I gasped. “That’s insane. I would never—”
“I know. But that’s the reason Damiano attacked Alexis and the mage. I’d told him about Cain’s threat and he assumed they worked for him.”
“Oh,” I said. “Have you heard from Cain again?”
A pause. “No, but it’s only a matter of time,” she said, talking quickly. “I saw what he did to Tanith, Sabina. He will kill me, too.” Her voice rose with a hint of panic. Unusual for a vampire of her status and age. She really was scared and that set me on edge, too.
I blew out a breath. “Okay, I can help you but I need to know where you are.”
“No. He could follow you here. If we’re going to meet, it needs to be someplace public.”
“What do you have in mind?” I glanced at Adam, who had hung up his phone and came to listen on my conversation. He shook his head to indicate that his call to Dicky hadn’t netted any new information.
“Tomorrow night there is a carnevale festival in the Piazza del Popolo.”
“You’re not serious. That’ll be a security nightmare.”
“Fine. I will leave Rome tonight and you will never get your chance to change my mind.”
I gritted my teeth. Gods save me from calculating leaders. “Are you saying there’s a possibility I could change it?”
“There’s only one way to find out. Tomorrow night, Piazza del Popolo. Nine o’clock.”
Click.
I held the phone in my hand for a few seconds longer. I should have felt relieved it had been so easy to get another chance at Persephone. But it was precisely the ease with which it happened that had all my alarms flashing red.
She’d also lied. There was no way Cain could have stopped by to see her before he showed up at the Spanish Steps to spook me. But he could have sent his goons to—
“Holy shit,” I breathed, putting it together.
Adam, Alexis, and Giguhl were surrounding me with tense expressions. I set down the phone and turned to give them the news. “Cain has Persephone.”
“What!” they all yelled.
“She told you that?” Alexis said.
I shook my head. “No. She tried to tell me he came by tonight to threaten her. Said she was spooked and needed my help. She wants us all to meet her at the Piazza del Popolo tomorrow night.”
“I don’t get it,” Giguhl said. “Why does that tell you Cain has her?”
Alexis crossed her arms and answered for me. “If Cain had visited and it scared her that bad, she would have already left town.”
I nodded. “Exactly. But she was definitely spooked, which is why I think Cain manipulated Damiano and his gang into kidnapping Persephone under Alexis’s nose. He’s blackmailing her to get to me.”
Adam frowned. “She’s going to sacrifice you to save her life.”
I shrugged. “Once a Domina, always a Domina.”
Alexis blew out a breath. “So what’s our play?”
Everyone looked at me. “Don’t look so worried, guys,” I said. “This works out perfectly.”
Adam crossed his arms. “Red, how in the hell does walking into Cain’s trap work on any level?”
“Because we’re going to set a trap of our own.” I smiled, feeling more hopeful than I had in weeks. Time to change up the game and start calling the shots for a change. “First we’re going to capture Cain. And then we’re going to blackmail Tristan Graecus into helping us kill him.”
Chapter 14
That night I dreamed we captured Cain and I was beating the ever-living shit out of him. Best dream I’d had in weeks.
Adam, Giguhl, and I were in the old Demon Fight Club ring in the basement of Slade’s club in the Black Light District of New York City. I was straddling Cain’s hips while my fists went to town on his face. A crowd circled us, screaming for me to end him.
Just behind me, Adam and Giguhl cheered me on. For some reason that only my subconscious could fathom, they wore outrageously short skirts and shook pom-poms like Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.
The beauty of beating someone senseless in dreamland is there’s no pesky knuckle swelling or broken bones. Just the delectable high, the tasty flavor of just desserts.
Cain spit out teeth like watermelon seeds. His right eye swelled, purple as a plum. The ripe, red strawberry that had been his nose gushed juicy blood. It coated my hands and splashed on my chest, my face. Delicious.
“Sabina, stop!” Adam called.
I looked back. Instead of the ridiculous cheerleading uniforms, they were back in street clothes, which they accessorized with scowls.
“Don’t hurt him.” Adam came forward, his hands extended like he was going to pull me away. “We need him.”
“Daughter.” The word came out muffled and wet, pitiful and pleading.
I swiveled back around to look down and gasped. The male lying under me was no longer Cain. Instead, Tristan lay broken and hurting beneath me. Through the shattered teeth and bloody gums, he slurred, “Mercy.”
