The Devil You Know (9 page)

She looked at me and tried for a smile. “I will…someday soon. But not yet. Will that be enough for you?” There was fear in her eyes.

I stepped back, letting my hands slide down her arms until my fingers twined with hers. I smiled in reassurance. “I can live with that. But I’m going to keep feeding the hound. I have the feeling she’s not going away, and if she’s fed, she’s less likely to drag up a deer carcass.” I thought of the bones she had left for me Monday morning. “Or take a bite out of something she shouldn’t.” I nodded toward my grandpa’s ’83 Silverado parked nearby. My new demonic doggie had eyed its tires more than once during our first meeting. Hopefully she would find the food I’d left more palatable.

“She?” Jacq arched a brow, her half grin and elusive dimple appearing.

“Call it women’s intuition.” I smirked. She gave me a suspicious look, no doubt expecting the trick I’d used on my grandmother this morning.
My namesake.
I winced, quickly focusing on sweeter things, like the woman before me. There was no trick. I meant what I had said…and what I was about to say.

Smiling, I grabbed Jacq’s hand and pulled her back through the ward door before raising it behind us. We stopped under a great oak’s shade, a few feet from the barrier. I drew her close, placed my arms around her neck, and whispered in her ear, “Although I’ll grant you however much time you need, I suggest you make friends with my new pet. Your secrets are safe. But should you learn any more about me and neglect to share, I’ll build a doghouse just so I can put you both in it.” Then I laughed and kissed Jacq while her lips were still curved into a smile.

She thought I was joking but I wasn’t. I didn’t doubt my good detective knew more about me than she was telling. As our lips locked together, my hands playfully ran down her back and across her sides, taking her measurements. Only the best, most spacious doggie den would do for my love.

* * *

I stole a moment alone in my office while Jacq ran errands and everyone else went about their business. I’d hoped to have a talk with my family, but Aunt Helena was nowhere to be found though her car was here. Mynx was working. And in the garden Nana was teaching Brittan meditation as it applied to magic. I’d glimpsed both women through the window but they had yet to see me today. Brittan, or Brit as she liked to be called, had been human until Nicodemus kidnapped her. Things had gone wrong during our final showdown and Brit was now something more. She was in our family’s care until she could control her magic and protect herself from those who might try to harm or use her.

Disbelieving, I eyed the pile of paperwork that had sprung up on my desk. Forty-eight hours ago, this old cherry wood surface had been bare. Before Monday night’s date, I’d managed to catch up on my casework and hadn’t planned to take another for several days. But it looked as if my best laid plans had gone down the creek with my paddle, because I’d accepted a case…or rather had one foisted upon me.

Putting that thought away for a moment, I contemplated another problem. A very fishy one. Little red boralis swam in the fish tank across from my desk, their scales glowing with a recent feeding. I wondered if I should free them to swim in the pond behind the house with their brothers—the magical piranha spawned into the creek during my fight with Nicodemus’s brother, Titus. They had worked their way over the spillway and into the pond. It might be better for the fish in the tank if they were with their brothers in the pond but I would miss having them in my office. It was a difficult call, but not the most difficult one I’d have to make today.

Resigning myself to the inevitable, I ignored the papers, the fish, my growing dread regarding what Denoir’s Demon Queen wanted with someone as inconsequential as me…and the voice inside my head saying this call was a very bad idea…and picked up the phone, punching in the now familiar number, shaking my head over Gemini’s request. The goddess knew there was no love lost between me and the Council. As did Seth, which might explain why he hadn’t waved his kingly hand and made the powers that be grant the grieving daughter’s wishes. The jilted vampire had told Gem, perhaps out of spite or some misguided life lesson (both directed at moi), that I was her go-to girl.

Now I was left to call in a favor for a stranger. And if the Council didn’t like me before, they were
really
going to hate me after this. The line picked up. Before I could change my mind, I blurted out, “I need you to help me steal a body.” At the first lull in the squawking, I interrupted. “Well, you’re welcome to try and arrest me for saying that, but then I wouldn’t tell you what I’ve planned. You’d die of curiosity and I’d be free again to do as I pleased.” I ignored the cursing on the other end, my face growing red at one colorful comment. “Goddess bless, what sort of witch do you think I am? Hear me out. It’s not like I’m asking for some nefarious purpose. My intentions are purely honorable, I swear. Besides,” I said sweetly, “you owe me.”

