To Dance with the Devil (The Blood Singer Novels) (6 page)

His face was rigid with barely controlled fury. And while it wasn’t sensible, or even remotely smart for me to get into an argument with him, I was too damned stressed myself to deal with his temper.

“First,” I snapped, “you made it clear that you don’t want to work in the private sector. You want to teach.” I met his gaze, completely unflinching. “Have you changed your mind?”

“No.” He practically spat out the word.

“So forgive me if I took you at your word and made other plans.”

There was a long moment of silence as he thought about that. He still wasn’t happy, but the level of tension in the car ratcheted down significantly.

Bruno gave me a long, level look. “What’s the other reason?” His voice was almost back to normal.

“What other reason?”

“You said ‘First.’”

Shit. I had, and he’d noticed. I closed my eyes. I so didn’t want to do this. “Bruno, I love you. But we’re too much alike to work with each other all the time. It’d be a constant power struggle, and that wouldn’t be good for our relationship or the company. I want my company to be
my
company.”

He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, his expression thoughtful.

I continued. “You made the decision to join the university all by yourself, without consulting me or getting my advice. And that’s fine. You get to. But I’m going to be making my own career decisions, including who I’m going ask to be my business partner and who I’ll be hiring. You can’t ask me to butt out of your career and then expect to have input on mine. It’s not fair.”

He gave me a sour look but didn’t argue.

“I love you, Bruno. But you’ve made it very clear that you run your own life, and I can respect that. I expect you to respect me enough to let me run my own life as well. The road goes both ways.”

“And if I can’t, as you say, ‘butt out’?” He spoke quietly, but his face was flushed and he was so tense I could see the sinews in his neck.

“Oh, do not go there. Don’t even,” I snapped. “I have too damned much on my plate right now to play those kinds of games.”

“You think I’m playing games?” His anger was coming back. Unfortunately, my own ire was rising pretty damned quickly. All the stress, the lack of sleep, my grief over losing Ivy—everything combined until I just couldn’t handle it. I rounded on him, completely furious and totally heedless of any possible consequences.

“No, Bruno, I don’t think you’re playing games. I think you’re being a monumental ass. I just lost my sister. I’ve got the family therapy session from hell coming up tomorrow, a woman got abducted right after she
didn’t
hire me, and all you seem to care about is your wounded pride.”

He hit the brakes hard, then downshifted and pulled off to the side of the road.

“You haven’t told me any of this,” he practically yelled, glaring at me.

“How could I? It’s not like I see you every day, or even get a call, and this shit is not the kind of stuff you send a text about.” I turned to look out the window. I was crying. Damn it! I didn’t want to win the argument by crying.

Long minutes passed in silence. I stared stubbornly out the window. I might not be able to stop my tears, but I could keep from looking at him. He just sat there, his breathing slowly going back to normal. The only time I moved was to blot my eyes, hoping my makeup wasn’t totally ruined.

“Why didn’t you call me? You know I would have come.” His voice was soft, but there was still an edge to it. He was trying to put aside his anger, but it wasn’t gone. Not by a long shot.

“Days ago, I asked you if you could come by. You said no.”

“You never said it was important. If you had, I would’ve dropped what I was doing in a heartbeat.” The look he gave me held so many emotions it was hard to sort them all, exasperation and hurt were probably the dominant ones, but sympathy was in there, too. “You know that, right?”

“I know.” I did know. He has always been good about being there when I need him. I don’t expect him to read my mind … well, not often. “I was going to tell you at brunch.” I hadn’t wanted to fight. I’d wanted him to hold me, to listen to me, to help me heal. That wasn’t likely to happen now, was it?

Bruno sighed and unfastened his seat belt. He scooted toward me as far as the gearshift knob would allow. “Come here.”

I moved to meet him and was rewarded with the hug I needed so badly. His arms were strong, his muscled chest warm. Just the smell of him was comforting. I could feel his heartbeat slowing, his muscles unclenching as his anger faded. He spoke gently, his words not much above a whisper. “I’m sorry about Ivy. Even if it is for the best, it’s going to be strange for you not having her around.”

