Just before I ducked in, a warm breeze whooshed through the avenue. A flash of something in the distance caught my eye. Almost like a lightning bug. I hesitated, hoping to catch a better look at whatever I’d seen.
But the cemetery was still again and silent as a ….. well, you know. The low hum I’d noticed when we’d come in still thrummed in my head, but otherwise, nothing.
“Sabina?” Adam’s voice sounded strained from pain.
I shook off the bizarre feeling and lowered myself into the seat. “Sorry, thought I saw something. But it must have just been my imagination.”
“Ooh,” Giguhl said, “Maybe it was a ghost.”
I laughed. “Don’t be silly. Ghosts don’t exist.”
But just before I slammed the door, I could have sworn I heard the sound of laughter on the breeze.
15
A masculine yell echoed down the hallway, followed by a brusque, feminine, “Quit being such a baby.” I rushed to the door to see what the voodooienne was doing to Adam.
The mage was laid out on Zen’s worktable like a sacrifice. My eyes quickly located the source of his ire: a squirt bottle she used to flush out the wound.
“Should I bother to ask how it’s going?” I asked, stepping up to the table.
Adam’s jaw clenched as Zen sprayed more water. She didn’t answer my question. Instead, she called, “Brooks, I’m still waiting for that yarrow!”
A faint response came from behind the closed door of the closet Zen had turned into a mini-apothecary. He emerged a couple of seconds later juggling a few glass jars and vials. “You’re almost out.” He held out a brown bottle to Zen, who popped the cork and looked inside.
“Should be enough.” She tipped the vial, and a yellowishgreen powder dusted the wound.
“What’s that do?” I asked.
Her impatient gaze swiveled to mine. She shook the brown vial. “Ground yarrow. It acts as a styptic to clot the blood.”
Selecting another bottle, she held it up. “Clove powder to numb pain and prevent infection.” She popped off the top and liberally sprinkled the brown powder on top of the yarrow.
Adam hissed and tried to jerk away.
“Almost done,” Zen said. Brooks handed her a stack of gauze. To me she said, “Make yourself useful and tear off two strips of bandage tape.”
Happy to have something to do with my hands, I did as instructed. I handed Zen the first strip about the same time Giguhl sauntered in. Thankfully, he’d put on clothes— a pair of red sweatpants and a black T-shirt advertising Zen’s store.
“How’s the patient?”
“Ornery as hell,” Zen said, smoothing the last piece of tape. “But he’ll live.”
“Are we done yet?” Adam asked. He made to sit up, but the woman pushed him back down with a firm hand.
“Oh, no you don’t. I still have to stitch you up.”
Adam grimaced. “Is that really necessary?”
Zen nodded at Brooks, who brought over a spool of thread and a long needle. My stomach flip-flopped in sympathy for Adam. “Either you let me stitch you up or it’s at least a week of bed rest,” she warned.
Adam’s expression spoke volumes about his opinion of the second option. “Fine.”
“I thought so.” She smiled. “Now just lay back. This won’t hurt a bit.”
Giguhl coughed “Bullshit” into his claw.
Zen’s head snapped up. “Don’t make me kick your green ass out of here.”
The demon’s head ducked. “Sorry.”
Zen put on a pair of bifocals so she could thread the needle. “While I’m working, y’all can fill me in on what happened.”
I glanced at Adam. If talking would bother him, the discussion could wait. His eyes strayed to the needle for a moment before he finally nodded. Obviously he’d appreciate the distraction.
“We were ambushed,” I began. “One second the street was empty, and the next thing we knew …..”
I told her the whole story, from the midget orgy to the Count’s threats against Adam to Erron’s hasty departure. As I talked, Adam gasped from the needle’s sting. His male pride wouldn’t appreciate pitying glances or pauses, so I kept going. The story wrapped up about the same time Zen completed her task.
“Why did they target Adam?” she asked, snipping off the loose thread.
Leave it to Zen to focus on the part that made me most uncomfortable to talk about. “Lavinia believes Adam and I are romantically involved—”
“Because you are,” Zen interrupted. Giguhl chuckled across the room. Brooks covered his mouth with his hand.
I avoided Adam’s suddenly intent gaze to stare down the voodoo priestess. “Can we please focus?” Zen bit her lip to hide her smile. I continued. “It’s my fault. Back in California she and I had this big fight and I told her I was carrying Adam’s baby. I’d been trying to piss her off so she’d make a mistake, but I guess the mistake was mine.”
