Magic Bleeds (23 page)

“Acetone,” Andrea’s voice said. “Dissolves everything. I found a gallon of it in the armory. We soak the chair and you’re good to . . . Oh shit. Incoming!”

I dropped the phone and grabbed my sword.

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Curran stepped through the doorway.

“You!”

My attack poodle surged off the floor, teeth on display.

Gold sparked in Curran’s eyes. He looked at the poodle. The dog backed away, growling under his breath.

I ground the words through my teeth. “Leave my dog alone.”

Curran kept looking.

The dog backed into the wall and lay down.

Curran strolled in, carrying some sort of garment. “Nice dog. Love the sweater.”

I’d mince him into tiny, tiny, tiny pieces . . .

“I changed my mind about the catnip.” He held up the garment. A French maid outfit, complete with a lacy apron.

Slayer’s hilt was smooth in my fingers. Beast Lord or not, he did bleed.

The poodle growled.

Curran hung the outfit on the back of the door and approached my desk. That’s right, come closer.

Closer. Closer . . .

He struck at the desk, preternaturally fast. Tiny hairs rose on the back of my neck. I barely saw it. One moment his hand was empty, the next it held my doughnut. He bit it. “Mmm, blueberry.”

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In my mind, his head exploded.

“Hard to protect your food with your ass anchored.” He saluted me with the doughnut. “When you’re ready to talk, call me. You know the number.”

He walked out.

THE MOMENT ANDREA SQUIRTED ACETONE INTO my chair via syringe, the glue decided to have a chemical reaction, which set my behind on fire. It took me less than five seconds to cut through my pants. It took approximately half an hour before I dared to land again and I had to spend my day sitting on a bag of ice, which I had chipped from the street outside. The ice was cold and my ass hurt.

The tech held for the entire day. I called the Temple and requested an appointment, tentatively scheduled for tomorrow noon, if the magic was up. After being put on hold twice, I was told that the rabbis would see me. Kate Daniels, master of the phone.

I spent the day poring over the Steel Mary case history and learned pretty much nothing new. A check with Biohazard and PAD revealed no new developments. The magic was down and the Steel Mary stayed dormant. We all sat on our hands, or in my case, on ice, and waited for the trouble to start.

At the end of the day I went home and took a nap. When I awoke, the sun had set. The city beyond my barred windows lay silent, frozen in the winter gloom.

Time to get gussied up for Saiman’s date. Oh joy.

I owned only one formal gown. I bought it a few years back, and my guardian’s ex-wife, Anna, helped me choose it. The dress waited for me in the closet. I pulled it out, wrapped in plastic, and put it on the bed. Thin silk shimmered in the light of the electric lamp. An odd shade, neither yellow nor gold, with a hint of peach. A touch too yellow and it would be bordering on lemon, a touch too gold, and it would’ve been gaudy. As it was, it looked radiantly beautiful.

I slipped it on. Artfully draped, the front of the dress clung to my breasts, cascading down into a V

before twisting at my waist and falling to the floor in a waterfall of fabric. The layered silk added softness to my body, tricking the eye into seeing curves rather than muscle. The sunlight gown, Anna had called it.

It still fit, a little more snugly than it used to, which wasn’t a bad thing. Thanks to the Order, I didn’t starve as much.

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The last time I had worn the gown, I was going on a date with Max Crest. Now I would wear it to go with Saiman. Just once I would’ve loved to wear it for a man I actually wanted to see it.

I pulled my hair back from my temples. It made my face look hideous and showed a scar near my left ear. Two for the price of one, yay. I settled for brushing all the tangles out and massaging it in place with styling gel. It hung over my back in a long glossy wave. I’d never pierced my ears—I’d ripped enough earrings out of people’s ears to know how much pain that could deliver. I didn’t own any jewelry, but I did have a pair of shoes that matched the dress, narrow, yellow, and equipped with small stilts instead of heels. I’d bought the shoes for the dress. Looking at them hurt. Walking in them was comparable to Chinese water torture.

They would have to do.

In the past year, I’d had a chance to put on makeup exactly twice, so the higher levels of the art were way out of my reach. I brushed on blush, darkened my eyelids with brown shadow, and put on mascara.

No matter what shade I chose, mascara always catapulted me into exotic territory. I brushed on pink lipstick and put the war paint away.

No sword. No place to hide my needles. It should’ve worried me, but it didn’t. The biggest threat would come with the magic wave, and magic rarely hit twice in a twenty-four-hour period. Anything else I was willing to take on with my bare hands. In fact, hurting someone with my fists might prove therapeutic, considering my current state of mind.

At four minutes to eight a knock echoed through my apartment, sending the attack poodle into hysterics.

I put him in the bathroom, where he could cause minimal damage, and opened the door.

Saiman wore a suit and an updated version of Thomas Durand. The original Durand, the one who owned one seventh of the Midnight Games, was in his fifties. This version was in his thirties, wide in the shoulder, masculine, and perfectly groomed. Just as before, the aura of wealth emanated from him, from his expensive shoes to his patrician profile and artfully cut dark blond hair. He looked like the favorite son of his former self.

He opened his mouth and simply stopped, as if someone had thrown a switch.

