“Yeah… okay,” I said, as though finishing my earlier thought.
“You want me to take the grimoire?” Parrish’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
Did I? Well, I sure as hell didn’t want to fight him for it, not if it meant that Lilith would rise up and kill him. He said he’d bring it back. He was a thief, but he loved the idea of being an honorable one. Not more than a couple of hours ago, he begged me to consider him a gentleman. I played that card now. “You said you wanted me to believe you were a good guy; well, here’s your chance to prove it.” Besides, I told myself. If he didn’t come back, I’d let Lilith find him. She was my ace in the hole. “I’m trusting you with this, Daniel.”
No one ever called him by his first name. I never knew why, but I’d always followed what appeared to be protocol in the matter. Maybe he didn’t like it, maybe he thought it was too Biblical, but he smiled warmly at me now. “I shall not fail you, lady,” he said.
I might actually see him—and Sebastian’s grimoire— again. “Thank you.”
* * * *
After Parrish left, I puttered with my herbs in the tower room. The space was no more than ten feet in diameter, and was mostly windows. The room faced south, so the plants loved it. Culinary herbs crowded together in a big clay pot in the center of the room: oregano, thyme, rosemary, basil, and cilantro. Rubbing my fingers on the rosemary leaves, I sniffed its distinctive, sharp, piney scent. In separate pots, I also cultivated a few weeds, some of which I transplanted from roadside ditches: Queen Anne’s lace, chicory, cowslips, and catchfly.
Ivy and philodendron vines twined around the circular ceiling and had begun to follow the star-shaped string trellis that I’d rigged up. By next spring, it would be a completed pentacle of living plants.
Barney rubbed against my leg. I crouched down to pet her, which is how I managed to avoid the bullet that cracked through the window with a loud smack.
Fifth House
KEYWORDS:
Luck, Arrogance, Creativity
The bullet punched through the plaster of the opposite wall. Barney and I stared in horror at the dust blooming from the hole in the archway.
“Was that a bullet? That was a bullet! Someone fucking shot at us,” I said to Barney. A dime-sized circle of warmth near the right side of my hip reminded me of the protective talisman tucked into my pocket. Staring at the puckered spot on my window that looked like an inverted nipple with a hole in the center, I thanked the Goddess for inspiring Barney to need a cuddle just then.
Barney, for her part, hissed and scrambled out of the room.
Fighting the desire to look out the window to see where the shot came from, I flattened myself on the floor and told myself to stay there. My hammering heart wanted me to flee. Meanwhile, my brain was conflicted on the subject. Mostly, lying still seemed like a good idea, but then there was the door. I doubted Parrish had locked it, since I’d neglected to give him a key. What was to stop the shooter from coming upstairs and doing me in, execution style, while I quivered helplessly on the floor?
I compromised. Crab-crawling into the kitchen, I made my way toward the front door. I froze when I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairway. My first instinct was to hide behind the couch. The couch was one of those massive rummage-sale foldout beds that had nearly killed my friends and me dragging it up the stairs. Despite being plaid and sagging in the middle, it had enough steel in it that it might actually qualify as armor.
The second creak on the steps decided things for me. I scuttled behind the couch and cowered. When I saw Barney’s furry, gray tail sticking out from under the dust ruffle, I felt I’d made a good choice.
The sounds stopped. I held my breath. Beside me, Barney’s tail flicked once in irritated anticipation.
A loud rap on the door made me nearly choke on my own heart.
What kind of freakishly polite son of a bitch knocks before coming in to kill you? Had they knocked before killing my coven? Had someone let them in?
The second knock took me by surprise.
Okay, once seemed like maybe it could be part of some assassin’s handbook, i.e., step one, see if the mark is stupid enough to let you in, but to knock again? What, was the killer really expecting an invitation?
Another knock.
“She stood me up,” Sebastian muttered on the other side of the door. “Christ.”
