Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [79]
Yelena and Irina immediately began whining at him in Ukrainian, but he snarled and they both fell silent.
“Fine.” Irina tossed her head in that spoiled-princess way she was so good at. “Try it and fail. I will be amused to watch.”
“Hex me, go bite a blood witch,” I snapped at her. “Just admit that you lost this time.”
“Bitch,” she muttered, going out and banging the screen door behind her. Yelena followed with a flounce. Cold air curled around my calves and I shivered. Sergei snorted as if he smelled something burning and then held up a finger. “You have until the next full moon.”
“Shut the door, and don’t let it hit your ass,” I responded. He left quietly, footfalls that should have been heavy making no sound.
Yeah, I was gonna have to watch that one. And I had just promised to cure Dmitri of an infection borne from a daemon-were hybrid who was now dead, all in little more than a week.
What the Hex had I gotten myself into now?
Of course, the first thing I did was call Sunny—well, after I had put real clothes on.
“Not that I’m not glad to hear from you,” she said. “But you have that tone. You know that tone? The one you only use when something royally terrible has happened?”
“Uh-huh,” I said cautiously.
“So what happened, Luna?”
I sighed. “You’d better come over.”
She got to the cottage within fifteen minutes, no mean feat from Battery Beach.
“You know speed kills,” I greeted her. “That’d be a two-hundred-dollar ticket if some bored patrol officer tagged you.”
“Oh whatever,” she responded. “Cop’s cousin, remember?”
Pleased as I was that I’d corrupted her so thoroughly since her help with the Duncan case, I had more important things on my mind, like my imminent and unpleasant death if I didn’t get this Dmitri thing sorted out.
I made Sunny cocoa, since I’d finally run out of that hideous jasmine-wheatgrass-whatsit tea that she kept around, and told her the short version of my dilemma, leaving out me wanting to beat Irina about the head with a meat tenderizer until she resembled filet mignon more than a prime choice.
Sunny bit her lip. “Luna, why do you do things like this?”
“I was naked and about to be eaten, Sunny. Not a whole lot of choices.”
“Well, couldn’t you have offered them money, or negotiable commodities instead of some phantom cure? Gold. I hear gold is very big on the Russian black market.”
“First of all,” I said, “the Redbacks are Ukrainian. Secondly, you’re not helping.”
“Well, what do you want from me?” she exclaimed. “I can’t magick up a potion to cure daemon poison!”
I had sort of been hoping it would be that easy, but knowing it wouldn’t be. “Is there anything we can do, Sunny?”
She thought for a long time and then shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She was nice enough not to point out that there was really no “we” in this mess—if I didn’t come up with a cure, Sunny would continue as normal, albeit less one impulsive, angry, Internet-shopping-addicted cousin.
I pressed my hands over my eyes. They burned, reminding me I hadn’t slept in at least twenty-four hours. “Hex it. That’s all, then. I’m screwed.”
“Only daemon magick can reverse daemon contamination,” said Sunny. “So unless you can summon one up with a quick blood working…”
We weren’t going down that road, no matter how many angry weres were on my ass about this. Besides, I got the feeling Asmodeus didn’t exactly come when called. Figured, when I needed the guy he was nowhere in sight. Maybe I could get some sort of special daemon whistle.
“Thanks for your help,” I muttered to Sunny, laying my head down on the table. I just wanted to sleep, for about a month, and have the world make sense again.
Sunny stood and patted my back. “Don’t worry, Luna. We’ll think of something. I’ll do research.”
“I’ll burn a card catalog in offering to the research gods,” I mumbled from my prone position.
After I heard Sunny’s convertible drive away, I pulled