Silver-Tongued Devil (11 page)

I grabbed a pen and paper from her desk. “This is my phone number. If you think of anything else that might help us, please call me.”

She folded the sheet and stuck it in her cleavage. “Sure. Anything I can do to help find Liam’s killer.”

We turned to go, but I paused when something caught my eye. I pointed to a flag over the door. I hadn’t seen it when we first walked in. It was a red triskelion set against a black background. “What’s that?”

Mistress Bianca smiled. “That’s the symbol for vampire S&M community. The mortal version is all black, but we vamps modified it with red for obvious reasons.”

Those reasons being a vampire’s preternatural bloodlust as well as the telltale red hair that marked every vampire in existence.

“Hmm.” I made a mental note to keep an eye out for it. “Learn something new every day. Thanks for your time.”

11

T
he next evening, I decided to make good on my promise to speak to Maisie. No point in putting off the inevitable. I had about an hour until Alexis was scheduled to come over so we could formulate next steps, which also happened to give me a handy excuse to extricate myself from my chat with Maisie if it went sour.

I found my sister on the rooftop terrace outside her apartment. She stood at the wrought-iron railing, looking up at the waxing moon. She hadn’t heard me arrive, so I took a moment to watch her—and work up my courage. Here, far above the city’s traffic, it was quiet. Quiet enough for me to hear that she was whispering to herself.

I wasn’t sure if it was the white hand repeatedly tugging on the black clump of hair. Or how her lips moved in hushed conversation. Either way, chilly fingers danced up my spine. But I couldn’t stand there forever, putting off the inevitable. Clearing my throat, I walked toward her.

As if someone had snapped their fingers under her nose, she jerked to attention. She turned slowly and her eyes narrowed a fraction for a moment before recognition lit her irises. She released the strands she’d been torturing and smiled.

I pasted a grin on my face. “Hi, Maze.”

“Sabina!” Her arms wrapped around my neck. After a brief hesitation, I hugged her back, trying to ignore the urge to push her away instead.

Her enthusiasm made my stomach contract with guilt. She’d hugged me like this the first night we’d met. Despite fifty-some years and a chasm of issues to overcome, she’d welcomed me into mage life like she’d always known me. Like we’d been real sisters our whole lives. No one before that moment had ever been so accepting of me, so genuinely glad I was alive.

The memory made me regret my earlier uncharitable thoughts. After all, like Giguhl kept reminding me, it wasn’t my sister’s fault she had issues. He never said the next part of that thought, but I always filled in the missing words silently to myself: It was
my
fault she was so fucked up. And now I could finally do something to help her.

“I’m glad you came to see me.” She was holding on longer than she should. I backed away smoothly, my hands still on her shoulders to soften the rejection.

“Really? I thought you might not want to see me.”

She frowned. “Why?”

I paused, wondering if she’d forgotten about her freak-out a couple of nights earlier. Instead of reminding her, I quickly said, “I know you like your privacy.”

Despite being the same height, it seemed as if she looked up at me. Like a child. “It’s not that I like to be alone; it’s just easier than…” She trailed off with a shrug that felt like an accusation. I mentally filled in the rest:
Easier than watching you all pity me
.

“I’m sorry I haven’t visited more often. It’s just been busy and Rhea said you weren’t feeling well,” I finished diplomatically.

Her mouth worked for a second. “I feel much better now.”

I eyed her. Honestly, she did look good despite her general twitchiness. Maybe it was wishful thinking but her cheeks had more color. There was also an air about her, an energy that was missing before, I guess.

“What have you been doing different?”

She leaned in to whisper. “I stopped sleeping.”

My face tightened into a frown. “I don’t follow. Why would that make you healthier?”

“Don’t tell Rhea. She’ll make me take herbs so I’ll sleep.”

I picked through my thoughts, trying to avoid potential conversation land mines. “Don’t you want to sleep?”

“No!” She shook her head so hard her hair fell into a limp curtain around her face. “When I don’t sleep, the bad memories stay away.”

I ran my hands down her arms to grab her hands. “Maisie? Look at me.” She looked up until her hair parted to reveal two haunted eyes. “Bad memories? Or bad dreams?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think they might be flashbacks.” She rubbed her face, as if she could scrub away the memories. “It’s confusing.”

