Page 33 of Cold Curses

“No,” Dante said again. He was up before I’d registered his movement, and was suddenly standing in front of me, less than afoot between us. Monster seemed to arch back, like a cat in full hostility mode.

I saw Theo ready to launch forward, but I held up a hand. The demon could do more damage to Theo than to me.

“Vampire,” Dante said, darkness spinning in his irises and surrounding me with the smell of acrid smoke. “You should know better.”

His words seemed to bounce through my head, echoing within bone and blood. But I worked hard to show no weakness.

“If you’re going to tell me vampires should side with demons, let me save you the trouble. Andaras already gave me that speech.” I leaned forward, my eyes nearly watering from the bitterness in the air, my heart thumping so loudly, he must’ve heard it. Sweat, cold and clammy, slicked the back of my neck. “In my city, there are consequences for hurting humans.”

He watched me for another long moment, utter disdain in his eyes. I’d seen a similar look in Rosantine’s eyes. It was more than just hatred; it was cold loathing wrapped in arrogance with a narcissism chaser. I’d have bet he was imagining ways to hurt me…while I was trying to figure out how we could extricate a demon from a condo building without hurting the humans who lived in it. We’d expected to find Mr. Buckley, and we didn’t have a contingency plan.

But then Dante stepped back.

I’d called his bluff, and he folded first.

The sociopathy in his expression cleared, replaced by that weird, not quite humanity. “I am surprised you can tell the difference between good demons and bad. I’m a businessperson. I happen to be a demon, like you happen to be a vampire. I’m not leaving, and you can’t make me. You don’t have the force or the law on your side.”

He went back to the sofa, stretched his arms out again, lookednot quite human. “She was weak,” he said. “I’m not. And I’d be happy to demonstrate my strength. You want to keep me out?” He recrossed one leg over the other. “You should’ve kept her out first.”

* * *

“That last shot had good aim,” I said when we were standing outside again.

“Yeah,” Theo said, and raised his casted arm. “Too good.” He looked at me speculatively. “I thought he was going to eat you alive.”

“That would have been the finale, if anything.” I sucked in a few breaths of lake-washed air and let darkness push away the demon’s shadow.

“Let’s get some fresh air,” Theo said, and gestured toward the sidewalk. “We’ll be back in ten,” he said to the still-waiting attendant.

“Dante came here for a reason,” I said when we were walking down the dark and quiet street. “He can’t have been here very long, and we’ve already found him. He doesn’t want to leave, so he opted for politics over violence.”

“He has more control than Rosantine,” Theo said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And more magic, and apparently minions, which she didn’t have.”

“Associates,” Theo clarified.

I snorted. “Right. So he and Buckley knew each other before Dante got to Chicago. Because of Rosantine, Dante realizes he’s going to be able to get into Chicago. Maybe he asked Buckley for help in getting his ‘business’ off the ground.”

“Good money says his ‘business’ isn’t fully legit.”

“Yeah. Seems to me a legit businessman who wanted to build an empire would tell us what he did. Maybe we’d be potential customers.”

“Not on an Ombud’s salary,” Theo muttered.

“Right? Maybe Buckley was supposed to find him a place. For some reason, he decided this was the one he wanted. So he managed to buy it from Buckley, or so he says.” I frowned. “So, maybe the warehouse was some kind of warning message: Sell me the condo, or face the consequences? Or a punishment for not selling fast enough? That seems excessive even for Gold Coast real estate.”

“The real estate market is a bitch.”

“I guess. But why this condo? Why this building?”

“Prestige?” Theo asked. “He seemed pretty pleased with himself. A kingpin’s got to have a kingdom.”

“We need to find Buckley,” I said.

We walked in companionable silence. He stopped to pick up a small white flower, a survivor of early fall, that had fallen to the sidewalk from its small, tidy garden plot.

“You okay?” I asked. “You’re not one to inspect the flora.”