"Talon isn't like that."
"Well, bully for him."
She growled as she slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a man dressed up like a bull. He pounded on the hood of her car and yelled, then dashed across the street.
Sunshine moved forward again, even more slowly, through the bumper-to-bumper traffic. "You don't like Talon, do you?"
"Wish him dead every time I see him."
She frowned at Zarek's blase tone. "I can't tell if you mean that or not."
"I mean it."
"Why?"
"He's an asshole and I've had enough assholes in my life."
"Do you hate Ash too?"
"Baby, I hate everyone."
"Even me?"
He didn't answer.
Sunshine didn't bother him after that. There really was something spooky about Zarek. Something cold and unreachable. It was as if he took pleasure in the fact that he shoved everyone away from him.
At least twenty minutes passed before Zarek shocked her by asking a question of his own. "You love the Celt, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Why? What is it about him that makes you care for him?"
She sensed Zarek was asking something much deeper than that. It was as if the concept of love were so alien to him that he was struggling to make sense of it.
"He's a good man who makes me laugh. He looks at me and I melt all over the floor. When I'm with him, I feel like I can fly."
Zarek turned his head away from her and watched the Mardi Gras crowd outside.
"Have you ever been in love?" she tried again.
Again, he didn't answer. Instead he directed her to a warehouse on St. Joseph Street.
The place was dark and forbidding. "Is this where we're supposed to be?" she asked.
He nodded.
She parked in an alley behind the building, and they left the car.
Zarek led her in through a back door and up a series of stairs. He opened a door at the end of the hallway and let her enter first.
Sunshine stepped inside. At first glance, she thought the tall blond man was Acheron with a new hair color. But when she saw Camulus standing by his side, she knew it wasn't.
It was Styxx who was standing between Camulus and a brunet man she didn't recognize.
Sunshine turned to run.
Zarek closed the door ominously and took up a blocking position before it. The look on his face told her that he had no intention of letting her pass through him.