Dead to Rites (20 page)

“If Carmen McCall’s a succubus like me, then you’re already wondering… what’s
in
the elixir?”

Goddammit!

“What’s it going to do? Will it do what she promised? Even if it does, are there side-effects? Is it going to poison Adalina? Change her? Leave her open to possession?”

I didn’t even remember standin’, but I was on my feet, meathooks reaching out for the nearest thing I could break, and the lights were startin’ to flicker again. I hadda force myself to stop, rein myself in before I fell back into… unpleasantries.

“So how desperate are you, Mick? What—
who
—are you prepared to risk on the word of a demon?”

“Mick? Mick! Slow down a little!”

“What’sa matter, Pete?” I was storming along the sidewalk, headed for my office. The breeze kicked the tails of my coat and the occasional stray newspaper around my ankles, but at least it wasn’t rainin’ tonight. We’d parked his car a couple blocks back; I just hadn’t been able to stand bein’ inside that rolling torture chamber one second longer. “Your plates hurt? You should be able to keep up. I thought you were a beat cop.”

“I don’t mean the walk, dammit! I mean what you’re telling me! She’s a
succubus
?”

Part of me bein’ so angry at everything had meant that, dealin’ with the pain of being in the flivver, I hadn’t been willing to jaw much on the road. So it was only when he’d parked and we’d hopped out that I’d started goin’ into detail on what I’d learned at Baskin’s place.

“That’s what I said.”

I did pause long enough to glance up at the street light I was passin’ to check it didn’t go out. I hadda make sure I was still in control; I’d been losin’ it too easy of late.

“As in a demon. From the pits of Hell.”

“So they tell me.”

“And I thought
you
told
me
once that everythin’ supernatural that wasn’t human was Fae, or at least related.”

“Yep.”

“So how do
demons
fit into that?” The next street light and the headlamps of a passing car shone in his peepers as they went wide. “Shit, if there’s a Hell, does that mean Heaven and God really exist? I mean really,
provably
exist? I gotta get my keister to church more often…”

“How the hell—pardon the expression—would I know that, Pete?”

“But, if demons—”

“Pete,
they
claim to be demons. They claim to come from the damn Pit, with lakes of fire and the souls of the damned and all that. Me and mine? We’re pretty sure it’s horsefeathers. They’re just another nation of Fae.”

“Really?” He sounded less than convinced.

“Really. Nastier’n most, even most Unseelie, and I’m sure wherever their home is, it ain’t someplace you’d wanna take a new blushing bride on your honeymoon. They take strange forms and have stranger magics. But they’re Fae.”

“And you know this for sure.”

“
Pretty
sure, I said.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Then we’re all gonna look dumb.”

I’m sure Pete woulda had somethin’ smart to say to that, but we turned the last corner to see—surprise, surprise—someone sittin’ on the stoop of Soucek’s building. Probably waitin’ for me, since most of the offices in the place were vacant, and none of the others kept the kinda hours I did.

“I need to start leavin’ refreshments out,” I muttered. “Maybe put in some furniture.”

But on the square, when I came a few steps nearer and got a good slant on
who
was loitering there, it
was
a bit of a shock.

“Tsura?”

She bolted to her feet, almost guiltily.

“Mick! I’m glad you’re finally here. I—” She stopped, peerin’ over my shoulder, and I realized she was unhappy I wasn’t alone.

“Look,” I said, “this ain’t a good time to—”

“Can we talk?”

“What part of ‘ain’t a good time’ do you not—? Guh. Fine. Come in with us. When I’m done with—”

“No.” She was damn near bouncin’ in place. “No, I mean alone. Please, just for a minute.”

Dammit, I couldn’t handle this right now! I was too steamed, too worried, had too much to deal with!

“No, we can’t! You wanna talk? Come in and wait your turn. You wanna make yourself useful? Tune in to whatever psychic radio you listen to and find me the missing mummy. Or McCall. Or Goswythe!” No way she even knew the names I was throwin’ at her now, but that wasn’t really the point. Not sure I
hadda
point.

I brushed past her, up the steps, and yanked the door open.

“You comin’?”

She crossed her arms and scowled, and otherwise stayed put.

