Lore vs. The Summoning (20 page)

"Hello?"

"Lore," her throaty greeting warmed me just a little. "I've just heard of the unfortunate accident at your apartment building. You will stay with me," she repeated the vampire's words verbatim.

"No, I won't," I argued despite what I'd told him. "I've got a room booked..."

"A room," she interrupted me sourly. "You waste money that could be used to replace your ruined things."

I decided a diversion tactic was in order. "How did you even find out? It's only been a few hours."

She, of course, didn't fall for it. "Come here and I will explain."

"I don't want to know that badly."

Morrígan's husky laugh made my insides flutter. "You are welcome at the stronghold for as long as you like, dearest. No, you are more than welcome, you are
desired
."

Gods, it was cheesy and still it worked. The image of her writhing beneath my hands flashed in my head. My fingers pressed to my lips so that I could gnaw on the nail of my index finger. The invitation was so tempting that I could taste it.

"But until then, I will dream of you," she said softly before disconnecting the call.

My teeth grit tightly while I silently screamed.

The frustration I was feeling quickly turned into suspicion. My apartment was flooded and then conveniently both the vampire and high priestess offer to have me stay with them within hours. I hadn't told a soul. Which meant either they were
both
having me watched or they knew the flood was going to happen before it had. Had the flood been a ploy to get me to stay with them? And if so, which one was the culprit?

"Did you do this on purpose?" I demanded abruptly enough that Aiden blinked back confusion.

He didn't move a muscle but those needed to form the question. "Do what?"

"Did you have my apartment flooded so you could try to make me move in with you?"

He laughed. It was a quick, sardonic sound of disbelief. His voice dropped low into a deep register I'd not heard him use. "I have far better ways of persuading you to move in with me."

My eyebrows lifted at him but I wasn't about to ask what he meant. I had a pretty good idea anyway. "Well, thank you for my pizza and the kind offer but I've made other arrangements."

"She is right," Aiden said rather than bow out easily. "A hotel room is a waste of money you'll need elsewhere. You should stay with one of us."

I let my eyebrows drift to the middle of my eyebrow, snarking, "Oh, I have a choice now?"

He bowed his head in answer.

I made my eyes drop to the phone in my hand. "My choice is to go it alone, as usual."

"Then you might like to know that there's a secret entrance in this building that leads to an apartment, probably furnished, that the vampire who owned it before Marco resided in."

Secret entrance? That sounded too much like something out of an episode of Scooby Doo to be true. I glanced up to find that the expression on his face had not changed from the blank look his handsome features often held. He was completely serious. I'd been about to ask why he'd never bothered to tell me about this secret before but decided against it. Aiden obviously played his cards close to his chest. I would remember that.

Ten minutes later I stood in a bedroom decorated in deep oranges fabrics, bright red accents and exquisite gold fringe. I was alone. I wasn't quite sure how I'd managed to get the vampire to leave. He might have simply wanted to. There hadn't been much more than a nod and a murmured goodbye before he'd walked away. Whatever the reason, I was suspicious of how easy it had been.

The secret entrance had actually been an entire stone wall that only someone with the strength of ten men, like Aiden, could have hoped to move. I was concerned that it would close while I was inside but the vampire had assured me it wouldn't. Still I'd looked over the ceiling with keen eyes for any evidence that the secret door hadn't been more than a big rock. Nothing was visible but the stain of dust around where the rock had been standing untouched for who knew how long.

I recalled the story I'd been told upon moving to the city. Marco had been a bad ass in Boston among both the Underground and the...regular ground (I no longer knew what to call the rest of the world and that bothered me). Maiming, killing, and running drugs had been his mainstays. He'd had firepower, literally, to make his point.

As a cocky young Fire witch, Marco had stormed the brownstone one fateful night and caught Boston's Second unawares. With the help of a few well-aimed fireballs Marco had killed one of the three vampire rulers of Boston, one the three most powerful undead in the entire state. Marco had done it for the reputation it would earn him and for the brownstone itself. That fateful night had started the reign of terror he'd held on the Underground for decades.

