She smiled again. "You smell of her. One who could not run with you in the dark places." She slid off the stool. "You smell like her but now you taste like me."
And with that she left. There was the swing of the long silver ponytail as she moved and the shutting of a door. If you could say one thing about Delilah, it was that she said what she had to say, did what she had to do, and then she was done. Boom. Gone.
I said it again. "Holy shit." The kiss combined with the still very vivid mental picture of her nude in the tunnels had me glad there were only two customers so far and that the bar came up waist high. By the time Promise came in an hour had passed. Luckily.
Delilah and now Promise. I was Mr. Popularity this morning.
Promise came into the place dressed in a snug scoop-necked sweater, sleek pants, boots, and a matching hooded cloak to protect from the sun. Gray, violet, and black, it all had reminded me of her rug I'd sat on, the one under her piano. Also the one that was probably being cleaned quite thoroughly at this very moment.
She smiled, sat on the same stool Delilah had, carefully arranged her cloak on the one beside her, and started in on me about George before I could get a word out. Not that my word-slinging ability was so hot at the moment. It'd been one helluva morning.
"So." She tilted her head slightly. "What of Georgina? What did she tell you?"
I shifted my shoulders. "Nothing." The bar was filling up a bit and I handed off a drink to a vodyanoi in a trench coat, scarf, and hat that had him passable on the street, just barely.
"She wouldn't tell you a single thing?"
Running on absolutely no sleep, I gave Promise a weary glance over the bar. I was beginning to slouch, as you could be while still technically being counted as upright. "George isn't big on hints. Robin did something bad. Karma is kicking his ass. Lessons to be learned. Embrace the whatever. In other words, we get squat in the way of help. Why are you here anyway?" I asked curiously. "Nik is usually the one who likes to point out my tactical errors. You know, the where and why of how I fucked up. You're depriving him."
"I'm sure he'll discuss that with you later," she said with amusement and absolutely no pity. "Right now he's playing nursemaid to Goodfellow. Those pity-me eyes of Robin's." She cast her own upward in vexation. "He doesn't know how to stop, I swear. It's pathetic. I refuse to suffer any longer." She rested pearl-colored nails on the bar surface. "And I nursed in the war. I have put in my service several times over. I am done with that."
"Which war?" I straightened up a few inches with interest. Long enough ago and Promise could've drained as many soldiers as she tried to save. I didn't know when the vampires had started living hunt-free lives. It involved human-style nutrition, four food groups and all, combined with massive supplements of iron and several other elements. It worked…now. It wasn't something available over a hundred years ago. I would've liked to think that if the war had been before the nineteen hundreds, Promise had only taken the lives of those who would've died anyway. I liked to think, but what did I know really? Besides that, it was none of my business. "World War Two? The Civil War?"
"Asking a woman her age. You shame your gender. And, Caliban?" Sable lashes dropped over languid eyes. "There is not enough wine in this establishment," she said with an inscrutable smile. "Perhaps not in the entire city."
I thought about asking her of the little girl in the picture that had been placed so carefully on the piano, but I had a feeling the question wouldn't be any better received than the other. "Okay," I gave in, "no wine, then. You want some fancy morning thing with champagne?"
"Yes, a Bellini would suit, if you would be so kind." The bar had few windows and they were covered with blinds and curtains for the sun-intolerant among the clientele. Promise had used the opportunity to remove her cloak and shake her hair free. It wasn't often I saw it loose and unbound. It was something to see. The stripes poured and rippled down her back to past her hips as she sat … a tiger on a wooden perch.
By the time I returned with her drink, she was ready to reveal why she was really at the bar. "So"— she took the smallest of sips—"you got what you wanted, then. Niko told me where you were going, and once Georgina saw you, she would know." She studied me over the glass filled with sun and champagne. "And she did, didn't she? Does that make you happy, getting what you wanted?"
The words were uncompromising, but behind them I heard a reluctant sympathy. Promise knew my reasoning, but she also thought I was a twenty-year-old idiot hanging on to past teen angst for all I was worth—like a baby with a pacifier. She knew my reasons were valid, but she, like the others, thought there were ways around them. Vasectomy, contraception, cross your fingers and hope for a bouncing baby non-flesh-eater. Let's say I didn't trust any of the three. No one knew what the Auphe body was capable of regeneration-wise; condoms broke— as Sophia had once carelessly said, Niko was proof of that; and as for the last option: No. No way.
The only thing that would work, George wouldn't do. She wouldn't look. She wouldn't cheat. And as much as I cared for her, sometimes I didn't much like her.
"Yeah, I'm happy. I got exactly what I wanted." I didn't snap or snarl. I said it in a perfectly even tone, which in some way was worse than the other two would've been. It was true. I'd gotten what I wanted. George safe. Safe from me. Safe from monster offspring. Safe from the Auphe, because if I didn't care about her, then neither would they. If I didn't see her, then they wouldn't notice her. It was very much in her best interest not to be noticed.
She dipped her head in apology. "I,who never have the slightest urge to meddle in anyone's personal affairs, cannot seem to help myself with you." She extended a hand to lay it across mine. "After all, Caliban, you are family." She'd said that, done that, the hand thing, once before and I hadn't reacted very politely. I tried to do better now. I left my hand under hers for three seconds (I knew … I counted) and then turned it to clasp hers briefly before quickly letting go. Like I'd said to Niko, I wasn't good at this shit. I just wasn't, but I would try. For Promise, I would try.
"Want another Bellini?" I asked gruffly, ignoring the fact hers was still three-fourths full.
She pondered the glass gravely, then said before taking another small sip, "Perhaps in a moment."
A hand abruptly landed on the junction of my shoulder and neck. It wasn't a friendly grip either. "What now, boss?" I said with a groan. "I haven't impaled a customer in days."
"No," he agreed with bunched jaw. "You did, however, serve a vodyanoi a margarita on ice."
"So?" I shrugged, not seeing the problem.
"With salt," he added.
"And?" I twirled my fingers in an impatient come-on-already gesture.
"And half his face melted onto the bar." He bent slightly to put his head even with mine. "Salt tends to do that to them."
"Oh." I winced. I hadn't done it on purpose, although it was a good one to remember. As a matter of fact, Robin had mentioned that once the last time we'd dealt with them—salting them like a garden slug—but I'd thought he'd been joking.
"But, honestly, how can you tell about his face? I mean, come on." I grimaced. A vodyanoi was not pretty by any stretch of the imagination. Mythology says they look like scaly old men with green beards. In reality, they appeared more like humanoid leeches. Neckless, they did have a sketch of a human face to draw in their prey. A mottling of colors. Small liquid eyes, a dark mark on gray flesh to imitate a nose, and a sucker mouth they used to slurp out your blood. Quick in the rivers and lakes, they were slow and awkward on land, which is why they rarely left the water. Why this one had donned a coat and hat and lumbered his rubbery way to the Ninth Circle for a drink, I had no idea, but I would've thought he would at least know what salt looked like … for facial preservation if nothing else.