I nodded against his chest, unable to speak for the lump in my throat.

He sighed. “And you’re probably right. I’m more of a leader than a follower.” He said it grudgingly. “You okay now?”

I nodded again, pulling away a bit. He moved back into his seat and strapped in.

“I probably look like hell,” I said as I rebuckled my own seat belt.

“Sweetheart, you always look beautiful to me.” He meant it, it wasn’t just another line of bullshit. Still, I pulled down the sun visor to check my makeup as he eased back onto the highway. This time he drove like a normal human being.

Neither of us said anything until he parked in the restaurant’s lot. Then he turned to me and said, “I know you need your independence. But I need to be a part of your life. I’m not trying to be controlling, or an ass, but I’m not into being used, either.”

Had I been using him? I didn’t think so. But I might have been taking him for granted, and that was wrong.

“I’m sorry if I’ve been taking you for granted. I don’t think I’ve been using you and I definitely have appreciated it when you’ve jumped in of your own free will. You’ve made all the difference in a couple of really tough spots. But we have to figure out what our boundaries are going to be, because I don’t want to have this fight with you for real instead of just over a miscommunication.”

I opened my door to get out of the car. The minute my shoes hit the pavement, the magical protections that had been spelled into the restaurant and the land around it sent a jolt through me that made me gasp in pain. Whoever had done the wards had put a lot of power in them. No vampire or other monster would be able to come near this place.

I am not quite a monster, but I am close enough that sometimes magic like this didn’t much like me. I took a deep breath. Steeling myself, I rose slowly to my feet. Bruno had practically vaulted around the car to see what was wrong, but once he realized what I was reacting to he stood still and waited, letting me handle it. When I was ready, he took my hand and we walked together into Antoine’s.

6

My alarm
went off bright and early Monday morning. I felt like hell. I hadn’t slept well. After clearing the air, Bruno and I had managed to have a pleasant meal, talking about our college days and my cousin’s wedding the previous summer. Antoine had worked his usual magic and presented me with probably the world’s best Belgian waffles and other goodies designed for my special needs. But even though things were better, there was still more than a little underlying tension between Bruno and me. I went to bed with a lot on my mind—not a good recipe for sound sleep. My thoughts had chased themselves like horses on a merry-go-round, only not nearly so pretty. When I finally did drop off, I had nightmares. Not the demon-stalking-me nightmares, thank God, but the old standbys: my father’s abandonment; being attacked by zombies. Not exactly a restful night. I drank a couple of cups of strong black coffee along with a nutrition shake, then ate a jar of Gerber beef and noodles. I was running low on baby food. I’d need to stop by the store soon. In fact, I should probably grab something on the way to the library, just to be safe.

It didn’t take long to shower and put on my makeup. I made sure to use concealer to cover the dark circles under my eyes. I wanted to look good but dignified, like the head of a successful company. Today was a big day. I’d reserved one of the small conference rooms in the university library for interviews. We’d scheduled them there because most of our potential recruits were recent university grads we’d found through the college placement office. It hadn’t been difficult or expensive to book the room for most of the day, and it was certainly convenient.

I hoped Dawna would meet me there, but I wasn’t counting on it. I texted her to confirm, but she didn’t reply. So I got on the computer and printed out the e-mail she’d written setting out the plan for the day, along with its attachments—the schedule of appointments and the applicants’ résumés. Then I stuck the packet in a file folder and drove into town.

Even early as it was, traffic was terrible. I was stuck for a long time on Oceanview, trapped by a multicar pileup up ahead. Frustrating. I barely had time to stop at PharMart for some baby food and nutrition shakes before I had to be at the library to get things set up for the interviews.

The wards around the building buzzed against my senses. They were a little painful to cross, but not nearly as bad as those at the restaurant had been. I was able to get through them and into the building with no real trouble and went immediately downstairs.

G-38 was a largish study/conference room. It was fairly boring: white walls, gray industrial-grade carpet, a big laminate table surrounded by cheap rolling chairs. The overhead fluorescent lights were the ecofriendly kind that turn themselves off if there isn’t any movement in the room. They also wash out normal complexions. I probably looked like a corpse despite my very careful makeup job.

