Wicked as They Come (49 page)

He was too immediate. Too real. Too primal.

Criminy Stain wasn’t something I could own or tame. And I didn’t want to.

He had awakened things in me that I didn’t even know were sleeping. He made me feel alive and vital, and his world, strange as it was, called to my heart. He’d never meant to trap me, and I’d never meant to be caught, yet here we were.

But he’d gotten something wrong, and I had my own surprise for him.

I broke from the kiss and pulled away with a sly smile.

“Close your eyes,” I said. “I’m going to do magic.”

With his mouth quirked up, he indulged me by rolling over onto his back and shutting his eyes.

I silently pulled the locket over my head and hid it under the pillow.

“What’s the trick, love?” he said.

I hitched up my new dress and straddled him, then dove back into kissing him. I slowly nibbled my way up to his ear.

“I can make a locket disappear,” I whispered.

43

There’s always an
epilogue, isn’t there?

The chapter that tells you what happened afterward, tying up the story in a nice big bow?

I can’t exactly do that. My story doesn’t work that way, all nice and tidy. I could maybe have some sort of messy raffia bow that looks as if a haystack exploded, like what my Nana uses when wrapping presents in newspaper. Or twine, the kind they use to tie up mysterious packages in brown paper.

But I’ll try to make it neat.

I slept that night. Really, really well. After a week of sleeplessness and traveling and starvation and enough squirts of adrenaline to kill a polanda bear, it was good to sink finally into real, deep sleep. If I had dreams, I don’t remember them. But I woke up smiling.

And next to me was a Bludman, a blood-drinking creature from another world, where everyone dressed like Victorian prudes and rode around in genuine horseless carriages and submarines. A world where the sky was too low and the names were off just enough to make it interesting.

I’ve always had colorful dreams, but even I couldn’t have conjured Criminy Stain, magician and gypsy king. Whatever
forces drew us together seemed haphazard and random. But in each other, we both found that elusive something, the drive that keeps an animal hunting and hoping.

There was still work to do, of course. He had the caravan to tend to, and I had to return to my world to swallow a mouthful of my own blood and report that Jonathan Grove, philanthropist and preacher, had finally succumbed to his condition. My fears about a murder or police questioning were, of course, unfounded. Nurse Carrie just melted away into the night. After twenty-five years of his bleeding the family’s inheritance dry, everyone was more than happy to assume that he had died of old age or complications. It was actually a miracle that he had lasted so long.

The political situation of Manchester is still tense. Without Goodwill at the helm of the second-largest city in Sangland, there’s hope. With Rodvey gone, Ferling was next in line, and his stance toward Bludmen has been noticeably kinder. Antonin’s shop was allowed to move back to High Street, and the latest newspapers say that Bludmen might begin getting votes in London’s Parliament. For once, the gossip was true—there was talk of renaming Manchester as Goodwill, but the Bludmen put up a revolt, and it was abandoned.

As we travel the island, I learn more and more about the wonders of this strange world that distorts history as I know it like a carnival mirror. In Freesia, which corresponds to Russia, the Bludmen rule over terrified Pinkies from an icy palace deep in an enchanted forest. In Franchia, colorful daimons dance in the cabarets under the giddy thumb of the Sun King. In Almanica, Sanglish pioneers press ever farther into the frontier of a world ruled by natives described as half-animal warriors. The stories grow
only more fabulous, and I want to see it all. The caravan remains a haven from politics and dogma. But in stopping Goodwill, we helped to make Sang a better place, and I think both worlds are better for his absence.

And I know, because I live in both worlds. While I can.

During the day, I take care of my grandmother, doing my best to make her last time on earth warm and loving and comfortable. We play rummy, and I try to talk her into giving me the recipe for her special chocolate pie. I see my other patients, except for Mr. Sterling. I couldn’t bring myself to return to the pretty town home and touch the beautiful, wasted body. I couldn’t handle the guilt of knowing that I could have given him everything he thought he wanted. I’d seen it in the glance, and even if I’d toyed with the idea of choosing him, I’d always known it wouldn’t happen. He left the caravan for London, and the newspapers say he’s the most eligible bachelor in town. My own glance tells me that he still has a journey ahead of him, but if he plays the right notes, he’ll find love himself before long.

As for me, my days as a nurse are normal and contented, but I’m biding my time.

At night, when I dream, I’m dressed in burgundy taffeta laced up to my chin. I tell fortunes and collect copper pennies and vials of blood. I laugh with the sword swallower and encourage the lizard boy to get more exercise. I sleep in a scarlet wagon, in a bed draped in silk, with a beautiful ruby locket under my pillow. And beside me sleeps my own personal vampire, or the closest thing around.

Sometimes, that’s what I do. Who I am. And I know that no time passes in the other world, that I could stay in Sang and in Criminy’s arms forever. But then I’ll see an old woman in the crowd and touch my own face, feeling the
new lines there. Or I’ll gently hold a shriveled hand to read a dark future and remember that my grandmother needs me.

And later that night, Criminy will tuck me into a specially made, well-ventilated box in his trailer. He’ll kiss me softly and give me his love and call me his gypsy queen.

