Dance in the Dark (25 page)

"Do you know anything else?" Johnnie asked.

Rostislav shook his head. "No, unfortunately. Just as the rumors were beginning to reach me, I was exiled with Jesse. I can try to investigate it, but it will be more difficult now."

"I can investigate it," Phil said. "Rumors are not hard to dig up."

"Just be careful," Rostislav said. "All the rumors I
have
heard agree on the nastiness of the person behind it all. Ruthless, that's the word I kept hearing."

Phil nodded, but did not seem concerned. "I've dealt with worse."

Johnnie glanced at Micah. "I wish now we had held onto that imp who was hurting you. He may have known something about this."

"You think?" Micah asked, frowning in thought. "I thought he was just after the money."

"I would not be surprised to learn that is not entirely true," Johnnie said. "So now we are looking for a talented alchemist or a powerful sorcerer, and quite possibly a rather devious imp."

Rostislav made a face. "I will see what I can do, but it is hard when visiting you is about all I can do without getting people up in arms."

"Cinderella, Cinderella," Johnnie taunted, smirking when Rostislav glared at him. "Return to your Prince Charming, then. I have other resources, though if you do hear something, by all means let me know."

"Of course," Rostislav murmured, then vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

Phil rested her chin in the palm of one hand, elbow propped on the armrest of her chair. "I still wonder what the girls themselves have to do with it," she mused. "There is some relevance to that, but damned if I've been able to find it." She looked toward Johnnie, then continued, "The only connection I've found between them is the Society. Otherwise, they vary in age, type of abnormal, interests, money, you name it. I would almost swear they were chosen at random, except they all belong to that damned society and they were all new wealth, so far as the abnormal world is concerned."

"That is probably all that they need to have in common," Johnnie said, idly running his thumb over the head of his cane, tracing the lines of the runes. "The point is twelve sisters, lost in a world that hopes to steal them away forever. Some people believe that the key to plane travel is in the tale itself. Whoever is doing this, is clearly recreating the tale in hopes of finding that key. I would wager the women are being killed from youngest to oldest? I would also bet the youngest was talkative, and easily frightened. Should all twelve die, you will likely find the oldest to be the strongest and wisest."

Everyone looked at him, with varying degrees of amazement on their faces. Finally Micah asked, "How do you know that?"

"Yes," Phil said. "You're as sharp as Chris, I swear, and he's roughly twice your age, I'd wager."

Johnnie motioned impatiently, then stood up and strode across the room to his library. Flicking on one of the Tiffany lamps, he strode to the proper bookcase and pulled down the book he wanted. Returning to the living room, he set it down upon the coffee table for everyone to see. "
An Analysis of Plane Travel in Classic Tales
. I have others." He resumed his seat next to Bergrin, wishing suddenly that he had not moved, as his head had decided that was grounds to resume throbbing.

Phil leaned over and picked the book up, then sat back in her seat and began to thumb through it. "Impressive. No one has ever mentioned studies like this to me. I thought fairytales were fairytales." She laughed softly. "That seems so silly, of a sudden. Of course they would be more than they appear; that is the nature of abnormals."

"Quite," Johnnie agreed. "Someone else has read this book, I would imagine. It is quite old, but still the best source on the subject. Anyone interested in studying plane travel would begin with this book." He gripped the top of his cane and scowled. "I do wish now I had not simply let that imp run off, but at the time, the matter seemed closed."

"He can be found again," Bergrin said. "If it really matters that much, Prince, he can be found again."

"How can you find him?" Johnnie asked. "He is an imp, he could change his appearance, and you were not even there …" He sighed when Bergrin only smirked. "Of course you were there, why did I think otherwise?" He rolled his eyes. "So why did you not save me that day?"

Bergrin only smirked again, and said, "Highness, you will never know just how close I was to taking care of the matter. How close I was, period."

Johnnie cast him a withering look, then said, "Fine then, braggart. See the imp from that day is found. We will see what information he can provide."

