Poison Kissed (12 page)

He can’t live like this, not with her name always on his lips and her fascinating female scent forever on his tongue. Already he’s left Vincent and Iridium alone with Delilah to be with her, and no doubt they’ve cooked up some vile treacherous stew in his absence.

Decision stings like rust in his mouth. He can’t do this anymore. If she’s false, she should die.

To let her live is weakness. He should relish her death. The cruel snap of her neck in his fingers, her last desperate gasp as the blood drains from her pretty lips . . .

His guts squirm tight. He can’t. Not her. Can he?

Whatever. He’ll deal with that when the time comes. Even if she’s true, he’ll have to get rid of her. She’s a dangerous distraction. He’s obsessed with her, and he can afford only one obsession at a time.

He snaps black spines flat against his skull and rearranges his hair with a toss of his head. If tempting him is her game, he’s tougher than she thinks. He’ll resist her. Make her work for it, humiliate herself, twist herself inside out for his attention. Make her beg for a glance, a caress, just one more kiss.

And then, he’ll be rid of her, one way or the other.

In the stairwell, I squeezed my eyes shut, my pulse a mess. From the landing, his footsteps rang gluggy in my ears, the click of his cane on the marble as he stepped into the elevator muffled and soft. I waited, shivering, until I knew he was gone, and then I slumped in the corner, hugging my knees tight to my sweating breasts.

My stomach hurt. Hot tears hacked at my eyelids, but I didn’t let them flow.

It couldn’t be true.

But it must be.

Cobalt had no reason to lie. He’d never shown me false before. And the images felt so real, stabbing in my memory like the nightmare you have over and over again until it comes true and you see it while you’re awake. The figures stalking you. The smells and screams and gunshots following you everywhere.

Joey killed my mother. Shot her coldly and without mercy as she lay screaming on the floor, begging for help. No one else there. No reason he couldn’t just leave her there alone.

I never knew who’d beaten her. I didn’t see who’d left her lying there, bleeding and broken, driven half-mad by the things they did to her.

Now, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care. All I cared was that he’d betrayed me.

Black hatred spilled into my heart, overflowing, running down my body like evil helljuice, scorching me forever with pitted scars.

Joey, who despised treachery above all else. I’d looked up to him. Imitated him. Respected him for being the only one of us who never took an unnecessary shot, never loved violence for its own sake or raised a needless hand in anger.

I hugged myself tighter, taking refuge once more in my black leather carapace, letting it shield me, mold me, temper me sharp. My stupid girlish attraction had blinded me. I saw that now. I’d mistaken his taunts for encouragement. His tricks for praise. His sick humor for compassion. He’d known me all along for who I was, and it amused him to watch me scramble for his affection. He’d laughed at me, despised me for five ugly years, while the whole time I’d wanted to be just like him.

Liar. Hypocrite. Evil fucking prick.

To think I’d wanted to be his lover.

Resolution hardened in my bones like molten steel. I had a choice. I could run, skittle off into the night like a spooked rabbit to hide and lick my wounds.

Or I could fight. Stay close to him, so he’d get no chance to hear me creeping up. Use all my beauty and wits to charm him, beguile him into trusting me. Seduce him, my body and my song and my sweet poison kiss. Tempt him into showing weakness. And then, I’d unsheathe my knives and cut out his heart.

But not before he knew. Not before I dragged his head back and forced him to look into my eyes and said,
This is for my mother, you evil snake-hearted liar.

Cruel anticipation caressed me. His little protégé, turning on him. Darkly, I imagined his surprise, the dumbfounded look on his face, and warm anticipation spilled into my belly. He’d shift, I’d sing him immobile. He’d fight me, but I’d be faster, tougher, stronger, everything he said he wanted me to be.

Revenge. At last. And all the sweeter for stabbing him right through his treacherous black heart.

My blood burned. I snarled, unfolded my arms, and whipsnapped to my feet.

My reflexes didn’t respond, and I stumbled, my ankle twisting in a stab of agony.

I gripped the wall and gritted my teeth, determined to ignore the ripple of worry in my blood. My pulse throbbed sickly in my ears, deafening me. I was hungover, that was all. It’d pass.

I should call Cobalt, tell him I was okay, say sorry for what I’d done. Thank him for showing me the truth. Ask if he’d forgive me. He wasn’t a bad shag, after all that, and I sorta liked him. Maybe when this was over, we could hook up, do some lines, have a party.

Might as well. Nothing to save myself for anymore.

I limped into my flat, where the setting sun glared ruby accusation through dusty windows. Joey’s lingering minty scent lit a raging flame beneath my anger, and I slammed the door so hard, it rattled.