The remembrance of that story made me recall my own history in the city as I slid onto the strange smelling bed. Not long after I'd moved to Boston, with the intention of fully immersing myself into symphony life and taking it easy on my nocturnal activities, I'd run into a far older Marco shaking a helpless girl down in front of me. She'd been the girlfriend of one of his runners. After he'd killed the runner for what he'd deemed betrayal (sampling the wares a little too often), he'd decided she was holding product out on him. The girl couldn't have been more than eighteen and she'd been as human as they came. So I'd killed Marco without compunction to save her.

I'd forgotten all about the little Underground rule (perk is what everyone else called it) that said if there were no immediate living heirs to an evil bastard's empire, the empire transferred to the evil bastard's killer. That night I'd become to owner of the brownstone, several East Boston buildings, a few cars, and a shit ton of cocaine thanks to the "Rule of Succession". Everything but the brownstone had been donated to charity or destroyed.

Unfortunately what I'd done to Marco had earned me the name the "Black Death". The tales of him turning into a shrieking bag of oozing blisters had reached far and wide across the Underground. But the descriptions of my appearance were so wildly varied that I was able to keep my identity a secret. It helped that I rarely used the building and that people had forgotten it was one of Marco's residences because he'd long since abandoned it.

Marco's death had also introduced me to Morrígan. I wasn't sure how to feel about that anymore. I'd known the moment I'd met her that her interest in me wasn't that of the ally she'd purported herself to be. No, I knew she wanted something far more from me. And that knowledge had made me avoid her as much as possible.
 

I should have tried harder.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Your hair is getting long," Andy, the principle clarinetist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, told me as I took a sip from a sweating bottle of spring water that spelled naive backwards.

"Been too busy to get it cut," I told him dully. My chin nodded toward his narrow chest. "New suit?"

"Yeah." His thin lips lifted into a broad smile. "My new guy says the old ones are getting...what was the word he used? Shabby? It was probably something with five syllables. He's a prof over at Harvard. You know how those kinds are."

I didn't but I nodded anyway. "Well, he has good taste."

His brown eyes scanned over me, clearly judging my appearance. "The severe librarian look actually works on you."

Was that a backhanded compliment? I couldn't tell for sure. I was wearing my new black blouse and a long black velvet skirt. I assumed he was calling me a severe librarian because the only skin I was showing were my face and hands. Without my good blow dryer and straightening iron I had to resort to pulling my sable hair back into a low ponytail. I wished I'd remembered a nice clip or a pair of hair sticks because it looked rather...shabby.

"This is the my-apartment-is-flooded look," I told him.

Andy's face practically exploded in surprise. "Oh my gosh! You lived in that place?" From the look on his face you'd have thought his ten thousand square foot waterfront condo had fallen into the river. I knew it wasn't that he was feeling particularly empathetic for my situation. No, he was ecstatic to have juicy gossip fall into his lap.

"Yeah," I replied hesitantly.

He leaned forward as if the subject matter were private. "What happened?"

I shrugged lightly because it was no big deal. "Water pipe in the wall broke."

"Where are you staying now?"

"Hilton," I lied. "Until I can find another apartment. Know of anything good?"

"I might have a few suggestions," his eyes got a far off look that eventually flared bright. "One of my exes is a real estate agent. We're still friends. I'll give him a call." From the severe twinkle in his eye I was suddenly worried for his ex. "Are you still at that same cell number?"

"Yes," I answered warily. If it would get me a new apartment fast, I could be grateful. "Thanks."

The others musicians formed a line near the side entrance to the small room. Andy moved to join our colleagues with a smile aimed back at me. I set my water down on the table beside my flute case, dried my hands off on my velvet skirt and then picked up my instrument. This was going to put me to the test.

It was mid-afternoon and I was exhausted. I hadn't gotten much sleep in the strange bed. It had smelled old, unused and like someone I didn't recognize -- all true scents. My plan was to actually rent a room at the Hilton tonight but first I had to get through the Chamber Tea without dozing off.
 

