Sleeping Beauty and the Demon (12 page)

She hesitated.

He continued to frown. “Promise me.”

“I promise.”

He squeezed her arm. “I mean it, Rose.”

“You have to know that I’m scared, Drago. I don’t want to deceive anyone.”

“Not even Morvina?”

She made no reply.

“If you give away my identity, the police will seize me and I won’t be able to protect you from her.”

Goosebumps blanketed her arm. “I swear I won’t tell anyone you’re a sorcerer.”

He gathered her to him. “I realize this is mind-boggling information. And I know you have no loyalty to me, especially with my dark powers. But my capabilities aren’t meant to scare you. They’ll be a godsend, you’ll see.” He paused. “You have to trust me.”

Why does he keep saying that?

“I need to prepare for my show now. Say you’ll come to the theater tomorrow night. After my performance.”

Ultimately, she agreed.

“Until then, my sweet Rose. And remember: mum’s the word.”

CHAPTER 15

M
orvina despised New York City. Perspiring beneath her jacket, she paced in front of an open window. She hated the automobiles’ incessant honking and the voices she heard day and night. July in this city was stiflingly hot and repressively humid. And the energy of the place never slowed down.

The combination of these things made Morvina pine for the mountain breezes of her homeland. She planned to return there when this was all over.

After I destroy Rose.

Morvina threw her head back in laughter.
Rose has no idea I’m this close to her. Close enough to hear her talk about her hopes and her dreams.

On another peal of laughter, Morvina considered another juicy secret.
No one knows I’m an enchantress . . . an enchantress who’s resorted to occupying someone else’s body.

As one of the last two remaining Immortals, she intended to defeat Dragomir Starkov in the Victory. And she required the strength and the endurance only a male body could provide.

She looked down at her hands. Hairy, large.
A man’s hands
. Sighing, she took a turn around the room. She’d chosen her male victim very carefully. Now, staying hidden inside this new identity was exhausting. But that’s one of the things demons were capable of. If they wanted to become a new person at any given time, they could possess and occupy any foreign body they chose.

“The beauty of evil lies in its ability to take various forms.” She whispered her motto as she studied the photographs adorning the parlor walls. She put a fist up to one photo in particular.
Rose.
With her pert, etched nose, glossy lips and rare, violet eyes, she was undeniably beautiful. Unfortunately, Morvina’s plan to destroy Rose couldn’t be executed until the girl’s twenty-first birthday.

“
Patience
,” the enchantress said under her breath.

Rose’s torment over knowing that her twenty-first birthday would be her last had been Morvina’s only source of satisfaction over the years. That’s not to say Morvina hadn’t dreamt about killing her niece in violent ways. Poison. Pushing the girl from a window so she’d smash against the pavement. A fatal gunshot wound from a distance would have been satisfying, too.

But these were just entertaining scenarios Morvina envisioned in order to pass the time. She’d have to wait until Rose’s curse was realized to see Rose dead.

However, it was extremely hard to wait.

Morvina hated her niece, it was true. In fact, she’d resented Rose from the instant she wasn’t invited to Rose’s christening. But Morvina’s loathing went deeper than that. Morvina had been a sorceress for centuries and she’d been privy to a premonition that Rose would grow up to be extraordinarily beautiful. Something Morvina never was.

In fact, her appearance had been the one thing she couldn’t change in the beginning. She began with a body gnarled by arthritis, but following each attack she exacted in her demonic state, she gained the ability to morph her appearance into a better-looking woman. With every drop of blood Morvina extracted from pretty girls, she acquired more beauty and youth.

At this point, I’m almost as stunning underneath it all as I want to be. But not quite
.

Rose held the key to Morvina’s final improvements. Once Rose died and Morvina sucked out her soul, Morvina would transform into the perfect woman.

Someone who will live forever as the world’s ultimate beauty.
But first, she had to defeat Drago in the Victory to ensure her immortality . . .

Rose entered the newspaper office in slow motion. The clatter of the typewriters and the hum of the presses rang in her ears like deafening church bells. She’d been awake all night, agonizing over the information that had poured out of Drago. He’d begged her to keep his warlock identity secret and to steal the photograph Richard had taken of him. In the meantime, her boss was demanding all the information she was willing to give.

