Blood Cursed (13 page)

14

The ladies’ room door flapped closed behind me, and the casino noises faded.

Black tiles gleamed, floor to ceiling. A row of mirrors shone above half a dozen square white sinks. Opposite, cubicles with black laminated doors. No cameras that I could see. Uncleaned toilet smells wrinkled my nose. Guess they didn’t employ too many cleaning staff so late.

A skinny blond girl with whitepowder wings leaned over the sink to apply mascara, glossy purple lips shining. I joined her, washing my hands and pretending to look in my bag for makeup while I scanned the reflections. Two cubicles occupied. No one in the corner or on the floor. No flicker of flame or shadow. I inhaled, faking a sigh to test the air, and pungent firefae incendiary stung my nostrils like petrol. Crimson was here. No doubt about it.

A toilet flushed. Coolly I flicked a stray lash from my cheek, pretending nerves weren’t wriggling like crazy worms beneath my skin. A cubicle door opened, and a fat brown spriggan in a flowerprint dress waddled out. Her claws clicked as she stretched up on tiptoes to reach the sink, spraying water left and right and teasing her dirtbrown hair into an even ruder mess. The white fairy girl sniffed and flounced out, curls bouncing. The spriggan muttered and followed her, and the door slammed shut.

I fluttered aloft and poked my chin over the closed cubicle door.

There she lay. Crimson, curled like a fetus, sick yellow flame sputtering from her hair. Her breath heaved fast and shallow. Feebly, her wings jerked, slimy with sweat. Shiny drool slipped from her lips, but her glamour still held. She looked harmless, innocent, a beautiful dying bride, and my heart bled for her.

But she wasn’t innocent. I swooped higher, and floated down inside.

I squatted, wrinkling my nose at her hypersweet sweat. Burnt sugar and blood, the smell of sparkle over-speed.

I swallowed, sick. I’d drugged her. Poisoned her like a coward. Didn’t have the guts to meet her face-to-face.

My fingertips crawled cold at the thought of touching her, but I locked my jaw tight and pulled wet flameorange hair away from her throat.

Crimson’s head flopped, her swanlike neck graceless. Her jeweled necklaces glittered, green and red and white. Tiny flames attacked my wrists, the remnants of her crippled magic, but they barely burned. She was at my mercy.

Unwilled, my fist clenched. I could put her out of it right now, crush my thumbs hard into her windpipe until she stopped panting. Save those pretty boys from a starving, fading death, and no doubt they hadn’t been the first. I’d be doing the world a favor.

But I tried to imagine killing her, as easily and coolly as Diamond might eliminate some gang puke who’d trespassed on his turf or pissed him off somehow, and my guts hollowed cold.

I couldn’t do it.

I’m not the angel of vengeance. I’m just a girl trying to stay alive. When I gave Crimson’s gemstone to Kane, she’d die. Thanks to the stupid devil’s bargain she and her friends had made, and the magic tricks they’d done in an effort to hide from the consequences, her soul was inextricably entwined within her gem, and Kane would delight in eating her up.

I couldn’t help that. Didn’t mean I should delight in her blood on my hands.

Cautiously, I poked at her jewels.

She didn’t move. Just lay there and hyperventilated, blacksparkle vomit dripping from her lips.

My courage firmed. I bent closer, examining each jeweled strand. Pearls, gold, a row of red ones, a sparkling choker like ice. Nothing that burned like the stone in my ring. Her hair tangled in the chains, and I tugged it impatiently, wet strands gluing to my fingers. A pair of deepblue stones like tiny eggs in her pierced ears. I checked her fingers. Gold rings, a spray of garnets, nothing like mine. A single jade bangle. I even tugged her shoes off to search for a toe ring. No dice.

I ruffled my hair, frustrated. Maybe Diamond was right. She’d gotten rid of it, or kept it safe. Guess we’d have to trash her place after all. Great. I’ll go home and get my ski mask.

She convulsed, rolling her onto her back. She gurgled, her throat filling. Guilt salted my conscience. I’d seen enough paralytic idiots to know that if I left her like that, she’d drown.

I shoved my hand under her hip to flip her onto her side, and a sharp point tugged her dress taut over her belly. I stared and poked at it, and my claw clinked on metal.

