I am so not ready to forgive him. I don’t care how bad he feels. But he also wasn’t about to give up on his and Takashi’s exploratory mission. They’d come to learn secrets the mansion held.We were always going to find something fucked-up like this.
Time to be the badass vampire I’m supposed to be. Zack squared his shoulders and unclenched his fists. “Not just yet. Denny, what happens in here?”
“Oo, I know the answer to that one!” fake-Zack said, raising his hand and jumping a little.
“Would you fuckingstop?” Denny screamed.
Fake-Zack cackled with laughter. “So fucking good!”
Denny launched himself at the bars, shoving his arm through. Smoke drifted up from his skin, but he continued attempting to scramble through the metal that was hurting him.
He’d called himself semi-sane.
How long had he been down here? A realization burst across Zack’s consciousness. He couldn’t free Denny because then it would be obvious that someone had been down in this room. Though Seamus might read his thoughts and discover it, there was a difference between curiosity and screwing with Anton’s things.
But he couldn’t stand still and have the two of them waste his time. Takashi was right; they needed more assets. Their cell was less literal, but Zack and Takashi were just as trapped in the mansion. They needed more people on their side.
Zack pulled off his leather glove and grabbed Denny’s bare wrist. He wasn’t so much a journal page but a stone tablet with engraved lettering that went miles deep.
Magic was about working with metaphors. He’d learned that from the same person Denny had. So he imagined taking a large marker and writingPeaceacross the tablet of Denny’s mind.
It wasn’t changing anything.
The times where he and Takashi had created a feedback loop, he’d felt the desire in Takashi link with his own lust. If he wanted Denny to feel calm, then he had to figure out calm.Cuddled between Roger and Takashi, laughing with them on the couch as we watched an old movie. Being with Kit and Blake and watching the pillow sail over the edge. Joy. Peace.
Denny gasped and tumbled back into his cell. He sank to the floor, holding the hand Zack had touched as if he’d come in contact with snow for the first time.
“That was mine!” fake-Zack wailed as he shimmered with a red glow. When the light faded, he was roughly Zack’s height. His skin was a vibrant maroon, and his eyes were solid black. He had jet-black hair with hints of burgundy and a long tail that ended in a spade shape. Short horns on either side of his forehead jutted up like elegant spikes, sloping slightly backward. They came to sharp tips.
Though they weren’t as sharp as the glare in his eyes. His voice wasn’t much deeper than it’d been as fake-Zack, and he whined, “Not fair! I’m hungry!”
Doing his best master vampire impression, Zack said, “You can get back to torturing my cousin in a minute?—”
“Wait, you’re not going to let me out?” Denny asked, crestfallen.
For a second, the hurt in Denny’s voice made Zack itch to help him. But if he did that, he’d be putting Takashi and himself at risk, and he couldn’t help anybody if they were all in cells. “I can’t. Yet. I’ll work on it, okay? What is Anton doing in here? This isn’t just some fucked-up way for him to pass the time, is it?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been here long,” Denny replied.
“How did you even get here?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Denny pulled his knees up to his chest.
“I know the answers to both,” the demon said sweetly.
“Well?” Zack asked as he turned toward him.
The demon leaned against the wall of his cell and examined his pointed nails as if they were far more interesting than anything in the whole wide existence. “Well, what?Oh. You want me to just tell you? After you cut off the meal I’ve been cooking up for a week?”
“We should go,” Takashi murmured.
“Ah, yes, go without learning anything valuable at all so you can sit and fester upstairs like we do down here,” the demonreplied. “You’ll probably join us once I tell Anton you were in here, scheming to let Dennis go.”
Shit. Zack ran his hand through his hair, then internally kicked himself for his nervous habit. Badass vampires were supposed to be cold as statues. He lifted his chin and approached the demon’s cell door. “My soul’s not any good to you.”
“Aw, precious boy, you think a vampire’s soul is worthless to my kind? You’re so very wrong,” the demon replied. “However, the delivery takes far too much investment. Besides, souls are good for currency, but they’re not the only thing worth gaining in the world.”
“What do you want?”