"It will be done," Bergrin said. "After you are in bed and I have called another Enforcer to watch you in my absence."

"I truly hate you," Johnnie groused, only further irritated by the way Bergrin merely continued to smirk.

Phil laughed. "You two are cute. I think I will leave you to your imp hunt, Johnnie, and see if I can't catch a lead on the rumors Rostislav mentioned. Hopefully one of us will come across something, or stumble into it. Be careful, though, huh?"

"Of course," Johnnie said, and stood up, taking her hand when she held it out and kissing the back of it. Then he kissed her cheek. "Be careful yourself, milady."

Patting his cheek fondly, Phil took hold of Jester, and then was gone, leaving Johnnie with just Micah and Bergrin.

"You're getting into some dangerous stuff," Micah said quietly. "This is much worse than one stupid imp causing me grief, if you really think he's involved. No one should be trying to do what my stupid damned ancestors managed."

Johnnie frowned. "What concerns me is that they have not troubled you further, Micah."

"I've always played dumb," Micah said. "We claimed to be studying the cane to learn its secrets; we were never dumb enough to say we already knew how it was done. I don't even want to
think
about what would happen were the wrong people to learn how to make objects that can travel the planes. I fear that once they achieved that, it would not take them long to learn how to do it with people."

"They already are," Johnnie said. "If the seven dead women are any indication, then they can move them from mortal to dream, at least while they are partially asleep, and can move them completely from dream to mortal." He twirled his cane back and forth in his hands, thinking. At last he posed, "To work this hard, to take such a risk as these murders, whoever it is must have a specific goal in mind. Risks are not taken for abstracts; they are taken for definites."

Bergrin sighed. "Why can't you take cases finding lost cats or something?"

Johnnie smacked Bergrin's leg with his cane. "That would be a waste of my intellect."

"Or your ego," Bergrin groused, and his scowl was not at all diminished by the fact his right eye was still more closed than open, the livid bruise surrounding it worse than ever. "Honestly, going on an imp hunt will be cake next to babysitting you." He shifted slightly, as though making to stand, but a faint grimace overtook his face, and he did not move.

As suddenly as that, Johnnie was reminded of the scratches on Bergrin's chest, the nasty bruise across his lower back, his bandaged arm—all injuries incurred saving Johnnie.

"Just forget it," he said flatly. "You need rest, or you will be completely useless as a babysitter instead of mostly useless."

Bergrin's mouth tightened, and he stood up slowly, stiffly. When he was standing, Johnnie was suddenly, painfully aware that he was close enough to touch—to kiss, and he fought a strange urge to laugh at the idiotic observation. But he remembered how Bergrin had looked half-naked, and how soft his face had been in sleep, the way Alec had brushed the hair from his face in a way that Johnnie certainly could not.

How deeply he had obviously slept alongside Bergrin, despite the limited confines of the couch.

He did not want these thoughts, he certainly did not need them. He was still sorting out his hot to cold feelings for Elam, and the mystery of Eros. He did not need to lust after a bodyguard whose regard was still low enough he seldom called Johnnie anything but 'Highness' and 'Prince'.

"I'm fine," Bergrin bit out. "I haven't failed in my duties so far, Highness—"

"No, you have not," Johnnie snapped, cutting him off, irritated beyond all reason by that fucking 'Highness'. "You perform your duties perfectly, right down to the letter, babysitter. If hunting imps would provide you with a welcome respite, then by all means go hunting. Summon your replacement and go." Not waiting for a reply, he turned sharply and stalked off to his bedroom, closing the door sharply behind him. Then he locked it.

Alone, he tossed his cane on the bed and then stripped out of his clothes. He contemplated a shower, but that would require going back out into the main room. Being a prisoner in his own bedroom grated, all the more because he had done it to himself, but seeing Bergrin right then grated more.

Making a face at himself, Johnnie propped his cane beside his bed, then climbed beneath the blankets and buried his head in his pillows.

