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Eyes gleaming, rumbling with contentment, he followed me into the bathroom and sank back to his haunches on the counter to watch with keen interest as I did something I rarely did.
Put on makeup.
Tonight I was wearing armor. The right dress, the right hair, smoky eyes, and crimson crushed-velvet lips. Since I didn’t dare show up naked to battle with Ryodan, I was going the opposite route: as the stunning, powerful, sexy woman I can be if I feel like it.
Sighing, I thumbed on my flat-iron thinking, what a bloody waste of time but my mood seems to mimic my hair. When it’s a wild cloud, so am I, and tonight I wanted to be sleek and polished. It takes an unusual, thick tree sap I found Silverside to straighten my hair. I brought a leather pouch of the stuff back with me but I’m almost out. I have no idea what I’ll do then.
As I began my makeup, a faint rustling sound in the shower drew my attention. In the mirror, I watched the antenna and head of a cockroach pop up from the drain. You never know if a roach is a simple Earth-born insect or part of the nefarious Papa Roach that used to hang out at Chester’s, preying on the waitresses who’d permitted his vile segments to burrow beneath their skin and eat their fat away—the AWC version of liposuction. Ergo, I treat them all as the enemy.
I pretended I hadn’t seen it until it cleared the grate, then grabbed a can of hair spray, whirled in freeze-frame and blasted it with a noxious burst, snarling, “Not on my turf, you little shit.”
The cockroach hissed at me and gave a whole-body, violent bristle, choking and sputtering as it vanished back down the drain.
* * *
p
Not all redheads wear red well. It has to be the right shade to go with our coloring. My hair is copper flame, my skin snowy, and my dress tonight was bloodred.
My still-black arm and collarbone proved a challenge. I had to keep it covered, although, frankly, blowing Ryodan’s ass up rather appealed to me at the moment and, hey, he always came back.
Still, I’d been unpredictably violent once today and I try to limit myself to once in a given twenty-four-hour period.
Ergo, my dress had three-quarter sleeves, hugged my body like a second skin, and was cut so low in the back that the tramp stamp at the base of my spine Ryodan tattooed on me years ago was beautifully framed, drawing the eye to that sensual hollow.
I’m not vain. I’ll never be girly. But I do like being a woman every now and then and I’m grateful for five feet ten inches of strong flesh and bones that has an appealingly lean yet feminine shape. My ass and legs are my best feature, powerfully muscled from endless motion. After taping my neck with Gorilla Tape because black went better than silver with my ensemble, I slid black and rhinestone stilettos on my bare feet, smudged my smoky eyes one last time, swept my hair up into a sleek, high Lara Croft ponytail, blotted crimson lips, and nodded to myself in the mirror. I debated leaving my hair down to cover the tape, but in a fight—and I was certainly hoping for one or ten—my hair unrestrained is a royal pain in my ass. I added the final piece: a three-inch-wide choker of glittering diamonds and bloodstones that concealed a garrote. Although I hated that it felt like a collar, it covered the tape, held a weapon, and was easily removed.
“He doesn’t stand a chance,” Shazam rumbled.
“He, who?”
“The one I smelled on our mattress. He’s back. I smelled him on you before. He makes you smell different when he’s around.”
Okay, that was disturbing. “Different how?”
“Like Pallas cat makes me smell.”
Okay THAT was disturbing. “I don’t think so,” I growled.
He shrugged. “We deny at our own peril…”
“What? What do we deny at our own peril?”
“The cry of the flesh for the Dionysiac experience.”
Eyes narrowed, I peered suspiciously at him. “Where did you even hear that? Is that from some documentary you watched on theatre or history or something?”
He shrugged again. “It’s why I eat. My flesh cries a lot.”
“As in Dionysus. The God of Bacchae. Wine and orgy,” I said stiffly.
“I chose one of your gods, not mine, better not to bofflescate you.”
Good grief. “Do Hel-Cats have gods?”
“Most things do. Look suspiciously like themselves.”
I wanted to have this conversation. Shazam was in an unusually lucid mood. Gods were a hot topic on my plate. And it was 8:01.
