AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Vanzir coughed. “Babe, I know you’d survive a crash and I probably would, too, but damn it—I have no desire to get hurt.”
“Chil . We’l make it in one piece.”
And we did. I parked without further incident and climbed out of the car into the night. Chase headed over in our direction as Camil e parked a few spaces up the street. His breath came in little puffs of white, and he was wearing a parka over his suit. I looked up at the overhanging trees that lined the street. Their bare branches were whipping in the wind, and with the clear sky, the temperature was dropping rapidly.
He blew on his hands, rubbing them together, then pul ed out a pair of gloves. “You sure you’re going to be warm enough?”
I stared at him and snorted. “Johnson, when wil you learn that I don’t need a coat? I wear them for fashion or when I want to pass, but tonight it would just hold me up. Camil e— she needs the coat.”
At that moment, my sister and Morio wandered over from her car. She had dressed in a heavy spidersilk skirt and top but wore no gloves. They interfered with her magic. Morio had cast a spel against possession on her, and we had to hope it worked, because we needed her with us.
“I real y wish your unicorn horn were charged up,” I said.
“I wish it were, too. In a day or so it wil be ready to go again, but I don’t like to touch it so soon after recharging.” She looked around. “Quiet here for this time of day.”
“Yeah.” It was barely six and the streets in the Greenbelt Park District were, for the most part, empty. Nobody on the sidewalks, nobody driving past. I nodded to the manhole cover in the center of the street. “That the one?”
Chase shrugged. “Apparently. I figure what’s the worst that can happen? We’l get down there and find nothing.”
But as he led the way over to pry the cover up, a voice ran through my mind whispering that the worst that could happen would be that we would find something. Something big, something bad, something we couldn’t fight.
“Let me go first.” I pushed ahead of him. “If our vampire is down there, I’m the best one to take him on.”
Chase nodded. “Good point. Vanzir, how about if you go next, I’l fol ow, then Camil e and Morio to watch our backs?”
Vanzir clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re learning, dude. You’re learning.”
I sat down on the edge of the hole and attached a flashlight to my belt, then felt for the rung ladder with my foot. It was best if we saved any lights until we were down in the sewer. Within seconds, a metal rod met my foot, but when I swung down and grabbed hold, there was a hissing sound and pain registered through my palms. I yanked myself back up again. Quickly.
“Iron. The bars must be wrought iron. That makes no sense—wouldn’t it rust in the weather?”
Chase frowned. “This part of the town hasn’t been renovated in years. It could be one of the original sewers, back when they used iron for everything.”
“Wel , I’l need gloves, and Camil e damned wel wil .”
Chase held up his hand, ran back to his car, and returned with several pairs of nylon gloves.
“Always keep spares. I lose a lot of gloves due to this job. They get filthy when I’m rooting around crime scenes. I save my leather ones for business and keep a few of these in the car.”
The gloves were far too large for Camil e and me, but they would work until we got down into the sewer tunnel. I pul ed on a pale blue pair and swung back over the side. The gloves cushioned my skin from the iron. Since I’d become a vampire, wrought and cast iron bothered me a lot less, but it could stil do major damage to Camil e and Delilah. Iron blends and steel weren’t nearly as much of a problem, given our mother’s heritage, but sometimes a piece of metal would trigger the response when we least expected it.>And I, the wil ing lamb, put myself in her hands.
After we were both satiated, I leaned back in her arms, curled on the sofa with the afghan lightly tossed over us. The snow was stil fal ing outside and we were in for a cold morning. I pressed my head against her heart as she embraced me and sighed with contentment.
“Hey,” I said after a moment. “What about you move in here, with us? I can’t have you in my lair, but suppose we fix up a room for you out in the studio? Camil e and Delilah won’t mind, and that way we could be together as much as possible.”
She brushed one of my braids back from my face. “Oh, sweetness, I thank you for that, but I think I need my own place. I’ve always lived in a compound, always lived by others’ rules, and I need a space that is mine alone. At least as far as setting the rules and decorating . . .” With a smal sigh, she added, “It’s not that I don’t love you or want to be with you, but . . .”
“But you need your lair, just like I have mine.” I gazed up at her. “I get it.” And I did. Nerissa needed to stretch her wings and see how far she could fly sans the Pride. I was along for the ride, so I wasn’t going to complain about her wanting a space that she could mark as her own territory.
“I do have something I want to ask you, though. We’ve been together what . . . almost a year?”
She tenderly trailed her hand down my arm.
I nodded. “Yeah, about that.”
“What say we turn these promise rings into something a bit more . . . official? I don’t think either one of us is ready for marriage, but let’s have a promise ceremony. Give it another year and a day and see where we’re at? Maybe by then I’l be ready to move in. Maybe by then the demons wil have broken through. Maybe by then . . . who knows?” She sat up abruptly, and I had no choice but to sit up with her. “Let’s do it. Something smal —for family and close friends only?”
I stared at her. I’d given up ever thinking to promise myself to someone. Marriage, a family, even something like a promise ceremony had seemed out of reach once I had been turned. We’d given each other rings, but that had been that, I thought.
