Chapter 25

I didn’t have the energy to do much on Sunday morning beyond wait for this meeting and see how the chips fell. It’s not like I didn’t have other items to pursue. There was still the matter of the missing infernal blood, what the dark magic ritual for vamp invincibility entailed, and whether Sire’s Spark was more than an infernal detector, but exhaustion washed over me like a heavy blanket, weighing down my eyelids and tugging at every muscle in my body. I yearned for a quiet corner and a chance to recharge.

The important thing was that no one was coming after Maud. Her (late) ex-boyfriend’s inability to keep his mouth shut had led Zaven (also deceased) to seize on this opportunity to impress his hero (sadly, not fully deceased).

Natán might have ordered the deaths of those other half shedim and be plotting vamp invincibility, but I couldn’t determine that without Ezra, and thinking about phoning him made my fatigue deepen.

I hauled myself out of bed and rummaged through my dresser. Forget about lying around. A run would do me a world of good: the adrenaline surge propelling me forward, each breath a cleansing wave, and the cool breeze whispering through my hair carrying a sense of freedom and release. All that would exist from moment to moment was the pounding of my feet against the pavement and the steady beat of my heart.

And if I was lucky? There’d be a shedim to fight off in the forest or a dark alley, my own pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I returned an hour later, drenched in sweat with every muscle aching in the best possible way.

I’d even fought a butterfly demon with a tramp stamp of a human on her lower back. Great sense of humor; I still killed her.

Even better, Sachie and Darsh were in the kitchen slicing bagels and mixing up mimosas for brunch.

“Sachie has been filling me in on your encounters with the Authority,” Darsh said. “What’s the noun for a collection of douches?”

“A canoe,” I said.

“Oh, right.” Something had Darsh off his game.

I raised an eyebrow at the pitcher containing blood instead of orange juice that Darsh was stirring since he didn’t usually consume more than a couple of glasses. “What’s driving you to drink? Your latest case? Sexual frustration?”

He tossed the wooden spoon he’d been using in our sink. “Cease your blaspheming. I can charm anyone, under any circumstances.”

Sachie thrust her hips forward and back. “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

“Yeehaw!” I mimed twirling a lasso.

Darsh very pointedly grabbed the platter of bagels and walked over to the trash.

Sachie lunged for him. “Don’t harm them. Those are sesame bagels! Not shitty onion ones.”

He held them above his head. “Are you going to play nice?”

“Yes,” I said contritely and held out my hand. The second he handed the platter over, I galloped to the dining room table, complete with horse clomping sounds.

Sach howled in laughter.

A wet sponge hit me between the shoulder blades.

“Gross!” I pulled at the back of my shirt.

“That’s an improvement over your general disgustingness,” Darsh called. “Go shower.”

“I’m going.” I stopped as if a thought had just struck me. “Poor Silas. Stuck at the Copper Hell while he clears his name. We should invite him to brunch.”

Was this the opposite of protecting Silas? Yes. But this car crash was going to happen sooner rather than later, and it was better to rip the bandage off. Mixed metaphors aside.

Sach poured herself a glass of regular mimosa. “Who’s to say I already haven’t?”

“Wh-what?” Wow. I didn’t know Darsh could sputter.

“That was nice of you,” I said.

Darsh crossed his arms. “You better have invited Ezra too.”

“No need for that,” I said. I didn’t trust these two farther than I could throw them, especially not with the fragile new friendship taking root between Ezra and me. If they found out about our upcoming dinner? I shuddered.

“Of course I invited him.” Sachie took a sip then smacked her lips. “He gets all sad and grumpy if his friends exclude him.”

I threw up my hands. “You’re not friends. He betrayed you. You tolerate him at best, remember?”

“He made me a scarf,” Sachie said.

Darsh nodded. “I love my toque.”

“You can’t just let him worm his way back into our lives with knitwear!” I protested.

“I, for one, like our woolen worm,” Darsh said. “Very Dune . Ride ’em, spice girl.”

I groaned.

“In all seriousness,” Darsh said, “he does tend to have our backs when it counts.”

“Plus, he didn’t have a good male role model growing up,” Sachie said sadly.

“Then I’m calling Olivier,” I said.

“Who’s Olivier?” Darsh peered between us.

“A new gym buddy,” Sachie said.

