Chapter 23

Chapter23

Darsh showed us a name in the notebook. “Changying Liu. Her name is crossed out.”

“Because she’s dead,” Sachie said. “That’s one of the Eishei Kodesh I checked. We never investigated the children of people in the book. Is she Maud’s mother?”

“She is,” Ezra said. “But why is she on Calista’s banned list? Did Maud have questions that Calista wouldn’t answer?” He frowned. “Questions she couldn’t get close enough to the Prime to ask?”

“Did she kidnap Calista for answers or to get into the Copper Hell glamored?” Sachie said. “Because Maud obviously has access to the place on her own.”

“Why not both?” Darsh said.

“It is both,” I said slowly.

Ezra nodded, clearly thinking the same thing.

“Maud wanted answers,” I said, “but if she believes Calista is responsible for her mother’s death, that wouldn’t be enough. The Prime doesn’t have family, but⁠—”

“She has the Copper Hell,” Sachie said.

“Exactly,” I said. “She’s going to disguise herself as Calista and burn the place down. The only question is when.”

This changed everything.

Darsh sent Ezra back into the Copper Hell to question the vamp bouncer who tried to blow me up. If he wasn’t there, Ezra would track him down in Babel. I modified the order to have him deliver the vamp to me. Both Darsh and Ezra were good with that.

Sunset came early in Vancouver in October, so while it was only 7:30PM, it was already dark, creating the perfect conditions for Darsh to break into the doggie day care and former printing shop in the warehouse that he’d first identified as possible hiding places near where Calista had been abducted from the transport van. He’d had good reasons to eliminate them, and he didn’t hold out much hope now, but we were desperate.

Darsh kept his knitted hat on when he left.

Sachie left to meet with Sharnaz, our Maccabee expert on glamoring, to learn all she could about taking on a magic disguise solid enough to fool demon magic, like who could do this and how long it might take. Anything to narrow down the timeline of when Maud would go back to the Copper Hell, since if we couldn’t find her with Calista, that would be the best place to apprehend her.

I was given the task of compiling a detailed profile of Maud and her mother, using Darsh’s laptop and his logins to all Maccabee resources, since as a member of the dearly departed, I couldn’t use my own.

His username? BitingWit.

Damn. That was way better than springtimebutcher22, the meanings of my first and last name plus my age when I created that login.

Unfortunately, any hope that I’d strike paydirt and find skeletons in Changying Liu’s closet was dashed pretty quickly.

The Red Flame had been a professor at the University of Hong Kong. There were pages of links to her scholarly publications, a few mentions of tennis tournaments she participated in, and the obituary of her death ten months ago at age fifty-five, from pneumonia. She hadn’t been on social media, but Maud was, and there were plenty of photos with her mother in her various accounts, showing the two foodies having a great time at restaurants around the world.

Nothing indicated a gambling problem or any behavior that would have gotten Changying banned from the Copper Hell. I stood up and stretched out my back.

Changying’s name on Calista’s list was also not accompanied by a helpful date. She could have been banned at any point during her life, though I doubted it was near the end. Her pneumonia happened suddenly, and she’d been teaching and publishing up to her death. There was a press release from the university about how shocked and grief-stricken her faculty was to lose such a celebrated and respected physicist.

I drummed the slender stake that Sachie had thoughtfully and a little pointedly left for me on the table. Why was the professor banned from the Hell? The only thing that made sense was that she’d lost a forfeit that cost her too much and caused an outburst Calista refused to ignore.

If Maud had drunk the Kool-Aid of her mother’s hatred toward Calista, then this was a revenge crime.

Had Maud been planning this ever since her mother died? Had the plan been put into place by Changying while she was still alive? Or was it only when Maud learned of Quentin’s situation that she saw her opportunity to get back at Calista?

Speaking of mothers, mine texted me. I stared at the screen, my face scrunched up in confusion. The last message I’d received from her on our personal text chain—two months ago—was simply the directions to the seafood restaurant we were having dinner at. Now she’d sent a heart emoji.

When a friend of ours from university passed away, Sachie and I had called her phone to hear her voice, and left messages on her birthday every year until the number was no longer in service.

