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Chapter Twenty-two
“Where’d your fingernails go?” Fred asked, showing his bald spot as he bent to take a look. He seemed more curious than grossed out.
“How the hell should I know?” Jules screeched. “Just fix it!” And he thrust the creepy-looking finger cages out again—at me.
I managed not to shy back, but it was a close thing. Because Fred had been right; there were no little buffed ovals in sight. Just what looked like an extra joint where the fusion had taken place. And from the expression on Jules’ face, he found that every bit as disturbing as I did.
But not as disturbing as suddenly having three sets of eyes on me, all at once. And all expectant, because the guys were new and hadn’t picked up on a few things yet. Like the fact that I might be a clairvoyant, but I wasn’t a witch.
Well, okay, yeah. Technically, I fell into that category, but only because every female magic user did. It was a catch-all term, like “wizard” was for guys, which said nothing about a person’s level of ability, training, or specialty. Or in my case, whether I could even manage a basic spell.
Of course, I had the Pythian stuff, but that was only useful for its own special brand of crazy. It could send me hurtling across time but it couldn’t do a simple ward, or a glamourie to cover my freckles or help me cheat at cards. Which was why Billy always won.
According to Pritkin, I had a decent amount of the normal kind of magic, but it was all potential since I’d never learned how to use it. That was down to Tony the bastard, who had been afraid I might use anything I learned against him one day. And to my usual luck.
After running away from Tony, I’d ended up living with a null witch, one with the rare talent of being able to cancel out any magic done around her. That had been great for hiding from the bad guys, whose trace charms had slid over Tammy’s house like water over glass. But it also meant that she couldn’t do any magic herself, or teach it to me.
Then I went back to Tony’s for three years, to try to set him up for what he’d done to my parents, so that was a wash. And then the second time I ran away, after my attempt at revenge went spectacularly wrong, I’d spent most of my time in the human world. Because it’s a lot bigger than the sup community, giving me a bigger crowd to hide in.
It had worked—it had taken him another three years to find me, despite being really motivated. And in the meantime, I bet his boys had spent hundreds of hours checking all the places a young, untrained witch might go to rectify that little problem, and had found nothing. Because I hadn’t gone to any of them.
That had been partly paranoia, and partly the old sour grapes thing. I’d done a good job of convincing myself I didn’t want any part of the world I couldn’t have anyway. But now it left me with a problem, and one I hadn’t had a chance to remedy since having all the Pythian stuff dumped in my lap.
Not that any of that mattered to Jules, who was obviously close to tears.
His attitude wasn’t a shock. Augustine’s little joke would have freaked out anybody, but it was especially cruel in Jules’ case. His hands were as emblematic of the man as Marco’s cigars or Fred’s big gray eyes or Rico’s one-liners. I’d wondered a few times if he was part Italian, as he had the same tendency to gesture when he talked. Or when he was arguing with the other vamps. Or when he was listening to music, following the notes with flutelike trills from those expressive fingers.
Fingers that, for once, were completely stiff and still.
And suddenly, I felt a genuine anger toward the smug shop owner. The other stuff had been sort of funny; this was just plain cruel. And he could damned well get his elegant ass out of bed and come and fix it.
“Get Augustine on the phone,” I told Fred. “Tell him—”
“No!” Jules said, looking panicked. “No, you can’t—”
He broke off abruptly. And whipped his head back and forth frantically. And then made a run for my bathroom, where we heard him clanging around while we stared at each other. And then finally went to take a look.
We found him in the shower.
He seemed to be trying to turn it on, only that didn’t work so well with only elbows. Help me, he mouthed at Rico. Who sighed but obligingly went over and turned the knob. Water burst out of the wall at the same time that another burst—of noise—made me jump. Fred had hit the button for the radio, blasting Beyoncé’s latest from every built-in speaker until it echoed off the tiled walls and rattled the towel bar.
And then Jules put his arms over my head and dragged me into the stall.
That wouldn’t have been so bad, since I knew what he was doing. I’d done it myself a few times, trying to add to the ambient background noise of a loud casino and a louder Strip to confuse vampire hearing. But then the other two crowded in behind us.
And while it was a big shower, it wasn’t that big.
But Jules didn’t care what I thought. Jules was all about making his point. “You can’t—promise me you won’t call Augustine!” he whispered.
“Why not?” I demanded, trying to duck under his arms, since he couldn’t very well let me go the usual way. But that didn’t accomplish anything, since Rico was right on my ass. Resulting in me pushing Jules back into one of the shower levers—and I didn’t have to ask which one.
The lukewarm stream suddenly jumped to the approximate temperature of lava.
A pain-filled gasp was all I got out before a hand clasped over my mouth. Rico’s, I identified, from the nice gold bracelet around the elegant wrist. One I was going to make him eat if he didn’t—
There was some rustling around. And then the temperature abruptly dropped back to bearable, leaving me only half-scalded. But no less furious. And no less mute, because the hand-over-my-mouth thing didn’t change.
“Let her go,” someone said as I started thrashing around.
