The Wicked Within

Hell, yes, I do. It was on the tip of my tongue to say so, even though I already had a good idea of why he was there and what he was doing. But the words didn’t come. I couldn’t cross the line. No matter what happened between us, his life was his own, his privacy was his own—he’d made that very clear when he decided to shut me out.

“No.”

“Suit yourself. You need to get us the Hands,” she said, echoing Menai’s same words.

“It would solve a lot of problems. . . . ” But would it create more? I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would. “Would Athena be a good mother, you think?”

Mel thought about it for a long moment. “Hard to know. The child was her first and last. When it came, she was . . . happy. She was in love with it, and terrified when Dora gave her prophecy. Athena tried to kill Dora for uttering those words. But once they were out, we all knew Zeus would never let the child live. Athena knew it too.”

“And you can’t say who the father is.”

She gave me a narrow-eyed look. “No.”

“What about Dora’s prophecy? Is there any more to it? Athena’s child was fated to kill Zeus and bring about the Blood Wars. It’s all come to pass, hasn’t it? Zeus is as good as gone, and the War of the Pantheons that followed—”

“No. The Blood Wars and the War of the Pantheons are two separate things. The Blood Wars have yet to come.”

“But they will if this child lives,” I guessed.

Mel shrugged. “Perhaps. You gonna wait here all night?”

I shot her a rueful smile.

“Suit yourself.” She glided away, her physical body slowly fading until she completely vanished. Not a bad power to have.

Her words lingered in my head. None of what she’d told me was helpful in my gaining access to the Hands. I bit my lip, thinking. The library was off-limits for now. If I couldn’t find information from the Keeper, then I’d have to get it from Josephine. Doing that, however, would prove a hell of a lot harder than chatting with an automaton. I stared at the house for a long time. A sense of foreboding settled into my gut and my curiosity burned a hole in my resolve. I wanted to know what Sebastian was doing inside Josephine’s house. And more importantly, why he was shutting me out.

Finally I pushed off the wall and headed for home, leaving Sebastian behind and focusing on ways to make the vampire queen talk.

FOURTEEN

FOR THE FEW HOURS I was in my bed I’d tossed and turned, unable to shut my mind off. And when it finally caved to exhaustion, my sleep was filled with images of the past that left me tired when I finally woke up.

I showered, blessing Crank for the hot water and knowing by the amount I had that I was the first to rise. The heat felt good on my skin. For a long time, I stayed under the spray. I’d come to the realization that despite the personal issues Sebastian and I were having, his abilities were essential in retrieving the Hands. I needed him.

Athena’s offer had screwed things up royally. Had she left things alone, I would’ve been able to get inside the jar and into the library, no problem. Now I’d need Sebastian to trace me inside the Novem’s study where the jar was kept—bypassing the security detail outside and the warded door, if such a thing was even possible. Once I was inside the jar, I’d talk to the Keeper. And then Josephine was next, and I needed Sebastian for that, too.

After my shower, I braided my hair and wrapped it into a low bun, then dressed quickly in a T-shirt and cargo pants before strapping on my gun and blade. I looked down the hall to Sebastian’s door, drew in a steady breath, and went to see if he had come home.

He hadn’t. No surprise.

After a quick biscuit grab in the kitchen, I left the house and caught the streetcar at St. Charles. I was the only passenger. The rocking motion on the tracks lulled me back into sleepiness. Before I knew it, I was at my stop on Canal Street. I walked quickly, trying to stir my blood and wake myself up, wondering what I would find today —Novem heads back at school? Armed guards still protecting the Cabildo?

When I got to the square, I knew immediately something was wrong.

A crowd had gathered across from the cathedral at the gate leading into the park. I edged closer as two people pushed ahead of me. One was Michel, the other Sebastian. The crowd parted for them and I saw another Novem head—Simon Baptiste—amid several musicians, artists, and fortune-tellers who worked in front of the cathedral, and a few students from Presby.

I shouldered through the crowd. Blood made a trail along the stone. My pulse kicked up. A body lay sprawled on the steps.

Shock swept through me. Josephine Arnaud lay flat on her back, arms and legs out, one of her expensive high heels hanging off one foot, her hose ripped, her clothes covered in blood. Her head had been separated from her body and placed a few inches from her neck, as though someone had put it there to make a somewhat complete picture. Or maybe a statement. Her usually perfect bun was disheveled, and her face was sunken and white. It looked as though all the blood from her body had trailed down the steps and into the drain nearby.

The sight stole my breath. Josephine was dead. I glanced up and met a pair of emotionless gray eyes. Sebastian. He was pale, his dark lips set in a grim line. What the hell had happened in the few hours between when I’d seen him go into her house and now? A slight tremble went through me. Sebastian hated his grandmother, but there was no way he could have done this or taken part in it. Beside him, Michel knelt down and shook his head.

As the crowd grew larger, Simon gestured to a person next to him and handed him a phone. “Call Bran. Get security down here.”

Michel got to his feet. While he and Josephine despised each other, he seemed worried and maybe even a little regretful at her passing. He put his arm around Sebastian’s shoulder and squeezed. A kid tried to angle by me. I caught her shoulders and steered her back toward the cathedral. “Hey!” she said. “I want to see.”

“Trust me, kid. You don’t.”

I ended up playing gatekeeper as more students arrived at Presby, but were then drawn to the scene. I noticed Sebastian doing the same as me to my right.

Bran appeared with several of his crew and started controlling the crowd and dealing with the scene. He posted several guards, then produced a sheet to place over the body. More Novem heads arrived along with many members of the Arnaud family, all looking pale and stunned by what had happened to their matriarch.

The bell rang and students were called into class.

The crowd thinned a bit, and I shifted to watch the crime-scene events play out as Sebastian came to stand next to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you know what happened?”

“No.”

After a few seconds in silence, I told him what I knew. “I saw you leaving Presby last night and followed you to her house. What’s going on, Sebastian?”

He let out a deep sigh and shook his head. “Come on.” We walked to one of the long benches and sat down. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands linked as he stared down at the gray flagstones. “I go to her house to feed.”

“But I thought your dad was helping you with that.”

“He was. He was helping me, but . . . he doesn’t understand. What it’s like. What I need. How much I need it.” He sat back and scrubbed both hands down his face. “It’s like a drug, and I’m so far gone. . . . And for the record, I want to kill Zaria, not sleep with her, or feed from her, or whatever Gabriel told you.”

Gabriel had mentioned sex and blood. The sex I didn’t believe, but the blood, given Sebastian’s secrecy, who the hell knew? “Look, I know what she did to you. I was there. But it’s hard not to start questioning everything