Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [61]
Unmoved, Joubert sighed and stared up at the ceiling. “Why Vincent?” I murmured. “He was out of the family. What could he possibly have done to deserve a death like that?” Remembering Vincent’s curled-up body, I had an unwelcome flash of what his last minutes had been like—senseless pain and agonizing death. I’m violent by blood and instinct, but the casual, calculated causing of pain to another living thing is foreign to me.
“I said he was always broke,” said Joubert, patting his pockets and bringing out a squashed pack of cigarettes. He lit one up and exhaled. “The club gets a lot of high-profile clientele. Vincent, the dumbshit, decided that selling coke to ‘em wasn’t enough. He was gonna make a buck on the back end with dirty videotapes and stained panties.”
And like a wave breaking on shore, I saw in the clean light of logic why Vincent had been murdered. Not for a magickal war. Not for revenge, or honor or anything lofty like that. “Blackmail.”
“Yup,” Joubert nodded. “The dumbshit,” he said again. “We had a decent sideline going. Just like that fairy to go fuck everything up.”
“Who was he squeezing?” I asked. “Give me the names and we’ll leave you alone.” Or I would, at least. I couldn’t vouch for Dmitri, who was skulking in the doorway to the dining room like a surly shadow.
Joubert stood nervously and paced away from me, scattering ash on his antique rug. “I can’t do that. It’d be bad for business.”
“I don’t have all freaking day,” I said. “If it makes you feel better you can just write them discreetly on a pad and I’ll pretend I found it among all my love letters from Dmitri here.” Someone close to the O’Hallorans. It could be anyone in the city—anyone respected, or rich, or whose face showed up in the Inquirer often enough to get embarrassed about their penchant for adult-sized diapers and baby bonnets.
Joubert took a long drag on his smoke, killing it down to the butt, and exhaled. He looked at himself in the full-length mirror on the opposite wall and heaved a sigh.
“I’m not going away,” I said. “Get cracking.”
I’ll never know how fast it really happened, but one instant Joubert was staring morosely at his unattractive reflection and the next his fist had flashed out, shattering the mirror and raining glass shards all over the dining room.
“Hex it!” Dmitri said. “What the hell are you doing, Joubert?”
Joubert didn’t answer him. His body was rigid and his throat was working like he was trying to speak. He turned like a toy soldier doing an about-face, jaw still twitching, and I smelled his blood before I saw the jagged piece of mirror clutched in his hand.
“No,” I said. “No…”
Mechanically, Joubert raised the glass shard, every inch of his stubby body straining against the motion. He gave a strangled groan and I saw a blood vessel burst in one of his eyes, the red stain spreading across the pupil.
I looked to Dmitri.
“Do something!” he yelled at me, always the helpful one.
“Joubert, don’t do this.” I started for him, palms up so he wouldn’t feel threatened. I considered telling him he had a lot to live for, but he was a middle-aged drug dealer who had back hair and lived in a house that looked like it had been decorated by Bizarro Martha Stewart. Somehow I figured that would just make things worse.
As soon as I was within grabbing range, Joubert lashed out at me with the piece of glass.
“Hex me!” I jumped backward and felt the ragged mirror shard catch on my coat. Another jacket ruined. “Joubert,” I pleaded. “Just put it down.”
He looked right at me, with his bloodstained eyes, locking me in with a gaze so terrifying I will carry it with me until the day I die. His eyes were trapped, terror-stricken, begging someone to help him even as he raised the mirror shard and cut his own throat.
Someone screamed, and I saw Irina bury her face against Dmitri’s chest as Joubert collapsed,