“We’re so fucked,” I breathed.
Ian let out a dry laugh. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all morning.”
Eight
I heard Wraith’s voice before I got out of the car. Its melodic cadence combined with my favorite accent should’ve sounded soothing. Instead, it was like nails on a chalkboard. Don’t you ever tire of listening to yourself talk? I wondered irritably, but affixed a bright smile on my face when I came through the door.
That smile almost cracked when I saw Wraith seated on an ottoman as though it were a throne. He’d moved it so that he was near the large fireplace, the glow from it playing over his features and making him look even more ethereal. Wraith wore another flowery shirt under his jacket, lace spilling out over the cuffs to wreath his hands. I’d first thought he picked those shirts to be pretentious, but now I had another idea about why he wore them, and it had nothing to do with an outdated fashion sense.
Wraith smiled at me. “Cat. I trust your trip was fruitful?”
I pulled up a seat next to Bones, who, like everyone else, sat in a semicircle around Wraith, akin to adoring courtiers paying their king homage. It was all I could do not to grab a poker and beat Wraith’s head in before I roasted his chestnuts for some real holiday cheer.
“Oh, yeah, I found a few places that I think would work for the party,” I said, sticking to the excuse I’d given for running out this morning. “In fact, I want to take Denise and get her opinion on my favorites.”
“I’m sure that will be lovely.” Wraith stretched out his legs. “Right, then. We were just talking about—”
“I meant now,” I cut him off as pleasantly as I could.
His smoky-blue eyes narrowed. “Rather rushed about it, aren’t you?”
“It’s almost Thanksgiving, so the best places are booking up fast for the winter holidays,” I improvised, trying to sound as sincere and obsequious as possible. “I’d be so embarrassed if we had to settle for a substandard facility to hold your introduction party. After all, this is so much more important than a regular Christmas celebration.”
It wasn’t lost on me that Bones was silent, letting Wraith determine what I would and wouldn’t do with my own time. If I’d had any lingering doubts about him being bespelled, that got rid of them. The man I married would tell Wraith to keep his bloody opinions to himself should I ever have an unexpected case of muteness when someone questioned me on my comings and goings. Not sit back quietly and let a stranger muse over whether I was allowed to go out for an afternoon. No one else uttered a peep, either. It was as though they’d been replaced with incredibly lifelike mannequins.
“Do hurry back,” Wraith said at last, with an acquiescing flick of his fingers.
If I held this fake smile any longer, my face would crack. “You’ll barely notice we were gone.”
Denise rose, shooting me a grateful look once her back was turned to Wraith. Spade didn’t glance her way or bother saying good-bye. Neither did Bones, another piece of evidence that nothing but an otherworldly spell could account for this type of behavior from a vampire to his wife. I stared at Bones as long as I dared, wishing I could find an excuse to get him to leave, too. But Wraith wouldn’t allow that, and telling him where to shove it would clue him in that I wasn’t under his dirty little enchantment. Plus, in Bones’s current state, he probably would refuse to leave if Wraith didn’t want him to.
Rage flared through me, which I stuffed back with promises of another time, another place. “See you all soon,” I got out, and followed Denise out the door.
Fabian already floated by the car, to my relief. He would come with us while his ghostly girlfriend, Elisabeth, stayed here to keep an eye on things. “Get in,” I whispered at him.
Fabian disappeared and then reappeared in the backseat in the time it took me to blink. I pulled out of the driveway nice and slow, no telltale squealing of tires or flying gravel to betray my sense of urgency. Denise was also so tense that I couldn’t hear a word of her thoughts. A good thing, too, since if I couldn’t, then Mencheres and Bones couldn’t, either, and they wouldn’t relay anything to Wraith. Only when we were miles away did my white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel lessen.
“Ian’s got a theory about what’s going on,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Well?” she prodded.
I got onto the freeway, heading toward Asheville. “You’re not going to like it, because it means that neither of us can go back.”
“What? No!” she said at once. “I’m not leaving Spade with some dick that’s got him acting like a robot for God knows what reason—”
“You think I like leaving Bones?” I cut her off. “I know exactly how hard this is, but if we ever want to see our husbands without them being the equivalent of Wraith’s wind-up toys, we need to work together.”
Her mouth remained mulishly set, but she asked, “What’s Ian’s theory?” without further argument.
I sighed and reached out, pulling up the sleeve of Denise’s cardigan to expose the dark, star-shaped marking on her forearm.
“Wraith’s spell is rooted in demonic magic, and the reason he can wield it is because under his long lacy sleeves, we think he has a pair of demon brands, too.”
Denise paled until our skin tones almost matched. I returned my attention to the road, not wanting to add to my woes with a high-speed collision.
Fabian recovered first. “If Wraith was also branded by a demon, then like Denise, he now has all the powers of that demon. He’ll be almost impossible to kill!”
“Bull’s-eye,” I noted dryly.
“We have a knife made of demon bone. Stab it through his eyes and he’ll die, same as I would,” Denise said, still sounding dazed by the information.
