“Okay, one margarita and one Sprite.” The waitress looked up from her pad, catching sight of Mira.
“Um, she’s part of a performance I have later,” I lied, knowing it would sound real enough in a city like this.
The waitress shrugged with a wink. “She’s pretty.” Then she sauntered off to the bar.
“Of course she is,” said Kat in baby talk, scratching under Mira’s beak. “So what performance do you have later?” she asked. “The Lady and the Hawk?”
“That has a nice ring to it. I think that was a movie.
Ladyhawke
, actually. Mira, hop down over here please.”
She did, perching on the vacant chair to my right, huddling into a ball, her orange-gold gaze narrowed but watchful.
“Really? That was a movie?”
“Yeah. Seriously old one. With the guy who played Ferris Bueller.”
“Who’s Ferris Bueller?”
“You have to know who Ferris Bueller is, Kat. What is it with you demon hunters? You’ve been around longer than I have, but you know next to nothing about pop culture.”
“Soo-rry. It must’ve been a tragically important film.”
“Yeah. It was. To every teenager who ever lived. John Hughes understood the stolen joys and abject misery of adolescence better than anyone.”
“Who’s John Hughes?”
I froze with a chip dipped in salsa halfway to my mouth. “I can’t believe you just asked me that question.”
Fuchsia Bangs set down a jumbo margarita glass rimmed with salt, and a Sprite. “Here you are.” She handed me a straw.
“Thank you. Excuse me, do you know who John Hughes is?”
She scoffed, which sounded more like a snort. “Of course I do. Director of
Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles
. I mean, come on. Everyone knows who John Hughes is.”
“See!” I glared across the table.
Kat tossed the straw out of her glass and took a big gulp of her margarita. “Oh well. I think I’ll survive.”
Our punk-rock waitress stared blankly for a few seconds.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “She’s foreign. I’ll amend this tragedy as soon as possible.”
“Right. So what can I get you ladies for dinner?”
Kat ordered some quesadillas, and I ordered the largest burrito they had with extra everything on top.
“I thought you had a stomachache,” said Kat with a suspicious expression.
Oops.
“Oh well, yeah. But I think maybe I’m just overly hungry.” After we handed over the menus, I crossed my arms on the table and leaned forward, eager to change the subject. “Tell me what’s up with Gorham and Razor. You said they were up to something.”
Kat plucked the lime wedge from her drink and sucked on it before folding it in a napkin. “For one, Gorham hasn’t been to his club in over a week.”
“I’m assuming that’s unusual for him?”
“Very. One thing about Gorham is he loves his little kingdom on the seedy side of the city. But he’s been disappearing for days and up to a week at a time with Razor.”
“No idea where they’re going?”
“Nope, but they report to Bamal’s tower on a regular basis. They’re scheming. And no sign of Bamal’s Vessel at all. Not since the incident in Paris.”
A few weeks ago, the civilized world was turned upside down when a terrorist bombed the Eiffel Tower in Paris, killing hundreds of tourists. What authorities didn’t know was that the woman shrouded in a black burka, concealing her identity, was in fact a Vessel of a demon prince intent on wreaking havoc upon the human world.
“They’re keeping her hidden and safe for the night of the Blood Moon, aren’t they?”
“Definitely.” Kat swirled her straw in her drink. “But while all is quiet on that end, there’s demon activity everywhere. Clubs, parties, weddings, even at damn fundraising events. You know, I had to expel four demons from a charity ball for children with cancer last week. They were stirring animosity among the two top patrons who happened to hate each other. It was an all-out brawl by the time I got there.”
“
Damn.
That’s bad. I’m surprised Dorian let you go for even a night,” I said.
As her partner hunter in New York, he was an excellent warrior, but they needed more than one watching Bamal’s territory.
She tossed her straw aside and took a gulp of her margarita, which made my mouth water. “Well, he’s worried about you too, believe it or not, and wants me to be sure you’re okay without…” She put her drink down with an uncomfortable clink.
“Without Jude,” I finished for her.
Kat leaned forward into the light and pulled something from a loose strand of my hair. She inspected the piece of kindling. I supposed I hadn’t cared to take care of myself much these days.
“Sticks, Genevieve? Are you ever going to tell me where you’ve been going? And why you smell like sheep and the sea?”
I shook my head. “Not until we get Jude back. It’s his secret.”
“I bet you told George.”
Her otherworldly eyes swirled more green than black, twinkling brighter at the mere mention of George. Gazing at her now, I could only think of her pinned to the wall while Prince Damas ravaged her…all to her delight. She caught me. I stirred the ice in my glass with the straw, cubes tinkling as they circled.
“What?” Kat sat back in her chair, expression wiped of all humor. “What’s that face mean? Tell me.”
I squirmed but sat up straighter, trying to find the courage. I wanted answers only she could give me. I could never breathe a word to George of the vision I’d seen. To know what I’d witnessed in his mind would devastate him even more than Kat.
“Tell me, Gen.”
I tucked my hands between my crossed legs to keep from fidgeting. “You know that I sometimes see visions or memories of George’s.”
“Yes.” I could practically feel her heartbeat speeding erratically.
“I saw one…of you…when he went to find you with Damas.”
She dropped her head forward. “What did you see?”
“You were in a bedroom in a castle, I think.”
The place had felt so familiar, like Danté’s fortress, where he’d abducted me.
“You were chained to a wall, but—” I couldn’t complete the thought aloud.
She sat up slowly with a sad laugh. Shaking her head, she grabbed the margarita and drained it in three gulps.
“Of all the visions of me to see, you picked that one.”
“I didn’t pick it. I have no control over what I see. My VS just lights up, and I can’t stop it.”
