C
HAPTER
F
OUR
Revenge Is Best Served Cold
S
he found it odd in the extreme that Caspian had stayed the night and then abruptly vanished after asking about her son. She’d expected him to leave immediately after they concluded her part of the contract: the payment in flesh. And, oh, dear saints in Heaven, how she’d paid. She ached everywhere. But it was that good kind of pain that let her know she’d definitely been in the company of a sex god. She hadn’t enjoyed a time like that in . . . well, ever.
A nice, hot bath was just what she needed. With bubbles and a glass of wine. Yes, Grace felt languorous and leisurely, considering that a demon had just vacated her house—and her body, for that matter. Plans of vengeance could wait.
She paused, wondering if part of her brain would kick in and scream like a banshee on the rag, asking her what in the name of Hell she’d just done, even though the little voice in her head would know what she’d done because it was there. Or not. Where had that little voice gotten off to? Was it on vacation? Did it have an answering machine? Could Grace leave it a message?
On second thought, Grace really didn’t want to leave a message. It was kind of nice not listening to her conscience shrieking into her ear all the time. Maybe it would stay gone forever.
Part of her knew that these were extremely dangerous thoughts. These were the type of reflections that littered that amazingly glittery path to damnation, like so many primrose petals. But, seeing as her conscience was away from its desk, the concern wasn’t as great as it might have been. She’d worry about it later.
Grace sank deeply into some hot water and wished that for once she could have a bath that would do more than cover her rump or her breasts. She wanted a tub that fit both. If she sank down far enough to cover her chest, her legs were in the air. If she sat up, the rest of her was cold. It sort of ruined the effect of soaking in a hot bath. This was more like dipping. When she got her money and her son back from Michael, after she admitted to him that she was behind the demon tormenting him and only she could stop it, she was going to buy a house in the nicest suburb of Kansas City. Somewhere with a homeowners’ association, gated entry, and no damn demons, witches, supernatural creatures, or mobsters. It was going to have a bathroom the size of a living room. It was going to have a tub big enough for eight people, and two hot-water heaters. And the showerhead would be to die for. Then she wouldn’t need a man. Or a demon. She and her son would have a nice, normal, safe life.
She wondered what Caspian was going to do to Michael, then snorted. Michael. Michael Grigorovich. He’d sworn on a stack of Bibles that he was descended from the great Rasputin. Grace would believe that when Madame Tussaud sculpted his likeness out of her earwax. She knew now he was just another thug from Brighton, a thug who had her son, Nikoli.
He’d stolen the child as soon as Nikoli was born, kicking her out of their penthouse and refusing to see her. Grace didn’t know why he wanted the boy, but it wasn’t to raise him or to be a father. He’d actually acted angry when he found out she was pregnant. He’d only begun seeing her, she’d learned, because he was into the occult and had heard that she was a witch raised in the old tradition.
For her part, Grace had been blind to him and his slimy ways. Stupid. She’d liked his power back then, liked his money. Best of all, she’d liked his promise to take care of her as long as she took care of him. Ha! As if. She’d finally found out what he was
really
like. How had she not known earlier? Maybe because she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to believe it even now.
She’d never dunked her fists into anything as wrong as demon-summoning before; Michael had done that all on his own. But she would fight fire with fire, and her fire was bigger. It was a bonfire. Caspian was very powerful, like the will of a mother trying to regain her child. Michael could summon the Devil himself and Grace would get Nikoli back. She would do whatever it took, as last night clearly showed.
She wondered briefly if she was going to see Caspian again. He’d said that he would keep up his end of the bargain, which wouldn’t necessarily require a second visit, but wasn’t it just like a demon to come back and demand a second payment? If she was honest with herself, the idea caused her a little thrill of pleasure. Grace
wanted
to see him again, to be close to him. She’d never been touched the way Caspian touched her. Not even when she’d been fooled into believing that she was in love with Michael.
