The upper portion of the torso lay smashed and scattered about the room, no remaining piece bigger than my thumb. I let out a soft moan of grief for the loss of such incredible work. I bent to examine the intricacy of the sculpture that remained. I’d always been impressed by the statues from the Renaissance and the realism of the draped fabric in marble, but this totally kicked Michelangelo’s ass. I peered at the design on her skirts. It was an intricate, twining pattern…
I heard a scrape of noise from behind me, and I whirled. I caught a fleeting image of someone standing in the doorway right before something hard struck me in the chest—
* * *
I jerked awake, hands flying to my breastbone as I gasped in a ragged breath, absolutely certain I’d feel a crossbow bolt or a dagger sticking out. Nothing there except for a phantom tingling. I rubbed the heel of my palm against my chest and sat up, gulping for breath in the welcome crush of relief. Just a dream. I wasn’t summoned in my sleep.
It was still dark outside, but the alarm clock on my nightstand showed that it was a few minutes before five a.m. Didn’t matter. I knew I wouldn’t be doing any more sleeping.
The house ticked with silence as I padded to the kitchen to make coffee. Maybe I should head into the office. Or the gym. Anything to distract myself right now. I was trying hard to go to the gym at least once a week. More often it ended up being every other week—just frequently enough for me to be sore all over again from working out. I needed to do something to keep myself from thinking about the dream and everything else that had been revealed to me. I’d wanted answers, and I was possibly getting them, but in horrible vague ways that only made things more confusing. What the fuck did any of it mean?
I actually got as far as pulling my gym bag out of the hall closet when the front door opened. I spun, holding the gym bag in front of me like a shield. Eilahn stepped in, then gave me and the bag an amused look.
“Are you planning to defend yourself with sweaty clothing?” she asked, closing the door behind her.
I lowered the bag, abruptly realizing that I had forgotten to take my yucky gym clothes out of the bag after the last time I’d worked out. Which had been about two weeks ago. Okay, might be safest just to throw the whole bag out at this point. “I thought you were still asleep,” I said.
The demon suddenly grinned. “I have been busy. I have a surprise for you!” She darted forward and seized my hand, tugged me toward the living room. “Close your eyes!” she commanded.
“Um. Seriously?” I asked, eyeing her dubiously.
She stopped and frowned. “Yes. You must close your eyes. I am quite certain that this is how surprises are revealed.”
Smiling weakly, I complied. The demon continued to lead me forward.
“Now, open them!”
I did so. And stared. “Wow.” I didn’t know what else to say.
The demon was practically vibrating in excitement. “Is it the correct sort of tree?” she asked. “Are the decorations appropriate? I perused many magazines and websites in an effort to determine what would be the best look for this space.”
“Eilahn. It’s…perfect!” And it was. She’d acquired a tree—the most symmetrical and perfect blue spruce I’d ever seen—and decorated it with white and blue lights, tiny gold stars, sparkly balls of dark blue and red, and silver ribbons. Pine garlands made graceful swoops along the wall near the ceiling, with delicate paper snowflakes hanging from them. Dark red ribbon had been painstakingly tucked around the door in exquisite swirls, topping the door with a perfect bow. On the desk, she’d placed ceramic figurines of angels, and red, green, and gold candles of every shape and size filled the mantel, gracefully accenting the pictures already there.
And in the corner by the fireplace, stood a brand new Kitty Kondo, with Fuzzykins perched on it as if to say, “Yes, I did all this.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I can’t believe you did all this in one night!”
Her grin was ecstatic. “And there’s more!” She took me by the hand, then stopped, fished the cuff out of my bag by the door, and snapped it around my wrist. “Close your eyes again!”
Laughing, I obeyed and allowed myself to be led outside and down the steps. About a dozen steps away from the house she turned me around and announced, “Now, open your eyes!”
It took everything I had to keep from bursting out laughing as I took in what she’d done to my house and the immediate surroundings. Where the inside decorations had been lovely, tasteful, and utterly beautiful, the outside was…well, I had a feeling my house could now be seen from orbit. The roof was barely visible beneath the carpet of lights, “icicles” of more lights streamed down the sides of the house, and a gigantic Santa—complete with waving arm—filled the porch. Surrounding the house were blow-up snowmen, enough reindeer to pull ten sleighs, giant candy canes, and several neon-green trees that flashed in chaotic patterns.