I took my place up front because today, unlike performances with the whole symphony, I would be sitting on the edge. Chamber performances were my least favorite kind. There was no place to hide in a quintet. When the flute sounded flat, everyone knew it was you. Not that I ever sounded flat.

I shouldn't still be getting stage fright. I'd been playing professionally for three years and in school bands for over a decade. But it was there, the fluttering in my stomach and taut nerves before walking out onto the stage, especially in intimate performances like this one.

"Go ahead," Harry, the bassoonist, called from behind me.

That was my cue. I pushed my shoulders back, turned the doorknob and then walked out into the bright white room. The place was filled with chattering people arranged around circular tables beneath the glow of chandeliers. Their speech softened when they realized the performers were arriving.

I nearly tripped over my own feet when I saw who was seated at the table nearest my music stand. Grayson Dennison's mouth curved up into his warmest of smiles now that I'd focused on his table. He was dressed in business casual, a nice brown suede jacket that softened his timber brown eyes, a cream shirt beneath it and tan slacks. His dirty blonde hair was still as long as it had been. He'd tamed it a little with some styling gel. But it wasn't him who worried me. It was the stunning creature seated beside him.
 

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the high priestess was in attendance. She'd mentioned the tea just the other day. And Morrígan had been to every event I'd performed in since she'd met me. She'd even attended the same event on different days with the excuse that it had been "so spectacular that she'd had to see it twice".

I managed to drop down into my chair without falling. But the few minutes we had to get our music straight and our instruments tuned were nearly all filled by my trying not to notice Morrígan out of the corner of my eye.

Good gods, she looked absolutely amazing. Her shining dark hair was divided into two asymmetrical halves that were pulled into a messy bun at the base of her neck. She'd worn a loose white cotton jacket that was unbelted and unbuttoned, a pair of crisp white cotton capri pants and white open-toe wedged shoes. Unfortunately that was all she was wearing. The jacket wasn't hiding a lovely blouse or even a tank top. Beneath it was only her creamy soft skin.

As if knowing I was paying attention, Morrígan leaned toward Gray to speak quietly. The move slid the jacket to one side far enough that the curve of her right breast was clearly visible. My temperature rose a few degrees. Already my fingers were sweaty against the cool metal of my flute and I hadn't even begun playing. I forced myself to focus, to forget she was here, and more importantly forget that I wanted to walk over there and slide my hands beneath that jacket to see if it really was all she was wearing.

What had she
done
to me?

The first piece we were playing this afternoon was the early Romantic composition I'd had to fix because of tempo problems. There was a brief shot of concern that I'd failed to copy it properly. It was enough of a worry that I was able to concentrate on the performance at hand.

I quickly played a scale up and down to check the tune of my flute then skimmed my hand-written sheet music for obvious errors against the original while waiting for the bassoonist to begin the opening solo. Once the mouthpiece pressed against my lips everything in the room faded except for my four associates and the sounds we made together. It was peaceful to have no concerns for the moment except the notes sprawled across the pages.

The catharsis playing my instrument had brought was short lived. Too soon I found myself standing beside my chair bowing before the gathering of a hundred people. My associates began walking for the door and I with them. We knew if we didn't leave as a group the audience would assume we were staying for meet and greet. Those sessions were terribly difficult to break out of even with a small group of attendees like this.

But Gray and Morrígan stopped me before I'd gone five steps. My teeth set though I smiled on the outside. For once it wasn't the Prime of Massachusetts that I was worried about.

The high priestess stepped forward until she was within mere inches of me. That heather scent filled my nose as she slid her fingers over my shoulders. They quickly curled behind me. Before I could protest she pulled me against her half bared chest. Her silky lips found mine and she coaxed my mouth open with a sensual slide of her tongue against my bottom lip. I was vaguely aware of the hundred people watching and Gray a foot away. It made for a stiff reception to her open-mouthed kiss. Morrígan made a sound of disappointment as she pulled aside. Her lips were next to my left ear a moment later.