A belly ring. My nerves strung tight. Maybe she did keep her gemstone safe. Close to her body, where no one would see it unless she wanted them to.

She stirred, moaning, and fluttered a weak hand to her face.

My heart somersaulted. No way was I sticking my hand up her skirt. I already felt too much like a rapist. Instead I plucked at the silk, trying to tear a hole. The flimsy fabric was deceptively tough. I couldn’t get my claw through, and my efforts made her wriggle in her stupor, trying to fend me off. She wasn’t unconscious, just incapacitated. Probably hallucinating, her rational mind gibbering in fear. God knew what she thought I was.

Each wasted second itched the back of my neck. If she woke, I was screwed. And I had nothing sharp, not nail scissors or a knife. I tried both hands, stabbing my claw in. My left hand brushed her belly, and Jasper’s ring clamped down on my finger like icefire jaws.

Hellfire flashed my bones white-hot. I yelped and yanked away. My ring caught, and the silk tore with a sound like rending flesh.

A ragged hole gaped, showing her smooth belly. A golden spike pierced her navel, and in it winked a glittering tiger’s eye jewel.

Cruel demon laughter spun cackling psychosis in my head, and the echo of Kane’s kiss filled my mouth with ash. The tiger’s eye flashed at me, green and golden. Trembling, I fastened aching fingers around it.

Crimson screeched, her breath foul. A drooling death’s head grin split her lips, and she whiplashed up like a zombie and clawed for my throat.

I yelled, and scrabbled to get her off me, the gemstone slipping from my grasp. But her horrid wet fingers bruised my neck, digging in where the vampire’s cruel biteholes were almost healed. My skin tore, her sharp claws raking deep.

I fell backwards onto warm tiles. She tumbled on top of me, a dead sweating weight reanimated by foul demon magic. Diseased yellow smoke puffed from her wings. Her eyes rolled back, blossoming scarlet. She wasn’t conscious. Just fighting blindly for her soul.

My wings crumpled under me like paper. I wriggled my knee between her legs to lever her off. She fought, and my skull clanged the tiles. My throat swelled in her grip. I grabbed her hair and pulled, but she didn’t care, even when strands popped out.

My breath squashed to a tiny squeak. My chest heaved, but no air forced in, and I fought numbing nerves to think, plan, do anything but let her kill me.

But panic howled in my blood like a moonlit monster, obliterating my reason. Colors flashed, edges blurring starry. Wildly I kicked for her groin, but hit only muscle and bruising bone. Spit dribbled from her numb lips, splashing sugary into my mouth. I flapped my tongue frantically, but I had no air to spit it out.

My ears buzzed from oxygen deficit. Her weight crushed me. Desperate, I wormed one leg free and jammed my knee into her guts.

Her breath woofed out, lurching her off balance, and her grip on my throat loosened.

I gasped a welcome breath. Colored stars burst before my eyes. Blood and bile scorched my gullet, and I wound my hands in her long orange hair, thrust backwards with my wings, and kicked as hard as I could.

We tumbled in a backwards roll, a flail of limbs and hair. My ankle smacked into the wall. Pain exploded, but I hung on grimly. Her limp wings stuttered, but she couldn’t halt her fall, and I grabbed her around the neck and smacked her skull hard into the toilet bowl.

She jerked and lay still.

I panted, my lungs refusing to fill. Jesus Christ on a beanbag. I’d hit her pretty hard. She wasn’t moving. My pulse skittered like a frightened rabbit.
Please, don’t let me have killed her.

Her hair knotted around my fingers, slick and horrible like sunset seaweed. I flapped my hands, wild. It wouldn’t come off. My palms crawled, and I scrabbled at it furiously until it came free, but I could still feel her on me. Still taste her foul spit in my mouth, feel her cold feversweat smearing my skin.

A shiver rotted my spine. I wanted to scramble backwards, get as far from her as I could. But I fumbled with the jewel. Popped the stud open. Slid it out. A splat of bright blood came with it, oiling my fingers scarlet, and no matter how I wiped, it wouldn’t come off.

My ring cackled, horrid demon laughter swirling in my head like ash until I couldn’t see. Sickness salted my mouth. I scrabbled the doorcatch open, heels sliding in the sweaty mess, and burst out, stumbling against the sink in my haste to get away.