I started to stand up but stopped myself just in time. I had no idea if Sebastian needed to be invited in—Parrish hadn’t—but this was no time to mess around with details. “Come in, Sebastian,” I shouted as loudly as I could. “Stay low and lock the door behind you. They’ve got a gun. They’re shooting at me.”
“Garnet?”
“Get in here!” The last thing I wanted was for the Vatican agent to come running in while Sebastian hesitated at the door. “Now, goddamn it.”
I heard the door open, close, and the click of the lock. Then came the sound of cloth rubbing against something, which I realized must have been Sebastian’s coat sliding down the door as he sat himself down on the floor. “Well,” he said. “This is different.”
“Did you see anyone outside?” I poked my head out from behind the couch to look at him.
Sebastian sat in a half lotus with his back on my door, just as I’d expected. He’d dressed up for our date: black jeans, white shirt, black tie, and a sexy-as-hell leather trench coat. His hair was neatly tied back in a thick ponytail, which showed off the strong line of his neck.
“Like a sniper?” he asked.
“Yes, like a sniper,” I said, crawling the rest of the way out. The kitchen was at the back of the house, opposite the large living room/dining room space. So, when I thought about it, it wasn’t likely that Sebastian would have passed through the sniper’s line of fire at all. Well, duh, Garnet. Or he’d have been shot, too. Still, I kept talking. My mind was still trying to process this whole thing. “Or anyone out of the ordinary.”
Sebastian grimaced. “This is Madison, Garnet. There were plenty of strange people on the street.”
I started to ask if he’d seen anyone suspicious-looking, but then I remembered how forgettable the real estate agent had been. Great Mother, that image was going to make me paranoid. Now everyone, even the ubiquitous tie-dyed hippie on a bicycle, could be a Vatican killer.
“Someone tried to shoot me,” I said.
“So I gathered.” The words sounded irritated, but the smile he flashed me was warm. “You look frazzled. Are you all right? Did anyone get hurt?”
“Not unless you count a window and a plaster wall.” I crawled out from behind the couch.
“Did they scream?”
“No.”
“Then it’s fine,” he smiled.
It was nice of him to try to make a joke, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that danger lurked just outside. I shifted so I could rest my back against the seat of the couch, because, though I wanted to seem casual, I couldn’t quite bring myself to stand up.
“Do you think it was the Order?” Sebastian asked more seriously, perhaps noticing his inability to shake my mood.
“Undoubtedly,” I said.
“You don’t think there’s any way it could have been random? A drive-by shooting or something?”
“From the alley?”
“Oh,” Sebastian said. “Well, less likely then.”
Although the fact that no one had, so far, followed up to do me in, did make me wonder a bit. I mean, the “real estate” agent had led me to believe she was after Sebastian, not me. If the shooter had been anywhere nearby, they must have seen Sebastian pull up. This would be the perfect opportunity to kill us both. Maybe they were biding their time, waiting for us to let down our guard, to leave together. “You have to stay here,” I said. “We can never leave.”
“So, the answer is no, I take it?”
“To what?”
“To the idea that this could all be a coincidence.” When my only reply was a hot, angry glare, Sebastian switche
d gears. “You know more about these people than I do, but do you really think they’d just shoot you from a distance? That doesn’t seem very moral high ground, does it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know, but isn’t killing someone at such a great distance a bit of a cheat? You’d think the Church would expect its enforcers to get in close, try to save the souls of the sinners, or at the very least look into the eyes of the accused.”
“They don’t give people a chance to repent, Sebastian. You’re already tried and sentenced if the Order is after you.”
“That’s not very sporting,” he said with a frown.
“Well, no shit.”
I glared at him for a while, waiting for the seriousness of the situation to finally sink in. Instead, he took in the various blankets Parrish had tacked to the windows and said, “Nice place.”
“Get used to it. I was serious when I said I’m never leaving.”
