Burned, p.5
Burned, page 5
“You sure know how to brighten a murderer’s day, Padre.”
“If you do this, Eric,” Ike began—his voice, not pleading, sounded more concerned for me than for himself—“where will it stop? How many tasks will you have to perform before you are free? Have you thought of that, my friend?”
I had, actually. It was all part of The Plan, but I couldn’t share that information with Ike or nearly anyone else, even the folks who knew part of it: Talbot, Magbidion . . . every new person was a risk. Hell, I hadn’t even told Greta.
Fang crashed through the doors of the church behind me, and Ike winced as the pews pulled out of the floor.
“I have a plan,” I said.
Ike laughed bitterly.
“I’m not stupid, Ike,” I told him. “I may have early-onset Alzheimer’s, and I may have spent a lot of years trying to ignore what was happening around me, trying to let the world spin by until Marilyn died and I went crazy, but that’s not what’s happening now. I got her back. She’s immortal. If I’m lucky, she might even learn to love me again. I just have to show her I’m worthy and that she’s worthy, too.”
“And killing me is step number one?” He spread his arms wide and knelt before me. “I can’t understand your logic, my friend. Not a bit. But I won’t fight you.”
“Think of it this way, Father . . .” I put my hands around his throat and began to squeeze.
Ike’s flesh didn’t burn me. I’d thought that it would have, even with the whole immortal-by-night thing going on. I tightened my grip and waited for his breathing to stop. When it did, I dashed out to Fang, grabbed the Blind Eye necklace, and returned to wrap it around the dead priest’s neck, arranging him neatly so that he stared up at the ceiling, his head tilted back to show the bruises still forming around his neck.
“Kill Father Ike,” I said aloud. “Done.”
“Good job, baby,” Rachel called from the broken church entrance. “I know it was hard.” She held her arms out to me. “But if there’s anything I can do to make you feel better . . .”
“Get away from me,” I snarled. “It’s done, and so is your job, so fuck off to wherever you fuck off to or I swear to God I’ll kill you and lay you out right next to him.”
“You’re so cute when you’re tough,” she said, but before I could charge, poof, she was gone. The compulsion to complete my task faded, and I went on with the next step of The Plan.
5
GRETA
MY TWO MOMS
Marilyn . . . No, that wasn’t right . . . And neither was “Old Mom,” now that she was back from the dead, young again, and apparently immortal. Mommortal?
No.
Mom.
Mom looked lost behind the counter at the Demon Heart. She’d been used to serving drinks and tending bar, not spraying disinfectant into used shoes and selling lane time. Her fingers twitched, eager for a cigarette, something to do with her hands, but the Demon Heart is nonsmoking. It smells better that way. I don’t really care about people’s health, but to a vampire’s nose, cigarettes smell extra bad. Cigars are nice, though; cigarillos, too. The aroma wakes up a really old memory in my head of some old guy who was very nice to me. I think I’ll eat a cigar smoker tonight.
Despite Mom’s discomfort, I was glad to see her. She was younger than when I’d first met her (and I’d known her since I was nine) and as pretty as the picture of her that Dad keeps in his wallet. The red and black of the Demon Heart Lanes bowling shirt suited her, even though she wore it unbuttoned like a jacket, the white T-shirt and tight jeans underneath showing her hourglass figure in a way that would have driven Dad crazy if he wasn’t out doing . . . stuff. Secret stuff. My problem with that was I didn’t know if it was supposed to be a secret from me, too, or if it only seemed secret because I was supposed to have figured it out on my own.
I sat on the burgundy felt of my favorite pool table in the Demon Heart, idly rolling a cue ball around and around. Blood dripped off my fingernails, marking the off-white of the ball with bright unclotted red.
A troll wearing a big gray hoodie bowled on lane twelve, keeping to himself. He was small for a troll, only about seven feet, but his mottled green skin and gnarled knuckles would have thrown up a big warning flare to anyone paying close attention. Or it would have if he hadn’t been paying some guild mage to cover the entire bowling alley with a spell to keep norms ignorant. His presence gave Magbidion time to go running off with Mags’s new friend, the midget bitch, to talk bad about me.
