“Grier Woolworth?” The stranger eased into a sliver of moonlight, his skin flawless, his gaze fathomless. His presence weighted me in place, and for the second time in one night, I felt myself being measured by predatory eyes. Though these held none of Volkov’s primal attraction. A made vampire then. “Can we talk?”
“It’s late, and I’m tired.” And I had a healthy sense of self-preservation these days. “We’ll have to do this some other time.”
Point to him, he stepped aside and allowed me to reach the porch. “I represent someone eager to make your acquaintance.”
A foreboding chill rippled down my arms, and I clenched the stake tighter. “I have enough friends, thanks.”
“Aren’t you curious why you were released from Atramentous?” He strolled forward with a spring in his step. “Only the worst of our criminals are sentenced to that pit and only after lengthy deliberation. You were a child when they closed the grate behind you. Sixteen. The youngest inmate in its long and miserable history. And, rumor has it, you had no trial at all.”
The moisture wicked from my tongue. Shut it down. Shut. It. Down.
“You are the sole exception any Grande Dame has ever made, a singular pardon. Why?” He tapped the side of his nose. “That debt would make me nervous if I were you.”
The ground trembled beneath me as the bomb he’d dropped detonated.
I should have probed the ragged edges of my personal miracle before now, but I had been all too happy to slap a bandage over the wound and pretend I wasn’t slowly bleeding to death from a thousand cuts. I had been living a small life, a quiet life, a safe life, since my release. But safety was an illusion, wasn’t it?
The hand that had guided me into the light could just as easily shove me tumbling back into the dark.
The Grande Dame had spared me. I ought to feel grateful. Instead a feverish heat swept chills over me.
“I’m going to bed now.” Turning my back on him gave me the willies as I gripped the front doorknob.
I was still holding the brass sphere when his hand landed on my shoulder in a touch meant to ask for my attention. I barely had time to register the potential threat before Woolly used me as a conduit, zinging an electrical charge through me and into him. I whirled around as the vampire was blasted clear off the porch and tumbled across the lawn, landing in a tight crouch that spoke of feline reflexes.
“Night, Grier,” he said, a chuckle in his voice as though the volts had tickled his funny bone.
I slipped inside and locked the door behind me.
Two vampire sightings in one night. What were the odds this was a coincidence?
Slim to none. Emphasis on the none.
Say he was right about the Grande Dame pardoning me, what did she want in return? And could I afford to give it to her?
Three
I woke at dusk curled in a ball in my usual corner with salt drying in itchy tracks on my cheeks. A horrible weight in my gut kept me from dry heaving, and I started regretting my policy of not talking about what had happened to me. Even one person could help me sort through what was real and what was imagined, what had been forgotten. So many years spent reliving the seconds that had cost me my freedom had both burned those moments into my mind’s eye and faded them after so many viewings. What I remembered, I didn’t trust, and what I had been told in Atramentous I believed even less.
Talking probably wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever had, but who did I wreck with the burden of those memories? The man who had offered me his unconditional support or the woman who would never refuse me if I asked her to prop me up? The man who had suffered his own horrors or the woman left behind to imagine them? Boaz or Amelie? And could I ever look either of them in the eyes again after?
I didn’t know, and until I did, they were both safe from me calling in any favors.
Determined to check at least one item off my to-do list before work, I hauled myself up the narrow stairs into the stuffy attic and rummaged through lifetimes’ worth of accumulation until I located the antique cage Keet once called home and its matching base. That segued into me dusting the chandeliers, and ended with me falling down in sweaty exhaustion onto my bed, thus dooming me to laundry detail.
Hours later, still dressed in cut-off shorts, a tank top with a hole exposing my navel and half my right side, I plucked at the itchy yellow dish gloves encasing my hands. Suds climbed up my elbows, because I failed at mixing the proper water-to-mopping-solution ratio, and I worried more than once I might be making a bigger mess than I was cleaning. Factor in my frizzy ponytail, the bangs plastered to my forehead and the allergies causing my eyes to redden and itch, and I had reached the mecca of sexiness that promises you’ll run into your smokin’-hot ex if you leave the house.
I didn’t have an ex. I guess that’s why I didn’t even have to leave the house to get run into.
