My ears detected Celia slipping away down the hall with Beverley. Ares continued barking. Good dog, sensitive to smelly creatures outside. I stood there and concentrated on breathing normally. What was I supposed to do? Stall. Stalling was good. Get information. That was good too. “Why do you want Vivian and the book?” I asked.
“Both belong to my master.”
“Oh. So you’re a gofer, huh?”
“Miss Alcmedi,” Dr. Lincoln whispered as he moved a step farther from the door, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be flippant with a vampire.”
“He can’t come in, Doc. And he’s not about to be invited.” It was the only reason I could afford to have a bit of an attitude. That and knowing—in the wild, at least—strength respected strength. I hoped a vampire would do the same.
“That’s a wives’ tale!” The doctor’s whisper was panicky.
“No, it’s a witches’ tale. I’m a witch, and my house has wards.”
“Only holy ground can keep them at bay!”
Through gritted teeth I said, “The average person’s residence can be invaded because they don’t have wards. Churches put up wards by blessing the ground. It’s kind of the same thing.”
“But he’s on your grounds.”
I should have swept a bigger circle around the house. “He’s staying beyond the wards. Now, please, shut up!”
Johnny came into the living room via the dining room and stepped up behind the doctor. Erik followed a few paces behind him. Johnny tapped Dr. Lincoln roughly on the shoulder, and the doc turned to see his stern face and a “get-out-of-the-way” chin jerk. The doctor backed deeper into the living room, but to his credit, he didn’t flee. He stood near the end of the couch. The wærewolves moved into a flanking position behind me. It bolstered my courage, and my shoulders squared as I faced the vampire again.
Goliath looked down his elegant nose. “Finished squabbling amongst yourselves?”
I hated vampires. I really hated vampires. Obnoxious snots. “Quite.”
“Give me what I ask for, and I will leave. If you don’t…” He let me see his fangs. “I might have to take offense at all the digging you’ve been doing lately.”
“Your threat is empty. You can’t come in.”
Even as the last word left my lips, I felt the pull. It slid across my thoughts like a boat on serene water then stabbed an oar into my brain and pushed. Come. Come to me, it said.
I was floating, flowing, ebbing. And it was so nice. I put my hand on the screen door and pushed it open.
Something suddenly jerked me under the water and weighed me down. I was sinking fast, and I couldn’t breathe. I clawed for the surface. I couldn’t breathe.
“Persephone!” Johnny’s voice. The enchantment broke. His hands, the something that had grabbed me, jerked me back and spun me around, breaking the connection between me and the vampire. I gasped.
I couldn’t do this. I knew it. I couldn’t face a vampire. I was such an idiot for even considering—
The faith in Johnny’s eyes, in that Wedjat gaze, was like a buoyant lifesaver. My confidence clung to it, and he pulled me back to myself. “Don’t look in his eyes,” Johnny whispered, and turned my body back toward the door.
He didn’t expect me to run and hide, didn’t expect that I needed protecting. And he didn’t know my confidence was false, was based on knowing the vampire couldn’t get through my wards. But Johnny hadn’t laughed at me when I told him about Vivian hiring me as an assassin, he’d called me a—a—what was it again? Lustrata.
I faced Goliath, staring at the top of his head. I hated it when people did that to me, and I hoped it irritated him as much. At least I’d learned something: that old saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul was true. Looking through the glass was good, but if you opened that window or left it unlocked, something ugly was likely to creep inside.
“You cannot keep yourself and everyone you care about behind magic fences forever.” Goliath glowered. “If you taunt me again, I’ll have them one by one until you’re begging me to take you in their place.”
“I don’t repeat mistakes.”
“Perhaps not. But you do make so many of them.” He tsk-tsked me. “Your wards are good, but you must not be much of a witch otherwise. You couldn’t divine your data or scry for it. You hired a background checker. Ms. Diamond could have told you much if you had used the right method to ask.”
He meant torture—of that I was certain.
“I commend you for being able to lure Ms. Diamond to your home, along with her most precious objects. I haven’t been able to fake her into such stupidity, and I’ve been trying for years.”
I wasn’t about to reveal that he had the wrong assumption. He clearly thought I had known about the “precious objects” and had acted purposely to obtain them. I hoped he’d think I could protect myself and keep them too. But damn it! I’d just been enchanted by his eyes—a stupid, stupid mistake. Surely he was wondering now if I could possibly be a lucky bungler.
“At any rate, you have gained my attention, Miss Persephone Isis Alcmedi.” He proceeded to tell me my phone number, Social Security number, and credit scores, and then he rattled off a series he claimed was my Avalon’s VIN. “Shall I go on?”
My palms were sweaty.
“If your cerebrum is keeping up, you’ll understand now that I have also acquired information about you. And I can use my information to make your life”—he spat that last word—“a tragedy worthy of your bastardly Greek heritage.”
Nana’s hand, holding a lit cigarette, pushed me aside. She stepped up beside me, Vivian’s box cradled in her left arm. “You better get your rotting ass off the lawn, and I mean now.” She put the cigarette to her lips, flipped the box’s lid up, and reached inside.
Chapter 16
From the box, Nana pulled a wooden stake caked with dried mud.
Goliath hissed—not the kind of theatrical vampire hiss that Hollywood directors make actors embarrass themselves with. This was a hiss that took ten full seconds to build and occur. It started deep in his gullet and rose with such force that Goliath’s entire body shook in a growing convulsive wave. His mouth barely opened, but the sound was hellish: fear and loathing and vengeance with a voice.
After that, he fled in an otherworldly blur.
“What the hell is that thing?” I asked, pointing at the stake.
“This is the product of a spell from the Codex. Come back to the kitchen.”
“Excuse me,” Dr. Lincoln said to Johnny. “Would you, uh…” he stammered, and finally said, “Is he gone for good?”
“Probably for tonight, anyway. Why?” Johnny asked.
“Oh,” I said, getting it. “He needs his stuff to fix up a bag for Theo.”
“A bag of what?”
“To help her body have enough energy to change.”
He clasped the doctor’s shoulder. “I’ll fetch it. A real doctor bag, right?”
“Yeah.” He squinted apologetically. “But I didn’t mean you should fetch, I mean, you’re…and that would be…you know.”
“Red, straighten him out, would you?” Johnny went outside.
Nana headed through the dining room.
“C’mon.” I motioned to the doctor. “You’re a brain with the medical stuff, but you don’t talk with people very well.”
He shrugged and followed. “With owners of patients it’s almost like a script repeating over and over. When it’s not a script…you know. More so with him; he’s so…intimidating.”
“Johnny? I know. I used to think so too.” The words came out and made me realize that I truly felt as if I was over that personal hurdle. Then I thought of something and stopped. “He recommended you because you treat wæres. I thought you two knew each other well.”