Page 115 of A Shade Too Far
“Really?” He sounded suspicious but his eyes were wide and shining with hope.
I hugged him. “Really.”
The golem hugged me back tight enough to bruise my rib cage, then abruptly released me with an indifferent “Whatever.”
“Zev wants to see me. If anything happens with Tatiana, text me, okay?”
“I’ll take care of her,” he said solemnly.
“I know you will.”
I climbed into my car and headed out. At this time of night, there was little traffic to slow me down.
Yoshi met me inside the gates at Blood Alley, shooting me questioning glances all the way up the crooked lane past revelers streaming in and out of rooms, black doors closing and red light bulbs glowing.
“If you have something to ask, then ask it,” I said.
“Not my place.” We stopped in front of the sake bar and Yoshi motioned me inside. He didn’t come with me this time, and like my first visit, Zev was the only patron.
“Is this your private bar?”
Zev swung around on his stool. One of the individually spotlit bottles of imported sake had been removed from its display and set on the polished bar top next to a small carafe and two sake cups. “It’s for Yoshi and me.”
I swallowed my boys’ club comment and sat next to him.
The vampire poured the fragrant liquid into my cup, then I did the same for him. He clinked my glass. “Kanpai,” he said.
“Kanpai.” I sipped the warm sake, enjoying the light, smooth nutty flavor.
He’d changed out of his bloodstained suit from earlier, wearing his billionaire tech dude persona with dark slacks and a casual button-down shirt. The one other time I’d seen him dressed like this was when he came to make the wards. He’d intended to fuck with me that night, swaying Eli and Sadie to his side, at least initially, but I couldn’t figure out what the outfit signified now when there was just the two of us.
“Did she live?” He rubbed a finger over the thin ridges of the small handleless cup, gazing across the bar.
“Tatiana? She’s tired, but unhurt.”
“That’s not who I meant.”
I set my cup down with a shaking hand. Was that why he’d brought me here? To “chastise” me for letting the Banim Shovavim live? He hadn’t specified that she had to die, had he? I tried to remember our conversation when Zev had set out his conditions, but I couldn’t get past the image of the vampire with the smashed-in face peeling off the wall.
“She did,” I said, “but I killed her dybbuk familiar. Her magic is gone and the Lonestars have her.” We’d hung around the parkade until a Lonestar showed up with another healer. After a quick debrief, they’d taken charge of Frances.
Zev splashed more sake into his cup and shot it back.
I leaned back on my stool, my eyebrows raised, but kept mum.
“Why did you give me the gloves?” he said, his blandly polite mask firmly in place.
How much honesty was a good thing? I hedged my answer. “The gloves didn’t give the dybbuk form, and probably weren’t cursed at all, and you’d gone to a lot of trouble to get—”
“The real reason.” His smooth voice was tempered with steel.
I swallowed. “Because you looked at them the way I would have looked at Sadie if she was in danger.”
The vampire returned his gaze to the cup, turning it around in his hands.
The adage curiosity killed the cat was the only thing keeping me silent. I sipped my drink slowly, waiting for his next cue.
“What did you figure out about them?”
