“‘Her,’” Rachel repeated, and I could imagine her dialing 911 and asking the operator to send the men in white coats to come pick up her sister.
“I’m not Alice,” I said again, and even as I spoke, I wondered why I was bothering. Except that this was Alice’s sister. The woman who’d loved her, and who wanted Alice to be free of the dark. Who was, in her own way, fighting the demons, too.
Or maybe that was just a bunch of random justification. Maybe I just wanted someone to know the truth.
She took a step backward. “This isn’t funny, Alice. If you think that pulling this sort of bullshit prank on me is going to keep me from selling the pub—”
“No. It’s not about the pub. Rachel, please. It’s true. My name’s Lily Carlyle.” I paused. “And they killed me, too.”
She stared at me, and for a moment—one brief, sparkling moment—I thought she believed me. Then her face tightened, and she pointed a finger straight at my face. “You have to stop this, Alice. I don’t know what kind of sick bullshit you’ve gotten sucked into, but you have got to stop this.”
She yanked off the apron she’d been wearing, and threw it on the floor. Then she spun on her heel and stormed out of the stockroom. I took a deep breath. So much for my maiden voyage into the land of bitter honesty.
“What’s up with Rachel?” Gracie asked, when I returned upstairs. I just shook my head, too disheartened to come up with even a plausible lie. Gracie cocked her head, picking up on my melancholy. “Brian’s looking forward to seeing you again.”
I managed a smile. “Great. Can’t wait.” But I know she could tell I was lying. So much so that I could see the disappointment on her face when it was time to lock up, and I told her to go ahead and I’d meet her there.
“Dammit, Alice—”
“I just have to finish up here,” I said. “I swear, I’m only five minutes behind you.”
“Really?”
“Promise. I need a night out,” I said. And it was true. It really was. I wanted a night of trying to be normal. A night of not craving the fight, the kill.
Of not hoping for a demon so that I could suck in its essence and get a nice little hit of the dark.
Yeah. I was totally down for the night-out plan.
Of course, that five-minute estimate turned out to be a little off because when I returned from taking out the trash, I found that not everyone had left the pub. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were still there, standing side by side in front of the bar.
“We’re closed, boys.”
“Glad to hear it,” Tweedledum said, and before I could even react, he’d whipped out a knife and had lobbed it straight at me. I rolled to the side, but it didn’t matter. It sliced my arm, bare because I was wearing a Bloody Tongue tank top. The scent of my own blood filled my senses, riling me, and I was up on my feet even as Tweedledee joined in the fun, coming at me with a knife of his own. Screw that.
I didn’t have my own knife on me—it didn’t go with the pub-girl outfit—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find another weapon, and I dove over the bar and smashed the butt end off a bottle of tequila. One of our house brands. Not the top-shelf stuff.
“Foolish girl,” Dum said.
“Indeed,” Dee agreed.
“We will cut you,” Dum said, opening a duffel they’d shoved under their table. “We’ll break you. We’ll slice you up good.”
Dee’s eyes narrowed. “We know your secret, little girl. And we’ll lock you up and keep you forever and ever and ever.”
“No!” I shouted, knowing that I shouldn’t let fear and anger get the better of me and knowing I should stay behind the bar and hunker down.
I knew all that, and yet I lunged, leaping over the bar to land a solid kick in Dum’s face, sending him reeling. He was back up in seconds, agile despite his girth, and he smashed and flashed and twirled and pummeled, and I met each of his attacks dead on, desperate to knock him back long enough so that I could race to the kitchen and retrieve my knife from the pocket of my coat. I could kill with any old knife, but only if I killed with an owned knife would the demons be reduced to goo.
And only with an owned kill would I gain the strength and absorb the essence—something I damn sure wanted.
The two of them attacked from opposite sides, and I dove, finding myself in front of the knife that Tweedledum had first thrown my way. A knife that had drawn my blood.
Shit. That blade was mine now, and I snatched at it, kicking as the two demons tried to pull me back by the legs. My fingers brushed the hilt and then, yes, I had it.