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“Because you are,” Zen interrupted. Giguhl chuckled across the room. Brooks covered his mouth with his hand.
I avoided Adam’s suddenly intent gaze to stare down the voodoo priestess. “Can we please focus?” Zen bit her lip to hide her smile. I continued. “It’s my fault. Back in California she and I had this big fight and I told her I was carrying Adam’s baby. I’d been trying to piss her off so she’d make a mistake, but I guess the mistake was mine.”
“Wait,” Giguhl said. “You never told me that.”
I slashed a hand through the air. “By now she knows it was a lie, but she also knows Adam and I are still ….. partners.”
Brooks cleared his throat. Zen shot Giguhl an amused look. The demon mouthed, “I told you so.”
Ignoring all of them, I glanced at Adam. He winked at me, which made me more uncomfortable than the others’ reactions. “Anyway, that’s why she ordered him killed. She figured she’d go after someone I cared about to force my cooperation.” My face began to flame about halfway through that sentence.
“That’s been bugging me,” Adam said. I looked up. “All along we’ve assumed Lavinia and the Caste wanted you dead. So why play these games?”
I shrugged. “She probably has some elaborate plan to torture me before she decapitates me.”
Zen shook her head. “Girl, I hate to say this but your family is f**ked up.”
“Tell me about it.”
But Adam wasn’t done. “I don’t know. I’m not convinced there isn’t more to it than that.”
I sighed. “Regardless, our time is best served trying to find Maisie before Lavinia can succeed in grabbing me.”
“Amen,” Giguhl said.
“Sounds like it might be worth talking with that Zorn fella again, too,” Zen said.
As much as I hated to admit it, she was probably right. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Brooks cleared his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go get my stuff ready for tomorrow.”
I looked up. “What’s tomorrow?”
He smiled. “Our pre-Halloween party at Lagniappe. We do it the night before because we want to hit the parade on Saturday. All us lady-boys are dressing as our favorite queens from history.”
“Who are you going as?” Giguhl asked.
Brooks smiled wide. “The Queen of the Nile.”
“Cleopatra?” Adam asked.
“Hellz, yeah.” Brooks snapped his fingers in a Z. “I got a cornrow wig with a gold crown and everything.”
“Ooh,” Giguhl said. “You’re gonna look fierce.”
Brooks laughed. “Sing it, Gigi.”
He sashayed toward the door, stopping only to deliver a playful swat to Giguhl’s behind. My seven-foot-tall Mischief demon, who up until recently spent his spare time disemboweling demons in an underground fight club, blushed and giggled.
Once Brooks was out of hearing distance, I approached the demon. “What’s that about?”
Giguhl flashed me a confused look. “What?”
“You’re totally flirting with him.”
Giguhl snorted. “So?”
“So since when did you switch teams?”
The demon frowned. “What does that mean?”
I leaned in closer and whispered in an undertone. “I thought you were straight.”
Giguhl’s mouth dropped open. Then he started to laugh. Great heaving guffaws.
I crossed my arms and glared at the demon. “What are you laughing at?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Thanks so much.”
The demon collected himself, a few stray chuckles escaping as he tried to school his features. “Sabina, I’m not g*y.”
“Bisexual, then?” I said.
Another snort. “Nooo. I’m a demon, silly.”
I squinted at him, trying to follow that logic. “And?”
“And to demons sexuality is a fluid concept,” Adam chimed in. Obviously my attempts to keep this conversation private had failed miserably.
Giguhl pointed at the mage and said, “Ding-ding-ding. Give the mage a cookie.”
I held up a hand. “Wait, really?”
“Oh, sure,” Giguhl said with a shrug. “We’ll f**k just about anything,”
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Zen said. “If you all figure out anything else about the vampires who attacked you, you let me know.”
Abashed, Giguhl mumbled an apology to Zen as she passed. She patted his arm.
When she was gone, Giguhl rounded on me. “Nice going, Sabina.”
My mouth fell open. “Me? I wasn’t the one talking about screwing everything alive.”
“Actually, it doesn’t really even have to be alive— but that’s beside the point. The truth is that Brooks and I are just friends.”
I threw my arms up. “Then why let me think you were trying to get in his pants?”
“Ah, I was just screwing with you.” He held up a claw. “Mischief demon, remember?” He paused. “But I wasn’t lying. Seriously, Sabina, anything .”
Adam heaved a weary sigh when I made gagging noises. “Guys, can we please get back to figuring out the whys of the ambush?”
I dismissed Giguhl with a shake of my head. “Okay, where were we?”
In truth, I was relieved Adam changed the subject. Where Giguhl stored his equipment wasn’t really my business. I certainly had more potentially lethal issues to face.
“That we need to talk to Erron again,” Giguhl said, shooting me a superior look. I rolled my eyes.
“You know what I want to know?” Adam said. “How did the Caste vamps know where we were?”
I stuck my hands in my pockets and leaned back against the table by Adam’s hip. Something crunched against my hand. “Wait a sec.” I removed the scrap of paper with the address of Necrospank’s drug den on it. “I’ll be damned.” I turned so Adam could see the damning evidence for himself. When he figured it out, his face tightened into a mask of anger.
“Wait, what am I missing?” Giguhl said. I remembered then that he had been in the store with Brooks when the paper had been delivered.
“Mac’s source screwed us.”
“What? No way,” Giguhl said. “Brooks wouldn’t have hooked us up with a bad contact.”
I sighed. “I’m not sure if Mac knew. But her source must have.”
A frown formed between Giguhl’s horns. “If you kill Mac’s friend, then you’re begging for problems with the were. Which might cause problems with Brooks and Zen.”