“Well,” he said. Standing up, he smoothed out his jeans. “If the Order does have a sniper outside, they can’t see us in here. We could at least sit together on the couch and watch a movie or something. Maybe order a pizza. My treat.”
“Why aren’t you more afraid of them?”
“From what you’ve told me, they sound like cowards.”
My anger flared again. “These cowards slaughtered my friends.”
Sebastian’s face softened with compassion. “Yes. And I assume your friends were mortals, not even soldiers. Did your friends even have any weapons of their own?”
“Ritual knives,” I said, but Sebastian was right, the coven had been defenseless, unaware.
“And the Order carries guns.”
I nodded. They did; I’d found guns, even rifles, on their bodies. They also had a whole arsenal of edged weapons from swords to stilettos.
“Cowards,” he repeated, as he plunked himself down on my couch. He took in the living room in all of its cinderblock-and-board-bookshelf glory. “Where’s your TV?”
“Don’t have one,” I said, feeling oddly sheepish about it. It was less of a political decision on my part than an economic one, but I tended to let most people think no TV went part and parcel with my alternative lifestyle as a vegetarian Witch.
“Right. That cancels the movie option, then. Still up for a pizza?”
“I can’t eat while someone could still be out there.”
Sebastian looked into my eyes for a long moment. Then, very slowly, very seriously, he said, “Of course you can, Garnet. You’re stronger than the entire Order, and you know it. Or if you don’t, you should. Lilith is a Goddess.”
“She can’t stop bullets.”
“I watched her stop Benjamin’s knife. Are you sure?”
I gave a grim laugh. “Well, not enough to bet my life on it, no. Anyway,” I added as an afterthought, “Lilith and I don’t always share the same agenda.”
Sebastian leaned an elbow on the arm of the sofa in order to shoot me a long, appraising look. With his designer leather coat and perfectly combed hair, he made my couch look extraordinarily ugly. “So whose idea was it to steal my grimoire?”
The question had the air of being casual, but I felt coldness behind his eyes that made me wish I hadn’t been so quick to invite him into my apartment.
Using my elbows, I leveraged myself up onto the couch to sit beside him. I didn’t want to have this fight while sitting at Sebastian’s feet. I also got the sense that it didn’t much matter what the answer to his question was. The result was the same. He’d been betrayed, and I’d taken part in it.
“Lilith,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure it mattered.
A knock on the door startled both of us, as did the voice from the other side, which proclaimed in an authoritative male voice, “This is the police. Is everyone all right in there? We got a call about a shot fired.”
Sebastian and I looked at each other. I could tell we shared the same concern: could it be the Vatican shooter trying to gain entrance? Neither of us moved toward the door. I wanted to play dumb, but, unfortunately, I’d been unable to contain a squeak of surprise, so whoever it was out there knew someone was home. Anyway, we’d both been talking just before the knock came.
“Sir? Ma’am?” came the voice again. “It would be really helpful if we could talk to you for just a minute. I’d really like to know that everyone is okay in there.”
At times like this I’d kill to be telepathic. What was Sebastian thinking? Did he also think the guy sounded fairly convincing as a cop? Or did he think that was part of what made this whole thing suspicious? I had no idea what to do. I was actually relieved when Sebastian got up and gestured for me to get out of the line of sight of the door. I scurried back behind the couch. Okay, it was not the most heroic of spots, but I still preferred to have steel between any ricocheting bullets and my fragile flesh and blood.
Then a thought occurred to me. If these were real cops, there’d be cop car parked out front. So I lifted the edge of Parrish’s makeshift curtain to peer out. Oh, shit. No car. “Uh, Sebastian,” I started.
He turned. He’d been about to put his foot in front of the door when it opened. I ducked.
I heard a strange twang, like someone releasing a high-tension wire, followed by a strangled cry and a very heavy sounding thud. My fingernails dug into the upholstery of the couch.
Oh, my God, I’ve just killed my boyfriend.
“That should hold him for a while,” the authoritative male voice said. “Search the apartment. The source said it would be here.”
