Page 7 of Pike

“Everyone gets lucky.”

“She’s a looker.” Ezollo waggled his eyebrows up and down until the motion blurred. “Not as pretty as the chick with the…you know…the legs up to her forehead. The one who comes dressed in her own shrink-wrap. She’s your Monday gal, am I right? Monday and Saturday.”

“Whatever. Look, I’m expected for dinner. At eight. Promptly.” Pike didn’t need to consult his calendar. He had the women’s schedules down to a science. He’d been tap-dancing his way through eternity since his conception in 1677. Since his mentor disappeared and he was forced to figure out the details of his existence on his own. “You know how Thursday gets when I’m late.”

“And you plan on being a little late,” Ezollo continued.

The Greek knew him too well. “It’s…fashionable.”

“Keeps them on their toes, you mean. I get it. You have to keep up your image. It’s all about image with you.”

“Image keeps me surviving into the next millennium.” Pike held his glass up for a toast, the sound of glass tinkling filling the space when Ezollo raised his own. The daemon also knew a thing or two about survival. How else would they have both ended up in modern-day America? “I’m sure we all want to be there to usher in the next epoch.”

“What does Lavinia say about your other girlfriends?”

Pike held up a finger, swallowing half of his beer before giving a response. “Lavinia is not my girlfriend, at least not yet.”

Lavinia was lovely. Lovely and fragile. Men looked at her when she walked by and wanted what they saw. It wasn’t just the natural allure she now possessed as a supernatural. It was something more. More than looks. More than genetics. More than magical happenstance.

Plump, rosebud-colored lips and large, haunting green eyes. It was part of the reason Pike was initially drawn to her. Not to mention the scent of her blood, which was heady and intoxicating. Then he’d noticed the heavy mane of black hair, the frayed jeans, and well-worn hiking boots.

She’d been perfect.

He’d approached when he sensed the time was right. The strobe lights flashed and bass from the stereo boomed. His hearing, better than the average paranormal male, was taking a beating with the sound. There was no way he could leave without a mark. A prospect for the future. Otherwise, he would cease to exist. He had a need that, if not met, would result in him departing the world and forfeiting his long, long life. He liked his life. He wanted to live.

His maker had turned him after a plague took the rest of his village. In his words—a smarmy Russian accent Pike had grown to hate—Pike was strong. Strong enough to withstand the vicious curse of immortality and learn to subside on a most unusual sustenance.

Then he’d seen Lavinia across the dance floor, felt a jolt of recognition, and knew she would be fulfilling. There was no other word to describe the strange feeling in his gut. Here she was again. The girl from the street. The one who’d been so flustered after first seeing him that she’d fallen and, oddly enough, couldn’t get up.

He’d been trying to figure out what she was ever since, what obscure magic was written in her blood, coursing through the cells of her body. She was more than a psychic. More than a gypsy fortune teller. She was nothing he’d ever seen before, and Pike had been alive for a long time.

The bartender huffed. “You are some kind of wonderful, you know that? Why the hell haven’t you snatched her up yet?” Ezollo phrased it less like a question and more like an accusation. A barbed reprimand on all the things Pike had done, and continued to do, wrong.

“Because she’s different. She would do anything for me. Anything.” Pike trailed his fingers along the rim of his glass. “The high I get from her is…intoxicating. There’s no other feeling like it. Not in the world. She’s special. I can’t rush it.”

“I don’t get it. Why not just zero in on the target and move in for the kill? So to speak.”

Pike scoffed. “Because my affliction isn’t like yours. We’ve had this discussion already. I need to plan.”

Ezollo saw Pike scanning the crowd. Searching for anyone who might cause a problem for them if they’d overheard the conversation. He raised his hands in front of him, scarred palms out. “Fine, you don’t need to tell me twice.”

“Apparently I do.”

After over three and a half centuries, Pike knew what to expect out of life: boredom, brief spasms of excitement, and the search for his next meal. There were dazzling highs where he was the toast of the town and heartbreaking lows where he knew what it felt like to starve. No matter what else happened, the cycle repeated. Always. Repetition was the one thing he could count on. Without any kind of salvation in sight, there was not much to live for. There were no risks to take. Nothing new under the sun. Therefore, he sat in the damn bar talking to a daemon bartender that wasn’t known for his discretion.

The tips of his fingers pressed into the beer glass, jaw aching from clenching too hard, too often. His stomach rumbled. It was time to eat. Past time, having gone too long between meals.

Pike sighed and tightened his control. He didn’t need any more attention coming his way, after the scene in the alley a couple of hours ago.

“Too bad you aren’t ready to give up your philandering ways and embrace monogamy,” Ezollo stated. His grin was the perfect parody of shit-eating. He grabbed a white towel from beneath the counter. Pretended to do his job and clean when really, he did little more than swirl drops of condensation around in a circle.

“No. I’m not.” Pike’s voice was hard and brooked no argument.

“I know the likes of you. I know what you are and what you do.”

“Sure you do. Daemons are notoriously bad for digging where they don’t belong. It’s what you’re known for.”

“I may dig, but at least I’m open about what I am.”

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