Poisoned Kisses (9 page)

Now Marco wasn’t sure whether he should be aiming his gun at her or out the window. Not taking any chances, he dived to the other side of the front door using the wall for cover. “Why not? What’s out there?”

“It’s not your ride. I’m pretty sure the woman outside doesn’t work for you.”

There weren’t many women that worked for Marco, and nobody could confuse Benji’s roguish silhouette for a female’s, so she was probably right. “Who is it, then?”

It was probably the police, he decided. In the light of day, someone could have reported the wrecked car. But even if the police were here to arrest him, Marco wasn’t about to get into a shoot-out with them. If it was the Russians or Chinese, on the other hand…

“It’s a vulture,” Kyra said.

Was that some kind of code?
Marco wondered. “What’s that? An exterminator? Was she the one who was supposed to get rid of the body after you were done with me?”

Kyra flashed him an exasperated look. “Just stay away from the door and give me your coat!”

He didn’t like her bossy tone, but he was already warier
of whatever was outside the door than he was of her. “Who is she?”

“I told you. She’s a vulture. She belongs to Ares. If you don’t let me shoo her away, she’s likely to discover you here.”

Was this supposed to scare him? “So what?”

Kyra folded her arms in front of herself, covering up the lacy bra he’d been too distracted to study in any detail the night before. “Okay,” she said. “So you’re pissed at me for a lot of stuff, including the fact I planned to imprison you in the basement, right? Do you have any idea what Ares and his vultures could do to you? It’d make anything I’d planned for you seem pretty tame.”

Nothing about Kyra was tame. Or normal. Nothing had made a damn bit of sense since his father’s funeral and Marco wasn’t sure he believed a thing she was saying. But for some reason, he could tell that
she
believed it, and until he had a better idea of what was going on, that would have to be good enough. It was as clear to him as it was to her that he wasn’t going to shoot her, so he lowered his gun.

“Now give me your coat, and hurry,” she said. “I can’t go out there in my underwear.”

“What? Suddenly shy?” he asked sarcastically, shrugging out of his overcoat and tossing it to her.

“It’s cold!” she said, pulling it on and hastily fastening the buttons.

Then the doorbell rang. Yeah, definitely not his crew. Benji would have picked the lock before ringing the bell. So Marco positioned himself in the hallway, just out of the line of sight, gun at the ready.

As Kyra opened the door, a frigid gust of wind blew snow into her eyes. Then she found herself face-to-face with her father’s creature. Kyra hated vultures—both the regular birds and the ones that Ares took for minions. Like
lampades,
vultures hovered at the threshold between life and death, but
their purpose was only to feast on the decay. Vultures had no care for the living, nor the shades of the dead. Kyra had even seen them circle over the dying, mocking them. Because of that, and because they were Daddy’s special creatures, it was difficult for Kyra to hide her distaste.

Anyone else might see the uninvited visitor as a beautiful redhead, all bundled up in a black ski vest. But Kyra’s inner torch revealed a scraggly buzzard’s soul with tattered black wings. Luckily, when the vulture looked at Kyra, all she’d see was a little old woman in a bathrobe.

“Can I help you, dear?” Kyra asked, projecting an illusion of frailty.

The vulture smiled beneath her sharp nose. “Actually, I was passing by in my truck and noticed the wreck at the end of your driveway. Do you need me to call anyone? An ambulance? A tow truck?”

Kyra tried not to snort at the vulture’s feigned solicitude. Instead, she hunched forward, letting her voice quaver as if she were ninety. “Oh, aren’t you sweet to ask, but emergency services have already been called.” These kinds of lies came easily to Kyra, and at this moment, she’d have said anything to get rid of Daddy’s minion. “They’ll send a tow truck later today when the roads are more passable. Thanks for stopping by, my dear!”

With that, Kyra started to close the door. But the vulture stopped her. “It’s just that my sister Kyra was driving this way last night. We haven’t heard from her today and, after a storm like this, we’re worried. I was wondering if you saw the woman in the accident, if you could describe her.”