“What do you want, Cate? Or rather should I say who?” Her bluster exhausted, Council Sheriff Fera now sounded tired, her normal flirtation missing, reminding me of a certain green-eyed woman who’d been moping around Monday. It seemed Mynx and Fera had connected before the battle with Nicodemus. Mynx had happily left with Fera after the battle but come home Monday silent and sad. I had yet to discover why.

“Domini Roskov.” Holding the phone close, I tapped my foot, remembering this morning’s predawn meeting. “His daughter’s in town and wants to say goodbye before giving him a proper cremation.” That wasn’t all she wanted, but that was as far as my assistance went. Or so I hoped.

There was the sound of doors closing and footsteps. Fera whispered, “The Council has ordered Roskov’s body be kept for testing.”

I nodded absently, figuring as much. Gemini had told me they’d declined her request for his body, which was stored in Seth’s territory, leading her to him then me.

“And before you ask,” Fera said, “I don’t know where. They want to know how something like Nicodemus could take one so powerful. Considering what’s at stake, Cate, it’s not an unreasonable request.”

Damn, she was right. Though undoubtedly more powerful than the former fanged finance-guru, the Council members had to be scared. If Domini Roskov could be taken, so could they all. My mind worked double time, forming and discarding possible scenarios. Even if we managed to take the body, the Council would come out in force to get it back.
Unless…

I leaned forward, elbow on my desk, and grabbed a sketchpad, drawing from memory a set of complicated wards I’d recently glimpsed. Mind only half-focused on the conversation, I cradled the phone against my shoulder, urgently saying, “I already know where he is. That’s not why I’m calling.”

“How did you—” Fera’s voice dropped. “Never mind. I don’t want to know…and definitely don’t
need
to know.”

I looked at the drawing I had begun and made a decision. “What if I could give the Council what they needed? Provide an explanation for how the vampire was taken and a method to prevent it?”

There was silence on the line. I penned another set of black squiggles to one of the symbols, adding a man’s blocky figure with one set of wards squarely on his chest and another at his feet. I looked at my rough picture, putting a large question mark in place of a head. It would put me in the hot seat, in more ways than one. But the time had come and gone for playing it safe.

I heard, on Fera’s end, boots quickly thump across a hard surface. “You can do that?” Her voice held new respect.

“No, but I know someone who can.” Or rather, two
someones
who could. Or so I hoped. The
could
wasn’t so doubtful as the
would
. I wasn’t currently on good terms with one. And after this afternoon, the other might want my head.

“They still wouldn’t release the body. But…” A car door slammed followed by the roar of an engine. “Sorry, I wanted to make sure no one could overhear.” Fera almost sounded giddy. My ears perked up, hearing the engine rev and tires squeal. “If you gave them what they wanted, the Council might not protest too loudly when the body went missing. It costs a pretty penny to keep something like that on ice. Let’s not discuss this over the phone. I’ll be there in an hour, less if I hit the siren.”

“Hold the siren, Sheriff. It’ll take that long for the vampire to get here.” I grinned, counting to ten. I made it to six.

“Cate, it’s daylight out.”

I laughed, enjoying finally knowing something the Fae sheriff did not. “I know. Ain’t it grand?” At Fera’s sputtering, nonsensical response, I hung up. Still laughing, I quickly dialed another number, happy to find my newest client already on her way. Good, I could let Gem give Fera the details. This was one story that was best heard direct from the horse’s mouth.

Still in a good mood, I decided to tackle my paperwork before it multiplied and swallowed my desk. I was reaching for the stack when a name caught my eye. Intrigued, I picked up the application lying haphazardly across the pile.

Not questioning my good fortune, I made one last call, saying as the woman on the other end answered, “You’ve got the job.” It was a quick but very satisfying conversation. Afterward, I leaned back in my chair, laced my fingers behind my head, and stared out the window at the back gardens, dangerously pleased with myself.