Though he had expected to toss and turn, he was asleep within moments.

He woke some time later, feeling warm and disoriented. A moment's fumbling, however, revealed his own bed, and a familiar weight pressed against him from behind, arms wrapped firmly around him. "Eros?"

"Johnnie," Eros rumbled, voice heavy with sleep but still rich with that hot-toddy quality that drove Johnnie wild, even though he hated admitting it had that sort of effect. Eros' mouth trailed along his throat, soft kisses interspersed with sharp bites, and Johnnie was suddenly very much awake.

Eros rolled enough away to lay Johnnie out flat on the bed, then moved close again, straddling him, bending to take his mouth in a kiss that was soft and slow, but made Johnnie ache all the more.

He wanted to say no, enough, stop—he was so tired of only being fucked in the dark—but he could not bring himself to do it. Instead, he simply looped his arms around Eros' neck and held him close, kissed him deeply, spread his legs eagerly when Eros demanded it, whimpering for more as Eros prepared him.

When Eros finally slid inside and began to fuck him, slow and hard and deep, Johnnie could only dig his fingers into hard muscle, whimper and moan and cry for more, muffle his scream in Eros' mouth as he came.

They lay panting in the dark, skin slowly cooling, until Johnnie shivered and Eros drew the blankets back up over him.

"Will there ever come a day when you will stop hiding in the dark?" Johnnie asked wearily. Was this how whores felt, night after night? But that was nonsensical and melodramatic, and he dismissed the thought irritably.

"No," Eros replied. "I like you in the dark. Only I can see you, and you have no choice but to focus on me."

Johnnie said nothing, merely pulled the blankets up higher and buried his face in his pillow. He felt a soft kiss pressed to his cheek, and then knew he was alone again.

Bitter loneliness made his chest hurt, and he tried to burrow still further into his bed, his blankets. He was so damned tired of secrets.

*~*~*

Johnnie was sipping tea and pouring over every plane travel book he owned when he felt a sudden prickle of awareness. Looking up, he set his tea down so hard he half-expected the cup to shatter. He glared at Bergrin.

Bergrin only smirked. "I found your imp, Highness. Did you want him brought to you, or did you want to go see him?"

"We are going to see him," Johnnie said. He finished his tea in one swallow, then rose, adjusting his red shirt, black and silver paisley vest, moving swiftly to the bedroom to fetch his jacket and other going out clothes.

Back in the living room, he eyed Bergrin. "You look exhausted. But your eye looks better."

Bergrin looked briefly startled, but then simply shrugged. "I'm fine, Highness. I sent the temporary bodyguard home. Should I call him back?"

"Did I say that?" Johnnie snapped. Honestly, he had never even bothered to go and see the replacement. He had absolutely no interest in meeting the man.

"Should we summon your friend?" Bergrin asked. "Phil?"

Johnnie shook his head. "Let us see what we can do ourselves. Hopefully, there will be no further kidnapping attempts."

"I should be so lucky," Bergrin muttered. He tugged on his cap. "Would you at least try—"

He broke off as his phone started ringing, and pulled it out, eyebrows going up as he glanced at the caller ID. Before Johnnie could ask, Bergrin answered it with a, "Hey, Pop." He fell silent, listening as his father spoke, face growing increasingly grim.

A moment later he hung up, and returned the phone to his jacket pocket. "My father says that while he's not one hundred percent certain, he is eighty-five percent certain that your dad didn't destroy whatever the fuck he made."

"He did not destroy it?" Johnnie echoed, suddenly feeling cold.

"No," Bergrin said. "My father thinks he simply hid it."

"Damn it," Johnnie said. "I wonder if my father knows that."

Bergrin shrugged. "We can ask him later. Right now, we still need to go speak with that imp."

Johnnie nodded. "Where is he?"

"Relatively close, actually. About nine blocks northeast, in a neighborhood even I avoid when I can. So if I tell you to do something, Highness—"