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I raised my eyebrows. “If I didn’t know you better, reaper, I’d suggest there was an almost propitiatory note in your voice when you said that.”
“Then you would be wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“So if I started shagging Lucian again, you wouldn’t care?”>“Hard choice,” I murmured, pressing myself against the warm, hard planes of his body. “But I’ve never really had the chance to test that expression out.”
“Then perhaps we should.”
“What, here?” I raised an eyebrow and glanced around the Visitors Center. “I might have werewolf blood in me, but I’m not that much of an exhibitionist.”
He smiled and touched my cheek gently. “I meant in your bed.”
“Perfect—”
His energy swept around me even before I could finish my sentence.
And I have to say, that old saying was right. Makeup sex was the best kind.
Needless to say, we did not arrive at Hallowed Ground on time. In fact, we were a good twenty minutes late. The club was situated on the corner of Wellington Parade and Simpson Street, not far away from what most Melbournians considered hallowed ground—the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The club was situated in a rather unusual two-story, redbrick building that had an old-fashioned concrete turret on one corner and small sash windows at regularly spaced intervals. The entrance was nondescript, and it would have been easy to pass by and think it was nothing more than an apartment entrance. Certainly, the small, discreet sign above the door did little to give it away.
Azriel opened the white-painted wood and glass door and ushered me inside. Darkness greeted me, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The room was midsized, with a bar to the right and a stage at the back of the room. A thin woman with an oddly ragged red streak running through the middle of her dark hair was spotlighted on the stage. She was playing some sort of lute, and the music was strange and yet somehow evocative. There were more than a dozen people sitting at the various tables scattered throughout the room, and most of them had their eyes closed, listening with something close to rapture in their expressions.
I walked across to one of the tables sitting in the deeper shadows of the room and pulled out the chair. “Is she a dark spirit?”
Azriel hesitated, studying her as he sat down next to me. “It is difficult to tell. She has some sort of shield around her.”
I frowned. “Meaning you can’t break past it?”
“I could, but then she would sense that I am here. Spirits may not be the normal prey of dark angels, but they generally will not take a chance and remain in our presence if they sense us.”
I studied her for a moment, noting her long, thin fingers and sharply pointed fingernails. Handy for plucking lute strings . . . or slicing stomach flesh, I thought, and shivered.
“Why would she have a shield up if she wasn’t up to no good?”
“She is sitting in a room filled with vampires, many of whom are not above using their telepathic powers to seduce or influence the thoughts of others. It is natural she would have some means to protect herself from such events.”
That did make sense. I continued to frown at the woman on the stage. There was something about her that made my nerves crawl, but maybe that was nothing more than my desire for this hunt to be easy.
“She’ll have to take a break soon. We can interview her when she does.” I leaned back in my chair and glanced at Azriel. He was little more than shadow in this darkness, but his eyes shone brightly—almost as brightly as his sword. “Why is Valdis reacting? Amaya’s not.”
Can, she said.
No. The last thing I wanted was her hissing like a banshee in my brain.
Banshee not. Her tone was a trifle huffy. Maybe she’d been taking lessons from Azriel.
“I had good reason for the huffiness,” he replied evenly. “And I thought we’d moved past that.”
My eyebrows rose. “You heard her?”
He nodded. “Through you. And a banshee is a spirit; she’s a demon.”
Better, Amaya grouched.
I snorted. “Tell me, do all demon swords have such attitude?”
