Moonshifted(83)

“Sike?” I asked from the doorway. I didn’t want to walk across the room and touch her, just in case she would be violent when she woke. “Sike?” I said, a little louder.

Her eyes opened, and she took a deep breath. Pushing herself up on her elbows, she focused on me. “You were gone half the night!”

“It’s called work. You should try it sometime.”

She sat up, stretched, and pulled her coat around herself. “I am working. You have no idea. Planning a Sanguine ascension ceremony is like planning a wedding, only all the guests could kill you.”

I walked into my room. “So to what do I owe the honor?”

“House Grey. Who told you about them?”

“A frightened were.” I sat down on the edge of my bed beside her to tell her Viktor’s story, but made sure her strange furry coat didn’t touch my leg. “About seven years ago, someone from House Grey visited his father and ruined this guy’s life.”

“That does sound like them. And makes everything infinitely more complicated for us.”

“Who are they?”

“A guild of vampires dedicated to their own causes, whatever and wherever they may be. Assassins, mostly.”

“And they’re part of the Rose Throne?”

“No. They’re part of every Throne, whether that Throne knows it or not. The best assassin is the one you least expect. The Rose Throne is continually at war with them.”

“Really?” I’d figured that since Y4 was in the business of caring for injured daytimers, if there was a war on, we would know. “Why haven’t I met any of them before?”

Sike narrowed her eyes at me. “Because when their people get injured, they let them die. Or rather—they make sure they die. They never leave any witnesses.” She snorted. “They don’t keep lipless freaks around, at any rate.”

Suddenly having released Gideon into her care didn’t seem like that great an idea. “Is Gideon okay?”

She gathered her coat to herself and put her arms through its sleeves. “As well as he can be. We found out who hurt him. House Bathory. Bunch of ingrates, trying to show her up. I wouldn’t be surprised if House Grey put them up to it, just to see how Anna would react.” Sike looked around my bedroom. “Your knife is still safe, isn’t it? Is it here?”

I inhaled to tell her, and then closed my mouth. I didn’t really expect Sike to kill me, but—she laughed. “Look how fast you learn! Don’t tell me. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Keep it safe.”

“Why’s the knife important to them?”

“It’s not, and you’re not—they’re only interested in fucking Anna over without showing their hand. How they got weres to go along with them, I’ll never know.” She slid her feet into her cast-off heels. “Just two more nights. Anna’s ascension is happening, if I have to make it happen myself.”

“That coat is hideous.” There were patches of skin on it that had no fur; the fur that was there was uneven in length.

“Thank you. It was made for me by an admirer.” She stroked a hand along her side and stuck a hip out to model it briefly. “I brought it here for show-and-tell, in case your boyfriend was spending the night. It might have been a friend of his once upon a time.”

I put two and two together, and thought I was going to be sick. “It’s werewolf fur?”

“The trick is to keep them alive when you skin them, so their pelts don’t go back. And also to not wear it on a full-moon night. They’re very rare.”

Bile rose up in my throat. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Sike,” I said as she walked out my bedroom door.

“Do what you like. See you two nights from now. Cheers!” she called from down the hall.

I waited until she was gone, locked my front door, took the comforter and anything else her coat might have touched off my bed, put it into my laundry basket, turned up my thermostat, and went to sleep.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO





I woke up thinking I only had two more nights of chaos to go. I showered and got ready for work robotically, hit a grocery store, and drove in. The black import car followed me again.

When I reached Y4, the assignment board had twice as many patients on it as usual—there were rooms A through H, holding John and Jane Decembers.

“They’re all still here, huh?” I said, looking over the board.

“Yeah, once this guy goes home—I’m going home too.” Charles pointed at his assignment, the one lone daytimer. All the donors that needed blood had dried up, so to speak. “Rachel’s coming in to help you guys.”