Demon Chained (Shadowfae Chronicles) (11 page)

"What?" I backed away. "How is this funny? You've lost my lamp? Like,
lost
it? What kind of thief are you anyway?"

Tam—cute name, for a cat or something—Tam sighed, and dragged his shiny hair back again. So much of it would drive me mad, but it looked great on him, wild and dark and mysterious.

He speared me on a toxic glare. "What can I say? I'm as bad as you are. Should have paid more attention. You didn't hear a damn thing, did you? Too busy getting yourself a blowjob."

I flushed. He'd seen that? Great. I knew I'd heard something. Careless, Jewel. Very careless. But the thought of him creeping in while Luke and I did the business—keeping his eyes totally to himself of course, I think not—made me bristle with indignant rage. I flung the bag onto the carpet. "You stole my lamp, you bastard. You can bloody well get it back."

Tam laughed, a pleasant sound if I'd thought he meant it. "No way, sister. Not my problem."

My palm itched to slap him. "But you started this. You can't back out now."

"Watch me."

"But you can't—"

He spun to face me, his nosebleed blossoming dark. "I bloody can, and I will. Don't forget you got in my way tonight at the club. Do you know how long it took me to set that up? Give me one reason why I should give a damn what happens to you."

I struggled to keep the shake from my voice. "Listen. You own me now. People will try to kill you for that. It's happened before. Don't you understand—?"

"No,
you
don't understand." He grabbed my hand and pressed it to his bare chest. His skin burned me. I yanked my hand back, but he held it there, and after a few seconds I felt a single, sluggish heartbeat.

I gasped, staring into his haunted eyes. What the . . .?

A faint, slow flush darkened his cheeks. "I'm already dead. There's nothing they can do to me. But you don't have that luxury, lady. Get out of here while you still can."

For that, I had no answer.

He squeezed my hand, hot, and released it. "Just go."

Helplessness gripped me with ghostly hands. Everything was slipping away. "You have to help me," I said desperately. "You can't just leave me powerless. Tell me who took it. Give me something! You have to—"

"No, I don't. Look, I promise I'll never ask you for anything. You'll never see me again. Just go."

"But you can't just send me away!"

A triumphant smile. "Yes, I can."

"Don't." My mind raced in circles. "Please. Let's talk about this . . ."

But too late. He knew the trick. I couldn't stop him. He wiped his nose, blood smearing, and said it. "Jewel, get out of my house and stay out."

The pavement rushed up to meet my feet, warm and final, and a frustrated scream ripped from my lungs, but there was nothing I could do.

***

Chapter Ten

And she dissolves, into a wisp of white jasmine-flavored smoke.

I stare, mindfucked. I've seen some brain-twisting shit since I died, but that wins the prize.

I toss my head back and sigh, that lemony guilt stinging my throat. Hell, do I feel like a cast-iron asshole right now. She might be gone, but her disappointment in me still stinks, sharp like rotten fruit.

Rudolph creeps from under the bed and hunkers on the floor, glaring at me yellow-eyed with that look cats get, the one that says
you are the lowest form of life on this earth.
Right now, I can't disagree with him.

I jerk a few inches of braid into my hair at the nape of my neck, willing my hands to stop wobbling. Give me a break, Rudy. What was I supposed to do? How was I meant to explain that even if by some forsaken miracle I do find her lamp, there's no way I can give it back to her, no matter how reasonably she argues or how sweetly she checks me out with those saucy black eyes?

Because she did check me out, right? I'm dead, but I'm not blind. She most definitely sucked in a Tam-stuffed eyeful. Enjoy it while it's in one piece, darlin'. You caught me on a good day.

I grab an elastic band from the dresser and drag the long ends through a few times, snapping the plait tight. Kane really had me scraping the bottom this time. Stealing from decent, pretty girls, and then lying to them about it. That's real classy, Tam. How the hell does Kane think up this stuff? Nothing better to do than torment me, I guess. Nice work if you can get it. Prick.