They were certainly not sisters, but the vulture had such an honest look of concern on her face that Kyra had to admire her skill. She was almost as good at lying as Kyra was. Two could play this game. Kyra chuckled, still giving the illusion she was shrunken and old. “Oh, I saw the accident happen from my front window but there was only a man in the car.
Just an older gentleman like myself. It’s easy to lose control on this ice.”

“Then where did this come from?” The vulture’s mouth tightened like a sharp beak as she held up Kyra’s peridot choker.

Her mother’s choker! Kyra must have been too stunned by the accident to realize it was missing. When it had still been around her throat, Kyra had simply disguised it as a set of Ashlynn’s pearls. Once it broke free of her body, though, even a stupid vulture could recognize it for what it was. Now it was all Kyra could do to suppress the urge to snatch her choker out of the vulture’s filthy claws. “That is a lovely piece,” Kyra said. “I hope you can return it to whomever it belongs to.”

The vulture came closer in the doorway. The red-haired woman bobbed her head slightly, her nose just by Kyra’s ear, and then she sniffed. Kyra let her approach. She wasn’t afraid of the vulture. But she tensed nonetheless, knowing that Marco’s scent was in the house, on her hair, on her skin…

“Oh, Kyra,” the vulture said. “You should know better than to try to hide from me as an old woman. Don’t you know I can smell decay?”

Damn it to Hades.
Kyra
should
have known better. Vultures like this one could sniff out age and death years away.

“In fact,” the vulture said, with a puzzled tilt of her head. “Have you been ill, Kyra? I think you must not be feeling well lately. I swear I can scent your mortal side—not enough ambrosia,
my dear?
”

Enough was enough. Releasing the shape of the old woman, the nymph emerged as herself, eyes fierce as midnight. “Careful how you speak to me,” Kyra warned. The vulture might be Daddy’s minion, but she was also mortal, and Kyra would enjoy putting her in her place. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come for the file on the hydra,” the vulture replied.

“It’s gone. I destroyed it. And Daddy’s backup, too.”

“Pity,” the vulture said, her breath puffing steam into the
cold morning air, arms fluttering a little impatiently at her sides. “I come with a message from Ares, but I didn’t expect to have to follow you all the way to the New World to deliver it. What are you up to, little nymph?”

What was Kyra to say? That she’d come to Niagara Falls as a tourist? “I came to guide someone to the underworld.”

“Poor little Kyra,” the vulture said. “Always looking for a purpose, never finding a place to belong. Haven’t you figured out that no one needs you to guide them anymore?”

The vulture was needling her, trying to get beneath her skin to feast upon the festering emotional wounds there, and Kyra struggled not to let that happen. Even so, the vulture continued to taunt her. “How difficult it must be to live as a cast-off minion whose goddess doesn’t even want her anymore.” Kyra felt the heat of rage come to her face and the vulture smiled. “Ares would have you serve him…”

“
Never,”
Kyra said. That was never going to happen. “So you can stop following me. How did you find me, anyway?”

The vulture gave another sniff. “I’ve been on your trail since you destroyed the arsenal in Bosnia.”

Kyra supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. Bosnia was very near to where ancient Thrace had been. Near her father’s homeland, where his powers were strongest. Kyra had known her interference there would irritate him. In fact, she’d chosen the place
because
it would irritate him. But that was before—when she had no one to protect but herself. “Well, tell Daddy that I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh, he knows you’re sorry. At least, he knows you will be,” the vulture said, reaching out with long, slender fingers to caress Kyra’s cheek. “Once I’m done with you.”

Kyra swore she heard Marco’s breath catch in the hallway behind her and determined to show no fear before this creature. “So he sent you to punish me?”

“Oh, yes, Kyra,” the vulture said with relish. “I’m going to chain you down and feast on your liver for days. And you’ve
chosen such a perfect, isolated spot for me to do it. No one will hear you scream.”

Kyra’s blood ran cold. She could all too vividly imagine how it would feel for the vulture’s sharp beak to pierce her flesh, to yank out her insides, to torment her with pain and the stench of dismemberment.

