Wicked Misery (Miss Misery) (2 page)

The smoke vanished, but my gut registered the familiar tightening that told me the magic connected us like a rope. If I were a pred, that rope would make my victim an addict. Preds had a harder time creating that bond, but when they did, they could extend their ropes for miles or give the magic a tug and send an addict’s emotions spiraling toward them. Since I wasn’t a pred, I had to rely on words to manipulate people, every bit as effective but only so long as my victims heard me.

“Come with me.”

I didn’t wait for him to follow. He couldn’t help but obey. Until I broke the tie, he was incapable of anything but lusting and yearning for me, and was thus highly malleable. Though I had to admit, the thought of this bastard yearning for me made me want to hurl.

It was bad enough that I’d been cursed with a pred’s ability to get a magical high from human misery. Talk about living with guilt. But also being cursed, specifically, with a satyr’s ability to drive people mad with lust? Definitely not something I’d have asked for. And not something I understood. If I had a deadly weakness, it would have to be rage or jealousy. I mean, I had a temper and I knew how to use it. And as for jealousy, much as I hated to admit it, the fact that I didn’t wear a Gryphon uniform constantly ate away at my insides.

So why, for the love of dragons, did I not tempt with one of those emotions? Why lust instead?

I could only assume it was some quirk in the universe, not that different from how I ended up with a mop of dark brown curls when my parents both had straight hair. In other words, shit happened. Usually to me, it seemed.

Scumbag followed me into the rhododendron’s shadow, oozing evil like an infection oozed pus. Steph was on the ball tonight and had already pulled out the blood-collection kit from my backpack. All I needed—or rather the preds I traded with needed—was a couple drops. Steph worked for a local hospital’s IT department, and she’d swiped me one of those thumb-pricking devices diabetics used to monitor their blood sugar and Gryphons used to monitor an addict’s magic levels.

Scumbag stumbled over the rhododendron’s roots and landed against me. I shoved him off, but he didn’t want to let go.

“Can I do you here, beautiful?” He had some sort of Eastern European accent, and his hands fumbled with his belt buckle.

It had to be the nature of my magic, but unrequited lust tasted like the best thing on earth to me. If I was longing for a steak, it melted on my tongue like filet mignon. If I desired ice cream, it tantalized my taste buds like a chocolate peanut butter sundae. Tonight, it filled my mouth with the flavor of a hot brownie straight out of the oven.

I gave the would-be rapist a more forceful shove, and he hit the side of the house. Scumbag was disturbed by my refusal yet undaunted. I had to be quick. I knew where those hands of his would be next, and I had no desire to see him whip out that particular weapon.

“Not tonight, thanks. What I want is a little blood.” I held out the lancet.

“What do I do with this?”

Maybe because I was a mere human wielding a pred’s power, my magic didn’t simply drive people lusty. It made them dumb to boot. “You put it like this, and press down.” I positioned it for him.

“Will you do it for me?”

Steph snorted.

I shot her a dirty look. “What’s your name?”

“Pete Donovich.”

I swallowed down my disgust and grabbed his hand. “Pete Donovich, do you offer your blood freely? Say it.”

“I give, offer, my blood freely.” His words were starting to slur.

I clicked the device and gathered a couple drops of blood in a vial. Mission almost accomplished—the quasi-legal part anyway. After all, it was perfectly legal for a pred to bargain for someone’s soul so long as the person gave it freely. The blood symbolized the contract and gave the pred a means for calling the person when the agreement kicked in.

Using my magic to convince Pete, or anyone else, to donate blood was technically legal in the sense that preds did it all the time and it was damn hard to prove coercion in any court. Ethically, I’d be the first to admit it was wrong. But since Pete intended to tie up the vanity addict in this house, rape her and do about twenty other things to her that would require serious drinking on my part to forget, I wasn’t going to lose sleep over stealing his soul.

No, if I lost sleep, it would be from the nightmares Pete gave me. And because of that, I couldn’t let him waltz into the addict’s apartment now that I was done.

“Turn around and kneel.”

If I had the power, this guy would be locked up for life. But, alas, the Gryphons considered me a failure, my gift a dud. Granted, if they knew the truth about me, they’d probably hunt me down like a pred, so life could have been worse. Yet there were times when all this secrecy got in the way of doing good deeds.

I gathered the magic once more. “Forget me.” Then I sent it shooting out through my hands and into Scumbag Pete’s head. He moaned.

With a decisive chop, I snapped the rope of magic that connected us. The pressure in my gut vanished. Pete shook himself. Before he could figure out what was going on, my steel-toed boot met his skull. He grunted and collapsed. One scumbag off the streets, if only for the night.

I fished through Pete’s wallet and pocketed his ID. I’d never remember his name without it, and the pred I traded with would need it. Besides, in the ten years I’d been passing myself off as a vigilante for the hopeless, I’d nicked quite a few souls. I had to have some way to remember the faces of those who I’d taken blood from because I could only do it once per person. After I’d handed a soul over to one pred, another pred couldn’t have it at the same time.

“Did you see that?” Steph asked.

“See what?”

“Thought I saw a shadow move.”

I scanned the vicinity, closing my eyes and stretching out with my gift. Theoretically, it was possible that if anyone was watching, they wouldn’t be miserable or frightened or nervous or angry or feeling any other negative emotion. And if that was the case, I’d miss them completely. It was damned unlikely though. Everyone was unhappy about something.

