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Chapter One Hundred Twenty

LUNA

The monster of a man has no emotional aura.

He is a vampire, crouching, naked, his dick hanging between his legs.

Even bent like this, I can tell he’s over seven feet tall.

He has a powerfully muscled arm on one side, and from his other shoulder grows a malformed jangle of knuckle and nail.

His eyes are black and gold, or just black.

I can’t stop looking at them long enough to figure out what they are.

I am not myself when I look at them. Every flash meets a different mind.

I am never asleep but woken up with each change, as if I’m being reset over and over.

“Spent long centuries looking for it.” The vampire taps his stump with the tip of the knife. “It doesn’t work, as you see,”

“You are Manod.” Laro stands straight and unafraid. When I rewrote him, did I disconnect his fear? I must have, but I can’t remember anything I ever did.

“I am.” He considers Laro from head to toe. “You are made from my beautiful one.”

“Luna,” Carmine says. “Stay behind me.”

I suck in a breath as if finally, really woken from a series of dreams. This is Carmine. My fingers are digging into his arm. I loosen them, remembering him, how I love him, and why we are here.

“Is that the knife?” I ask.

He nods.

“You know him?”

“I’m sorry.”

Something about him is resigned, though I don’t know about what. This big scary vampire has the knife he’s been looking for. I’m about to ask Carmine what he’s sad about when the big vampire speaks again.

“Who is this?” Manod asks, sniffing in my direction. “Another Strega?”

“Leave her.” Carmine moves between us as if that will protect me.

“You have learned nothing in all these years. It’s disappointing.” He points the knife at Laro. “This one is your blood.”

Who is this guy to make pronouncements? He’s not in charge. He’s scaring Carmine and I don’t like it. Whoever he is and however he knows Carmine, there are three of us and one of him. We should just manage him like a checkbox on a to-do list. We can get the explanations later.

“What do you want for that knife?” I come from behind Carmine, palms out, in a position of surrender.

“The baby Strega has a voice.” He holds up the knife. The prickling lines of valence hit my hands with a force I have to push back against. “What do you think a being such as myself would want for a trinket like this?”

“I don’t know. A pair of pants?” Beside me, Carmine stiffens. “There’s a big and tall department at Macy’s.”

“Luna.” My husband speaks from deep in his chest, with the force of a command I don’t have to obey.

“You think you’re… funny?” Manod asks.

“So, a couple of shirts too?” I step away from Carmine, hands feeling around my connection to the power in the knife.

“Shoes and socks, for sure. We can do a whole new fit, unless you want a gift card so you can just go yourself when it’s convenient.

Though you probably know you can’t just walk the streets with your junk hanging out like that. ”

“You need to be quiet.” He turns his attention to Carmine and starts to speak, but I’m not finished and I don’t need to be quiet.

“If you don’t want to trade for the knife,” I add, “we could just take it.”

I close my fist and the knife shoots toward me.

Focusing on the handle, not the blade, I open my fingers to catch it without cutting myself.

I’m sure I have it. Then I don’t. I’m using my power to pull it toward me, but he has the speed of a vampire and his one arm is long. He caught the knife midway.

I pull harder.

Manod smiles and yanks his arm back.

As if I’m on a string, I take a hard step forward so I don’t fall on my face, then intensify my focus to pull the knife toward me, but he barely moves an inch in my direction. He bends his arm again. I have to take two steps forward.

“So, this is how it is?” I say. “You think I’ll let go without a deal?”

“You can hold on to it while I drink you dry.”

“Enough!” Carmine stands between us, weakening my connection enough to give Manod control.

“I want my ring,” Manod says.

My ring? A lot of people seem to think they’re entitled to it.

“You let them go,” Carmine says.

“No. Your ring for the knife only. For them, I want more.” He extends the last word into a wet, lusty vowel, eyeing Carmine like the work of art he is.

The effort to not look at this guy’s dick is for nothing when it starts to get hard. At half wood, it’s tremendous.

“I’m not for sale,” I say over his shoulder, then point at Laro. “Him either, probably.”

But Manod is not distracted. “It’s been so long. I’ve had many, but made none so fine as you.”

Made?

We dropped through a grate into the lair of Carmine’s maker? This has to be a trap that Charles set, because dumb luck can’t be this dumb. What’s the relationship between a vampire and his maker? Does Carmine have to obey him? Show him deference? Is it an emotional thing? I can’t tell.

“You still want me at your side?” Carmine asks. “To set them free. Is that the trade?”

The question is answered in the lingering silence between them. I hate it. Whatever that relationship it, I will not be what he barters his life for. I have agency here.

Also, I don’t care how big this guy’s dick is or how afraid he makes Carmine. I don’t care how strong he is. This… creature, or whatever he is… he isn’t so bright.

“That makes no sense,” I say. “What good is the knife if you’re dragging Mr. Beautiful-best-one-you-ever-made around like a sack of potatoes?”

Manod turns to me. His gaze is withering. The glamour he’s trying to lay on me weighs four tons, but I got this. He’s threatening Carmine and it’s pissing me off enough to make me reckless.

“I’d like to counter that you and your boner take the Macy’s gift card and like it.”

That really was stupid.

The creature gets blurry. He’s going to come for me and it’s going to suck. I can’t move fast enough to get out of the way.

But something flies through the air and knocks him in the forehead. Another one follows to his cheek and flutters to the floor. It’s a Dream Deck card, face up. A black knife with a blade coated in blood.

Laughing, Laro flicks another card to distract Manod. The insanity I forced on him may be resetting, but he’s still fearless and unpredictable.

Carmine holds out his hands to make a flame, but it’s small and sputtering. I try to valence the knife to me again, but Manod is gripping it too tightly and changing its location as he takes a giant step toward Laro.

“You should never have been sired.” His growl has a terrifying, godlike finality.

This was all a mistake.

Laro flicks another card at him. The monster keeps coming. I can’t picture what he’s going to do until he does it.

“Laro!” Carmine calls, but it’s too late.

Manod drives the knife into the boy’s chest.

Carmine is helpless as Manod plunges the blade repeatedly into his son’s heart, his throat, his gut, then picks up the impaled body as if he’s skewering a piece of meat, and drives it, with the knife, into the wall. Laro is pinned there with the healing blade between his eyes.

Manod turns to us, daring another challenge.

I look back at Carmine. He’s on his knees, looking at his hands as they tremble. All the power has been drained out of him. He has nothing to use on this monster.

One day, my brain will have to process what happened down here, but I don’t have that luxury right now. Nor do I have the luxury of fear or humor about a gift card, because I am the most powerful person left to fight.

“I took five self-defense classes.” I step forward, hands up like a dumbass with more guts than sense. “So let’s go.”

“Luna!” Carmine’s shout doesn’t get to me until I’m in the middle of some weird fake out that actually works—giving my foot a clear path right into his big, hanging balls.

I jump back, victorious. He should be crippled. He should be howling for his mother. I mean, I got him, full bootheel, flat out, not a missed gland anywhere.

But he’s still standing and his hand just keeps getting bigger and bigger, until it’s all I see.