I’m certainly not going to tell Richard that Drago is a lord of black magic.

Rubbing her bleary eyes, she sat at her desk. Perhaps a little nap wouldn’t hurt . . .

Before she could rest her head and close her eyes, Richard charged over with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

“Come to my office,” he commanded.

Once she was settled inside his work space, he shut the door. “Did you polish the story about the sweatshop shutting down on East Eighty-Second Street?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I finished it yesterday.”

“Good.” He puffed on his cigarette. “You know, Rose, the pressure’s on.”

She stiffened. “Excuse me?”

“Phillip Cameron just secured an exclusive interview with Harry Houdini. You know what that means . . .”

“Not really.” She feigned ignorance.

“It means that this department needs to produce an exposé on Dragomir Starkov as soon as possible. If I don’t come up with some scorching inside information, I’m gone. You will be gone, too.”

Rose’s heart nearly failed to beat. “Fired?”

“Oh, yes.” He glanced at her. “I hope you’re going to tell me that you stayed up all night in order to coax some ripe information out of your suitor.”

She glowered. “Dragomir Starkov is an expert at keeping things to himself.”

“Does that mean you
tried
to coax something out of him?”

“It means that he prefers not to talk about anything personal,” Rose replied. “Maintaining a mysterious aura helps him to keep his secrets close to the vest.”

Agitation replaced the gloom in Richard’s expression. “I couldn’t give a whit what this magician ‘prefers’. Keep working on him. I’ve found out all I can about him and now I’m at the end of my rope. You, however, can use those warm, purple eyes of yours to chip away at his frosty exterior.”

“I won’t be your snitch, Richard.”

“You’re terribly naïve about the way this world works, Rose. Besides, if you want to be an effective reporter, you have to be willing to do what it takes.”

She pursed her lips together.

“So you refuse to kiss-and-tell, eh?”

Rose exploded out of her seat. “Why do men have to be so crude?”

Richard shifted his stance. “I’m sorry. But my job is in the balance.”

“I understand that, but I wouldn’t feel right revealing information Drago doesn’t want exposed.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So you
are
privy to inside information.”

Why did I say that?
“N . . . no,” she stammered.

A knock at the door made her jump.

“Saved by the coffee boy,” Richard said, as he allowed a runner into the office. The boy, who appeared to be no older than fourteen or fifteen, set a clattering tray on the desk. Richard slipped the runner a few coins before the lad disappeared in haste.

Rose sat and watched her boss doctor up two cups of steaming coffee with cream and sugar. Richard handed her one of the cups.

“As I said, I can’t dig up any more dirt on Drago myself. But maybe you can.” he said.

Rose took a sip of the steaming drink. The scalding liquid burned her tongue and she started to choke. Tears streamed down her face. An alarmed Richard tried to pat her on the back.

Gasping for air, Rose unclasped her cameo and unfastened the first two buttons of her blouse. When she finally stopped choking, she sat back in her chair and accepted a handkerchief from Richard.

“Good God,” he said. “That scared me.” As he watched her dab her eyes, his gaze fell on the amulet visible from her opened blouse. His eyes widened. “Christ, Rose! Do you know anything about that necklace you’re wearing?”

She put a hand to the stone and traced its familiar outline. “It was a gift.”

“From Dragomir Starkov, I presume,” he asked.

She looked away, still trying to catch her breath.

“Cut the malarkey, Rose.”

She’d be smart to play dumb. “I don’t remember. I got so many gifts for my birthday.”

Richard planted himself on top of the desk. Concern shadowed his face. “You need to take that necklace off at once.”

“No.” Panic stung Rose’s already raw throat.

“But you’re wearing the cursed Amulet of Tousret!”

“I know all about its history.”

“Then why the hell are you wearing it?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Complicated, my ass. I mean my foot.” Richard paused. “Damn it. I’m still not used to working with a woman.”

She scowled at him.

“Anyway,” he went on in a hurry, “I’m assuming Starkov gave you the amulet to manipulate you.”

“How do you know about the amulet anyway?”

