Kick The Candle (Knight Games) (16 page)

“Hey, the lady needs your seat,” Michelle demanded.

I pulled her arm back gently. “No, Michelle, I’ll stand, really.”

“Oh, okay, sorry,” the man said nervously. When he jumped down, I noticed he was barely taller than the stool. Nice. We’d just ousted a little person, minding his own business, from his seat at the bar and relegated him to the crowd where he’d likely never be able to get the bartender’s attention. When he flipped a tip up to the bartender, my heart sank.

“Wait, sir, you don’t have to go.” I grabbed his shoulder. A shock wave traveled up my arm, and I released him like a hot rock.

He widened his eyes at me, then disappeared into the crowd.
Shit
. What was that?

“That was
weird
,” Michelle said. “Maybe the dress scared him away. Well, never mind it all, Dustin here will take care of you.”

I pursed my lips and plopped down on the empty stool. The bartender came over to request my drink order, and I realized it was Dustin Lynch, Logan’s assistant manager. I guess now that Logan was managing Valentine’s he was bartending. “Oh, hey Dustin. Red wine,
STAT
.”

He gave me a nod and a tight smile and reached for the bottle.

“So, why were you all flipped out this morning?” Michelle asked, face weaving toward me.

I suspected she was too far gone to understand, but I told her everything, from Rick’s involvement in Gary’s turning to Nekomata’s purchase of my house. With the music as loud as it was, I doubted anyone could hear as I stage-whispered into her ear, but still, to be safe, I used code words for the supernatural parts, such as saying Gary’s change rather than the word vampire. Michelle seemed to get the gist anyway.

“And now Rick’s missing?”

“Yeah.”

“Crap.”

“I know, right?”

“What are you going to do about your house?”

I shrugged. “It’s already sold, Michelle. What can I do?”

She lowered her chin and raised an eyebrow. “You can do a lot of things. You wrote the book on magical ways of getting things done.”

“Yep. And I’ll be consulting that book first thing Monday morning, but first I need to get my head around why all this is happening. This buyer won’t be the last if I don’t figure out why my house has been targeted.”

“You don’t think it’s the prime location?” Michelle asked, obviously referring to the property’s placement next to a hellmouth.

“That would be too easy. I think it’s more than that, unfortunately.”

A hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I turned my head to see Logan standing close behind me, a wide, tipsy grin coloring his face. “What’s unfortunate?”

His green eyes pierced into me, set off by the sharp charcoal shirt he wore. “Someone bought my house,” I said.

Logan’s face fell, sobering. “What about the attic?”

I searched the crowd of strangers pressing in around us. “What about it?” I laughed.

He slid his hand down my arm and found my fingers. “Can I talk to you in my office for a moment?”

He didn’t wait for me to say yes. With a yank, he pulled me from my barstool. I swung an arm out with Ninja-like precision and hooked my wine glass with my palm before following him through the crowd. Halfway to his office, a familiar face jutted between us. I put on the brakes, forcing Logan to stop.

“Grateful! Great to see you out and about.” Detective Silas Flynn slapped me on the shoulder. “I take it this is a social visit?”

“Uh, yeah. Totally social tonight, Silas.”

“Good, because I have the night off.” He reached into the crowd and a golden brown hand emerged, followed by the unforgettable presence of a fairy we both knew.

“Soleil.” I smiled, and she hugged me hello. “So you two are dating, huh?”

She glanced at the floor and a slight golden glow heated the air around her. “What can I say? He gives me the moon.”

Silas turned toward her, and his pupils dilated to the size of plates. Wow. There were some serious feelings going on there.

“And you give me the sun, darling.”

Next to me, Logan cleared his throat.

“Oh, ah, these are my friends, Silas and Soleil,” I stated awkwardly. “This is Logan.” Logan extended his hand to greet the two.

“The guest of honor! Of course we know Logan,” Silas said.

“Good to see you again Detective Flynn,” Logan said. “And nice to meet you, Soleil.”

“You know each other?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at Silas.

