Wicked City (21 page)

“I can't imagine why,” Harry said, and kept a firm grip on my elbow. A few people milled about outside, but I noticed one immediately.

“Amir!” I said, yanking my arm from Harry's grip and stumbling toward him. “Where on earth have you been! You missed all the excitement!”

He looked angry as he turned, though that didn't worry me because I was always doing something or other to annoy him. It was part of the charm, really. But then his eyes widened and his face took on a rather disturbing greenish tinge.

“Zephyr, what—”

Harry caught me before I fell. “Sorry,” he said, blushing. “She's a little…”

“Splifficated?”

The two people with whom Amir had been conversing with turned to me. I gasped. “Elspeth! Sofia! What are you—it's not Sunday, is it?”

Sofia smiled. “Thursday,” she said.

“Zephyr Hollis,” said Elspeth, “have you been drinking?”

“I have not!” I said. “Though it sounds like a swell idea.”

“I don't think so, Zeph,” Harry said.

Amir leaned down to look in my eyes. “Did you hit your head?”

I giggled. “We have a winner! But it wasn't my fault. Madison's man hit
me
.”

Harry shrugged helplessly. “It was a mess in there.”

“Is she all right?” Amir asked.

“I'm fine!”

“I'm a little worried,” Harry said.

I leaned toward Amir and caught myself on his waistcoat. “He's just afraid of Daddy,” I whispered.

Amir set me back upright with careful, warm hands. “
I'm
afraid of your daddy,” he said. “I take it this is your brother?”

“Harry Hollis,” Harry said, extending his hand. “And you are?”

Amir's mouth twisted a little. “Amir al-Natar ibn Kashkash, youngest prince of Shadukiam, the great city of roses, at your service.” He executed an ostentatiously formal bow, mostly directed at Sofia and Elspeth.

“You never told me you knew a prince, Zeph,” Harry said.

“He's just showing off,” I said. “Amir is my genie.”

Amir sighed. “And Zephyr is my cross,” he said. “Though apparently she means to be rid of me on Sunday.”

Elspeth shifted uncomfortably. “You
told
him?” I said. Indignation didn't agree with my stomach. I swallowed back bile.

“He seemed to know already,” Elspeth said. “We were trying to find you, but—”

Sofia said something in her language, to which Amir responded with a shrug.

“Sofia says she understands now why you want to be rid of him.”

For some reason, this made my nausea even more acute. The world deepened its greenish hue. “She does?”

Sofia interrupted Elspeth's dutiful translation with a wave of her hand. They argued for a brief moment and then Elspeth shook her head.

“This one,” said Sofia, in her perfectly intelligible, if limited, English. “Too hot. No control. You,” she said, pressing one finger against my chest for emphasis, “need control.”

I opened my mouth, sure some suitable protest would emerge. “That's…”

Amir's laugh did not sound very mirthful. “Entirely accurate?”

He said something to Sofia, who beamed at him like a proud mother. I scowled. I should have guessed Amir would charm her. Control, Sofia had said. Well, perhaps she was right. Was it such a sin to desire to steer the boat of one's own life? And how could I, with Amir burning and observing and aggravating me every day? How could I, if I always had to care about him?

“Why did you want to talk?” I asked Elspeth.

“Sofia did,” she said. “I asked her about the story you told me—the djinni whose vessel broke free.”

“And?” I asked.

“Zephyr,” Amir said, “I already told you—”

“It's true. The last djinni whose vessel broke free was exiled for life.”

It was
true
? I hadn't expected this. It felt like more of a blow than it ought, like Brad had hit me with a billy club instead of his fist.

I whirled on Amir, squinting against the glare of electric lamps flickering greenly behind him. “You are a rank, shameless, unprincipled liar!”

Harry put a tentative hand on my shoulder, as though to steady me, but I wrenched free. “How dare you! Especially about something so important?”

Amir had looked vaguely guilty, but now he drew himself up, every inch a prince. “Why? So I could use guilt to make you remain in a situation so clearly untenable to you? Perhaps I'm shameless as you say, but I have more pride than that.”

