Catastrophe (20 page)

Hours later, after all the vampire bodies had been dealt with and humans were persuaded nothing had happened, Sy dropped me off back at my apartment in Chicago. I collapsed onto my couch. We didn’t meet with the council until the following night, which gave me time to recover. I wouldn’t find the skinwalker before the meeting, but I didn’t care. That wasn’t why they’d sent me anyway. It was good to be home. I let the darkness take me as I drifted off to sleep for the first time in two days.

My eyes sprang open as something thin and needlelike slipped into my neck, jerking me awake, but it was already too late.

“Shhh. This is the way it has to be,” Dempsey said into my ear. “Just relax.” He petted the side of my head. “Everything will be okay.”

“No,” I said, but the word came out thick and slow even to my ears. My hands felt huge, and were harder and harder to move as I tried to knock him away from me.

“It’s okay. I am not here to hurt you. I want you to understand.” He took a couple steps back and sat in the chair in front of the dark window. He smiled at me. “I knew you would be the one the moment I met you,” he said, folding his hands in his lap. “I spent years trying to get to Paolo.”

I moved my lips but no words came out.

“I didn’t want to kill the human, but you stabbed me.” His hand lightly touched his arm.

I shook my head. I had tested him.

He laughed, holding up his arm. “What, this? Porcelain knife. The other bounty hunters refused to see what was happening. They refused to look at the vampires. All they wanted was to find me. So single-minded. I tried to lead them as I did you, but it didn’t work, and the council ignored Amos. You were perfect. You cared.”

I stared at him because that was the only thing I could do. My entire body was paralyzed.

“Do you know what vampires do with skinwalkers? They keep us. Feed from us. We have no body, and we do not age, so they can drink from us for centuries. I do not know how long he kept me, but he did. I thought for certain Corbin would recognize me the moment I set foot in the cabin, but he was too distracted by Thomas. He had to be punished, and I couldn’t do it. I needed someone stronger, someone like the council. So I was working my way up when they sent me you. The very person who could bring about what I wanted.” He moved closer again, touching my face. “Thank you. Now there is one more thing we need to do. I need to be on the council. It’s the only way to destroy the vampires once and for all. The entire world will be better for it. I believe Sy is my best choice.”

I shook my head.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” he said, revealing a knife. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He jerked from the floor as an arm went around his neck and a knife sank into his chest.

“I knew I recognized your scent,” Corbin said, letting the body fall to the floor. “When I couldn’t find him in New Orleans, I figured he’d come here.” He glanced down at me still paralyzed on the couch. He smiled. “I bet you’re glad to see me. I always pay my debts. You’ll be safe tonight. Consider us even.”

If I could have laughed, I would have. Vampires.

****

“Keep your temper,” Sy coached me as we walked toward what looked like a barn door. “We didn’t call this meeting. Leilah did before either of us could. I know you’re angry, but if you want answers, then follow my lead. Holden thinks they were impressed with you, which is a good thing. But I promise we will find out why she sent you.”

He had lost his damn mind, because there was no way in hell I was keeping my temper. Not tonight. I squeezed the handle of the bag so hard my bruised knuckles turned white. I didn’t care if they threw me a fucking parade. What happened wasn’t okay.

“They don’t see things like you or I do. They are too far removed. All they care about are the results. You’re lucky they aren’t angry about Paolo.”

“You see this?” I pointed at the cuts up and down my arms that still hadn’t healed totally. “They are about to become very acquainted with how the real world works.” I charged through the opening. “They’re lucky you took my knives away or we’d have another fight on our hands.”

Once again everyone was already there, sitting around a table that looked eerily similar to the one at the restaurant. Seven of them sat imperiously (except for maybe Holden) in their high-back chairs, cloaked in shadows and candlelight. The room smelled damp, with faint traces of animals.

