Or Muriel’s right and I just have a fucking savior complex. Several more ounces of whiskey splashed into the glass. Or a death wish.
Eavan hated that there wasn’t a better answer to the problem, but if not for Muriel, she wouldn’t have much of a solution at all. Muriel drank enough of the girls’ blood to pull the poisons out. If they survived, Muriel had ways to get them wherever they needed to go next. Alive and out of reach: those were the goals. Beyond that, there were no constants.
It depended on who Chastity really was. If she had a home and resources, Muriel would have one of her coven use those funds to set the girl up in a new city. If not, Muriel would see her to a shelter or halfway house under some pretext. Or she’ll put her into the ground. There were far too many that ended up dead despite Eavan’s efforts. That was how Muriel got involved in the first place: the vampire had a system for dealing with corpses. Eavan had needed that system one night, and the only other resource she’d had for disposal of bodies was her grandmother, and asking Nyx for such a favor had too high a price.
Muriel’s willingness to remove the toxins was an added bonus—one that gave Eavan the ability to try to rescue girls who were much further gone on Daniel’s drugs. If not for Muriel, Eavan would’ve been at a crisis months earlier. Even with Muriel’s help, the situation was akin to attempting to hold back a wave with a single hand: it was impossible. Eavan couldn’t stop Daniel from destroying people; she couldn’t stop herself from hunting him; and she couldn’t see any way to avert the disaster that would follow if something didn’t change.
Eavan poured a drink for Muriel as the petite vampire came into the kitchen. “Well?”
“She’s alive.” Muriel took the glass and emptied it. She swished the whiskey around her mouth and spit it into the sink before adding, “You’re going to have to ante up something clean if you’re going to keep asking me to drink all these toxins, or”—she gave a coquettish grin—“you could give me a taste.”
Eavan blushed and looked away. “No.”
“You can’t really kill me, and maybe it doesn’t count as sex if it’s—”
Eavan shook her head. “Sex with women is real sex, and we’re not crossing that line. Casual sex wouldn’t be my thing even if—”
“You’re a glaistig, darling; of course it would.” Muriel lowered one hand, sliding it over the blue silk covering her hip.
Transfixed, Eavan watched—and then scowled. “No, it wouldn’t. I don’t want casual, and you don’t do commitments. Discussion closed.”
“Really?” Muriel stepped closer, much as Daniel had earlier, and whispered, “Your heart is racing awfully fast for someone who doesn’t do casual.”
“Interest doesn’t mean consent.” Eavan forced herself to look at Muriel’s face. “I can say no. I’ve been saying no for years. No sex. No death.”
“If I tried you tonight, truly pushed you, could you still say no?” Muriel was gentle, but she knew that the answer was liable to be different than it had been before the Daniel obsession. The more Eavan hunted Daniel, the harder it was control either appetite.
Being mortal means keeping control. Over centuries a few glaistigs had tried to stay human, to not kill, to not fuck. Eavan knew about them from journals and letters Nyx had hidden away. They’d all failed or were simply killed by their matriarchs. “Culling the weak, Eavan.” Nyx had stalked her as she lectured and punched her when Eavan admitted to seeing the forbidden texts. “Is that what I need to do with you?” Eavan forced away the memory of Nyx’s fists and said, “I want to be mortal, Muriel.”
“That doesn’t mean refusing both sex and blood, Ev,” Muriel said. “Just have one to take the edge off. Too many rules and hang-ups will be your downfall…sooner than later if you keep stalking him.”
“If I can’t live by my own rules…”
“Friendship is like a commitment.” Muriel tilted her head and gave Eavan her best disarming look.
Eavan laughed at her best friend’s faux innocence. “It is, but it’s not enough for me.”
They’d been having the same discussion for several years. Muriel had a host of partners. To her, it was like shoe shopping: there were many choices for many moods. It wasn’t an emotional thing or a cruelty thing. It did mean, though, that their occasional boundary pushing stopped short of sex.
