“Because it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Unfortunately, it does. You proved last night once and for all that even though I want to, I can’t trust you.” I could hear a strange edge of disappointment in his voice. “I can’t let anything get in the way of what I need. And if I must use your little blond friend to ensure that everything runs smoothly tonight, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
I shook my head. “You can trust me.”
“You tried to seduce me in my hotel room to steal my BlackBerry—”
“I wouldn’t really use the word ‘seduce.’ ”
“Then you underestimate yourself. And then you took it away from me in the alley at your first opportunity. Did it give you the information you were looking for?”
Being that I was speaking to him on the device itself, I couldn’t very well deny I had it.
“You must have dropped it. I was going to return it to you. Oh, and by the way, really sorry about what happened there. I didn’t mean to… to…”
“Bite me?” he finished. “When your nightwalker takes over you become a very different woman entirely, don’t you?”
I exhaled shakily. “Now you can see why I have to find a way to break my curse.”
“Just the opposite. With the right nurturing and guidance I’m now convinced your darker side could be an asset. I envy you that other self, Sarah. I wish I had something similar.”
My jaw tightened. “Then I guess it was a mistake for you to kill the witch who cursed me.
She could have set you up with a nice shiny inner nightwalker of your own.” My honey was starting to turn to acid. “You need to let Amy go. Now.”
“You’re just a girl who can’t take no for an answer, aren’t you? So let me ask you this… did you discuss everything with my good friend George? I assume since you slid your talented little hand into my pants last night to steal my phone you know we’ve been in contact.”
My back stiffened. “Maybe.”
“You can have George—provided you tell him nothing further. Consider his life a gift from me to you since you refuse to take jewelry from me. Besides, I don’t need to use the false threat of shadowy assassins anymore, do I? I have something much more tangible now—Amy.”
“What do you want, Gideon?” I asked.
“What I’ve always wanted. For you to sire me at midnight.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Of course you will. And you’ll also come to my hotel room right now. There’s something important you need to see.”
The line went dead.
Chapter 14
W hen I arrived at Gideon’s hotel room—hoping for the best but expecting the worst—
the door was open and a housekeeping cart was out front. I sidestepped it to get into the room.
The suite’s fireplace currently cast a warm glow on the rich décor. The bed was made and on the brocade bedspread I noticed some photos. I walked directly toward them.
When Gideon had first revealed himself to me—so to speak—he’d shown me these photos. At the time I’d assumed he’d hired a private investigator to follow me and my friends and family around, but now I had a funny feeling that Gideon had been the shutterbug himself.
There were pictures of Thierry leaving the nightclub he used to own. There were pictures of my parents up north in my hometown of Abottsville. Pictures of Amy and Barry going about their newlywed lives, and pictures of George. The shots all looked familiar even though I’d been in a fog when I’d first seen them. At the time I’d been dealing with the beginning stages of my nightwalker curse.
There were new pictures as well. They made my stomach sink lower and lower.
The first was a picture of me talking to the Red Devil after he’d stopped me from chomping the fledgling. A picture of Veronique and me having coffee from yesterday. And a picture of Thierry leaving George’s house in the wee hours last night after confronting
George and our subsequent argument about my misplaced loyalties.
A cold line of perspiration slid down my spine.
Okay, so he officially knew I’d been lying to him about seeing Thierry. So what was he going to do about it?
The thought that my secret was out made me feel very ill. But even with my secrets laid bare in the photos, Gideon Chase still needed me. That fact alone would keep Amy safe.
This could still turn out okay.
It could. Leave me to my delusions, please. Luckily, things couldn’t really get much worse than they already were.
The maid emerged from the bathroom and she touched her hand to her chest when she saw me. “Goodness! You scared me.”
“The… the man who was staying here. Where is he right now?”
“Checked out. I’m making up the room,” she said. “Left me a real mess to clean up, too.
It’s going to take forever to get whatever that is out of the fireplace.”
I turned slowly to look at where she pointed. I’d never stayed in a hotel room that had a fireplace. Usually for me it was a bed, a desk, and a bathroom. Maybe some generic shampoo and a tiny bar of soap if I was lucky.
I tilted my head. “What is that?”
The maid shrugged. “Looks like he’s burning a big book of some kind. Guess it wasn’t a page turner. I like some Stephenie Meyer, myself.”
My mouth went dry. I grabbed a poker from a stand at the side of the fireplace and poked at the large rectangular object.
“What are you doing?” the maid exclaimed as I dragged the book out of the fire and it landed in an ashy heap on the floor.
It was the grimoire.
Or, at least, it had been.
Now it was no more than a black, charred excuse for a once-magical book of spells. The pages were seared and blackened. I pushed it open with the tip of the poker to the middle and found that the pages were ruined and unreadable. It had been burning for a while.
Liar, liar. Your grimoire’s on fire.
“What is that, a phone book?” the maid asked curiously.