“This is highly irregular,” the man with solid black eyes said, his voice deep, dark, and hollow. He stood, floating toward me, studying me for weakness. It wasn’t the first time someone had sized me up, and they almost always came to the wrong conclusion. “She does not respect us.” His bright red forked tongue ran over his lips.

I turned to slowly face him. “You’re right. I don’t. Why would I respect anyone who lies and sends me to slaughter with my arms tied behind my back? Do you know how many people have died because of you?”

“Do you know how many will die because of you?” Leilah asked. “Marcelo, take your seat.”

“And yet here you stand.” Marcelo reached a bony finger toward the cuts on my arms, but didn’t quite touch me. “She smells wild, desperate. I like that.”

“Sit. Now,” Leilah thundered.

He slowly floated back to his chair, and though his back was to me, I could still feel his eyes running over me, which made my skin crawl.

Leilah waved for me to continue.

For once in my life I chose silence. I stared back at her. Why was I here? Looking around the table at the solemn faces, it was clear Sy and Holden were wrong. This meeting wasn’t to pat me on the back.

“Defend your actions, Sekhmet. This is the only chance you will be given before the vote.”

“What?” Sy said, his head popping up. “What vote?”

“Life or death,” the huge man rumbled like rocks falling from a cliff. “She broke the contract.”

“If everyone is through interrupting,” Leilah said like she was talking to children, “the Sekhmet still has the floor.”

Sy shook his head. “She solved the case. The contract was bullshit and you know it.”

“And yet she signed it. If you interrupt the process again, you will be removed from the room.”

Holden gave a subtle nod, which was all fine and dandy, but I had no clue what he wanted me to do. Did the nod mean I should talk, or did it mean something else? I didn’t know and I didn’t care. Instead, I unleashed the one thing I was certain about.

I took the final two steps to the table and slammed my fist down on it. “I won’t defend a single step I took in the last two days. You wanted me to solve a murder, and that’s what I did.” I set the bag on the table. “The ‘wolf’ is dead. Case closed. I’m leaving.”

“Wait.” Leilah’s commanding voice stilled my feet. “You solved the case, but you broke the contract. You will stand trial. It is our way.”

“I vote death,” Marcelo said.

“You always vote death,” the blonde woman said. “I want to hear what happened.”

I unzipped the bag. “This isn’t a game. We aren’t pieces you can move and adjust. We’re people. Lives have been destroyed. Do you have any idea how long that ‘wolf’ tried to get to you? How many people he killed along the way because you didn’t care? My real question is why? Do any of you even know why he wanted your attention so badly that he was willing to kill anyone just to get the chance to get to you?”

None of them spoke.

I shook my head, reaching into the bag. I took out the files for each person who was killed. One by one I dropped them on the table. “Each life that was taken, they all had families. They all had friends. They all had people who will mourn and miss them. Each and every one of those people will become your new enemy. You cannot act without regard to lives you destroy. If you want to rule the Abyss, then rule it openly.”

“You made an emotional decision and killed the only leader the vampires have ever accepted. It took years of grooming and planning to get him in that position,” Leilah said calmly. “How many lives will that destroy? How many civil wars have you started? I remember the time before the vampires had leadership. I am not the only one at this table who does.”

“He slaughtered humans in the street in full view of the public. He broke our laws.”

“You have no authority to make that judgment,” the man with slicked-back hair and sunglasses said. “That was not the job you were sent to do.”

“Are you certain?” Holden asked, and they all looked at him. “All I am saying is that I’m still unclear why she was sent. It wasn’t for a fake wolf attack.”

“She said it was a wolf,” the big one said.

I lifted Dempsey’s head out of the bag by the hair. “This is your ‘wolf.’ At least, it is the last body the skinwalker took. Before him, it was Amos, my council contact. And Holden’s right, I wasn’t sent for this case. I was sent for Paolo to use and kill.” I looked straight at Leilah.

She lifted an eyebrow over her sunglasses.

“The vampire you chose to rule was struggling. He lost Corbin, and the rest were slowly losing the faith in his abilities. All the good will and deals meant nothing without any real strength behind him. That’s why you needed me. The result is your fault, not mine.”