Earth to Saiman. “Hi.”

He blinked. “Good evening. May I come in?”

No. “Sure.” I stepped aside and he walked into my apartment. He took a long moment to survey my residence. His gaze lingered on my bed.

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“You sleep in your living room?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Because I had inherited the apartment from Greg, my guardian. He’d turned the only bedroom of the apartment into a makeshift library/storage room and slept there, surrounded by his books and artifacts.

Greg was murdered less than a year ago. Sleeping in his bed was out of the question, so I bought a daybed and put it in the living room. I slept there, with the door to the real bedroom firmly closed. And when Julie came along, I gave it to her.

Explaining all of this was tedious and unnecessary. I shrugged. “It’s a habit.”

Saiman looked like he wanted to ask something else but changed his mind.

I slipped on my shoes, wrapped a crocheted shawl around myself, and picked up Slayer. “I’m ready.”

Saiman didn’t look like he wanted to leave. I opened the door and stepped out onto the landing.

He followed me. I locked the door. He offered me his arm and I rested my fingers on his sleeve. It was covered by our agreement after all. We descended the grimy stairs. Outside, the cold bit at me. Small white flurries drifted from the night sky. Saiman raised his face to the sky and smiled. “Winter,” he said softly. When he turned to me, his eyes luminesced, like two chunks of ice lit by a fire from within.

He opened the car door for me with a deep nod that resembled a bow. I got in and put the saber across my lap. He shut the door and slid into the driver’s seat, producing a carved wooden box. “I brought these for you,” he said. “But you don’t need them. You look divine.”

I opened the box. A yellow topaz bracelet, earrings, and a necklace lay on the green velvet. The necklace was by far the most stunning—an elegant thin chain crowned with a fiery drop of a stone.

“Looks like the Wolf Diamond,” I said.

“Indeed. It’s a yellow topaz. I felt it was fitting, but your naked neck is shocking. You’re welcome to them, of course.”

I closed the box. “I better not.”

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Saiman pulled away into the night. The city slid by. Ruined buildings stared at me with the black holes of their windows.

“Do you like winter, Kate?”

“In theory.”

“Oh?”

“The kid in me likes the snow.”

“And the adult?”

“The adult says: high heating bills, people freezing to death, burst water pipes, and clogged roads.

What’s not to love?”

“I find you so immensely entertaining.” Saiman glanced at me.

“Why do you persist with this nonsense? I made it clear that I don’t like you romantically and never will.”

He shrugged. “I don’t like to lose. Besides, I’m not interested in a fling. What I offer is infinitely more stable: a partnership. Infatuation is fleeting, but a relationship based on mutual benefit would survive years. I offer stability, loyalty, my resources, and myself. I’ll never bore you, Kate. I’ll never betray you.”

“Unless it suits your interests.”

He shrugged. “Of course. But the gains would have to outweigh the risks. Having you on my side would have a lot of value to me. If I did find something more valuable, I would have to make sure you never found out about the cancellation of our arrangement. You’re a very violent woman, after all.”

“In other words, you’d kill me, so I couldn’t punish you for your betrayal.”

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“ ‘Kill’ is such an ugly word. I’d simply make sure that I was out of your reach.”

I shook my head. He was hopeless. “What woman wouldn’t jump on that offer?”

“I would never lie to you, Kate. It’s one of the perks I offer you.”

“I’m overcome with gratitude. Have you ever loved anyone, Saiman?”

“No.”

This was a pointless conversation. “I know a man who is in love with my friend. He loves her absolutely.

The only thing he wants in return is for her to love him.”

Saiman arched his eyebrows, imitating me. “And?”

“You’re the exact opposite of him. You lack the capacity to love, so you want to smother mine as well.”

He laughed. His laughter rang inside the vehicle, an eerie soundtrack to the crumbling city.

FORTY MINUTES LATER SAIMAN PULLED INTO A parking lot before a large mansion. We’d climbed north, far into the affluent part of Atlanta, but this house made “affluent” sound like an insult. Too large for its lot, the building sprawled, rising two oversized stories into the night and edging its southern neighbors out of the way. When Atlanta’s rich built new houses, they typically imitated antebellum Southern style, but this monster was decidedly English: redbrick, huge windows, dark ivy frosted with new snow, and a balcony. All it needed was a fresh-faced English miss in a lacy dress.

“What’s this?” I eyed the windows that spilled yellow electric light onto the snow.

“Bernard’s.” Saiman sank a world of meaning into the word, which whistled happily over my head.

I glanced at him.

“It’s a party house.”

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“I hope for your sake it’s a very tame party.” If he had taken me to some sort of sex orgy, he would fly right through one of those pretty windows, headfirst.

“Not that kind,” he assured me. “It’s a place where Atlanta’s rich and influential gather to be seen and to be social. Technically it’s a restaurant, but the patrons are the real draw, not the food. The atmosphere is informal and most people mingle, drink in hand.”

Oh boy. Rich and influential. Precisely the crowd I wanted to avoid. “And you brought me here?”

“I warned you that you would be on display. Please don’t grind your teeth, Kate. It makes your jaw look more square.”