“Show a little respect, Glory.” Greg backed away at a look from Simon. “But not my business. Call me when you need me to drive her home, sir.” Simon just stared and Greg scurried away.
“So this is the dog you’re so attached to.” Simon turned his attention to Valdez. The dog whimpered, tucked his tail between his legs and lay next to my feet. And wasn’t that a creep-out?
“And you’re the man Florence is so attached to. Funny, but you don’t look like Brad Pitt to me. More like Jeremy Blade.”
Simon smiled. “It’s one of my many gifts, Gloriana. I can sense a woman’s hidden desires and become the man she wants.” He stared at me for a moment. “You’re very busy blocking your thoughts, Glory. Hiding something?” He walked closer and touched my shirt. “Take this off. Kaplan might have missed something.”
I shrugged and tore the T-shirt off over my head and tossed it aside. I knew from the tiny movements under it, that I ’d flung Richard away with it. He was a vamp. He’d land on his feet and figure out what to do.
“Wonder Woman.” Simon actually licked his lips and I got a glimpse of forked tongue that made me shudder. “I’d enjoy a little hand-to-hand with a superheroine.”
“Hand-to-hand?” I felt strangely disconcerted, talking to a Jerry clone, a man I ’d lusted for since my Globe days. Hidden desires? I’d need to mull that over later. “Or did you have something a little more personal in mind?”
Simon laughed and took my arm. “Come now, you wouldn’t think to barter your body for your dog’s power, would you?” He led me toward the mosque. “I have much more interesting uses for you than sex.” He stopped and looked me over. “Though I like a woman with curves. That Kevlar definitely piques my interest.”
He smiled and I almost threw up on his brown suede loafers. Another way I knew it wasn ’t Jerry. Jerry didn’t own a pair of Gucci loafers. Yet. I looked back at my dog lying with his head on his paws. Worth it? I hoped to hell I didn’t have to find out.
“Relax, Gloriana. I’ve plenty of willing women if I’m in the mood to indulge my . . . appetites.” He focused on my chest and I wondered if he had X-ray vision. “Like your friend Florence. A most interesting woman. But troublesome. She’s convinced me I’d be wise to pay more attention to my business and less to my own urges for a while. Come along. ” He pulled me toward a gold door.
“Wait! How troublesome? I want to be sure Flo’s all right.” Smiling Simon was seriously creeping me out and that gold door looked like the portal to hell or a little shop of horrors or something. No way was I going inside. I just bet that Honoria was in there, ready to gobble my power, then snack on my lifeless body for dessert.
Simon squeezed my arm and smiled. “I can sense it, Glory. All your untapped power. You will be a wonderful source. Because you won’t shape-shift.”
I looked at Valdez who’d stayed on the ground next to my shirt. Now he was sniffing it and rooting around like he’d got a whiff of mouse.
Simon rubbed my arm, tightening his grip when I tried to wrench it away. “I understand your fear of shifting. What if you were injured while in another form? Or”—he nodded toward Valdez—“met with an unfortunate accident and lost your power.” He smiled. “You’d be stuck forever as something less than human.”
I shuddered and looked away from Simon’s gleaming eyes. He had a mesmerizing voice and a knack for ferreting out my deepest desires and fears. And—hell’s bells—I felt a pull. Oh, God. I’d almost leaned toward him.
“I want to see Flo.”
“Of course. I admire your loyalty.” He snapped his fingers and a man emerged from one of the smaller buildings on the edge of the clearing. Flo sagged against him.
“Glory?” She shoved away from the man and ran to me. “Honey, what are you doing here? I’d hoped you wouldn’t—” She turned on Simon. “Bastard! Why are you doing this? Leave my friend alone.”
“Do you feel bad, Florence? Do you want something from me, perhaps?” Simon reached out the hand not gripping me. Flo whimpered, sounding way too much like Valdez had a few moments before. “Simon, honey, please. I’m hurting.” She actually ran to his side and clutched his hand. “I can make you feel good, baby.” She leaned close and whispered, then rubbed herself against him.
“Not interested.” He released me and snapped his fingers again. The man who’d stood silently by came forward to drag Flo off of him.
“Simon! Why?”
“You bore me, Florence.” Simon smiled at me. “I have someone more interesting here now. We’re about to arrange a trade.”
Flo screeched. Yep, like a smoke detector during a four alarm. In her vocabulary Simon had just insulted her in the worst possible way. “Bore you? Why, I’ll rip out your heart, bastardo. I hate you.” Flo sank to the ground, sobbing and muttering in Italian. Obviously she didn’t have enough strength to rip out anything.
