Dead If I Do (15 page)

No one ever used William’s actual back door. Fire code required a second egress, but it led into someone else’s apartment, so most of the time it was locked. The skeleton key hung on the doorknob. It didn’t want to turn easily, having been rusted from lack of use.

I could hear Sebastian shouting something, and it sounded like he was coming in to talk to me. Let him come.

I had to go. Now.

After the briefest knock, I twisted the key hard. The door opened into someone’s bedroom. The walls were painted a chalky purple. There were posters of Lynyrd Skynyrd on the wall. CDs and DVD cases lay scattered on the floor and the rumpled futon. A heavy chemistry textbook sat on a cheap plywood desk. A model of the starship
Enterprise
hung on a wire from the acoustic ceiling tile.

Feeling like an interloper, I shut the door behind me quietly, relocking it and taking the key. The bedroom was the only room on this floor; a short set of stairs led down to the main apartment. I strained to hear the sounds of voices or people moving around, but the only thing I could hear was Sebastian calling for me. I scurried guiltily down the steps and surprised the hell out of a black man in a yellow terrycloth bathrobe.

“Holy shit!”

“Sorry,” I said, raising my hands up to show I meant no harm. “I came in through the back door. I’m really sorry, but I had to make an exit,” I said, pointing to the ceiling and William’s apartment. The warm buzz just under my skin warned me that this guy wasn’t safe from Lilith either. “Can I just slip through?”

Above, Sebastian’s voice sounded more desperate and angry.

The guy nodded like he understood something. “Got you. Look, just let yourself out that way, okay?”

I smiled my relief and headed in the direction he pointed.

“I hope those boots aren’t too wet. The landlord just had the carpet cleaned,” he muttered as I made my way to the door. The scent of industrial soap drifted up with every step, and I knew I was probably tracking around mud from our trip out in the woods.

“Sorry,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Hmph,” he muttered. “I’d better get some good karma for this.”

I hoped he would too.

Outside, an eerie, thick fog shrouded the streets. In
every direction, the houses disappeared behind a blanket of mist. I started walking. It wouldn’t take long for Sebastian and William to figure out I’d slipped out the back way, and I wanted to put some distance between us. Maybe I could walk off my angry mood. Then, if either of them caught up to me, it would be . . . safer. For several blocks, I just fumed. My eyes on the sidewalk, I muttered to myself about Sebastian. I ’d been pretty damn understanding up until tonight. You know, I’d understood that he and Teréza had history. I expected he’d have to work something out with her, but did it have to involve kissing? Two weeks before our wedding?

The wedding! With all the cancellations and mix-ups, it was more like a wedding disaster, anyway. I should have figured it was a sign when I couldn’t even get the marriage application without some major snafu. Maybe it was just as well the whole thing was off.

My breath hitched at the thought. Was it really over?

Suddenly, I heard the distinctive call of a cardinal. I searched the bare treetops for bright red plumage. I saw him. A flash of color perched on the tip-top of a bare-limbed cottonwood. As if sensing my eyes upon him, he took to the air and disappeared into the haze.

I stood in the middle of the icy sidewalk and stared at the spot where the mist swallowed the bird. Everything was still in the predawn hour. Even the brightly painted Victorians seemed muted and hushed. The scent of an approaching snowstorm hung in the air.

What would life be like without Sebastian? Like the cardinal in the snow, he was the color in my winter. If I let him vanish from my life, Teréza would win. Her curse wouldn’t be broken, it would have broken
me
. Lilith rattled beneath my skin, but this time it felt more like a rallying cry. I’d be damned if I’d let her take my man.

I hiked to State Street and to Mercury Crossing. Even
though the sun rose slowly in the sky, the mist hung on. Where the sidewalks were shoveled, the fog froze, making a thin layer of black ice—nearly invisible and treacherous. I skidded twice, flinging my arms around awkwardly to keep my balance, but my boots had good tread, and I managed to avoid any truly embarrassing falls. I was actually grateful for the spots where lazy landowners hadn’t bothered to shovel after the last snowfall. The snow piles, even the packed ones, made for surer footing.

