Kiss at Your Own Risk (28 page)

“Right.” Trinity set her hand on Blaine’s back as they neared. They inched around the corner, and she saw their target.

It was a man, wearing torn jeans. His upper body was bare, and he was lean but muscled. Bruises covered his back, his fingernails were torn, and his hair was streaked with grime and dirt. But even in sleep, she could see his high cheekbones, his strong jaw, his elegant neck, and a gold signet ring on his pinkie finger. His hand was resting loosely around a rock, as if he was ready to hurl it if something grabbed him. His body was limp, as if he was so exhausted that he’d fallen into the kind of sleep that robbed a man of his ability to wake up, to sense the approach of danger.

“How do I kill him?” Blaine whispered.

“I don’t know.” She’d always felt like a murderous filthy rag, but never as much as she did right now. Sneaking up on a sleeping man to kill him. Her stomach turned. “I don’t think I can do this—”

“You want your dad to die?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then there’s your motivation.”

She stared at the resting innocent and pictured her dad, the surprise on his face as he’d turned pink and melted away. The love in his eyes when he said good-bye. Tears thickened her throat, and she felt heat begin to build, the kind of heat she’d learned to dread.

“That’s my girl.” Blaine squeezed her shoulder. “You can do this.”

Numbly, she watched as a prism began to take shape over the unsuspecting man, her soul screaming at her to stop. But she stood there and let it blossom.

The hologram was an androgynous being this time. No need for her to kill him. It would all work perfectly.

“You’re doing it,” Blaine said.

“I need his heart.” Oh, man. Had she really just said that? She finally understood the choice her parents had been facing. Her mother’s death, or babysitting by a nice witch for six months? So easy to convince themselves it wasn’t a bad choice, so desperate to find a way to have everything they wanted. The choice between the unthinkable and the unbearable. A choice that left no one a winner. Kinda like this one.

The hologram walked over to the duck pond and scooped up a handful of dirt from the bottom.

“Mud?” Jarvis sounded shocked. “The thing that can withstand a blue ball up its nose and it can’t take some dirt?”

The tulip on Trinity’s neck began to burn, and she slapped at it.

The spectral assassin squatted over its prey and began pouring sand into its ear. A sparkly dark liquid began to bubble on the glittery skin of the unsuspecting victim, oozing out of its pores.

“That’s the smut,” Blaine said. “Leaving his body.”

The hologram stood up, walked back to the lake for another handful, and repeated the process. And again. And again.

Jarvis shook his head. “The thing’s not going to sleep through a whole assembly line of sand transfer—”

A man emerged from the shadow of the bridge. “Oh, but I think it will.”

Blaine and the others went immediately into battle stance, daggers, sword, and fireballs at the ready. “Identify yourself,” Blaine demanded.

Their visitor was wearing a beautiful suit, and even his shoes were immaculately polished despite standing in the dirt. He exuded sex, power, and money, and she loathed him on sight. There was nothing redeemable about him at all. “The name’s Napoleon, and I’m here for the same reason you are. Shall we make a party of it?”

Blaine didn’t lower the weapon. “Keep talking.”

Napoleon inclined his head toward the slumbering cockroach factory. “Smutty needs to die. I knocked him out, but I wasn’t making a great deal of progress in hurting him.” He gestured at some burn marks on the ground. “Seems to be quite good at fending off spells. I can keep him asleep. You pour the sand in his ear, or whatever it was the hologram was doing.”

Trinity’s tulip began to burn even more fiercely, and she stumbled back, struggling to stay upright against the sudden increase of pain. What was wrong with her? She clawed it, trying to dig it out of her skin, but it was getting worse.

“You son of a bitch.” Death suddenly appeared out of apparently nothing and he body-slammed Napoleon into the pillar. “You arrogant bastard, trying to steal Gram’s smut monster.”

Blaine dumped a handful of sand into the monster’s ear, then sprinted back for more mud. Jarvis next. Then Nigel. Napoleon and Death fist fighting like a couple of drunken frat boys, even down to their spotless suits.

The man on the ground stirred and groaned, and he began to ooze blackness.

