Spells Of Blood And Kin Part 34

"Animal instinct," Gus said, shrugging. "This is my territory. Not yours." She bared her teeth.

"I'm going. I'm going," Nick said. "See you around."

He shouldered his duffel again and left by the fire escape, kicking broken gla.s.s from the stair treads.

Gus thought Nick would have to be like her, drinking alone in a s.h.i.t hole apartment, reminiscing about people whose lives he'd ruined. Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely. What a waste of a very long life.

And Maksim wasn't much better. Castrating himself with the witch's magic. He smelled different, even: duller and less compelling. A boring relation of the graceful, menacing creature Nick had first seen in the alley six weeks ago.

Nick did not have to be like either of them. He was going to enjoy his new life-his long, powerful life-to the fullest.

The only bad thing Nick had done was. .h.i.t Jonathan. And Jonathan was fine.

JUNE 11.

WAXING CRESCENT.

Lissa went to the Duke anyway, since Stella hadn't phoned back. Probably hadn't even got the message yet, and Lissa hated the idea of her going through a whole shift with her usual cheer pasted on over a sore heart.

Rafe was in the middle of serving someone. She took her usual seat at the end of the bar and waited for him to notice her.

When he did, the look that crossed his face wasn't anything she'd seen before.

"Oh, love," he said, and he came to take her hands.

She opened her mouth to say something-what did he mean? what was he looking at?-and Rafe's expression changed to something else, and he ducked around the edge of the bar and pulled her close, face against his brown T-shirt. And when had she started crying?

Rafe cupped the back of her head in one big hand, murmuring, "Hey, hey, hey." She could feel his voice through his chest. His other hand rubbed between her shoulder blades.

She ducked away and wiped hard at her eyes.

"Okay," he said, "no hugging, then, but what about tea? It's a cliche, but help me out here-I have to do something."

Lissa nodded and took the Kleenex he handed her and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. By the time he came back with a mug of tea and a slice of lemon on a saucer, she was breathing without that shuddering hitch, and she'd managed to dry her face.

"Sorry," she said. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Unless you're upset because you're here to break up with me, in which case, I'll have my tea back," he said, smiling in a way that wasn't quite as c.o.c.ky as he might have meant it to be.

"No. No. It's just everything."

"Bad few days? I wondered when you hadn't been around much, and then I thought, well, she's a nice girl, probably going to work and evening Ma.s.s or something."

"I'm not," Lissa said. "I can't even go to church-and Stella-"

"Hey, it's okay. You don't have to. Look, whatever you want to tell me. Or not." He smoothed his hand down her arm. "Let me get you another tissue."

He was gone a few minutes, pulling a series of pints and setting them on a tray for one of the waitresses, a gangly brown-skinned girl who looked barely of age in her kilt. Lissa blew her nose and drank some tea.

Rafe was right; it did seem to be working.

When he came back, he looked rueful. "I'm terrible at this. You'd think a bartender would be better at the tea and sympathy, wouldn't you? I don't have anyone to fill in right now."

"No, no, it's fine. I'm fine."

"You don't look it," he said frankly. "I mean, you're still adorable and all that. But look, whatever it is ... is it more migraines? You've been poorly?"

"It's..." How to even begin to translate? She hadn't thought about it at all, had stupidly not even expected to see Rafe here. "I said something awful to Stella," she admitted.

"That'd be why she called in," Rafe said. "Well, she's a talented barmaid, but I know which sister I'd rather have around." He tugged Lissa's hair affectionately. "She thinks the world of you, you know. You'll get things patched up in no time."

"Wait, she's ... not here?"

"Hey, don't look like that. She's a big girl. Probably went to let her hair down somewhere."

"You're right." He was right. Stella wasn't an idiot, and eventually she would check her phone, and things would be fine tomorrow.

Lissa was only tired and strung out and not used to dealing with people. All she had to do was get through the night.

Twelve.

JUNE 11.

WAXING CRESCENT.

"This was a great idea. I needed to get out," Stella said, stretching her long legs under the patio table, one calf just brushing Nick's.

She glinted in the lantern light: straight teeth and mink-brown eyes and diamond stud earrings. She tilted her head back to get the last drops of her wine, and the skin of her throat looked as delicate as a magnolia petal.