I used my key to let myself into the store. Disarming the alarm, I flicked on a few lights. I took a moment to take in the scent of the place. I loved the smell of books mingled with the sandalwood incense. The whole thing was made sweeter by the fact that several months ago I closed a deal with Eugene, the former owner. Mercury Crossing was mine. Like nearly all the stores on State Street, it was a narrow, cramped little store. The aisles were barely wide enough to be wheelchair accessible and, consequently, I utilized every space available. Chimes hung from the ceiling, and feathered masks and Goddess art were on the high parts of the walls. Shelves filled the remaining area. There were books, tarot cards, jewelry, ritual knives and cups, greeting cards, prayer mats, Goddess statues, polished rocks, dried herbs in vials and in bulk bins, potted plants, and magical doodads of every conceivable kind. We even had pagan-themed stuffed animals in the kids’ section. After locking the door behind me, I took off my coat and stuffed it into the cubby behind the counter. Pushing up my sleeves, I got to work.

When I was upset, I cleaned and organized. Despite feeling like I needed to fight Teréza’s curse, I wasn’t resolved about how I felt about Sebastian. Maybe we were rushing things. Since bonding with Lilith, it was possible that I might live an extended lifetime. What was the hurry? Perhaps it would be better to wait until I was sure Sebastian was the one. It seemed so reasonable, but the thought of all the cancellations made my hands shake as I dusted the counters. My brain started to melt. I took a deep breath. I’d think about that later. I had some bills to take care of in the back room. Buried in office work, I lost track of the time, and suddenly William came in the back door. “Hey,” he said, tossing my cell phone onto the desk. “You forgot this last night.”

“Thanks,” I said, distractedly shoving it into the back pocket of my jeans.

William wore a bulky, knit sweater with a cartoon reindeer in the middle of it. On the points of the antlers, someone had sewn little jingle bells that tinkled with his every movement. “Sebastian is probably still out looking for you,” he said. “You should give him a call and put that poor boy out of his misery.”

“Nah,” I said. “Let him stew. Besides, how well does he know me, if he doesn’t come looking for me here?”

William snorted. “Good point.” He stood leaning against the counter expectantly, watching me. Finally, he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Bills.”

“Oh,” William said. “I thought you’d be figuring out a way to save your marriage.”

I took in a deep breath. “I’m not sure I can.”

Turns out Sebastian knew me pretty well, after all.

Not only did he walk in the door seconds after we unlocked the front and switched on the Open sign, but he also came bearing gifts: coffee and doughnuts.

He set the box of pastries down on the counter with a slight bow. “A peace offering,” he said. Being impervious to the weather, Sebastian wore only a thin leather coat over a cotton navy sweater. No hat, but gloves covered his hands. He looked like a model in one of those ads where anyone north of the Mason-Dixon Line can tell the “snow”

is just soap flakes.

I put my hands on my hips, and my gaze focused on the paper cups in the carrying tray his hands. “I want to see that coffee first,” I said.

He handed me the one marked with a
G
in Izzy’s handwriting. “Your honeyed latte.”

Having gotten no sleep last night, the first hit of caffeine tasted divine.

“I don’t think we should get married,” I said.

Sebastian’s mouth opened. Then it closed. He opened it again. Then he shook his head. “What?”

“This isn’t about the kiss,” I started. “Well, okay, it is. But it’s more than that. The whole thing got me thinking how little I really know about you.”

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. “If you marry me, we’ll have a lifetime to discover each other.”

Damn it. When he said ridiculously romantic things like that, it was hard not to fall in love with him all over again. It was annoying. I wanted to be mad.

I frowned at the white plastic top of the latte. Sebastian watched me anxiously.