Pain stabbed through her from the tulip, and Trinity clutched at her mark as Chammie’s eyes opened. There was nothing human in them at all. Just raw, brutal death. “Blaine! It’s awake—”

Something hit her hard between the shoulders. Trinity pitched forward onto her hands, and then someone grabbed her ankles and began hauling her across the dirt. She twisted around and saw two gorgeous women manhandling her.

One of them looked up and Trinity went ice cold when she saw those emerald eyes. She had sudden, vivid recall of watching spiders crawl through her skin, of feeling venom burn through her cells, of those eyes watching her, ruthless, without mercy, without care.

They were the eyes she saw in the mirror each time she went to bed at night. “It’s you,” she whispered. “You’re the witch. I dream of you.”

The woman smiled. “Hello, my darling. It’s been too long.”

Trinity opened her mouth to scream and the woman flicked a pinkie at her. Her mouth was suddenly filled with slippery balls. She gagged and spit a mouthful of grapes out onto the dirt.

“Grapes?” The other woman sounded surprised. “What happened to acid-laced needles?”

“She’s one of my girls, Mari. You know I limit torturing to the bare necessity when it comes to my darlings.”

Trinity spat again and more grapes tumbled out, but her mouth filled with them again before she could scream. Okay, she loved fruit, but this was so not conducive to her goal of screaming for help. She flung a handful of regurgitated grapes toward Blaine.

He glanced over and swore. He immediately dropped his fistful of sand, set himself on fire, and held up his hand to stop the other two warriors. Behind him, Napoleon and Death were covered in mud, wrestling and making a whole bunch of man-noises, the kind that were like “I’m so tough, I need to get this out of my system, but I don’t want to actually hurt you.”

“No.” Jarvis started running for the pond again. “We take the smut heap out first. Let her play with Trinity for a few minutes—”

Blaine shook his head. “Trinity first.”

Trinity first
. Not the witch. Not Chammie.
Her.
Something swelled inside her as Blaine started toward her. Behind him, the half-naked mud god jumped to his feet and promptly turned into a giant serpent. Nigel and Jarvis began to engage. “Trio!”

Angelica was dragging her backwards, across the grass. The witch’s skin was turning gray, her hair getting ratty. “Smutty!” The monster whirled around at Angelica’s command. “Come!”

The monster morphed into a giant demon-backed dog and broke into a gallop, rocketing across the earth toward Angelica. His spiked tail was wagging furiously, and his giant tongue was lolling out of the side of his mouth.

Blaine sprinted for Trinity. She saw his determination to get to her, and tears filled her eyes. He was leaving the battle for her. He wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t being strategic. He was racing after her—

The witch flicked her hand, and Blaine flew backwards. He sailed through the air and crashed into the bridge supports. The cement cracked as Blaine leapt to his feet, and then the sand rose up and millions of tiny sand spiders launched themselves at him. He set them on fire, then ran right through the wall of flames, racing after her again.

He wasn’t yelling at her to show him how to kill the witch. He was focused on one thing, and one thing only: rescuing her.

Something warm and fuzzy began to swell in her heart, and she stiffened. Oh, come on! Not now! Her skin began to burn, and a prism began to sparkle in the air above Blaine’s head. She recoiled as a hologram flared in front of him. The specter pulled out a SuperSoaker squirt gun and shot him right in the eye.

A holographic Niagara Falls burst out of Blaine and covered the ground, and then he fell to the earth in a soggy pile of death.

The real Blaine didn’t even slow down. “I believe in you, Trinity,” he yelled. “Turn it on the witch. You can do it!”

Oh, wow, was that the sweetest thing ever? Even while his skin was glowing from her prism, he believed she was stronger than the curse. No one had ever done that. Her skin grew hotter, and the night grew brighter. “I’m losing—”

“No, you’re not.” Blaine’s voice was hard, and then the earth split and a winged dragon beast leapt up out of the fissure. He slammed a fireball into its claw, and then another dragon appeared, and another, and suddenly they were all around, hitting him from all sides. Water began to ooze from a large gash in his body.

