High Voltage (Fever #10)(53)
Dancer, with his fragile heart, had refused the Queen of the Fae’s Elixir of Life that would have healed his compromised organ and bestowed immortality at the eventual price of his soul. He died once, when he was eight, had seen something, believed in something, and hadn’t been willing to sacrifice his immortal soul.
The existence of my immortal soul was debatable as far as I was concerned. Furthermore, if I lost my soul, I’d adapt. I always do. Adaptation is my specialty. I practically invented the word.
I removed Shazam’s paws from his ears, ignoring the explosion of wails and hisses. “Shazzy,” I said firmly, “I will not die on you. I promise.”
He snarled around hiccupping sobs, “Can’t make that promise!”
“You know Mac, right?”
“Thinks I’m fat and hates Hel-Cats,” he spat.
“She does not. She’ll give me the elixir of immortality. I’ll ask her for it.” And if for some unfathomable reason, she wouldn’t or couldn’t, there was always Ryodan. Or Lor, or whichever of the Nine I had to coax, bully, or keep killing until they did for me what they did for Dageus. “I will not die,” I said sternly.
He squirmed in my lap and peered up at me with teary violet eyes, sniffing. “Promise?”
“Promise. I won’t leave you alone. Not ever. Pinky swear.”
“Pinky swear is everything,” he said, awed, blinking back tears.
I’d taught him well. “It is. And I’m pinky swearing right now. Show me one of those adorable toes.”
He raised a paw and spread fat, velvety, black-padded appendages. I hooked the pinky of my right hand around his toe—
“Not that one. Other,” he said impatiently.
“It’s black. It blows people up.”
“Not me.”
“Why is that?”
“I’m me,” he said smugly. “Better, smarter, more.”
Oh, yes, we belonged together, ego to ego, emotion to emotion, God, I loved this little beast! Laughing, I hooked finger to toe and said, “Shazam O’Malley, I do hereby solemnly swear I am going to love you for all of forever.”
“Then nine million more days?” he demanded.
Smiling, I finished the vow we’d taken long ago, Silverside. “Uh-huh. Because not even all of forever will be enough time to love you.”
“I die,” he gushed, and fell over on his back, paws in the air, lolling happily.
“Never leaving you, best friend. You can count on that.”
Eyes gleaming, rumbling with contentment, he followed me into the bathroom and sank back to his haunches on the counter to watch with keen interest as I did something I rarely did.
Put on makeup.
Tonight I was wearing armor. The right dress, the right hair, smoky eyes, and crimson crushed-velvet lips. Since I didn’t dare show up naked to battle with Ryodan, I was going the opposite route: as the stunning, powerful, sexy woman I can be if I feel like it.
Sighing, I thumbed on my flat-iron thinking, what a bloody waste of time but my mood seems to mimic my hair. When it’s a wild cloud, so am I, and tonight I wanted to be sleek and polished. It takes an unusual, thick tree sap I found Silverside to straighten my hair. I brought a leather pouch of the stuff back with me but I’m almost out. I have no idea what I’ll do then.
As I began my makeup, a faint rustling sound in the shower drew my attention. In the mirror, I watched the antenna and head of a cockroach pop up from the drain. You never know if a roach is a simple Earth-born insect or part of the nefarious Papa Roach that used to hang out at Chester’s, preying on the waitresses who’d permitted his vile segments to burrow beneath their skin and eat their fat away—the AWC version of liposuction. Ergo, I treat them all as the enemy.
I pretended I hadn’t seen it until it cleared the grate, then grabbed a can of hair spray, whirled in freeze-frame and blasted it with a noxious burst, snarling, “Not on my turf, you little shit.”
The cockroach hissed at me and gave a whole-body, violent bristle, choking and sputtering as it vanished back down the drain.
* * *
π
Not all redheads wear red well. It has to be the right shade to go with our coloring. My hair is copper flame, my skin snowy, and my dress tonight was bloodred.
My still-black arm and collarbone proved a challenge. I had to keep it covered, although, frankly, blowing Ryodan’s ass up rather appealed to me at the moment and, hey, he always came back.
Still, I’d been unpredictably violent once today and I try to limit myself to once in a given twenty-four-hour period.
Ergo, my dress had three-quarter sleeves, hugged my body like a second skin, and was cut so low in the back that the tramp stamp at the base of my spine Ryodan tattooed on me years ago was beautifully framed, drawing the eye to that sensual hollow.
I’m not vain. I’ll never be girly. But I do like being a woman every now and then and I’m grateful for five feet ten inches of strong flesh and bones that has an appealingly lean yet feminine shape. My ass and legs are my best feature, powerfully muscled from endless motion. After taping my neck with Gorilla Tape because black went better than silver with my ensemble, I slid black and rhinestone stilettos on my bare feet, smudged my smoky eyes one last time, swept my hair up into a sleek, high Lara Croft ponytail, blotted crimson lips, and nodded to myself in the mirror. I debated leaving my hair down to cover the tape, but in a fight—and I was certainly hoping for one or ten—my hair unrestrained is a royal pain in my ass. I added the final piece: a three-inch-wide choker of glittering diamonds and bloodstones that concealed a garrote. Although I hated that it felt like a collar, it covered the tape, held a weapon, and was easily removed.