The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(70)
“Your grand-mère, did she come from this other place?” Yvette asked. “Do you know if they speak their own language there?”
“It would have been her mother who came from the realm of the Fée. But, yes, my grand-mère knew the fairy names for all the flowers and trees.”
“I have to go,” Yvette said. Despite the wave of dizziness that came over her, she stayed on her feet. “I’m sorry I can’t repay you for everything you’ve done for me.”
“Nonsense. Besides, your friend there already paid me.”
Friend?
The black cat came out of his hiding place beneath the fainting sofa. He purred and rubbed his cheek against Yvette’s leg.
“Oh, Monsieur Whiskers, you waited for me.” Yvette scooped the cat up in her arms, despite his prickly reservations, and hugged him to her chest, burying her face in his furry collar. Unsurprisingly he smelled of rose, hibiscus, and a dose of musk after crawling around the floor of the perfume shop.
“Thank you, mademoiselle.” She waved to Priscilla as she carried the cat out the door. “Thank you, a thousand times, for everything.”
Out of sight of the glowy eye of the streetlights, she set the cat down on the pavement and explained the predicament. The book, her book, was out there somewhere in the night. Now, more than ever, she suspected it was the key to something spectacular. Something people were willing to lie, steal, and abduct a young woman for. The key to what, she still didn’t know. But if the men in the maze were to be believed, Rings had somehow gotten his hands on her book and was leveraging himself for a trade. Which meant something had gone terribly wrong with Elena and Alexandre to have lost possession of it.
“Right, Monsieur Whiskers,” she said, thinking of the quickest way to get to the cabaret district without being seen. “It looks like this half-Fée witch needs to pay hell a visit.”
The cat mewed and shook out his fur. Yvette found herself with enough coin in her pocket for a fare on the Metro, so she took off for the nearest underground station, the feline doggedly trotting behind at her heel.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“Put the gun away, Henri. We’re all friends here.” Rings held his palms up in a half-hearted plea for a truce. “We put the word out we’ve got the book, like you said after you busted in here. The buyer will show up soon enough, with the girl, and then we can all go our merry way.”
“You tried to have me killed. I don’t think I’ll be taking orders from you anymore.”
“Yeah, funny about that.” Rings nudged his chin toward the young man in the back tearing at his thumbnail with his teeth. “Theo swears he was attacked by some voodoo woman and her pet dragon. Dirty trick, sticking a man full of drugs in a fight like that.”
Theo shrank inside his coat near the bat-woman statue. Rather than dispute the claim and convince any of them about the power of witches, Henri owned it, keeping the gun pointed at Rings’s chest. “And still not as dirty as leaving one of your own to bleed out in an alley.”
Rings shrugged off the accusation as a waiter dressed in an undertaker’s coattails and top hat, his face painted deathly white, entered the room with a tray loaded with drinks and sloshing a bucket full of used mop water. Any regular customers wanting to sit in the Underworld had been redirected to the two upstairs rooms of the cabaret while Rings and his gang awaited the outcome of the trade. And though Henri was at a standoff against everyone in the room, there was no reason they couldn’t have a shot of gin to calm the nerves and keep the mood even. After all, he only had three bullets. A happy hostage was less likely to jump out of desperation or false heroics.
“Any word?” Rings asked the waiter as the man set the bucket down at Henri’s side as requested.
“Non, monsieur. I’ll be sure to escort your guests in when they arrive.”
“There, see, everything’s moving along just like I said it would.” Rings shoved a glass toward Henri. “May as well enjoy yourself while we wait.”
The drink was tempting, but he was alone in a room crawling with slippery snakes. One false move and he’d be swallowed whole. He had no doubt the others were armed and would shoot him on the spot if he dropped his guard for even a second. Best to keep a steady hand on the gun aimed at the boss’s heart. What he would do after the buyer came for the exchange, he had no idea. That was the problem with acting on impulse.
“It’s a lot on the table to risk for a scrawny gutter rat like Yvette.” Rings scratched at the stubble under his chin, then glanced back at Theo. “Then again, he took a peek and says you had a dozen drawings of her in your bag. Can’t say I hadn’t thought of jumping on that tender flesh myself some days. She’s used, but there’s still plenty of wear left on that girl, that’s right.”
He winked at Henri like they were men talking over the tread left on a set of tires. The tactic almost worked. Henri wanted to bloody the man’s nose until the cartilage crunched under his fist, but he knew that was the game.
“I always did take you for a double-crosser,” Rings said, his voicing rising dramatically. “Stealing from the one person who protected you, who kept you safe when the streets could have chewed you into a thousand pieces. I gave you your pitiful life, and now you want to rob me of my reward. You work for me. You owe me!”