Honeymoon of the Dead (9 page)

“ ‘Up-to-date passport a plus,’ ” Sebastian continued. “ ‘Applicants should have knowledge of latest conspiracy theories.’ ”

“Yeah,” I said, growing a bit more serious. “But aren’t they partially right? Rich people do exert a lot of influence on things like foreign policy, don’t they?”

“I’m sure some do, but you know what? I’ve never been invited to a single secret cabal meeting.” Sebastian put on a tone of mock hurt. “I’ve never gotten a piece of the world domination agenda.”

“What, you never attended a Skull and Bones meeting at Yale with former presidents?” I teased. “Sheesh, and I thought you were ‘connected.’ ”

“Sorry, darling. If you wanted a mover and a shaker, I am not him.”

Running a finger along the line from his shoulder to his bicep, I flashed Sebastian my best bedroom eyes. “You always move me, baby.”

“Growl,” he purred, and then smiled at me fondly. “You make me wish we were somewhere more private.”

“Ever wanted to have public sex?”

It was hard to believe, but Sebastian—my thousand-year-old lover, who had probably seen everything under the sun,
twice
—blushed.

Which just aroused me all the more.

I slowly, provocatively, ran the toe of my boot up his pant leg. Leaning over, I took the soft lobe of his ear in my teeth and gave him a nibble.

“We can’t—uh, can we?” His smile was huge with hope.

Well, I wasn’t sure how much I was really willing to do for an audience, but I’d go pretty far for the fun of it. Whispering in the ear I’d just been munching on, I said, “There are things I’d be up for, if you are.” My tongue darted into his ear.

“I don’t know,” he admitted honestly, huskily.

It was kind of fun to have Sebastian so antsy. “Oh? It’d make a good video on the Illuminati site, don’t you think?” I slid my hand into his lap. My fingers traced the creases of his pants, but skirting the, shall we say, main attraction.

He laughed lowly. “I think this is our stop. Thank God.”

 

 

Like newlyweds, we raced through the lobby holding
hands and giggling. The mere idea of the possibility of public sex totally ramped up our whole experience. We talked through several scenarios. It was kind of like phone sex, but with benefits of . . . well, being actual instead of entirely imagined.

The biggest perk of all, in my opinion, was that we had so much fun that I completely forgot about all our troubles, at least until Special Agent Dominguez called the hotel the next morning.

“I need to speak to Sebastian,” he said when I picked up the phone and mumbled something vaguely like hello. “There’s a problem with your husband’s papers.”

 

 

 

 

 

My heart pounded in my ears. Lilith stirred in antici
pation of danger. I glanced over at Sebastian, who still slumbered peacefully—or, at least, as peacefully as he could given that when he slept his body always returned to the position he was in the moment he died.

“Uh,” I said to Dominguez, wanting to stall this whole conversation. “He’s asleep.”

“This is a courtesy call, Garnet. I want you to know that Immigration is on its way.”

I clutched the sheet to my naked chest. “What? Why?”

“Seems his birth certificate has been forged—at least once,” Dominguez said businesslike, and then he broke. “Christ, Garnet. How many vampires are in your life, anyway?”

“Two . . . oh, three, really, if you count Teréza, and a half: Mátyás is a dhamypr.”

Dominguez muttered some expletives and a string of Spanish I couldn’t quite catch. After his short rant, he added, “The people from Immigration are really serious. They may deport him.”

“How can they? We’re married.” When Sebastian stirred, I struggled to keep the shrieking panic out of my tone, but my whisper was a little strained. “He’s an American citizen now.”

“Not if he committed fraud. In fact, if it’s true, your marriage license isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

“We’re on our honeymoon. You can’t do this to us.”

“I’m not. Immigration is. And, honestly, I sympathize, Garnet, I really do. That’s why I called to warn you. I’ve got to go. Good luck.”

