Blacker than Black (24 page)

Which is exactly what the Monsieur of York will do to me if I piss him off or push too far. That sudden realization doesn’t sit well with me. Not that I didn’t know; what’s disturbing is that I’d managed to forget that for a little while. I can’t afford to forget, can I?

I need to keep my guard up. I can’t afford not to. With a resigned sigh, I slump down into the cracked vinyl seat and smear a splash of latte around on the Formica. “You’re right, I let myself forget. I wanted to, just for a little while. I wanted to ignore that he threatened to kill me.” I pause and grimace at Blue.

Blue rolls his shoulders, a gesture meant to be a shrug.

Flopping my head back against the stiff vinyl, I stare up at the ceiling and follow the intricate weave of a fresh spider web. Unlike the myriad cobwebs, there’s no dust and fuzz marring the delicate strands of the trap. A small fly thrashes about near the center, and I return my attention to the steaming latte in front of me.

Survival means avoiding the obvious traps. As opposed to flying into them deliberately. Suicidal insects? I don’t think there’s such a thing, really. But if there were, Blue would likely inform me I was behaving like one.

“I didn’t ask for this, you know.” I was just out there trying to make some credits, hitting the street like I would any other night.

“None of us did.” He pokes at the clown car with a fingertip and it gives a feeble whir, crawling forward slowly another inch or two. “We just have to live with it, right? And that means keeping an eye out for the predators. Not sticking your head in the lion’s jaws and inviting him to take a bite.”

Tension ripples through me at his chiding tone. “That is
not
what I did.”

With something that resembles a smile of satisfaction, Blue scoops the clown car up and returns it to its cozy little home in whichever pocket it resides. Outside the window, a cloud passes from in front of the sun and the sudden brightness has him squinting. He turns his back to the window and leans against it, propping one elbow on the back of the booth and draping his scrawny legs along the length of the bench.

“He was banked when he approached me. Had himself cloaked with some sort of aural disguise. Jhez recognized him right off, but I didn’t until much later.” I respect him, though, for daring to hold me accountable.

“That’s all over and done with. You can’t do anything but wait it out. But the rest of this? Seriously, Black. Going to work for the man? And he’s putting you up? What were you thinking?”

That I like myself just the way I am. As in alive and breathing, with a pulse and all that jazz. That I can’t fight off every
lyche
with a desire for some old-school vigilante justice now that they know my face. “He didn’t give me much of an option,” I growl, leaning forward over the table to close the distance between us. Seriously, this isn’t a conversation I want anyone overhearing a word of.

“My choices were fairly limited. Work for him, or
fin
tap. That’s the penalty for chi-theft. Did you know that? Stripped of my aura, down to the bone, and left for dead.” Like my aunt was. I sit back in the booth and brace my hands against the edge of the table, elbows locked. “That was pretty much it.” Blue flinches. His hands fidget in his jacket pockets, and I know he’s fingering a small toy in either hand. I motion with my chin. “You got Tink in there today?” One side of his mouth turns up in a distracted grin. “Let me see her. It’s been a while.”

He pulls his hand from his pocket, fist clenched, and I cup my hands together and hold them out over the table, waiting for him to drop the dainty figurine. It looks like it takes a deliberate effort to unclench his grip on the toy.

“I don’t take risks frivolously.” My voice is quiet, and I feel calmer as I study the intricate detailing in the molded plastic character.

“It wasn’t really a choice he gave you, either.” There’s no inflection in his voice. It’s obviously not a question.

I answer anyways, because the whorls in Tink’s wings are slightly hypnotic. “No, it wasn’t. More like blackmail.”

“And now you’re his private pet.” For all intents and purposes, Blue calls it. As hard as it is to admit. I pick up my latte and take a long swig of the sweet, milky concoction. It’s still warm, thankfully. “Wish you wouldn’t have dragged your sister into it too, though.”

“That’s temporary. All of this is temporary.”

