Authors: Mary Hughes
“Did you, now?” Her body quivered with a
heh-heh
, laughter that, pressed up against her, I felt to my marrow. “Your little human is here, Ric, where it seems all you have to do is wrestle her from my grasp. But your precious painting is in one of three locked rooms. And to make things more interesting—I’ve rigged a vat of acid above both your human and your painting. They’re welded directly to the ceiling sprinklers, and trust me, you can’t unhook or destroy them quick enough to save both human and painting. If I release this switch…” She laughed out loud, villain’s cackle number three. “Your pretty little human gets ugly real fast. Or your precious picture is destroyed, but I think I know which you’ll choose. Come out now, darling. Slowly. Or I release the corrosive.” She waggled the dead man’s switch. “
Now
, darling. Hmm. Well, I guess I get to destroy both your portrait and your whore. Ah. At last.”
Mist trickled through the open doorway. It solidified into a very pumped, very angry Ric. In jeans and tee he was a lean, prime male, more dangerous than ever. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Camille?”
“
Exactly
the fuck.” Camille grinned. “Because I like to fuck. Cocks, mouths, minds. Hello, Ric. Took you long enough.”
My heart yearned at the sight of his beautiful face, his azure eyes shading toward a stormy violet, his fingers clenching, claws sharpening the tips. I was stupidly glad to see him.
I was also pissed as hell. “I left you at the cabin!”
“I got into your car’s trunk before you peeled out.” He glanced at me, then returned his glare to Camille. “Burned half my face off, misting, but I recovered on the drive. Good thing it wasn’t a hatchback.”
“How resourceful,” Camille said. “But I knew you’d manage if I got my hands on your plaything. Which of course is why I told Little to make the meet for daylight hours. I knew she’d come, I knew you’d follow, and I knew she’d make a perfect hostage to your good behavior.”
Hearing it spelled out, I wanted to punch something—the wall, the table, or better yet her. She was using me against Ric. My Plucky Girl Heroine was all empty image. “Why, Camille? What more do you want?”
“Ric, of course,” she purred. “On his back, in my bed. In chains.”
My vision exploded red, my pulse whooshed in my ears. One word rang in my head.
Mine
. “Not. Happening.”
“That’s not your call, whore.”
“Watch your mouth.” Ric, his eyes burning violet-red, started for her.
“You, stop!” Camille levered my wrist between my shoulder blades and jerked up. I stifled a squeak of pain.
Ric froze.
“You have a choice. Your ‘lady love’—” she sneered it, “—is here. The painting is nearby.
If
I release the switch, the acid will fall. You have time to rescue one.”
I snorted. “You’ve been watching too many
Batman
reruns. Not the movies, the sixties show.”
“What?”
“Convoluted Traps ‘R Us.”
“Hey. Who holds who hostage?”
“It’s a complex plan.” Ric held up conciliatory hand. “Multifaceted.”
“There. You see?” Camille sniffed. “I’m glad someone appreciates it.”
“Right,” I said. “Why? Why so”—needlessly—“complex?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but Nosferatu likes us to show some intelligence and advanced planning. He is like my dear Loo-ee.” Her voice got dreamy on the name.
“Who?”
“Louis XIV, you stupid girl. King of France in the 1600s. That was a century.”
“Oh, sure.” My other history class. “He employed massively convoluted…excuse me,
complex
court protocol to keep his nobles too busy to rebel. Or, like a harried parent, out of his hair.”
There was a silence. Then she yanked up on my wrist again. “Enough! Ric, what’s it going to be? Miss Mouthy here, or your household?” She waved the switch box. “Your fuck or your feed?”
Ric snarled.
“Go for the painting, Ric,” I said. “Your people’s lives are at stake.” All this time, I’d thought it was me versus Ric, sizzle versus steak. Sizzle wasn’t the enemy.
Camille
was. “Remember Rosie and Harry. Camille will have to release me to escape the acid herself. I’ll run for the door. A splash won’t kill me.”
