Endless Night (8 page)

The lace of my mask caressed the soft skin under my eyes and reminded me of its presence. The two of us, masked, dancing, pressed closely together, surrounded by danger, someone would pay good money to read a book that began in such a way. I wondered if the ending would live up to such a glorious beginning.

I smiled a bit and waited in sweet anticipation. His breath came heavier and more rapid with every passing second. I shifted my head ever so slightly to allow my hair to brush against his face still hidden in my neck. I felt him withdraw a bit, enough to make our lips close enough to kiss. Closing my eyes, I prepared for awesomeness. His breath spread across my face and I knew it was coming. I wanted it, really. I hadn’t really any other time I’d been in his presence, but now I knew I didn’t quite care about much else. Not much on my thoughts, but laying a smooch on Cyrus Atossa. His lips neared mine and I lifted myself up on my toes to meet him. The aura of his lips mingled with mine.

“And now!” a boisterous voice echoed through the vast industrial building.

Cyrus quickly withdrew from his position, only centimeters from meeting my lips for the first time.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Chapter Nine

He turned his head to focus on the stage. His breathing was steadying, but I felt his tension remain. I
saw his jaw muscles flex in the shimmering light from the stage and knew he was clenching it in concentration.

“For your viewing pleasure, I present to you, Madam Azelie. The snake charmer.” The large man on stage bowed and held his hand out with a flourish, welcoming the performer to the stage.

The little woman took the stage with such presence I hardly believed there was just one small woman exuding that much confidence. My favorite Cajun voodoo priestess entered stage left with a big ass snake draped around her petite form.

Just fucking fantastic!

Serious pyrotechnics ignited on either side of the stage and silence fell over the crowd. A moment later, the rhythmic beat of a drum began. The woman’s hips swayed with an ease you rarely saw in a human being. Something more cat-like than human movement. Her hands rose and lifted each end of the snake with them. The multilayered skirt that clung to her hips, swished with her movement. Back and forth it swayed, exposing bare legs and feet through its shorter layers. Around her midsection, an interesting tattoo wrapped and nearly met at her belly button. The skirt hit at her hips, hardly covering her crotch, and I feared it might fall off; it hung so low. Her body continued its undulation and I began to grow even more annoyed by the little bitch. Not only had she all but strung me up by my neck in her tiny witch room, she was now distracting my pseudo date from his thoughts of kissing me. I decided two things then, first, that bitch was on my list, and second, I was going to kiss those perfect fucking lips if I had to tie the boy down to do it. Well, I might tie him down anyway.

A woman passed, carrying a tray of drinks, and I swiped two. One slid down the hatch and the other waited its turn in my trembling hand. I never understood why he showed me the slightest bit of interest. Why he’d ever wasted his time on a fatty like me, I
didn’t know. When I first met Cyrus, I thought he was full of shit, hell maybe he still was, but I was at the point I didn’t really care. But, he was pretty and I wanted him. End of story.

I waited a good thirty seconds before I shoved the waiting glass to my lips. The hot liquid slid over my tongue and burned my throat on the way down. My eyes closed from the sensation and a shiver shook my core. Cyrus watched the woman on stage and I watched him. Though his eyes were fixed on her, they didn’t appear to hold a sense of longing or attraction. I thought, for a second, I saw fear. Just a second and it was gone. It reminded me of the time he’d been so scared of Dominika. The thought of that crazy bitch pissed me off even more. Luckily for me, she wasn’t staying in that house with us, but I was sure she was in attendance nonetheless. That was the last thing I wanted to deal with.

The woman on stage lifted the snake off her shoulders and allowed it to wrap itself around her waist. The snake was nearly all white, with the exception of splotches of yellow, and likely a python of some kind. I wasn’t a snake fan so I didn’t really know. It was scaly and had no legs; it was a fucking snake.

Her bare arms showed off bands of inked designs from wrist to shoulder. Her costume was revealing, hardly covering her nipples, allowing the world to see she was covered in simple black-line tattoos. The hip hugging skirt coupled with the mesh string bikini style top left little to the imagination. On the forefront, for all to see, the tiny girl bore markings of ink on her body that resembled those on her lovely sign hanging in front of her shop of bullshit. I’d had the pleasure of seeing most of those tattoos close up and personal, but even if I hadn’t, they were obvious against her creamy skin. Dangling from her wrist, right where it’d been when I’d seen her last was her black rosary.