It looked like the Darkmirror was finally getting that sorely needed secretary, one more than capable of protecting herself should the big bad come knocking on the office door. One who would live on-site for the time being. And hopefully, I would be getting another partner in crime. Though it really wasn’t a crime to steal a man—dead, undead, or otherwise. It was more like a jailbreak. And considering the wardens, that was no crime.

It was a mission of mercy.

Though,
I thought, looking at the outrageously large check Gemini had written me this morning,
most angels of mercy didn’t get paid quite so well.
But then again… I looked to the recently drawn, twisting black pattern of symbolic magic. Neither did they have to make a deal with the devil to get the job done.

I decided to spend my hour of waiting for Fera and Gem doing a PI’s less glorious, more tedious job of paperwork, Internet searches and emailing. Unfortunately, it only took twenty minutes. Then I no longer had a reason not to track down my family for that talk.

Ready to return to the house, I stood, my eyes landing on a framed photo and the real reason I had accepted Gem’s case. The others might believe this was about money or sympathy, but I knew better. Devils and angels aside, this was about pure sweet revenge.

And the answers it would garner.

Taken when I was five, the photo showed my mom teaching me how to fish. We sat side by side on the shady riverbank wearing identical ear to ear grins. Sunlight sliced through the trees, highlighting her bright red hair and sparkling green eyes. She was safe, happy, loved…

Gone.

Fists clenched, I looked away, circled my desk and left my office, not looking back. Not that I needed to. The picture was stored forever in my mind…and heart. Fera had said my mother hadn’t been working for the Council when she disappeared. Strangely enough, I believed her. But someone somewhere knew something. And with the Council being the biggest game in town, that someone was most likely within their ranks. So I was going to irritate, pester, and generally make a nuisance of myself until that person either told me out of sheer frustration or tried to kill me. If that required pissing off every single person with a Council nametag, so be it.

Which was probably why I should have torn up Gemini’s fat check and done this pro bono. Because no matter what I had to do to steal Domini’s body from under the Council’s nose, I’d enjoy every bloody double-dealing soul-selling minute of it.

With that thought in mind, I headed to the house to confront Nana and Aunt Helena. I had been prepared to go in guns a blazin’. But the photo of my mother had reminded me of something more important than my anger or sense of betrayal. It had reminded me how sharply loss cuts. My tactics with the Council wouldn’t work with my grandmother and aunt but only prove to alienate them. I had little family left. I didn’t want to lose any more.

But that didn’t mean I was giving up, only that I wouldn’t burn the house down in the process.

My grandpa had always said, “When one pulled teeth, it was best to practice often and with great gusto.” I’d been taught to respect my elders’ wisdom, so who was I to argue with such logic? I was impatient to begin pulling. But for the love of my mother, I would be lenient if not liberal with the anesthetic.

* * *

August, 1726

“Keyholes were meant for peeping,” his mother’s maid, Bessie, had always said.

Bessie, several years older, had always known the best keyholes to look through. She had not come with them to this strange mountainous village, but it was probably for the best. Tonight, the boy knew without being told what lock should become his spyglass. And this quiet post-midnight mission was not like the enlightening adventures they’d once had. He was almost ten now…and nearly a man. This was a matter of survival, not curiosity as to what occurred between scullery maids and stable lads in the back stalls.

Barely breathing, the boy strained to see into the dimly lit room, his young body not feeling the stone floor’s chill or the ache of stooping with his eye to the iron latch for over an hour. Everyone knew that the alchemist LaFortuna stayed late in his private rooms conducting experiments. No one was allowed in. Even the boy’s mother spent her working hours with and without the alchemist floors above, poring over dusty books in his large crowded library or mixing herbs and brewing potions in the herbalist’s lean-to nearby. No one knew what LaFortuna hid in his private rooms so deep in the mountain’s cellar. And bizarrely, no one cared…even when the boy pointed out the strangeness: People were getting sick. People were dying. Yet no one thought to leave the valley. No one remembered a time before their Master had been there. And no one questioned his often odd orders and sleeping habits.