Boots scuffed to do the leader’s bidding. I heard a voice say, “I thought an arrow through the heart would kill a vampire. He’s looking pretty pissed off.”
The good news was that Sebastian was apparently still alive; the bad news seemed to be that he was staked through the heart by some method involving an arrow.
“The source told us that a stake of ash keeps the vampire transfixed, doesn’t kill him.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Sebastian said, sounding a little pleased. “You’re not vampire hunters at all, are you? Aren’t you a bit out of your league? Don’t you usually kill unarmed tree-huggers?”
Hey, I wanted to say, that’s not fair! But I realized Sebastian was just goading them.
When they didn’t rise to it, he continued. “I hope you trust this source of yours. A longbow—very inventive, though awfully risky. What would you have done if it hadn’t worked?” Sebastian hissed. He sounded as though he spoke through teeth clenched in pain. “You do know that if you want to finish me off you have to decapitate me with a single blow? Which one of you bastards thinks he has the balls to come close enough to attempt that?”
“Ignore him,” leader said. “Go help the others find the journal.”
Holy Mother, they were searching for the grimoire. How long would it take them to look under the couch?
Barney decided to be brave. She streaked out from under the couch with a yowl. Someone, most likely Leader Guy, cursed loudly, and then came a feline yipe followed by the quick retreat of padded paws. I imagined Barney must have scored a hit and lived to fight another day.
“Why are there always cats?” Leader Guy muttered between curses. “Why don’t these people ever have goldfish familiars?”
My breathing sounded so loud in my own ears, I wondered why no one had found me yet. And, though I desperately needed to shift my weight, I didn’t dare. I was afraid the creaky hardwood would betray me.
Sebastian groaned. At least, I thought it must be Sebastian, especially since the authoritative man suddenly demanded, “Where is it, Von Traum? Where’s the grimoire?”
“It was stolen. Lilith has it.”
“Who’s Lilith?”
“A good religious man like yourself has never heard of Adam’s first wife? Shame on you, Padre.”
The rapid discharge of a machine gun tore through the air. I sprawled flatter, hugging hardwood, trying to slide farther under the protective shield of
the couch. My ears rang, and suddenly all sound receded inside my head. Great. Now I was deaf as well as blind.
The echo of voices tried to reach my eardrums. Far, far away and underwater people were shouting. I prayed that one of them was Sebastian. I refused to even contemplate what a machine gun could do at close range to a body, and, luckily, I had no real-life previous experience to give seed to my imagination.
I told myself that shredded Sebastian meat wouldn’t do the Vatican any good if they wanted information out of him. They wouldn’t have cut him in half—not if they wanted him talking. No vampire could take that kind of damage lightly, not even with their supernatural regenerative abilities. So I chose to believe that Leader Guy had shot up my lathe and plaster as a demonstration, a show of power, a shot across the bow, and Sebastian remained unharmed, other than, apparently, being impaled on a longbow arrow.
If I thought otherwise, I’d cry, and this was no time for sobbing histrionics. Especially since any noise would give away my location.
I wished I could see. Or hear. At least previously I’d had some sense of the action. Now my world had shrunk to the harsh sound of my own breathing and the disgusting view of the enormous dust bunnies that populated the underside of my couch.
I might be able to visualize the action from the astral plane, but I didn’t want to risk using magic. I’d heard that the Vatican employed sensitives, psychics who could sniff out spell work in progress. Of course, that would be just the kind of rumor the Vatican might plant in our community to keep someone like me from using my magic to kick their asses.
Lilith chose that moment to remind me that I was not without a weapon. A spasm jittered across my abdomen, as though to say, Let me at ‘em. I winced from the pain, but also because at that same moment, artificial light streamed in under the couch. Fingers had lifted the ruffle and, mere inches from my own face, eyes widened in surprise at seeing me looking back. There were a couple of seconds of shallow breathing and mutual staring, then a return to darkness.
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