The sight of that woman pissed me off. She really hadn’t done anything to me, aside from accuse me of murder, but that was enough to put her on my shit list. I watched her intently as she moved so smoothly with the music and that damn snake. Her thick mane of dreadlocks sat piled in a loose bun on top of her head with bits and pieces sticking out at random. The flaming columns, which sat on either side of the stage, flamed high and were beginning to heat up the area closest to the stage. Cyrus and I were only about five or six heads back from the thick of it, and I was beginning to sweat. Especially under my fancy lace mask Cyrus had so kindly brought along for me. A bead of sweat trickled down my brow, soaking the lace, and dripped onto my eyelash. The salty liquid burned my already irritated eye and it started to twitch uncontrollably. I wiped it as best I could, trying to remain stealthy with the action. I looked back to the tiny little crazy bitch on the stage and my breath caught in my throat. She was dancing, nothing had changed, but her eyes were focused on me. My eyes grew wide and I stared right back. My experience told me to stand my ground, to stare her down like I had nothing to fear. My intuition told me to get the fuck out of dodge. Keeping my eyes fixed on the woman, Azelie, my hand reached to grab the attention of Cyrus. She stared at me and I stared right back, scared out of my fucking mind.

As quietly and nonthreatening as possible I said, “Cyrus, I think we should leave.”

A hand slid around my waist and I felt a slim body press against my back. A sweet scent of woman’s perfume wafted into my nose. “But you’ve only just arrived darling, Donnie,” an all too familiar Hungarian voice hissed into my ear.

Goddammit. What is this? Scary bitches ‘r’ us?

Trying not to take my eyes off the woman on stage, I wriggled my way out of the grip on my waist. “It’s Dylan. My fucking name is Dylan,” I said through my teeth to the bitch still standing closely behind me. “Dominika, can I help you with something?”

“I should be asking you the same question,” Dominika slithered her way between Cyrus and
I. She stood between us pointing nonchalantly to the woman on stage, “Seems to me you’re the one needing help.”

She laughed a raspy, sultry laugh. I wanted so badly to punch her directly in the throat, but I knew better. Dominika needed her ass kicked something fierce and there was no way I was going to be the one to do it. She was a bitch and a fucking scary one at that. Shit, she’d probably pummel my ass into the dirt if she got the chance. Although, watching her interest in the witchy woman on stage gave me an idea. She could pummel someone else just as quickly. Perhaps an ally I should make. And a Yoda moment I will have.

“Yeah, not good,” I replied simply.

“How did this happen?” She asked, but not me. She was talking to Cyrus. I was used to it. “How did our darling Donnie get herself on with a priestess?” her voice held no contempt for me as far as I could tell. It was a first.

“Dylan,” Cyrus said plainly.

“My sweet Cyrus,” she said as she stroked his thick bicep. “You smell like our girl…Dylan. You haven’t been snogging a mundane have you?” she giggled a bit and continued to touch his arm dramatically.

“Yes I have,” his eyes remained on the woman. The one who actually mattered at that moment. The fucking scary one. The other scary one. “Dylan decided to visit the priestess. She liked the symbols.”

“Lovely,” the Hungarian replied as she too stared at the woman on stage.

They both watched the woman watching me. I’d let my eyes slide from the stage to the two beside me and back. As I had felt more than once in this
scene
, I was fucking clueless and scared out of my ass.

“Well, you two have fun. I am off to find
someone
to eat.” Another giggle came from the once mostly terrifying Hungarian girl.

“Not that I’m complaining,” I said still staring at the stage, “but I have to say, I’m surprised you are behaving yourself. Honestly, I cringed when I heard your voice in my ear. I have to say, this has been the most pleasant of the few times I’ve been forced to be in your presence.” It felt awkward talking to someone I wasn’t looking at. Even more awkward telling Dominika I was proud of her good behavior.

“It seems to me you have your hands full with that powerful witch staring a hole in your precious little head.” Her long fingernails trailed across the top of my head and down the back of my neck. A shiver tickled my spine. Dominika laid a light kiss on my cheek, “Good luck.” She turned and worked her way into the crowd. “Don’t let that pretty little girl lose her head now, Cyrus,” she called over her shoulder before she disappeared completely.

