You Slay Me (17 page)

I circled the upside-down body of the Venediger, gnawing on my lower lip as I examined him. "He's hanging by one foot. His hands are bound to his sides. He has a knife in his heart. Oh,
merde,
this is the Second Demon Death, isn't it?"

"Yup. All the classic signs, right down to the summoning circle beneath him."

I reached across the circle to place two fingers on the Venediger's hand. It was cooling, but not yet cold. He hadn't been dead long, maybe a half an hour. As I took my hand away, an object fell from his grasp. Without thinking, I picked it up. It was about the size of a silver dollar, a flat, round, dull gray-striped stone that was chased in gold, a paper-thin golden dragon limned onto the back. "What the heck is this?"

"You asking me?"

"No," I said slowly. I turned the stone over in my hands, unsure of what I should do with it. It felt heavier than it looked, and made the tips of my fingers tingle. "Power. It has power. Since it was clutched in his hand, more than likely it was the Venediger's, but the dragon is the same style as the one on my aquamanile and the chalice I saw in Drake's lair. Didn't Drake mention something about the aquamanile being one of a set of three?"

I gnawed on my lip for another moment, then tucked the stone into my bra for safekeeping. If it turned out to be nothing, I could easily return it. If it was valuable, perhaps I could use it to charm Drake into helping me. "Besides, the Venediger's dead, so it's simply a matter of finders keepers."

"Oh, yeah,
that
sounds ethical," Jim said dryly.

I ignored the demon as I paced around the body again before squatting on my heels to look closely at the circle.

being careful not to touch it. "It looks like it's been drawn with a marking pen."

"Wood floor," Jim pointed out.

"Oh, yeah. At least it's easy to see the demon symbols. Bafamal again."

"Popular guy. Gets around a lot. Likes disco. Favors shiny Italian suits when it dons human form," Jim said helpfully.

"Hmm." I bit back the urge to run away from the dead body, from Paris, from
everything,
and instead held my hands close to the circle as I closed my eyes and opened myself up to the power within it. The light in the gazebo as viewed through my inner sight was so brilliant, it made me flinch. Mentally I looked around the room, but there was nothing to see but the body, the blood, and the circle. "The circle is closed, but no demon was summoned. Bafamal was here, though."

"Went to ground." Even with my eyes closed, I could see Jim nosing around a faint black smear on the wooden flooring. "Don't suppose you can feel who drew the circle?"

I dragged my sightless gaze back to the circle and allowed myself to really
see
it. There was something about it that felt. .. familiar. "It's someone I know, someone I've met since I came to Paris, but who it is ... I can't see. I just can't see." A finger of ice chilled my back, making me shiver. "I know this: It's someone with a truly evil soul."

Jim looked toward the body of the Venediger and pulled a face. 'That pretty much goes without saying."

"Darn it, I can almost feel who drew the circle. I must not be doing something right. If I can just concentrate enough ..." I pictured my magic door, pictured it opening as it had when I channeled Drake's heat, when I felt the power of his fire as it burned through my body, giving me strength, giving me energy.

"Uh .. . Aisling . .."

"Shh, I'm concentrating." I embraced the dragon fire, shaping it, molding it, turning it from a force that took life to one that created it.

"Aisling, I think you should see this."

"Just a sec—I'm almost done." Drake's dragon fire was the key to my power, about that I was sure. I took the shaped energy I had drawn from within me and gave it form.

"How do you like your dead man, rare or well done?"

I opened my eyes, once again aware of a vague sense of loss as I was confined to just normal sight.

The gazebo was on fire.

"What the hell?"

"Abaddon, not—"

"Crap on rye!" I interrupted, stared at the flames licking at the back wall of the gazebo. "Didn't I
tell
you not to touch anything?"

"I didn't do that—you did. The minute you started breathing heavy and doing your Mme. Aisling stuff, the fire started."

"Criminy dutch," I snarled as I got to my feet, coughing as the smoke from the fire stung my throat and eyes. "Why does everything happen to me?"

"I don't think now is the time to debate the catastrophic nature of your life. Now is the time to get out of here before we become barbecue."

