Chapter 35
The crosses were still in plain sight. They glowed with a soft white radiance. No burning light, not yet. We weren't in active danger, but the cross grew warm even through my shirt.
Janos put a hand in front of his eyes, the way I would guard my eyes from the sun in the car. "Please put those away, so we may talk."
He hadn't asked us to take them off. I could live with tucking my cross in my shirt. It could come out again later. I spilled the chain back down my shirt one-handed, keeping the .45 ready. I realized then that I didn't know if the gun had silver ammo. Now was not the time to ask. Stirling would probably lie anyway.
Larry slipped his own cross out of sight. The glowing night was just a little dimmer.
"Alright, now what?" I asked.
Kissa came up behind him, Jeff Quinlan in front of her like a shield. His glasses were gone, and he looked even younger without them. She had his arm behind his back, at an angle that could be painful with just a tug.
He was wearing a cream-colored tuxedo with a cummerbund done two shades darker to match the bow tie. Kissa was in black leather. Jeff stood out against her in wonderful contrast.
I swallowed; my pulse threatened to choke me. What was going on? "You alright, Jeff?"
"I guess so."
Kissa gave a little tug.
He winced. "I'm okay." His voice was a little higher than it should have been. a little scared.
I held out my hand to him. "Come here."
"Not yet," Janos said.
I'd tried. "What do you want?"
"First drop your guns."
"If we don't?" I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it.
"Kissa will kill the boy, and you will have done all this for nothing,"
"Help me," Stirling said. "She's mad. She attacked Ms. Harrison with zombies. When we tried to defend ourselves, she nearly killed us."
That was probably what he'd say in court, too. And a jury would believe him. They'd want to believe him. I would be the big, bad zombie queen, and he would be the innocent victim.
Janos laughed, his paper-thin skin threatening to split, but never quite doing it. "Oh, no, Mr. Stirling, I watched from the darkness. I saw you murder the other man."
Fear flashed across his face. "I don't know what you mean. We hired him in good faith. He turned on us."
"My master opened your mind to Bloody Bones. She freed him to whisper in your dreams about land, money, and power. All that you desire."
"Serephina sent Ivy to kill me, or rather for me to kill her. So she'd be sure to have Bloody Bones free," I said.
"Yes," he said. "Serephina told her she had to rid herself of the disgrace of losing to you."
"By killing me."
"Yes."
"What if she'd succeeded?"
"My master had faith in you, Anita. You are death come among us. A breath of mortality."
"Why'd she want the thing freed?" I seemed to be asking that a lot tonight.
"She wishes to taste immortal blood."
"This is all sort of elaborate for a little extra kick in your food."
He gave another rictus grin. "You are what you eat, Anita. Think upon it."
I did, and my eyes widened. "She thinks by drinking immortal blood, she'll be truly immortal?"
"Very good, Anita."
"It won't work," I said.
"We shall see," he said.
"What do you get out it?" I asked.
He cocked his skeletal head to one side, like a decaying bird. "She is my master, and she shares her bounty."
"You want immortality, too?"
"I want power," he said.
Great. "And it doesn't bother you that the thing will kill children? That it's already killed some?"
"We feed, Bloody Bones feeds, what does it matter?"
"And Bloody Bones is going to just let you feed off it?"
"Serephina has found the spell that Magnus's ancestor used. She controls the fairie."
"How?"
He shook his head and smiled. "No more delays, Anita. Drop the gun, or Kissa will taste him before your eyes."
Kissa ran a hand through Jeff's short hair, a caressing gesture. It pushed his head to one side, baring a long smooth line of neck.
"No!" Jeff tried to pull away, and Kissa yanked on his arm hard enough that he cried out.
"I will break the arm, boy," she growled.
The pain held him immobile, but his eyes were wide and terrified. He looked at me. He wouldn't plead, no begging, but his eyes did it for him.
Kissa's lips pulled back from her teeth in a flashy snarl, fangs visible.
"Don't," I said, and hated it. I tossed the .45 to the ground. Larry threw my gun down. Disarmed twice in one night. It was a record even for me.