Page 45 of A Shade of Myself
Nav spared it a brief glance. “Bully for you. This coin doesn’t grant passage. You shouldn’t have been able to get on the—” He clamped his lips shut.
“The what?” If there were consequences to riding that ferry, then Nav was damn well going to pony up about them.
“You must have come through the Kefitzat Haderech. That’s trespassing,” Clea said.
“And yet I didn’t.” I turned back to Nav. “Does the water taxi of doom have a name? Let me guess. Matt Demon? Hades Christensen? Chris Hellsworth? Hell-en Mirren?”
“How droll.” Nav looked up at a knock on the door. “Yeah?”
A woman stuck her head in. “I need Clea.”
“I got this,” he said to Clea. “Go.”
“Nice meeting you.” I waved as she left. She didn’t return the sentiment. Eh. I’d win her over. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, the name of that lovely transport system. Tell me or I’ll go into extreme detail about what Eli did when I was breastfeeding to help unblock my mammary glands, thereby scarring you and making it impossible to ever get it on with him.”
All he’d done was provide me with hot compresses, but given Nav’s look of sheer horror, I could imagine how he’d taken it.
Exactly as I’d intended.
“The Succubus,” Nav said reluctantly.
“You mean like the Aquabus but sexier? Wait. Did I ride some weird succubus boat shifter? Succubus Prime?” I frowned. “No, that’s not funny.”
“None of this is funny,” he snapped. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”
“Why?” I widened my eyes theatrically. “Will I get an STI? A succubus-transmitted infection? Get it? We both know you aren’t going to hurt me, Nav.”
“Because of Eli? Guess again,” he said.
“Because Laurent will eviscerate you, if Daya doesn’t first.”
“Assuming they ever found out.”
I sighed. “Fun as needling you is, cut the crap already and tell me.”
Moving as slowly as possible, Nav unlocked the handcuffs and I rubbed my wrists. “The Succubus shouldn’t have completed its journey across the water. Not without this.” He rolled up his sleeve and I squinted at the mark in the crook of his elbow.
It wasn’t a tattoo. The design had been branded onto his flesh, the raised pattern starkly visible against his brown skin. The hamsa, a five-fingered hand with an eye in the center believed to ward off demonic spirits, was less than an inch high.
My cousin Goldie had a hamsa amulet hanging in our kitchen when I was growing up, each of the five fingers and the area around the eye adorned with swirls. Nav’s was a simple outline though it clearly conveyed the image.
I sighed. Was Clea this organization’s equivalent of former Lonestar Oliver Anderson? Not about the Banim Shovavim prejudices but an extreme belief in the rightness of her actions due to the exalted nature of her position?
I tapped the inside of my elbow. “Since I don’t have my own hamsa, should the boat have fed me to the giant tail thing?”
“Only your desiccated husk after it sucked out your soul. Succu-bus.” He smiled evilly.
“Then why did it bring me all the way across? Are you sure Poe’s token didn’t work as advertised?”
“You got it from the ravens?” Nav stuffed the tiny handcuff key in his pocket “Now I’m one hundred and fifty percent positive it’s a dud. The Succubus is irrevocably tied to the hamsa.”
Poe, you bastard. You scammed me for info and then assumed I’d die. Well, revenge was a dish best served cold. And yours would be icy.
“I don’t know why the Succubus allowed you passage,” Nav said, “and I don’t like it.”
“Trust me, I’m not loving this mystery either.” I followed him back to the room with the cages. “What do you people call yourselves?” When he didn’t answer, I elbowed him. “Come on. Who am I going to tell since I bet Tatiana and Laurent already know?”
“Carpe Demon.”
