t need me anymore.
“This is the house,” I said, pointing up the steps. “This is where that guy took Caroline.”
“You’re wasting your breath.” Floyd raised his gun.
“Why the hell else would I be standing out here at three in the morning?”
“The hell should I know? To make yourself look innocent? Anyway, I don’t know what house you’re even talking about.”
I glanced over. Damn. The veiling spell.
“Drop the gun,” Whitey said in his raspy voice.
“Sorry, guys. I’m not leaving here until I find Caroline.”
“Drop the gun,” Whitey repeated, cocking his hammer.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time. But I’m pretty sure Mr. Reid doesn’t want a dead body attached to his name.”
“Yeah, but Mr. Moretti does,” Floyd said. “You just popped up on our list.”
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Shut it,” Whitey said to his partner. I read the narrow look he shot Floyd. They were planning to collect twice on me. First from Mr. Reid for extracting the information on his daughter’s whereabouts, and then from Mr. Moretti for delivering a hit on me. I adjusted my slick grip on my revolver.
“You want to know where Caroline is?” I nodded past them. “Ask him.”
Still wary from their surprise beat-down at the pier, Floyd and Whitey chanced peeks behind them. But I wasn’t bluffing. Someone was walking up, and that someone was Angelus.
He was wearing the style of suit I’d seen him in at the gala, formal and dark, the shirt underneath his jacket open at the collar. He approached from the direction of Central Park, as though returning from a nighttime stroll—completely insane for anyone but a powerful supernatural. I squinted past him in the faint hope of seeing Caroline, but he was alone.
A half block from us, Angelus slowed, but he didn’t stop. I trained my revolver on him. Moretti’s men glanced between us, their guns still on me, but their faces now squinting with uncertainty.
Angelus drew up to within a few feet of us and stopped. “Is that Everson?”
“You know damn well who I am,” I said. “You assumed my appearance when you left the gala last night. What did you do with Caroline?”
“Caroline is fine,” he replied neutrally.
“I didn’t ask how she was. I asked what you did with her.”
“I coerced Caroline into nothing.”
Despite my cold fury, I noted the precision with which Angelus was answering my questions. The fae were master deceivers, but they couldn’t lie. “Where is she?” I asked, stepping closer, revolver pointed at his chest.
Floyd and Whitey stood off to either side, eyeing our exchange.
Angelus’s face, a handsome bronze when he had arrived, now greened a shade. He was reacting to the iron bullets in the revolver. I watched for the least sign he was preparing to cast magic.
“Where is she?” I repeated.
“Caroline is home,” Angelus said.
“Bullshit, buddy,” Floyd cut in. “Whitey and I were just over there.”
“Where’s home?” A sickness crawled around my belly as the first line of an obituary scrolled through my head: Caroline Reid was taken home to be with her Lord on the night of…
Angelus looked at the three guns aimed at him and raised his gaze to the townhouse. “It’s late, gentlemen.” His slate-blue eyes fell back to mine. “And I’m sure we all have places to be.”
“You don’t get it.” I stepped over to cut him off. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me where Caroline is and how I can reach her. Try to force your way past me, and I will shoot you. I know for a fact cold iron kills your kind, especially when it’s blown through your heart.”
“Yeah,” Floyd put in.
“You will not kill me, Everson Croft,” Angelus said calmly.
“Oh, no?” I applied pressure to the trigger.
“Your magic is weak, but I can read it like the stars. You have never used it to perform ill. And as goes the magic, so goes the man. Now if you will excuse me.” He raised a hand as though to step past me.
I fired twice. First into Whitey’s chest and then Floyd’s. They dropped like sacks to the pavement. I trained the gun back on Angelus.
“This ain’t magic.”
Angelus studied the two dead gangsters. “I do not wish to harm you, Everson.”
“That’s pretty funny, considering which end of the gun you’re standing on. I’m through screwing around. I catch even a whiff of enchantment coming off you, and you’ll be joining them.” My heart slammed harder at what I was about to ask. “Is Caroline still alive?”
“Goodnight, Everson.”
Angelus stepped past me, and I squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. When I squeezed again, my revolver moved. I looked down and hollered. In the place of the revolver, a hermit crab-like creature with a black shell clung to my hand, its hairy legs pricking my skin.
I swore and tried to shake the creature off me. Angelus’s magic was so subtle I hadn’t felt the transformation. The creature hit the pavement and scuttled away into the shadows.
