Page 7 of A Shade Too Far
Emmett helped me to my feet, holding me steady by the elbow because it hurt to put weight on my injured leg.
Damn you to Hell, Kumar. Laurent’s friendship and respect meant a great deal to me, but if I didn’t give Zev these gloves, I was screwed. The vampire was the only one who could protect me from the demon parasites that had already invaded my home once. They’d possessed a Lonestar who was part of my parents’ murders twenty-seven years ago, and after I’d recently confronted the magic police officer, he’d been murdered in the same way as my mom and dad.
I was taking zero fucking chances with my family’s lives.
“I’m on a job and we have a satisfaction guaranteed policy,” I said. The door Naveen had come through remained open. All we had to do was get past him.
“For a vampire. Did you look at the mark inside the gloves?” Naveen’s tone had become suspiciously conversational. He shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet, watching us intently.
“No.” I held on to Emmett like I still didn’t have my balance back, using it as a cover to slowly inch us toward the exit.
“People think the half circle is the logo of the company that made items out of human skin, but it’s not.” Naveen jabbed his light staff in my direction, waving me away from my partner.
“Human skin?” Emmett dry heaved.
Had Zev and Tatiana known this?
Naveen was faster than me and I needed to rejuice before using my powers again.
I tapped Emmett’s back twice, using a code we’d come up with in case we faced one of the security team. “Are these gloves made from Torquemada’s skin?”
Tomás de Torquemada was the Grand Inquisitor during the Spanish Inquisition, infamous for his cruelty, fanaticism, and religious intolerance, and devoted to ridding Spain of all heresy. This led to the decimation of the Jewish population in the 1400s through both death and forced conversion, Torquemada sending his inquisitors throughout the old and new worlds to hunt nonbelievers down.
It also resulted in Jewish pirates but that was a whole other story. And none of these facts made having a dead person’s flayed-off body part in my pocket any better.
I held up three fingers behind my back for Emmett to see.
The golem scratched his chin and yawned, but I knew he was waiting for my signal.
“No one knows for sure whose skin it is,” Naveen said. “But the half circle is a demon mark.”
“Could Torquemada have been a demon?”
“Does it matter?” Naveen said.
“You tell me. Sure, the human skin part is gross, but what’s got your panties in a twist?” I stepped forward, happy to see Naveen’s jaw clench, his focus on me, and lowered a finger down to two.
“The gloves are cursed,” Naveen said. “When a person puts them on, they become convinced that they no longer wear their own skin.”
I swallowed my nausea at this atrocity. Zev had omitted several crucial details, but even so, I had to give him the gloves, because I was on my last chance with him. I shoved my self-loathing into a hard ball and padlocked it. The vamp would get the demon artifact. End of story.
One finger.
“That sucks,” I said mildly.
“Bit of an understatement, poppet,” Naveen sneered. “That obsession drives them mad, and they eventually die trying to rip their skin off.”
I closed my fist.
Emmett ran at Naveen, picking him up and throwing him sideways across the room, where he hit the wall with a grunt.
The golem and I sprinted for the open door, my knee shooting needle-sharp bursts of pain the entire time.
Naveen’s staff flew overhead, slamming the door shut before ricocheting back into his hand. If I hadn’t pushed Emmett down, we’d have been impaled.
“Any other questions?” Naveen was already on his feet again, his weapon at the ready.
My heart thudded in my chest and my magic prickled wildly inside me. “Nope.”
