Wicked Fantasy (8 page)

Sparkle started to say something, but suddenly froze. She was staring past the ship to the beginning of the Wild West section of the park. Conall followed her gaze.

“That bastard.” She glared at a guy talking with three women.

Wow, and what women they were. Tall, blond, and beautiful. Walking clichés. Conall was impressed. “So who's the guy?”

“Edge.” Sparkle spoke through gritted teeth.

“Do you know the women?” He was already losing interest as Gerry drew closer. He'd have to find a way to offer his help without making it sound like he didn't think she could do her job by herself.

“Oh, yeah. I know them.” She sounded a little scary.

“Not friends, huh?”

“They're going to complicate things.” She stood.

Conall watched her curl her fingers into claws. Uh-oh, Edge and the ladies had trouble heading their way. “So who are they?”

She glanced at him, and her amber eyes actually glowed. “They're demonic vestal virgins.” Then she strode toward the group.

Sparkle forced herself to slow down, look more unconcerned, and put more sway into her swagger as she drew nearer Edge and his twisted-sister trio. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing how pissed off she was. Where the hell had he gotten the power to interest
them
? Because the virgins were all about power, lots of it.

Edge smiled as she reached his group. “Having any luck hooking up your immortal warrior and the sexy little vampire? Gotta hand it to you. Trying to match up the last of the Kavanaghs with a guy Morrigan loves to hate takes guts. The goddess doesn't want Conall having fun with any part of his curse.”

“And I should care why?” Once again, Sparkle sensed darkness behind that I'm-just-an-ordinary-guy persona. His black T-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, sandals, along with that bland smile couldn't quite camouflage what lay beneath.

“You've found out a lot about my project in a short time. I wonder how?” She'd discover who leaked info to Edge. And when she did? The responsible party would be visiting a proctologist, because it was kind of hard to remove your head from your ass.

And why was she having so much trouble tracking down any useful details about
him
? The Big Boss wasn't returning her calls, and no one she'd contacted recognized his name.

He shrugged. “I've been around long enough to have lots of sources.”

Suspicion touched her. “How long?”

He slanted her a sly look. “I'd like you to meet my friends.”

Sparkle allowed herself to be distracted. For the moment. “We've met before. And friends? I don't think so. Unless you make a habit of cozying up to scorpions.” She turned her gaze on the women. “Fulvia, Tullia, and Varinia. The demonic eye color is so you. Having any trouble adjusting to the hot climate?”

They looked stunning. Damn it. Their white I'm-so-pure swirly dresses were a lie, but the color looked great on them. Wow, would you look at Tullia's man-killer stilettos? Incredible. Sparkle hoped they really hurt.
Keep your mind on business.
“So what brings you to this little corner of Texas?” She
wouldn't
ask about the shoes.

Tullia licked her bottom lip and cast Sparkle a sideways glance from her pale demon eyes. “Once a virgin, always a virgin. Edge called the Castle of Dark Dreams to our attention. It's a hotbed of sexual excess. My sisters and I are here to make it stop.” She shifted her feet to better display her awesome shoes.

Where did she
find
those shoes? Metallic shine, soft, smooth leather . . . Sparkle took a deep breath to refocus her attention. “Give me a break. You're vestal virgins who broke your vows. And to top it off, you kicked the shit out of the other virgins who threatened to rat you out.” She smiled and hoped it looked as nasty as it felt. “How's hell treating you, girls?”

Fulvia snarled, exposing sharp white demon teeth. “We got thrown into hell just for breaking a few dumb vows. Yeah, so we kicked some virgin ass, too. So what?” She waved her hands around to emphasize the unfairness of it all.

Sparkle narrowed her gaze on Fulvia's nails. The nail color was so red, so rich, so
perfect
. What color was that? She had to know. Uh-oh, wandering off course again. She did a few mental head slaps to reshuffle her priorities. “I totally sympathize with you.” Not. “Back to the reason for you being here. Is Edge going to help you stop the sex?” What
was
that color?