"I think you're right, but not only because of the fire—I'm more worried what Inspector Proust will think. He might know I didn't murder Mme. Deauxville, but he is
not
going to be a happy camper if he finds me here. Oh, blast, Pink Lips!"

"Maybe she won't say anything," Jim suggested as I opened the door a couple of inches to scan the garden.

"You think?"

"Naw, I was just trying to make you feel better."

"Oh, you're a big help."

"All my masters tell me that."

The fire was gaining strength, the bench beneath the wall now burning steadily. I squinted through the growing smoke at the Venediger. "Shouldn't we try to get him down?"

"It's him or you, chicky."

"I vote me."

"For once, I'm with you."

I waved Jim forward, slipping out the door and closing it carefully. I paused for a second, then turned back and with the hem of my tunic wiped the doorknob clean.

"Prints," I told Jim as I shooed it toward the house.

"The building is about go bonfire, and you're worried about fingerprints?"

I shot it a glare. "I bet you if I searched hard enough, I could find a do-it-yourself neutering kit."

Jim looked thoughtful. "Point taken."

I hesitated before the flagstones leading to the patio. "I wonder if we should call the police. It feels wrong to just leave the Venediger hanging there. After all, if Pink Lips tells Inspector Proust I was here, and I didn't raise a fuss about finding the body, won't he think I'm involved?"

Jim took the edge of my tunic in its mouth and tugged me sideways along a narrow crushed-stone path that ran the length of the house. "You don't think you're involved now?"

"Yeah, but maybe I should call the fire department—"

"Halte!"
A masculine voice yelled from the house. A man in a policeman's uniform stood in the doorway looking in my direction. He turned and gestured to his left, where two other men came around the far side of the house, both in plain clothes. I recognized one of them as being on Inspector Proust's CID team. The man in the uniform paused in the doorway and pointed at me. "
'Arretez-vous ou vous etes!"

"Jim!" I yelled, spinning on my heel and taking off in the opposite direction, heading for the non-police side of the house. "Help me!"

"Make it a command," it yelled at me.

I stopped long enough to bellow, "Effrijim, I command thee as thy sovereign master to attack the men who would stop me... but don't hurt them seriously, and don't let yourself get hurt, either, OK?" before darting down the crushed-rock path toward the wooden fence that met the brick one. Behind me, Jim started woofing in proper dog tones. I stopped at the gate, struggling with the catch, suddenly worried about Jim. All I saw of him was a giant black blur as he jumped the men. One of the plainclothes detectives was running away, talking into a handheld radio. The uniformed cop was on the ground, writhing. Jim was snapping and growling at the second detective.

"Jim, heel!" I yelled, then drew the gate open and raced out of it. I made it the width of the house when I ran into a six-foot-tall broadleaf hedge that merged seamlessly with the front corner of the house. Behind me Jim panted, the sounds of yelling coming from the back garden.

"Crap!"

"Merde,"
Jim said.

"Whatever. I'm going through the bloody thing." I shoved my way into the hedge, instantly getting snagged on a gazillion little branches. My tunic tore, the chain holding my talisman got stuck on a branch, my hair got caught, horribly sharp branches scraped my bare arms and face, but I continued through it, losing only a sandal in the process. I was breathless and covered in leaves and dirt when I lunged through to the other side, taking only a second to note the police cars lining the house's drive.

I turned my back to them and started limping in the opposite direction, wiping the smoke and dirt from my eyes, plucking branches and leaves from my hair, braced and ready to take off if anyone so much as breathed in my direction. Jim mumbled something about ruining a beautiful coat as it followed me. I held my breath as we walked to the corner and took a sharp left, but there were no whistles, no sirens, no yelling, no police pounding down the pavement after me.

I looked at Jim. It was covered in branches and leaves, too, dirt smudging its muzzle. I plucked the bits of debris off it, trying to keep the shaking that suddenly swept through me to a minimum.

"Heel?" Jim asked in a caustic voice.
"Heel?"

"Sorry, it was all I could think of." I took a shaky breath. "I think we're safe."