“I covered a break in at Valentine’s a few weeks ago.”

“Oh.” I nodded a few times, wondering why Silas would have gotten involved, unless they suspected a supernatural. It was the wrong time and place to ask.

Silas fixated on our coupled hands. “How do you know Logan?”

“He’s my, er, friend. We’re just friends…who need to talk.” The awkward aftermath was my cue to move things along. I said my goodbyes and followed Logan into a small room near the back housing a desk laden with stacks of paperwork. He closed the door behind us, and I smoothed my green dress.

“You look beautiful,” Logan said, eyeing me from head to toe. “The green brings out your eyes.”

“Thank you,” I said. Maybe I should have worn pants.

“Now what’s this about your house?”

I told him and my theory that it had something to do with the
Book of Flesh and Bone
. “Have you seen your mom again?” I asked.

“No, just that one time. But…”

“But what?”

“I’ve been having these dreams.”

“What kind of dreams?” Deja vu. If he said he’d had a sex dream about Rick, I was going to scream.

“There’s this woman. I never see her face because she’s always in the shadows. She says if I help her find what she’s looking for, she’ll reward me.”

My eyebrows eased down my forehead and squinched over my nose. “What does she want you to find?”

“That’s just it. I never find out. The woman motions for me to approach, like she’s going to whisper something in my ear, and before I can get close enough to hear her, my mother pops up.”

“Your mother? Your dead mother?”

“Yeah. She pops up between me and this woman, just like in my living room, and tells me to find
you
.”

“Wait. You’re mother is sending you messages in your dreams to find
me
?”

“Apparently.”

“So what does she say you’re supposed to do when you find me?”

“She doesn’t. But I have a theory.”

This was too much to take sober. I held up one finger and gulped down my wine. The Cabernet tasted bitter, like maybe the cork went bad before they opened the bottle, but I was so desperate for numbing I finished it anyway. When I lowered my glass, Logan was standing directly in front of me.

He locked eyes with me, lifted the empty glass from my hand, and lowered it to the desk. “I think the hooded woman represents every relationship I’ve ever had. Sensual but faceless, promising but meaningless, and my mom is telling me to find what’s real. She wants me to find
you
.”

“I don’t think that’s what it means, Logan. I can’t be with you. I’m, ah, I’m—”

His face was so close, and the wine was rushing to my head. Something else, I was woozy. His eyes seemed to twinkle in a cartoony way, and light played in his hair, tiny dancing bears of white light.
Shit!
I was tripping. There was something more than wine in that drink. What the hell?

“Theresomethinsflibbitygibbit.” I was not making any sense. The floor bent up to say hello and I steadied myself on the first thing I could reach, which happened to be his hips. He took that as encouragement and pressed into me, his spicy cologne seeming to waft through me in my altered state.

And then he was kissing me, a human kiss that was nothing at all like the ones we’d shared when he was a ghost. Even in my altered state I couldn’t deny the heat. His lips met mine, soft and warm. He pressed me into the wall, his body enveloping me as his tongue invaded my mouth. I didn’t so much return the kiss as absorb it.

I felt like I’d gone down the rabbit hole. One moment I was kissing Logan, and the next Rick’s face was in front of me. Wait. That was Rick. And he was pissed. He held Logan off me with one hand and held me up with the other. He looked at me with vile contempt.

“Grateful,” he said. Wait. What happened to
mi cielo
? “I always knew I loved you more, but I never thought you were cruel. Why did you send Poe to find me? Did you want me to see this?”

“No.” I fumbled forward. My hand trailed through the air in front of me. “Mishtake,” I slurred.

But he wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was fending off Logan who was getting all, ‘back off buddy’ in Rick’s face. I stumbled to the desk, unable to process what he was saying.

“We love each other. We have something,” Logan said.

Who was he talking about? I didn’t love Logan. Sure, I’d been attracted to him and we shared a deep friendship, but love? I needed to explain.