Varinia blinked. “Duh.
He
called us out of hell, so I'd say that was a yes. We don't need him, though. The three of us can make sex a nonissue whenever we want. It's what we do. The Big Bad who heads up the underworld condemned us to eternal virginity. So if
we
can't have sex, damned if anyone else will.” She glanced at her sisters for support and then back to Sparkle. “And you can't stop us.”

“Okay, I get it.” An eternity of virginity? Sparkle shuddered. She tried to glare at Edge, but her gaze kept sliding back to those shoes, those nails. “You brought them here so they could help you keep Conall and Gerry apart.” The shoes and nails were
not
important. “By the way, Tullia, where'd you buy those shoes?”

“You like them? An old Italian man makes them by hand for me.” Tullia's smile was knowing.

Sparkle forced her gaze back to Edge. “If cheating is your game, two can play.” She'd meant to anyway. “You called in more power, so I guess I'll make my own power call.” Those shoes were making her all shivery. Yeah, she was shallow. So? “What's this old man's name, Tullia?”

Tullia shook her head and looked serious. “If I even breathed his name he'd never make another pair for me.”

Rats. Sparkle intended to get that old guy's name even if she had to pull Tullia's fingernails out one at a time. Speaking of fingernails . . . “Uh, what nail color is that, Fulvia?”

Edge frowned at her. “Look, I brought in the virgins so I could cheat and humiliate you. So where's the fury, the threats, the gnashing of teeth?” He looked mildly ticked off.

“Huh?” Sparkle pulled her attention back from the grip of nail-color fever. “Why should I be mad?” She
was
mad, but shoe and nail-color lust diluted it. “I expected you to cheat. You did. And if you think you've cut a deal with them to spare your two favorites, Banan and Destiny, forget it. They're not good at honoring vows or deals. The virgins will try to shut down all sex in the castle. They can't. As long as I'm in charge, sex will happen.”

Sparkle decided that sounded like a great walk-off line. Besides, if she stayed one more minute, she'd grab Fulvia's wrist and twist it until the bitch told her the name of that sexy nail color.

Sparkle didn't look back, and she didn't stop walking until she reached her candy store, Sweet Indulgence. Edge was supposed to be watching the place for her, but he'd closed it down so he'd be free to plot behind her back with the Sisters Sinister. She slammed the door shut behind her and then turned on the lights. A closed store didn't make money.

She perched on the tall stool she kept behind her counter and reached for her phone. First she'd call Mede. Then she'd call the Big Boss to ask, okay, beg him to take Edge back and drop him in the primordial swamp where he belonged.

Sparkle punched in Mede's number and waited for that sexy voice.

“Yeah? Talk fast, my ice cream's melting.”

“I need you.”

“On my way, babe.”

Gerry usually woke to silence. This time was different. As she lay in bed with eyes closed, drifting in that peaceful place between sleep and waking, she tried to make sense of the voice whispering in her head. It was telling her something important. Well, if it was so important, why wasn't the voice yelling? Hmm. And what was that smell?

She tipped over into complete wakefulness with a hard thud. The smell was burning cloth. Ohmigod!

Her eyes popped open and then widened in horror as she watched flames leaping and dancing from a burning candle across the upholstered bench at the foot of her bed. Any second the bed would be ablaze. Candle? Frantically, she scanned the room. What? Who?

A Siamese cat sat on the bureau watching her.
“Oh, goody. You woke up.”
The voice in her head sounded disappointed.

Gerry's preternatural speed was on automatic as she leaped from the bed and made a grab for the phone. Just then, the sprinkler system kicked in.

Spitting and hissing, the cat jumped from the bureau and scurried under the couch from where it glared at her.

She clutched the receiver to her ear and waited for a dial tone. Nothing. What the hell . . . ? And where was the ear-piercing shriek of the smoke detector?

Before she could drop the phone and run for safety, the connecting door to the room next to hers exploded inward, followed closely by a very large, very naked male body.

Conall stood, strong legs spread wide, holding a fire extinguisher. Some women might lust after Superman. Gerry decided she'd take a naked warrior clutching a fire extinguisher every time.