“Blaine!” she screamed, her heart filling with dread as he stumbled.

“Show us how to kill Angelica!” Jarvis’s sword cut through the air and divested a winged assailant of its left appendage just as it slammed a watery claw toward Blaine’s throat.

The amputated appendage careered through the air and Trinity snatched it out of the air. Water sprayed from the tip… hmm… she turned it over in her hand. Kind of like a squirt gun. It would probably work to kill him.

She heard her thoughts, and she recoiled, tried to drop the claw, but she couldn’t unclench her fingers. Crap! This was not good!

Angelica stopped suddenly. “By all that’s highly torturable and unlovable, you love Blaine.” She sounded shocked, and absolutely delighted.

“No. I don’t.” But as she watched Blaine fighting for his life, bleeding from his wounds, focused on nothing but reaching her, the night glowed even brighter. She felt so hot she wanted to peel off her skin.

“Fantastic timing!” Angelica grinned as Smutty came racing up. “Good boy, darling. Go through the portal with Mari and I’ll catch up.” She flicked her hand and a large, rainbow-colored diamond with a teal-colored opening in the middle appeared. A portal?

She couldn’t let herself be taken through it. Trinity fought harder, but the witch’s grip was ruthless.

Smutty barked and trotted off happily as Mari fed him a bone and led him away. “Listen, cutie,” Mari said to him. “I’m really sorry you have to suffer because of me, so what do you say we get you some cute girl poodles—”

“No!” Angelica snapped. “He gets no good treatment. He’s a fornicating liar who deserves to be a smut monster. Don’t ever forget it!” Then her arms tightened around Trinity’s throat. “Look at Blaine,” she whispered, her voice soft and compelling in Trinity’s ear. “He’s fighting through hell to get to you.”

Trinity scrunched her eyes shut. “No. I won’t.”

“He’s not even thinking about killing me,” the witch continued. “He’s the ultimate warrior, the best I’ve ever created, and he never screws up. Until now. Because he’s so in love with you that he would rather save you than kill me. That’s true love, my dear. Feel it in your heart. Here is the man for you.”

“No!” Trinity shook her hand, but the stupid claw wouldn’t fall out of her hand. Probably had something to do with her iron grip on it.

“Yes.” The witch grabbed Trinity’s chin and forced her face toward Blaine. “Look at him! Love him! Give in to the curse, Trinity. Kill number five will make you more powerful than you can ever imagine.”

“No!” Trinity tried to keep her eyes shut, but they flew open of their own accord. And there was Blaine, up to his waist in some sort of muck, flanked by Jarvis and Nigel, as they fought off the flying horned nasties. As fast as they took them out, more kept coming, and she saw Blaine’s jaw flexing as the water from their claws took its toll on his strength and his fire. “Blaine!”

“Feel your heart bleed for him, darling. He’s dying anyway, so go ahead and allow yourself to embrace how much you love him. You love him so very much.”

The truth of the witch’s words resonated deep in Trinity’s core, and she knew it was true. Hopelessly, completely, and wondrously true.

The moment Trinity acknowledged her love for Blaine, her hand closed around the claw to throw it. “No!” She was so tired of losing this battle! It ended now, and she didn’t care if she took the wimpy way out. She crossed her fingers that Angelica’s jaw was as hard as she hoped, then Trinity summoned all her curse-enhanced strength and slammed her head backwards into the witch’s chin.

Pain exploded in Trinity’s skull and dizziness began to spin her into a vortex of blackness. Yay for self-induced concussions! She grinned and let the darkness take her, then, as consciousness faded, she felt her arm rear back and hurl the watery claw in Blaine’s direction.

The horrifying thunk of it hitting his body was the last thing she heard before she passed out.

Angelica cradled the unconscious Trinity to her bosom as she raced down the tunnel back to the Den, following the muddy footsteps of Mari and Smutty. She jumped over the last viper pit, and the fire wall flared back up to keep anyone from following her.

The minute she was safe, her legs gave out, and she tumbled to the floor. She tightened her grip to keep Trinity from banging her head, and took the impact on her own knees instead. She hugged Trinity to her chest, unable to stop the swell of despair and desolation.

