“There is nothing,” he said at last.
She tilted her head as she rested the glass on the scarred table, then took a deep breath. “I don’t believe you, my lord. But?—”
“Call me Voss.” Blast it.
She shrugged, still watching him, and the shadows in the dip of her collarbones shifted temptingly. His gums swelled, ready topush the incisors free, and he swore he smelled her blood again. Somehow.
Was it she who was becoming foxed, or he? She shifted then, pulled her gaze away and spoke suddenly and in a rush. “I know when my sisters and brother will die,” she said. “I’ve read their futures and I know how it will happen…and when.”
“You know how your brother will die?”
How could he be so very fortunate? This was a most valuable, serendipitous bit of information. He hadn’t even thought to ask for it directly, and now it would be handed to him just as the puzzle of Dimitri’s Asthenia had. Voss smiled complacently.
Moldavi would pay handsomely to find out when the feared vampire hunter Chas Woodmore was to die, as would Regeris, who rarely ventured from his beloved Barcelona since Woodmore had staked him in the belly as he tumbled from a tower into the ocean. Two inches higher, and the man would be living with Luce in Hell instead of having to swim for miles to safety.
The question would be which of them would pay more—and what a delightful problem to have. And the information would cost Voss nothing to obtain; she was offering it up to him freely. The last bit of hazy sweetness evaporated from him, and he focused on the realization of his goal. “You know how he will die, and when, as well?”
“Yes. I’ve known for years. I’ve lied to them and?—”
“But he is not dead now. You are certain of it?”
“No, Chas is not meant to die until he’s very old,” Angelica told him. “That’s why I have not been so very worried about his disappearance. But Maia has been pacing the chambers and I found her teary-eyed in the garden two days ago.”
“Not until he’s very old?” Voss considered the implication. Regeris wouldn’t be pleased to hear the vampire hunter would be searching for him for decades longer, and anything he mightdo to destroy Woodmore would be in vain. But Voss couldn’t be held accountable for fate. Just for supplying the information, and who would have believed he could have come by that tidbit?
And from such an impeccable source.
He could likely sell the information several times over, in fact. There were more than a few Draculia members who would like to see Woodmore dead—or at least to know how much longer they needed to look over their shoulders and sleep with proper protections.
Other than Dimitri, with whom Woodmore had long allied himself for some inconceivable reason, and some of his comrades, their brethren across the Channel weren’t quite as friendly with their enemy.
Not that Voss needed the money, of course—he had plenty to spare from his other ventures—but it would be quite fascinating to see how and what sort of remuneration he could cull from the parties interested in his news.
Always the game. It was the game that kept things exciting and challenging.
“And Maia.”
He realized she’d been talking as he counted his compensation, and he looked over. Now her eyes were bleary, and one of them glistened with a tear.
“You see?” she said, looking at him, waiting for an answer, her voice high and tight. “You knew he was going to die, and yet you could do nothing.”
A chill rushed over Voss as he realized she was speaking of Brickbank. He couldn’t reply so he took a drink instead. Brickbank was dead. Now his friend faced whatever judgment awaited.
Judgment.
“How would you feel if you lived with that knowledge, waiting for the day to happen? Knowing one day, she or hewould be wearing the clothes, and look the same, and the season would be right…and you would know it was the day. The day of death.”
The day of death.
“I’ve known for years. And I can’t tell them. I won’t tell them. Do you see? Do you understand why?” Her tongue was loose and the words spilled forth and Voss could only listen.
A tear rolled down her cheek and she stopped. Her chest heaved from suppressed sobs and she simply looked at him. He sensed she needed something. From him.
“You’re a very strong woman,” he said. “To have that knowledge and to keep it to yourself. To live with it.”
He thought of the knowledge he had, that he’d tricked and lied and deceived to obtain over decades. Longer, even.
How he’d used it. How he’d profited from it.