“You’ve gone paler than usual,” the vulture said. “As well you should. For an immortal like you, time passes so slowly. You’ll be in agony, of course, but you’ll heal, and every time you do, I’ll tighten the chains that bind you and tear at your flesh again until you’re begging for forgiveness—”

“How original,” Kyra snapped, for it’d been one of Zeus’s favorite punishments in the old days. “There’s only one problem. You’re not strong enough to put me in chains.”

The vulture must have seen something dangerous in Kyra’s eyes, because she took a step back. Not fast enough. In a snap second, Kyra had her by the wrist. The first thing she did was take back her mother’s peridot choker—infuriated that it had ever been touched by the vulture’s defiling hand. The second thing Kyra did was shove the vulture back against the door frame with all her strength.

At the sudden impact, icicles fell from the gutter and shattered on the porch around them. Meanwhile, the vulture’s eyes went wide with mortal fear. Kyra had her by the throat and wasn’t letting go. As the redheaded woman struggled for breath, Kyra snarled, “If you want to survive the day, you’ll keep your claws off me.”

The vulture’s scarlet lips parted in surprise, then curled into a malicious smile. “You wouldn’t harm me, Kyra,” she choked out. “I’m under your father’s protection.” Kyra’s grasp loosened a little and the vulture brought her face so close Kyra could smell her carrion breath. The vulture’s eyes lit up with an almost sexual thrill. “Besides, little nymph, Ares commands you to submit to me.”

“Maybe some other time,” Kyra said, letting go of the filthy creature.

The irony was that Kyra never saw the gun. She’d already spun for the open door—ready to slam it in the vulture’s face—when she felt the cold muzzle against her side. “Don’t be a tease,” the vulture said, poking Kyra with the pistol and shoving her back into the house.

Kyra’s hands went stiff at her sides as she found her balance in the threshold of the foyer. Marco was just beyond, hidden behind the archway. She hoped he’d be smart enough to stay there. “Oh, I never tease,” she said. With that, Kyra jerked her elbow into the vulture’s stomach. With the vulture off balance, Kyra spun and punched her square in the face. The woman’s face snapped to the side, blood spurting from her nose. Kyra pressed the advantage, grabbing for the muzzle but just then, the vulture pulled the trigger.

Pain exploded through Kyra’s left side, deep into her hip. She felt the crack of bullet against bone, the sickening pierce of the metal as it passed through her flesh in one side, then out the other. Wood splintered behind her as the bullet lodged itself in the parquet floor where Kyra dropped in agony.

Groaning, she put her hand over the wound as blood flowed between her fingers and a pool of it fanned out beneath her. Lying there gasping, the darkest rage welled up in Kyra. She promised herself that when she got up, she’d tear this vulture limb from limb. It was the bloodlust in her. It was the legacy of Ares. She was perhaps her father’s daughter, after all, and for just this moment, she didn’t mind. “Do you know what happened to the last person who shot me?” Kyra cried, her war-born nature rising with a little thrill at the memory of how she’d gutted the Bosnian who tried to rape her. Oh, yes, she’d enjoy tearing this bird woman apart, feather by feather, with her bare hands. “You might as well put that silly gun away.”

“Oh, I know bullets won’t kill you, but shooting you slows you down a bit.”

Kyra tried to stand, determined to wipe that smug look of satisfaction off the vulture’s face, but then she toppled back down into an inelegant heap. What was the matter with her?

“You’re not so close to home,” the vulture explained, as if reading Kyra’s mind. “Your powers aren’t as potent here in the New World.”

No, something else was wrong. Why was it taking her so long to heal these days?

The vulture closed the front door and circled around Kyra in the foyer. She took her time, too, heels clicking on the wood floor until she was looming over Kyra, ready to fire again. “Hold still, Kyra. This time I’ll get the liver.”

Kyra braced for the agony of the second bullet, but it never came. Instead, there was a sickening crack—the distinct sound of some heavy object against flesh and bone. The sound a gun made as it struck the back of someone’s skull. Then the vulture collapsed on the floor.

T
he vulture slumped over and Marco stepped out of the shadows, gun in hand, held like a club. “What the hell did you do?” Kyra cried, her bullet wound finally starting to close up, flesh mending over flesh.