According to Rhea, it was normal for people recovering from trauma to have nightmares about their ordeals. But as far as we’d known, Maisie wasn’t having any dreams at all. If she was wrong and the flashbacks really were dreams, this was big news. “Have you told Rhea about this?”

“No, Sabina. Promise me you won’t tell her either.” Her voice was cold with fear. “Or Orpheus. No one can know.”

“But why? Maybe Rhea can help you stop having the flashbacks. She said that the dream incubation might help—”

“No,” she said, her voice panicked. “I don’t want to do that.”

I rubbed her arms, trying to comfort her obvious distress. I was torn about keeping this information from Orpheus and Rhea. But I put that issue aside for the moment. “Can you tell me what you saw in your dreams?”

She swallowed. “I—I can’t speak of it.”

I blew out a breath, trying to keep my patience in check.
Don’t push her, Sabina
. “I still think you need to tell Orpheus about this. With the Imbolc festival coming up, he’s pretty determined to make you have a prophecy again.”

She was already shaking her head before I stopped speaking. “I can’t. He’ll make me sleep. I can’t sleep again, Sabina. Don’t make me.”

Her whole body trembled now. Time to change tacks. “How long has it been since you slept?”

“Not long. A couple of nights.” She moved closer. The fingers of her right hand weaved through the air like she was playing an invisible piano. “I have a system.” While her right hand continued its air sonata, her left hand came up to tug on the lock of hair below her ear. Up close, I could see the stray hairs clinging to her fingers. “Have to trick the circadian rhythms. I stay up all day. At night I go to bed, but I set an alarm to wake me every thirty minutes.” She smiled at her cleverness, revealing fangs gone gray. “That keeps me from entering the REM state.”

My mouth fell open. As a half vampire, like me, Maisie’s natural cycle was to sleep during the day and be awake all night. Also like me, she was immune to death by UV ray that plagued all other vampires, but our bodies had a hard time keeping up with the sun’s weakening effects long term. It could be done, but only with massive infusions of fresh blood to repair the damage.

“Please tell me you’re drinking plenty of blood.” For someone in her weak physical state, her body definitely wouldn’t be able to keep up with the sun, lack of sleep, and no blood.

She swallowed and looked away, like she was ashamed. “Rhea was making me take intravenous infusions twice weekly. But my thirst has increased since I stopped sleeping,” she said. “I have been supplementing with bagged blood.”

I let out a relieved breath. When we’d gotten back to New York, it had been a struggle for weeks to get her to take any blood at all. If she’d told me she’d shunned blood, too, I’d be forced to go directly to Rhea with this information. But knowing she was at least taking care of herself in that regard allowed me a few extra days to convince her myself without bringing in the big guns.

“Is Orpheus going to send me away?” she whispered.

I hesitated and considered talking to her about the peace treaty and the ramifications if she didn’t have a prophecy. But even I wasn’t so insensitive not to know that would cause more harm than good. Instead, I took another approach.

“Of course he isn’t going to send you away. He’s just worried about you. We all are.” I moved my head until I captured her gaze and forced her to look into my eyes. “That’s why you have to start sleeping again. It’s not healthy to force your body to stay awake.”

She shied away, her breath escaping through her teeth in a hiss. “No! I can’t. I c-can’t. Sleep is bad.” She tugged at the hair with both hands. Large clumps pulled away between her knuckles. “Badbadbadbad.”

I reached out and tried to halt her obsessive grooming. “Maisie, stop.” For someone so emotionally fragile, she fought me off long enough to get a couple more handfuls. I finally managed to hold her against me and force her hands by her side. I turned to look at her and had a clear view of the bald spot just behind her ear. “You have to stop hurting yourself.” I closed my eyes against the stinging tears that threatened to fall.

She shook her head. “I’ll be better. I promise. Just don’t make me sleep.”

“Shh,” I said, rocking her. “I promise.” Fear for Maisie made my stomach turn. I’d rarely felt more impotent in my life.

“Sabina?” Maisie whispered, her face turned away from mine.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve missed you.”