I’d shower. Eat. Rest. Gather my strength. And tonight, down at the docks, I’d have him.

10

Kane hops up smooth slate steps in summer heat, late afternoon sunlight glaring off the dark bluestone walls towering above him. The bronzecast figures in the stone archway groan in protest as he passes beneath. The massive oak door swings open at his flame-wreathed touch, and he wanders into church.

Shadow’s too afraid to meet him anywhere else, and Kane’s lips twitch in a hellhappy smile, remembering the night the city fell, the crosses burning, the tearing sound of feathers ripped away, the tortured screams of heaven’s children.

The satisfying crunch of bloody godflesh between his teeth.

If Shadow thinks sacred ground will save him, he’s been away too long.

Shafts of sunlight painted yellow and orange slant tall into the nave from dusty arched windows. Black and white floor tiles alternate in patterns. Pews lie silent and straight, only a few hunched figures marring the symmetry.

Kane’s nose itches in the thick stink of pollen. He sniffs and stalks up the aisle, and candles in the nave gutter at his passing. He gives the altar a cursory nod, in case anyone’s watching up there, and in the soapstone font, holy water boils and evaporates in a hiss of steam.

In the front pew, striped in shadows, a bruised-eyed girl stares at him, her hands still clenched in prayer. Her skinny knees smear on the tiles. A crucifix glints around her neck, the chain tangled in neglected brown wisps. Beside her, a green shopping bag overflows with colored clothing, a plastic bag of jelly beans, a yellow teddy bear.

Death tingles Kane’s tongue, salty and delicious. He inhales, desperation and grief and endless days spent crouched beside a starched white hospital bed, the crucifix on the wall, the shadow of that skinny dead god falling on the heart monitor’s weak green blips. His nails blush an angry blue. So many lies. At least he’s honest.

He smiles at her as gently as he can, ice crackling in his golden hair. “Twenty-six hours.”

Her throat bobs. “What?”

“Your little girl will die. The doctors can’t help her.” He points at the altar and leans over to whisper. “They don’t listen, you know. Too busy hiding. They can’t even hear you.”

“That’s a horrid thing to say.” Her voice cracks. Tears shine her eyes silver, and she tugs at her dress with desperate, tired hands.

“Twenty-six hours, Joanna. Don’t waste them here.” Kane shrugs, and flips out a card between two fingers. “When you’re done believing? Call me.”

She stares, her mouth quivering, and finally she snatches the card and her bag and hurries away.

“That was cruel.” The flat voice slithers in his ear, wormlike, and Kane turns, imagined soulblood still stickyrich in his throat.

Shadow lounges in the opposite pew, fluffy whiteblond hair glowing orange in the hot sun. His big body is relaxed, the same nondescript human-suit they all wear when they come here. White suit, white skin, white hair, his mouth easy in a bland half smile. Shadow’s real appearance is even more cringeworthy, feathers and baby curls and shimmerbright glory shining all over the fucking place like a bad smell. But angels can’t come here whole, not since Kane won the war.

Shadow’s shockblue eyes are calm, unblinking. But his fingers twitch in his lap, barely perceptible, and satisfaction blackens Kane’s heart. Shadow doesn’t like it here.

Here doesn’t like Shadow, either.

Kane resists a feral snarl, and instead plonks down on the cool hard seat next to Shadow, arranging his suit so it won’t crush. “No crueler than promising the impossible. I’m not here to play nice with you. Call off your maggoty little spies. They’re not welcome.”

Shadow lifts blond eyebrows, a perfect facsimile of innocence. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

Kane’s nails blacken, gouging holes in the cedarwood pew, and obsidian shards spit from his teeth. “I eat the screeching little fuckers, angeldirt. I know where they come from.”

Calmly, Shadow brushes charcoal from his pale sleeve. “Surely there’s some mistake—”

“Don’t gamble with me. You’ll lose. This city’s mine. The war’s over.”

Shadow laughs, a dull echo. “My dear hellminion, you mistake me. I’ve no intention—”

Kane hisses, flames licking his hair, needle teeth snapping an inch from Shadow’s flowerstinking ear.

Shadow doesn’t flinch. Just stares at him, heavenblue.

Kane’s stomach growls for flesh, and his mouth springs full of greedy spit. “Swallow your rotting lies before I cram them down your throat. Last chance, shitworm. Get rid of your garbage, or I’ll get rid of it for you.” He whirls to his feet and stalks down the aisle, and as he passes, the prayer books tucked into the backs of the pews burst into flame. Petty. Beneath him. He doesn’t care.