I wheeled and lunged for Angelus. If he reached the door, I’d lose my only lead to Caroline. My fingers touched the back of his jacket, but before I could grasp it, the material turned as slippery as a buttered pan. My fingers scrabbled against it, and I fell forward onto the sidewalk.
Angelus jogged up the steps.
Something in my pocket dug against my hip as I rolled and pushed myself to my feet.
Wait. The pager.
I reached into the pocket and gripped the casing. Cold iron. I yanked out the pager and winged it at Angelus. The pager struck him in the low back. He grunted and seized the spot with both hands as though he’d blown a lumbar disk. The pager clattered to the bottom of th
e steps. I picked it up mid-stride, palmed it in my right fist, and took the steps three at a time.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I said.
When Angelus twisted around, I shot the iron-loaded fist into his mouth. Something broke beneath my knuckle. He clutched my jacket. I reared back and threw another punch. The looping blow caught him behind the ear. We went over together, tumbling down the steps. When we hit the sidewalk, I straddled him and mashed the pager against his cheek.
“I want answers, goddammit,” I panted.
Angelus squinted up at me from a scraped and bleeding face that had taken on a blue hue. Though the iron was dissolving his glamour, he still bore the sharp angles and self-possession of royalty.
“Where is Caroline? And I don’t want to hear that she’s home. I want a fucking location, an address.”
“She’s where she belongs.”
“See? That doesn’t help me, either.”
I pressed the pager harder until Angelus hissed and smoke began to curl from his face. When his pupils shrank, I noticed a pale light had fallen over us. The door to the townhouse had opened.
“Everson,” someone said, but it wasn’t the butler.
A hand to my brow, I squinted up to find the light filtering around an angelic being.
My breath caught. “Caroline?”
32
She wore an airy gown, a white cape fluttering from her shoulders. Light from the townhouse shone through her golden, brushed-down hair, but it seemed longer than Caroline’s. She stepped forward until she stood at the top of the steps.
“Caroline, is that you?”
I pushed myself off Angelus and climbed the steps cautiously. Fae power glimmered around the woman, something I had definitely never sensed around Caroline.
I came to within two steps of her and stopped. It was Caroline. And yet … it wasn’t.
She regarded me with blue-green eyes, almost too intense to meet.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“You shouldn’t be here, Everson.”
“What’s happened? What have they done to you?”
“I’m fulfilling an agreement made on my behalf.”
“Agreement? By who?”
“My mother.”
She had never mentioned her mother before. And what connection would her mother have had with the faeries? Unless…
“She was a fae? Your mother?”
“Is a fae, Everson.”
“So you’re, what, half-fae?”
“Yes, but I relinquished that part of my heritage as a girl.”
I grappled with the seismic revelation. “I … I had no idea.”
“Just as I had no idea the power you wield. But I can see it around you now, a living force.”
“I meant to tell you.”
“As I meant to tell you.” Her voice carried a hint of sorrow, as though something had been lost.
I glanced back at Angelus, who remained down on the sidewalk.
“What was the agreement?” I asked Caroline.
“Not now, Everson. You should leave.”
“Please. I’ve been worried sick about you.”
She studied my eyes before dropping her gaze with a sigh. “My mother is royalty. She rules a kingdom parallel to New York. She met my father when the fae were active in human politics. They fell in love, they had me. But the fae can be whimsical. She left my father without his knowing what she was. As a part-fae, I had a choice—to embrace my fae nature or become fully human. I chose the second, severing all connections with that world. For years I had no contact with my mother.”
“What changed?”
“My father’s sick. He was diagnosed with cancer this summer. He’d been undergoing aggressive treatment, but the cancer wouldn’t budge. Angelus told me my mother was willing to heal him, but on the condition that I honor the agreement she made before I chose mortality.”
A cold shadow moved through me. “What agreement?”
Caroline’s eyes shifted past me. Angelus joined her on the top step, his glamour restored. “That we be wed,” Angelus said, slipping an arm around her waist, “as it was decided.”
I moved my gaze between them. “Wait, you’re married?”
Caroline tilted her head and touched my arm, which was answer enough. That was what Angelus must have meant at the gala by “a fair exchange.”
“How?” My heart felt as though it had been punched numb. “When?”
“I made the decision after you left the party. To reclaim my fae nature and accede to the arrangement my mother had made. I wanted to tell you, but the window was closing. The ceremony had to be performed before the full moon, and there were days of preparation involved.”
