Page 4 of Demon's Bluff
“You are a puppet!” Brice raved, her black eyes shifting until they found Constance’s tiny white shoes. They had rhinestones on them, gauche and glittery. “You let a witch dictate what you can and can’t have? You are a disgrace!”
“Mmmm.” Constance used her toe to flip the woman over, frowning at the sheen of blood left behind on her small shoe.
Ivy edged close, her dark gaze placid. “You okay? I got here as fast as we could.” Her lip twitched as Constance bent low to coo over Brice’s earrings even as the downed vamp ranted.
“We managed.” I stretched my arm to ease the pain in my elbow. “Pike, how much saliva did Brad take? He going to be all right?”
“Think so.” Pike carefully probed his brother’s torn skin, dabbing at it with a napkin. It was clotting already. “She doesn’t look like a heavy hitter,” he added when Brad shuddered, feeling it even out cold as he was. “Unfortunately he doesn’t have the coping skills anymore. It’s like seducing a twelve-year-old.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and Pike’s concern vanished.
“He knew what he was doing. It’s not your fault.”
But it was. I had to fix this. Trouble was, I wasn’t sure how anymore.
“Brad.” Pike gave his unresponsive brother a shake. “Brad? Snap out of it, man. How hard did she sting you?”
The man’s eyes opened, and he blinked, surprised when his reaching hand found the napkin at his neck. “What happened?” His gaze went to Brice, her teeth stained red as she snarled at Constance. “Did I have fun?”
Pike grinned as he hauled his older brother up. “Yeah. You had fun. You need a shower, old man,” he said, and Brad smiled, his worry that he had done something wrong vanishing.
“You finish here. I’ve got him,” Ivy said, her annoyance at Constance shifting to one of fond, benevolent concern as she cuddled Brad close and took him to sit in one of the chairs.
“You good?” I asked Pike, and he touched his nose, twisted and lumpy from having been broken one too many times. He was fine, and together we turned to Constance and Brice. Victor was sullen and angry behind my circle, forgotten. It was probably the story of his life—which was why Brice had targeted him. I broke the spell with a small twist of thought, and the protection circle dropped.
Constance glanced at Victor in dismissal. “You were supposed to wait for me,” she said to me, her high voice petulant.
“I didn’t do anything permanent,” I said. “You want me to let her go, too?”
Constance shrugged, then slammed her foot into Brice’s gut. “Shut up!” she shouted as the woman grunted, meeting Brice’s black stare with her own. “I see what you are doing,” Constance added, her tone shifting to a hard knowing. “This isn’t about you killing Victor’s scion. This is about you. And me. And my city.”
My eyebrows rose, impressed with Constance’s assessment.
“Morgan was right to turn you into a mouse,” Brice rasped from the floor. “You are weak and ineffectual. A witch? You let a witch do your killing?”
Constance’s lips pulled from her teeth in an ugly smile. “Truly?” she said, and a chill dropped through me as the small, undead woman bent low, a tiny hand gathering Brice’s blouse and lifting the woman up. Constance was so short that Brice hung with her knees touching the floor. But she didn’t stay there long, and I gasped, shocked when the short vampire tossed Brice into the air with one hand…and cut her throat with a concealed knife on the way down.
“Constance…” I complained as Brice hit the floor, her life’s blood pouring from her in a short gush. Shock registered in the vampire’s black eyes, and then they silvered. She was dead, fully dead. “Damn it back to the Turn. I didn’t ask you here to kill her.”
Victor had gone still, properly cowed as he retreated to a corner, and I moved to stand between him and Constance.
“No?” The small woman took the napkin that Pike silently handed herand wiped Brice’s blood from her skin, frowning when she realized her suit was spotted as well. “Why did you call me, then?”
Brice’s muscle tone was going slack fast. She’d been dead for a long time, and she’d begin to decompose soon. Ten minutes, tops. The older they were, the faster it happened. “Seriously?” I said as I wondered if Ivy still kept the body bags tucked behind the big pasta pot downstairs. “I’m not taking the rap for this.”
Constance tossed the bloody napkin onto the dead woman. “You must kill to control,” she said, telling me exactly how she had survived this long with no one to love her. “The sooner you learn that, the sooner you won’t have to do it anymore.”
Have I underestimated her?I thought in worry as Constance’s gaze rose to take in the rest of the room. Victor bowed his head, and Pike had moved to stand beside Ivy and Brad, wary and tense, that fallen chair between her and them.
“Is Brad injured?” Constance cooed suddenly. “Pike, I don’t like the disregard you have for your brother’s safety. He shouldn’t have been here.”
I inched closer to Ivy. “There are other ways of dealing with problems besides killing one of the feuding parties. You just orphaned an entire family and Victor is no better off.”
“I’m fine,” the frightened undead whispered, but it only made me angrier.
“You see so little, Rachel,” Constance said, sounding like a poor version of my demon teacher, Al. “It’s not your fault. You’ve lived only a fraction of years and all of them alive.” Motions holding a sultry satisfaction, she went to sit in the largest chair, making it into a throne. Immediately Ivy stood. Brad alone remained seated before her, the childlike vampire getting away with it as he scratched his neck to stimulate his bite.
“Relax, Victor. You will not be killed by me,” Constance said, and the undead vampire exhaled in relief. “Though Brice was right. If you can’t handle a little competition, you won’t survive.”