Fury still whets his teeth sharp as the door slams behind him. Sun glares in his eyes, the soothing scarlet shade of home. He strides into the leafy church park to escape the righteous stench, and his footsteps sear brown patches into the verdant lawn. He paces beneath creaking plane trees, traffic’s buzz and the greasy city smells calming him. With an effort, he shrinks springing blue hair back to blond and swallows his rage to let his thoughts flow unchecked.

He doesn’t believe Shadow for a moment. But the gutworm is audacious. Cheeky. Unafraid. Not his usual scumsucking minion act. Something’s changed since last they quarreled.

Almost like Shadow’s got top cover. Help. An accomplice, even.

Kane’s nails sharpen again, and he yanks out his phone and dials.

A fashionably long time before she answers. “Yes?” Delilah’s voice purrs, like she’s luxuriating in a warm bath.

Even down the phone line, he can smell her, charcoal and delicious demon flesh. “I’ve changed my mind.”

She laughs, crystal. “Extraordinary. I’ll call the press immediately. What in hell are you on about?”

“About getting to know you. Meet me tonight.”

No answer. But excitement clicks in her throat.

She didn’t expect that. Kane smiles. “Not busy, are you?”

“Of course not. I’d be delighted. The Court?” Tension shines in her voice.

“No. Somewhere private. For dinner. The Crystal Club. Wear something I’ll like.”

She laughs again, faking a dismissal. “Are you teasing me? They don’t do dinner at the Crystal, last I heard.”

“They do when I tell them to. Midnight.”

Her anticipation shimmers. “Whatever you say, darling.”

“You’re learning.” He hangs up, his own anticipation a dark and cunning flame in his guts. Delilah can’t hide her schemes from him, not in person. If she’s in on Shadow’s deception, he’ll find out, and the fun he’ll have teasing the truth from her will be worth spending the evening listening to her arrogant little lies and putting up with her bilious efforts to earn his favor.

Besides, he’s hungry. For more than food, or soulflesh. It could be her lucky night.

A child totters on unsteady legs along the pebbled path in front of him, reaching up a fat little hand for the sun. The mother calls a warning, but the baby tumbles onto its nappy-wrapped bottom at Kane’s ankles.

Kane picks it up and sets it gently on its feet. “Not yet,” he whispers. “Grow first. Then we’ll talk.”

Its belly feels warm and soft, and for a moment Kane’s hungry claws dig in. The baby gazes at him with wide gray eyes and giggles, blowing bubbles. Kane’s sluggish heart warms. Pretty little thing.

The mother runs up and swings the child into her skinny arms, suspicion welling deep in her eyes.

“He’ll be an engineer, Alice.” Kane offers his best smile. “And good at sports. Just don’t let him near his grandfather.”

Her mouth twists, but guilt fractures her gaze. She clenches her teeth and backs off with a hiss. “Get away from him, you freak!”

Kane straightens his tie, winks at the little boy over her shoulder, and walks away.

Deep in the abandoned train tunnel, where rats scuttle in the dark and the echoes of darker monsters long dead ring and fade with the seasons, a tiny draft lifts the stifling air. Drops of water plink like clockwork. Rockworks long left half-finished, tools discarded, rusted track segments lying unused in the rubble-strewn ditch.

Grimy white wall laid in cracked tiles, black curves spelling a name long unreadable. On the half-built platform, sick yellow light wafts like mustard gas, sugary sweat and fluid gone stale, listless campfires and buzzing electric light gloating over prostrate bodies.

All fae. All limp, listless, wings drooping, skin sickly pale in shades of green and blue and scarlet. A pile of sleeping fairies, limbs entwined, wings fluttering limply in nightmares that boil the air black above them. A few of them fondle each other, blind and numb, their bodies famished for sensation.

A starved blue spriggan snuffles giggling at the wall’s base for ants, his limbs blistered with sores. A skinny glass fairy slumps in a crooked archway, his orange eyes glowing dully, fixated on deep cracks that spread slowly up his arms, crackle, crunch. At his feet a white-haired banshee howls weakly and claws the concrete, blood oozing from ripped nails.

Litter scatters the floor, torn clothing, empty plastic takeout containers, charred cardboard, a cockroach-chewed hamburger fragment still dangling limp lettuce.

Silence, split only by moans. Stink, rotten food, and stale bodies. Rank humidity.

At a rusted folding table, Ivy mutters and pokes at her collection, long golden fingers flittering in a fairyglow halo. Glasses, bowls, vials lined up in moldering spice racks, row upon row of stolen essences, thoughts, memories, magic. Liquid sparkles in each, one emerald green, the next silver, the next raspberry like blood.

