Page 120 of The Shade of Things
I was practically crawling out of my skin by the time we pulled up to her house. I hid behind Zev when he knocked on her door, but I was the first thing Tatiana’s eyes darted to when she opened it.
“I thought you’d be easier to kill,” she said. “How disappointing.”
So much for hiding. I stepped up next to the vampire.
“Tanechka,” Zev chided her gently.
She crossed her arms. “Don’t ‘Tanechka’ me. Why are you here?”
Emmett thundered down the stairs, stopping when he saw me. His eyes widened at my blood- and filth-covered self, and my body sagged. “You’re alive.” His relief was unmistakable.
“Hey, buddy. Yup. Alive and…yeah.”
“May we come in?” Zev said.
“No.” She shut the door.
I braced for the vampire to push past her, since he already had permission so this question was merely for etiquette’s sake, but he stood there.
“Remember,” Zev said mildly, “I let him live.”
Tatiana stilled, the door open a crack. “Don’t you dare do this now.”
Emmett and I exchanged confused glances, but despite my danger, I was kind of excited. Was I finally going to get the goods on them?
“I am asking you for five minutes when I gave you so much more,” the vampire said. He tugged on his suit jacket, his fingers gripping the hem for a moment too long. “Please.”
He’d said please? Oh fuck. None of us were getting out of here alive.
Tatiana reluctantly nodded, allowed us entrance, and turned on the small lamps in her living room.
I sat next to Emmett, wanting a friend during my last moments, while Zev took the chair closest to Tatiana.
“Give me the Ascendant,” he said. Wow. Didn’t expect him to just jump to the heart of things.
Tatiana narrowed her eyes at me. “You went running to him that I had it. Why?”
Zev cut me off. “I hired Ms. Feldman to find it for me.”
“You’re fired,” she told me in a hard voice. “Go back to your law library and your stultifying life until you cement into a pillar of beige.”
I slumped back against the cushions, smothering a flinch. My eyes were gritty from this very long day, and that was without the mostly dead part. “I swear I didn’t know you had it.”
“You knew about your parents though.”
“Only since you got back from Moscow. There was a—” I cut myself off, not wanting to implicate Emmett with the prophecy. “A letter from my uncle Jake. Combined with what I learned from James Learsdon, the man who set Davide Forino up, I put things together.”
“You should have told me immediately,” she snapped.
I bowed my head. “You’re right. I should have.”
“Now you come here trying to take it from me. Just like your parents did. Mazel tov, kid. You’ve got that Blum killer instinct.”
I flinched at the word “killer.”
“Give me the Ascendant,” Zev said.
“You couldn’t use it even if I did,” Tatiana muttered.