French fries crust my bed with salt and grease, and uselessly I brush a few of them onto the floor. Rudolph sniffs at one and licks the salt off. I find some dry jeans and a dark T-shirt that won't show too many stains, and drag them on, careless if they're dirty or not. At least I don't need to shave, not even today. No time to pretty myself up. No time anymore even to hunt Joey DiLuca and rip his shiny black skin off for hurting my Katie.

No time for anything except this damn lamp. Kane's two days are melting away like . . . well, like a girl who turns to smoke.

I dig in Jewel's bag for cash, and stuff a couple of twenties and a few coins into my back pocket, along with my phone. Some pretty pills in there, too, and I pocket them as well. Maybe if I'm desperate I can flog them for a few bucks. The cat waddles after me, mewing, as I jog down the stairs. I refresh his litter tray and toss a handful of cat biscuits into his bowl. He stares at me, wide-eyed and pitiful, and I give in and empty the rest of the box in too. He digs right in, the little biscuits crunching in his jaws.

I should eat something myself, while I'm feeling good, but there's nothing but stale cornflakes and a scary slice of week-old pizza. So I leave it and grab my keys and my pistol, which Gavain left lined up neatly on the hall table. How thoughtful, you conniving bitch.

I crack the door open just an inch, in case Jewel's waiting for me with an axe, but there's no one. Outside, pale dawn flushes the sky, and the clouds have cleared, but street lights still drench the road in yellow glare. Plane trees cast weaving shadows in the humid breeze, a few discarded leaves plastered to the wet road.

I hop over the gutter and cross the empty street to the tram stop. I have no idea where I'm going. I don't know where Gavain lives, if it isn't under the bar at Unseelie Court. I don't have his number in my phone. I don't even know who he's screwing this week. All I know is he's fucked me over, and I don't understand why.

I crouch on the round metal railing at the tram stop, my boot heels hanging on the bottom rung, and I try to think it through, figure out what's going on. Gavain knew that Jewel could disappear. He tried to tell me at the club, and I ignored him. But as far as I know, he isn't a thief. He doesn't own things. He never has any money and what he does have, he spends on drugs and booze. He just doesn't care about
stuff
. A girl who can conjure french fries is useless to him. Although I suspect you fetch more than fast food, Jewel, or you'd not be so desperate to get your little brass house back.

Unwilling, I recall the helplessness in her eyes when I pushed her away, and self-disgust bursts black bubbles in my guts.

So if I were Gavain, why would I steal that lamp?

Absently I check my pistol, work the slide, reseat the first few rounds in the magazine before I pop it back in.

Because someone told me to, that's why.

Someone who twisted my sexy little pointed ears until it hurt, and made me promise. Someone who knows what Jewel is, and wants her. Secrets don't stay secret for long in this town, not with so many preternatural ears and covetous hearts and babbling fairy tongues. Kane was interested. That meant there'd probably be others. The kind of people who don't bother to get cute with sneaking about or asking nicely.

Joey DiLuca, for one, along with Mina, his steely-nerved banshee sidekick. Angelo Valenti, my boss. Kane's demon enemies. Maybe even Kane himself, screwing with me just for fun. Any of them could have gotten to Gavain. Hell, it isn't hard. I did it.

The iron-grey tram clicks to a stop, and I jump on, my joints for once smooth and soundless, my muscles strong and tingling with sensation. I inhale and don't choke, the stale tram air tasty in my nose. I feel great. I even drop some change into the ticket machine, to celebrate. Just a zone one, to Carlton and Valentino's.

In this town, if you want to pull graft and survive, you either run with DiLuca or Valenti. The Valenti gang belongs to Angelo, the meanest old Sicilian vampire in town, and he and his array of sociopathic cousins keep the family in line. The DiLuca family, on the other hand, goes through patriarchs like it's going out of style—they murder and backstab and fuck each other over with happy-sick delight—but these days faeborn Joey's in charge, and if you add up his little snake problem with the town's scariest insecurity complex? Joey is even crazier than Ange.

