Silver-Tongued Devil (2 page)

The minute we crossed the threshold, the shit-talking began. “Thanks for joining us, magepire. What the hell took you so long?” This from the seven-foot-tall demon standing in the center of my living room. He tapped a hoof on the hardwoods and shot a glare that would make a lesser woman piss her pants. But when he spotted Maisie, his black lips morphed from a frown into a surprised smile. “Maisie!”

Adam ducked his head out of the kitchen. “Did I hear—” His warm gaze landed on me. Then he saw Maisie and stood straighter. “Wow! It’s so good to see you, Maze.” A chord of tension braided through his overly enthusiastic greeting. He approached her cautiously, like he was afraid she’d run. He reached for her, but she shied away.

She backed against the wall, crossed her arms, and curled into herself, as if buffering her body from the sudden attention. “Hi.” The word was barely above a whisper.

Adam recovered quickly. He changed course and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “Hey,” he whispered. I looked into his eyes and offered a silent apology. His tight smile told me not to worry about it.

“How have you been?” he asked my twin.

She shrugged. “Fine, I guess.”

I bit my lip to keep from challenging her claim. True, her frame had lost its heroin-chic thinness and her coloring was better than the ghostly pallor it had been when we’d returned from New Orleans. In fact, she looked better than she had even a week earlier. I took this as a sign that Rhea had convinced her to take her weekly infusion of bagged blood like a good little vampire. Still, her slumped shoulders gave her a brittle appearance and black memories lurked behind her blue eyes.

Back in October, our maternal grandmother, Lavinia Kane—who was also the Alpha of the vampire race—had kidnapped my sister as part of her campaign to start a war between all the dark races. When we’d finally found Maisie inside the crypt that was her prison, she was barely more than a skeleton and out of her mind with bloodlust. I stifled a shudder as memories of that night threatened to take over. I blinked and tried to focus on the here and now. Maisie might be fragile and haunted, but at least she was alive.

We all were, thank the gods. I glanced at Adam as if to reassure myself. Even though Lavinia was dead and the remaining members of the Caste of Nod had been hunted down and killed by the Hekate Council’s Pythian Guards and Queen Maeve’s faery knights, I sometimes caught myself bracing for attack and searching the shadows for threats. Old habits died hard, I guess.

Maisie looked around the room and said, “Where’s Pussy Willow?”

“She’s at Vein doing her sound check,” Giguhl said. “Her first show is tonight.”

“Oh.” Maisie frowned. “I didn’t know.”

Adam and I shared a tense look. We hadn’t specifically decided not to invite Maisie. It’s just that, well, with her pulling the hermit act all the time we’d just assumed she wouldn’t want to go out in public.

“Don’t let me keep you then.” She turned to scurry off.

“Maisie, wait,” I said, jumping forward. “Do you—I mean, I don’t suppose you’d want to go with us, would you?”

She paused with a foot at the threshold, tensed for flight. “I don’t want to intrude on your date.” Something about her tone made my conscience prickle.

Adam stepped up to her. “It’s not a date. We’re all going.”

The hurt drained from her expression. “I don’t know.”

I gritted my teeth. Why was it still so hard to talk to her?

“You should totally come,” Giguhl said. “It’ll be the balls.”

Maisie looked to me for confirmation. “He’s right. Pussy Willow is an amazing performer.” A memory of the first time I’d seen the faery perform at the drag club in New Orleans made me smile. “Her shows are not to be missed.”

Adam shot my twin his trademark Lazarus smile, the one that usually charmed my pants off in five seconds flat. “Come with us, Maze. You’ll love it.”

And then a miracle happened: My sister smiled. Her hand flew up like that smile had escaped despite her best efforts to remain miserable. “It has been ages since I’ve been out.”

I stifled my urge to laugh out of relief and continued as if what she’d just done was a normal thing. “So how about it?”

“I—” She hesitated. “Will there be lots of people?”

I reminded myself to be patient. “Yes, but it’ll be safe. Promise.”

“I’ll be your personal bodyguard,” Giguhl said.

“Sabina’s allowing you to go out in your demon form?” She frowned at him. “Isn’t that kind of risky?”

“No, she’s not.” The demon glared at me. “But don’t worry. I’m a badass attack cat when I need to be.”

