AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Some of the fight went out of her, but the voice was still bitter. “You know who it was. He told me. He told me it was your fault. He would have let me live, but he needed to show you. ”
“Show me what?”
A shimmer of blood-red tears built in her eyes. Her desperation to see me dead had begun to drain away, but beneath the killing urge was a blind rage I couldn’t ignore. “He said he needed you to know you wouldn’t be able to save us. ” She swallowed her rage. I could feel her throat contract under my palm. “Them,” she corrected, removing herself from among their ranks. “Every human you try to save he will turn personally. So you would know. ”
I fought back my own tears and violently turned her head to the side in my haste to check the skin. There it was, as sure as I knew it would be. The uneven, broken-toothed bite of a psychopath.
“Oh, Brigit. ” There was only sadness in my voice now.
“Secret?”
Brigit and I were not alone on the sidewalk anymore. Without budging from my place on top of her, I looked to find Desmond standing a few feet from us. The scene must have been quite alarming to an outsider. I was still wearing my gold hot pants, hooker shirt and four-inch heels. My eyes were done with a heavy dose of black makeup to complete the effect. I was kneeling on the chest of a cute blonde girl whose face was covered in blood from her tears and busted nose.
I would have liked to tell him it wasn’t what it looked like, but I really didn’t know what he was thinking.
“Please help me,” I pleaded.
“Of course. ” Without hesitation or questions he was beside me, waiting for me to tell him what I wanted next. I wondered, had it been Lucas in my apartment rather than Desmond, if he would have been so compliant.
“Is that your car?” I nodded in the direction of the Challenger.
“Yes. ”
“Are you going to kill me?” Brigit choked out sobs, making a pretty pathetic new vampire now that the urge for revenge had gone out of her.
“No,” I said. She and Desmond both looked shocked by the response. “I’m going to take you to someone who can help you. ” I held Desmond’s gaze this time and hoped he knew enough about the paranormal to understand who I meant.
“The Oracle?” His tone was hushed.
“Yes. ”
“But we can’t go to her. It’s against her laws. ”
“Please. ” I pulled Brigit to her feet, still holding her arms in case she was a better actress than I gave her credit for. “Do you know how to get to her?”
“Of course. It’s just down the block, but I’m telling you we won’t get in. ”
My mouth was set in a tight, determined line. I couldn’t explain it to him, especially not in front of Brigit. “Just trust me. ”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My apartment on West 52nd was walking distance to the coffee shop, but with a bloodied vampire in tow, driving made things a little less complicated. I was thankful the busiest hour for coffee lovers had passed and the Starbucks was relatively vacant. When Brigit and I vanished in the doorway, Desmond was left alone, but with so few patrons it was unlikely any of them noticed there had been two girls with him. I felt bad leaving him there without any answers, but Brigit’s docile state wouldn’t last long. The hunger would take her before the night was through. We were lucky Peyton had thought to feed her before sending her after me, otherwise she wouldn’t have made it to me. She would have gone after the first available blood source instead and another innocent would have been dead.
Rather than finding ourselves in front of the cash counter at Starbucks, we were standing in the foyer of a majestic house. House wasn’t the right word to describe where Calliope lived. Mansion would have been much closer to the truth, but even that didn’t really fit. Her estate transcended the laws of physics binding other homes to a fixed size. It had a limitless number of rooms that could expand and recede to accommodate guests as necessary. Whether it was used to heal those who were injured or safeguard new vampires too unstable to be among the public, Calliope’s home was whatever it needed to be.
The foyer was larger than my entire apartment and probably larger than Lucas’s mammoth bedroom. The floor was covered from end to end in overlapping Persian rugs Calliope had acquired at bargain prices when there’d still been a Persia.
An immense variety of portraits all depicting hauntingly beautiful women hung from the walls. It wasn’t until my fourth or fifth visit that I realized every painting in the room was of Calliope. Done by the most famous artists in the world, she was portrayed in every era and style, from Renaissance to Impressionist to Pop. The crown jewel of the group was a Warhol painting of one of the women Calliope had claimed to be in her many lives.
The room was dimly lit in colorful jeweled splendor by dangling Tiffany lamps casting kaleidoscope shadows over the floor. Color was a mainstay of Calliope’s world. The rugs, lamps, paintings—all a dizzying array of red, blue, green and pink. Scattered along the walls were large, plush leather armchairs that made the ones in Keaty’s office look like they were for children.
Slumped in one of those chairs was a small, pale teenaged boy wearing a Pizza Hut uniform. His eyes were hazy and unfocused, but he was alive. And judging by the smell of him, completely human.
I wasn’t the only one to smell his true nature. Brigit’s eyes widened and darkened to the oily black of a hungry vampire. Her nostrils flared and her fangs were out before I could yell, “Calliope!” It was lucky I was still holding Brigit by the hair, so when she lunged for the boy, she was yanked back to me by the leash of her own body.
On cue, Calliope entered the room.
As entrances go, Calliope rarely did things subtly. She swished through the door in a flourish of red material. Her hair was done in tumbling black waves held back by ruby stickpins. She was barefoot, and trailing behind her was a snow-white tiger. Seriously.
