Page 2 of Demon's Bluff

“Where is Constance?” Brice said, her curt voice cutting into Victor’s latest accusation, and my attention snapped to her. “This needs to be settled.”

“She’s on her way.” I forced my fist to ease even as I tensed. This entire fiasco was Brice’s plan to get her and Constance in the same room. Maybe breaking the spell that had turned her into a mouse had been a mistake. The hidden threat was always more convincing than the visible one.

I gathered myself to rise and find a quiet corner to call Ivy…and then I blinked as Brice exhaled and every last thought I had seemed to melt.

Pike’s knees buckled. He caught himself against my chair, his breath going shallow as he fought off the undead woman’s sudden pull. All my exposed skin was tingling with a delicious sizzing sensation, and I froze as the memory of teeth sliding cleanly into me surfaced, a pang of desire going right to my groin. I forced my hand from my neck, embarrassed that I had put it there, one lone finger tracing a delicious path to my clavicle as if I was a vampire junky. Jenks would laugh his wings off if he were here.

“See?” Victor pointed at Brice as the undead woman stared, her gaze black in a hungry passion. “She’s doing it again! What scion can resist that? I swear I’m going to pull your fangs out and give them to my niece for her sweet sixteen.”

“I’m going downstairs,” Brad said suddenly, his eyes pupil black as he tossed his handheld game aside and stood. The pheromones were hitting him hard. He was getting randy. The restaurant, too, was getting loud. Between Brice and Victor, there were too many vamp pheromones in here. The air system could not keep up.

My hands trembled, and I didn’t dare take anything more than a shallow breath until I forced the memory of Ivy, and Kisten, and every undead vampire I’d ever run into from my thoughts. Pike, too, had gotten control of himself, and I felt a small flicker of victory even as Brad started for the stairs. Brice was good, but I’d fought better. She couldn’t maintain her pheromone level, and the air was clearing already.

“You good here?” Pike said stiffly as he went after Brad. Having him up here hadn’t been the best idea; leaving him downstairs was a worse one. The living vampire had no restraint, no memory—because of me.

I have to fix this,I thought, using my guilt to pull me out from the edge of Brice’s ecstasy. “Nice try, Brice. Maybe in another fifty years,” I said as I dropped my gaze to my phone, and the undead woman’s expression became livid.

“Where are you?” I texted Ivy, one hand on my phone, the other touching the butt of my cherry-red splat gun. It fired spells, not bullets: a witch’s ancient weapon made modern. Brice was clearly upset that she’d given meher best shot and that both Pike and I had brushed it away like the annoyance it was.

“She made me put on jewelry,” came back immediately. “Be there soon.”

Thank the Turn,I thought in relief as I set my phone on the table with a little click. Constance equated jewelry with being civilized. The vampire wore enough to bring down a camel. Quantity, not quality, was her motto.

But Pike had used Brad as an excuse to get behind Brice, and the woman’s eyes narrowed as she drummed her fingers once in a tight, bloodred-nail staccato.

“Relax.” I set my weapon beside my phone in an unspoken threat. “Both of you. I will not tolerate Constance walking in here with you at each other’s throats.” Because a blood exchange between two undead vampires would kill them both, as the two slightly different viruses that animated them battled with each other. It was how I had lost Kisten, and a flicker of heartache took me.Damn you, Elyse, for dangling the spell before me to bring him back.It was a lie. It had to be a coven trick. Even Al didn’t know the magic to recover the undead, even as a ghost.

“Constance is a puppet.” Brice’s expression held a mocking sureness. “Any justice you get from her will be at a witch’s grace, Victor. How sad. Going to a witch for justice?”

Behind her, Pike tried to coax Brad into sitting down again, but the older man was having none of it, wanting to fulfill the promise the undead pheromones had instilled in him.

“Constance will give me restitution,” Victor said, his pupils shrinking as his fear took over. “And if she doesn’t, you’ll wake up with a stake in your heart.”

Brice laughed, throwing her head back to show her long, scarred neck.

“Hey!” I shouted, and even Brad stopped arguing with Pike. “Bring it down a notch.” I reached a thought out to the nearest ley line, laying a sliver of my awareness in the ancient energy source and making me part of its loop. Power flowed through me, waiting for direction. It lifted through my curly hair, snarling it even through the straightener charm.

Victor seemed to rally as Brice settled deeper into her chair, my show of power giving her pause. “I don’t have anyone to take Sasha’s place,” the slim man protested. “That mid-century whore has sent me into a downward spiral I can’t escape.”

I sighed, knowing how that felt: frustrated, angry, out of control.

Brice mockingly sipped her drink. “If you can’t survive, you don’t deserve to.”

Victor’s eyes flashed to black.

“Pike!” I called as the mousy undead man lunged at Brice.

Brice had been expecting it, and she flung an arm out, beating Victor’s reaching grasp away. The man ran right into her raised knee, and his breath—which he didn’t really need—rushed from him in a whoosh.

I stood, splat gun pointed. I didn’t shoot since Brad had launched himself at Victor, the memory-challenged vampire oblivious to the danger as he grabbed the undead vampire’s arm and flung him away from Brice, the greater threat.

“You dare attack me!” Brice shrilled, rising to meet Victor if he should manage to get out from behind Brad and Pike—who had worked him into a corner. The music had gotten louder, thumps vibrating the floor as I stood before Brice, gun pointed and confidently shaking my head.

I knew she’d dodge the charm—she was an undead after all—but having the spell pistol in my hand gave me a feeling of strength. If she touched me, I would fry her with a jolt of ley line energy.

“Sit your ass down!” I demanded when Brice turned to the stairway, a flicker of fear marring her certainty. Constance was here. I could hear the calls downstairs welcoming her.

“I will not be governed by a witch.” Brice’s lip rose to show a glint of fang.

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