“That’s right, I can end this,” I said, still not taking her hand. “I’m glad you realize that. And I’m truly glad to have met you.” Even if you are crazier than a June bug fighting a porch light. “Give me Zack, and I’ll leave.”
“Mmmm,” she said again, hand dropping. Behind her, Pike’s foot scraped the tile floor, and I swear, her eye twitched. “Don’t underestimate me. Those who do—”
“Don’t live long,” I interrupted, causing a gasp from her followers, but I was tired of catering to the egos of the undead, especially the crazy ones. “I have the same problem.” I allowed a tinge of my own anger in my voice, but only a hint. That doll of hers had pegged my weird-shit-o-meter. “But when people underestimate me, they usually end up in jail, not a hole in the ground.” I retreated to give her the illusion of control. That, and to hide my pounding heart. “It’s still illegal to kill people in Cincinnati, Constance. Even those who can come back from it. Even those who deserve it. We’re taking Zack. Where is he?”
“Ah, Rachel?” Edden said from behind me, but my hands were fisted, sparks of energy from my chi dancing about my knuckles.
Jenks’s wings hummed as he swung between me and Edden. “If you want to walk around the corner for plausible deniability, that’s okay. Nash, Rache, and I got this.”
“I’m not leaving,” Edden muttered, but he was vulnerable, worrying me.
Constance’s eyebrows rose. Her chin trembled as her temper began to fray and the scent of frightened vamps thickened behind her. Pike looked both aroused and concerned, and when he made a small, pained noise, Constance smiled with an icy coolness. “Joni thinks you need to reconsider before she decides to teach you some manners,” she said, spinning to the woman at the back of what was left of her entourage. They all flattened to the walls, heads down as if not wanting to see what was coming. “Your promises are empty,” she said in her high voice, passing them slowly, stopping to finger the necklace of one of her followers pressed against the wall, head down and hardly breathing. “You have no power but what’s between your hands,” she added as she lifted the single strand of gold from around her neck and continued on. “And that’s not enough to hold a city.”
Smiling beatifically, Constance stopped before Joni, and the once beautiful woman stiffened, a soft, unhelped noise of fear making it past her suddenly clenched jaw.
“Look who you surround yourself with,” Constance said as she draped the necklace she’d just taken around Joni’s already overloaded neck. “A pixy? An elf and a human?” Making a soft hum of contentment, she tugged Joni’s wig back in place. “There you go. All pretty.”
Insulted, Jenks rasped his wings, and I flicked a finger to tell him to stay. Constance was whacked. No telling what she’d do.
“I say my choice of who I surround myself with makes me versatile, not weak,” I said, and she turned, a new anger creasing the small woman’s brow. “And I don’t need to hold the city. The city holds itself.”
“Cities do not hold themselves.” More people fled, but Constance was oblivious as she arranged Joni’s jewelry, patting each strand as if it was precious. “Joni, dear, you know I don’t like you sad,” she said, and the guard holding Joni tightened his grip as her eyes cleared. Suddenly terrified, she went pale under the makeup, pressing back into the man holding her as Constance used one finger to smear her lipstick into a perverted smile. “Much better.”
Tears spilled from the woman as Constance returned her attention to me. I couldn’t smile back. Not even in pretend. Not even if it might save my life. There wasn’t enough vampiric incense to drown out the fear and dull the reality that Constance heaped upon them.
“You!” she suddenly barked at the woman she’d taken the necklace from, and Pike made a frustrated sound, his fingers touching his inner jacket pocket. “You know I will not have animals surrounding me. Where is your jewelry?”
Everyone behind the poor woman fled, leaving only her obvious bodyguards, Joni, Pike, and Landon, the elf looking more and more as if he’d realized he had made a mistake.
“I—I’m sorry, ma’am,” the woman stammered, eyes wide and scared out of her mind as she stood alone in the hall. “I had a necklace this morning. It must have broken. It fell off!” she suddenly screamed, dropping to crouch at the floor when Constance stepped toward her, fingers bent to gouge. “I had it this morning! It fell off! It fell off!”
My eyes shot to Pike as he jolted forward. “Meg, is this yours?” he said, a necklace twin to the one he had offered me now dangling from his hand. “I found it in the hall. I should have known it was yours. I’m so sorry for not giving it to you sooner.”
Constance’s hand fell, and the woman on the floor shook, head down and cowering.
“Here you go.” He dropped it over her head, and the woman gripped it, hand trembling as she quietly sobbed. I understood her quandary. Wear one and risk it being taken, or wear two and look as if she was asking for a bite. Chin high, Constance nodded.
“Tink’s little pink dildo,” Jenks swore, and Pike glanced at us as he helped the woman to her feet, clearly having heard him. His expression was a neutral nothing, but I could see the frustration in the back of his eyes, the anger that this was the woman he looked to, deranged and out of touch.
“Get out of my sight,” Constance said, and the woman fled. “Next time don’t lose your jewelry. It’s all that separates us from the animals!” she shouted after the woman as she ran, back hunched and heels clicking as she turned the corner and was gone.
I wondered if I should spin my ring back around, or leave it hidden. I’d fight her before letting her have it.
“My rooms stink,” Constance said as she walked to where Pike waited, as if the last five minutes hadn’t happened. “Break the spell you put on them, or I break the young elf.” She lifted an eyebrow, then confidently turned away. “I’m done here. Bring Joni to my quarters. She needs a new dress.”
Maybe it was the terrified woman standing before us with three pounds of jewelry around her neck and a red-smeared, painted smile on her face. Maybe it was because all I had was a pixy, an elf, and a human backing me. Maybe it was Landon, his eyes wide as he only now realized what he had promised his loyalty to. Or maybe it was because the only reason I got down here was because a Were I didn’t even know had sacrificed his health and freedom. But I’d had enough.
“Hurting Zack would be a mistake,” I said as her guards fell into motion behind her. “Almost as big as buying up property from under me.”
That stopped her, and she turned, her guards shifting out from between us. Even Joni was pulled to a halt, the woman’s wet eyes finding mine. “Get her out of my tower,” Constance said, and for an instant I thought I saw a hint of fear in her. Because I stood up to her, crazy and all?