“It’s okay.” She spread her fingers, palm down, on the table, then rolled up her long sleeve. It had never registered that Kat always wore long-sleeve tops—usually black. I just figured it was some kind of personal demon-hunter uniform she instilled for herself. But when she rolled the other sleeve up her forearm and flattened both palms on the table, I realized why. I’d seen her in a dress before, when we went to dinner with George and Jude the first time, and at the Crescent City Masquerade Ball. Both times, she’d worn bangle bracelets or cuffs on both wrists. I’d only thought it her fashion sense, not pretty camouflage for what she hid beneath.
I gasped.
Ringed around her pale wrists were circular silver scars. Kat rolled her wrists on the table, palms up, showing me how they wrapped in a complete circle.
“I’m reminded every day of what happened there. These dungeon bracelets”—she rolled her fists in the air, the lamplight shining on the silvery rings—“they remind me of my own weakness.”
“Weakness?” I asked too loudly. The couple two tables over glanced in our direction. Mira’s eyes popped open. Kat shushed me with a finger to her lips. She pushed her sleeves back into place, then petted Mira’s snowy head till she closed her eyes again.
“How can you possibly say this shows weakness?” I asked.
“Because Damas had won,” she said casually, continuing her attentions to Mira, who dozed again. “Prince Bamal plays the big man in New York. But mark my words, when his brother finally resurfaces for this war,
that
is who we’ll truly have to battle for our very souls. He plays dirty, and he always wins.” Her voice cracked.
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Here we are,” said our too-cheery waitress. “One pulled-pork burrito with everything, and the gulf shrimp quesadillas.”
Kat dropped her gaze to her lap. I gave Fuchsia Bangs a halfhearted smile. She got the message and disappeared.
Kat lifted her chin, swallowing hard. “I want to tell you. I’ve held it in too long. George doesn’t understand.” She fiddled with the napkin in her lap but took a deep breath and held my gaze. “Damas doesn’t torture. He doesn’t maim or hurt to get what he wants.”
“But he handcuffed you.”
“To keep me from running away. I tried…at first.”
Fuchsia Bangs popped up to the table and set a second margarita in front of Kat. “Looked like you needed another. It’s on me.” She winked and jerked her chin at the good-looking guy behind the bar with a tattoo snaking up the side of his neck. “The bartender and I are friends…with benefits.”
Apparently, the benefits included free drinks. “Thanks,” I said.
Kat knocked back two gulps. Regaining her composure, she resettled in her chair, her face hard and cold.
“Damas is the king of them all when it comes to deception. He makes promises. He seduces. He’s extremely intelligent. And above all, he’s patient. I had no idea who or what I was up against until it was too late.” She bit her lip at another memory that seemed to flash through her mind. “I didn’t know I was the prize he’d wanted all along—a reward in this game he’d been playing against George. When I”—she flipped her sleek ponytail to fall down her back—“when I was handcuffed in his lair, he fed me, even bathed me right there in his bedchamber. He took care of my every need. He talked to me and told me stories.” She paused. A crooked smile lifted one side of her mouth. “Stories that made me pity him, then later feel more for him. I was kept in captivity a very long time. After a while, I thought I’d never leave.”
The last she whispered.
“He never forced himself on me. Ever. He wasn’t like his dickhead brother, Danté.”
Danté had kidnapped me and had certainly planned to take me by force. That was, until Jude showed up and chopped off his head, then fed him piece by piece to Cocytus, the banshee-like soul eater. I shivered at the memory of her gulping down his body. He got what he deserved, but it was a gruesome vision all the same.
“What was he like?” I prompted Kat gently, as she’d slipped away to her haunted past for a moment.
“He just slowly crept into my mind, then my heart. I’d get angry and scream at him that George would come for me. He’d give me this sad sigh and tell me George would never come. That George never loved me.”
This was the first time I’d ever heard her mention there was once love between them. Perhaps still was. I knew they’d shared a past, but love?
“After a while, I started to believe him and all his beautiful lies that followed. I was so alone, so desperate to feel anything but the aching emptiness. I longed for affection, for comfort. One day, he unchained me. I didn’t try to run. I never even left his bedroom. Then one night, he had a particular look in his eyes—an expression I’d seen often enough on men. Though up until that night, I’d only had two lovers, my then-deceased husband…and George.” She glanced up for my reaction. I kept my cool and let her spill her heart. “Damas told me I needed to be cuffed for my own good. He didn’t trust me. I cried and begged and told him I was completely devoted to him. He smiled when I said things like that. God, the thought makes me sick now.
“Once I was chained, he put his hands on me without asking for the first time. He whispered in my ear with his body pressed to mine. I’ll never forget his words. ‘I need to bind you, Katherine. Now, you will submit to me, because you have no choice. Now, you will let me fuck you the way you want me to, because you have no choice. Now, you will beg me to be your king, your lover and your master.’ And he was right.”
Two tears slipped down her pale cheeks. I reached over and grabbed one hand. She let me take it.
“I was weak, Gen. And I’ll never forgive myself.” She pulled her hand from mine and let out a soft sob into her napkin. I was thankful we were sitting in the secluded corner so she could have some privacy. She needed a minute or two to let it all out.
“How long were you kept there in captivity?” I asked.
She shrugged a shoulder. “Decades.”
“Decades?” For a second, I’d forgotten that she, like all Flamma, were ageless. But…decades? With a silver-tongued demon prince.
“When I went in, it was the early 1800s. When I left…when George came and took me away, the United States was on the verge of the Civil War.”
“And New York needed a demon hunter, didn’t it?”
“Yes. And I needed to be far away from my homeland and all memory of what I was before.”
I wouldn’t give Kat cheap or false words. She knew the truth of what had happened, and there was nothing I could say to erase or change it. But I sure knew of one way to make her feel better. Something I’d been itching to do myself.