Page 85 of Demon's Bluff
My gaze shifted to Elyse, drawn by her hand darting out to catch a blob of cheesecake that had fallen from her fork. “You look better,” I said, and she bobbed her head, hair dripping from her shower.
“I could have slept for four days, not four hours,” she said around her full mouth, then washed it down with bad vending-machine coffee, grimacing at the taste. The slice of cheesecake had come from the employee fridge, stolen, obviously. Elyse had helped herself as if it was hers. The woman ate with the abandonment of a teenager. But then again, she was one.
My stomach hurt too much to eat, and I studied her as her fork rhythmically moved, reading her lingering fatigue, her frustration that I hadn’t gotten the stasis charm and taken her home yet. She hadn’t said a single bad word about us stealing that truck or busting the library cameras. It had been her suggestion that we raid the employee fridge. I would havethought breaking into the library alone would have put me on the naughty list, being neither moral nor ethical. But perhaps the coven was only concerned about the spells used to manage mischief, not the mischief itself.
“Ah, hey. Thanks again for helping me get Kisten underground,” I said as she plowed her way through someone else’s cheesecake.
Her eyes flicked from Kisten to me as she ate another bite.
“Everything you said about not being able to keep him alive was a hundred percent valid,” I added. “Good news. We can use the same stasis curse to get you both home.”Maybe she’s mad I’d circumvented her plot to force me into the coven?Unless she was lying about everything and all her promises vanished when I got her home.
“That’s good. I’m glad you’re interested in getting the charm now,” she said, and my lip twitched. I wasn’t the one breaking all our deals.
Seeing my disgust, she leaned back, fork dangling as she washed the last bite down with her coffee. That, at least, she’d paid for.With my money.“I’m sorry, but could you remind me who you are doing this for?” she asked.
She was looking at Kisten, and heartache was a sharp pain.No wonder my stomach hurts.“Isn’t it obvious?”
She pointed her fork at me. “No, I want to hear it. You’re not doing this for Kisten. He’s not in a position to care. He basically committed suicide returning to that boat.”
I clenched my teeth. The man was right there, probably hearing this on some level. “Having second thoughts, Elyse? I might not have the mirror, but once I get Kisten’s body home, I slip your snare, Madam Coven Leader.”
Peeved, she took a breath, her hand coming to rest on the table between us as if in placation. “I told you I’m not pursuing Alcatraz for you anymore, and once I talk to the rest, our demand to uncurse Brad will be rescinded. Which all makes me question why you still want to bring him home. I mean, Ivy has remade her life. To make her deal with this again? Who are you really doing this for?”
I could do nothing but stare. Was she trying to get me to change mymind and leave him to die alone? “Cincinnati,” I said shortly, well aware that I might be dumping Ivy back in the morass of heartache we’d worked ourselves out of once. “Youmight have agreed to overlook what I did to Brad, but I’m telling you right now the rest won’t. If I can’t get Brad uncursed, I’m going to have to go into hiding to avoid Alcatraz. Kisten will be solid enough to do what he needs to do if I raise his ghost every sunset. He can keep Constance in line and the DC vampires out. I vowed to keep Constance safe. Kisten can do it. He practically ran Cincinnati when Piscary was in jail.”
Uncomfortable, I ran a finger over the pentagram gouged into the tabletop. “Which is why I really appreciate you helping me find a body to put on Kisten’s boat.” My gaze flicked up to hers. “You’re not backing out on that, too, are you?”
“The coven will do what I say—” Elyse began warily.
“Until you tell them to do something they don’t want to,” I interrupted, and she pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes closed.
“Fine. You’re bringing Kisten home to chaperone Cincinnati’s vampires. This is your town. Where do you suggest we go to find a body no one will miss?”
My relief was short-lived. Maybe it was a morality test. She was the leader of the coven of moral and ethical standards, after all. Not sure if I was doing myself any favors, I leaned over the table. “I was thinking the safe-haven drop box at Spring Grove. We can catch a bus from here. Be out there around sunset…”
My words tapered off as Elyse shook her head. “Bad idea. I almost got caught using a safe-haven drop box. There are no cameras, which is nice, but they generally have a silent alarm sound when the lid opens. The bodies don’t stay in there for more than twenty minutes. We’d have to wait and intercept a corpse, and the people who use the safe-haven service can get…twitchy.”
“Okay.” I reminded myself she was a few years older than the kid sitting across from me.Almost got caught?“What do you suggest?”
“Hospital or city morgue,” she said confidently. “Hospitals keep a closetab on their undead, but occasionally someone walks out unexpectedly, so missing bodies are not unheard-of. But if it was my decision, I’d go with the city morgue.”
I grimaced, not trusting this. “Just how often do you do this? And why?”
“The I.S. is always finding John and Jane Does at crime scenes,” she said, not answering me. “Whoever left them doesn’t want them to be found or identified. You find a dead undead who has been unclaimed for over two weeks, you got yourself a good candidate. Someone already did the hard part for you by separating them from their relatives, if they even had any. Not to mention they are already bagged. No fuss, no muss.”
“I ask again, how often do you need an unclaimed body, Elyse Embers?”
“Join my club, and I’ll tell you,” she said, meeting my gaze straight on, not a hint of embarrassment or shame.
I leaned back, head cocked in suspicion. “I can get us into the city morgue,” I said, deciding to take this at face value. “I know how to run the furnace there, too,” I finished softly.
“The city morgue has its own furnace?”
My gaze sharpened on her. What had she thought Ivy and I were doing with Brice’s body? “That’s where the city’s master vampire’s mistakes go?” I said, making it into a question.
Elyse bobbed her head. “We’ll do that, then. With Piscary on the streets, there’s bound to be one or two vampiric John Does.”
For a moment, I just stared. “Just when I think I know you, Elyse…”