“Suit yourself.”

“Uh, Mick?” Pete asked as we tromped down the stairs to the basement level. “Who was—?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Part of me was already feelin’ a bit sheepish; this was the second time I’d barked at her that way without real cause. I was still too peeved and too caught up in more important stuff to go back out and talk to her, but if she was still there after I’d made the call…

Except I didn’t have to make any calls. Soon as I set foot in the hallway, I sensed her, already in my office.

Again.

“Better locks. Definitely better locks.”

Pete blinked. “Huh?”

“Maybe some wards. Yeah.” I strode over and tossed open the door to my place. “Ms. McCall.”

“Mr. Oberon,” she said, from my chair. Behind my desk. “Why is your typewriter lying on the floor?”

“It was tired.”

“And the tooth?”

“It’s the typewriter’s teddy bear. What’s in the elixir?”

She blinked, took a long drag off a cigarette in an ivory holder.

“Are you sure you want to talk about such things in front of your friend there?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have.”

“Fair enough.” Another puff. “But of course I can’t tell you that. A little of this, a little of—”

“How about we skip to the part where I tell you I know you’re a damn succubus and I’m more’n ready to commit some serious violence, and you give me a straight answer?”

“Oh.” She slowly lowered the gasper, chewed her lip once or twice. I’d thrown her, but not very. “Oh,” she said again. “Dear Ramona’s been incautious, I see. That complicates things.”

“You got plans to say anything
useful
, toots?”

“Fine. I’m still not going to give you the recipe for my elixir,
bo
. But I’ll tell you the answer you’re looking for is yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” She grinned, which woulda been
less
disturbing if it hadn’t been so pretty. “It requires a human soul.”

There it was. The one thing I most hadn’t wanted to hear, and the one thing I’d pretty well known I would. I dunno if demons can
really
steal or bargain for the soul or not, or if it’s somethin’ else about the life essence of mortals they collect and just call it the soul. But it
might
be the real deal—and even if it ain’t, it’d still mean somebody’s life sucked away and consumed to wake Adalina.

“And it doesn’t matter,” she purred. “You’ll go through with this anyway, because you’ve no other choice. If you had any other way to wake the little tart, you’d have found it long before now. Besides, it’s not as though
good
people have any truck with me and mine, is it?”

I wanna tell you I laughed in her face. That I didn’t give it a second thought, that I’d never even have considered somethin’ like that.

But every god help me, I did.

Just for a moment, I did.

I mean, she was right. What kinda sap gets himself mixed up in a hellish bargain for his own soul, anyway? I’d met a few, and I’ll tell ya, Baskin was one of the
better
of the lot. Besides, it ain’t like me refusin’ to use the elixir was gonna unkill whatever poor fool she’d last rubbed out. Better
some
good come outta it, right?

Right?

Adalina… It’d been over a year, now. I didn’t know what else to do for her. And she deserved so much better’n this, especially after…

After…

And that,
that
was when I came to my senses. When Adalina saved me from doin’ something awful, from makin’ the sorta choice I’d left the Seelie Court to escape.

Adalina lay on her bed, in an endless coma, because she’d almost died; battered and torn by her grandmother’s spells until even her Fae magics and resilience shouldn’t have been able to save her. She
should
have died,
expected
to die. Because she knew Orsola needed to be stopped, because it would save lives, sure, alla that.

But also because she refused to live as a monster.

It didn’t matter if the price for Carmen McCall to wake her was one I’da been willing, in my worst moments, to pay. Adalina would never, ever have wanted it.

“You’ve got thirty seconds,” I growled—
literally
growled—at McCall, “to get your ass outta my chair, outta my office, and outta my life. Otherwise, I am gonna either
make
you leave, or kill you. And by then I really, truly will not give a
fuck
which of those two outcomes we arrive at.”

That unctuous smile slid off her face like wet mud on a hillside.

“You didn’t… You can’t!”

“I did. I can. Twenty-five seconds.”

Now, she stood, the chair flyin’ back so hard it bounced off the filing cabinet, but probably not so she could quietly leave like I’d asked.