The doorbell rang out in a clear, strong note, one of Woolly’s all-clear chimes. Secure in the knowledge whoever awaited me wasn’t the kidnappy vampire from last night, I tossed my sponge in the bucket to go investigate. Palms braced on the door, I stuck my eye to the peephole and sucked in a sharp breath. The man standing on my porch, hands folded in front of him, had me fighting back a panic attack, because he wasn’t a man at all really.
“Are you insane?” I glared up at the foyer chandelier. “You let him on the porch?”
The light brightened then dimmed, the Woolly equivalent of a shrug.
After ripping off the gloves, I tossed them near the other supplies then smoothed a sweaty hand over my hair before opening the door. “Mr. Volkov.”
An unassuming male dressed in a dark suit stood behind him and to his left. He closed the large, black umbrella he must have used to escort Volkov onto my porch then made himself scarce. I hadn’t even noticed it was raining again, but that explained why my hair was crackling like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket. This was Georgia humidity at its finest.
Volkov stared at the crown of my frizzy head, sweeping his gaze down my frayed outfit. He lingered over my legs for what felt like hours, a mathematician going for the mental recitation of pi. “Ms. Woolworth.”
Fiddlesticks.
“Eyes are up here, bud.” Walking between five and fifteen miles five nights a week kept my calves and thighs toned, but not many people got the chance to admire them thanks to my voluminous skirts. Uneasy with his gaze on my bare skin, I snapped my fingers to snag his attention. “How did you find me?”
“I followed your scent,” he said, as if tracking me like a bloodhound was a totally reasonable answer.
“Oookay.” Shifting to my left, I blocked the entrance to the house. “And you’re here why?”
“What are your plans for lunch?” His attention lingered on my throat.
Lunch for necros tended to occur around midnight with dinner being served around six in the morning. Breakfast, for those who indulged, was usually a sunset affair. Though it was hours too early for lunch, I had abstained from breakfast due to my upset stomach, so brunch was sounding good right about now.
“I’ll probably make a sandwich.” I had one scoop of peanut butter in the jar, two squirts of jelly in a bottle, one square of processed cheese, and a few slices of bread. I had done a little of my own math and decided one PB&J and one grilled cheese would hit the spot until I went shopping.
Volkov stood there, an air of expectation suspending a single moment into many.
“Would you like to join me?” To my knowledge, no vampire had stepped foot inside Woolworth House during my stay with Maud. I wondered if today would prove the exception. What about this one had piqued Woolly’s curiosity? Especially considering her violent reaction to the one from last night.
His regal nod indicated a certain expectation I had to nip in the bud. And soon. He attempted to cross the threshold with his confident strides, but a burst of ward magic from Woolly suspended him in the doorway while she conducted a thorough evaluation. I didn’t rush her decision. I was interested in her assessment as well. He took a fumbled half-step back—the house trying to gently shove him out? But he pressed forward with a determined scowl, swinging his narrowed gaze toward me, and shut the door behind him as if that might prevent his premature eviction.
“Don’t look at me. She’s the boss.” I gestured to the house around us. “I just live here.”
“The rumors are true then?” He examined the entryway as though expecting a ghost to walk through the walls and boop him on the nose for being a bad vampire. “The house is haunted?”
“Yep.” That was mostly the truth. Close enough for my conscience anyway.
“Do you know the identity of your ghost?” Genuine curiosity guided his perusal. “Is there more than one?”
“Maud isn’t here if that’s what you’re asking.” Had he known who I was last night? All signs pointed to yes. That would explain his interest in me. “Still want that sandwich?”
“Of course.”
Pivoting on my heel, I led him toward the kitchen. On my way past the bucket, I stepped in a patch of fizzing suds, and my foot shot out from under me. I flung out my arms and braced for an impact that never came.
“I have you.” Warm breath fanned my throat as his arms cinched around my middle. “You should be more careful.”
“I was…” I breathed in the scent of his skin and lost my train of thought as that same magnetism from last night flipped switches in my brain. The tension thrumming in me uncoiled until I melted against him. Giddiness frothed in my mouth, and I had to swallow giggles. “Cleaning. The floor. It was dirty.”
“I see.” He swiped a dollop of bubbles off my thigh, rubbing the film between his fingers while I prayed to every god I had ever read about that I’d shaved the night before…or even the previous week. Work was my one social outlet, and hoop skirts hid a multitude of sins. “The kitchen is this way?”
“Hmm?” I would have said most anything to keep him talking. His accent was kind of sexy.