“I saved your life,” he growled. “You can thank me anytime.”

Saved her life? She had everything perfectly under control before he interfered.

Kyra started to get up, but Marco growled, “You’re shot. Stay down, damn it!”

“I already told you, bullets can’t kill me,” she said as he maneuvered over the prone form of the vulture with the precision of a combat veteran. He pried the gun from the vulture’s hands and kicked it out of the way before crouching down to feel for a pulse. “I was going for a blow to the side of the neck, but she turned her head…In any case, she’s still alive.”

“Not for long,” Kyra replied, retrieving the gun from the
floor where Marco had kicked it. If she could have had a picture of his astonished face as she stood and walked on what had clearly been a shot to the hip, she would have framed it.

Kyra calmly aimed the pistol at the center of the vulture’s forehead. Her finger, slick and sticky with blood, found the trigger and hovered over it. She was the daughter of a bloodthirsty war god. Daddy had always said Kyra was born to viciousness, bred for destruction. The vulture certainly wouldn’t have been the first person Kyra had killed. So why couldn’t she pull the trigger?

“If you shoot her, is she going to heal up?” Marco asked, his jaw sliding forward so that his face held a dangerous serpentine edge.

“No, she’s a mortal and a monster. Just like you.”

He glared. “Then either kill her or call her an ambulance.”

“Why don’t
you
kill her?
You’re
the one who cracked her skull. I was just defending myself.”

“I was defending
you,
” Marco said, as if he couldn’t remember why he’d bothered.

“Well, I don’t need your protection. If you’d let me beat her unconscious myself, she’d never have known you were here. Now, if I leave her alive, she might remember that you hit her and she’s going to report everything back to Ares.”

Kyra could see that Marco was still having trouble wrapping his mind around everything. In spite of having lived with his own powers, he’d never truly accepted them as real. He’d thought he was mad like his mother, trapped in a hell of his own making. She guessed that now he realized that if he was in hell, he wasn’t the only resident.

“So, kill her, then,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “You picked up a gun in need, didn’t you? In the end, all your fancy lectures about perpetuating violence don’t mean a thing in the face of actual danger, do they?”

So he thought she was a hypocrite. And maybe she was.

Marco watched Kyra stand over the unconscious redhead, gun in hand. Her eyes were hard, her nostrils flared and those lush lips were tightly pursed, as if she were afraid she might say something that would tip the balance of life and death. If only the she-devil had shown this kind of hesitation when she tried to plunge a knife into his heart in Naples, he might’ve been able to forgive her.

“Damn it.
If you had to get involved, Marco, why didn’t you just shoot her in the head?”

“Why should I do your dirty work? For all I know, you deserve everything she was threatening to do to you.”

The woman—the vulture, whatever—was breathing shallowly. He could still feel her pulse at her throat, though he’d opened a wound at the back of her head, which was now dripping onto the floor beneath her. Add that to Kyra’s gunshot wound and there was blood everywhere. Thankfully none of it was his, but it was triggering him. He was already seeing blood as it sprayed up from a ditch in Rwanda. He was seeing blood as it flowed red over all of the Congo. He needed to clean this up before he went crazy.

Meanwhile, Kyra lowered her gun. “How badly is she hurt?”

“Concussion probably,” Marco said. He wasn’t a medical expert, but he’d seen plenty of wounds. He’d been willing to call an ambulance when he thought Ashlynn needed one and the most troublesome questions the authorities were likely to ask were about the wrecked car. He had a false registration for that. He had a false face for that, too. But a shooting was going to involve more than traffic cops and Marco really needed to get out of here. “If you want to be on the safe side, take her to the hospital. I’m sure you’ve got a car stashed somewhere around here, all hidden away like your cell phone.”

Kyra shot him a look, flipping that long black hair over one shoulder. Now that she wasn’t disguising herself, her hair
was straight as a razor and sharply cut at the edges—just like her. “I left the car at the funeral home.”

Just how many lies had the nymph told him? “Ah, of course. I should have wondered why you needed a ride home. I’m not usually such an easy mark. But then, my enemies have never tried to manipulate me at my father’s funeral.”