The mirrors showed me stark, my red hair disheveled, fresh bruises smearing my throat scarlet and black. Crimson’s jewel squirmed, scorching my hand. I stuffed it into my bag, trying to ignore the tiger’s eye’s accusing glare. Great. Now I’m a thief as well as a murderer.

I straightened my dress and splashed my face, trying to regain some semblance of cool. I struggled for a few seconds to calm my breath and still my shaking hands, before I scraped my hair as neat as I could and walked out.

Lights glared. The gaming floor’s business carried on without a hiccup. No one stared or pointed or yelled. They all kept playing, laughing, drinking, money changing hands under glittering lightbulbs.

Weak relief cooled my skin, and I realized I’d expected to be jumped on, pinned down in a hail of bullets like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Fairy.

I straightened my bag, my new jewel whispering hot rebellion inside, and took a few tentative steps. No one looked at me. My heart thudded. I kept walking, around the roulette tables and away, peering across the crowd for the glitter of rosepink glass.

Where was Diamond? I’d almost forgotten he’d said he’d watch me. I snorted, indignant. Fine bunch of help he was. If he’d left me here, I’d kill him. Y’know, once I’d escaped from hell and all.

Behind me, a door crashed and a woman screamed.

My stomach leapt into my throat. Heads turned. I fought not to look around, and kept walking, clutching my bag to my lap. The woman kept yelling. “Help, someone, there’s a girl beat up in here!”

A pair of human security guards appeared from nowhere, guys in dark brown suits with curly wires behind their ears. My cheeks burned, culpability painted all over my face in sweat and blood. They’d see it, stop me, push me to the ground. Crimson’s blood scorched my fingers, and I wanted to tear my guilty skin off and scrub it clean.

Doors swung. Footsteps scraped tiles. And then another yell, a high-pitched voice that chilled my blood. “That’s her! I seen her! She done it!”

My head whizzed around.

The white fairy girl pointed at me through the crowd, that silly purple lipstick a bright slash on her pale face. The security guys looked up and fastened twin black gazes on me.

15

I didn’t think. I just bolted.

Colors blurred and melted. Tables and stools loomed at me from dazzling neon, and I tripped and banged into people but stayed on my feet. My heart shot rapid bullets in my chest. My earpoints twitched backwards, hunting for pursuit. Relentless footsteps, commands, voices talking into intercoms and radios. I threw a stool down behind me, hoping to obstruct them like I’d seen on TV. Did that even work? Who the fuck knew?

I flung my head this way and that, hunting for an exit. The gaming floor went on and on. Where the fuck was the door?

My throat swelled as I ran, my bag bumping my hip. I’d never make it out. They’d catch me and lock me up and some dirty prison bitch would rape me and scratch my face and rip my wings off strip by bleeding strip, only I wouldn’t care, because Kane would drag my sorry ass to hell in a couple of days anyway.

A warm hand grabbed my wrist and pulled.

I swooped, tumbling on desperate wings into a half-hidden service corridor, and rammed against the wall into a hard rosescented body.

“Zero outa ten for stealth, partner.” Diamond held me close around my waist, his wings glimmering violet.

I choked, my senses drunk. My body pulsed warm, his scent flowing over me in a hot caress. Damn it if I wasn’t pleased to see the cocky lying bastard.

Damn it twice if I’d let him see it. I scowled, my pulse still racing. “Fine help you were.”

“Got caught up. You okay?”

At least he asked, unlike Jasper. “Yeah.”

“Get your shiny?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Nice. C’mon, then. Scramblicate. These losers won’t give up.” And he grabbed my hand, and we ran.

Tables gave way to rainbow slot machines, gamblers mesmerized by flashing lights and burbling tunes. A few looked up as we hurtled by, but most kept on staring and punching buttons, backlit graphics rolling. I snickered, mad.
Never mind the murderer, Mr. Security Guard, I’ve got three bananas! Jackpot!

Giggles tore breath from my lungs. Diamond tugged me between two rows of machines, where a door quartered the white wall with a red sign proclaiming EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY! THIS DOOR IS ALARMED!

I cackled, helpless.
Be alert, not alarmed!
“We can’t go out that way. They’ll know.”

But Diamond dragged me to a steel panel on the wall, and I laughed still more. Fire alarm.

