Courting Darkness (45 page)

BOOK: Courting Darkness

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He paused, then cleared his throat. I tried to focus on what he was saying, but it was hard because the drinks and shifting and the promise of those dangling fringe pieces had all clouded my mind.

After a moment, the stripper shrugged. “What the hell. Why not? I got it from a little shop in south Seattle. Name’s Alchemy for Lovers, and they said that if I put three drops on my dick before a performance, it would increase my profits. Boy, were they right.” He gave a sideways glance to Iris, then me. “Well, until tonight, that is. Damn stuff burns a bit, but hey, it makes sex better, too.”

He sounded vaguely hopeful, but Camille motioned for him to leave.

The bartender was giving us dirty looks, so Menolly gathered up the presents. With Nerissa carrying the cake and Camille helping to guide me, we stumbled out to the car. Tony was waiting right where he’d parked. He opened the door and we crawled in.

Nerissa sat up front with him, holding the cake in her lap, while Camille and Iris sat on one side. Menolly, Sharah, and I sat on the other side of the back seat, and we set off for home to finish partying where we wouldn’t chance ruining anybody else’s evening.

We pulled in the driveway and slid out of the limo just in time to see Vanzir and Roz tossing each other around the yard. They were both stripped to their waists and were involved in what looked like some sort of Greco-Roman wrestling match.

“What the hell . . . ?” Camille stared at them, then shook her head.

“I’m not
even
going to ask.” My head was pounding. Apparently the Demented Zombies weren’t agreeing with me. As I squinted, I saw Bruce stumbling around, chasing a dog that looked suspiciously like Speedo, the neighbor’s basset hound. “Holy crap, how much have
they
had to drink?”

“I dunno, but we’ve got a pair of dragons on the roof.” She pointed to where Smoky and Shade were sitting on top of the roof, dangling their legs over the side. Neither looked too cozy, but they were talking and not arguing for once. A pile of rocks near the cars told us they’d been having a rock-throwing contest. At least they hadn’t broken any windshields, as far as I could tell.

As we stumbled our way into the house, we found Cousin Shamas, Morio, and Chase in the living room, playing poker. The table was covered with change and dollar bills, and it looked like Chase was wiping the floor with both of them. Empty bottles of Nebelvuourian brandy and Elqaneve wine were strewn about, along with a couple empties of Irish whiskey. The smell of cigars made me want to hurl, and I glanced at Camille, who was also wrinkling her nose.

“Honey, you’re home!” Morio glanced up at Camille. As he stood up, he tripped and went sprawling at her feet, where he stayed down, just reaching out to play with her strappy shoes.

“You’re drunk.” She moved her feet just out of reach.

“Ya think?” Morio burped and promptly dragged himself to his feet, where he threw one arm around her shoulders and one arm around Menolly’s. Camille’s eyes narrowed and she glanced at Menolly, who quickly sidestepped out of Morio’s embrace. He still wasn’t quite over the bond that had developed when some of her blood went into his veins, but Menolly seemed to have shaken it . . . or most of it.

“You’re
all
drunk.” I glanced around as Shade and Smoky followed us in, clutching Bruce between them. “Well, maybe not those two, but geez . . .”

The pair seemed relatively sober, but then again, they were dragons and it probably required a whole keg of hard liquor to even begin to get a dragon bombed.

Smoky took the cake from Sharah and carried it to the kitchen, returning with Trillian, who had his nose in a book. One look at Iris’s pained face and Trillian set down the book and slipped back into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a package of saltines. She gave him a soft smile and began to eat.

As the guys sprawled out in the living room and we joined them, Iris made the mistake of telling them about the stripper.

Smoky leaned forward, his eyes whirling. “You watched another man remove his clothing for entertainment?” He glared at Camille.

“Chill out, Iris threw up on him and that killed the mood.”

“I can’t help it if I have morning sickness all the damned day!” Iris looked hurt and Camille slipped over to give her a hug, then plopped down on Smoky’s lap. His hair reached up to stroke her shoulders and entwine around her waist.

“I’ll bet the gentleman wasn’t expecting
that
response.” As Shade began to laugh, the phone rang and I picked it up.

“Delilah?” Yugi was Chase’s second in command at the FH-CSI—the Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation unit. And he sounded so frantic I could barely understand him. “Please, we need you over here
now
. Sharah especially. It’s an emergency.”

“What’s up?” A tingling in my gut told me that whatever it was, we were in no shape to deal with it.

“There’s been a bombing at the Supe Community Council. Four confirmed deaths so far, and two people are in intensive care. We don’t know how many others were in the building. Rescue teams are heading in as soon as the bomb squad confirms no more danger. Get over here.
Now
.”

As I hung up, staring helplessly at the phone and wondering if any of my friends were among the dead, I realized that regardless of the celebrations going on in our private lives, we were always on call. There would never be another moment when we could fully relax—not until we’d pushed back the demons and stopped Shadow Wing and his cronies. And even then . . . there were other horrors in the world waiting for us to stop them.

“Sober up any way you can,” I said, setting the receiver back in the cradle. “We’ve got work to do. And it can’t wait till tomorrow.”