As the words trembled on my lips, a glossy black limousine sped around the corner, slamming on its brakes to come to squealing halt two feet away from me. I stared in dumbfounded surprise as a red-haired man leaped out of the car, jerked open the back door, then without so much as a "Hi, how are you, mind if I kidnap you?" grabbed me by my now-grubby waist and tossed me inside. I crashed onto the lushly carpeted floor, my nose banging into a pair of expensive, highly polished Italian shoes. Jim squawked as it was tossed in behind me.

"Good afternoon, Aisling."

I followed the feet up to legs, then higher to well muscled thighs. I knew that voice. I knew those thighs— sort of.

I pushed myself off the feet and faced Drake, Jim leaning up against my back. "Drake Vireo, fancy meeting you here."

Drake cocked a glossy black eyebrow. "That's just what I said to myself when I saw you standing at the scene of yet another murder."

I put my hands on his knees and used them to hoist myself up to sit on the comfy leather seat next to him. Just as I was going to ask him how the devil he knew where I had been, he said something in a language I didn't even come close to understanding. One of the red-haired men nodded. The car swooped into driveway, backed up, and headed in the direction we had just come from.

"What language was that?"

"Hungarian," Drake answered, leaning forward to look beyond me out the window at my side.

"Hungarian? Is that where you're originally from, Hungary?"

"Yes." A siren grew louder, and I realized that we were driving down the Venediger's street straight toward the mass of police cars with their blue flashing lights. The police more or less blocked the street, one uniformed cop directing traffic around the obstructions.

Drake gave another command, and the car came to a halt. Over the hedge I could see the gazebo as smoke billowed out its top. Several people stood around the burning building, one man hauling a garden hose over to it, others just standing helplessly. Pink Lips was there, clinging to the arm of one of the plainclothesmen.

"Did you do that?" Drake asked quietly, watching as the flames licked up the side of the building.

"No! It was Jim!"

"Me?" Jim gasped. "I did nothing of the sort."

Drake looked at me, his eyes almost black. "You ordered your demon to set fire to the Venediger's body?"

"It wasn't like that—it was an accident. I was thinking about your fire, and ... and ... I guess it got out of control."

Drake snapped an order, and the car backed into another driveway, turning around to leave the way we came. His lips pursed, Drake looked at me as if he was trying to figure me out. I lifted my chin, painfully aware that my arm was bleeding, my eyes were burning, and there were bits of broken branches in my hair. "If I get your passport back, will you leave?"

"What?"
I stopped wiping at a trickle of blood running down my upper arm to stare at him.

"If I get you your passport, will you leave the country?" Drake pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped my arm where blood was beading up in a couple of spots.

"How can you get my passport back?"

He shot me a quelling look. "I am the wyvern of the green dragons. It wouldn't be that hard."

"Oh. Yeah. I forgot about that whole thief thing for a moment."

"I believe it would be best for all if you were out of the country," he said, turning his attention to the scratches on my other arm. His touch was tentative and careful, as if he were handling an object of great value. "If you promise to leave Paris, I will bring your passport to you."

I had to think about his offer for a minute. If all I truly wanted was to go back home, it might tempt me, but now there were other things to think about, things like honor and my pride and ... Oh, who am I trying to fool? Drake was one of the things, too, although I still didn't know exactly what I wanted to do about him. "No. I wouldn't go home if you gave me my passport, not so long as Mme. Deauxville's murder is unsolved, and now the Venediger... Hey! How did you know he was dead? How did you know I found him? How did you know I was even there? OHMIGOD,
you
killed him, didn't you?"

"Kill him?" Drake snorted, tucking the bloody handkerchief back into his pocket. "Why would I kill him? I was working for him. With him dead, I won't get paid."

I don't know why, but Drake's admission was the very last thing I was expecting to hear. "You
worked
for him? You, a wyvern? What had he hired you to do?"

"I don't believe that's pertinent." Suddenly his eyes narrowed as he turned fully to face me. "Why do you smell of gold?"

My mouth hung open a moment as I stared at him. "You can smell gold, really smell it?"

"Yes." He leaned toward me, sniffing the air around me, his face coming to a halt in front of my bosom. "You have gold. Let me see it."