Most guys fall into one or the other gang kind of by accident. I'm no different. I grew up swapping pills and kicking heads and spraying merry chaos on Carlton walls, and once I got old enough to think with my real brain I built up enough of a rep that Ange Valenti himself noticed me. I've done jobs for Ange since, deliveries, a cash score or two, a bit of sly DiLuca fuckery.

They say Ange is a cold-hearted twat with a vicious temper, but he's always acted civil to me, especially since Katie died. I trust him about as far as I can spit him—a guy that looks at me like I'm food is not my friend—but I gotta start somewhere. Someone must know something, and I've got one thing they all want. Jewel's mine, at least for now. They can't have her without me. That has to count in my favor.

I remember the desperation clouding her eyes, the fear that made her hands tremble as she touched me.
People will try to kill you,
she'd said.

I slide the pistol into the back of my jeans—cute, I know, but holsters are
trés
uncool, and at least I'm not sticking it down the front—and pull my shirt down to cover it.

Try to kill me, will they? Good luck with that. I'm already headed for hell if this doesn't work out. Bring 'em on.

***

Chapter Eleven

Delilah stretches in the shiny white bathtub, her slick brown arms emerging from a blanket of bubbles, and her wicked lips curve into a smile. "It's all right, children. You can let him go."

The trolls grunt and do as they're told, and Gavain tumbles to the tiles.

He lands awkwardly on all fours, still clutching the precious brass lamp. Bugs drop from his hair to clatter across the slate and disappear down the drain, leaving little wet footprints like salt grains. The door clicks shut, and he's alone, with Delilah and the earthy scent of her triumph.

Delilah laughs, and snakes from the bath, soap sliding over her curves in candlelight. "No, don't get up. I believe I'll come to you."

Gavain stays still, poised, his knuckles curled around the lamp handle. This is the old DiLuca house in Albert Park. He's been here before, but only to the ballroom, with bright windows reflecting glassy chandeliers, and some dim blood-rich hallway where a sharp-eyed vampire sank ripe fangs into his spine. Never upstairs. He expected to find her as a visitor, at best a guest. Not naked and dribbling hot soap in the master bathroom, alone.

She sashays up to him, brown hips glistening in the flickering orange light, soap slipping over swelling breasts, deep purple hair sticking in slutty hanks to well-formed shoulders. She's beautiful—hell, she's a demon, she's perfect—but the soap thing's a better look on Tam.

Everything looks best on Tam. Gavain's blood whispers hotly, the dark flavor of Tam's skin fresh in his mouth. He swallows hard to keep it safe, unwilling to look up lest she steal that precious memory.

The best part? For a moment, Tam looked at him like he mattered.

He only hopes Delilah won't renege on the deal, ask him for more. He twitches the lamp towards her, averting his gaze. "Now give me what you promised."

She lifts his chin with one finger, her nail digging in, and reluctantly he meets her gaze. She flicks green eyes to the left, towards a fluffy white towel on a golden rail. "Dry me."

Blood sweetens his teeth, and he snaps at her, snarling. "Why?"

"Because I say so, mongrel. Do it."

Sour disgust rinses his stomach. Stupid, to expect her to keep her word. He knows what happens now. He sits the lamp carefully on the wet floor and reaches for the towel, and shame scalds his heart, because he knows he'll do it. Fuck her, eat her, scream for her, whatever dark and bloody thing she wants. He'll do anything, just to have Tam look at him that way again.

Anything, except tell Tam the truth.

The white towel catches on his palms, soaking up a faint scarlet stain. He stands and wraps it around her, blotting off soapy pine-scented blobs. Her soft nipples pucker at the feathery touch, and she sighs, pressing forward, but he swiftly pulls the towel away. If she wants it, she can bloody well ask for it.

She sniffs his hair as he leans over her to slide the towel under her bottom, and she grins. "I can smell him on you, Gavain. Did you get laid? Or did you just whore for him and scamper off before you had to actually say anything?"