The Devil You Know (35 page)

Bon again made that grunting laugh-like sound.
Cassie
. He thought the name like a caress.
Such a sweet treat. She reminds me a great deal of someone I knew long ago.
He shook his head.
But not her, not yet.
His smile grew.
But soon. Her reprieve and that of that little half-blood currently playing her guard dog are merely temporary.
He reached into Roskov’s chest and removed a chunk of red and black flesh. Little bits of meat fell from it back into the body.
Excuse me. It’s quite a long trip home. I wouldn’t want to get hungry halfway and have to look for a snack.
He flashed his fangs, picked up a scalpel, and like slicing an apple, removed a piece of the red-black meat and put it in his mouth.

“Quite all right.” I raised my hand to my mouth, choking on the words. If my stomach hadn’t been rolling, I might have laughed. He was a crazy son of a bitch, but he was a well-mannered one. My humor dissolved quickly. I’d heard it said some Fae ate the flesh of other immortals. But even those powerful Elves eventually went mad from the power and memories they consumed. Bon looked as if he’d passed madness long ago. This wasn’t his first time chowing into something he shouldn’t, which didn’t bode well for me.

He continued eating, waving his hand.
Again to that introduction. You shall come home with me. When your silver-skinned lover comes for you, you will introduce her to my Mistress. You and your powerful protector will find her a most generous Master.
He released a little giggle. His face morphed with childlike excitement then contorted as he fought for composure. A chill ran down my spine and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up. That childish sound had been almost too warped for recognition. I wasn’t sure what Bon’s adult side was fighting, but I didn’t want it free.

Had I said crazy? More like bat-shit crazy with a big helping of goat-fucking insane on the side.

Bon had sworn allegiance to Serena, my good friend and Mississippi’s Vampire Queen, but I knew Bon’s “Mistress” wasn’t her. I began to wonder who he could mean when my mind returned to the image of the Fae eating the forbidden flesh.

That wasn’t the only thing they did.

I had an idea, a very dangerous one, but at this point, I had no choice. I had promised Jacq I wouldn’t die tonight. I planned to keep that promise. More importantly, I would
not
be used to set a trap for my love.

But I had to go about this carefully. Bon knew me too well to be fooled by my usual tricks of sweet smart-mouthed innocence.

It was time to play hard to get.

“I suppose this isn’t optional?” I fingered a nearby stake, my tone innocent but my threat clear.

It could be, I suppose…if you like to play pretend.
That giggle slipped out again. This time, it took Bon a little longer to recover. Finally, he flashed his fangs and stopped near Roskov’s head, acting as if no time had passed.

I stopped at Roskov’s feet, my back to the wall, and we faced off. “Well, then…” I put down the stake to pick up a mallet, feeling its solid weight. “It looks to me like you have two choices.” My eyes met his black ones. I slapped the mallet into my hand, smiling. “You can drink me dry and use my hand-puppet of a corpse to make introductions to your lady. Or you can drag me out of here kicking and screaming and as naked as a jaybird. Either way…” I arched a brow. “I’m not going willingly.” My grandpa had always said it was never good to call a crazy man’s bluff (they always made you pay for it), but that was just what I’d done.

Laughing in my head—this time thankfully a very adult sound—Bon returned my smile and turned Roskov’s head to face me, opening the dead man’s mouth to show me that something was missing. Sensing a sudden stillness in his body, I prepared myself for what was coming, but it was no use. Before I could blink, he shoved the table forward, pushing me backward into the wall, jamming me against the cold concrete. My elbow hit the wall hard, and my hand went numb, releasing the mallet. Bon raised Roskov’s head high, holding it next to his own like Hamlet holding poor Yorick’s skull.

I do so love having options, but you’re wrong to think I have only two,
he said in my head. Across from me, two tongue-less vampires smiled, eerie reflections of each other—one’s mind and the other’s soul long gone.
When we’re done, believe me, you will leave at my side. And assuredly you will do it…most willingly.

Chapter Nineteen

“Hungry and on the go? No problem, drive on through. We’ll pop a vein for you.”