He could have sworn he saw a flash of hurt pass over Kyra’s features, but then both of them heard a hideous gurgling noise. The woman he’d knocked out was stirring, but didn’t open her eyes. At just this small show of life, Marco saw Kyra’s stark look of panic. No matter what she said about not needing help, Kyra was obviously in some kind of danger. Truthfully, the redhead didn’t look like much of a threat, but what did he know? Until this morning, he thought Kyra was Ashlynn, so looks could be deceiving.

Kyra was still wearing his overcoat, which was now bullet riddled and bloody, and she put the gun in the pocket. Then she crouched behind the vulture woman, grasped her beneath the armpits and began dragging her toward the kitchen. Marco was fascinated. “What are you doing?”

“Getting her into the basement,” Kyra said, stopping every few feet to take a deep breath. “I don’t know if she brought any of her friends with her and I don’t want them looking for her. At least, not until you’re safely away from here.”

He knew better than to trust anything Kyra said to him, but her story about Ares and the war gods was all starting to take a dreadfully consistent shape. After all, the man on the phone had threatened Kyra, and it was a message Marco hadn’t delivered. If he’d warned her about the phone call, maybe she wouldn’t have been shot.

“Let me help you,” Marco said, grabbing the unconscious woman’s arms.

“I told you I don’t need your help,” Kyra said, as she staggered and fell. He caught her before her hands hit the carpet.

“What’s wrong with you?” Marco asked, trying, but failing, to keep the genuine concern from his voice. “I thought you said bullets can’t hurt you?”

“They
hurt
me a lot. They just won’t kill me,” she said, steadying herself and pushing him away. “Anyway, just go. Get out of here before Daddy’s vulture wakes up and sees you.”

It was sensible advice. So why wasn’t he taking it? It was still icy outside, but he could just start walking. Better yet, he’d take the unconscious woman’s car. He went over to her body, found the keys in the pocket of her ski vest and pocketed them. Now he could leave this damnable nymph of the underworld alone to deal with all this. But instead, he asked, “What if her friends come looking for her?”

Kyra lashed out like a wounded animal. “I dunno. But I have her gun. Guns solve everything, right? In any case, I’m fine by myself.”

She was not fine. There was clearly something wrong with her. Though he wanted nothing to do with whatever drama Kyra had gotten herself into, he remembered all the threats the vulture woman had made about eating Kyra’s liver. With an irritated grunt, he picked the redhead up into his arms, letting her bloody head loll back, and carried her to the basement door.

Kyra followed him down the stairs and kept her mouth shut until he reached the bottom stair. “Just put her in the cage,” Kyra said, obviously winded.

Marco snorted. “How stupid do you think I am? You think I’m just going to walk into that cage and let you slam the door shut behind me and lock me in with her?”

“The last thing I want is to lock you in there with her. I don’t want her to know you even exist!”

“Yeah, well, you can drag her the rest of the way yourself.”

“So that you can slam and lock the door behind
me?
” Kyra asked.

Oh, this was rich.
She
didn’t trust
him?
Marco shrugged, setting the vulture woman down. “Guess you’re just going have to take that chance,
Angel.
”

She glared at him, and the two of them stood there, in this basement, the tension thick between them. This was the same woman who had tried to kill him. The same damned woman who had seduced him not once, but twice, in the guise of a former lover. It made him feel violated and furious. He wasn’t giving in.

With a frustrated sound, Kyra grabbed the woman and dragged her a few feet into the cage. For a moment—just a moment—Marco considered slamming the door on both of them just as she’d feared he would. Then he could get some semblance of control over this situation. But he had no idea what powers the vulture woman had and whether or not she could really hurt Kyra the way she’d promised to.

Besides, he didn’t like to think of himself as the type to reward trust with betrayal.

Kyra dragged the injured vulture only a few feet into the cage, then jumped back out and slammed the door to shut. “Go upstairs before she wakes up,” Kyra said, pushing Marco, insistently. But it was too late. The vulture was already scenting the air. A few moments more and the vulture’s eyes blinked rapidly as she looked directly at him. Thankfully, the bars were too close together for her to escape, even in her vulture form. “Let me out of here!”