I fell back onto the stained concrete floor, my mouth working in numb shock. Blood gurgled from his lips.
“Well, well, well,” a taunting male voice said behind me. Asclepius stood with his arms crossed. Fucking gods and their bad timing.
My fingers were still cramped into fists. My stomach roiled and burned, like I’d swallowed an acid cocktail. But I rose as gracefully as I could, not wanting to kneel before the god.
Once I faced him eye-to-eye, I realized that while we were still in the fight ring, the crowd had disappeared. So had Adam and Giguhl. A bloodstain on the dirty concrete floor was all that was left of my father.
The god came forward and nudged at the pool of blood with the toe of his sandal. “Has anyone ever suggested that you check into some anger management classes?”
“What do you want?” I snapped. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and tried to get my heart rate back to normal.
Asclepius raised a brow. “Surely you haven’t forgotten your promise so soon?”
I grimaced. Actually, yeah, I kind of had. But it’s not like I could tell him that. “Of course not. Just don’t have much to report yet.”
“Sabina, I told you I expected you to make a concerted effort to uphold the terms of our bargain.”
“And I told you I’d need some time.”
“Ah, yes. The Cain situation. Any progress there?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but kind of.”
Asclepius threw back his head and laughed. “In other words, you’re no closer to stopping him than you were when we last spoke. Pitiful.”
I rose slowly. “Look, dude, I’ve asked around and no one’s heard of this Nyx. I’ll keep trying, but you’re going to have to lay off with the pressure.”
“No, you look, girl. I am not some mortal you can boss around. I am a god and my will cannot be ignored.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure, sure.”
Asclepius slammed his staff into the floor. The ground shook with the impact. “Do not test me!”
My heart rate picked up. But instead of showing him he’d intimidated me, I raised my chin. “I said I’d get to it. That’s the best I can promise right now.”
He thought for a moment, rubbing his thick, gray beard methodically. “All right, Sabina Kane. I will give you more time. However, when next we meet, I will expect concrete progress. I want that vest.”
“I hear you loud and clear. Trust me, I want my debt to you cleared ASAP.”
He nodded. “As do I. I’d wish you luck on finding Cain, but”—he shrugged—“I don’t really care.” Asclepius waggled his fingers. “Bye now.”
The next evening, I called everyone together in the living room to discuss the plan.
“You want me to what now?” Giguhl said, his voice rising.
“It’ll be just like that time we took Clovis to the Pit of Despair, remember?”
Erron raised a hand. “Can someone fill us in here?”
Alexis nodded that she’d appreciate a summary, too.
Adam, Giguhl, and I each took turns sharing the details of the Clovis Trakiya situation that happened six months earlier. Clovis was half vampire, half demon and all sorts of pain in my ass. The Dominae had sent me to infiltrate his cult of dark race brainwashees who claimed to want peace among all the races, but really Clovis was just trying to take over all the races.
When the inevitable showdown occurred at a vampire vineyard, I’d managed to trap Clovis in a circle and summoned Giguhl. The demon had dragged Clovis back to Irkalla. Last we’d heard, he was playing hide-the-hot-poker with a bunch of Lust demons in a nasty region of the underworld called the Pit of Despair.
My idea was basically to re-create that play but to have Giguhl trap Cain in the hotel instead of taking him to Irkalla. The demon would have to stay behind while we went to meet Persephone, but I could just summon him through my cell phone and send him and Cain back out before any witnesses realized what was going on. Easy peasy.
When we finished explaining, Erron snorted. “You really think it’ll be that easy?”
“Well, why not?” Giguhl said. “Clovis wasn’t exactly a pussy, seeing as how he’s half vamp and half demon. Cain’s smart but he’s still a human. I’m in.”
Alexis shrugged. “Why not? If it doesn’t work, we can just beat the shit out of Cain and throw him into the trunk of a car.”
Giguhl nodded. “I vote we do that anyway.”
Erron scooted back from the table. His color was better than it had been even before the attack, and he moved like a male in perfect health. We’d filled him in on how we healed him, but instead of being grateful he’d alternated between surly and silent.
“You’re fooling yourselves,” the Recreant said. “If it was that easy to be rid of him, don’t you think someone else would have tried it before now?”