And then he’ll close the door and lock the box with a key he wears on a chain under his undone cravat. He’ll set a small copper snake named Boros on the lid, and the creature’s ruby-red eyes will cast eerie lights on the walls as it spins around and around, guarding me. I’ll lock the inside lock. I’ll fall asleep almost immediately.

And then I’ll open my eyes to my other life and take off the locket for a while.

I’ve made my choice, and for now, my choice is both. And I’m happy.

Except for one thing, hovering on the edge of my thoughts like a bludrat waiting to pounce on an innocent sleeper. There’s only one dream I have in Sang, when the locket is under my pillow and I’m curled against my beloved Bludman. Again and again, unbidden, his glance appears in my head, torturing me, a secret he’s forgotten to unearth.

My glances have always been true.

All except that one.

Yet.

So each morning when I wake beside Criminy, the first thing I do is check my hands, knowing in my heart that one day, they’ll be covered in black scales and blood.

Just like his.

Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next saucy, sexy, Blud novel . . .

WICKED AS SHE WANTS

By Delilah S. Dawson

Coming from Pocket Books
in 2013

I don’t know
which called to me more, his music or his blood. Trapped in darkness, weak to the point of death, I woke only to suck his soul dry until the notes and droplets merged in my veins. Whoever he was, he was my subject, my inferior, my prey, and his life was my due. What’s the point of being a princess if you can’t kill your subjects?

His blood was spiced with liquor; I could tell that much. And as I listened, stilling my breathing and willing my heart to pump again, I realized that I didn’t know the song he was playing. It wasn’t any of the Freesian lullabies from my childhood, nor was it anything that had been popular at court. I could even pick out the sound of his fingertips stroking the keys without the telltale muting of suede gloves. Peculiar. And no wonder I could smell him, whoever he was, if he wasn’t protecting his delicious skin from the world. From me.

He stopped playing and sighed, and my instincts took over. The attempt to pounce was painfully foiled by . . . something. Leather. I was trapped, tucked into a ball, boxed and balanced on my bustled bum like a snail. When he started playing again, my hand stole sideways toward the musty leather. With one wicked claw, I began to carve a way out.

The tiniest sliver of light stole in, orange and murky. Fresh air hit my face, and with it, his scent. It took every ounce of well-bred patience for me to remain silent and still and not fumble and flounder out of whatever held
me bound like a Kraken from the deep. My mother’s voice rang in my mind, her queenly tone unmistakable.

Silence. Cunning. Quickness. That is how the enemy falls, princess. You are the predator’s predator, the Bludman’s Bludman. The queen of the beasts. Now kill him. Slowly.

My fingernails had grown overlong and sharper than was fashionable in court, and the rest of the leather fell away in one long curve. I lifted the flap with one hand and dared to peek out.

The room was dim and mostly empty, with a high ceiling and wooden floors. Spindly chairs perched on round tables. Across the room, lit by one orange gas spotlight, was a stage, and on that stage was a harpsichord, and playing that harpsichord was my lunch.

Seeing him there, the princess receded and the animal took over. Body crouched and fingers curled, I sidled out through my hole, my eyes glued to my prey. He didn’t notice the creature hunting him from the shadows. His eyes were closed, and he was singing something plaintive, something about someone named Jude. I wasn’t Jude. So that didn’t matter.

The refined part of my brain barely registered that I was dressed in high-heeled boots and swishing taffeta. I knew well enough how to stalk in my best clothes, and had been doing so since my days in a linen pinafore and ermine ruff. As I slipped into the shadows along the wall and glided toward the stage, hunger pounded in time with my heartbeat and his slow keystrokes. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I had last eaten. And maybe it had. Never had I been so empty. So drained.

I made it across the room without detection. He continued moaning about Jude in a husky voice so sad that it moved even the animal in me. I stopped to consider him from behind deep red velvet curtains that had definitely
seen better days. But I didn’t see a man. Not yet. Just food. And in that sense, he had all but arrayed himself on a platter, walking around with his shirt open, boots off, and gloves nowhere to be seen. Exposed and reeking of alcohol, he was an easy target.

He broke off from his song and reached for a green bottle, tipping it to lips flushed pink with blood and feeling. I watched his neck thrown back, Adam’s apple bobbing, and a deafening roar overtook me. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I was across the stage and on him in a heartbeat.

Tiny as I am, the momentum from my attack knocked him backward off the bench. The bottle skittered across the floor, and he made a pathetically clumsy grab for it. I had one hand tangled in his long hair, the other pinning down his chest, long talons prickling into his flesh and drawing pinpoints of delicious blood to pepper the air. I took a deep breath, savoring it. The kill was sure. I smiled, displaying pointy teeth.

His red-rimmed eyes met mine in understanding, and he smiled back, a feral glint surprising me. Something smashed into my head, and he rolled me over and lurched backward with a laugh. Red liquid streamed through my hair and down my face, and I hissed and shook shards of green glass from my shoulders. The uppity little bastard had hit me with his bottle. If I hadn’t already had plans to kill him, I now had just cause.