Page 85 of The Shade of Things
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I none too gentlyencouraged Eli and Jude to leave. The second they were gone, I scoured myself in hot water, threw on some clothes, and after telling Sadie I’d be back soon, tore out of the house, Blood Alley bound.
Except I’d barely made it to my car before I was picked up and slammed against the hood so hard that for a moment, two moons wavered overhead like I was on an alien planet.
“Did you seek to distract me with a wild goose chase?” Zev’s fangs descended, his face pressed close to mine.
Delilah was behind him with my scythe against his neck in the blink of an eye.
“Get off me,” I snarled through the grip he had on my throat.
Time teetered on a knife’s edge for a single spun-out moment, then he roughly released me.
I sat up, massaging my skull while Delilah stepped back, though she hung on to the weapon. At least I wasn’t bleeding. “I’m going to find the Ascendant before you, and when I do, I’ll destroy it. You’ll never free the dybbuks.”
Zev’s mouth fell open, and he stared at me, gobsmacked. Under other circumstances, it would have been comical, but he recovered quickly enough, menace vibrating through the tight line of his body. “Enough of your games, Ms. Feldman. I’ve run out of patience with your stalling.”
“And I’ve run out of patience with your lies.” I crossed my arms, absolutely done with anyone or anything treating humans as a means to an end. “I saw your expression when I mentioned the monsters in the dark at our last meeting. You understood what Arlo Garcia meant by the cracks in the seams, didn’t you? That the Ascendant opens a door to Gehenna to release dybbuks.”
“Why would I give a damn about dybbuks?” he said indignantly.
“Chaos. Terror.” Even as I said it, it didn’t feel right.
Vamps were bloodthirsty. Literally. However, they fed and most of the time left humans alive. Hell, look at the Blood Alley shenanigans and existence of donors. There were enough people happy to provide a taste or two without having to resort to murder, and Zev didn’t let the undead run around killing people for fun.
“Then why would you care about Gehenna?” I said. “Give me one reason to believe you that this isn’t about hurting humans or I’ll make sure you become the most hunted being out there.”
He raked a cold, assessing glance over me. “Do you truly believe you could escape in order to carry out your threat?”
“Delilah got the jump on you once tonight. I’ll take my chances.”
He straightened his suit jacket with a sharp snap on the lapels. Moonlight winked off his sleeve, and he was missing a cufflink. This master vampire who literally destroyed a statue for having a tiny flaw was publicly imperfect.
I couldn’t wrap my head around anything horrible enough for Zev to show a chink in his heavily fortified armor or allow him to be caught off guard by my shadow. Why was he becoming so unraveled?
“Look,” I said. “You know I can keep a secret. If this isn’t some nefarious plot against humanity, then tell me. Let me help, because despite your accusation, I’ve done nothing but try to find the amplifier for you as quickly as possible.” I notched my chin up. “Trust me or kill me.”
Bold words, sure, but his constant threats were tiresome. Besides, I’d come through for him on more than one occasion, and I’d never betrayed him. To the vampire’s very slim credit, my past behavior would count for a lot.
Zev clenched his fists, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He rocked forward then back as if the struggle with this decision was physical. “I need…” Exhaling, he shook his head. “I need a word with the estrie who sired me.” His eyes burned with the fervor of a man bent on vengeance.
Estries hadn’t been seen in a few hundred years. Did he plan to kill her? That didn’t make sense, but he didn’t require her to make new vamps either.
“The estries are in Gehenna? How do you know?” I said.
“They aren’t in the demon realm or here on earth. I’ve long suspected they were in Gehenna, but until now had no way to verify that.” He crossed his arms and sighed as if I was testing his patience.
“I swear I didn’t send you on any wild goose chase,” I said, stopping in front of the vampire. “Can we move this conversation to the porch? The chairs are more comfortable than this hood.”
I let him go first. There was standing up for myself and then there was turning my back on a dangerous vampire.
Zev sat stiffly in the cushioned Adirondack chair, arms on the rests like he was riding a foreign beast.
“The quote you provided me with?” he said. “‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.’” He worried at his upper lip with even white teeth before a small sigh escaped him. “It refers to the Woods Bank.”
I wanted to tip my head back against the chair and soak in the night sky, letting the fresh air soothe me, body and soul. Instead, I angled my chair to keep the vampire in my direct line of sight. “I’ve never heard of it, but a bank is a great place to stash things.”
“It’s not a traditional bank. Woods is the last name of an Ohrist family. Hundreds of years ago, the matriarch turned a copse of trees on their land into safety deposit boxes, so to speak. Each trunk is a magically hollowed space large enough for a person and whatever goods they wish to store.” How wild and wonderful. “The business was passed down through successive generations with the trees offered to a select clientele.” His phone chimed, and he pulled it from his jacket pocket and scanned the screen almost apprehensively before putting it away.