Teasing set aside then, Muriel took the bottle of Middleton from the counter. “The junk Brennan’s peddling ruins even virgin blood.”
“Virgin?”
“As pure as you.” Muriel took two clean glasses, added a couple cubes, and poured the whiskey.
Eavan shuddered. The idea of an innocent—especially one who had her will stolen by Daniel’s zombie mix—being sold to a sadist was more revolting than normal. “He’s a sick bastard.”
“So kill him,” Muriel said. A drink in each hand, she hopped up on the counter. Neither drink spilled. She kicked her feet in the air like a child on a swing and held out a glass. It was hard to remember that Muriel was a monster; she looked like a hand-crafted doll, one of those delicate pieces of art that belonged safely on a shelf.
Eavan took the whiskey. “No. I’m not going to sacrifice myself over him.”
Muriel snorted. Now that the flirting was out of the way, she could relax into her less charming habits. “Some sacrifice…It’s not like you’d be throwing yourself on a sword, Evvie.”
“No, I’d just be throwing away my humanity.”
“Humanity’s overrated.” Muriel warmed to the old argument. She’d been Other for more than a century now and saw nothing wrong with it. “Humanity means dying.”
Humanity meant a lot of things. It meant ethics, joy in the brevity of life, compassion…and yes, dying. Dying didn’t seem as oppressive as the alternative. At least for me. Muriel wouldn’t understand though: vampires didn’t grow cloven hooves when they stopped being human. They didn’t have tendrils of hair that writhed like serpents or need to sate not one but two depraved appetites.
“No. Humanity is wonderful,” Eavan insisted. “It’s what I am. Daniel isn’t going to steal mine.”
“So maybe you should stop trying to save the girls he gives the zombie powder to?” Muriel’s voice grew cold. “Something’s going to break, Ev. You keep pushing and he’ll push back, or your family will find out what you’re doing…You’re walking a foolish path taunting Brennan.”
“I’m handling it.”
“You think Nyx would agree?” Muriel put a hand on Eavan’s wrist. “Your grandmother finds out you’re taking risks without any safety nets, and she’ll be livid. You need to kill him or back off.”
“Just a little bit longer, Muriel? I need to find a way to get him to stop. I can’t just let him sell those girls…I can’t…” Eavan leaned her head back on the cabinet behind her, putting a bit of artificial distance between her and Muriel.
“If Nyx comes calling, you know I can’t cover for you.” Muriel’s expression was gentle, but the words were anything but reassuring. “I won’t.”
“I know.” Eavan closed her eyes. Thinking about her matriarch’s reaction was the last thing she wanted to do, but it was sobering. “But until then?”
Muriel took her hand away. The only sound in the kitchen was the soft slide of feet on the stone floor as Muriel walked away. Eavan didn’t follow, didn’t open her eyes. She waited.
Ice clicked together in Eavan’s now empty glass. The splash of whiskey followed. “For now, yes,” Muriel whispered, “but not forever.”
Eavan opened her eyes and accepted her glass.
Then Muriel added, “But the next time you go to the club, I’m coming, too.”
Before Eavan could object, Muriel raised the hand not holding the bottle. Perfectly tinted nails and understated rings flashed through the air. “No invitation, no help. Either you hunt or you don’t, Evvie. Either you persist at this I-want-to-be-mortal nonsense or you accept your heritage. This half-assed thing is going to stop.”
“But—”
Eavan wanted to argue, but there wasn’t anything that she could say without lying. “No more club trips without you.”
“I’ll stand by you if you want to be mortal. I’ll help you if you want to be glaistig.” Muriel’s more familiar, kinder expression returned. She widened her blue eyes in a pleading way. “I just don’t want to see you regret whichever it is because you were being foolish.”
If I stop, what happens to the next Chastity? Eavan didn’t bother saying that though; Muriel wouldn’t be swayed by that concern any more than Nyx would. Family first. That was how the Others thought, and mortals weren’t family.
