Wicked After Midnight(60)

I stood and draped an arm around his neck. “And I yours,” I whispered into his ear.

* * *

It was too easy. Far too easy. One caress, and he had what he needed, while I earned a full belly. I sprinkled a few grains of sleeping powder over his head, and soon he was snoring softly on the bed, fully dressed and cheeks enflamed with imagined passion. With a grimace of distaste, I gave him a thorough pat-down but found nothing useful. A wallet, several nice handkerchiefs, a horribly creepy-looking condom that looked as if it had been used before stuffed in a small book of Saint Ermenegilda’s better quotes. There wasn’t a whiff of Bludman about him or the stench of magic and catacombs.

Before descending the stairs, I slipped a calling card from his wallet and used his handkerchief to dab the blood away from the little rip in his neck. I would add his name to the “Innocent” column of my spreadsheet. He said he’d never met a Bludman before, and oddly enough, I believed him. In six years among Crim, Tish, and the people of the caravan, I’d learned to read faces, and as far as I could tell, he hadn’t lied.

I slipped off my boots so I could take the metal stairs silently. Pebbles bit into my stockinged feet as I fled across the uneven cobbles to the back door of Paradis. With one ear against the door, I made certain that it was quiet inside. The only thing I wanted less than to further entertain the old man was to encounter the other girls doing the walk of shame and have to answer questions about why I was so quick at my work. The hallway seemed empty, and I turned the doorknob as slowly as I could, knowing after last night that it had an unfortunate tendency to squeak.

“You work fast, bébé.”

I bit back a scream and spun, hands curled into claws. Vale’s amused and skeptical calm made me even more likely to rake out his eyeballs.

“So—what, Vale? You’re following me now?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. Stargazing in the courtyard of the—” He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. “Yes, I’m following you. But only because I have something that I thought you’d want to see, as soon as you were done . . . entertaining the great artist.”

Rage shot up my spine, making me clench my teeth with a click that rang in the night. “First of all, entertainment is my job. Second, entertaining is not code for sex. Third, I just assumed you’d kissed half the daimons here, and I’ve never thrown that in your face. So how dare you judge me?”

He stepped closer, reaching for my hands. I jerked them back, feeling all too inhuman.

“Simmer down, bébé. I didn’t come here to start a fight.”

“Then keep your meaningful, judgmental pauses to yourself.” He tried to take my hand, and I smacked his wrist. “Keep your paws to yourself, too. I’ve had enough of being grabbed at.”

Hands in the air, he stepped backward, and I shook myself like a dog shedding water, feeling tightly wound and unpredictable in my anger. It was true, what I’d told him. Except when I was in my own bed, I spent a lot of time being touched against my will. Whether Charline was placing my hands on the hoop or Blue was dressing me or Mel and Bea were fixing my hair and makeup, I was sick to death of being touched like an object.

“Fair enough, bébé. I don’t want to make you unhappy. But look.”

The thing between his fingers was so small that I couldn’t see it without stepping close. Duh—he’d been trying to hand it to me.

It was a tooth. A fang, actually.

I took it with shaking fingers, holding it up to the meager orange glow of the gaslight.

“I know there is no way to know if it belongs to your Cherie, and I know it’s unsettling, but . . .”

“But if you’re using a Bludman as a slave or a concubine, she’d be less dangerous without her fangs.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

The fang matched mine, bright white and smooth, with a long, two-pronged root. I had a sudden curiosity regarding whether little Bludmen lost their fangs and hid them under their pillows for a creepy, blud-spattered Tooth Fairy.

“Where did you find it?”

I held it out to him reluctantly, but he shook his head and crossed his arms. It felt good in my hand, curled within my fingers. Macabre as it might be, he was right; this was actually a good sign. After all, it could have been a fanged skull.

“Well, you see . . .”

“Stop acting cagey, brigand.”

“Being a brigand involves a certain amount of smuggling and trading, and from time to time, unusual objects come into my possession. Dragon claws, unicorn hairs, mysterious valises covered with stamps—”