Kissed by Darkness(63)

“So, tell me, what’s been happening. I want all the gossip!” Her rings sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows. I was not really much of a jewelry person, so rings on every finger seemed like overkill, but they looked nice on her long, slender fingers.

“Um, I thought you already knew everything. You know psychic and all that.” I leaned forward to take the cup of tea she held out to me. The fragile blue and gold china made me slightly nervous. Handling delicate things freaked me out a little. I may have been hell on wheels when it came to killing monsters, but graceful I was not. I also recognized the pattern as a rather rare antique Wedgewood which I so did not want to have to find a replacement for if I broke it. It wasn’t the cost that worried me. It was the fact that it would be a major pain in the ass to try to find a new one.

“Oh, I don’t know everything,” she laughed lightly. “Just mostly everything. Bastet, now she knows everything.” She winked at the cat. Bastet just glowered and twitched her tail. I was sort of glad I wasn’t the only one she gave attitude. “So, come on Morgan. I want all the juicy details.”

I caught her up on the madness that had become my life. Up to and including the weirdness that was Inigo and the trouble both he and Jack gave my hormones, plus my nearly sleeping with Jack and the confusion I felt about the whole thing. Again, I avoided the whole Sunwalker scenario. It was just too much. Plus I figured that she might very well already know. If she didn’t, I wasn’t telling. Not yet.

Cordelia nodded sagely and delicately sipped at her tea. “Catnip.”

“What?” I blinked at her. Had she been listening in on my snarky thoughts about Bastet? Or maybe Bastet had tattled on me. With that cat anything was possible.

“Have you ever seen a cat on catnip? They go completely crazy and rub themselves all over everyone and everything like they want to soak up every bit of pleasure they can. Jack’s your catnip. Maybe Inigo, too. Oh, how nice! Two catnips!” She looked entirely too pleased about the prospect as she clapped her hands gleefully. She looked for all the world like a kid let loose in Disneyland.

“No. No, no, no! There is no catnip.” I shook my head most emphatically. “I do not rub myself all over them. Well, maybe a little. But that’s not my fault. There is no catnip!”

Cordelia just looked smug and her eyes twinkled with laughter. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look, can we stay on topic? Forget about catnip, OK? I just want to know what is going on with Inigo. Heck, I’d love to know what’s going on with me.”

“And Jack?” She smiled altogether too much like that cat that stole the cream. I think I might have growled at her. She burst out in a rich belly laugh which made me think of Christmas pudding with rum sauce. Weird that her laughter always made me think of Christmas and food. Not sure what that meant. “All right,” she thrust her hand out. “Tea cup.”

I slurped the last of my tea, tipped the cup upside down on the saucer and handed it to her. I had no idea how on earth anyone read tea leaves. It looked like a bunch of brown gunk stuck on the bottom of a cup to me. I guess that was why Cordelia was the psychic clairvoyant, and I was the badass vampire Hunter.

“Let’s see,” she said, tipping the cup this way and that trying to catch the dying light, “this Darkness business. All I can say is that it’s a part of you. Just like your green eyes and your bad driving.”

“Hey!”

She smirked at me then peered back into the depths of the cup. “It’s new, but it’s not new.” She frowned a little as though struggling to explain something she understood but had no real words for. “I mean, it’s always been in you, part of you, but it’s new. Newly woken. Something … something woke it up.” Her frown grew deeper.

“What do you mean, ‘something woke it up’?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure. This is all a little … “

“Hinky?”

Her laugh tinkled. “Yeah. Hinky. Has anyone ever told you that you’ve an interesting grasp of the English language?”

“It has been noted,” I said, dryly.

She smiled a little at that. “Well, this ability of yours, to draw on the power of the Dark, it’s only the beginning. There is more to come. Much more.” She frowned into the cup, obviously perturbed by what she saw.

“Shit, what does that mean?” As if some bizarre new channeling power and possible immortality weren’t bad enough. How much crazier could my life possibly get?