It was a smart move on Michael’s part to have this record of grief over her dearly departed daughter. The explosion would have been reported back immediately to Maccabee HQ, not because it was me, but because these things were monitored. Combine it with Ezra’s outburst and there would have been a moment my mother believed I was dead.

I hoped it hurt. Was that mean-spirited? Absolutely, but since my deepest fear was she’d mostly be relieved, I wanted her, even for a second, to feel my loss on a visceral level.

She didn’t send a follow-up message, and I wasn’t going to divine any insights to my mother’s emotional state from this single emoji, so I put my phone away. It wasn’t like I could text her back. I was dead.

Moving on. The timer that I’d set on my phone buzzed—yes, I’d decided to keep up the dance breaks. I started up Blondie’s “Sunday Girl,” singing and grooving around the hotel suite for the requisite three minutes before I dove back into the puzzle that was Maud Liu.

The more I learned about the twenty-seven-year-old, the more I wished we’d met under different circumstances. I confirmed she was our Yellow Flame, but she was also a freaking professional poker player who held multiple world titles. She’d won her first tournament at the tender age of twenty-one. How cool was that? She was smart and well trained in deception and bluffing.

While I couldn’t wait to face her, this meant that she was careful about her curated image. Sure, her love of travel, food, and fashion was evident in all her photos plastered on social media. She was a jetsetter and probably crossed paths with Ezra on a regular basis. However, I couldn’t find anything that explained why she’d kidnapped Calista or what her end game was.

I shook my head. It had to involve her mother.

I yawned and stretched my cramped-up shoulders, ready for a caffeine fix, when the door to the suite banged open. I yelped, jumping a foot in the air.

Ezra strode in with his fangs out and his hands bloodied, carrying a human-shaped lump of bruised flesh. He tossed them down on the floor, where the person hit with a groan. Kicking the door shut, my ex wiped blood off his cheek with an oddly elegant movement, and unfurled a sly smile. “Don’t say I never gave you anything nice.”

I studied the doubled-over heap of vamp bouncer. “I’d call this more of a regift. Not even that. Recycled? Previously used for sure.”

The bouncer attempted to sit up, but Ezra kicked him in the head with zero effort or emotion, and the other vamp fell back to the floorboards. He curled into the fetal position, whimpering.

“Gently used,” Ezra protested, crossing over to the kitchen.

“You have some schmutz of his skin and hair on the toe of your shoe.” I wandered closer to the bouncer. “So, agree to disagree. What’s his name?”

Ezra grimaced and wiped his shoe clean with a paper towel. “Constantine.”

Had the bouncer renamed himself after the Roman emperor? Points for knowing his history, but talk about delusions of grandeur. He was muscle at a gaming hell, not ruler of an empire.

“Did you speed him here all the way from the portal at the Jolly Hellhound?” I said. That was a not-inconsiderable distance to blur here without being seen, and Ezra didn’t look winded.

He tossed the paper towel in the trash then washed his hands at the kitchen sink. “We had to stop a few times while I reissued my invitation to accompany me back for questioning, but essentially yes.”

I crouched down next to the bouncer, gratified at how his eyes widened at the sight of me. “You should have killed me properly, but since you didn’t, you owe me answers.”

He looked away.

I grabbed him by the hair and yanked his face back to mine. “I’ll say when we’re done. Where did you take Calista?”

“Cali’s been kidnapped?”

Maud was a slender woman. She wouldn’t have the physical strength to carry Calista from the transport van to wherever she’d stashed her. Especially without being seen by someone and after expending all the energy necessary to wipe three people’s memories. Constantine, on the other hand, could easily have accomplished that. I still believed Maud was in charge, but the vamp was part of this.

“Where’s Maud holding your boss, Constantine?”

His mouth fell open in shock at my knowing that Maud was involved, then he clamped his lips shut with a defiant glare.

“Awwww, look at you protecting your…girlfriend?” I laughed, letting go of him to sit back on my calves. “You poor, deluded idiot. She’s a professional poker player. A regular patron of the Copper Hell. Did she tell you how much she cared about you? Did she let you kiss her? Fuck her?” I leaned closer. “Bite her?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. Gotcha.