I laughed. “Yeah, right. If anyone gives you trouble, he’ll hump their leg like a berserker.”

“Hey! I haven’t humped anyone in months.” The demon pursed his lips. “Anyway, we’d better head out soon.” He shot me a pointed look. “Someone made us late.”

“Sorry, guys,” I said, holding up the cooler. “I ran into some hassle at the blood bank.”

“What happened?” Adam asked.

I sighed. “Just a misunderstanding. They have a new girl on staff who wasn’t aware of my ‘arrangement.’ But we got it worked out.” My “arrangement” being that the bank supplied me with their diseased or almost-expired blood. Yeah, I know. Gross. But it beat the bullshit I used to deal with by feeding from live humans. “Anyway, after that, I got distracted by a crime scene across the street.”

I’d considered not mentioning the murder at all, but (a) only a blind man would have missed the flashing blue lights coming through the wall of windows in the living room and (b) they’d see the scene on the street when we left anyway. Not mentioning it would have been even more cause for speculation.

Giguhl rushed to the window, smelling drama like a bloodhound on the trail of a prison escapee. “Ooh! What happened?”

Adam looked curious, but not overly concerned. This was New York, after all. Crime and the city weren’t exactly strangers.

“They found the body in a Dumpster. Seemed pretty nasty, but I moved on before I could get the whole story.” I forced a casual shrug to cover my evasion.

“Aw, man,” Giguhl said, coming back from the window. “Looks like they’re already wrapping things up. You know I hate missing drama.”

I pushed down my conscience. Giguhl would have loved to hear the sordid details I was keeping to myself, but sharing them now would only open the door for questions I didn’t want to answer.

“Anyway,” I said, and cleared my throat. “I just need to grab a quick pint and we can be on our way.” I opened the cooler and removed a bag of blood. “Maisie? Do you want some?”

Her eyes jumped to the bag of blood I held toward her. She recoiled like I’d offered her a cobra. Her face swung wildly side-to-side. “No!”

Before I’d offered excuses for my tardiness, she seemed fine. Now her complexion had gone ashen and a fine sheen of sweat coated her brow.

“Maze?” Adam said, moving toward her. “What’s wrong?”

I pulled the bag away and hid it behind my back. With my free hand, I reached for her. “Shh. Maisie, it’s okay.”

Her eyes were wild. “I-I can’t.” Magic crawled up my spine. In the next instant, Maisie disappeared.

I watched the spot in shock, my stomach sinking. “Shit.”

“Nice going, Red,” Giguhl said.

“I didn’t mean to—Oh, gods, I didn’t mean to upset her.” My chest clenched with guilt.

“It’s not your fault,” Adam said. But we both knew that was a lie. His stoic gaze met mine. “I thought she was getting better.”

“Are you kidding? That
was
better,” Giguhl said. “Remember how she was when we first got back from New Orleans?”

Of course we did. I’d been there when Adam pulled the lid off the tomb where our grandmother had confined her. Saw the feral beast lurking behind her gaze after a week of starvation and being fed upon by her own flesh and blood. And all that was before Lavinia unleashed my blood-crazed sister on Adam, a horror that almost resulted in his death. When Maisie finally killed our grandmother, I’d hoped the poetic justice would alleviate some of her guilt over nearly killing Adam, but, if anything, the violence had only intensified Maisie’s issues.

The simple truth was Maisie still needed time. According to Adam’s aunt Rhea, my sister’s condition was what mortals called post-traumatic stress disorder. The physical wounds resulting from her captivity had healed quickly, but three months wasn’t long enough to heal the emotional damage.

“Do you think it was the mention of the murder scene that set her off?” I asked.

Adam shrugged. “Who knows? It could just have easily been the blood.”

Since trying to figure out the source of her distress was a futile endeavor at that point, I didn’t respond. But I did briefly consider going to look for her. However, since I was the one who set her off, I probably wasn’t the best candidate to comfort her.

“Adam, call Rhea and have her check on Maisie.” He hesitated. Clearly he was thinking of going after her himself. But Maisie and Adam had their own issues, which made him almost as bad a choice as me. Finally, he nodded and went to grab the phone. Adam’s aunt was the only mage who knew how to handle Maisie’s… issues.

While Adam went to the kitchen to call his aunt, Giguhl murmured some vague excuse about getting something from his room. I shot him a grateful smile for allowing me a few minutes alone. The last thing I wanted right then was another postmortem about one of Maisie’s episodes.

