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“How come sirens don’t just scream constantly?” I ask. “Seems pretty useful.”

“You can’t, not without driving yourself insane. You probably can’t do more than a few minutes at a time and at least days apart. It’s a pretty horrific experience.” She grins into the rear-view mirror. “Luckily they’ve since invented guns.”

We pull out into the road and I keep looking through the rear window to make sure nobody is following us. Though I’m still confused about what on earth just happened, I am pleased with how quickly I got Celeste out of there. Surely that means I didn’t blow it completely?

Celeste shakes her head, her voice bitter. “That was a disaster.”

I shrink a little.

“I take it negotiations didn’t go well.” Mel turns the wrong way into a one-way street, forcing someone to stop by the curb to make way to avoid a head-on collision.

“Not at all.”

She gives the other driver a what-is-your-problem shrug before asking, “The thing you were trying to sell, what was it?”

“It’s called an inquisitor. It’s able to detect women with magical ability.”

I can see Mel narrow her eyes through the rear-vision mirror. Her expression looks like she’s trying not to be suspicious of Celeste. “What would a witch want with that?”

“I’ve hunted them down from all across the world. It’s better I have them than someone who would abuse their power.”

There is a long silence. Then Mel asks in an unusually quiet voice, “But what wouldanotherwitch want with them?”

“Nothing. It was my bad,” Celeste says. “I thought she was there on behalf of whoever is running this new trafficking ring, that maybe I could bait her into revealing information. I wasn’t actually going to sell it. Now I’m not sure who was baiting whom.” She pulls out a packet of rolling papers and a bag of dried blue Ghostshade flowers. “I suppose getting me arrested would be quite useful for Charon’s Veil.”

Mel glances over at her. “You didn’t tell me that’s what you were trying to do.”

Celeste shrugs. “You don’t need to know every detail of what I’m doing.”

“Celeste–”

“Don’t start,” Celeste interrupts bitterly. “Not now.”

Feeling the tension in the air rise, I sink lower into my seat, looking uncomfortably back and forth between them. Mel doesn’t seem like the kind of person who asks too many questions and more like the kind who follows into any situation with gun’s blazing. It surprises me that she seems to feel so upset about this. I certainly never truly expected to be let in on Celeste’s plan.

Mel lets out a deep sigh. “You’re not law enforcement, Celeste.”

Celeste rolls her eyes and turns on the radio. “Oh, you know they bribe the police. Somebody has to do something.”

“Does it have to be you? This obsession isn’t healthy.”

After turning up the volume, Celeste leans against the window and watches the city pass. “Let’s not talk about this right now.”

Unsure of what just happened, I, too, turn to look out of the window. All the excitement from Celeste’s kiss has evaporated into a sense of awkward embarrassment as the mood in the car tanks.What was I thinking?

***

After Mel drops me off in Tartarus, I don’t hear from Celeste for a week. It doesn’t surprise me – I totally blew it. Sure, I saved her but I don’t think kissing her was in the job description. The more I contemplate it, the more I wonder if it wasn’t some kind of mis-projection of my hunger. Clearly, the vampire in me thinks only about sleep, blood, and sex. Maybe in the moment, while trying to suppress my urge to drink her blood, that urge manifested into something else.

She did kiss you back.

I squash that thought as hard as I can, even if it’s true. It was a strange moment in a rush of adrenaline that probably cost me my job. The one positive is the money that earned me. For the first time in a long time, I have cash to spend – not a lot, but enough that Mav gets a little suspicious.

“Youdohave a rich lover!” he speculates. “You haven’t taken any jobs from Alastor in weeks. Where is all this cash coming from?”

“Ido not!” I argue a little too vehemently. It’s an unfair assessment – I don’t like Celeste. I just think she smells nice and she’s pretty. And I think about kissing her almost every day while waiting to hear from her. But when I do, it’s always with a little pang of annoyance.

There’s always the issue of the unruly darkness in me that never seems to want to rest anymore.