He hung up before I could voice a response. Lilith’s strength pulverized the phone’s receiver. Sebastian groaned but didn’t wake. There was a time when Lilith’s show of power would have snapped him into alertness. But the blood bond he had with Her got diluted every time he drank someone else’s blood. Even though I let him bite me on a regular basis, he needed more than I could possibly provide. I’d be jealous, but I had bigger things to worry about, like the Immigration goons showing up to deport him.

I shook his shoulder. “Wake up,” I shouted. “We have to go.”

Jumping out of bed, I immediately started packing our suitcases. We could drive to Canada. It was relatively close. Plus, it had to be easy to cross the border; it’s not like they had a fence.

As I packed, I consciously calmed my breathing. We could not afford to have Lilith rise up at a moment as delicate as this. When Lilith surfaced She had a tendency to, shall we say, overreact. She made no distinction between friend or foe, right or wrong. Her motto could be summed up as “Kill. Kill them all.”

Sebastian sat up and blinked at me sleepily. “What are you doing?”

“Packing,” I explained, tossing his shirts into his open suitcase. His jaw tightened as they formed a jumbled pile. “Immigration is going to be showing up any minute asking questions you can’t answer about your birth certificates. I guess you have more than one?”

“Why were they looking into my birth certificate? My passport is valid.”

I stopped my frantic tossing for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“My country of origin isn’t going to dispute my birth certificate,” he said, emphasizing the singular nature of the last word. “Of which there is only one, officially.”

Without anything more to do, I started shifting from one foot to another, which must have looked pretty silly given that I was stark naked. Suddenly, I was feeling not only at a loss as to what to do next but kind of chilly too. I hugged my chest. “I don’t understand.”

“I have an arrangement with certain people in the Austrian government,” Sebastian said. Reaching to the floor of his side of the bed, he picked up his underwear and jeans. “My money stays in Austrian banks and I invest in Austrian interests as long as my identity is protected and supported. They will not, if they want to keep my money—and believe me, they do—deny the validity of my birth certificate.”

“So . . . what do you suppose the problem is?”

He stood up to stomp into his clothes. Out of his jeans pocket, he grabbed his iPhone. Sliding his finger over the surface expertly, he flicked through some screen then put it to his ear. “I don’t know, but I’m going to call the Austrian embassy in D.C. right now.” Smiling at me with a wolfish grin, he added. “You should probably get dressed. You look, uh, cold.”

Blushing, I covered my nipples and hunted around for my clothes. We’d been a little exuberant last night. My panties were on the lamp shade. “I still want to run away and hide.”

“Let’s find out if we have to,” he said. Someone on the other end must have connected, because he said, “Hello? This is Sebastian Von Traum. I need to speak to Ambassador Nowotny. Tell her it’s an emergency.”

I pulled my panties off the shade and tossed them onto the “dirty” pile I’d started to one side of the dresser. Out of my suitcase I grabbed a new pair. Of course, because this was meant to be our honeymoon, all the panties I’d packed fell squarely into the “sexy” camp rather than on the practical side. After wedging myself into a thong, I resolved to buy some new underwear at Target if we stayed here much longer.

“Eva? Good to hear from you too. Yes, it’s been far too long. Uh-huh. Yes, definitely. We loved your wedding gift,” Sebastian said, giving me the munching-fingers gesture that implied she was far too chatty.

What gift?
I mouthed to Sebastian.

He waved me away with a “Later,” and then turned toward the wall.

“I’m sorry, but I may not have a lot of time,” he said, which reminded me to quick get into my jeans and throw on a bra. “Let me cut to the chase.” After that came a flood of Austrian, which I guess is basically German, but it was all Greek to me, if you know what I mean.

I was just slipping my favorite pink and sequined Hello, Kitty sweater over my head when there was a knock—really, more of a pounding—at the door.

“Immigration,” someone announced, like they were going to ram the door in if I didn’t voluntarily unlock it. “Open up!”