“So, be honest, why am I getting the stare down from the world’s tiniest terror? I have to say she doesn’t look scary. Just that horrible tingling feeling I’m getting in the pit of my stomach telling me to run like hell is making me think she might actually be as horrific as she thinks she is.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“Oh, that’s promising. I’ve somehow…”

Cyrus cut me off, “Well, not somehow, you did kick over her chair and tell her she was fucking nuts.”

“Alright, I’ll give you that one. But she did accuse me of murder. And does that really give her the motive to intentionally scare the shit out of me?” I’d
done worse shit than that in church and you didn’t see God coming down and fucking with me, did you? You shouldn’t answer that.

“In her world, yes. I would assume she felt threatened and now she’s going to retaliate. It’s likely she’s just trying to scare you,” he didn’t sound too certain.

“Or?”

“Or…it’s something else.”

“Great. Like what?” I asked not really wanting to know the answer.

The girl danced around the flames that now surrounded the stage. Her body twisted and turned until I could see her full back. It was covered in simple line drawings like those that I’d seen on her sign; those that covered her arms. The ones that attracted me to her shop in the first place. I wondered why someone would cover their body in tattoos like that and figured she probably had a really good magical mojo reason that I likely did not want to know about. Alright, I really did want to know. But something told me knowing anything important about these people put me that much deeper into the occult and I was doing good not drowning in headless bitches and vampires without adding voodoo to the mix.

“Nothing. She feels she has power and your display of defiance toward her nicked her ego. She is only trying to show dominance,” his brows furrowed and he nodded a teeny tiny bit. It seemed to me like he was trying to convince himself more than me.

“Oh, really?” I felt a sudden rush of adrenaline at the thought of that tiny girl trying to dominate me. What could she really do to me anyway? She
felt
she had power? That meant
shit
to me. I didn’t do anything to her. She started it.

“Don’t get any ideas, Dylan. You’d do well to just leave it alone.” His gaze turned to focus on me.

“And let that woman think she can run shit around here?”

“Dylan, aside from Marienne, she
does
run shit around here.” He’d been using his big boy potty mouth more than I’d heard from him in the past. I must be a bad influence.

“You’re telling me the only other person who holds as much ‘power’ as she does is the fucking Primus of the city?” I looked away from the stage to stare at the ever growing idiot to my right. The idiot nodded and I continued to question his life choices. “So, these people here, in this crowd right now, recognize that woman’s ‘power’ over them?” It was all so unfathomable to me that anyone would accept that as their life.

“Not all, no. But then again not all recognize the power Marienne holds either.”

“No one holds anything! Don’t you get it?! This is America; we are a democracy, a shitty democracy, but a democracy all the same. No one has power over anyone else. You can just walk away. You don’t
have
to follow that ginger-headed jar of mayonnaise around like his happy little puppy. And that bitch sure as hell doesn’t have any power over
me
.” No one held power over me. Ever. I was so against authority I even defied myself sometimes. Yes, I did.

“Dylan, you should probably lower your voice,” Cyrus asked soberly.

“
I
should lower
my
voice? Maybe she should worry about herself and stop trying to throw her ‘power’ around like she’s king shit.” Yes, air quotes. “She has power? She can do magic, cast spells, curse me? Let’s see it! I don’t believe in vampires and I sure as fuck don’t believe in magic!” The crowd was stone silent. The music had stopped. The all-powerful snake charmer on stage was taking her bow. Everyone was looking at me. The snake around her shoulders lifted its huge head and I swear it was looking at me too. “Shit.” I said in a breathless whisper.

“Time to go,” Cyrus grabbed me by the hand and pulled me through the crowd.

The scene was eerily familiar to another incident when I’d pissed someone off and Cyrus had to drag me away. The incident began with my smart ass mouth, moved into unknown curses in Hungarian, and turned into me walking in on Tatum sleeping with the enemy. The gingered vamp boy she now called her boyfriend. If history repeated itself, this was not going to end pretty.

My little legs trotted along behind Cyrus as he moved swiftly though the thick crowd of sweaty costume clad vampires, to the stairs that led to the VIP level. I thought we would leave. I figured he’d drag me out the front doors and into the street where he would whisk me away to safety. We ran up the stairs instead of going out the front door.