“Wait,” Giguhl said. “You never told me that.”
I slashed a hand through the air. “By now she knows it was a lie, but she also knows Adam and I are still ….. partners.”
Brooks cleared his throat. Zen shot Giguhl an amused look. The demon mouthed, “I told you so.”
Ignoring all of them, I glanced at Adam. He winked at me, which made me more uncomfortable than the others’ reactions. “Anyway, that’s why she ordered him killed. She figured she’d go after someone I cared about to force my cooperation.” My face began to flame about halfway through that sentence.
“That’s been bugging me,” Adam said. I looked up. “All along we’ve assumed Lavinia and the Caste wanted you dead. So why play these games?”
I shrugged. “She probably has some elaborate plan to torture me before she decapitates me.”
Zen shook her head. “Girl, I hate to say this but your family is fucked up.”
“Tell me about it.”
But Adam wasn’t done. “I don’t know. I’m not convinced there isn’t more to it than that.”
I sighed. “Regardless, our time is best served trying to find Maisie before Lavinia can succeed in grabbing me.”
“Amen,” Giguhl said.
“Sounds like it might be worth talking with that Zorn fella again, too,” Zen said.
As much as I hated to admit it, she was probably right. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Brooks cleared his throat. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go get my stuff ready for tomorrow.”
I looked up. “What’s tomorrow?”
He smiled. “Our pre-Halloween party at Lagniappe. We do it the night before because we want to hit the parade on Saturday. All us lady-boys are dressing as our favorite queens from history.”
“Who are you going as?” Giguhl asked.
Brooks smiled wide. “The Queen of the Nile.”
“Cleopatra?” Adam asked.
“Hellz, yeah.” Brooks snapped his fingers in a Z. “I got a cornrow wig with a gold crown and everything.”
“Ooh,” Giguhl said. “You’re gonna look fierce.”
Brooks laughed. “Sing it, Gigi.”
He sashayed toward the door, stopping only to deliver a playful swat to Giguhl’s behind. My seven-foot-tall Mischief demon, who up until recently spent his spare time disemboweling demons in an underground fight club, blushed and giggled.
Once Brooks was out of hearing distance, I approached the demon. “What’s that about?”
Giguhl flashed me a confused look. “What?”
“You’re totally flirting with him.”
Giguhl snorted. “So?”
“So since when did you switch teams?”
The demon frowned. “What does that mean?”
I leaned in closer and whispered in an undertone. “I thought you were straight.”
Giguhl’s mouth dropped open. Then he started to laugh. Great heaving guffaws.
I crossed my arms and glared at the demon. “What are you laughing at?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Thanks so much.”
The demon collected himself, a few stray chuckles escaping as he tried to school his features. “Sabina, I’m not gay.”
“Bisexual, then?” I said.
Another snort. “Nooo. I’m a demon, silly.”
I squinted at him, trying to follow that logic. “And?”
“And to demons sexuality is a fluid concept,” Adam chimed in. Obviously my attempts to keep this conversation private had failed miserably.
Giguhl pointed at the mage and said, “Ding-ding-ding. Give the mage a cookie.”
I held up a hand. “Wait, really?”
“Oh, sure,” Giguhl said with a shrug. “We’ll fuck just about anything,”
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Zen said. “If you all figure out anything else about the vampires who attacked you, you let me know.”
Abashed, Giguhl mumbled an apology to Zen as she passed. She patted his arm.
When she was gone, Giguhl rounded on me. “Nice going, Sabina.”
My mouth fell open. “Me? I wasn’t the one talking about screwing everything alive.”
“Actually, it doesn’t really even have to be alive— but that’s beside the point. The truth is that Brooks and I are just friends.”
I threw my arms up. “Then why let me think you were trying to get in his pants?”
“Ah, I was just screwing with you.” He held up a claw. “Mischief demon, remember?” He paused. “But I wasn’t lying. Seriously, Sabina, anything .”
Adam heaved a weary sigh when I made gagging noises. “Guys, can we please get back to figuring out the whys of the ambush?”
I dismissed Giguhl with a shake of my head. “Okay, where were we?”
In truth, I was relieved Adam changed the subject. Where Giguhl stored his equipment wasn’t really my business. I certainly had more potentially lethal issues to face.