gray silk pouch. I knew before he undid the drawstrings what was waiting inside.
Riddle me this, television audience: How the fuck does a vamp steal from a member of the Unseelie Court and live to tell the tale? I know it was a question had me on the edge of my fucking seat. Sure, to the living, we might seem all that, but as nasties go—heinousness being relative—we’re really not so very far above ghouls, ourselves.
The wooden box wasn’t locked, the way it’d been when Selwyn handed it over to Skunk Ape, and Isobel Snow opened the lid. She grinned like a kid on Christmas morning, and her teeth up close and in person were even worse than they’d been in the vision, worse than they’d been described in that anonymous document B had given me. Buckled, crooked, razor sharp. It seemed safe to assume dental hygiene and orthodontics weren’t a big part of Hera Snow’s approach to parenting. Anyway, Isobel set the box down on the flagstones at her feet and lifted the skull out of its velvet cradle. She stood, gazed into its empty sockets, then held it triumphantly above her head. All eyes turned towards her.
“Though his name has been lost,” she said, and her voice swelled to fill the chamber, “behold the remains of he who, more than fifteen centuries ago, first received the Word. The Word that, on this night and before another dawn breaks, shall set us all free.”
Like I said, And the crowd went wild.
Clearly, these two knew how to work a room.
As for me, I’d seen what was trapped in the cage behind them, and everything else had ceased to matter. My head swam with a sickening, intoxicating mix of hatred and sorrow, regret and bitterness. I hurt like I hadn’t hurt since that night some five years before when Mercy Brown bedded me and murdered me on a filthy mattress. Like I never thought I’d hurt again. I was so small, so irrelevant, a spider pinned to a board, nailed down and twitching at the eye of a storm of plots and bullshit intrigues, agendas and subterfuge and contradiction. Pickman, B, the twins, Charlee, fuck them all equally and fuck their ambitions and greed. I cursed every soul and every soulless being that had ever been willing to maim and butcher and rape and destroy in the name of [Fill in the Fucking Blank]. I did not exclude myself.
My mind was swelling with blood and fire.
And I felt my Beast begin to stir. She wasn’t going to need a megadose of Aconitum to wake up. Not tonight.
From the satin bag, Isaac produced the necklace that Aster, the Faerie bitch beekeeper of East 4th Street, had called the Tear of Dis. In the dim light, the diamonds twinkled dully, and the ruby leaked a glow of its own literally hellish creation. Isaac dropped the satin bag to the floor and turned to his sister, his bride, his partner in DIY End Times.
“My love,” he said, “no throat but yours should ever wear this jewel.” And then he unclasped the necklace and hung it around Isobel’s neck. Still holding the skull in her left hand like some genderfuck Hamlet, she lovingly fondled the stone with the fingers of her right. Isaac leaned in close and bit her on the cheek, keeping her flesh clenched tightly between his teeth for a full minute or more. She didn’t even wince.
“La Saignement de gorge,” he said, when he’d finally released her. Isaac had bitten hard enough to break the skin, and a trickle of blood wound its way down Isobel’s pale cheek. There was a scarlet smear on Isaac’s lips. He licked it away and gently kissed her forehead.
I’d seen enough. I’d seen enough and back. I put my head down. I reached out and pulled the Madonna to me. It had come partly unwrapped, and I could see a corner of the dark volcanic stone, a hint of the graven image of Mother Hydra. I shut my eyes.
Behind my lids, I saw that burning field, a memory so vivid it might as well have been taking place in the here and now. The fire and the field, the white horse and its white riders, their armor white as snow.
“And Hell followed after,” I said.
“My Lord, what would you have me do with this one?” Charlee asked, and then I felt his fingers twining themselves in my hair. He yanked my head back with enough force