3
Cillian walked toward Dorothea Dix Hospital on his nightly mind-clearing stroll. He’d spent the past several hours going over his file, but still had no clue how to get closer to Brennan or how he got the unknown powder he cut his coke with. Whatever the silvery talcumlike material was, it wasn’t matching anything on the periodic table or the existing databases at the Crypto Drug Administration.
The drug was appearing in other areas around the country, and Brennan was the closest thing to a source that the C.D.A. had found. The I-85 and I-40 intersection tended, like many such interstate crossings, to be a drug-heavy region. Durham had a definite heroin business. Volumes of marijuana and cocaine slid through, but those weren’t issues for the C.D.A. Crypto Drugs dealt exclusively in the chemicals that utilized or targeted the Others that hid in mortal society. Brennan’s powder was an anomaly even in an organization established around coping with the unusual. The C.D.A. didn’t like anomalies.
Or lack of results.
No one in Brennan’s immediate circle seemed approachable. None of the victims was around long enough to be of use. The only one who seemed like a potential in was one woman Brennan kept circling, but she seemed to be stalking the drug dealer when he wasn’t stalking her.
So I stalk the stalkers.
Cillian thought about the dark-haired girl. Eve. He’d stared at her picture frequently enough that he’d begun to feel like a perv. He wanted her not to be a victim or a criminal, but he couldn’t find any evidence to suggest which she was or any logical way she wasn’t one of the two. Nice girls don’t flirt with drug dealers. Nice girls don’t spend inordinate amounts of time at strip clubs. He was pretty sure of that—except everything else he could find on Eavan made her seem like a nice girl. She worked at her jobs for short periods, but her employment records were all flattering. She was average: modest clothes, nondescript reading habits, no odd purchases, not a single unexplained trip; in sum, there wasn’t anything at all that would flag her as criminal.
Still thinking about Eve, he let himself into the apartment he’d rented.
Just inside the door, he stopped. A cream-colored envelope sat propped up against a book on his kitchen table. No one knew he lived here other than his supervisors, and they weren’t the sort of people to leave notes with calligraphic lettering on his table.
A quick search of the tiny apartment revealed that he was alone. After donning a pair of gloves, he carefully opened the letter. Mr. Owens, If you’d like to resolve the D.B. problem you’re having, contact me. Nyx. Under it was an address in the historic district and a meeting time that was just late enough to be private.
Several hours later, Cillian parked up the block from the address on the note; he glanced again at the sheet of lilac paper sealed in the bag on his passenger seat as he cut off the engine. The paper, the calligraphic writing, the lavender scent on the paper—it wasn’t covert. It didn’t seem apropos of intrigue.
At least not any sort I’m used to. Prior to this assignment, he’d worked in the research and clean-up divisions of the C.D.A.
He closed the car door quietly and made his way up the flagstone path. A woman sat on the front porch. She looked to be in her thirties at most. She was stern, eyes too flat, smile too calculating; everything about her was predatory in the true sense of the word. Whispers of caution rose from that instinctual part of the mind: walk carefully, mind the escape routes.
“Mr. Owens, so nice of you to visit.”
“Nyx?” His voice was steadier than his emotions. He’d walked into altercations that resulted in hospital visits, but this beautiful, polite Southern woman in a semi-public location was setting off the same sort of alarms usually reserved for the truly unsavory.
What is she?
“Come.” Nyx patted the swing beside her. Then she reached over to a crystal decanter sitting on a side table. “Whiskey?”
“No thanks.”
“It’s not poisoned, dear.” She smiled a courtesan’s smile. “Poison isn’t a method I prefer. Too distant.”
Cillian paused midstep and looked around the porch and azaleas that lined the front of it. There were no other people he could see, nothing that looked dangerous. Except Nyx. He’d learned before his first year with the C.D.A. that criminals didn’t all look dangerous. Usually, though, they weren’t this odd combination of ballsy, blunt, and beautiful. “Is there another method I should be watching for?”