They were the only customers on the patio. The fence between them and the neighboring yard was overgrown with j.a.panese honeysuckle, just beginning to bloom. Between that and the scent of Stella and a tart Rueda, Nick felt absolutely dizzy with pleasure.

"That's usually when you should stop," Stella told him, sliding his gla.s.s along the table, away from his hand.

"I can drink much more than other people. In fact, it's good for me. Gus says so."

"Gus sounds like a bit of a bad influence, if she really said that."

"You have no idea." Nick chuckled.

"I should probably slow down too," Stella said.

"It's okay. I'll look after you."

"I prefer to look after myself," she said, meeting Nick's gaze with a wry smile.

Good G.o.d, he was glad he'd had a chance to jerk off in the shower earlier. He retrieved his gla.s.s and drained it.

"Really," said Stella. "It's nice to get out from under everyone's thumb a bit. But this bad-boy thing you have going on is sort of..."

Nick smiled slowly.

"Transparent," Stella said.

Nick blinked.

"I mean, I know your life has changed a lot lately," Stella said. "Mine has too. You think you know exactly what's going to happen next, and then you find out you were wrong, and you have to figure it out all over again. And you find yourself on the other side of the ocean, or whatever, with people who don't really like you that much. But all this, like, Ernest Hemingway stuff-I mean, the black eye and the drinking and the dark hints..."

"What are we talking about?" Nick said.

"I'm giving you unwanted advice," Stella said, laughing bitterly into her empty gla.s.s.

"d.a.m.n. I thought you were flirting with me," Nick said.

"I'm taking a break from men," Stella said.

"Some of us never go back," Gus said from the other side of the honeysuckle hedge.

"Jesus!" said Nick. "Where'd you come from?"

"Behind this plant," said Gus, strolling around it. "Smells great, doesn't it? You'll learn to use that kind of thing."

Now Nick could smell her, kin to him, but he wasn't sure if he would have noticed it on his own, not with the heady flower scent drowning everything.

"Pretty good," he said. "You're like a ninja. A fun-killing ninja."

Stella, without asking, filled her gla.s.s with the rest of the wine and handed it to Gus. "Give it a rest, Nick. I was never going to sleep with you," she said.

Gus laughed hard at that, pounding her fist on the table.

"I'm going home," Nick said, wondering if he sounded as sulky as he felt.

"I thought you were going to Greece. With Stella."

"He said that? That's kind of creepy." Stella gave him a raised eyebrow.

"It's no creepier than Gus going to Durban to stalk her ex," Nick said.

"Who's got a packed bag under the table?" Gus said, kicking it with her boot.

"Seriously?" said Stella, turning to Nick.

He shrugged one shoulder. "I just went by my old place to get some stuff."

"When were you going to invite me on this supposed trip?" Stella demanded. "Christ, you've known me how long? And I've already had to egg you once."

f.u.c.k. He had nothing. It did sound stupid when she put it that way. He didn't think he'd always been this stupid with women. When had he turned stupid?

When Maksim Volkov licked him was when.

He needed advice from someone smart, someone who wasn't neck-deep in supernatural bulls.h.i.t. If he wasn't going to get laid, he needed something to go right, just one thing.

He made himself turn to Stella and apologize. Maybe she wasn't as into him as he'd thought, but he'd learned at least one thing from the whole Sue Park debacle.

Gus, though, she could f.u.c.k herself. Nick grabbed his duffel from under her boot and walked away without saying good-bye.

JUNE 12.

WAXING CRESCENT.

Lissa sat in her kitchen until two o'clock in the morning. She read grimoires, paged through one of Stella's celebrity magazines.

More than a week before the full moon, when she could ask Baba for help. She wondered how long she could stay awake.

She hadn't tried getting out of the house yet, she thought. Maybe it would help if she wasn't asleep when the hour struck: if she were someplace beautiful, someplace else.

Outside, the air held no trace of the weird nightmare chill. Not yet, anyway. She looped her bag over her shoulder and strolled north. The maples were in full leaf now, haloed brilliant lime in the streetlights. They hardly rustled, the air hung so still.

She walked aimlessly, too tired to hurry, even if hurrying could have taken her further from the nightmare hour. North and a little way east, through two parks, pa.s.sing a man sleeping beneath a bench, another man on a pair of flattened cardboard cartons.