I was wearing a charcoal gray pantsuit with a dark rose blouse. My silver jewelry went well with my storm-gray eyes. My gray shoes had minimal heels. I’d pulled my hair into a French braid. It was a very professional look but still feminine.

I stashed my groceries under the table at the far end. Then I picked seats for the interviews. I set down my folder plus a pen and pad I could use to take notes in front of my chair, put a bottle of water alongside them and two other bottles in front of two other seats—one beside mine, for Dawna, if she came, and one for the potential hire, opposite us. I sat down and flipped through résumés for three whole minutes before I got bored and decided to take a quick trip to the bathroom. After all, it could be hours before I got another chance. When I came back, Dawna was sitting at the chair next to mine. She looked gorgeous … and utterly miserable.

Dawna is Vietnamese, tiny and delicate, with gleaming dark hair and exotic features. She’s a natural beauty who also knows the absolute best way to dress to play up her assets. Today she was wearing a hot pink skirt suit that nipped in at her tiny waist and was both long enough to be proper and short enough to show off a great pair of legs in three-inch heels. It was obvious she had been crying heavily, despite her perfectly applied makeup and the antitears eyedrops I could smell on her skin.

Crap. Apparently she was having an even worse morning than I was. “What’s wrong?” I asked as I sat down next to her. She shook her head soundlessly, fighting back tears.

“Can’t talk about it?”

“After the interviews,” she whispered, her voice harsh and raw.

“Okay. I get that. But when we’re done here, I’m taking you to La Cocina and we’ll talk. You can tell me about whatever it is, and I’ll bitch to you about Bruno.”

She gave me a weak smile.

“You know I’ll help any way I can, right?” I looked her straight in the eye, I needed her to know I meant it. I might be annoyed with her, but she was my friend, damn it.

She nodded. Rummaging in her purse, she found a tissue and used it to dry her tears and blow her nose. Then she pulled out a compact and made repairs to her makeup. She was just finishing when there was a light tap on the door. Our first interviewee was right on time.

Brian Carter was just about to graduate college and was looking for his first full-time job. That he was young was not a problem. That he was immature was. He kept staring very inappropriately at my chest and Dawna’s everything and trying to make jokes, so I cut the conversation short. There was no chance in hell I was hiring that bozo. He left reluctantly, leaving the door open behind him.

Interview two came right on his heels. Talia Han stood five eight and was built like a tank. She was wearing a T-shirt so white it practically glowed, a visible anti-siren charm, and black dress pants. Her body fat ratio had to be under three percent and her musculature was impressive. I guessed that her trousers had to be specially tailored—her thighs were bigger around than Dawna’s waist. Her upper body was equally impressive. Her skin was a lovely caramel color, her eyes a striking hazel and slightly tilted. Her hair had been shaved close to her head, but what there was of it was curly and medium brown.

“Hello, Dawna.” She smiled, showing very white but slightly crooked teeth, and passed each of us a résumé with a folded paper attached. “Ms. Graves.”

“Talia.” Dawna was a little flabbergasted, but she recovered well. “Celia, this is my cousin, Talia. I haven’t seen her in—”

“Fifteen years,” Talia supplied. “Not since my father moved us to Chicago. But I’m back, I need a job, and Grammie told me you were hiring.” She took a seat, making herself comfortable while I looked over the résumé and its attachments again. It was a stall tactic. Dawna had obviously been thrown by her cousin’s appearance. Evidently the name hadn’t rung a bell when she’d scheduled the interview. I figured I’d give her a few seconds to recover. Besides, the résumé was worth another look.

Talia was former military, a marine, with experience in the military police. The attachments were a pair of targets from the range. The results were impressive. She was obviously skilled at handling both handguns and magic. She was only a level four, but I didn’t doubt for a minute that the corps had trained her just as meticulously as the Catholic church trained its warrior-priests. I’d seen what a level four could do with proper training. The answer was: a lot.