“Think again, pretty girl. I’ll maneuver you so your face gets it.” Camille’s breath was warm in my ear and smelled faintly of whiskey—maybe after a nibble of Little she’d needed a palate-cleanser. “You’ll be scarred. How will you feel when Ric rejects your ugly ass? Not dead, but you’ll wish you were.”
Anger flooded me at her words, and I wished I could splash
her
with hazardous chemicals too…like my pepper spray.
My heart sped up at the thought.
“You win, Camille.” Ric’s fangs receded and his eyes banked to a careful blue. “You’ve been so clever. How did you know about the painting in the first place?”
“Finally. You noticed my brilliance.” She cooed it. “How? I pay attention. After you beat Nosferatu’s tactical team, you said you were going to retrieve ‘the item’. The team leader reported that to Nosferatu. He figured out it was that portrait of him.”
“He’s smart.” He edged nearer.
“There’s a reason he’s head of the Chicago vampires,” she agreed. “You really ought to join us.”
“Maybe I will. But how did you know about the painting?”
“Nosferatu called me. He said you were going out of town to collect a crate of his.”
With one ear on her monologing I scanned for my purse. It lay four feet away on the floor, dropped when Camille grabbed me. Too far, with her attached to me like a lamprey.
“I seduced Little to watch for your return, to pump you for information. But since you were away, I also told him to make the Meiers Corners presentation happen. Until I got my hands on the crate, that was my ticket to first lieutenant. It was the perfect day—that morning I crushed your plaything; that night Little saw the crate go into your safe and we stole it. A doubleheader.”
Ric took another step. “But how did you know about the portrait?”
“I peeked into the crate.” She simpered. “When I asked Nosferatu about it he went apeshit, and I realized I might have even better leverage.” She paused. “I really want that promotion.”
“So is there something I can do to help you get it?” Ric slid closer to the kill zone.
“I only want a little information.” Camille’s mouth lifted from my ear, her tone girlish, almost coaxing. She must have finally seen Ric’s advance because she stiffened. “Hey. Back off, buddy.”
He froze, hands up. “Sure.” He backed a step.
“More.”
He backed another two. “Information?”
“Well…yes. Tell me why that picture is so important. A weapon? Blackmail? Nosferatu’s a little scrawny, so what? He doesn’t need to be big to be physically powerful. Well, some Lestats would care. But that’s not all there is to it, is there?”
Maybe Ric could get my spray. I caught his eyes then flicked my gaze to the purse. Then I squinched my eyes and pulled back my upper lip and made an I-got-shot-with-pepper-spray face.
He blinked at me in a horrified way. “Um,
no
. Camille.” It was clear from his expression the “no” was for me. “Nosferatu’s size wouldn’t stop him from being
really fast
and evading attack. Not to mention
misting
.”
Damn, I’d forgotten that. She’d see Ric coming, mist to compensate, and I’d probably be the one to get a faceful of pain. I’d have to figure out some way she didn’t see coming.
“Exactly,” she said. “Besides, Nosferatu has me, and Giuseppe.”
I couldn’t retrieve the purse. Ric couldn’t. Could I get word to Rosie or Harry downstairs? Somehow call up one of the serving folk—if there were any of them not under Camille’s power?
Phooey. Talk about needlessly complex. I took a breath and centered myself. Forgot image to look at the facts. And knew who had to get the purse, and how.
“So tell me, Ric,” Camille purred. “Why?”
“Don’t tell her,” I said. “Camille can deluge me with acid, make me a beast.
I’ve been ugly before
. I don’t care.”
“
Pfft
,” Camille said. “You care. You’re not as gorgeous as me, but you’re nice enough for a human.”
“Nope, I was ugly. And I can prove it. There’s a picture of me in my purse. It shows what a scrawny kid I was.”
“You expect me to fall for that? There’s also a weapon in that purse, which you’ll pull on me the instant you get your hands on it.”
