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“I have not,” Luke said, and the knife in his voice drew Nick up short. He drew a breath, calming his temper. “She will say nothing.”
“True,” Nick agreed. “She can’t. Thank the gods your moment of idiocy was between you and her alone. She can’t use any of your conversation in court, so I guess that’s something.”
Nick checked his watch. “I’ve got a call in to Tiberius, and I’ll see what I can do about moving the bail hearing up before I go.”
“Good,” Luke said, his mind on Tasha. On the goblin’s blood. “I need to know what happened to Tasha. My enemies? Serge’s?” He met Nick’s eyes. “Most of all, I must know that she’s okay.”
ChapterTwenty
The ground shivered beneath Serge’s feet, as if the dead were trying to rise, beating their way through the dirt and the mud, flesh clinging to their moldering bones as they clawed their way up, up, up to the sunshine.
And wasn’t that the surprise? You claw your way out of hell, only to get burned in the end. What a world. What a goddamn, depressing, fucked-up world.
All around him, the walls shook, and while Serge rather liked the fantasy that his own personal walls of Jericho were tumbling down, in fact he could blame the noise and the dust only on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. But since BART had donated the abandoned train tunnel in which he currently resided, he couldn’t quite work up the enthusiasm to curse the blasted subway that ran only a few feet from his barren, concrete walls.
Not that BART was aware of its magnanimity. As he had done for a similar home in Manhattan, Serge had acquired this property in a decidedly nontraditional manner, and had thus far enforced his claim by bending the will of weak-minded humans. Granted, there were a few flaws in his overall plan, and one day he fully expected to meet a human who was not amenable to his particular methods of persuasion.
But until that unfortunate day, he was quite content to hold on to this charming address. A small pied-à-terre to complement his hilltop high-rise.
A place where he could go when he began to see the world through the eyes of the serpent. Where he could recover after a mission as kyne. Where he could call upon the Numen to release the flames and the blood that would once more bind theAzag Mahruthrough the ritual of the Holding. Because no matter how sophisticated he might look in a three-piece silk suit, the condo board had a tendency to frown when you invited hell into your living room. San Francisco was funny that way.
Dear gods, he was losing it.
He pressed his hands to the sides of his head and pushed, letting the pressure build. He’d killed men with those same hands in that same method. Could he press hard enough to end his own life? To end this now? All of this? And most of all—goddammit—the urge to claw his way back up to street level, get his ass back to his condo, and fuck the brains out of the girl whom his best friend had entrusted into his care?
No, no, no,cried the man.
Ah, yes, whispered the serpent.
And, fearing the darkness would win, Serge had left. He’d brought in a goblin to stay with her, and then he’d left.
At least he’d had the presence of mind to call for Graylach. The creature was a fat, lazy slob, but he’d watch the girl. Keep her company. And as goblins found the human form utterly unattractive, he’d be immune to Tasha’s allure.
A damn good thing, because she was certainly trying Serge’s patience. He wanted. Wanted. And the serpent wouldn’t be denied.
The steady jangle of the signal bell came just in time to save Serge from pacing another lap. He hurried to the door—thick wood with ornate carvings he’d acquired from a nearby church two decades prior—and pulled it open. The woman standing in the dank tunnel looked sickly in the grim yellow light that barely illuminated the subway engineering tunnel. But when he pulled her inside, he couldn’t say that the incandescent lighting of his hallway favored her much better.
She had fuchsia hair that had been coated with so much gel it stood out from her head like railroad spikes, and most likely with as much strength. Her skin was so pale her freckles appeared to float in front of her, as if leading the way. Dark shadows rimmed her eyes, accentuated by the thick line of kohl. She wore a white tank top with no bra, through which he could see quarter-sized brown nipples on breasts that would have been more appropriate on a thirteen-year-old. Hip-hugger-style jeans shifted on her body as she moved, as if trying to find a hip to actually hug.
The girl was so utterly emaciated that she could have passed as a runway model, a breed of women Serge found uniquely unattractive. He couldn’t recall the specific date when women had collectively begun to despise their natural curves, but he rued that day nonetheless.
“I’m here,” she said, and took another step into his foyer. “God, what a nightmare that was. Least you tossed out some good directions. But I gotta say, this place is pretty damn frosty.”
“I’m thrilled you approve.” He had once spent an entire week acquiring and installing the flagstones that led from the entrance into the living area. He had done it because it pleased him, though no one else would see the stones. To know that this creature was sharing even an iota of the pleasure he’d felt seemed almost more obscene than the reason he’d called her to him in the first place.
An army surplus-style backpack dangled from one anorexic arm. The inside of her left elbow was bruised from fresh puncture wounds. If it was sore, she showed no sign.
“So, anyway, like, here we are,” she said, swinging the bag off her shoulder. She reached inside and pulled out a long coil of plastic tubing, along with a needle and an empty IV bag. “You into suck or puncture?” she asked. “Oh, and I guess John-O told you my rates, right? And I don’t do more than two pints. Makes me too damn woozy, you know?”
Considering that he doubted she had two pints of blood in her entire tiny body, he certainly did know.
“I suck,” he said, making her smile. “And we can set up in the backroom.” He waved a hand, pointing her toward the heavy steel door.
“Whoa, Nellie,” she said, as she stepped inside, and he knew that she was looking at the manacles chained to the walls. “You can really get the kink on in here, huh?”
“I can indeed,” he said, following her more slowly, letting the anticipation build. “I’ve found it’s safer this way. You don’t mind if I am bound?”
“Hey, you jump all over that safety thing. That’s fine with me. I just do what the client wants. But let’s be straight here, ya know? I make my living selling this,” she said, gesturing to her body. “Pretty much any way you want it. I don’t do drugs, and if you want a fuck, you gotta put some jammies on your hammie. But that’s about as safe as I get, you know? I mean, hell, if I wanted to play it safe, I coulda got a job waiting tables. Let some wanker grab your tits, and he’ll double the tip, too.”