She pointed her finger, and a long black claw slid from the end. Tears tried to blur her vision as she carved Blaine’s name in the rock floor. “My dear Blaine, you’re my biggest regret,” she whispered. “I never thought you would lose.”

She bent her head against the need to cry. She hadn’t cried in three hundred years, since the day she decided Nappy couldn’t break her. But making that choice to sacrifice Blaine… it was the toughest decision she’d ever had to make.

She looked down at Trinity’s ashen face. The sweet girl was sprawled on her back on the rock floor, her hand resting on Blaine’s name. In the name of all that was painful and hellish, Angelica would never forget the horror that spilled out of Trinity the moment she’d unleashed the killing blow toward Blaine, her scream of anguish as she killed the man of her heart.

Sweet sunlight and moonshine, never had Angelica heard a sound of such pain, even in her years and years of extraordinarily brilliant torture. Any other time, she’d be proud to be the cause of that kind of devastation.

But that sound, coming from one of her girls, to have it be pain of the soul and not of the body… she’d felt it in her own core in a way she never did when she was stringing one of the warriors up by his back hair.

What was she doing? Was this what she was fighting for? Killing her own precious Blaine? Making her own Chosen suffer?

Maybe she was wrong.

Maybe this wasn’t the right way.

Maybe all her boys and girls had been right when they’d spat epithets at her. Maybe—

“Open the door.”

Angelica leapt to her feet and whirled around. Napoleon was standing on the other side of the fire wall, his body a blurry image behind the silver flames. “Where’s Prentiss? Did you hurt him?”

“I would never hurt my grandson.” Napoleon leaned forward. “The game has gone on long enough, my dear.”

Angelica’s hand twitched with the need to cast a testicle-shrinking spell at him. “What do you mean?”

Napoleon moved closer, until his face was a mere inch from the searing flames. “You were a girl when I left. I didn’t know how to save you from the pit of helplessness and self-hate that you were spiraling into.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were. I loved you too much to let that happen, so I did the only thing I could think of, and I left you to fight for yourself.” He smiled, his teeth glittering. “I did it for you, my love, and it worked. I’m so proud of you, and I’m ready for us to resume the love affair of a lifetime.” His grin widened. “And since I plan to live forever, that’s one hell of a love affair.”

Angelica took a step toward him. Was he telling the truth? Had he really done it out of love? She
had
been a mess back then.

“I’m so sorry you had to suffer.” His voice was quiet. Soft. Tender. “I truly am. But it’s over. I’m here to take care of you. To give you all you’ve ever dreamed of.”

She swallowed. “I can dream of a lot.”

“Then let me give it to you.” He held up his palms in a gesture of surrender. “I’ve always been yours, my love. Always. You’ve done great work here, by the way. So impressive.”

“I have?” Dear Blue Balls, it felt good to be validated. “You don’t think I’m too harsh with my boys and girls?” She lifted her hand to lower the wall. Why fight it? She loved him. He loved her. That was all that mattered—

“What you did out there to those warriors? Brilliant. And that girl? The black widow? I saw what she could do with your smut monster. She’s incredible. Think of how useful she could be in the assassin business. Why, we could make millions! Just look at her!”

Angelica glanced down at Trinity, who looked so small and fragile on the floor. Her sweet baby. Carrying the hopes and dreams of millions of women in her soul. Facing her own worst hell to help others. “My darling,” she whispered.

“That girl is my ticket!”

“Your ticket?” Angelica frowned. “What do you mean?”

He was beaming now, hands gesticulating with excitement. “Even
I
occasionally run into targets that I have trouble figuring out how to kill. With Trinity by my side, I can be unstoppable. I’ll be more powerful even than my own grandson. Think of that! More powerful than Death! I’ll rule the world!”

Oh, right. Of course. She’d forgotten who she was talking to. A man who manipulated words and women with equal aplomb. He wasn’t there for the love. He was there for the money he thought he could make by prostituting one of her girls.