“How
dare
you? Nobody says no to me!” Her fury was a series of explosions, blast after blast buffeting me from across the room. I squinted into ’em and didn’t flinch.

“Twenty seconds.”

She ranted, shrieking her rage in a voice that twisted and broke, in turns higher and lower and more heartbreaking and more horrifying than anything that ever came from human pipes. Claws she didn’t have a few seconds ago gouged deep into the wood of my desk, sending out a geyser of splinters.

Well, nuts. No way
that
was gonna buff out.

“Ten. And if you’ll take some friendly advice, maybe work on that temper.”

“You can stop counting, Oberon.” Just that quick, she was all smiles and calm again, which bugged me more’n all the screeching had done. “I’m not leaving until I’m good and ready.”

I went for my wand before she’d finished speaking. If she wanted to make a tussle of it, I’d give her one—and I had every intention of hittin’ hard and swift enough to win that fight before she knew the bell’d rung.

Except it was
my
bell that got rung. ’Cause what I didn’t know is that her whole tantrum was a put-on, a distraction, at least in part. And that McCall’d started the fight before I set foot in the office.

The blow came from behind, hard, fast. Wasn’t iron or magic, but a knock to the conk like that woulda put me on the floor, even if only briefly, at the best of times. Since it landed right on my wound, which was real near to healed but not
quite
faded yet, this wasn’t the best of times.

My knees and palms hit the carpet; the L&G rolled under the desk, which actually surprised me some, since the room seemed to be spinnin’ the other direction. I saw someone walk past me—just a pair of shoes and trouser cuffs, from my angle—and I didn’t recognize ’em at first. I was too busy strugglin’ to Humpty Dumpty my noggin back together, and tryin’ to figure out who coulda slugged me. Who coulda…?

Aw, shit, no.

I forced myself to look up, and yeah, there he was. Pete stood beside McCall behind the desk like a good little puppy. (I never did find out for sure what he bashed me with, but I’m guessin’ the butt of his service revolver.) She had her arm around him, her chin perched girlishly on his shoulder.

“Isn’t he darling?” she said. “I could just eat him up with a spoon.”

Wasn’t Pete’s fault. I knew that from the get-go. Didn’t hold this against him at all, or at least I wouldn’t in a minute when the ache subsided some.

McCall, though… Far as I was concerned, those two acceptable options for how to handle her had dropped to one, now. And “making her leave” wasn’t the one I was still okay with.

’Course, it’d have to wait for a time where those claws weren’t mere inches away from Pete’s spine.

I struggled back to my feet. Didn’t even bother tryin’ to retrieve the L&G; no way she’da been okay with a move like that.

“When did…?” Nah, it didn’t matter. She coulda gotten to Pete at any time in the past week. Or even before, if she’d planned this out far enough in advance to have him wrapped around her finger before she ever even approached me.

Damn succubi. I can respect a good plot or a good grudge, but you come at me direct. Goin’ through my friends? Gettin’ into their heads, their emotions, until they can’t tell right from purple? That ain’t kosher—and it ain’t forgivable.

Meant she was well informed, though. And keeping a slant on me, so she’da known when it was safe to approach Pete and…

“It was you the whole time, wasn’t it, McCall? All the different people digging around on me. Talkin’ to folks I know, pinpointing who’s more important to me than who? Never was any group.”
Never was Goswythe
, I added silently. Damn, but I shouldn’ta let myself get so fixed on that notion! “Your whole spiel about findin’ Ramona before ‘they’ did was just more smoke. All of it, just you wearin’ different faces.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly know if it was
all
me,” she cooed. “But certainly
most
of it.” Crazy twist actually batted her lashes at me!

“So what now? You know everything I do, or you will once you’n Pete have the chance to barber for a few. You don’t need me anymore—or him, either, once you got your information.”

“Mick, Mick, Mick. You’re adorable. I didn’t hire you only to
find
my dear sister, remember? I hired you to
deliver
her. Signed and sealed.”

Dammit.

“Yeah, but if you already know where to find her—”

“No. You’re going to bring her to me. You’re going to ensure that she’s in no shape to resist, or interfere with me bringing her home. We have such… lovely entertainments planned for her ‘welcome back’ party.