She laughed and poured herself a drink. “Sit down, Mr. Owens. The neighbors needn’t see you looking at me so cautiously. They’re used to my business, but discretion is always wise…especially in your business.”
He sat next to her, but not so close that he couldn’t reach his gun. “I’m not sure what you think you know, Ms.—”
“Nyx.” She sipped her drink and smiled. “It’s just Nyx.”
If not for the fear he felt as he sat beside her, he’d find her attractive. She was all curves and muscles, and none of it hidden. Thick dark hair fell around her like a cloak. She was near-naked from the waist up, clad in a sheer top over bare skin; dark aureoles and pert nipples more than visible. Not an inch of flesh was bared below the waist. A long skirt and boots hid her legs.
Why hide the rest of—
“I see the temptation in your expression,” Nyx said softly. “Trust me, Mr. Owens; you’re much better off not following those thoughts to completion.”
He was here on business. Ogling someone he might have to kill was bad form. He forced himself to hold her gaze.
And Nyx smiled then. Her posture hadn’t changed. Her spine was arrow-straight, making her very not-sagging breasts—
I’m not like this. He felt positively amoral. His libido was healthy enough, but he didn’t mix business and recreation. I’m not going to start, either. He caught and held her gaze. Like being held in the gaze of the snakes in the reptile house…without the safety of the glass.
“What do you want?” he asked.
She handed him a picture. “This is Eavan.”
Eve.
Cillian kept his face blank. “And?”
“The girl, my cousin Eavan, is getting mixed up with a man I’d rather she didn’t. You’re stalking him, so I thought we might help each other.” Nyx folded her legs up on the swing, angling her body so she was facing him. “I’d rather Daniel Brennan die. I find him…unpleasant, but Evvie would be cross with me if I killed him.”
“Do you often murder people you find unpleasant?” The words were out before he could think better of them. Despite looking like an ingénue, Nyx spoke with a callousness that made Cillian certain that the woman beside him was, indeed, capable of murder.
Nyx laughed. “I think we’ll both be happier if you don’t ask too many questions like that, Cillian. I know who you are. I know about the C.D.A., and I know that Mr. Brennan is a person of interest to your organization.” She lifted a folder from the floor and extended it to him. “Here’s a list of others you might want to investigate.”
She held it there while he reeled from how casually she list
ed top security clearance C.D.A. information.
Cillian reached out and took the folder. “Do you have any idea what sort of trouble you’d be in? We’re talking about treason.”
She waved away his remark with a flick of her wrist. “Your government isn’t a concern of mine. I know what I know, and you’ll not let anyone find out about me. Do you think that there aren’t people who would erase the entirety of your organization if they realized that your superiors know about…people that treasure privacy? History is filled with stories of strange groups of people, secret societies if you will, vanishing. Your sort exist only because we’ve yet to decide how much of a threat you might be. I believe you can be harnessed and made useful. I need my cousin looked after, and you are getting nowhere with Mr. Brennan. It’s a simple business exchange.” She ran a finger absently through the beads of sweat sliding down her glass and licked a droplet from her fingertip before adding, “I’m trusting you, Mr. Owens.”
In seven years for the C.D.A., he’d never experienced anything quite as surreal as this meeting. Admitting that he understood that she was Other was a breach of several papers he’d signed under strictest security. She’s not human. She’s just admitted as much. That didn’t mean he could admit it though. He tucked away the questions he wanted answered and focused on the issues he could address: “A single phone call and you’ll be in jail or worse for the rest of your life. You can’t summon a government agent to your house and just…” He shook his head.
“I trust you because if you expose me or reveal the other unusual things you learn by accepting my offer, I’ll kill you, your sister in Miami, your nephew in Chicago…and your dear sweet father in”—she paused and tilted her head—“where was it? Phoenix, I believe?”
Cillian had his hand on his 9mm before she was halfway through the threat.
“Lower your hand, boy.”
He did, not by choice, but he lowered his hand as obediently as the women addicted to Brennan’s drugs. He couldn’t disobey. “Wha—? Who are you?”
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