“Did you or did you not kill Paolo?” Marcelo asked.

“I saved myself,” I said. “Put me in that position a thousand times and I would do the same thing.”

“No matter your reasons, you left the vampires in unrest.”

“Not necessarily,” Holden said. “I have spoken to Corbin. He could easily step into Paolo’s seat. The vampires already know and trust him, and as far as most of them know, he killed Paolo. At the very least, it happened in his fight with him. It could be built into quite the legend. The jinn could help spread it.”

Several heads nodded around the table.

“Do you have anything to add?” Leilah asked me.

I shook my head.

“Then I move for a vote. Holden.”

“Live,” he said.

“Anessa?”

“Live,” the woman with white-blonde hair said.

“Grafton?”

“Die,” the man with slicked-back hair said.

“Marcelo?”

“Die.”

“Ralston?”

“Die,” the giant said.

“Nash?”

The only person in the whole room who hadn’t spoken the entire time looked up. With pale gray skin and red eyes, I didn’t know how he was supposed to blend in anywhere, but he did. Had there not been a chair for him, I might not have noticed him at all. “Live,” he said.

Leilah drummed her fingers along the table. She pulled off her sunglasses, revealing purple and red reptilian eyes. “The problem with you is you are emotional. You make reactionary decisions that may or may not be for the best. However, I didn’t believe you would survive, and you did. Without even losing a life, I am told.” Her inside eyelid blinked vertically before her top eyelid blinked horizontally. “I am curious to see what you could accomplish given time… Live.”

“Great,” I said dryly, and started for the door again.

“However, I do have another case for you.”

“Not interested,” I said.

“Did I make it sound like you have a choice? You don’t.” Leilah’s voice came from too close behind me.

I turned to face her. “I’m done working with you.”

“Is that so?” Her mouth curled down at the edges.

“Yes. You have nothing to hold over my head.”

“Oh, Femi. There are people you love. People you could lose. Races sometimes go extinct.”

Ice went through my veins. Even a dragon wouldn’t be crazy enough to take on the Sekhmet race, would she?

“I hear your mother is very ill,” she said, just in case I didn’t get it.

“What do you want?” I asked.

She smiled. “I knew we’d see eye to eye eventually. You like humans so much, I have a rather special task for you this time. Shezmu has been causing some trouble in the catacombs. I thought who better than an impetuous, human-loving Sekhmet to convince him to return to the underworld.”

Right—convincing a demon who was fond of red wine and murder would be simple. “And when I succeed?”

She smiled. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

I shook my head. “No. I want assurance. I want it in writing that if I convince Shezmu to return home, you will leave me and my family and friends alone.”

“Convince him to return and I will grant you one favor. I will even put it in writing.” She held out her hand to me.

“Deal.” I shook her hand.

She went back to the others, and Sy came over.

“You didn’t take the case, did you?”

“She threatened my family,” I said, looking up at him. “I didn’t have a choice.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “What does she want this time?”

“Can we not do this? I’m tired and hungry. Let’s just go.”

He transported us back to the Office. The lights cast the same warm, familiar glow they always did. It was comforting that no matter what happened, the Office was always the same. It was home. Within minutes he set heaping plates of fried food on the bar: fried clams, fish, and chicken. I collapsed onto the stool and tucked in, feeling more like myself with every bite. The tiredness vanished and another case was solved.

When I looked up, Sy was leaning against the back of the bar, watching me eat.

“Was some of this yours?” I asked with a full mouth.

He shook his head, a grin toying at his full lips that I knew from experience were soft and persuasive.