I gave her a jaded glance. “Where’s that knife now, huh?”
“Spade has it locked up for safety reasons,” she murmured, then added, “I don’t know where, and I can’t ask with him being all spell-addled. Fuck!”
I nodded. “That’s just what I’ve been saying.”
Fabian cleared his throat, which, for someone lacking a physical esophagus, was his way of politely telling us to pay attention.
“That could be, ah, rectified.”
I met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I’m glad you think so, because part of our plan involves you helping us search Spade’s many houses to find it.”
A delicate cough. “That’s not necessary. The same, ahem, material is right here.”
“Fabian, get to the point, please? Your beating around the bush isn’t making any sense,” I said, exasperated.
“Yes it is,” Denise replied, drawing out each word. “He means we have all the demon bone we need in my body.”
Nine
Ian’s brows shot up. I repeated my statement more slowly, regretting this course of action but agreeing that it was necessary.
“We need to cut something off Denise and use her bones to make a weapon against Wraith.”
“Oh, I heard you the first time.” Ian’s mouth twisted as he looked at Denise. “I was just pondering how much your husband will beat my arse when he’s back to himself and hears about this.”
“Believe me, I won’t tell him if you won’t,” she replied with a touch of grim humor. Then her tone hardened. “But this changes things. We’ll carve two knives, and you’ll take one while I’ll take the other, because I’m going back to Spade.”
“You can’t. If Wraith finds out you’re like him, he’ll kill you on the spot!” I snapped.
“Better if we find a way to lure the others away from him first and then attack him,” Ian said, backing me up.
Denise let out a snort. “You guys are forgetting what happened when I killed the demon who branded me. It made everything he’d done to me permanent. If we kill Wraith without undoing his spell first, we risk everyone staying
exactly as they are for the rest of their lives.”
The truth of that rolled over me like an avalanche. I’d thought it would be hard getting Wraith away from the equivalent of five bespelled vampire bodyguards so we could stab his eyes out, but what we’d need to do instead made that seem easy.
I let out a groan. “We have to find the demon that branded him, and hope to God he wants his power back.”
Ian snorted. “Poor analogy, Reaper.”
Whatever. I’d hope to hell if that would improve our odds, but the fact remained that only the demon could remove the effects of the brands. Without those, Wraith would be a regular vampire. And if he’d been hiding from that demon, he’d soon be a dead vampire. Even if the demon did the unimaginable and let him live, I wouldn’t.
“I can’t chase after the demon; I killed one,” Denise continued. “I’m betting their kind is pretty intolerant of that. But you two can, and in the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on Wraith. If he tries to hurt anyone, I’ll have that knife, but I’ll only use it as a last resort.”
I hated this plan. It left everyone I loved at the mercy of a man who’d used a demonic spell to steal their free will for reasons unknown, but they couldn’t be altruistic reasons. It would be a race to see who was successful first: Wraith in implementing his end game, or me and Ian in finding the demon who branded him with the power to cast such a spell, among other abilities. I shuddered, but Denise was right. If Bones—the real Bones!—were here now, he’d tell me he would rather be dead than mentally enslaved for the rest of his life. Knowing the others as I did, they’d say the same, too.
Winner really would take all in this race.
“Then it’s settled,” Ian said. “On to the next task at hand.”
His gaze slid over Denise with cool calculation, and though she stayed ramrod-straight, I flinched. I knew he was deciding which part of her to slice off.
“Your lower leg will do,” he said, as casual as discussing which cut of steak he’d prefer for dinner. “The bone’s long enough that we should be able to fashion two blades, and thick enough that it shouldn’t splinter while we’re carving them. Femur would be better, but then you’d bleed like a cut snake.”
“Your concern for the carpet is touching,” Denise muttered.
He flashed her a genial smile. “I’m not fretting over the carpet. We’re doing this in the tub, but the more blood you lose, the longer it’ll take you to grow that back.”
He had a point. Lop off anything on a vampire except their head, and it would grow back in two minutes flat. Denise’s regenerative abilities were less rapid, but in their own way, more impressive. She looked human, but now she was in every way the same as the demon who’d branded her, right down to her bones. Denise actually could survive being beheaded. Cockroaches had nothing on her.
She let out a long sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
Denise started toward the bathroom, but Ian’s voice stopped her. “I’m not cutting into you until you’re under my sway, so you won’t feel it. Think I’m a sadist?”
“Yes,” she said, the word “duh” implied in her tone.
He laughed. “You have me there, poppet, but I have certain standards when it comes to women. I don’t hurt them unless they enjoy it, and you won’t enjoy this.”
Denise crossed her arms. “Look, Ian, I appreciate the semi-concern, and no offense intended, but I doubt you have enough juice to put me under—”
She stopped talking when his gaze changed from turquoise to sizzling emerald. Power flashed over me, fast as a snapping whip and strong enough to sting like one. I blinked. Either Ian had been doing some supernatural workouts lately, or he’d held back on showing me the true scope of his power before. By the time he’d crossed the room to Denise, her eyes were wide and staring into nothing, all without Ian even needing to speak.