I feigned a sympathetic smile. “You really think the two of you connected? It meant nothing. Have you seen her since? I bet you haven’t. I bet she hasn’t spared you a second thought. Why would she? She got what she needed from you.”

The water snapped off, and I glanced over at Ezra to warn him off interfering. He was tight-lipped, his mouth downturned.

Constantine lunged at me, knocking me to the ground and pinning me with my hands trapped in his grip along either side of my head.

For a second, I panicked, but it had been beaten into me over years of training that fear was the mind-killer. The brain was the most important weapon for self-defense. I tore all panic away, planted my feet on the ground, and snapped my hips up, simultaneously tucking my elbows in.

The vamp fell forward onto all fours, unbalanced. He moved to correct his position immediately, but I’d freed one of my wrists, and delivered three rapid-fire, hard strikes. The third one hit his throat, and he lurched back, freeing my other hand.

Getting out from under him now was easy. I swung my arms around him in a wide circle, latched on to the small of his back, and tucked my head against his stomach.

My opponent struggled to regain dominance, but I clung to him like a baby monkey, shimmying myself up his body until I could trap one of his arms against his side. I again planted my feet on the floor, snapped my hips again, and rolled him underneath me.

Keeping his arm locked down, I struck under his chin with the palm of my free hand, then I elbowed him in the gut and punched him in the groin.

Constantine deflated with a pained moan.

I jumped to my feet and flung a sweaty lock of hair out of my face. It had taken only seconds to free myself, but I breathed heavily.

Ezra lounged against the kitchen counter with a tea towel swung over one shoulder. “Nice moves, Fight Club.” His tone was teasing, but even from this distance I saw a barrier lock into place behind his eyes, making him impossible to read.

I cracked my neck from side to side, backing out of lunging range from Constantine, who was still curled up. “One more chance. Where’s Calista?”

“Fuck you, cunt.”

I mock shuddered. “Ooh. Hit with the most unoriginal burn ever. You suck at insults as badly as you do at killing people, buddy, but I don’t have the time or inclination to teach you manners. Ezra?” I motioned for him to have at the other vamp.

“You putting me in, Coach?”

“Yup. Don’t let the team down.”

“Oh, I won’t.” His expression turned coldly sinister. He grabbed the front of Constantine’s shirt with one hand and hauled him to his feet like the two-hundred-pound vamp was as light as air. “Answer her.”

Constantine shook his head.

Ezra’s fangs descended. He slammed the vamp against him, biting down on his neck so savagely that a tendon crunched.

Constantine screamed and started sobbing. A dark stain spread over his pantlegs.

I wrinkled my nose. Gross. However, I was fascinated by how Ezra could make a bite either deeply pleasurable, like he had when he healed me, or deeply painful, for Constantine.

Ezra released him, and the bouncer fell to his knees, babbling an address in Vancouver where he’d picked up the explosives for my car from Maud.

I bounced on my toes in anticipation of going another round with the woman. The forfeit she’d lost during our game of hazard would be a fond memory in comparison.

My ex swiped his tongue over his fangs, then spat Constantine’s blood on the floor in front of the other vamp, who flinched so viscerally, it seemed that of all the injuries he’d sustained today, Ezra rejecting his blood was the worst cut of all.

Ezra glanced over at me. “Anything you want to add?”

I raked a gaze over the miserable shit who’d tried to kill me, reduced to blood, piss, and sobbing. He was nothing. Less than nothing.

But he’d tried to kill me.

Sachie’s stake was in my hand before I consciously registered it.

“Please,” Constantine begged. “Spare my life. You can arrest me. You’re a Maccabee.”

“True, but…” I reached Constantine in four quick strides and grabbed him by the shoulder. I let my eyes turn toxic green and my claws come out. “I’m also so much more.”

I drove in the stake.

His gasp was cut off. Well, falling apart into puzzle pieces of ash had that effect.

I wiped off the stake and slid it into my sweats against the small of my back. “Let’s go get Calista.” I bounced on my toes again, expecting Ezra to fight back, to protest that I was supposed to play dead and that I had to stay here.

Instead, he grabbed his cool gothic leather hunter’s jacket from the hall closet and draped it over my shoulders. “After you.”