“Hey, uh, Greta,” one of Dad’s thralls—a mousy little blonde—said to me as she walked past with a big order of fried mushrooms for the troll. I smelled fear on her skin, beneath the smell of grease, hair spray, and deep-fried veggies. Then her name came to me.
“Hey, uh, Erin,” I said back. “Does my hair smell like smoke?”
She leaned forward instantly to sniff it. “No,” she answered. “Should it?”
I didn’t answer, and she hurried on her way with the tray. I like Daddy’s thralls. On the other hand, I’ve seen the way they watch Mom when they think she isn’t looking, like she’s a threat to them. No one was rude, but I could hear it in their breath, their heartbeats.
Dad would do a lot for any one of them, protect them, feed them, take care of them, even; but he wouldn’t go to hell for them like he had for me and for Marilyn.
I sensed New Mom’s . . . Tabitha’s . . . no, Stepmom’s approach and compared her style of dress. She was still outfitting herself like she worked in a strip club or burlesque. Tonight’s over-the-top-sexy attire resembled the collision of a Victoria’s Secret and a Calvin Klein catalog. I could dress that way, too, if I wanted, and be more impressive than she was. I’m taller than her, just over six feet, my breasts are bigger (and perkier), and I was in better shape when Dad turned me at twenty-one. My long blond hair stood out in contrast to the short cropped look she was sporting again. But I prefer to wear jeans and a T-shirt when I’m hunting, like Dad.
Stepmom saw Mom and stifled a sneer, walking in a wide arc to avoid her yet still approach my perch. I shifted my view from Mom to Stepmom slowly, rolling balls around the table with my hands.
“Where is he?” Stepmom asked.
“Beatrice said he took off in Fang an hour or so ago.” I picked up the eight ball and fought the urge to throw it, not because I felt like I shouldn’t but more because I couldn’t decide whom I wanted to hit with it. Who was married to Dad? Who was going to be married to Dad? And could I eat the other one to cut down on confusion?
“That’s just great.” Tabitha adjusted her bustier. “We were supposed to talk over . . . dinner.”
“He probably forgot.” I rolled the eight ball into the corner pocket and settled on the fourteen ball, spinning it on the table as if it were a top.
“He didn’t forget.” Stepmom looked at the clock.
“Maybe”—I stood up, my nail beds crawling with sensation as my claws slid out—“he did forget.” My eyes went red. “Or maybe you got the time wrong!” My jaw popped as my fangs tore through my gums and locked into place.
Or maybe—Dad popped into both of our heads as he got close enough for us to sense his presence—he got sent on his first little demonic errand and had to kill an old friend.
Who? Stepmom thought at him.
Ike, Dad thought back. And now there are representatives from Sable Oaks, the Shifters, and the Mages Guild to talk to me about more City Council shit. Can I get a rain check on our chat?
Oh, baby, Tabitha thought, they made you kill Father Ike?
But Dad had already cut her off.
Oh, get down, Stepmom said to me irritably. Eric wouldn’t let us kill each other anyway.
Not that you even know how to end me, I thought to myself. While I keep what it takes to end you in Fang’s trunk—and a duplicate set in my room in the panel hidden under my recliner. I jumped off the pool table just the same.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” I said. My claws retracted, fangs receded. “I took my shoes off first.”
“Sorry.” Stepmom rubbed her eyes, glancing over at the troll and his mage. “You know what? You’re right. Sit on the pool table all night. It’s fine.”
“Thanks,” I said. Not that I need your permission. Unless she was really going to be Mom instead of Stepmom. Then maybe I did need her permission.
“Will you tell your father I went to my apartment?” Stepmom asked.
“Why don’t you just stay with Dad?” I slid my sneakers on without bothering to untie them. “You could stay in my room until he’s done with his meeting,” I added hopefully. “I cleaned it up.”
“Not yet,” Stepmom said. “Your dad and I need a little time apart.”
I’d heard that before. It wasn’t as though Dad hadn’t had plenty of girlfriends before; he just hadn’t married any of them before Tabitha.