“You hope.” The man is like my personal Jiminy Cricket. I doubt anyone would ever believe he’s younger than me, listening to our conversation. Even I don’t believe it, half the time. He’s an old soul, if ever there was such a thing.

“And if it’s not?” I rub a thumb over Tink’s form, the memorized ridges and dips, and glance up at him. His purplish gaze meets mine, steady and serene. Except for the faint trace of tension at the corners of his eyes. When I hold out his toy in the palm of my hand, his gaze drops and the tension bleeds away as he reclaims it. “What then?”

“There’s ways around most things, when it comes to their kind. You just have to know who to ask.”

That is not the response I expect. Frankly, I didn’t expect an answer to that question at all. “Am I asking the right person, then?”

He makes Tink disappear with a sleight of hand that’s downright frightening. “As it turns out, yes. I can get you what you need. And Black?” The tone of his voice wipes away the smile creeping onto my face. “I’ll force it into you, if it comes to that. Seriously.”

No more smile. Nope. Not even a trace. Wow. I haven’t seen this side of him since the day I first met him. Feels like forever ago, now. Blue might look like a stiff wind could blow him away, but he’s not someone I’d willingly choose to cross paths with. I pity Garthelle, if it comes to that.

“He owns a club over on the upper east side of the metro,” he says suddenly. His voice is whisper-soft, devoid of emotion. “They have stalls in the basement of this place where they keep humans. Like a bunch of steers waiting to be slaughtered when someone orders a steak, you know? They parade them through the club in little herds. And the vampires graze on them. They throw the bodies in the gutter out back after closing so the sanitation machines can clean them up on their rounds.”

I close my eyes and duck my chin against my chest, huddling in against myself as a shudder runs through me. You hear rumors, working the street. Nightwalkers might be territorial, but it’s in all our best interests to share information when we can. It keeps us all alive, yeah? This one, though. It was hard to believe the word on the street. The most I ever caught on the subject was murmurs. Hearsay. People disappearing. But it was always ones like Kenna who disappeared. Ones who were obviously on their way out already. You couldn’t make yourself care, not about every single one. That would do nothing but drive you crazy.

How does Blue know? How does he dare trust the source of such a wild story? But the fact remains that I can’t afford to question him on this one. The Monsieur of York owns or controls the greater part of real estate within the boundaries of the metro. Odds are he owns that club. Whether he knows what goes on inside of it . . . well.

Does it even matter?
Garthelle said it himself. Ignorance doesn’t excuse responsibility.

Blue has business to attend to. Streets to walk. I buy him a latte to take along despite his protests, and slide back into the booth to finish mine. I wish Garthelle wouldn’t smirk at me like that. I can feel it, see it, clear across the café from the alcove beneath the stairs he’s been sitting in. There’s a glint in his eyes that reminds me of a leering john. And I hate it.

Why can’t vamps just smile, like any other normal person would? Why’s the veneer of humanity so thin on them all the time? They’re always that way. Less human than you expect, given the physical similarities. And that’s where most Nightwalkers trip up, I guess. I know better than to fall for that trick. But it still snags me sometimes.

Lyche
. Not vampire. Gaia, it’s hard to remember. I’m trying, but decades of use have worn a groove in my brain. That sort of shift in thinking, even if it’s just as simple as a name, takes time. Why they consider “vampire” to be derogatory is beyond me. Maybe he’ll explain that sometime. Maybe it’s as inherent as my visceral reaction to “mutt.”

When Garthelle slides into the seat Blue vacated minutes before, there’s no trace of his smirk. His visage is that emotionless, unreadable mask. The only time I’ve ever been able to read him well was when he fed from me. I want to get beneath the role, to find the man. Who he really is. The glimpse I saw when my aunt greeted him by name.

Always Garthelle, though. Employer, vamp. No,
lyche
. Either way, I’m not seeing even a hint of Leonard. Garthelle only lets me see what he wants me to see; thus far, the only exception was when I woke in his bed after the party. For a few brief moments, there was no one there with me but Leonard. Not the Monsieur or the vamp.
Lyche
. Just the man, his humanity unshielded.