All emotions, sucked with magic-laced kisses from those willing fairy victims, like wickedbright soup through a straw. Sometimes memories, sweet or sad, a lover, a sunset, the nicest day of their life. Often they’ll sell for cash, a trick, or another tastier drug. These fairies are too hopeless to care.

Myriad scents swirl and combine, sour jealousy, spicy rage, love bitter like daisies. A kerosene lamp reeks at her side, casting rainbow shadows through the glass.

“Christ’s bleeding ass, it stinks like a trollwhore’s crack in here.” Delilah pushes a limp body from her path with one pointed toe and picks her way onto the platform, her pretty white dress silly and strange in the squalor. Her heels click, echoing along with her nasty demon voice, down the tunnel and back again like it’s been to hell. “You got what I asked for?”

“Mmm.” Ivy swallows from a rusty bowl, glittering red spelljuice salty on her tongue. Her blood stirs, and she sighs, lost. This one’s a memory. A fairy boy’s meaty lust, warm wet flesh on his cock, muscles straining, lips melting together, the iron flashburst of orgasm. How glorious, to be desired. Pleasure warms her belly. But too soon the feeling fades, and with a forlorn ache in her guts, she chooses a smeared drinking glass at random and samples that one, too.

Violet sourness stings her tongue. Oh, yes. Her bones shudder, and she groans, her fingers curling to hungry talons. Rage, pure and burning, the reckless need to destroy, flashes of a thwarted troll boy screaming in fury, fists bursting tight, his vision misting crimson.

Lust and anger. A heady mixture. Ripe for crime and rampage.

She pops the cork from an empty glass vial and puffs a gentle breath across the opening. Sparkles rain like wing-glitter, deep cabernet red, angry violet swirling within. A fine cocktail for destruction. Should be a big seller.

She grins and stuffs the cork back in, leaning back to admire her spellcraft. The sparkling magic seethes, longing to escape. She clicks her tongue. “Nonono. You stay in there, tastysauce.”

“I said, you got it?”

Ivy’s wings jerk back, her heart racing. She thought she was alone. Wasn’t she?

Delilah stalks up, one hand on her hip, her winedark hair tossed over one slim brown shoulder. She’s wearing a long white dress, and the hem’s getting dirty. A scowl mars her face.

Pretty things shouldn’t scowl. If Ivy were pretty like she used to be, she’d never frown again.

Ivy plops the spell in the spice rack and wafts torn white wings, disturbed. What did Delilah ask for? She wriggles sly fingers, pretending she hasn’t forgotten. “Didn’t say what you wanted it for.”

“Cheeky, aren’t you? Since you ask, I have a date. An adversary who needs . . . softening up. And I can’t use demonspells on him. I want something strong. Persuasive. Seductive. And I want it now. You got me?”

A memory glimmers, and relief washes Ivy warm. She’s got just the thing. But no need to give it away for nothing. She rubs crafty palms together, claws shining, and lifts her chin airily. “None left. I’m right out. Come back tomorrow.”

“Oh, no. Today. Now. No less.”

Ivy clicks her tongue in mock concern. “Well, that’d be some extra work, now, wouldn’t it? Only so many creatures to torture.” She waves her hand at the listless bodies on the floor, already drained of their emotions to make her toys. Suck out too much in one day, and they’ll wear out. But never mind. Diamond can always bring her more.

Rich demon laughter. “Oh, I like you, Ivy. You’re a lady after my own heart.”

Ivy folds a multiknuckled finger under her chin, pretending to consider. “So . . . say I could make an exception. What would be in it for me? Hmmm?”

Delilah glides closer, swaying those curving hips, and avarice glitters in her smile. “Whatever you like.” She leans in and sniffs Ivy’s mouth, and exhales deliberately, charcoal and crafty hellmagic. “Mmm. I taste some deep longing there. Tell me what you want, and maybe we can come to some . . . arrangement?”

Ivy’s stomach hollows. She’s miserable, empty, and forlorn, and she knows that once, she had it all. Mist clouds her vision, and she tries to swipe it away, but it hangs, white and shimmering, just out of reach. Desperately she digs in the slashed remnants of her memory, trying to see.

Delilah kisses her softly, hot demon lips tasting of ash. “Is it Joey? Hmm? The snake who hurt you? I can drag him here by his skinny black flippers so you can rip them off one by one. Would you like that?”

Ivy licks her scorched lips. “Mmm. That would be tasty. But . . .”