The lights flickered greener. My body felt light, as though it might come up off the sidewalk itself, but if I kept my gaze straight on Amir's dark eyes, I could keep myself from swaying. “You've been trying to convince me to make a wish for
months,
” I said. “Why stop now?”

“It's my greatest desire, darling,” Amir said angrily, but with an undercurrent of something like tenderness. He took my elbow and led me a few feet away from the others. “But Kardal crossed a line in telling you that story—yes, of course, I guessed from the moment you asked. It reeks of Kardal. He didn't tell you the full tale, you know. Just enough to manipulate you.”

“Then tell me now. I should at least know the truth before I decide.”

Amir smiled. “No,” he said.

“I have the right to make my own decisions, Amir!”

“Of course you do,” he said. “But you don't have the right to all the details of my life.”

“Shouldn't I know if this will hurt you?” I hadn't meant to sound so plaintive, but it was all I could do to keep the unspoken
again
from damning the end of the sentence.

“You've already decided,” he said. “I just hope you pick your payment wisely.”

“Payment?”

“Whatever power ends up taking your bargain,” he said, “will demand a great deal in return.”

The demon's price. I had avoided thinking of that all week. Now the reality of the choice weighed on my shoulders like a lead mantle. Or an albatross. Amir thought I had already decided, but I didn't feel very sure anymore. The world glowed green and Amir smelled of roses and Sofia's pastries.
Magic,
I thought.

“Amir,” I said, “you'll still get me into the morgue, won't you?”

“Of course,
habibti,
” he said, and caught me when I floated to the ground.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

I awoke on a bed of honey and spice, the humming drone of bees warm in my ears.

“Could I have the one with the pistachios?” I murmured. Perhaps one of the houris of this paradise could dash to Sofia's bakery.

“I'm afraid I only have water at the moment,” said a voice that most emphatically did not belong to a houri. I still held out the possibility that I might be in paradise.

The buzzing faded and I opened my eyes. Amir, looking down at me, his skin once again a healthy brown.

“You look much better without green,” I said.

Amir shook his head and handed me a glass of water. I had a horrible taste in my mouth, now that I thought on it. I gulped it down, spilling a good deal on my blouse.

“Where are we?” I asked. “Where did everyone else go? Did you say you can get into the morgue?”

I felt better than I had in front of the Spiritualist Society, though still woozy.

Amir propped me upright against silken pillows and put the empty glass down on the side table. “The Ritz,” he said, ticking the answers off on his fingers. “Various directions. You were quite insensible and your brother had a previous engagement, so I elected to bring you here rather than learn of your untimely demise in your garret on Ludlow. And yes, but perhaps we had better postpone illicit murder investigations until you can stand unassisted? In any case, from what I heard, the murderer himself walked onstage and hit you on the head.”

I snuggled deeper into the deliciously soft pillows. He slept like this every night? “It does seem likely,” I said. “But he didn't admit to anything.”

“And those bodies…” Amir trailed off, his smell briefly flaring with sulphur. “I did some reconnaissance at the morgue this evening. You should see them. They weren't vampires, whatever they were.”

“Human?” I asked, heart pounding.

He looked at me very frankly. “I'm not sure.”

The moment held, and changed. Midnight pupils sparked, flint against hard stone. I held my breath, watching him watch me, wondering at the look in those inhuman eyes and understanding it completely. I thought, it's my head, nothing more. Amir had hardly touched me for six months, after all. I hadn't encouraged it; we were better off without such treacherous, heady thoughts. At least until I broke the bond. At least until I forgave him.

My lungs betrayed me; I breathed in deeply, the unbearably rich scent of him far too familiar and far too welcome. He leaned forward. His hair needed to be cut—the pomade had long since lost its grip and dark locks fell over his eyes. He didn't seem to notice, deliberately closing the distance between us. I reached out and brushed back his hair. My hand stayed there, buried in its luxurious thickness as though trapped.

“Habibti,”
he said, “may I kiss you?”