“Days? But the gala was last night.”
“The wheels of time rotate differently in our worlds. A day here could be a week there. I thought I would be able to complete the ceremonies and return before anyone knew I’d been gone.”
“Well, why the deception?” I demanded. “Why did pretty boy here assume my form? What in the hell was that about?” I wasn’t sure whether I was more angry at Angelus now or Caroline.
“That was my idea,” she said. “Angelus has advised the opposition, and I didn’t want word getting back to Mayor Lowder or my father that I’d been seen leaving with him. I hope that didn’t create any problems for you.”
“Problems? Oh, just a few.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
Caroline looked over at Angelus—her frigging husband—and nodded that it was all right. I bristled as he kissed the side of her head and then walked into the townhouse, closing the door behind him. Without the backlighting, Caroline seemed almost mortal again.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“It wasn’t an easy decision, of course. But yes.”
“I don’t know a lot about the fae,” I said, “but they have a reputation as manipulators. How do you know they didn’t give your father his illness? I mean, maybe your mother’s taken a fresh interest in New York politics. If so, I can’t think of a more valuable asset than you.”
“Believe me, Everson, I thought about all of that.” She lowered herself to sit, her gown spilling down the steps like mist. “But it wouldn’t have changed the fact that my father was dying.”
I sat beside her and gazed out over the still street. We could have been back on the balcony overlooking Central Park the night before, all of this talk of the faerie realm and arranged marriages a distant dream—or nightmare.
“Do you love him?” I asked.
“I told you, it was arranged.”
“Why Angelus?”
“His father has a small kingdom in a realm parallel to upper Manhattan.”
“Two kingdoms on Manhattan Island?”
“Several kingdoms, in fact. The island is much larger in the faerie realm, more like a small continent. But the societies are feudal, arranged marriages between ruling families common. Angelus may seem cold and formal, but he’s … he’s decent.”
“I bet he is,” I grumbled. “So now what?”
“I’ll have duties in the faerie realm as well as here.” She turned up her palms. “This is all new to me, Everson. I guess I’ll just take it a day at a time.”
“And your job at the college?”
“I’ll keep that for the time being.”
I swallowed. “And us?”
When she looked over at me, her eyes glimmered with emotion. “I’m married now.”
I nodded vaguely and dropped my gaze to my hands. Figures. The only woman I really loved as an adult.
The pager went off, Vega signaling she was ready.
“Well…” I slapped my thighs and rose. “I guess that’s that.” As incredible as it seemed, I had forgotten about Floyd and Whitey until their fallen bodies entered my peripheral vision. “Just do me a favor and let your father know you’re all right. I think he was worried about y
ou.”
“I will.”
I descended the step. “Goodnight,” I said without looking back.
“Everson.”
I didn’t stop. She caught up to me on the sidewalk and grasped my arm.
“Look,” I said, turning. “You don’t have to—”
Her lips pressed against mine, silencing me. I tasted the subtle power of the fae, like spring water and honeydew. Her soft hands held my cheeks. I raised my own hands, clasping the backs of hers. Worlds spun around us.
When at last Caroline broke away, tears shone on her face.
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
“Yeah. So am I.”
She gave a final sad smile before climbing the steps and disappearing into the fae house.
33
When I swung the sedan into the parking garage across from Grand Central Station, Detective Vega was sitting on the rear step of the ambulance, a blue blanket over her shoulders, Larry the EMT beside her. I pulled up in front of them and got out to open the passenger side door.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
Vega shed the blanket and climbed into the car. “Good enough.”
“She let me give her a unit of red and half a bag of saline,” Larry said. “She could really use another of each, but she promised me she’ll go to an ER whenever you two wrap up whatever you’re doing.”
“And we’re off the books on this one?” Vega asked.
“What books?” Larry made a shooing gesture with his hands. “Go on, get out of here. Go save New York.”
We pulled out of the garage and onto Lexington Avenue.
“I’ve already called Hoffman,” Vega said. “He’s going to meet us at the office downtown. How did everything go with—”
“She’s fine,” I interrupted.
“So she wasn’t missing?”
“Yes. Well, no.” I stared at the empty road ahead. “It’s complicated.”
“O-o-okay.”
I changed the subject. “Did Hoffman sound suspicious when you talked to him?”
“No, but he seemed a little too interested when I told him I had info on the creature’s mother. Probably can’t wait to get his grubby hands on it so he can run it to whoever he’s informing.”