I shrugged. “It’s safer that way.”
Lee nodded. “Okay. All I’m saying is that since the other night when you took me to Little Niflheim, since I saw Hel herself, I feel like I’m of that world. And I like it. I don’t want to lose that feeling. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rain on your parade.”
“That’s okay.” He gave me another of those wry, genuine smiles. “I got a little carried away. So no patrolling the local graveyards, huh?”
“Nope.” I smiled back at him. “Most of what I have to deal with is capricious, chaotic, and unpredictable, although I’m hoping the database will help. When it comes to vampires, Lady Eris actually keeps her brood on a pretty tight leash. There hasn’t been a rogue vamp since years before I became Hel’s liaison. There was, um, a little misunderstanding out at the House of Shadows last week, but it’s been resolved. I don’t expect to be going back out there for a good long time.”
We talked for a while longer. Lee reminded me not to use free Wi-Fi to access the database, and I assured him that the guys from Comcast had gotten me hooked up with my very own Internet service two days ago. He offered to stop by and check it out just to make sure everything was secure, which I chalked up to his paranoid streak, but accepted anyway.
I thanked him again and left. Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to doing database entry. I’d probably change my tune after the first few hours, but at least Lee had managed to make the prospect of it fun, and the idea of having my very own digital ledger was empowering.
Unfortunately, that part where I’d said I didn’t expect to be going back to the House of Shadows for a good long time?
Turns out I was dead wrong.
Twenty-nine
I got in a solid day’s worth of data entry before Jen called me in hysterics the following morning. And Jennifer Cassopolis was never hysterical. Jen was tough. Not razor-blades-in-her-hair, she’ll-cut-a-bitch tough, but she grew up in an abusive household, and it made her tough enough.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I said when I could get a word in edgewise. “Slow down! Take a deep breath and tell me again. Who did what now?”
On the other end of the phone, Jen took several ragged gulps of air before swallowing convulsively. “Fucking Geoffrey!” she said, her voice thick with tears and rage. “He’s fucking turning my sister!”
Oh, crap. I closed my eyes. “Shit! Okay, let me think. Maybe we can put together an extraction team. Stefan—”
“It’s too late, Daise,” Jen interrupted me. “It’s already done. We got an invitation to the rising this morning. A fucking engraved invitation, like it’s a fucking wedding, for Christ’s sake! One of their minions hand-delivered it!”
I felt sick.
Turning a mortal into a vampire isn’t a spontaneous decision. It’s a process. Over the course of a month’s time, the mortal ingests small amounts of his or her blood-bonded vampire mate’s blood until it reaches the critical threshold necessary to keep the mortal’s flesh from corrupting during the three-day period between dying and rising. And yes, in case you’re wondering about the biblical echo, there are undead sects that claim Jesus was a vampire.
Anyway. It meant that Bethany Cassopolis was already lying dead in the House of Shadows, drained of mortal blood. And it meant that the process of turning her was already under way when I was there the week before.
That’s why she didn’t look as strung out as usual. And that’s probably why Geoffrey gave her permission to recruit an acolyte, so they’d have their very own playmate and blood source on hand for her rising.
And like a good little half-breed clinging to my mundane human morals, I’d passed up the chance to plant dauda-dagr between Geoffrey the prat’s shoulder blades and make an end to him.
“Daise?” Jen asked.
“I’m here.” I was pacing the living room in a fury, my tail lashing, but I had no one to be furious at but myself, and it wouldn’t do Jen any good to tell her about it. Not now. “Are you serious? They sent an invitation?”
“Oh, I’m serious!” A gasp veering back toward hysteria escaped her. “Apparently it’s traditional. Nice heavy cream-colored stock, a deckled edge . . . you should see it!”
“Okay, girlfriend,” I said in my best calm, take-charge tone. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” Sorrier than she knew, that was for sure. “But we’ve talked about this. Bethany’s an addict, Jen. She didn’t want to be helped. You tried. We both did. We did our best, but we always knew this day might come.”
“I know. It’s just . . .” She sighed.
“I know.”
It might not sound like much, but when you’ve been friends for as long as Jen and I have, you develop your own shorthand.
Jen took another deep breath. “Beth wrote a note on the invitation. They must have had it printed . . . before. She wants me there.”
“For the rising?”
“Uh-huh.”
I sat down on the edge of my futon. Mogwai wound around my ankles, not purring, just pressing his reassuring bulk against me. I reached down to pet him with my free hand. “What do you think?”
Jen was silent for a long moment. “You’d come with me?”
“Duh.”
“Then I’ll go.” Her voice was grim. “And if anything goes wrong . . . I really, really hope there’ll be hell to pay.”
I shifted the phone to my other ear. “Oh, there will. I promise. And if it’s okay with you, I’d like to ask Cody Fairfax to come with us. Because if anything does go wrong, we’re talking about murder. And if that happens . . .” The words trailed away as it came home to me that I was talking about Jen’s sister being irrevocably dead. I cleared my throat. “As Hel’s liaison, I would say it becomes a matter for mundane authorities.”
“Good,” Jen said. “That’s fine. I’d be glad to have him there. Daise . . . ?”
I waited. “Yeah?”
“I don’t know which would be worse,” she whispered. “Even though it’s been awful, Bethany’s still my sister. If she didn’t rise, at least it would be over, you know? If she does . . . I don’t know if I could ever consider her family again.” She paused. “Am I a terrible person for thinking that way?”
My heart ached. “Not for an instant.”
Bethany’s rising was scheduled for midnight two days from now. Very clever of the House of Shadows to wait until someone was actually freaking dead to send out an invitation to the resurrection.
I spoke to Cody, who readily agreed to attend in his capacity as an officer of the law. He was still pissed off about what had happened with Heather Simkus.
I talked to Stefan, too.
Well, actually, it was Stefan who contacted me, calling to suggest that he evaluate my progress in the art of conjuring and raising a mental shield. “Cooper tells me you think I was holding back on you,” he said to me.
“No,” I said. “I know you were holding back. But I’ve been getting better.”
He laughed. “Come to my apartment. We’ll spar. This time I won’t hold back . . . as much.”
Frankly, I was grateful for the offer. I was in a foul mood and sparring with Stefan might help take the edge off it.
True to his word, he came at me harder this time. I’d become accustomed to the wild, surging attack of Cooper’s beast. By contrast, Stefan’s approach was deadly and disciplined. He wielded his hunger like a sword, battering straight at my mental shield, then sidestepping deftly to come at me from a different angle. We circled each other in his living room. I held dauda-dagr in my right hand, and the sunlight sparkling on the river beyond his window gleamed along the edges and runes of its blade. I let it fill me, pouring light and anger into my shield, letting it blaze. Stefan’s pale blue eyes were like sun-shot ice, his pupils waxing and waning as his desire warred with his discipline.