“Okay.”
She turned to walk away, then stopped, turned back around, and lightly touched my arm. “You know this has nothing to do with you, right?”
“Yeah,” I answered. I’d heard that before, too. It came before bad times and foster homes. Her fingers tightened around my arm incrementally—a gentle squeeze—and then she left. Mom watched her go without a word.
Mom came up to me next. She still smelled like smoke, but not like sickness or old age. A slight tang of disinfectant and sweaty feet hovered around her forearms, but her heartbeat . . .
“Can I?” I asked.
Mom let out a single braying “ha,” following it up with “Knock yourself out, kiddo.”
I rested my head against her chest, feeling the drive of her healthy circulatory system, blood coursing through her veins without the slow buildup of plaque she’d had when she’d been old. Her lifeblood flowed smoothly, the rhythm of her heart: pristine and good.
“You’re so healthy.” I hugged her around the waist and lifted her into the air. “Dad did good.”
“I wasn’t worth it.” It was a lie; her heartbeat betrayed her.
“Fibber.” I put her down again. “You’re glad to be back.”
“I’m glad to be back,” she admitted. “But it wasn’t worth the cost. I know he hasn’t had to do anything yet—”
“Sure he has.” I pointed to the television in the game room. “We were just talking about it.” Above the caption BREAKING NEWS, a blond newscaster blabbed on about the scene behind her. Father Ike’s church was in flames.
“My God.” Marilyn gripped the edge of the pool table. “He had to burn down the church? Why?”
“No, silly. He had to kill Father Ike, and then he burned the church down for free. Nothing big or horrible. The fire smelled nice. It must have been the incense or something . . .”
I was surprised when she threw up. I hope she’s not catching that stomach bug that’s been going around.
6
ERIC
PUTTING OUT OLD FLAMES
A vampire, an Alpha werewolf, and two mages were waiting for me in the Pollux lobby. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it wasn’t. The vampire, Lady Gabriella, represented the Sable Oaks contingent, the surviving group of High Society vamps who’d escaped my attack on the Highland Towers and the subsequent attack by “unknown individuals” on Winter’s club, the Artiste Unknown.
I sensed Gabby on the way in. Her recently dyed black hair hung loose and long, as unfamiliar as her modern apparel. She was one of those vamps who preferred old-style clothes, real Renaissance stuff, fancy brocade gowns and the like, but given recent developments, she—like most of the remaining supernatural citizens—was finally having to learn how to blend in. For her, that meant designer slacks and a matching silk blouse. She looked uncomfortable wearing pants in mixed company.
“Lord Eric.” She inclined her head, offering her neck.
“Don’t start with that shit, Gabby.” I waved off the formality.
The Alpha was William, the occasionally overzealous leader and reverend of the local werewolf pack that claimed the Orchard Lake area. His hair had begun to go a little gray around the edges, but he was a big guy, a good half a foot taller than my five-ten. He held a Bible in his hand, and every time he shifted his grip on the book, Gabby surreptitiously checked its potential trajectory.
William nodded. “Good evening, Eric.”
“Hey, Bill.”
One of the mages belonged to me: Magbidion, one of my thralls. His immediately apparent nervousness bothered me more than the presence of the other mage.
“This is Paula Mallory?” Magbidion indicated the four-foot-tall woman next to him, making it a question, like he wasn’t sure.
“She’s a fuck’n midget,” I said. “Sorry. Shit. What’s the term now? Little person.”
The young dark-haired woman raised an eyebrow. “Aw. How sweet. Someone’s been watching Little People, Big World.”
“No. I just got the last season of Boston Legal. You look like . . . what’s her face? She played the short lawyer . . .”
“Candice Bergen?” Paula smiled sweetly, batting her eyelashes.
“Candice Bergen’s not a midget.” I let myself wince slightly after the fact. I wasn’t trying to offend her, but people have to remember, I’m effectively in my eighties, and the “correct” words have changed a lot over the years.
She laughed. “Meredith Eaton, then?”
“I guess.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Paula said. “She’s hot.”