I glanced at Sebastian, who spoke even more furiously into the phone. Then he jabbed his finger onto the touch pad angrily. He slammed down the iPhone onto the end table so hard I thought they both might shatter.

“Should I answer the door?” I squeaked, almost too petrified to move. Lilith sent waves of heat along my body just to let me know that She’d be more than happy to dismember these guys.

If Sebastian didn’t do it first.

Another presence bubbled at the edges of my consciousness, momentarily disorienting me. Though the feeling this Goddess brought with Her was quiet calm and strength. If I needed a little divine help, it seemed Athena offered something not quite so destructive.

My lips curled in a snarl as Lilith asserted Herself.

Ignorant of my inner war, Sebastian marched over to the door and flung it open. “Apparently,” he shouted quite angrily into the stunned faces of a bunch of men in yellow vests with Homeland Security emblazoned on them, “I need to let you assholes arrest me so the embassy has ‘reasonable cause’ to get involved.” He threw his arms out as though offering his wrists for handcuffs, but which looked, in practice, a lot more like a rude suggestion. “I surrender,” he snarled, though that also sounded more like a challenge.

Nobody moved. Despite the fact that some of them had guns at the ready, they all seemed confused as to how this was supposed to go down now that Sebastian had rather belligerently capitulated.

One really brave guy holstered his gun and stepped forward with handcuffs. He stood in front of Sebastian for a moment, as apparently he didn’t quite have the guts to actually snap them on Sebastian’s wrists. Sebastian grabbed them and started putting them on. My heart ached at the sound of the metal teeth slipping into place. As he finished he said to me, “Garnet, go to the consulate of Austria.” My mouth opened uselessly, and he said, “There’s one here in Minnesota. Eva said it’s on Highway 55 or something. Anyway, you sit on the consul general until he tells you I’m a free man. Understood?”

“Yeah,” I said. Athena’s calm had settled around me like a protective cloak, muffling my desire to slaughter the enemy. Taking in a deep breath, I filled my lungs with a cool, dispassionate collectedness. “Of course.”

“Also,” he said, “I would like a shirt.”

I suddenly realized he hadn’t put one on yet. I hurried and grabbed one from his suitcase. It was a white button-down . . . and a bit wrinkled. I handed it to the brave Homeland Security officer. He started to put it over Sebastian’s shoulders, but Sebastian shook his head. “I’ll carry it,” he said. When the man handed it to him, Sebastian looped it over the cuffs on his wrists. “Thank you. Now, gentlemen, if you would escort me out.” He gestured toward the elevators.

Sebastian’s voice was still clipped with anger, but he sounded a lot calmer than I felt watching them take him away.

In fact, it took all my effort not to loosen Lilith on all their asses. My hands shook as I carefully closed the door with a click.

Turning the lock, I couldn’t hold back anymore. I let Her go.

 

 

I woke up in the middle of the floor in a room that
looked like a rock band from the seventies had partied there. Chairs were smashed. Splinters from the bed frame littered the floor. Wallpaper hung in strips. The bedsheets and curtains had been shredded. Shattered pieces of tabletop decor spread out from where I knelt, like blast marks from the epicenter of a bomb.

And there, at my feet, lay the smashed remains of the cherubs. Like a sadist with a fly, Lilith had plucked their little wings off, one by one.

I guessed Lilith didn’t like the statue much either.

At least two of my fingernails had broken, and my knuckles felt bruised. I was still breathing like a racehorse.

This was the part I hated.

Any time Lilith emerged there was always some kind of horrible cleanup involved. Picking up a shard of a once-beautiful pottery bowl, I sighed. I supposed I should be grateful this time didn’t involve burying bodies.

The memory made me sick. In fact, a little flutter of nausea burbled up, and my stomach dropped, like I was suddenly falling. Dipping my head, I put my palms on the floor to steady myself until the feeling passed. I breathed through it and managed not to add a puke stain to our mounting property-damage bill.