—Jack in the Coffin

Bon moved around the table slowly, his steps light and purposeful. I kept my heartbeat from roaring in my ears only from years of meditation.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I said with a calmness I didn’t feel. “Kill me or force me, neither constitutes willingness.”

No?
Bon thought. His glowing red eyes caught mine.
Witch, guardian…demon…
he sniffed, the fire in his eyes flaring brightly as his fangs flashed.
Whatever you might be, there is no creature on this green earth or in the bowels below it immune to a vampire’s bite. But then…
He stepped near and ran a finger down my neck and along a scar that had long since been hidden by my family’s healing skills, his touch more clinical than caress as he forcefully turned my chin to bare my throat.
You would know that if you had allowed Seth into your bed as he’d intended. They don’t call those that feed us sheep without cause.

His head lowered. Tucking my chin down, I tried to turn and face him. But his hand clamped tight on my jaw, keeping my face averted. Did Bon not want to look into my eyes? Or did that strange, mannerly part of him simply not want me to see the end coming?

As if reading my thoughts, he said,
Fear not, Catie-girl, it won’t be long before you’ll be bleating like the little lamb you are.

Then his teeth sank deep, and the control I’d kept over my heartbeat failed. It pounded hard as my blood rushed out. Tendrils of power moved between us as his mind crept into mine. I wanted to scream, as much in agony as frustration. Vampires could induce pleasure with their bite, often sending their victims into orgasmic oblivion even as their life was sucked away. But Bon neither found nor gave any pleasure in the task. I knew enough to know he wasn’t intentionally causing me extra pain, but the piercing of skin, muscles, and veins was still sharply painful. Even so, the greater pain was his brutal assault on my mind.

You taste so good,
he murmured,
of powerful magic and rich blood.

His words filtered through the fog that was creeping over my mind, and I shivered with pain and fear. Long ago, I’d helped a friend track a rogue vampire. I’d seen my share of drained bodies and knew the horror firsthand. The corpses had been nothing more than emaciated husks.

But despite the pain and fear swelling within me, I didn’t fight, not physically. Without Bon releasing his jaws and retracting his incisors, pushing his head away could rip my throat out. At some point, he’d moved the table and pulled me close, now cradling me in his arms. But the time for escape had passed, and lethargy had set in, forcing my arms to dangle heavily at my sides. Blood poured from my throat too quickly for my body to replace. For a second, the walls I’d placed around my mind teetered and Bon latched on, thinking he’d won control. My heart slowed, laboring. My lids grew heavy, my eyes starting to close.

In my head, Bon sighed with regret. He pulled his teeth from my neck, licking the blood from my skin to seal the wound, an empty parody of a lover’s wet kiss.

No, no,
he thought,
can’t have you falling asleep on me now, Cate. I need you awake. Otherwise you’ll drown when I take us back through the tunnels.
Bon slapped my cheek, not sounding too terribly upset by the possibility of my demise.

I blinked, suddenly remembering what I had to do.

That’s better.
He smiled. Within me, my demon-half returned the look. Unlike with Ramus, she had made no move to assist me. She knew firsthand how well I could fight a war of wills.

Bon flexed his mental control, saying,
Now, Catie-girl, you’re truly blood of my blood. Do as I say and I’ll steal some pretty college girl’s clothes once we’re above ground and allow you to dress. Now…MARCH.

Nothing happened. He blinked once, the closest thing to surprise I’d ever seen on his face. The taking of my blood might afford him more access to my mind, but I’d had a lifetime of building locks and walls to keep myself in. It was a simple effort to use them to keep others out. The wall he’d breached was only the first of many.

He was right though—no creature could withstand a vampire’s will, not indefinitely. But my protections would hold long enough for me to do what I needed to.

I looked at Bon with blurry eyes and let our thoughts merge. “Not blood of your blood, blood of
my
blood, running even now rich and strong through your veins.” My smile was feral. There was something wild and primitive within me. Something that anticipated what was coming. I should have been frightened of what that something might be, but I was too busy fighting other battles.

Bon was too full of magic, too dark and too dead inside, to sense the small current of wild magic racing, spreading, infecting him like poison crawling through the inner walls of his veins, even as the memories I could see through our connection—the murder and deaths, the forbidden consumed flesh, the trapped souls and the scarred scared boy crying silent tears next to his mother’s rotting corpse—returned the favor and tried to force their way into my mind, tried to infect me with their madness.

