My words choked off as Dali looked up, anger in his goat-slitted, red eyes.
“Okay, not afraid,” I hastily added. “But I’m not going to kill Constance. The city needs someone to keep the vampires in line. I don’t want to do it. And do you realize the garbage I’d have to put up with if I used magic to force my will on someone? Anyone? Cincy doesn’t want to be ruled. They want to be left alone, like me.”
“So don’t use magic to enforce your will.” Dali checked his wrist and a delicate watch misted into existence. “Though the subrosa is traditionally an accomplished spell slinger, his true power is found in silence. What is said under the rose is not spoken of. It is hidden. But it gets things done.”
I did not like his smile. And then he abruptly turned, and I scrambled to follow.
“He’s talking about a mob boss,” Jenks said, but that was pretty much what a city master vampire was.
I had to stretch my legs to keep up as he headed for the street and my car. “You think I should pound Constance into submission,” I said, pulse quickening. “Take control of the city. Protect it from itself? I’d be fighting every day of my life to stay out of jail. Every last day, Dali, forced to use stronger and more dangerous magic until I was just like you. An overbearing, paranoid, friendless, frightened demon. Circle complete!”
Again Dali jerked to a halt. I skidded to a stop. Jenks took to the air with a muffled curse, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. Dali looked ticked, eyes narrowed and hands clenched.
“Lookee there, Rache,” Jenks said to pull Dali’s attention from me. “The truth hurts.”
My chin lifted, but I didn’t dare tap a ley line. Dali would just smack me with it. He was stronger than me in every way you could count. Except for one. No, two. He couldn’t make a tulpa or hold another soul next to his without destroying it. No male demon could.
But the anger left him as his eyes lifted to the sky, seeing the sun in the new leaves, hearing the wind make them whisper. “Believe it or not, Rachel,” he said softly, “we had honor once. Long ago. When we were at our lowest. When we had nothing to put in our bellies but acorns and only rags between us and the cold. We had drive then. We had purpose. We were more than we are now when we had less. I find it odd—the things we lost when we gained supremacy over those who subjugated us. Power corrupts all it touches.”
I felt odd, as if something had changed without me realizing it. Behind him, a car passed, slow and uncaring. “Power doesn’t corrupt. Power brings what we are to the top, is all,” I said, thinking of all the ugly I had fought against. “Be it good or bad.”
“Just so,” Dali said softly, sounding like Al. “Either you take control of your city or she will drive you from it. And Rachel? A demon with nothing is nothing.”
I shook my head, arms over my middle. “The city has a master vampire,” I said. “Constance will keep everyone safe.”
“Perhaps.” Dali sent his gaze higher to the distant skyscrapers of Cincinnati. “But ask yourself. Who fares better under her rule?”
Herself, I thought. A handful of corrupt I.S. undead. Certainly not the Weres, witches, or even most of the vampires. Not me.
“Letting someone provide for your security is expensive,” he said, voice light. “I don’t think your ego will allow it. Are you prepared to kneel before that weak-willed shadow of nothing and mouth platitudes? Let her eat away at your soul as she does what you could do for yourself? Look the other way when she threatens that elven bastard’s out-of-wedlock children?”
“Hey!” I blurted, and Jenks’s wings hummed in anger. “You need to think about what’s coming out of your mouth,” I said, the tingle of ley line energy rising in me. I let it flow until my hair began to float, and he shook his head as if disappointed.
“You are an embarrassment,” he said abruptly. Again he looked at his wrist. “Look at what this ignored advice has cost,” he muttered. “I do not want to be late. I shall pop us there.”
“Oh, are we done with this now?” I said sarcastically.
“You. Here,” Dali said, finger pointing as he gestured for me to step closer so he could fling us through a ley line and across town.
“No.” I shook my head, and he stiffened in annoyance as Jenks snickered. “You’re not jumping me. I’m not traveling by line until Bis can teach me, and I will not be stranded, forced to take the bus, when you screw up and they tell you to leave.” Head down, I dug in my bag for my keys. “We have time to take my car,” I said, and he sighed dramatically. “Jenks, you’ve got the con,” I added, keys jingling as I found them.
“Aww, Rache,” he complained, and I shook my head.
“If you’re there, Dali will never hold the kid’s attention.” I turned to Dali. “Well, are we going or not?”
Dali looked at Jenks, and Jenks looked at Dali. “I’m not the Tink-blasted librarian,” Jenks grumped, then darted back to the church, his dust an annoyed yellow.
Thoughts full, I pushed past Dali, warming when we went by the trash and recycle bins. He was right about me not accepting protection from Constance, but I’d never said I wanted it. I only wanted her to leave me alone.
“I honestly don’t know how he fails to strangle her,” I heard him mutter, his steps whispering on the cool slate.
My arms swung confidently, but inside, my thoughts churned. There was no way I could be Cincinnati’s subrosa. It hadn’t been that long ago that I’d been standing at Fountain Square with half the city screaming for my head. I was struggling to keep off the street, and he thought I could take control of the city? Keep the peace? God! What a nightmare. The only reason the vampires could do it was because they had the backing of the I.S.
“It will take forever to get there in afternoon traffic,” Dali said when we found the cool shade of the carport. “I’m driving.”
“No, you aren’t.” I fitted my key in the lock and opened my door, thinking that the forty minutes it was going to take to get across town was going to be agony in my tiny car.
Dali stared, clearly put out. “You let Al drive your car.”
“You aren’t Al,” I said, then got in and yanked my door shut, waiting for him to go around and get in the other side. No. He wasn’t Al, and anger began seeping into me, rising from an old hurt as he huffed and half hopped his bulk in, promptly shorting out the MINI’s cheerfully dinging seat belt alarm with a quick puff of energy before adjusting his hat and robes.
Al should be the one helping me make stinky joke curses, not Hodin. Al should be the one checking on me to make sure I was alive after using Newt’s curse. Al should be berating my life choice of wearing an elf-charmed ring tied to the Goddess. And Al should be the one trying to convince me to magic up and be Cincy’s demon subrosa when I knew it was a really bad idea. Not Dali.