Page 28 of A Study of Blood and Ichor

A terrible, crooked smile crept onto Rory’s face, and I pressed further back into my seat. Vain was truly a nightmare in human flesh, and yet I was unable to look away.

“You may have made your mark on me, mellilla,” Vain said. “But if you wish to test my thinning patience, then by all means, keep calling me pathetic. I can promise that your punishment will be slow and agonizing if you do. You can take my word on that.” It was a threat and a promise, and each syllable made my skin crawl.

Vain’s black eyes receded, and Rory’s gray ones reappeared as quickly as they had vanished. The lights stopped flickering, but not before Jessica cast another furtive glance in our direction.

“I will never understand how you can stand that thing being inside of you.”

“I’ll only warn you once,” Rory began as he picked up his silverware again. “If you respect me, then you’re going to respect Vain too. He may be a demon, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to allow you to treat him like he’s somehow lesser.”

“But it’s a demon—”

Rory waggled the dull knife at me. “Manners, witch, or I’ll put this through your pretty little throat.”

I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “He’s a demon.”

Rory lowered the knife and cut into his waffles. “I’m well aware,” he said before he stuffed a decently sized bite into his mouth, nearly swallowing it whole. “I also don’t expect you of all people to understand. Vain is…he’s a part of me. It’s kind of hard imagining my life without him.”

“You know that’s what a demon would want you to think, right? That you’re too weak and worthless on your own, so your only option is to let them in and keep you hostage.”

“So, you think I’m pathetic?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It was implied.”

I slumped back into the booth and tried not to roll my eyes at him. “It’s Manipulation 101. Demons are selfish and cruel. They take what they want, even if that means hurting you in the process, and they’ll chew you up and spit you out after they’ve taken everything from you. Vain is not your friend.”

“I never said he was.”

“You didn’t have to.”

It was my first attempt at trying to weasel out what I suspected might be the truth.

Rory huffed out a short laugh through his nose. “Look at that. A witch who thinks she’s smart.”

“You’re almost as insufferable as Vain is, you know that?”

“The key word is almost,” Rory said and then winked at me.

I wasn’t hungry, but I refused to snap at him like a petulant child, so I resorted to shoveling a few bites of pie into my mouth instead. If this was apparently the best pie this town had to offer, then they had my deepest pity. Trying to swallow down the gummy filling and stale crust was similar to how I imagined eating glue and cardboard might be. Jessica was a goddamn liar.

“You’re chewing angrily,” Rory said in a sing-song voice.

“Shut up.”

He laughed and shook his head. After Rory practically licked both plates clean and emptied his mug, he swiveled in his booth to glance around the diner, one arm propped up on the back of the booth.

“Vain says that there’s a motel about ten miles down the road. We’ll need somewhere to lay low until Alastair arrives with the jet.”

My first question should have been, “You have a jet?” or “Who the hell is Alastair?”, but instead I said, “There is no way we’re walking ten miles down some dark, mountain road in the middle of the night.”

Rory’s eyes glinted when he looked back at me. “Who said anything about walking?”

When Jessica re-entered the kitchen, Rory sidled over to the lonely man at the bar.

“Excuse me, sir.” Rory laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. He turned with a grimace already set on his round face at a stranger’s approach. “I’d like your keys please.”

It was so faint that I almost didn’t hear it. The tone of his voice was all wrong—unnaturally and demonically wrong.

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