“Then get it yourself. The picture is in there, you’ll see.”
“Synnove.” Ric raised both brows. “You were ugly? Why haven’t I seen this picture?” He leaked just enough resentfulness into his tone to sell it. There was a reason Holiday was the best.
Camille tapped a foot. “All right, I’m curious. Ric, kick the purse over here.”
He growled irritably, and did. I relaxed my muscles to the ready, alert for a moment of distraction in which I could escape.
But she kept me yanked tight while she picked up the purse one-handed. “Where is it?”
“In my wallet. You may have to dig.”
She set the purse on the table and fingered through. “What’s this?” She pulled out the small black canister. “Pepper spray?” She laughed and threw it out the service doorway, a tiny black missile. “Nice try, human.”
“For heaven’s sake. Do you have a Y chromosome? There’s the wallet, right under the sunscreen. The picture’s in it.”
“No need to get insulting,” she huffed. Extracting the wallet, she opened it to my pictures. The real me was on top, smiling like the naive idiot I was.
Camille started laughing. She laughed and laughed, to the point that it was almost offensive. “What a freak. Here, Ric.” She crumpled the picture and tossed it at him. “Take a look at who your lover really is.”
Ric caught the picture, smoothed it out and stared at it for the longest time.
His face was unreadable.
“Isn’t that the ugliest kid you’ve ever seen?” Camille sneered.
“Physically, perhaps.”
He wasn’t pretending.
My insides crumpled worse than the photo. Had I counted on him seeing the Prince—Princess—inside the Beast? To love me anyway?
But men wanted beauty. Why would Ric be any different, simply because I
needed
him to be?
He looked up. “Is this really you, Synnove?”
“Yes. That’s my reality.” My heart was breaking. Might as well spill it all. “Not only who I was,
but who I still am
.”
“No.” He stared at me, his eyes saying…something. “It’s just a picture.”
“A picture of
me
.” Didn’t he get it?
“My sunshine. You’re not looking at it right.” Ric turned the picture so I could see it, the spotted face and haystack hair I’d seen a thousand times. He said gently, “This is an image—and
it was only ever an image
.”
I blinked at the crinkly photo in his powerful fingers. My fourteen-year-old face.
My reality check.
Wasn’t
real
.
I’d been so caught in the image of me as ugly duckling become gorgeous swan—add another fairy tale—that I’d never grown beyond it.
It was only a picture. It wasn’t real.
It never had been.
I’d created an image of myself, a mask, and put it on. An image of me as a doctor who always told the truth and made life fair for others and who telegraphed her kicks. Then I’d made myself over in the image, rather than letting my full underlying reality express itself.
It had taken Ric Holiday, the king of appearances, to see the truth.
“Since it’s not you…” He smiled at me—and tossed the picture away.
Lightning struck, and with it, understanding so powerful I staggered. About me, about Camille…about our way out of this mess.
Ric had thrown away my picture.
Camille would
never
throw away an advantage. She’d cheat first. The portrait wasn’t here.
Ric had thrown away my picture.
Now I threw away the image of myself that I’d clung to all those years, free to claim the reality of who I truly was. Strong, fast, smart and determined, with strengths and flaws, but most of all, a healer. I could switch to Crisis Time mode in an instant, triage like a goddess, and spontaneously spout
Gray’s
.
Crisis Time.
Click
.
Triage. Camille first. Acid and fairness could wait.
And now for
Gray’s
. I grabbed for the dead man’s switch. My telegraph and her vampire reflexes ensured that I missed and she pulled the box out of reach.
But when I “missed”, I smacked her forearm…and simultaneously set the edge of my foot against her shinbone.
“You want this, human?” She raised her arm overhead, waving the box tauntingly. “Try to get it.”
“Camille.” My voice was strong and calm. “Did you know the metatarsus is especially sensitive to shock? Vampires even more than humans, if I understand the physiology. Which, because
I’m a doctor
, I do.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”