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I keep my ears trained on her footsteps, trying to identify the direction she’s moving into, and quietly move away from it, leaving slight signs of my passing, like pulling out or pushing in the spine of a book, or removing one from a shelf. Subtle, maybe, but Esmeralda is obsessive with the organization of this place. She’ll notice.
Smoke and bitter almonds tinge the air like a summer bonfire, a cue my little prey knows we’re playing a game of cat and mouse and she’s far from entertained with it. And yet, she keeps following my breadcrumbs through the depths of the bookstore, farther down the stacks. I make it to a panic door hidden behind a gossamer curtain. When I push it, it opens with a clamor and shuts behind me just as loudly. I linger in the narrow alleyway, next to a cardboard-filled dumpster, my back to the bookshop. A little bird has made its nest atop a broken-down box on the pile, and it eyes me suspiciously, though not bothered enough by my presence to abandon its home. When the panic door swings open again, I grin.
Esmeralda comes out swinging. “I told you to stay the hell away from me.”
I turn toward her. My little prey stands with her feet apart, planted on the concrete, and her hands balled into fists, like she’s preparing for a fight. She has no idea how much her fight excites me, how I yearn to destroy her bite by bite, scratch by scratch. The thought alone is enough to threaten the hold I have on my glamour, sharp teeth grazing the inside of my lips, but I manage enough control to keep my appearance human. For now.
“I can’t exactly do that,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and pretending to pick dirt under my fingernails.
A new waft of woodsy smoke assaults my nostrils; when I look up, Esmeralda’s teeth are clenched so hard the muscle in her jaw pulses. “I want nothing to do with you,” she hisses.
“See, I don’t believe that’s true.” I circle to her side. My little prey knows not to let me find her unprepared, so she pivots with me, keeping us squarely in front of each other, gaze locked. When her back is to the dumpster, I close in. She scurries, trying to keep distance, but her back hits the wall behind her. Her head whips to one side, then the other. She’s trapped in the corner between the building and the dumpster. I take a leisurely step forward, one hand pressed to the wall, the other on top of the dumpster, caging her in. The only way out for my little prey is through me. Judging by the immediate spike of marine breeze in the air, she knows it too.
“I’m not scared of you,” she growls, contradicting with her words what her scent has already told me. She’s most definitely afraid. It’s not a terror so deep it makes her scent unbearably saline. I ought to keep her this way, just scared enough to make for good negotiations.
“Then you should have no problem hearing me out. I have something you want. Actually, scratch that. I have the thing you want most in this world,” I whisper close to her.
She keeps her face turned from me, eyes roaming the piles of cardboard to her right. So be it; that gives me a perfect view of her gorgeous neck, veins thrumming. If I bent down just a fraction, I could sink my teeth into her, learn what that perfect scent tastes like. But that would be losing control again, and see how that turned out last time. My actions today are calculated; there’s no room for impulsive decisions.
“I doubt that,” she grumbles.
My lips pull into a smile. “Care to test that theory?”
She shakes her head with force. “I don’t care to do anything with you. I just want you to disappear from my life.”
“Ouch,” I say, rubbing a hand over my chest as if she’d wounded me, but the smile won’t leave my lips. “And what happens when I do that, uh? You return to your lonely life, with your dead-end job and panic-inducing house?”
That gets her to whip her face toward me, eyes narrowed and full of fire, bright enough to light something in my stomach.
“I hate you,” she seethes.
I shrug. “I can live with your hate. It doesn’t change the fact that you need my help.”
Another bright whiff of smoke. Esmeralda shoves my chest, putting her full body weight into it. I stay planted.
“I don’t need your anything. I’m not about to bargain with some kind of psychopathic monster when I have no idea what the deal I’m making is. Besides, who’s even to say you can grant my wish?”
There it is. The seed of doubt I was looking for. It’s not an outward rejection of my proposal — and how could it be? Now that I understand Esmeralda’s deepest desire, I see how it guides her every move like a beacon of light so blinding she’ll never be able to look at anything else. It’s amazing, really, how good she’s been at keeping it concealed, considering how brightly it burns. No more of that, though.
I lower my face so my lips brush the shell of her ear. “I can give you anything. If you can wish for it, I can make it come true.”
My chest puffs at the way she shivers for me, fragrant notes of olive oil peaking beneath all the salt and smoke.
“You can’t give me my mother back. She’s dead.”
My smile widens until it’s baring teeth. Quick like a striking cobra, I snatch the sleeping baby bird from its nest. It chirps and struggles in my hold, but is powerless against me.
Esmeralda’s lips part as her wide eyes stay trained on the animal in my grasp.
“Death is my closest friend, little one. I wield it like an extension of my own limbs.”
With that, using little more than a flick of my thumb, I snap the bird’s neck. Esmeralda’s yelp is as high-pitched as the animal’s dying chirp.
“You monster!” She shoves at me, this time repeatedly, pounding fists against my chest.
I hold the dead bird inches from her face. “Watch.”
On an inhale, I fish for the bird’s soul that’s hanging on by a thread. On an exhale, I rewind that thread, little by little into a spool of existence, until the bird’s entire essence returns to its little body. With a gargle, it revives and struggles with renewed force against my grip, nipping the juncture of my thumb and index to draw blood. When I open my fist, the bird flees, nest wholly forgotten.