I snorted.

Darsh gave a slow smile à la the Grinch. “Like that, is it?”

“Go take your shower, Aviva,” Sachie said forcefully. “Since Ezra will be here in…” She checked her phone. “Fifteen minutes. With Silas.”

Darsh and I exchanged panicked looks. “Lend me your eyeliner and hair spray and I’ll be the model of propriety,” he said.

“Deal.”

We bolted for my bathroom to hand over supplies.

When I returned to the living room, twenty minutes later, having showered and put together an outfit that looked like I wasn’t trying to impress while making me look fantastic, only Silas had arrived.

“Hey, Avi,” he said. “Ezra sends his regards. There was an issue at the Hell that he had to deal with.”

I’d torn apart my closet and four drawers for “his regards”? My annoyance blew away pretty quickly, though, because I was here with my friends and he was stuck there, and I fired off a quick You okay? text.

I sat down next to Darsh, who’d zhuzhed himself up, and helped myself to double servings of lox and cream cheese for my bagel.

Just business as usual , Ezra texted back. Thank you for checking . And for yesterday .

Anytime .

Darsh poured Silas a mimosa. “Been keeping yourself busy, Cowpoke?”

I settled in, prepared for good food and a good show, courtesy of the flirting bound to come.

“Plenty of diversions at the Copper Hell, Rapunzel.” Silas sipped his beverage. “Delacroix alone is a full-time job. Piece of work, that one. Ez set me up with new electronics, and the shedim keeps seeping water into the room to mark his territory. You know how many cables I’ve had to replace already?”

Darsh grunted in disgust. “You sat there and took his shit.”

“No.” Silas cracked his knuckles. “I told him in no uncertain terms to keep away from my stuff.”

“I would have threatened to electrocute him,” Darsh said primly. “Fried eel is delicious.”

Silas grinned and shrugged.

I hurriedly examined him for injury. “And you’re still standing?”

“I can be persuasive when I want to be. I may have strong ideals but I’m not a pushover.”

Darsh jabbed a finger at him. “Where was that attitude when you were locked up?”

“I wanted to make my case, but my convictions didn’t extend to dying for a corrupt allegation. I’d worked out a more physical plan of escape.” He spread his hands wide. “The odds were against me while I was at Maccabee HQ, but I had a plan for when that van stopped.”

I shivered. “Glad you realized it was us before that happened.”

“What if they’d tried to stake you while you were still in the cell?” Sachie said.

“I would have gone down swinging,” he said.

“You shouldn’t have been in any position to go down,” Darsh charged.

“Have a clear mental picture of my going-down position, do you?” Silas smirked at him and Darsh blushed.

I took a mental snapshot to capture this beautiful moment, but also, oh shit. That wasn’t hit-and-run behavior. Darsh was a deer walking into traffic, caught in Silas’s giant headlights.

Under the table, Sach knocked her ankle gently against mine, a look of concern on her face.

“Shut up,” Darsh said to the room at large. “You know what I mean.”

Silas nodded somberly. “I do, but honestly? I was in a state of shock that it was happening. Fifty years of service. I thought it would count for more. That I would?—”

Darsh reached for Silas, then curled his hand in. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I would have as well.”

The two smiled shyly at each other.

This was not a hit-and-run, a casual attraction. It was… I wrinkled my brow. Something unexpected, something deeper and potentially far more dangerous. Alarm bells wailed in my head.

Silas cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m safe now. And it’s a good thing, otherwise I couldn’t have met this one beauty.”

Darsh tossed his hair. “Do tell.”

Sachie waggled her eyebrows at me from over the rim of her glass.

I bit into my bagel with a smile. Good. They were flirting. That was nice safe ground not involving shy smiles and out-of-the-ordinary blushes.

“She’s like a sculpture in motion,” Silas said.

“She?” Darsh tightened his grip on the stem of his champagne flute.

Sachie gripped her quarter bagel, her wide-eyed expression silently urging me to do something, but I had no idea what. How did you stop a trainwreck?

Silas drew a wavy line in the air with his hand. “Kinetic. All curves. I could spend hours drinking in every facet of her, how she carries this sense of mystery and adventure.”

Darsh’s expression turned more and more crestfallen. He should have been making some innuendo-laden retort, not looking like someone forgot his birthday.