And he was taking advantage of her love to do it. She glared at him, furious at herself for almost succumbing to his poetic words. “For all that’s well-endowed in Hell and beyond, you have got to be kidding! I am not doing this so you can go be powerful.” She scooped Trinity off the floor. “I do this out of love, to save my girls from men like you.”

“Angelica,” he warned. “Don’t you dare walk out on me.”

“You don’t get it,” she snapped. “You don’t get to have me or my dreams anymore. Yes, I love you, but as soon as I harvest Trinity, you’ll be the first to die.”

Napoleon stiffened. “You don’t mean that—”

“Oh, but I do.” But even as she turned and hurried down the passageway holding Trinity so tenderly in her arms, she knew she was lying.

She would never be able to curse herself, knowing it would mean Nappy’s death. She might hate him, but she loved him, and that would never change. Life was too thrilling with him in it, even if was dangerous and insane. He still made her come alive.

And someday, if she could learn to be strong enough, it would be so unbelievable to take him back in her bed and show him how much she’d learned. He was hell, but he was
her
hell, and she was too addicted to end it cleanly by empowering herself with a cocktail of black widows and prisms.

But her girls were different. They didn’t love yet. They could still be saved. And it was her job to do it.

And the time was now.

***

It was bad enough to have a nightmare about killing her true love and becoming a murderous banshee woman.

It was much worse to wake up from the dream to find herself chained down to a hard metal slab, listening to the sounds of men screaming, and realize it was all true. “Blaine?” How great would it be if it were Blaine being tortured? Not because she wanted him knocked around, but it would mean he was still alive. “Is that you?”

But no one answered, which was a major bummer.

With a sigh, Trinity lifted her head and saw she was in what could only be classified as a museum-quality dungeon. Crumbling rock walls, the stench of mold and rot, a dampness in the air that was like a cloying weight caking her lungs. The walls were filled with steel cabinets that had locked doors, and Trinity shuddered with a faint memory of the horrible, horrible things inside those cabinets.

“This wasn’t how I figured we’d meet.”

Trinity turned her head to see the man from Blaine’s fridge stretched out on a slab next to her. He still looked like someone who’d been tap-danced on by Death, but there was a hint of pink to his skin now, and his eyes weren’t as sunken. “Christian?”

“Son of a bitch returned for me, didn’t he?” Christian let out a shuddering breath. He was wearing a pair of pink boxers and pale yellow socks with butterflies on them. Nothing else to cover the purple streaks radiating beneath the surface of skin that seemed to glimmer like mica. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “He came back.”

Trinity felt his disbelief, his intense relief, and guilt flooded her. This man had fought off death because he’d believed Blaine was going to save him. And thanks to her, Blaine was dead, the witch was alive, and her own father was going to die.

“Where is he?” Christian closed his eyes, and she could practically feel him willing strength back into his body. “What’s the plan?”

“I—” She swallowed. How could she lie to him? But how could she take away the one thing that was keeping him alive? “He… um… he didn’t tell me. He was afraid the witch would torture it out of me.”

Christian shook his head. “That’s so like Blaine. Always trying to protect others.” He looked over at her. “He’s a good man.” His voice was quiet. “You betray him, and you’ll have to answer to me.”

Trinity pulled her gaze away to look at the ceiling. Water was leaking from it. Water just like the kind she’d used to kill Blaine. “Does any woman love you, Christian?”

He was silent.

She turned her head and saw the hardness of his jaw. “Yeah,” he said. “One of the witch’s females. She claims she does, at least. Not my kind of love.”

Trinity knew then why Christian was on that table with her. Angelica was going to use Christian and that woman to test the curse.

Not only had she killed Blaine, but Christian was about to die because of her as well.

Nice to know that as bad as she’d feared she was, she was so much worse. It was time to do what she should have done a long time ago, before more could die. Since even a head injury wasn’t enough to stop her, it was time to get some help. “Christian?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you kill me from there?”

A scrawny gray rat scurried across Christian’s foot, and he didn’t even flinch. “Yeah, sure.”

She took a deep breath as the rat jumped onto the floor with a quiet thud. “Then do it. Now.”