He didn't say a word as he made short work of the flames, then he reached for the phone.

“It's dead.” Just like she almost was.

Gerry reined in her panicked thoughts long enough to form a logical string of events. Fell asleep. Hadn't seen a lit candle before conking out. She wouldn't have missed that. Vampires tended to notice open flames. Glancing at the smoldering remains, she assured herself that, yes, there was a candle. Ergo, someone had wanted her dead, and they'd wanted it to look like carelessness on her part.

What was the point? Who'd want to destroy her . . . other than Jinx and Conall? Okay, so maybe that sarcastic wizard and the wife killer, if he'd found out she was hunting him.

Conall followed the phone line to the wall. “It's unplugged.” He bent over to plug the cord back into the jack.

Be still my undead heart.
If she wasn't freaked out by someone's attempt to barbecue her while she slept, she might be more affected by the most spectacular male butt she'd ever seen. It was smooth, tight, and compact. It begged for a woman's fingers to explore its masculine curves. But of course she
was
freaked out, so she didn't pay much attention.

“It was fine when I went to sleep.” She frowned. Was it? She hadn't actually used the phone. “I think.”

He reached up to press the test button on the room's smoke detector. Nothing. “Someone will check this out.” Conall walked back to the phone. “I'll get someone to shut off the sprinklers.”

While he was on the phone, Gerry couldn't have moved if she wanted to. She stood frozen, dripping water, trying to ignore the stench of soggy, burned fabric. Fact: Someone had put a candle on the bench, lit it, and then put something flammable close enough to catch fire and spread the flames to the bench.

She looked closer at the charred lump next to the candle. Damn it, the jerkwad arsonist had used her extra night-shirt as a fire starter. Memo to self: Send outraged note to manufacturer suggesting they use fire-retardant material for their nightshirts. Right now, though, she had to come to terms with the reality that someone had homicidal designs on her.

Which seemed pretty weird. She was a good friend, kind to animals and senior citizens, and pretty much an all-around likable person. Good grief, in high school she'd been voted Miss Nice.

Maybe it was the vampire thing. “Nice” wasn't a defining vampire characteristic. When had she started the deadly slide into ruthless and evil? She'd used the Securer on Jinx without a twinge of conscience. She loved tracking down paranormal nut jobs. And she hadn't watered that poor plant. Would she eventually morph into the queen of mean?

Get a grip, Kavanagh.
She closed her eyes, hit her mental delete button to clear her mind, and then opened her eyes.

Glancing around, she spotted the cat still crouched under the sofa. How did it get in? How . . . ?

“I opened the door and walked in.”
The sprinklers suddenly shut off, and the cat crawled from its shelter.
“I don't have to actually open doors to get inside, but seeing a cat materialize in front of some people upsets them. Of course, once inside I could've changed to human form, but my job description stipulates that I remain a cat until I complete my assignment.”

Gerry narrowed her eyes on the cat. “You're a telepathic shape-shifter with the power to teleport. Impressive. Why're you here? And did you set the fire?”

“Setting fire to someone's bed is beneath me.”
The cat's narrow elegant face managed to convey outrage.
“I'm Asima, messenger of Bast, the Egyptian goddess of cats, the moon, sexuality, physical—”

“I'll give you time to change into dry clothes and pack your stuff, then I'll get you into another room.” Conall had moved to her side, still naked. The force of his presence felt like the hard shove of a hand against Gerry's chest. She almost reached up to rub it.

Conall was at ease with his body. Gerry wasn't. She glanced at that broad muscular expanse of wonderful male body, let her gaze dip to between those powerful thighs, and found it all . . . hard to ignore.

She forced herself to blink and then looked back at Asima. The cat avoided her gaze. “Why didn't you warn me?”

Asima tried for a hurt expression and failed. Or maybe she wasn't trying for any expression. A cat's facial muscles didn't lend themselves to deep emotion.
“I did warn you. I sat right on that bureau and yelled, ‘Fire! Save yourself.' ”