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“Because he was here! He wanted to make a point, to have me demonstrate yet again that I’m no better than he is.”
“Wait—Rosier can block the geis?”
“He is a demon lord. Human magic has no power over such a being.”
“Could he remove it?”
Pritkin grabbed my arms, his fingers digging into my flesh until they were haloed with pale, bloodless outlines. “You will not seek out that creature!”
“I don’t usually go around trying to find people who want me dead!” Enough of them found me all on their own. “But if whatever he did could be duplicated, maybe by another incubus—”
“No. No one else is that powerful.” His words were suddenly calm again, but his eyes slid away from mine.
“Pritkin, if there’s even a chance you could do something about the geis, I need to know.” Before I went to MAGIC and did something really, really stupid.
“What do you think I’ve been doing?!”
“I know you’ve been looking for a solution in human magic, looking hard. But you hate demons so much, I wasn’t sure if you’d considered…another alternative.”
“There is no alternative,” he said flatly. “Even Rosier could not break the geis, and he has no need to do so. His power can override it long enough for him to feed, long enough to drain you of your life and the power of your office—a fine meal indeed!”
“Is that what he wants? The power of my office?”
Pritkin didn’t answer; I doubt he even heard me. He picked up a strand of my hair and gave it a sharp tug. “You see how strong this is, how resilient? Do you know what someone looks like after an incubus drains them entirely? Hair brittle as straw, skin thin and aged, youth gone, everything—” He turned away abruptly. “I have a long list of reasons to hate that creature,” he said after a moment, with a bite in every word, “but at the very top is his failure to warn me about my nature, to take even one minute to help me avoid becoming what he was.”
“You aren’t a demon, Pritkin!”
“Tell that to my victim.”
“I don’t understand.”
He whirled to face me, and I flinched just from his expression. “Then let me make certain that you do. When I returned from my sojourn in Hell, I decided to make a normal life for myself. I met a girl. In time, we were married. And on our wedding night, I drained her of life the same way that thing almost did to you.”
I blinked. It occurred to me that I might know who the girl in the picture was, and why Pritkin had kept it. I should have known: it wasn’t out of sentiment; he was using it to flog himself. I could have reminded him that it hadn’t been his fault, that he hadn’t had anyone to ask about his abilities, to warn him of the danger. I could have told him that if it had been me, I wouldn’t have wanted him torturing himself over my death for more than a century. But I knew what response I’d get. The glare he was already sending me could have melted glass.
“It was an accident,” I finally said. “You didn’t know—”
“And I am certain that was a great comfort to her as she lay gasping her last,” he said, biting off each word. I’d never heard his voice so clipped, so cold. “Betrayed by the one who should have protected her, by the one she trusted most. Seeing me in the end for what I truly am, and being horrified by it—as she should have been all along. As you would be, if you had any sense at all.”
“Pritkin—”
He backed me up until I ran into the wall and there was nowhere left to go. The air around him crackled so restlessly that it was uncomfortable to look at him. “But they bred it out of you, didn’t they? You don’t mind the monsters feeding from you. You’ve convinced yourself that they’re just like you, merely humans with a disease. Would you like to know how your vampires actually feel about you?”
I’d grown up around creatures who could kill me with the same effort I would need to squash a bug. I knew how they saw me, how they saw all humans. But just because you can kill something doesn’t mean that you do. Not if that something is far more valuable alive. It was the tightrope I’d walked long before I ever knew I was on one. “I already know—”
His eyes went very green and flat, like when he’d been killin
g people who were too stupid to run away when they had the chance. “I don’t think you do. Believe that they care, believe that they love, believe anything that makes it easier not to see the truth. But understand this. To them, you are food. Nothing else. Anytime you forget that, you become vulnerable. And if you make yourself a target often enough, they will destroy you. Not because they hate you, but because it’s their nature. And nothing will ever change that.”
I didn’t try to tell him again that this was old news. Because he wasn’t talking about vampires anymore, and we both knew it. And because he already looked like he’d lost a fistfight with himself. A pulse beat in his neck and his cheeks looked hot, but his eyes were shadowed. “Don’t tell me what I am. Just learn how to defend yourself. From them, or from me!”
It wasn’t until after he’d left that I realized I still didn’t know why Rosier wanted me dead.
Chapter 18
“What, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes?” Billy hissed. No matter how many times I body-swap—not that it’s been all that many—I still get a weird tingle hearing my voice saying words my brain didn’t think up. Maybe I’ll get used to it eventually, but I doubt it.
I glanced at the darkened window and saw what I’d expected: a swarthy, saturnine type in a too loud suit, with slick black hair and a slight overbite. Not the prettiest face around, but also not one to attract anyone’s attention. I’d have to remember to thank Alphonse for strong-arming his man into this.