“We’ll see how much you question my juices when you wake up with a freshly regenerated leg,” he muttered, picking her up and slinging her over his shoulder. “Come along. I’m not doing this alone. Besides, Denise isn’t the only one getting some work done now. You are, too.”
“Me?” I asked as I followed him into the bathroom.
Ian set Denise in the tub and then looked up at me, smiling wolfishly as he pulled out a silver knife.
“Your not-quite-dead, vampire-who-eats-vampires status may have kept Wraith’s spell from working on you thus far, but we’re taking no chances. I’m carving a warding tattoo on you, and setting it with silver-infused ink, so brace yourself. This will hurt.”
Ten
Thanksgiving Day. I should’ve been home, gathered around a table filled with food that most of us would eat only because it was tradition. Instead, I was with Ian at a strip club whose broken neon sign advertised full nudity. Guess G-strings were considered too modest for this establishment. I only wished the managers were as strict in their policy about cleanliness. I’d been in some sleazy places before, but this one made me glad I couldn’t catch any of the germs that were no doubt crawling over every inch of the interior. I didn’t even drink my gin and tonic, because the glass still had clear impressions of other people’s lips on it.
The dancer’s thoughts revealed she was no happier to be here than I was, but she dutifully went about her act, gyrating, bending over, and otherwise showing enough of her assets to prove that the outdoor sign wasn’t false advertising. I waited until she was finished and then waved her over, stuffing some twenties into her garter—the only piece of clothing she wore. She relayed her thanks with a wide-stance hip thrust that I looked away from. I didn’t do it to see more of her lady parts; I did it since she’d been wondering how she was going to afford taking her son to the doctor because his cold hadn’t gotten any better.
Ian snickered. “For that much money, you could’ve had a few lap dances.”
“Stuff it,” I said wearily.
Where do you go if you’re looking for demons? Every place humans were most likely to be feeling desperate, according to Ian. Because of the unthinkable terms of a demonic deal, the people who were willing to agree to them felt like they had either nowhere else to turn, or nothing to lose. Over the past week, we’d spent enough time in hospices, homeless shelters, county jails, and mental-health facilities to make me thoroughly depressed for more reasons than not finding a hint of that telltale sulfur scent. Tomorrow, if we still struck out, we’d leave the state to hit other potential demonic hotspots, like casinos and the stock exchange.
On a holiday like Thanksgiving, strip clubs were filled with the very picture of dejection, with a generous side order of the required desperation. I could even smell it on them beneath the alcohol fumes and other less than aromatic scents from the club. Not that I pointed fingers. I knew from experience that being lonely on a holiday felt more intense than other days of the year.
Case in point: my current mood. Either depression was catching, or it was getting harder to stop brooding about the last conversation I’d had with Bones. I’d covered up the real reason behind my absence with an excuse about my old job needing my assistance. Normally, when you quit a job, your former employer couldn’t call you back, but my occupation had been hunting the undead for a covert brand of Homeland Security. It was feasible that I could’ve been reactivated for a mission. Plus, let’s face it: I had a track record, so my abrupt departure wouldn’t be that unheard of. Wraith might be suspicious, but he could only guess that I was really after him instead of helping my old team catch some rogue undeads.
But oh, Bones’s voice when I called to say I wasn’t coming back for a while. I didn’t know if his coldness had been influenced by the spell or by a very real sense of betrayal. I’d sworn never to take off again like this, but how could I explain that I had to break that promise because he wasn’t really Bones at the moment? I couldn’t, so, feeling heartsick, I’d hung up as quickly as possible.
When the door
opened, momentarily letting a blaze of sunshine into the darkened establishment, I almost didn’t bother looking up. Seeing another face mirroring my own emotional mix of determination and despondency would only hammer home how much I wished circumstances were different. But I did look, and though there was nothing unusual about the young man’s appearance, a wave of acrid air blew in with him.
Air that stank like sulfur.
My spirits lifted in a blink. Who’d have thought running into a demon would make someone’s day, but I almost clapped in delight. I didn’t wait for Ian, but bolted toward the newcomer, smiling broadly.
Maybe it was my smile that kept him from sensing danger. Maybe he hadn’t yet noticed that I didn’t have a heartbeat, or he felt secure because, compared to demons, vampires were easy to kill. Either way, he didn’t fight when I grabbed him and hustled him back outside.
“We need to talk,” I told him.
The demon laughed, staring me up and down. “I normally don’t like room-temperature meat, but for you, I’ll—”
His dubiously flattering statement was cut short when Ian appeared, wrenching the demon’s arms behind his back.
“As the lady told you,” Ian said pleasantly, “we need to have a word with you.”
The demon’s light brown eyes began to fill with red. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with, vampires.”
I reached into my jacket and pulled out a long, thin knife, holding it near the demon’s eye.
“As a matter of fact, we know exactly who we’re fucking with.”
Eleven
The Bite Before Christmas Page 14