I grabbed my discarded bag of blood and took it with me to find some solace in the view. One of the things I loved about our apartment was the full wall of old sash windows overlooking Central Park. Usually, gazing out at the park’s shadowed treetops with the sparkling city lights beyond calmed me. But that night, the blue lights demanded my attention. Tried to seduce me down dark serpentine paths.

But I’d seen enough darkness for one night. I turned my back and focused on ignoring the coagulant aftertaste of my meal. Thus far, my night was not amusing me. And frankly, despite my claims to Maisie that Pussy’s show would be fun, I was so not looking forward to going. But I didn’t have a choice. Pussy Willow was my friend and I wanted to support her. Besides, if I begged off, I knew I’d just sit around all night brooding about my twin.

“Rhea promised to check on her and give me an update,” Adam said, returning from the kitchen. I nodded and speared another bag with my fangs. I used my full mouth as an excuse to avoid talking about what had just happened.

“Red?” Adam’s tone was quiet, careful.

I swallowed the last few drops and lowered the empty bag. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

My first instinct was to fire back with a caustic retort. But this was Adam. He’d see right through it. “I just never know what’s going to set her off.”

“She’s going to be okay. Eventually.”

I blew out a shaky breath. “Maybe I need to get Rhea to teach me a patience spell.”

The mancy chuckled and wrapped his arms around me. “Red, there are some things even magic can’t fix.”

I thought about my sister, the once vital, earthy female who used to paint her dreams and loved to laugh. “Tell me about it.”

3

G
etting to Vein was something straight out of a spy movie. Adam flashed us to the alley behind a hole-in-the-wall Chinese joint in Hell’s Kitchen. To the dark races, this area was known as the Black Light District, where vampires, mages, werewolves, and faeries came to indulge their favorite vices. Vein served as headquarters for the BLD, and its owner, Slade “The Shade” Corbin, ran prostitutes, drugs, and the dark-races underworld out of the club.

As usual, I was thankful for Adam’s skills with interspatial travel that allowed me to avoid public transportation. I might not feed off humans anymore, but that didn’t mean I wanted to press up against them in a tin can hurtling through a dark tunnel. I kept asking Rhea to teach me how to travel magically, too, but she held me off, saying I needed more experience in basic magic.

Once we arrived, I hefted my large tote bag up on my shoulder. The ugly canvas thing didn’t go with my black ensemble at all, but it made lugging my hairless cat demon around town easier.

“We need to put you on a diet, Mr. Giggles,” I complained.

A blue knit cap and two batlike ears appeared over the top of the bag. “Bite me, magepire.”

I rolled my eyes. Giguhl was always so bitchy in his cat form. Probably because of the ridiculous sweaters and cat toboggans he was forced to wear to protect his hairless body from the frigid New York winter.

Adam crossed his arms. “Are you two done? We’re running late.”

I held a hand toward the entrance of Pu Pu Palace. “Lead the way.”

Adam shook his head as he passed me to the entrance. The place held maybe six tables out front. When we entered, the few mortal customers kept their heads bent over bowls of steaming noodles and General Tso’s chicken. Slade must have paid the owner of the restaurant well to not notice the parade of vampires, mages, and faeries who came through the restaurant on a nightly basis. Although, knowing Slade, he’d bought the original owner out and kept the restaurant running as a front for his more illicit businesses.

We went back through the swinging door to the kitchen. Peanut oil droplets and the scent of MSG and mystery meats hung heavy in the air. The cooks sweated over large woks and prattled in a steady stream of Cantonese.

I grabbed an egg roll off a plate and dropped it in the bag for Giguhl to make up for my comment about his weight. A muttered “thanks” reached my ears over the kitchen racket. Adam opened the door to the walk-in freezer and shooed me in. I closed it behind us and pulled the lever to open the hidden passage. Two minutes later, we’d made our way down the stairs and into the tunnel that led to the entrance of Vein.

The regular bouncer, a Mohawked vampire named Joe, sat on the stool. Word of PW’s show must have spread because the line to get in was ten beings deep. Since Adam and I were regulars, Joe waved us past the line. A few disgruntled mutters rose from those who had to wait. I ignored them and high-fived Joe as we passed.