Wait. This was a dangerous path she trod. No matter how great the sex, Caspian was still a demon—a Crown Prince of Hell, no less. If she planned to be one of those foolish girls who confused sex and love, this was the wrong time. There was nothing but misery down this path. Nothing at all.
A loud banging on the door jarred her unceremoniously from her languid dip, but Grace would be double damned if she was going to get out of the delicious hot water to answer. She didn’t have that many friends, and none who would stop by without calling. Michael had seen to that, actually. He’d secluded her from her friends, her hobbies, her life. She was well rid of him. All that mattered now was her son, and when she got Nikoli back from his asshat father, she was going to make sure that neither of them ever had to deal with Michael again.
She debated slipping under the water to escape listening to the incessant pounding. That was when she had another epiphany: Only cops and thugs banged on doors like that.
“Open the door, Grace.” It was Sasha, Michael’s right-hand man. She hadn’t seen him since the last rescheduled court date regarding Nikoli. “Grace, I’ll be letting Petru break this door down if you don’t open it.”
Petru. Where Sasha went, that Cro-Mag followed. Petru could have worked in the circus as a dancing bear, he was so large and hairy. All he did was growl. She didn’t know how Sasha understood him.
She hurried to the door. The robe draped around her slick, wet body was provocatively clingy, but she didn’t care. They’d seen much more of her already. They’d been in the room when Nikoli was born. In fact, Sasha had delivered him.
Grace stopped short of the door. “What do you want?” she called through it.
“Open up.”
“No.” She had no doubt that Petru
would
break it down, but she defied Sasha anyway. Even knowing none of her neighbors would call the police, and even if they did, Michael owned all the police. People who fucked with the Russian mob had a nasty habit of turning up dead.
“Grace, Michael knows what you did.”
“I don’t care. He can rot in Hell.”
“Some third-level demon isn’t enough to thwart him, so I hope you got the best. He’s only going to get angry. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“Then why are you pounding on my door and threatening to break it down?”
“Let me in, Grace. I just want to talk.”
Grace could hear Petru puffing like a pregnant hippopotamus trying to run straight up Mount Everest. With his large bulk likely rearing back to locomotive through her poor, defenseless door, she had no choice but to open up.
Actually, she could have hexed him so that mosquito larvae hatched in his sinuses and flew out his nose, but this was much more fun; she’d get immediate gratification. She opened up and stepped out of the way just as the bull moose charged. The look on his face was priceless: a startled yak with lost footing. He bashed his round melon-head straight into the opposite wall, straight into the hanging silhouette portrait of Grace’s grandmother, Seraphim Stregaria, and fell to the ground.
A long, low sound started in the back of his throat. “Baba Yaga,” the large mobster whimpered, falling in seeming slow motion to land on his rump. He was staring at the silhouette portrait, clearly horrified at the thought of violating a likeness of Seraphim Stregaria.
Grace was amused. Her granny’s name had been whispered in what Seraphim had called the old country, in Russia—a tale told to frighten little children—or so she’d claimed, though Grace always thought that her dear old gran was a bit of a ham. She had liked living in that run-down Victorian in that bad neighborhood, daring kids to play “ding-dong ditch” or to come get their ball from her porch. Once, Grace had seen a child’s face go white as the bloated belly of a dead fish in her gran’s presence. While his eyes darted here and there for any manner of escape, Gran had laughed so hard that she’d choked on her false teeth.
Not that she’d done anything to the child; in fact, she’d tried to give him a cookie. But the hysterical cackle had indeed sounded like a stereotypical Halloween hag and sent the boy running. Which had tickled her more, of course. Gran never minded the “witch” moniker; she was always happy to play it up.
Petru was still sniveling as Grace finished her little jaunt down memory lane. She put a fist on her hip and demanded an answer. “If you fear Seraphim so much, why did you almost break down her granddaughter’s door?”