I turned toward Rick but he was gone. Logan was on his ass on the floor and the door to the office was hanging off its hinges. I stumbled back out into the crowd, calling for Rick.

“Top of the evening to ya,” the shy redheaded guy said to me, blocking my path. “Hope you’re enjoying the little something extra in your drink.” He grinned wickedly. I noticed he had a number of gold teeth. He leaned in closer. “Nobody steals a leprechaun’s seat at the bar. Not even you, Hecate. See you soon.” He spit on my shoes, and blended away into the blob of colors I recognized as the crowd.

See you soon? Not if I saw him first. I swam toward the door, hoping I could catch up with Rick. How long did it take me? I have no idea. Time was doing weird things just as the walls were buckling in on me. Somehow, I spilled out into the parking lot, thankful for the deep breath of cold air that filled my lungs.

A broad fist connected with the side of my face.
OW
! I tried to retaliate but my arms wouldn’t work.
BAM!
A foot slammed into my ribs. Then the concrete bent up to give me a kiss. Oh, how sweet. Ouch, my head. That’s all right, I decided. I could sleep right here on the pavement.

C
h-ch-ch-chatter-chat-chat

S
omething was clanking together. Oh, my teeth. Maybe that’s why my jaw ached. I tried to slide it back and forth and it cracked painfully. I pressed my lips together.
What the hell was going on?
I was shivering too. And one side of my head hurt like a bitch. Actually, my whole body ached, and my wrists were stuck. I fluttered my eyes open.
What the fuck?

I was not at home, and I was not at Valentine’s. The room was dark, but I could make out stone walls supported by thick wooden beams. There were implements on racks mounted to the walls: canes, whips, clamps, and sharp objects that glinted ominously in the light of the single candle that burned on a small table at the center of the room. Either I was in someone’s red room of pain, or this was an actual dungeon.

I took a moment to survey myself. The reason my teeth were chattering was I’d been stripped down to the white silk and lace slip I’d been wearing under my dress. Even my shoes were gone, my feet numb from the icy cold stone under them. The ache in my back and wrists was due to the latter being bound above my head to the ceiling. When I tried to tilt my head back to get a better look, I groaned.

“She wakes.” The ginger from the bar appeared in front of me, his gold-toothed smile glinting wickedly. An evil leprechaun. Who knew? And to think, I’d felt guilty for stealing his barstool.

“Thank you, Naill,” a woman’s voice, deep but sensual, crooned to my left.” She stepped into my peripheral vision. The way my head hung, I saw her tall-booted leg first, peeking out from the slit in her dress, followed by a long waist. “At last we meet Hecate, or should I call you Grateful?” Red lips pulled back from pearly white fangs.

“Hecate is fine,” I said through the pain in my jaw. “I can think of some things I’d like to call you.”

“Anna. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.” She stepped closer, as if she were inspecting my face.

I looked up into her oversized green eyes and searched my memory for the name Anna. My conversation with Gary popped into my head. “Bathory?”

“The one and only.” She pushed her bouncy brown curls off her shoulder and turned to pace away from me. Bathory definitely had the Jessica Rabbit thing going on below the neck. Her black dress clung like a second skin, a leather corset boosting her major assets shamelessly.

“What do you want?” I managed.

“I want the book,” she snapped. “Tell me where it is, and I will let this incarnation of you live.” She closed in. The scent of blood wafted over me. Whether it was my blood or the stench of her breath, I wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know where it is.” At least this I could be honest about. If she had any powers of observation at all, she’d have to believe me.

“Hmm.” She paced again, the clack of her heels creating an ominous rhythm on the stone floor.

Or maybe it was the cold that was ominous, or the fact that the warm, wet drip making its way down my cheek seemed to be coming from a painful spot on my head. And one of my eyes was hard to keep open. Yeah, now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, I was a mess. I dangled from my bindings like a carrion treat for my vampire captor. Where was Poe? Shit, where was Rick? The events of the night came rushing back to me, and instantly the pain of my physical situation was compounded by an emotional pain that weighed down my chest.