The wild part receded and my eyes misted at the last memory. The bitter sadness of it was as sharp through our connection as the winter wind the boy and I felt against our wet cheeks. But there was no time for sympathy. Promises of safe conduct to his Mistress’s door aside, I knew without doubt that once there I would surely die, if not by Bon’s hands then by another’s. The woman he served was merely a dark shadow in his thoughts, her image frequently transposed with that of a rarely smiling, black-eyed girl, but I’d seen enough to know her intentions were anything but pure. Bon knew this, too. Or at least that small part that was a crying boy at his mother’s side knew. But Bon the man, in many ways more innocent than that child, did not. He served without question, making his innocence all the more dangerous.

Do as I say
, he ordered, tightening his vise around my mind.

Pain shot through my head so quickly and strongly I would have fallen had Bon not held me. “No,” I refused sharply.

Ignoring the pain, I followed the connection he had made between our minds, placing myself nearly in the center of his being. His dead eyes gave the smallest flicker of surprise. Then with a thought, a word, and a push of magic, I set the poison in his blood free.

I set him…and his dark painful memories free.

Cysga’n.
The Fae spell sparked deep within the vampire, and I slammed up a wall between our thoughts, trying to separate our minds. Realizing the danger, Bon threw everything he had against my barrier, trying to push the spell back to me. Clenching my jaw against the pain, I forced the wall to stand, telling myself it would be over soon.

Like weeds growing at an enormous rate, the seed I’d sown sprouted, moving, spiraling from his mind into his heart and out into his limbs. Fera’s spell activated with the subtle vengeance only a Fae could possess. Bon’s grip loosened, and I jerked away, knowing the spell didn’t have to come through my mind to take me. With our distance and his sudden weakness, I broke the chains that had kept our minds together, but even as our thoughts separated, that crying boy turned and looked at me from his mother’s bed, making a request I could not deny. With the remainder of my strength, I eased Bon to the ground and crossed his hands over his chest.

Black eyes hazing with sleep, he looked at me and repeated the words he had spoken earlier, his tone now one of confusion.
Such mercy. What would your granny say about wasting your blessings on the undeserving?
Eyes closing, he drifted away.

For a moment, I stood over him. With his skin pale, and everything utterly still, the sleeping vampire looked like the corpse he was. “She’d say I’d done good.” My words echoed hollowly around the vault, its space suddenly darker and emptier than moments before.

Tired beyond comprehension, I gathered Roskov’s head and other sundry parts and returned them to his bag, which I levitated into the main room. I brought Johnny Lee’s bag back, its surface now bearing the name
D. Roskov
, and levitated Bon into it and onto the vault’s table. It hadn’t been my intention to replace Domini’s body. But a vampire sleeping on the floor would draw attention before attention was due.

I could have, probably should have, left things at that. I could send Bon’s body out in my place and leave Seth and Serena to deal with his treachery in their own uniquely painful way. I could hide a note or message under the illusion charm and work my way out through a water tunnel come dawn, leaving it to the quick-thinking Mynx to find a way to fish a naked me from the lake without arousing suspicion. But the crying boy’s request was ringing in my ears, the desperate pain behind it stronger than any persuasion spell’s pull.

Bon the betrayer deserved whatever Serena could give him. Bon the boy did not.

The plea of the crying boy was still ringing in my head when I placed the tip of a stake on Bon’s forehead and brought the mallet down hard. A stake through the heart would have been sufficient for a vampire. But Bon, and the little boy hiding deep within him begging me to end their misery, had never been just a vampire.

“
Cysga’n dda.
Sleep well, Bon Ame,” I cried as the stake drove home, freeing Bon’s soul.

I was still crying when I zipped the bag, sealed the vault, and activated my two illusion charms, moving the appropriate one into the place where Domini Roskov’s heart had once been. But my tears were dry when I climbed into Mary Lou Tucker’s borrowed ticket home and zipped myself in.
Cysga’n.
With a sigh of relief, I activated what little of the Fae magic was left in my blood and slipped into the easy arms of temporary death.