“I didn’t know,” he howled like a child who’d stepped in a great pile of dog shit and had just been told it wouldn’t wash off. “How did I not know?”
Sasha bowed his head to the remains of the portrait, also clearly surprised. Grace raised her eyebrow at him. “Just wait until I hang up an actual
photograph
of Gran. That should be interesting.” In some small villages in the Eastern Bloc, there were people who still believed that a photograph could hold a person’s essence, even their soul.
She closed the door and put the latch on it. Not that anyone other than Michael’s thugs would bother her, but it was a habit.
Sasha eyed Petru as if the man were his life’s great cross to bear. He rubbed his blondish beard, which by all rights should have been threaded with gray for all of his hard fifty years. “Look what you did, you great
govniuk
.”
Petru slapped his meaty fists on the ground, a child throwing a tantrum. “I said I didn’t know.”
Grace didn’t have the patience. “So, what is it that you want?”
“I swear, Grace. We did only come to talk.” Sasha held out his palms, as if that alone would convince her of his innocence.
“You’re a bad man, Sasha Dubenko. You do bad things. Why should I believe you?”
“For one thing, because you’re Seraphim Stregaria’s granddaughter.”
“You fear her wrath even from the grave? Then, how could you take my child from me when he was born?”
“That’s what I’m here to talk about. Your grandmother is alive.” Sasha bowed his golden head to look at Petru again. “And, dear Heaven, will you please tell this
govniuk
that Baba Yaga will not come and carry him off for her dinner?”
“I don’t know, Petru. You did destroy her likeness. She might think you did it on purpose. . . .” Grace trailed off and shrugged, figuring they both deserved it for saying her grandmother was alive. That was just cruel.
The mobster grabbed the hem of her robe and pulled so hard that the garment was practically torn from her shoulders, revealing flushed skin beneath. Sasha almost choked, turning a bright shade of red before spinning around to face the wall. He managed to work in a kick at Petru, who looked up at Grace and saw what he had done.
Grace sighed. It was her own fault, egging the dancing bear on when he was so obviously frightened. Gran had been such a powerful witch that it was believed she’d shrugged off the dark embrace of Death and returned as Baba Yaga, the goddess witch incarnate said to devour human flesh to keep her magick strong. Grace could just see it: her dear old gran standing over some gargantuan black kettle, stirring the thing madly with a gleam in her eye and reciting in a singsong voice, something from
Macbeth
about “Filet of a fenny snake, double-double toil and trouble, boil cauldron burn and bake . . .” She’d have gotten a kick out of it.
“Petru, it’s okay. Really. Just don’t try to break my door down again.”
“
Slavny,
Grace! Thank you.” He was on his knees, still trying to kiss the hem of her robe.
“Petru, I need my robe back.”
He looked up again, only then seeming to realize that she was half-naked. It was as if he’d been bitten by a rattlesnake. He threw himself against the floor, prostrate.
Grace could tell his comrade wanted to kick him again. “It’s okay, Sasha.” She pulled up her robe and made herself decent. “You, too, Petru. Come, sit, tell me what you came to tell me.”
“
Slavny, slavny,
Grace!” Petru gushed.
From hours at her gran’s knee, she was sure that he was saying something kind. He kept calling her “nice” or “good”—which was totally off the mark, because she’d just summoned a Crown Prince of Hell to deal with their employer. She hadn’t thought too much about the other people who might get in the way.
Then again, what did she care if these two idiots got hurt? They were the ones who chose to work for Michael Jizzhat Grigorovich. That wasn’t her fault. They’d helped Michael steal Nikoli from her. They deserved everything they had coming.
Unfortunately, this was when the little voice in the back of her head, the thing called a conscience, decided to return from its extended “vay-cay” wherever the hell it was sipping little drinks with umbrellas while she’d been naked and sweating with a demon. She
did
care what happened to these two. Especially when she looked at simple Petru. Double damn.