I wanted to run to her and comfort her, but one look at Simon and I knew what I had to do.
“Like I should trust you to make a fair trade.” I looked around. More men had come out of the scattered outbuildings. Women too. Even Greg had made an appearance. Some were armed too. With stakes sharpened to a chilling point.
“You don’t have to trust me, Glory. Now that you’re here, you’re mine.”
“I don’t think so.” I concentrated. Shape-shifting. I hated it. Was terrified of it. And the last time I’d tried it, I’d failed miserably. But the stakes were higher this time. Every other vampire I knew did it without a second thought. I had to concentrate. Will myself to change. If ever I was going to do it, now was the time. And not some puny bird or bat. Nope. I needed to go for broke. Something enormous. That would drain my power and keep me safe from EV siphons and give me some leverage with Simon the
bastardo.
I concentrated harder. With a scream that made even me flinch, I morphed into . . . a creature I ’d seen on the Discovery Channel.
“Now you’ve done it, Gloriana. You’ll never see your friend cured or your dog restored.”
“Oh, won’t I?” I flapped my wings—got to love that wing span—and rose in the air above Simon. Before he could move, I had him in my talons and carried him high above that shiny gold dome of his.
“Bad choice of homestead, Simon. That pointy thing on the top is gilded wood, isn’t it?”
“Put me down. Help!”
His army stared up at us, then a veritable bat brigade swooped in from the night sky. My shirt jumped. Richard was a man again and beside Flo, pulling her into his arms. One by one, the bats became men and women I recognized. With the advantage of surprise, they managed to disarm Simon’s band.
“Cowards. Take them down. Don’t just stand there.” Simon was trying to grab my claws. “Do you want to feel Honoria’s wrath?”
“Careful, Simon. Look down. If I drop you now, you’ll be skewered. I don’t think EV power means much if you have a stake through the heart, does it?”
He stopped moving. I had him by his jacket. A nice Versace that would have sold in my shop in a heartbeat. That is if it didn ’t have those rips where my talons were clutching it. I felt it rip some more.
“Oh, hell. I may drop you anyway.”
“Don’t be hasty, my dear. I can help your dog friend, you know. And I doubt anyone else can.”
“Prove it.” I swooped over the clearing, then hovered over the dome again. I could see Valdez next to Flo. She’d calmed down, Richard’s arms around her. One by one, I identified my friends who had come to help. No sign of Frederick. But Derek was there, Bela, Will, Damian, Diana and . . . Blade, the real one, not the Blade look-alike. He stood by the gold doors and looked up at me like he wanted to throttle me or kiss me or both.
“Kaplan. Get your ass out here and give Valdez your power.” Simon in command mode was apparently hard if not impossible to resist.
“You sure, boss? What’s to keep Glory from dropping you anyway?”
Simon looked up at me. He didn’t look like Jerry now. More like a weasel with a receding hairline. “Good question. I want some guarantees.”
“So do I.” I made another swoop, this time letting the top of the spike brush Simon’s loafers.
“I guarantee to give Florence the antidote and to release her.” Simon looked down. “I think her former lover may be willing to take her back.”
Richard was holding Flo like he’d never let her go and she seemed to be taking a lot of comfort from him. He looked up at me and sent me a mental message to be careful. Yeah, right. Now he remembered me.
“And Valdez? I want a show of faith. Have Greg fix him first.”
“Gloriana, drop him. I’ll take care of the worthless bastard. ” Blade stared up at me, his hands fisted by his sides. I checked out the area. I couldn’t believe it, Mara wasn’t with him.
“No, I’ve got to get Valdez back to normal.” I swooped again, but I felt tired, like this really had drained me in a new and notso-nice way. I wiggled a talon and Simon shrieked.
“Don’t drop me!” He looked up and tried to whammy me. I could tell. I just brushed past the dome again.
“Fix Valdez.”
“Kaplan, do it.”
Greg grabbed Valdez’s leash and pulled him into the domed building. I heard a humming sound. God knows what kind of device the EVs had in there. A fistfight broke out between Blade and one of Simon’s followers. Maybe an EV. I didn’t know or care, but I was relieved when Blade managed to knock out the other guy.
Obviously the EVs were so busy turning their power into saleable commodities, they didn ’t reserve a whole lot of power for themselves. Take Simon, for instance. No way could I have held a vamp like Jerry this way. No matter what form I took, he ’d have managed to do me one better and overpower me.