Well, if that wasn’t just a knife to the gut. A flash of Maisie’s head bent over Adam as she sucked the lifeblood from his veins flashed through my head. Then the look on her face after she’d ripped our grandmother’s head from her body—her haunted eyes and blood-smeared mouth. I blinked away the memories and looked down at the broken wraith who used to be my happy sister. “I miss you, too.”

12

A
fter talking to Maisie, I headed back to the apartment to meet up with Adam and Alexis. Orpheus and the Despina needed an update on our progress, and Adam and I were hoping they’d give us leave to interrogate Tiny Malone. Granted, the information Mistress Bianca gave us about him trying to recruit vampires wasn’t exactly the strongest lead, but it was better than sitting around waiting for Slade to find something else to share with us. Plus, after my talk with Maisie, I was kind of hoping things with Tiny went south. I needed an excuse to hit something. Hard.

When I entered, the scent of stewing meat and herbs wrapped around me like a shawl. I shook out the tension in my shoulders. “Honey, I’m home!”

“In the kitchen,” Giguhl called.

Just inside the doorway, I stopped to admire the scene waiting for me. Giguhl loomed over a bubbling pot on the stove. He wore an apron that read
ANGEL IN THE KITCHEN, DEMON IN THE SACK.

“What’s for dinner?” I leaned around Giguhl’s back to peek inside the pot. He shrugged me off.

“Oh, no, you don’t. The last time you tried to help me cook you ended up ruining my
coq au vin
.”

I nudged him in the side for the reminder. “I thought PW was going to help you cook tonight.”

He stirred the pot with a little too much gusto. Red liquid splashed and sizzled on the burner. “She’s working at Vein.”

My eyes widened. “She’s singing again?”

He shook his head. “Waitressing. The nymphs have gone on strike until the murderer is found so Slade’s desperate for help. And Pussy’s determined to save up enough for her own place.”

The topic of PW moving out was a source of tension between Giguhl and me. When PW had first brought up the idea of renting an apartment in the Black Light District, she and Giguhl were determined to become roommates. But I’d had to put a kibosh on that plan. It’s not that I didn’t want him to live with PW. Honestly, part of me would love the chance for Adam and me to have the place to ourselves. But even though I’d love the demon to have more freedom, magic bound Giguhl to me as my minion. Not only did he need my permission to do almost everything, but he also had no income of his own. And I sure as hell couldn’t afford to pay partial rent for two apartments in New York.

To avoid having that argument with the demon again, I downplayed the chance that PW would be moving anytime soon. “Don’t worry, she won’t make much in tips tonight. Everyone’s probably still staying away from the scene of the crime until the killer’s found.”

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I told her she should tell him no. It’s not safe.”

“She’ll be fine. Slade will keep an eye on her.” I patted his arm. “Is Adam around?”

Giguhl perked up. “In the living room.” A mischievous smile spread on his black lips. “With a surprise.”

I rolled my eyes. A surprise was not something I needed. “Is it Alexis?”

“She’s running late.” Satisfied with the stew’s progress, the demon tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot. “This is an even better surprise.”

I grabbed a beer from the fridge and went to investigate. As I walked down the hall, the demon called after me, “Dinner will be ready in thirty!”

Closer to the door, the low, comforting rumble of Adam’s voice reached me. Every few seconds a higher feminine response echoed down the hall. Recognizing the voice, I sped up and burst through the door.

Three faces looked up at my entrance. Adam rose with a smile. “Red, look who the cat dragged in!”

“Hey, Georgia!” I grinned at the redheaded female who stood gracefully. After a quick, hard hug with her, I glanced at the female werewolf slouching on the couch. “Mac.”

The werewolf wore an artfully ragged jean jacket and a black tank top. Think Joan Jett only hairier around the full moon. Despite her petite frame, she could be intimidating when she wanted to be, which, unfortunately, was often.

Georgia, on the other hand, looked like something off a fashion magazine with her lithe frame and hair the color of a polished copper pot. They were complete opposites, but somehow they complemented each other.

I hadn’t seen the couple since we’d left New Orleans. They’d helped us find Maisie and also fought with us against my grandmother and her goons. Georgia was awesome. And Mac? Well, let’s just say the were and I had a complex relationship.