He raised his brows. “I don’t hurt women.”

“Oh, come on! This is not the time to be ethical. Trust me, you really need to kill me.”

The rat scurried back up the table leg and ran onto Christian’s chest. It was carrying a small piece of apple. “The witch may have forced me to do a lot of shit I didn’t like,” Christian said. “But lacerating the intestines of one of my buddies is different than hurting a female. There’s no chance.” He scanned the room. “I don’t know where you are, witch,” he yelled “but this is one line you’ll never get me to cross.”

“No, no, no! Ssh!” Trinity tried to quiet him. “This isn’t about Angelica. It’s about me. I need you to kill me. Now.”

“No way am I killing you.” Christian shook his head as the rat tried to set the fruit in his mouth. “No, buddy, that’s all yours. I’m good. But thanks.” The rat touched its nose to Christian’s, then curled up on the warrior’s stomach and began to gnaw on the apple. “If this is Blaine’s plan, tell him to go to hell.”

“Look, I respect your morals.” And she did. She understood the need to set boundaries to believe in yourself. And she also knew when those boundaries were nothing but lies. “But you’ll change your mind after I tell you my story.”

And then she began to talk. And for the first time in her life, she didn’t hold back. She didn’t pretend she was more than she was. She didn’t lie to herself about what she could accomplish.

This time, she finally admitted the truth, not just to Christian, but to herself.

She, Trinity Harpswell, was worse than Barry Baldini, serial killer.

And that was just the start.

And she was owning it all.

***

Son of a bitch. She’d killed him.

Blaine stared down at the water cascading out of his pores. He couldn’t believe Trinity had done it. He’d never been killed before. Not really and truly. But he could feel the difference. His body temperature was on the fast-track toward arctic chill, and he was leaking like a butterfly net in the ocean. Yeah, it wasn’t instant coffin-bait, but he was on his way, and fast.

No one had ever loved him enough to end his life before. “Was that the sweetest thing ever, or what? She killed me.”

“You are one lucky bastard, I’ll give you that.” Nigel caught him under the arms as his legs buckled. “The look on her face when she threw that claw was priceless. I’d have given my right nut to have my paints at that moment. Never seen such love.”

“Did you see that too?” Blaine felt like his heart was exploding. “Didn’t that expression of anguish make her look radiant? I swear she lost ten years of stress off her face with that look.” He plucked the claw out of his eye and held it in his palm. “That’s what she used. Right there. I need to find a baggie to preserve it. Might make it into a necklace or something.”

Nigel began to drag him out of the pit, which was drying up now that the witch was gone. The schnoodemgons had stopped multiplying, and Jarvis was easily dispatching the remaining few.

“You know, I never really considered the benefits of dating a black widow,” Nigel said thoughtfully. “You never have to wonder if she’s telling you the truth about how she feels about you. The minute she sees that prism and kills you… you just know.”

Blaine’s useless legs bumped over the edge of the mud pit. “Yeah.” Damn it felt good. She loved him. It was the real thing. Not the kind where you’d turn your head while you sold your loved one to the witch.

No. It was the kind where you throw a schnoodie claw right into the sweet spot of the man you love. He felt like beating his chest and roaring. Me Tarzan. Woman Love Me—

Woman who had been carted off by the witch. What was his problem? Get a taste of true love for the first time in his life and he forgets to do the manly thing and reward her for that love? “We gotta go get her.”

“I hate to break it to you, Trio, but Angelica has her,” Nigel said. “She’s gone.”

“Screw that.” He turned around and searched the night. “The portal has to be here somewhere.” He shoved himself out of Nigel’s grasp and promptly smooshed onto his knees. “Dammit.”

“I’ve got you.” Nigel picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. He broke into a sprint. “She went this way.”

Blaine swore as he bounced on Nigel’s shoulder. “Put me down. I’m not a sack of corn.” Nice analogy, given the moment. For some reason, the thought of corn didn’t rankle him as much as it usually did. Not with a lethal schnoodie claw in his pocket. He smiled and patted his jeans.