“You can tell by the artifacts in my office that I’m interested in rare objects. While I was doing research for an article on cursed jewelry, I came across the story of the amulet. Do you know who owned it originally?”

“Yes,” she said. “An Egyptian princess.”

He seemed impressed. “What you may not know is that the amulet was unearthed from the sands of Egypt by an archeologist named Sir Harris Farrington. Farrington gave the necklace to his daughter. Thank God he also discovered the bracelet of Amenhotep. Do you know about the bracelet?”

Rose nodded.

Richard went on. “Luckily, the archeologist’s daughter survived the curse. Through the years, the bracelet was placed in the British Museum, where it was eventually stolen. Later it was rumored that the amulet and the bracelet were reunited only to be purchased by a private collector. Now I know that that collector was Starkov
.
”

Rose squirmed in her seat.

“If I had to guess,” Richard said, “he used the amulet to spellbind you. You’d better be careful.”

“What if Drago has the bracelet?” Rose asked. “Won’t it counteract the amulet’s prophecy?”

Richard shrugged. “So the legend goes, but if I were you, I wouldn’t count on it.”

She stood up. “Why are we talking such rubbish? I’m sure the amulet isn’t cursed.”

“Then you’ll have no problem taking it off,” he said slyly.

She looked nervously at her feet.

“What kind of hold does this man have over you?”

A very powerful one.

“Listen. I may not be able to compete with a magician’s hypnotic spell, but knowledge is power, right?” Richard said. “Dragomir Starkov came to New York City three years ago and started to work in the Bowery at Coney Island.”

Rose turned her nose up the way she had when Drago told her about his former place of employment.

“I know. The Bowery is a stink hole, but I want you to accompany me to the sideshow tent Drago performed in years ago. I’d like you to meet Felix Huxtable, the fellow who ran it then and now swears Drago enacted real magic. Says he caught Drago commanding an old Romanian coin when he didn’t know he was being watched. This coin flashes glimpses of the past, like a pictograph.”

The coin.
She’d seen it in Drago’s apartment along with the bracelet.

“No one can enact real magic,” Rose said in Drago’s defense. “I say Huxtable is a drunkard. Or maybe his eyes played tricks on him in the dingy shadows of the Bowery.”

Richard shot her a cold look. “All I know is that if you want to continue working here, you’ll accompany me to the Bowery on Saturday night and talk to this sideshow mountebank yourself.”

Richard stormed out of the office and Rose felt like throwing a typewriter at his head. Part of her didn’t
want
to know any more dark facts about Drago. But of course, part of her did. That’s why she’d agreed to go with Richard to the Bowery just now. Although she knew Drago was capable of performing genuine magic—and that he’d come to New York three years ago after envisioning her Aunt Morvina’s return here—how could she explain that to Richard?

Bellum saw journalism as a cut-and-dried way to inform the public. What was his motto again? Oh, yes.
No stone left unturned means no story left untold.

It was essential that she learn everything she could about Drago so that she could protect his remaining secrets from Richard and the rest of the world. So, in turn, he could protect her from Morvina.

The rest of Rose’s workday lagged terribly.

Finally, the time arrived for her to keep her midnight rendezvous with Drago at the Sunshine Theater. That night, the taxi he’d sent round for her arrived at the Marconi brownstone. Under the shroud of tattered clouds, Rose managed to steal out of the sleeping household. Her nerves tingled.

A silver moon hung high in the sky as she made her way to the exterior stage door. This time the alley appeared even more ominous because she was alone.

She knocked. Her heart wormed its way up to her throat. A vision flashed before her—a vision of her and Drago making love. She hardly had time to touch her flushed cheeks when Drago opened the door and allowed her entry. Rose looked at him. All her misgivings melted away. He was handsome enough to spin scalding fire through her. And when he gazed at her with those blue-green eyes, he made her feel alive—as if she hadn’t lived a day until she met him.

Quickly, he gathered her in his arms for a hot kiss. Rose clung to him as if it were their last embrace. As she kissed him back with equal fervor, she smiled as the whiskers of his thin mustache tickled her face. And as his scent filled her with a palpable desire, she wanted to tell him that she was ready to make love.