Diamond ripped the metal cover off and jammed glassy fingers into the exposed circuits. Current arced blue, backlighting his skin.

I gasped, my hair springing on end. “Jesus, don’t—!”

But it didn’t zap him. Current didn’t flow in glass. And he forced his claws around a handful of sparking metal wires and ripped them out.

For a moment, nothing happened.

And then, all the lights in the room snapped out, and with a hiss and a happy thump of pressure, the fire sprinklers erupted.

Water splashed. Alarms wailed, electric. People screamed in the dark. And everyone started pouring for the exits.

Diamond grinned at me through a blinding mist of spray. I grinned back. And together we crashed our shoulders into the metal-barred door and tumbled out into the black marble lobby.

The door slammed shut behind us. The dark glass ceiling towered, three stories high and filled with a dazzling purple light and water display. Narrow water columns burst from the shining tile floor, spurting high in glittering arcs, and from above, light poured in elliptical patterns, shimmering violet and magenta on hanging sparkles and crystal sculptures. Bubbly aquarium music played, and fresh cool air caressed my fevered skin. Outside, the moon shone brilliant, almost perfectly round, illuminating the glass orangebright.

Inside, the evacuation alarm still screeched, a hellish discord piercing through the music. Around us, people milled, gamblers spilling into the lobby from the gaming floor.

Swiftly, we ducked into the thickening crowd. Security people ran and searched, their radios chattering overtime. Diamond pulled me close, his arm around my waist. We were both wet, and his skin slid warm on mine. My scalp prickled as his crystalline glamour settled over us, and we shimmered out of sight, a faint pink glow crisping my vision’s edge.

I bumped into a brownsuit, and my pulse jerked. But he just pointed and shouted directions, his gaze sliding over us without a blink.

Diamond’s satisfied laugh warmed my ear, and together we hustled for the front door.

We darted across the street at the pedestrian lights, the bridge’s traffic thin but constant even this late at night. Sweat broke on my skin in the heat, and the moon thrummed sweet delight in my veins. Already, the hungry dry air sucked the moisture from my sodden clothes.

Behind us on the wide gray pavement outside the lobby, people milled under spotlights, the tall glass façade looming overhead. The security people had apparently given up hunting the Ladies’ Room Smiter and were concentrating on evacuating hundreds of people from the casino floor, and as we skipped down the graystone walkway to Southbank, twin red fire trucks screeched over the bridge from the city, sirens pealing and lights flashing red and white.

I giggled and danced, elated, Diamond’s hand still warm in mine. My hair hung in sticky ringlets, and I shook my head wild. On our left, the river shone darkly, city lights reflecting orange and yellow, the footbridge’s purple stripe arcing high toward the big blue cube of the aquarium. Ahead, Southbank lay almost deserted, the strip of restaurants and pubs closed for the night, the pavement cleared of chairs and tables.

Apartment blocks gleamed, tall and bright, the immense bladelike height of Eureka Tower stabbing deep into moonlit sky. I could even see Jasper’s building below it, marble and shining glass. A few folks strayed, some kids on skateboards weaving their curves, a pair of naked fairies splashing each other silly in the warm dank river with garbage tangled in their hair. Distant thunder rolled, a storm flashing to the south.

All was normal. We’d escaped.

My moonrich blood still throbbed with excitement, and panic’s rich echo tingled warm and seductive in my limbs. Tricking people was hard. Being chased was terrifying. Slamming that woman’s skull into the porcelain made me want to throw up.

But getting away with it was exhilarating. The moon tempted me to wildness. I wanted to laugh, frisk my wings, hop and jump and shake my sweaty hair until it crackled.

Did that make me a bad person?

Crazy giggles frothed in my chest, and I couldn’t swallow them.

“Nice work, candy.” Diamond snapped his glamour off in a puff of glitter and laughed. I couldn’t help noticing it lit his face, those perfect crystal cheekbones glinting.

“Toldya not to call me that.” This was exactly the sort of naïve excitement that got me in trouble with Jasper, and I scowled, trying to brush it off. But his glee was irresistible, apparently, because I kept laughing, and some flighty and wicked creature twirled crazy orbits in my heart.

He poked my ribs, teasing. “Candy. You were fucking magnificent.”

