you conniving bitch.
I crack the door open just an inch, in case Jewel's waiting for me with an axe, but there's no one. Outside, pale dawn flushes the sky, and the clouds have cleared, but street lights still drench the road in yellow glare. Plane trees cast weaving shadows in the humid breeze, a few discarded leaves plastered to the wet road.
I hop over the gutter and cross the empty street to the tram stop. I have no idea where I'm going. I don't know where Gavain lives, if it isn't under the bar at Unseelie Court. I don't have his number in my phone. I don't even know who he's screwing this week. All I know is he's fucked me over, and I don't understand why.
I crouch on the round metal railing at the tram stop, my boot heels hanging on the bottom rung, and I try to think it through, figure out what's going on. Gavain knew that Jewel could disappear. He tried to tell me at the club, and I ignored him. But as far as I know, he isn't a thief. He doesn't own things. He never has any money and what he does have, he spends on drugs and booze. He just doesn't care about stuff . A girl who can conjure french fries is useless to him. Although I suspect you fetch more than fast food, Jewel, or you'd not be so desperate to get your little brass house back.
Unwilling, I recall the helplessness in her eyes when I pushed her away, and self-disgust bursts black bubbles in my guts.
So if I were Gavain, why would I steal that lamp?
Absently I check my pistol, work the slide, reseat the first few rounds in the magazine before I pop it back in.
Because someone told me to, that's why.
Someone who twisted my sexy little pointed ears until it hurt, and made me promise. Someone who knows what Jewel is, and wants her. Secrets don't stay secret for long in this town, not with so many preternatural ears and covetous hearts and babbling fairy tongues. Kane was interested. That meant there'd probably be others. The kind of people who don't bother to get cute with sneaking about or asking nicely.
Joey DiLuca, for one, along with Mina, his steely-nerved banshee sidekick. Angelo Valenti, my boss. Kane's demon enemies. Maybe even Kane himself, screwing with me just for fun. Any of them could have gotten to Gavain. Hell, it isn't hard. I did it.
The iron-grey tram clicks to a stop, and I jump on, my joints for once smooth and soundless, my muscles strong and tingling with sensation. I inhale and don't choke, the stale tram air tasty in my nose. I feel great. I even drop some change into the ticket machine, to celebrate. Just a zone one, to Carlton and Valentino's.
In this town, if you want to pull graft and survive, you either run with DiLuca or Valenti. The Valenti gang belongs to Angelo, the meanest old Sicilian vampire in town, and he and his array of sociopathic cousins keep the family in line. The DiLuca family, on the other hand, goes through patriarchs like it's going out of style—they murder and backstab and fuck each other over with happy-sick delight—but these days faeborn Joey's in charge, and if you add up his little snake problem with the town's scariest insecurity complex? Joey is even crazier than Ange.
Most guys fall into one or the other gang kind of by accident. I'm no different. I grew up swapping pills and kicking heads and spraying merry chaos on Carlton walls, and once I got old enough to think with my real brain I built up enough of a rep that Ange Valenti himself noticed me. I've done jobs for Ange since, deliveries, a cash score or two, a bit of sly DiLuca fuckery.
They say Ange is a cold-hearted twat with a vicious temper, but he's always acted civil to me, especially since Katie died. I trust him about as far as I can spit him—a guy that looks at me like I'm food is not my friend—but I gotta start somewhere. Someone must know something, and I've got one thing they all want. Jewel's mine, at least for now. They can't have her without me. That has to count in my favor.
I remember the desperation clouding her
I crack the door open just an inch, in case Jewel's waiting for me with an axe, but there's no one. Outside, pale dawn flushes the sky, and the clouds have cleared, but street lights still drench the road in yellow glare. Plane trees cast weaving shadows in the humid breeze, a few discarded leaves plastered to the wet road.
I hop over the gutter and cross the empty street to the tram stop. I have no idea where I'm going. I don't know where Gavain lives, if it isn't under the bar at Unseelie Court. I don't have his number in my phone. I don't even know who he's screwing this week. All I know is he's fucked me over, and I don't understand why.
I crouch on the round metal railing at the tram stop, my boot heels hanging on the bottom rung, and I try to think it through, figure out what's going on. Gavain knew that Jewel could disappear. He tried to tell me at the club, and I ignored him. But as far as I know, he isn't a thief. He doesn't own things. He never has any money and what he does have, he spends on drugs and booze. He just doesn't care about stuff . A girl who can conjure french fries is useless to him. Although I suspect you fetch more than fast food, Jewel, or you'd not be so desperate to get your little brass house back.
Unwilling, I recall the helplessness in her eyes when I pushed her away, and self-disgust bursts black bubbles in my guts.
So if I were Gavain, why would I steal that lamp?
Absently I check my pistol, work the slide, reseat the first few rounds in the magazine before I pop it back in.
Because someone told me to, that's why.
Someone who twisted my sexy little pointed ears until it hurt, and made me promise. Someone who knows what Jewel is, and wants her. Secrets don't stay secret for long in this town, not with so many preternatural ears and covetous hearts and babbling fairy tongues. Kane was interested. That meant there'd probably be others. The kind of people who don't bother to get cute with sneaking about or asking nicely.
Joey DiLuca, for one, along with Mina, his steely-nerved banshee sidekick. Angelo Valenti, my boss. Kane's demon enemies. Maybe even Kane himself, screwing with me just for fun. Any of them could have gotten to Gavain. Hell, it isn't hard. I did it.
The iron-grey tram clicks to a stop, and I jump on, my joints for once smooth and soundless, my muscles strong and tingling with sensation. I inhale and don't choke, the stale tram air tasty in my nose. I feel great. I even drop some change into the ticket machine, to celebrate. Just a zone one, to Carlton and Valentino's.
In this town, if you want to pull graft and survive, you either run with DiLuca or Valenti. The Valenti gang belongs to Angelo, the meanest old Sicilian vampire in town, and he and his array of sociopathic cousins keep the family in line. The DiLuca family, on the other hand, goes through patriarchs like it's going out of style—they murder and backstab and fuck each other over with happy-sick delight—but these days faeborn Joey's in charge, and if you add up his little snake problem with the town's scariest insecurity complex? Joey is even crazier than Ange.
Most guys fall into one or the other gang kind of by accident. I'm no different. I grew up swapping pills and kicking heads and spraying merry chaos on Carlton walls, and once I got old enough to think with my real brain I built up enough of a rep that Ange Valenti himself noticed me. I've done jobs for Ange since, deliveries, a cash score or two, a bit of sly DiLuca fuckery.
They say Ange is a cold-hearted twat with a vicious temper, but he's always acted civil to me, especially since Katie died. I trust him about as far as I can spit him—a guy that looks at me like I'm food is not my friend—but I gotta start somewhere. Someone must know something, and I've got one thing they all want. Jewel's mine, at least for now. They can't have her without me. That has to count in my favor.
I remember the desperation clouding her
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