So was Paula. She wore a red pantsuit that must have been altered to show as much cleavage as it did. A single ruby on a platinum chain hung around her neck. Long dark hair with subtle red highlights framed her face, and her makeup was warmer than I expected from a gal wearing that type of business suit. A golden rune was etched into each painted red fingernail, and a single gold piercing glittered between her chin and lower lip. She felt like magic all over, exuded it. Warmth, too . . . more than a fever. Like she was her own little space heater.
“So are you.” My face twitched. “That’s not a hit, by the way,” I added quickly, “observation only. No flirting intended.” Then it struck. “Wait. Paula? Shouldn’t you have an M name?” Don’t all mages have M names?
“Shouldn’t you be named Varney or Vladimir or something?”
“I didn’t know we were actually trying to be rude.” I winked. “Do I get to break out the C word now, or do I have to start with the B word and work up to it?”
“Okay.” She chuckled. “Okay. A mage traditionally picks a working name that matches the first letter of her specialty. A garden-variety multipurpose mage gets an M name. A specialist can go with an M or with the letter signifying her area of expertise.”
“P.” I added it up. “Pyromancer?”
Her runes flared. The inside of her mouth glowed a fiery orange—a jack-o’-lantern effect I could see right through her skin as well as through her open smile—and her irises lit up in a matching shade. “That’s me.”
“Burn down my building, and I’m killing every mage in the city except for Melvin and Magbidion.”
She laughed again, a single brightly accented squeal. “Oh, please, I think we both know I’d toast you.”
“Try it and I’ll sic my car on you.”
“Steel frame?” Paula narrowed one eye, bobbing her head slightly from side to side as she weighed the options, her hands mimicking the movements of a scale. “Steel vaporizes at about fifty-five hundred degrees Fahrenheit . . . I can get that hot, but it’s a pain in the butt, and it does horrible things to my hair. Wouldn’t have to vaporize it, though. Steel melts at what? Twenty-five hundred degrees Fahrenheit? I think it’s a safe bet you’d both be nice and melty before you ever laid a hand on me. You might come back, of course, but if there’s one thing I’m not short on, it’s BTUs.”
“That wasn’t some sort of weird come-on, was it?” I asked.
They all stared at me. I stared back. Paula shook her head, a definite no. Whew.
“So . . .” I let the vowel sound linger on until it became an inquiry. “You guys are all cluttering up my movie theater because . . . ?”
“I believe we’re still waiting on Captain Stacey?” Gabby said.
I’d opened my mouth to make his excuses when Katherine Marx walked in. I’m sure it looked like I was checking her out when I glanced down at her chest, but I was really just making sure Magbidion’s spell was still in place. When a vampire makes a thrall, the thrall gets a blood tattoo. To a vampire who has made a thrall, that tattoo can show up even through clothing. Katherine asked me to put hers right over her heart. I couldn’t sense her thralldom, and since that was a power I had all the time—even at night—probably because of Fang, I hoped the others wouldn’t be able to sense it, either.
Katherine had cleaned up so well that I didn’t think anyone present would smell Stacey’s blood on her. I couldn’t, but that wasn’t a sure sign, given how different my daytime vampire powers are from my nighttime true immortal powers.
Katherine wore the dark blue uniform of a VCPD police officer; the only sign of her different status was the SWAT patch on her shoulder. She was model-pretty when you got past the cop aura, though most people wouldn’t. I thought the shotgun she was carrying might be a little over-the-top, but she was a human among the supernatural, and if it made her feel safer, who was I to object to a tiny equalizer?
“Sorry I’m late,” she said to all of us, then directed the last to me as if mine were the only opinion that mattered. “Mr. Courtney.”
“Is Captain Stacey okay?” William asked.
“He was a pussy, and I fired him,” I said curtly. “Marx is handling things now, and she’s better than Stacey because she has a pussy but isn’t one.” Gabby looked offended. Paula cracked a smile. Marx was cold as ice and twice as frosty. “So what the hell are we here to talk about?”
“Eric,” William began, “you know what this is about.”
“You promised to consider it,” Gabby added. “And we’ve brought in the Mages Guild, as requested.”