I felt nearly as light-headed as I had after my blow to the head, but I knew I wouldn't faint. There was clarity in this moment. Clarity and fear and the barest outline of something like a decision.

“You wondered at my ills, but my health was the wonder,”
I said, a whisper from another world.

Amir froze. “
The Bearer of Love
? You read Arabic poetry?”

“You said it to me, right after I killed Rinaldo. Kardal told me what it meant.”

“
Each time a bond broke, through you a new bond came
 … so my brother is good for something, after all. Should I thank Abu Nuwas for my life, Zephyr?”

My hand was still in his hair. Carefully, I removed it. And yet, somehow, the gesture moved us even closer, mere inches apart—painfully aware of the other's presence, and yet never touching.

“No,” I said, and realized it was true.

“Then why?” he asked.

For some reason, I thought of Sofia and our bargain. To break the bond, I would have to offer a demon something I would hate to lose. I felt so close to understanding it now, like I was waking up from a dream in which I had learned the secret of life, but couldn't quite recall the wording.

“Perhaps…”

Our noses touched. I closed my eyes.

A telephone ring startled us apart.

He flung his hands in the air and stalked into the other room. He answered with a churlish, “What is it?” but his voice grew immediately quieter and more conciliatory. “Why, yes. Of course. I'd be happy to receive her.”

The receiver clicked and he poked his head into the bedroom a moment later. “Judith Brandon is on her way up,” he said.

“Mrs. Brandon! I'd have thought her a little old for an assignation.”

Amir pursed his lips and made no comment. Even I had to squirm at the outburst—I must have had quite a knock on the head to be jealous of a middle-aged widow.

She rapped on the door a moment later. “I'll be back,” Amir said. “I wouldn't advise you show yourself if you'd like to maintain your reputation.”

“What reputation?” I muttered, but only the silk sheets heard me. “He sleeps on
silk,
” I groaned. I suspected my indignation had not found its proper target.

From inside I heard Amir welcome Mrs. Brandon.

“I'm so sorry to trouble you, Amir. I've had some disturbing news, and I realized I had no one else to turn to in this matter.”

“It's no trouble, Judith. I'm happy to help in any way I can. Has something happened to Ail, I mean, Lady Cassandra?”

“No, no, not as far as I know. It's about the man who assaulted her—Madison's associate? He's certainly the murderer. I just got word from Jimmy.”

“Really? Shouldn't that be good news, then?”

Mrs. Brandon paused, as though choosing her words judiciously. “There's an accomplice, it seems. The police raided the man's quarters a few hours ago. They found dozens of anonymous letters exhorting him to follow Madison's advice and rid the world of vampires.”

Even frustrated passion and the lingering effects of a severe blow to the head could keep me on the bed no longer. I stood carefully, reassured myself that I was in no immediate danger of collapse, and peered through the crack in the door.

Mrs. Brandon sat in one of two filigreed chairs upholstered in red brocade. Amir paced a circle in the middle of the room, like he had recently vacated the other.

“So it's Madison, then?” Amir asked.

Mrs. Brandon, still dressed for the evening, clutched her purse. “Well, that's just the thing. It's all very preliminary, but from what Jimmy could tell me the letter writer doesn't sound like him. In fact…”

Mrs. Brandon shifted a little in her seat and fidgeted with the gold lion's head at the end of one chair arm.

“In fact?”

“That's why I came to you, Amir. I want to help Miss Hollis, but given all I know I can't be seen near her tonight. But you're a friend of hers, and I realized that you could help convey to her the gravity of the situation.”

I gasped, but thankfully Amir's reaction was sufficiently theatrical to cover the sound. “Zephyr? What could she possibly have to do with this?”

“I tell you this strictly in confidence, you must understand. No one has spoken to the press. But apparently there were some indications in the letters that they may have come from a woman closely involved in the anti-Faust movement.”

Amir's frown could have chilled lava. “I'm shocked I even have to tell you, Judith, but there are a good many women involved in the anti-Faust movement. Has the man himself admitted to anything?”