Stupidly, his praise blushed my wings tender. Like he knew anything about me, magnificent or otherwise. I tried another glare. “Like you saw anything. Coulda used your help in there, flash.”

“Sorry. Toldya, I got tied up.”

“Oh, yeah? Doing what?”

“Phone. Couldn’t helpify.” A violet flush darkened his face, and he wouldn’t look at me. More evasion. Damn it.

A solitary banshee cruised past on in-line skates, crooning to herself, applegreen hair flowing in the night air. Her magical lovesong dragged fresh longing through my blood. I wanted to be mad at him, but it wasn’t easy, not the way he flittered so close to me, all shiny and glowing and muscled up. Not the way he smelled, so dark and seductive, a mouthwatering feast I wanted to devour. Not with that damn moonlight caressing me slow and deep, hypnotic, stealing my soul like a demon lover.

“Oh, sure. That nastyfae cow nearly ripped my head off in there. Look.” I cocked my chin up and pointed at my bruises, trying to ignore the pulse that pounded in my throat.

“Said I was sorry, didn’t I? You handled it great. Got your shiny, didn’t ya?” He grabbed my hand and twirled me, my skirt flaring out like a salsa dancer’s, and instinctively I stretched my wings out to catch the breeze, wafting a few inches in the air on a gloriously warm updraft. I wanted to spin, fly, tumble somersaults in dizzy delight.

I landed with a flutter and scowled again, trying not to smile as he danced me backwards in his fragrant pink shadow. I wouldn’t have escaped without him. No need to show him I knew that. “No thanks to you.”

“But you did. And we escapamated, didn’t we? Scarpered? Pissed off outa there under their silly human noses?”

“But they could still catch us—”

“Don’t you ever stop worrying?” He spun me again and tipped me backwards over his arm, and uncomfortable Jasper-flash warmed me. But Diamond’s shining hair rained over my face, so warm, so unexpectedly soft and fragrant, and his strong arm supported my back, and I knew this was different. For fun, not for show. For Jasper, everything was selfishness, calculation, done to make him look good.

Diamond acted on impulse, and to hell with tomorrow.

His prismed light dazzled me, and suddenly my head swam with the scent of roses and hot, willing male flesh.

He swept me to my feet, and dizzy temptation swirled. I stumbled against him, laughing, and when he tugged me back against the wall with him in a bright patch of moonlight and played idle fingers into my hair, I didn’t push him away.

Delight warmed me, stained delicious with his tempting rosy scent. I felt like I’d done something naughty and fun for once in my life, and guess what? No one cared. No one disciplined me. No one slapped me or put me in the corner or sent me to bed without any supper. The rules I lived by had dissolved.

Including the one that said
Don’t play with dirtysexymad fairy boys
.

“Toldya it’d be fun.” Diamond captured my fingers and kissed them, lingering on the soft places inside my knuckles, and tingles crept up my arm, dangerous.

“Umm … don’t do that.” But desire sprang alive deep in my belly. I shivered, cold and burning at the same time. I felt strange, reckless, fevered. Just the moon, playing sexy tricks in my blood, like the night I’d met Jasper. Right?

“Why not?” He kissed inside my wrist, and longing rippled so deep in my soul, I nearly cried out. I had a hundred reasons why not, and I couldn’t think of a single one.

What was wrong with me? I’d only just ditched one controlling boy. I couldn’t succumb to another. Was he casting some treacherous glamour on me? I didn’t know or care. I just wanted to dance into his embrace and let him make me his.

Stop it, idiot.
That cross, sensible voice scolded me again.
Walk away before you do something you’ll regret. Your boyfriend died tonight, remember? You’re exhausted, hurt, confused. You’re in no state to know what you want.

But I was.

I’d stopped loving Jasper the night he hit me for the first time. The rest was just habit and infatuation. For so long, I’d painted and prettied and molded myself into the girl someone else wanted—the girl I had to be to survive—that I’d almost forgotten there was a real me inside, one who wanted and hoped and dreamed for herself. But tonight, with my heart still pounding and the moon rippling sweet anarchy in my blood, I knew exactly what I wanted.

And I wasn’t the only one.

“Kiss me, Ember.” Diamond’s whisper burned my collarbone, and I shivered with anticipation. “Know you wanna.”