Page 5 of Demon's Bluff

“A little competition?” Victor barked, then bowed his head. “I was notin competition with Brice,” he muttered. “She used me to get to you. But the result is the same. I have nothing.”

There was a new, petulant lilt to Victor’s voice. It was manipulative, and it worked.

“See, Rachel?” Constance played with her strand of pearls as Pike stood the fallen chair upright. “The ability to see into the future can be obtained even though one is young.” She beamed a close-lipped smile. “Victor, because of your vision, I gift you with Brice’s scion to take as your own. The blood will be tasteless, but it will sustain you. Treat him well, and perhaps you will learn how to convince another you love them and, in turn, prosper.”

“Thank you, Constance,” he said, clearly annoyed. “I would like the rest of her—”

“The rest of her children, I will take for myself because you didn’t bring Brice’s true intentions to my awareness,” Constance said, her eyebrows high in a questioning threat. “Everyone is happy,” she added, making it a demand, not an observation.

Or dead,I thought, trying not to breathe. Brice was beginning to smell like a dead chipmunk. I had to get her corpse out of here before she reached the dead-cat stage.

“It’s a win-win!” the vampire said, relishing the chance to use the new-to-her phrase. “Victor won’t starve. I get an influx of much-needed children.” Constance stood and went to Brice. “Andthiswon’t become strong enough to irritate me,” she added as she lifted Brice up by her neck. “You should have seen this and taken care of it yourself, Rachel. Learn to kill your own snakes. I’m not your mother.”

I began to protest, words failing me when Constance threw Brice’s body down the stairs. The sudden, horrified silence followed by the expected uproar made Pike wince, and he pinched the bridge of his nose at the obvious rush to the door. One of the serving staff looked up the stairs, then vanished to hopefully find a body bag. If not for her clothes, Brice would have left bits of herself behind on each step. She was decaying fast.

“Yeah, well, easy always seems to turn and bite me on my ass,” I said.

Pike’s gaze flicked from Brad to me. “I should probably take care of that,” he said, drawing Brad to his feet.

This was not how I had expected my night to go. The issue was settled, though. Victor wouldn’t starve and the word would go out that Constance was doing her job. Such as she saw it.

“Go, all of you,” Constance said even as she smiled at Victor and patted the chair beside her. “Victor and I need to chat.”

“Ah,” I said as Victor’s eyes went a frightened pupil black.

Pike skidded to a halt, Brad’s elbow in his grip. “I’ll stay,” he offered, reminding me of Kisten—always trying to protect me from his more savage kin. “The morgue staff will need to be sweet-talked, and you’re better at that than me.”

“It’s going to take two,” Ivy said, her smile forced. “And a pizza would help. Hey, Brad? Let’s get you downstairs. You want a pizza?”

“No,” the petulant vampire said, but Ivy cooed and coddled him, drawing the resisting man downstairs with the promise of a drink. The body at the foot of the stairs shocked him—he had forgotten it already—and Ivy made light of it, asking him if he wanted to help wrap Brice up in a piece of plastic.

“You sure?” I asked Pike.

Pike nodded. “I’ll tend to Brad with Irene. She’s good with him.” His brow furrowed with guilt. “I shouldn’t have brought him tonight. He’s getting worse.”

I winced, head down. “I’m working on it.”

“I know.”

Constance pointedly cleared her throat, earning a dark look from me before I slid my phone off the table and headed downstairs, being careful where I stepped to avoid the ugly smears. Someone had already wrapped Brice, and the scent of decay was quickly being overpowered by the smell of pizza. Most everyone had fled the restaurant, leaving only a few knots of customers gathered around the now-silent band to gossip. Brad was already at a table with a small pizza someone had abandoned, holding ahandheld game that he had played a hundred times but was still brand-new to him.

Pike was right. Last week, Brad would have been able to hold his own, react fast enough to keep Brice’s teeth off him. He was declining, and I’d had no luck finding an Atlantean mirror. It was the only way to break the curse—the one that the coven was harassing me about.

“You brought your car, right?” Ivy asked as she easily hoisted the plastic-and-duct-tape-wrapped body over her shoulder.

“That is not going in my car,” I protested, but her superhuman strength aside, three were not going to fit on her motorcycle.

Ivy grinned. “Why not? You’ve got a two-body trunk, easy. Besides, I can’t manage a pizza, a body, and you on my bike.”

Sighing, I filed in behind her as I took the extra-large with everything in hand and dug my keys out of my pocket. Perhaps me trying to do the job of a master vampire was not a good idea. It was still better than letting Constance have free rein. It had only been a few weeks since I had turned Constance back from a mouse, and the woman was already settling in, not into old patterns but entirely new ones that were likely going to keep me dragging her collateral damage to the morgue.

Kisten,I thought as I followed Ivy out the rear door, pausing to take a deep breath of air smelling of gas and oil as I looked across the river to Cincinnati glinting in the dark. Even Kisten would have made a better undead than her, and he was only a few years older than me when he had died twice. Using Piscary’s as a place to mediate and air issues before they became problems had been his idea. Too bad Kisten was nothing more than ashes in Ivy’s closet now.

And still the coven’s offer to give me a way to bring him back burned. Even if he would only be a ghost, they would ask for too much in return. Like a demon.

Chapter

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