I set my bagel down on my plate. Silas wasn’t cruel. He wouldn’t outright taunt Darsh if he’d fallen for someone else, and without a doubt, the attraction was mutual, but the Southern vamp was so animated. His eyes were alight and his face was creased in a crooked grin as he described this mystery woman.

“Her O scale is perfection.” Silas kissed his fingers, then laughed at our confused expressions. “It’s a rare model train. Some poor fool lost it in a forfeit at the Hell and Ez is being a real gentleman and letting me have it. I’ve always been a big old train nerd. Riding them, collecting them.”

Sachie sucked in a breath, and my stomach lurched. Darsh was going to eviscerate this sweet man for his hobby.

“Modern or prewar track?” Darsh said.

My bagel hit the plate, lox spilling off it.

“Prewar.” Silas’s hazel eyes heated up more than if Darsh had stripped naked and given him a lap dance. “You a collector?”

Darsh shook his head. “My brother was. I inherited his set.”

Sachie and I had only recently learned Darsh even had a brother. His name, Patrin, and the fact his death was connected to the Copper Hell was the full extent of our knowledge.

“What pieces do you have?” Silas said.

Darsh unleashed a wicked grin. “How about an early Carette live steam train set?”

Trains? With that setup about “his pieces” that was where he went? I gaped at him.

Silas’s fingers twitched. “What gauge?”

“I believe it’s I gauge. Want to see it?” Darsh tossed off the invitation a little breathlessly and rushed.

Oh no.

“Really?” Silas lit up like Rockefeller Plaza over Christmas. “You’re not messing with me?”

Darsh frowned. “Why would I mess with you? I don’t kick puppies.”

“Huh?” Silas shook his head. “I just expected you to mock me.”

“I used to tease my brother about it.” Darsh looked off, a weight to the slump of his shoulders. “I wish I hadn’t. It’s shitty to make fun of something that brings someone joy. Besides, it would be nice to see it do more than collect dust. And maybe you could tell me train shit,” he mumbled.

Silas smiled. “Yes, Darsh. I could tell you train shit. Do you want to go now?”

“What about brunch?” I said.

Darsh stood up and grabbed his jacket. “It was lovely. Thank you, darlings.” He kissed Sach and me on both cheeks then went ahead of Silas to the front door.

The other vamp leaned down to hug me.

“Hurt Darsh and we will find you,” I murmured.

Silas pulled back in alarm and looked to Sachie for reassurance.

She narrowed her eyes, and ran a finger over a serrated bread knife. “Don’t make me use this.” She raised her voice and smiled broadly. “Bring it in, big guy.”

The enormous vamp gave her the quickest hug in the history of mankind, then bolted for the front door and shoved his feet into his shoes, nattering about snake-pull couplers, whatever those were, in a pitchy voice.

“Relax. We have time.” Darsh placed his hand on Silas’s arm and the other vamp jumped. That earned us a suspicious look, but we waved them off with smiles.

The second the door shut behind them, Sachie leaned back in her chair. “God, people’s love lives are exhausting.”

“Being a matchmaker is not for the faint of heart.” I reconstructed my bagel. “We’ve done all we can. Now it’s up to them to move forward in a mature fashion.”

We looked at each other, then burst out laughing.

To prepare for the emotional devastation to come, we ate our body weight in bagels (plus fixings), drank two pitchers of mimosas (sans blood), and finished off the latest K-drama that we’d been sucked into, all while we waited for the rabbi to come and set a new mezuzah ward.

It was a great plan. The show was equal parts hilarious and adorable, the mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups we’d graduated to were the perfect dessert, and hanging out with my best friend was the soul restorer I’d desperately needed.

The intercom buzzer sounded.

I spoke into the small phone connected to the intercom at the condo tower’s front doors. “Come on up.” I buzzed the rabbi in.

A black mesh portal opened in our living room and I jokingly chucked a peanut butter cup at it. “Rude to show up hours late after you’ve sent your regards, buddy.”

“My regards? What are you going on about, girlie?” Delacroix stepped through and grimaced at the handful of candy Sachie had just tossed in her mouth. “Stop eating that crap. We’re going for pancakes. You too, Saito.”

“Is that an order?” I said waspishly.

“Say no again, and find out.”