Sitting on the couch with him earlier, I think I may have gotten a glimpse of him then, as well. It felt like it. But it was so fleeting, ethereal. I may have imagined it all.

He’s staring at my neck, and I suddenly realize I’m fingering the spot where his teeth dug into my skin, marked me. I pull my hand away and feel a flush of heat crawl up my neck and into my cheeks. Wow, that’s embarrassing. You’ll never get me to admit it actually felt good, though, having his teeth latched onto my flesh while he tapped me. No way. Not in a hundred lifetimes.

I’m good at ignoring those minor little details. That I find him so attractive isn’t one of those little details, though. Sadly. Frustrating, that my pulse pounds and a flush of heat colors my skin whenever I’m near him. Even with the dampener. Damned drug doesn’t have any effect on that at all.

“Did he tell you what you wanted to hear?”

I want to laugh at his choice of phrasing. Seriously? What I want to hear is that all will be well in the world, that shortly the past two decades will somehow rewind so as to be rewritten in a saner, less traumatic fashion.
So
not going to happen.

“What I wanted to hear.” That he can make it all go away with a few drugs, if it comes down to that. “Yeah, I guess he did.”

Garthelle reaches across the table, fingers brushing mine as he steals my latte and takes a sip. My skin tingles at the contact, aural flare of energy recognizing energy. Faint, but still there. He takes a deep breath, seems to relax a fraction, but his gaze remains fixated on my neck. “Good. He seemed calmer when he left.”

“A little.”

“You don’t seem calmer.”

I’m not. But how would he know? It’s not like he can read my aura or anything. I can’t sense his at all either; a big black hole sitting across from me. He’s right, though. I’m not calm. Not when my entire brain seems focused solely on how to get him to touch me again. “Don’t think I’ve been calm since you sent Muscle to retrieve me.”

He sets the cup down in front of me, gaze sliding a fraction higher. Focusing on my chin, or my mouth? “Why is that?”

The
lyche
is powerful. The man, a puzzle. I guess on some level I fear that power, even while the urge to uncover the truth behind the mystery is equally strong. Mostly, I’ve developed a healthy respect for what vamps . . .
lyche . . .
are capable of. That caution isn’t something I can set aside easily. “Because trust isn’t earned that quickly, Monsieur.”

His gaze flicks up, not meeting mine but reading the expression on my face, my body language. The silence stretches out, and then he nods. “Indeed.” He reaches out again, turns the latte until the opening on the lid faces me, and slides it a fraction closer. “Finish it while it’s still warm, yes?”

An air of expectation, so I indulge him. Don’t have to tell me twice not to waste a hot cup of caffeine.

“I heard the conversation,” he continues as I sip. “I can pretend—continue pretending—that I didn’t hear it. If you’d like. Or I can explain a few things. If you’d like.” He meets my gaze abruptly. The sudden intensity and connection feels almost physical.

Ignorance is strength, bliss. For one who isn’t aware of what they don’t know.
That
they don’t know. “Explain what, exactly?” The question comes out soft, quiet. Tenuous, partly because he catches me off guard, but the rest of it is just his effect on me, pure and simple.

The corner of his left eye twitches, but his gaze doesn’t waver from mine. Intense. Solid, serious. “The
lyche
diner. That’s what Alpha members call it.”

Alpha. The circle who sent a pair of muscle to snatch me.

“So you
do
know about it.”

“Yes. I am aware of its operation within the boundaries of my territory.” Spoken slowly, measured. Words carefully chosen. “That is not something I am proud of.”

“Then why do you leave it? Why haven’t you shut it down?”

“You make it sound so easy.” A flash of a half-smile, as blatantly sarcastic as his words. “Because although this metro falls under my jurisdiction, the building and grounds of the diner are in a city block designated sovereign Alpha territory. It’s part of an existing truce agreement that makes allowance for ambassadorial presence in York. I’ve no say in the activities that take place there.”