CHAPTER FOUR
Though I’d done it at least a dozen times already, I stil wasn’t used to the transition. Stepping from the dusty, crowded streets of the old city into the quiet elegance of Monique Landry’s traditional Moroccan vil a, with its blue and white tiled floors, their pattern so intricate I stood in awe at the time and care that had gone into the job. Smal er tiles in brighter shades of green, red, yel ow, and white climbed a third of the way up the ground floor’s wal s and lined the stairways on either side of the main entrance.
Above the tile, pink or gold stucco was decoration unto itself, though here and there an original painting hung, usual y signed by a local artist who had managed to capture the radiant soul that moved within every corner of the city.
Everywhere we went in the riad—whether it was the big lounge in the front of the place, the formal dining room down the south hal , the kitchen at the west end of the house, up the stairs to the rooms we’d rented, or out to the courtyard where our after-dark meetings occurred—scal oped archways marked the passages, as if the doorways themselves wore lace scarves out of respect for Al ah.
Monique had managed an atmosphere of elegant warmth throughout her home. Except for this moment when, stepping into the lounge, I felt the sinister aura of conspiracy tainting the air. My first clue was that Bergman had not only beaten us downstairs, but was wil ingly sharing space with our hostess and Kyphas. Astral looked far too innocent sitting in the doorway with her tail curled around her paws like an actual cat. And Cole was shoving me into the room like he was afraid I meant to make a run for it.
Then I saw the cake.
And Bergman started singing.
And Cole handed me his phone—which I put to my ear
—only to hear my sister harmonizing from thousands of miles away.
I waited for the rush of pain that I’d been trying to avoid al day, now that I’d been forceful y reminded that this was the second birthday I’d spent without Matt. That the mind-blowing celebration I’d been planning with Vayl had melted into a nightmare.
It didn’t come.
Instead I saw my old roommate, his ridiculous Cole-perm flying out from his head like Einstein Jr.’s, holding a flaming dessert out in front of him. Which meant Monique had rushed out in the middle of the evening just for me. At my right, the man who loved me and would never be more than my dearest companion had made it al happen. At my left, the vampire I’d become so entwined with that I couldn’t tel anymore where I stopped and he began was trying to comprehend how everyone knew the words to a song he was sure he’d never heard before. But he stil had a smile for me. In a dark wicker chair with palm-printed cushions, separate from us al but struggling to understand how we fit so wel together, a demon managed not to stain the moment. And in my ear, my kid sister belted like a Broadway star.
When they were done I said, “Thanks. This is so cool of you guys. I’d say you shouldn’t have, but it turns out I’m glad you did.”
Cole gave me a gentle shove toward the courtyard. “Go on. Talk to Evie. We’l wait.”
As I walked out I heard Vayl say, “What is that contraption Madame Berggia is holding to her ear? Has she gone partial y deaf?”
she gone partial y deaf?”
Ignoring Cole’s attempt to explain his cel , I spoke to my sister for the first time since Vayl’s… accident. “Yo, Evie, thanks for checking in!”
“As if I’d miss this day,” she replied. “Have you found any rad new medicinal plants out there in the middle of nowhere?”
I took half a beat to sink into my research scientist Evie-cover. “Morocco’s amazingly cosmopolitan,” I informed her.
“Especial y in the new section of the city. But to answer your question, no, nothing major. We’re going out into the countryside again tomorrow. Don’t worry, if I have anything to do with it, Demlock Pharmaceuticals wil find at least five or six cancer cures in our lifetimes.”
“Wel , hurry it up. E.J.’s grown about a foot since you saw her!”
“That’s physical y impossible. Put her on the phone.” I waited until I could hear my infant niece gnawing on the receiver. “E.J.? This is your auntie Jaz. Are you being a good girl?”
I heard a gurgle. Or maybe a burp. And imagined the phone covered in regurgitated breast milk. Gross.
“Child, you’re what, almost four months old now? Stop being so cooperative and tel Mommy you want your own phone. Make sure you get texting. I hear that’s the new craze among babies your age.”
Evie said, “Are you corrupting my kid?”
“It’s my job. Look up Auntly Duties online. The description’s on Wikipedia.”
Evie laughed. “Okay, now cut the BS and tel me what’s wrong.”
“I—nothing. I’m having a fabulous birthday.”
“It’s only four o’clock here. That means I have a ful hour until Tim gets home. E.J.’s just discovered her hands, so al I have to do is make sure she finds them again after she’s lost them and I can nag you until you break.”
“I think Congress considers that torture.”
“Spil .”
I sighed and looked around the courtyard. It was empty.
Which meant Chef Henri, who liked to savor a glass of wine after work, had probably already gone home for the night. I stepped into the gazebo farthest from the front of the house and curled up on the couch. “I’ve been dating a guy at work.”
Amazing. Thousands of miles from home and my sister’s squeal stil forced me to pul the phone away from my ear.
I said, “See, this is why I don’t tel you things. Now my eardrum is bleeding.”
“It is not! Tel me al about him.”
Ha! Like I want you jumping a plane to Marrakech so you can shake your finger under Vayl’s nose and make him promise to keep his fangs to himself!
“He’s, ah, older than me.” But only by a few hundred years.
“Is he hot?”
Why did I suddenly feel like we were teenagers again?
First day at our new school, trading stories about the cute guys in our math classes. I said, “Smoldering.”
“Oh my God, I gotta sit down. Wait, I’m already sitting down. Okay, go on.”
“Would you rein it in? It’s not like that. Wel , it was. But now, I don’t know. He’s… changed.”
“Aw, Jazzy, tel me he’s not married.”
“No. He was, but she’s dead.” In fact, I killed the evil bitch, but I’ll edit that one out of our little talk too, ’kay?
Dammit, why did I start this in the first place? I hate lying to you.
Granny May spoke up from behind a bridge hand that, from the sparkle in her eyes, looked to be a winner. Maybe you needed to talk to somebody real for once, she said.
One of the few people you know who’s in a good relationship.