Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [99]
“Well, don’t trouble yourself,” I said sweetly. “I’m just here to see Sunny.”
“Come back later,” said Rhoda, taking a step to open the door. “Or better yet, don’t come back at all. Sunflower has enough to do without your burdens.”
“Grandma!” Sunny stamped her foot. “We just talked about this! I’m not six years old, okay? I make my own decisions.”
But I had locked eyes with my grandmother, and we were engaged in another round of our perpetual wrestling match to see who was more ornery and stubborn. “That’s fine,” I said. “The gods know, I didn’t mean to disturb your oh-so-important workings, Grandma. I just thought you might like to see this.” I jerked the canvas bag off the knobby shape of the Skull and held it in my palm. With no small measure of satisfaction, I watched color drain out of Rhoda’s face. She braced herself on the doorjamb like I’d slapped her.
“Mathias…”she breathed.
“Holy shit!” Sunny exclaimed, then slapped a hand over her mouth.
“So I’ll just be going and not coming back, then,” I said, starting to put the skull back in the bag.
“Come here,” Rhoda commanded in that glass-cutting tone she’d perfected over the years of raising me. I did as I was told, extending the Skull toward her. She took an imperceptible step backward, like a hiker would if faced with a particularly pissed-off rattlesnake.
“It’s the real thing,” I said, fighting the urge to wipe my hand on my jeans. The oily energy the Skull extruded was making my vision distorted, my head pounding like I’d just woken up from a lost weekend.
“I believe that,” said Rhoda crisply, hiding how much I’d freaked her out under contempt. “What I don’t believe is that someone handed this … thing … willingly to the likes of you.”
“Believe whatever you want,” I said, matching her, bitchy tone for bitchy tone. “I need to stay here for the night and I’d like a pad and pen, please.” I looked at Sunny. “I have something I need to do.”
What would happen to the Skull, I didn’t know, but somewhere on its browned and scarred surface was the spell that would reverse Dmitri’s daemon poison.
“Okay. Sure.” Sunny nodded, eyes approaching half-dollar size.
“You can’t stay here,” my grandmother offered halfheartedly. “I won’t have that thing under my roof.”
“Grandma,” I said, “in the last week I’ve had to deal with dead bodies, poisonings, car bombs, and being beaten almost to death. Tonight, I broke into a building and then climbed down the outside to get this thing. Do you really want to argue with me right now?”
Rhoda is a lot of uncomplimentary things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Her eyes went glassy and hard, and she turned on her heel and strode back into the kitchen. Great, yet another entanglement she’d never forgive me for.
“Got you a pad and pen,” Sunny said, appearing from the sitting room. “You can, er, do what you need to do in here.” She never took her eyes off the Skull, as if it might come to life and latch onto her fingers.
“Thanks,” I said, favoring her with my first smile in what felt like decades. Sunny bit her lip.
“I’m not going to ask how you got that away from Seamus O’Halloran,” she said. “I never want to know. But this is going to be bad for you, isn’t it?”
I set the Skull on the coffee table in Rhoda’s living room and slumped down onto one of her overstuffed blue denim sofas. I didn’t realize how close to passing out I was until my head sank into the cushions. Gods, I was tired. Tired to the bone.
“Luna?” Sunny pressed softly.
“Yes,” I said. “Probably it will be.”
“Seamus will kill you.” This time it wasn’t a question.
“He’ll try,” I said, forcing myself to pick up the pen and pad, rotating the Skull so I could see the ostensible starting point of the inscriptions, on the crown. “He’ll certainly try.”
“There was a time I’d have cursed you out for being so foolish,