Despite the smile, something was obviously on his mind, but he didn’t say anything. I’d learned long ago not to ask questions I didn’t want the answer to, so I took another bite. I wasn’t blind or completely oblivious. Sy thought he loved me, and maybe he did. Life-or-death situations tended to bring those feelings to the surface. They did for Thomas and they probably did for Sy too. It was just the way most people worked. I had been trained my whole life to be a warrior, and nothing got in the way of that more than emotion. Leilah was partly right when she accused me of responding emotionally. I let the case get to me more than I should have, but no matter what happened, I wasn’t ready to profess undying love for anyone. Whatever stuff girlfriends were supposed to be made out of, it wasn’t in me.

“Are you going to see Thomas again?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I doubt it.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “How do you feel about that?”

“I never wanted to see him this time,” I said. Thomas and I were poisonous to one another. We were too much alike. We were both willing to have hot, casual, meaningless sex, but it would always become complicated and I’d never be able to trust him.

“When do you leave for Paris?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. The sooner the better, probably, but Leilah didn’t give me a deadline. I’ll give it a few days. Maybe hang out at Olivia and Holden’s for a while.”

Sy chewed on the side of his lip. “I feel like this is my fault.”

“What?” I asked before plopping my next couple clams into my mouth.

“The council’s interest in you. You shouldn’t have to do another case for them.”

I shook my head. “It has nothing to do with you.” And it didn’t. I’d met Leilah while I was trying to find a way to save Baker. Holden made the introduction, not Sy. Besides, I was a big girl. All of this had been my choice. I didn’t need to blame someone else for my decisions. “We’re good. You and me, right? Things will go back to normal.”

Sy nodded, looking down at the floor. “Absolutely. You have plans tonight?”

I crossed my legs. Sy wasn’t wearing his typical uniform—t-shirt and torn jeans. Instead, he had on a button-down and what looked to be new jeans. Tomorrow I’d have to go back to New Orleans and get my car, but tonight I was free and grateful to still have all of my lives. Maybe a night out with Sy was just what I needed. No strings attached would never work with him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be an excellent distraction for at least tonight. “Nope. What’d you have in mind?”

“I’m ready when you are,” a female voice said behind me.

Katrina, a human witch who was friends with Sy’s cousin, moved up and sat down beside me on a stool. “Hey, Femi,” she said brightly.

“I hate to ask you this, and if you are at all tired and just want to go home and crash, please say no, but would you mind watching the bar for a couple hours?” Sy asked.

I blinked a couple times, looking back and forth between them. Her hair fell down her back in soft curls and she wore a tight flowered skirt. My mouth went dry. They were going on a date. “Sure. I’m fine.”

“Thanks, buddy.” He winked at me and tapped the bar twice. “If you have any problems, just call. The kitchen is closed, so you don’t have to worry about food. You know where everything is. I anticipate it being fairly quiet.”

Katrina threaded her arm through his as he came around the bar to meet her. Together they walked out of the Office, smiling and laughing.

A knot formed my chest that made it hard to breathe. Sy went out with different women all the time, but this time felt different. Sy and Katrina? When the hell did that happen? I moved around behind the bar, my appetite suddenly gone.

“Can I get a beer?” a voice said.

I continued to stare at the door like they would walk back through any second. Maybe he was just helping the coven with something. Maybe it wasn’t a date.

“Beer,” the voice insisted.

I turned my head slowly toward the annoying bounty hunter. “I will stab you.”

“I can wait,” he said, taking a couple steps back.

I looked back to the door. She was definitely girlfriend material. The knot in my chest grew.
He wasn’t going to wait forever
, a voice in my head told me, like that was at all helpful. Not that I expected Sy to wait. I didn’t know what I expected from him. That wasn’t the point. The point was I didn’t want anything to change between us. I liked it just the way it was. I liked knowing he would always be here. I liked flirting with him. I liked talking to him.

Sy always came back to me. It wasn’t like Katrina somehow mattered more than the others, even if she was Selene’s friend. My pep talk wasn’t helping the knot, so I rubbed at it. It was just a date. It wasn’t like they were moving in together.

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. Nothing was going to change. I nodded to myself. Everything would stay the same…unless it didn’t.