Eilahn looked at me expectantly. “It’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen,” I said, completely truthfully. “I love it,” I said, and I even meant it. Sort of.
On impulse, I gave her a hug and was more than a little surprised when she hugged me right back.
“Now I need to ask you something of a more serious nature,” I said after we finished with the hugging stuff.
In an instant she was back to being the serious demon bodyguard. “Let us return inside. You are barefoot, and it is chilly.”
Demon bodyguard Mom. I hid a smile, returned inside, and continued on down the hallway to the kitchen. “It’s pretty obvious that whoever’s behind these murders is some sort of arcane practitioner,” I said as I poured myself a cup of coffee. “And considering that I was attacked by that graa—”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “I believe you were also dosed with something, though I do not believe it was exactly the same substance as the other victims.”
I turned around. “Um. Yeah, I had this whole long explanation that I was going to use to convince you that the whole thing was related, but I guess I don’t need to go into that now.”
“You do not. I also believe that the cuff has been muting the effects.”
“Right,” I said. “Because, as far as I can tell, I’ve gone batshit at least three times—I threw my coffee at Roman, I attempted to molest Ryan, and I went off on Rhyzkahl.” I grimaced. “And each time it’s been when I wasn’t wearing the cuff.”
“Yes. And I do not believe that any of these were specific, directed attacks—merely episodes brought on by the loss of inhibitions that this drug apparently causes.”
“In other words,” I said, “you don’t think I was drugged specifically to make me want to sleep with Ryan.”
Her mouth twitched. “I think that, with the cuff off, your normal iron self-control was lowered.”
I snorted softly and sat at the table. “The question now is, what the hell do we do about it?”
“We should go eat pancakes,” the demon said.
“Pancakes?”
She nodded firmly. “Everything is better with pancakes.”
“I’m not about to argue with you,” I said. “You making?”
“No,” she said with a smile. “You are buying.”
Chapter 14
Lake O’ Butter pancake house was fairly well populated at seven a.m. on a Tuesday morning, though fortunately there still seemed to be a few available tables. Probably another hour before they really hit a rush, I figured. The welcoming scents of butter and coffee hugged us as we walked in, along with the clatter of plates and the clipped commands of the short order cook. Formica tables looked like they’d been salvaged from a fire sale, the vinyl chairs had more cracks than an old woman’s heels, and the silverware was usually battered and bent, but the pancakes were fluffily sinful, the cooks used real butter, and the blueberry syrup was made from a patch in the owner’s back yard. For breakfast it was nothing short of luscious. Lunch or dinner was another matter entirely. I’d only made the mistake of ordering a tuna salad sandwich here once.
A waitress grabbed menus, and gave us a thin-smiled order to follow her. I started to comply, then paused at the sight of Roman at a table in the corner. He had his back to me and papers spread out on the table in front of him. Guilt shuddered through me at my behavior the other day. “Eilahn, give me a minute, okay?”
She followed my gaze, gave a slow nod. “I will order coffee for you,” she said.
She knew me too well.
Taking a deep breath, I walked to his table. “Hi, Roman.”
He lifted his head, gave me an uncertain and cautious look. He looked tired and had a faint dusting of stubble on his chin. “Er, hi, Kara.”
“I’m sorry,” I said in a rush. “I don’t know why the hell I did that to you yesterday.”
Giving a self-conscious laugh, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe because I deserved it?” He gestured toward the seat opposite him. I slid onto it, relieved, then shifted as a wayward crack of vinyl poked my backside.
“No, you really didn’t,” I said as I found a more comfortable spot. “People ask for that sort of thing all the time. And, to be honest, we do it all the time. Not fixing it, but it’s not that tough to get tickets reduced, depending on your driving record. That sort of thing.”
“It’s all right,” he said, meeting my eyes. Some of the fatigue seemed to have cleared from his expression. “I can afford it, and I was speeding.”
“Okay, but still,” I said, “last time I checked, the standard punishment for speeding didn’t include getting scalded with hot coffee.”
He cast his eyes upward, and pretended to consider. “Well, maybe when you factor in court costs… .” He chuckled and dropped his eyes back to me. “Seriously, though, apology accepted.”
“Thanks.” I skimmed my eyes over the papers in front of him without being too obviously intrusive. There was a stack of what looked like account statements, and some letters that looked like they were from law firms. “What’s all this? One of your investments?”