“Why are you so desperate to marry me anyway?” I asked finally. “You’d think that after all the entanglement of not-dead Teréza, you’d want nothing to do with relationships and commitment and all that.”

Sebastian didn’t even hesitate. “I’m desperate to marry you because I love you.”

I gave him the be-serious-and-less-sappy stare.

William peeked over the top of the
I Ching
section. He gave me a “do you need rescuing?” look. I shook my head. Sebastian noticed our exchange, and William’s head disappeared quickly. My hero.

Sebastian ran a finger along the top of his to-go cup. “You want to know why I want to marry you,” he said. “I want to marry you because I’ve never met anyone like you. When I think of something during the day, it’s you I want to tell it to. I’ve never had anyone in my life like that before.”

“Never? Not in a thousand years?”

He shook his head. “I’ve had friends,” he said. “Lovers. But, you know, I’ve never been married before. Not to anyone.”

“What?” It seemed incredible that Sebastian could live so long and never get married. “Why not?”

“Because marriage is a sacrament; it’s not something to be entered into lightly. I’ve been a vampire much longer than I was alive, and it would have been a lie to enter into marriage with a mortal knowing that I’d outlive her. I couldn’t do it.”

“But you asked me before . . .” I spread my hands over my body, where I could feel Lilith’s constant presence.

“I know. You’re the exception. Besides, you knew what I was almost from the beginning.” He shrugged. “Plus you met Mátyás and didn’t run screaming.”

Well, I wasn’t sure if that proved my devotion to Sebastian or my insanity. My cell phone rang. It was “Livin’ La Vida Loca.”

Not what I wanted to deal with now. I let it ring through.

Sebastian’s eyebrow twitched. “This is serious. You didn’t take the call. You answered that damn phone when Teréza was standing in the graveyard.”

I lifted my shoulder. “It’s just another cancellation. Thanks to the fact that you were too busy kissing in the woods to do your job at the ritual last night, the hex-breaking spell was ruined by a guy who tried to run us all over with a truck.”

“I’m guessing you’re not over that whole kissing thing yet, huh?”

He’d said all the right things, and I did love him. “Nope. Not by a long shot.”

“Shit,” Sebastian said. His face, which had had a schooled expression of light pleasantness, cracked a little. “I put up with Daniel Parrish showing up at my house—my house, Garnet—and you can’t forgive one little kiss?”

“I was bandaging Parrish after he saved me from the crazy zompire you were making out with,” I fumed. “Anyway, ‘little’ kiss?

You call that little?”

The top of William’s hair was visible over the shelf.

“Yeah, I call that little. Not like the relationship you’ve had with Parrish for years.”

I took in a sharp breath. “I can’t believe you’re throwing that in my face. I haven’t seen Parrish for ages. And since you and I started dating, I’ve never, ever kissed him.” And I said it strongly enough that I almost entirely believed it myself. I hadn’t, had I?

Anyway, I wasn’t going to let doubt ruin a perfectly good argument.

The bells over the door jangled as a grandmotherly woman in a shapeless parka came in. We stared at her. She shook the snow off her shoulders. “It’s really coming down, eh?”

I blinked, having completely lost track of my surroundings during our fight. Huge, storybook flakes fell from the sky. There was probably an inch covering everything already.

I quickly put on my make-nice-for-the-customers smile. Sebastian’s eyes flashed angrily, no doubt filled with the retort he had to stifle. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh, we will; don’t worry about that,” I returned through clenched teeth.

Sebastian turned on his heel and stalked off. The bells chimed as the door closed. Through the window, I watched him stomp over the snow down the street.

Well, that could have gone better. I took a sip of my latte. At least I got some coffee out of the deal. After directing the customer to the book on witchy needle-craft she was looking for, William sidled up to the register. I was still nursing my latte and frowning at the falling snow. “I thought you guys might actually patch it up there for a while,” he said.

“Yeah.” I sighed. I shook off my dark mood. I’d been brooding about the fight, and something had been niggling at the back of