“Your species?” Meena felt a spurt of white-hot anger dart through her. “Your species? Let me tell you something about your species and what I’ve seen you do to women-”
“That’s enough, Shoshona,” Dimitri said in the tone of a disapproving father as he reached out to lay a hand on Meena’s shoulder and steer her away from the other girl. “I have better uses for Miss Harper’s time now, I think. For instance…”
That’s when Meena finally saw the apse at the front of the church. The sanctuary, debased with graffiti. The altar, up on the dais, broken into pieces. A statue of St. George, pushed to the floor and missing its head.
And Leisha, sitting in the only pew that had been left upright, with her hands tied in front of her and resting in her lap.
“Leish,” Meena cried, relief rushing over her. She jerked her shoulder out from beneath Dimitri’s grip and raced to her friend’s side. “Are you all right?” Meena asked, kneeling down beside her. “Did they hurt you?”
Leisha shook her head. Her cheeks were tear-stained, her eye makeup smudged. But otherwise, she looked fine.
“I just want,” she whispered to Meena, “to get the hell out of here. I hate these people. They’re freaks. That girl, Shoshona, from your office? You always told me she was a total bitch, but I never knew how much of a bitch until tonight. And I still really have to pee.”
Meena choked back a sob. Leisha. Oh, Leisha.
“Okay,” Meena said. She reached for the cords that held Leisha’s wrists and began untying them. “We’ll get you out of here.”
“What are they?” Leisha asked, eyeing Dimitri suspiciously over the top of Meena’s head. “Like meth heads or something? You know that Gregory Bane guy from Lust bit Adam, don’t you? He bit him.”
Leisha, with her usual common sense, had apparently chosen to ignore the explanation Meena had given her over the phone about what was going on and come up with her own, one that she could process and understand.
“Yes,” Meena said. “Yes, they’re meth heads.” She dropped her head to the knot that was holding her friend’s hands tied together, trying to bite it apart with her teeth. She couldn’t get it undone otherwise.
“Hey,” she said finally, raising her head, realizing the futility of what she was doing. “Could someone give me a hand here and help me untie her? I fulfilled my part of the bargain. I’m here. You said you’d let her go if I showed up. So could someone help me?”
She glanced up at Dimitri, only to find him grinning down at her with an expression on his face that she didn’t like at all.
“Oh,” he said, “I can see why my brother likes you. You’re so…trusting.”
On the word trusting, he reached down, grabbed her by the arm, and yanked her back up to her feet, almost in a single motion. The gesture was so violent and jarring, Meena saw stars for a second or two.
“But I think we’re going to keep your little friend here for a while longer,” he said to her. “Because having her around will make you more accommodating to my needs. And I still need a few things from you, some of which I’d like to hurry up and get to before my brother comes along and tries to spoil things, which he’s always had an unfortunate tendency to do.”
Dimitri hauled her, none too gently, into the sanctuary and up onto the dais, beside the altar. Meena did not like the way the Dracul-including Shoshona and her aunt and uncle-had gathered around, as if eager for a show that was about to start.
Nor did she like what she suddenly recognized sitting on the still upright part of the altar.
It was a bowl from Meena’s own apartment. The large antique one made of pewter her great-aunt Wilhelmina had left her and that Meena never used because she was worried about lead poisoning.
First the bag Lucien had given her. Then her job. Now her great-aunt’s bowl. What else were the Dracul going to take from her?
“I understand you possess quite the power to predict the future, Meena Harper,” Dimitri said in his deep voice.
Suddenly, Meena had a very bad feeling about what was about to happen.
Especially because of the way all of the Dracul were eyeing the holes Lucien had already put in her neck-which were obvious to everyone because Meena had given Alaric the scarf she’d been wearing to cover them-and then glancing down expectantly toward the large silver-colored bowl. The hungry look in their eyes seemed to increase by a hundredfold.
Dimitri was right about one thing: Meena had always been good at predicting the future. Other people’s futures.
Never her own.
Until now.
Meena looked up at Dimitri. He was staring down at her with those flat brown eyes, in which she saw more than just a hint of blood red.
Then she glanced up at the enormous dragon symbol someone had spray-painted behind the altar.
Ever since I left you this morning, Lucien had said to her last night in her bedroom, I’ve had the oddest sensation that I know how almost every human I’ve come into contact with is…is going to die… I’ve never, ever experienced anything like this. Not until…well, being with you.
Now, Meena knew exactly what the bowl was for…and why Dimitri had been so intent on getting her to come up to St. George’s. It wasn’t just because he wanted to lure his brother there, to trap and kill him.
Although certainly that would be an added bonus.
No, Dimitri wanted her for something else.
He wanted her blood, for a little precoronation precognition cocktail.
Meena flung a hand to her mouth to avoid letting out a semi-hysterical scream.
And then, before she had a chance to think twice about what she was doing, she reached into her back pocket for Alaric’s stake with one hand, then used the other hand to stabilize herself on the altar while she launched her right foot, as hard as she could, into Dimitri’s face.
Too bad she was only wearing flats and not her platform boots. Still, she seemed to manage to catch him off guard, since he bent at the waist while crying out in pain, clutching his face.
There was a collective gasp from the Dracul.
Yes! She’d done it! She’d caught a vampire off guard!
She came at him with the stake while she had the advantage, determined to plunge it into his heart and end this, all of it, once and for all, forever. Save herself and her brother and her friends.
This was for Yalena and for Leisha and for what they’d done to her apartment and for whatever they intended to do to Cheryl and Taylor and everyone else at Insatiable…
Except that Dimitri, still bent over in pain, shot out a lightning-fast hand and seized her wrist-the one holding the stake-in a grip that was like iron.
And then he began squeezing her wrist so hard that Meena, tightly as she tried to hold on, eventually had to let go. Alaric’s stake fell with a clatter to the marble floor of the altar and rolled off and away, until it was out of sight.
But still, he didn’t stop squeezing, even when Meena cried out in pain, collapsing to her knees in front of him and the Dracul and the altar and everyone, convinced he was going to shatter every last bone in her wrist…
“Do you think because you can see death before it comes that you can outwit me, Meena Harper?” he asked her, looking down at her with eyes that glowed red as hot barbecue coals. His teeth had turned into pointed fangs, and they were suddenly entirely too near Meena’s throat for comfort. “Or are the rumors true and you can read the thoughts of the dead, as well? Is that how you’ve managed to captivate my brother so?”
Read the thoughts of the dead? No wonder they were so desperate for her blood.
“No,” she said with a gasp. “I can’t read anyone’s thoughts, living or dead. I can only how tell how someone is going to die-”