“Give me one good reason why I should,” Kyra panted, double-checking the lock.

“Because your father’s vengeance will be terrible,” the vulture threatened. “You know how much Ares enjoys punishments.”

“Maybe he won’t find out. Vultures disappear all the time,”
Kyra said, trying to instill a little fear of her own. And it worked, too.

When the vulture spoke next, there was a touch of panic in her voice. “You’re not just going to leave me down here…”

“Sure I am,” Kyra said, slumping back against the steel support beam for a breath. Being shot had weakened her far more than it should have, and she didn’t want the vulture to know it.

But the witless creature was now fixating on Marco. “Who is the man?”

“If I were you,” Marco answered. “I’d worry less about who I am and more about being nice to Kyra. She has your fate in her hands.”

“Fate?” The vulture shuddered, as if her feathers were ruffled, then gave Marco a penetrating stare. “She can’t let go of it, can she? Poor little lost nymph. Has she taken you for a lover to distract her from her troubles?”

“Yes,” Kyra said quickly. There was no reason for her father’s minion to know who and what Marco was. As long as Marco didn’t take on another face right in front of the vulture, or bleed his toxic blood, no one had to know that he was the war-forged hydra Ares was looking for. Let the vulture think Marco was just a lover.

“Isn’t he a pretty little pet?” Kyra asked, sidling up alongside Marco and tilting his face down so that she could kiss him. She felt him go stiff, anger brewing just below the surface of his skin, but he didn’t pull away. He let her kiss him, her real lips against his real lips. And if she didn’t know better, she would swear he kissed her back. The taste of him, the smell of him, the feel of him, brought back memories of the dark night before. But once again, it was all pretend.

When she pulled away from Marco, the vulture looked unimpressed. “Oh, Kyra, you’ve taken up with
another
mortal man?”

Marco’s body went rigid by her side. Was it jealousy
or stung pride? Remembering the way he’d accused her at gunpoint, mocking her in the very bed in which they’d been intimate, Kyra decided to make it sting a little more. She put her hand to Marco’s cheek, luxuriating in the feel of the stubble there as it scratched her fingertips. “How could I resist these dark good looks? He looks like Narcissus in the right light.”

Marco glowered as if he might break her hand if she touched him again. Even the vulture picked up on his foul temper. “You,” the vulture called to him. “I can smell the irritation on you. You’re already tiring of the nymph…you’re angry with her. You don’t have to do as she commands. Let me out of this cage, and I’ll give you a reward.”

“I’ve already got more money than I can spend.”

“Then do it for spite. You know you want to get away from her,” the vulture told Marco. “That’s always the way with nymphs. They’re so exciting at first, aren’t they? So intense, so raw, so hard to resist. But they always get too attached, too emotional, too much for a mortal man to handle.”

Kyra’s jaw clenched, pained by the truth in the vulture’s words, and a little dizzy, too. This weakness couldn’t just be that she was in the New World. She’d been away from the Mediterranean before, farther away than this, and never felt so powerless. This was more like she’d felt after she was poisoned with Marco’s blood. She was so tired. Too tired even to respond to the vulture’s taunts. There was no point in it, anyway. She had to get Marco away from here—get him away from Ares.

Kyra turned toward the stairs and started to climb, motioning for Marco to follow. But before he could, the vulture continued, “Oh, I’ll grant you, Kyra’s a little different. She comes from the line of Ares—she’s harder than most nymphs, less likely to be overcome with love than bloodlust.”

Kyra’s voice tightened over the lump forming in her throat. “Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know anything about me.”
But why should it be so important to her that Marco knew the truth of her heart? He was just some criminal, some monster, some arrogant mortal man.

“Oh but I’ve known Kyra all my life,” the vulture insisted. “She hasn’t experienced the all-consuming obsessions so typical of her kind. But she was born a nymph, and it’s a nymph’s lonely fate she’ll have.”

All Kyra wanted was to get up the basement stairs, but she felt trapped by the fate of her kind—as trapped as if Marco had locked her in that cage.