But all I picked up on was some marital discord across the street. “I’ve got nothing.”

Steph frowned. “A van pulled up a couple minutes ago. I don’t like this.”

“Well, we’re done. Let’s get out of here.”

We started down the street, and Steph grabbed my wrist. This time I’d caught it too. A flicker of black to my left. The shuffle of feet cutting through un-mowed grass. Steph’s breath rattled in my ear as I reached under my jacket for my knife.

“Stay here.”

With a dry mouth, I took a couple steps in the shadow’s direction. Yet still my gift registered no signs of life. Disturbing. Maybe whoever we saw wasn’t human? Even more disturbing. My knife would be useless, and I didn’t have a protective charm on me.

“Jess!” Steph’s harsh whisper made me jump. She beckoned me back.

I squinted into the hazy darkness and decided she had a point.

Steph relaxed once the subway’s glow encompassed us again, but I kept checking over my shoulder. That van had parked close to the addict’s house, so why hadn’t I sensed the driver? Why hadn’t I sensed anything in the bushes? I swore I felt that absence of emotion standing behind me the whole way home, but all I saw were humans.

Paranoia. If this business of mine didn’t kill me, it would drive me insane. One of these days, I’d take up a normal hobby. Something just as useful. Maybe knitting.

Chapter Two

On Monday, I didn’t get home from my craptastic job at the Tallyho Diner until nine. After work, I’d gone straight to the gym, which meant I’d been on my feet running around for about twelve hours.

And I still had to meet J.G. at midnight.

I tucked my dinner under my arm, fished for my keys and groaned. Geoff’s and Valerie’s voices were audible through the apartment door. My two roommates usually got along, so this had to be bad. As much as I could use the energy rush from their anger, I did not want to get roped into roommate arguments. Last time, Geoff and I had gotten stiffed with an extra share of the electric and cable bills when our former roommate ditched us.

I shut the door and inhaled deeply. An unexpected current ran beneath the anger. Tangy. Fear. I rolled it around in my mouth. Well, this was interesting.

“There you are!” Valerie rounded on me as I entered the kitchen.

I made a show of yawning, though the closer I stood to them, the more their agitation woke me up. “’Lo. Excuse me.”

Geoff rubbed his eyes. “You need to check your room. We were robbed.”

“What?” I clutched my sandwich tighter. Okay, now I was definitely wide awake. “When? What did they take?”

“Nothing,” Valerie said, oddly sullen. “A couple beers from the fridge seems to be all. But that’s no reason to think this isn’t a big deal.”

The last sentence was clearly aimed at Geoff. She narrowed her eyes at him, and their spat droned on. I snatched a paper towel and hurried to my bedroom, hearing just enough to learn their argument had to do with our landlord, rent increases and a security system.

I threw open my door, flipped on the light and gasped. A tornado had torn apart my bedroom. Every drawer was open. My underwear and bras were scattered across the floor, not to mention every T-shirt, sweater and pair of socks.

My laptop’s case had been turned inside out, and books strewn like flotsam. My jewelry box dripped entrails of silver and gold all over my bureau. Miscellaneous earrings studded the piles of clothes at the bureau’s feet. Nothing appeared missing, though, not even my grandmother’s opal necklace.

Weird. Had this break-in really been nothing but bored kids out to score free beer?

My heartbeat started to return to normal, but then my gaze darted toward the closet. Its door was open. Oh shit. The mini fridge.

In my closet, unbeknownst to my roommates, I kept a small refrigerator in which I stored my blood donations. At the moment, there were only two vials in it—one I’d obtained on Friday and which was already marked for a client, and Scumbag Pete’s, which I figured I’d use for J.G.

I set my gym bag on the floor and the sandwich on my desk. “Have you called the cops?”

“Of course!” Valerie yelled back. “They were here a couple hours ago when we got home from work. You were the only one not here.”

“They said you should give them a call if you found anything missing,” Geoff said. “I’ve got the guy’s card if you need it.”

I swallowed, wishing I could expel my own fear as easily as I drank in other people’s. So the cops must not have searched my stuff. That was one disaster avoided. Gingerly, I shut my door and stepped over a pile of Agatha Christie novels.

Shoving clothes and shoes out of the way, I unburied the normal mess—the one I used to disguise the fridge’s existence. It’ll be fine, I told myself. Thieves wouldn’t bother with it. Except when I yanked open the door, only one vial of blood greeted me. Scumbag Pete’s sample was gone.

No, not possible. Absurd. I shut my eyes, feeling trapped in some nightmare. Whoever broke in couldn’t have done so to steal the blood. That made no sense. So the blood should be there when I looked again.

Naturally, it wasn’t.

In disbelief, I opened the tiny freezer compartment, as if hoping I’d been so tired Saturday night I’d stuck the blood in there by accident. My hands shook and I scraped my knuckles against the ice. Empty. No surprise.

Swearing silently, I shut the fridge and noticed a piece of masking tape stuck to the door. I peeled it up, already certain of what was written on it—Pete’s name and the date I’d taken the sample.

Dragon shit on toast. However I looked at it, there was no way to lie to myself. The bottle hadn’t gotten lost in some thief’s rampage through our apartment. Whoever it was had taken the time to remove the label and leave it here. Why? To make sure I’d known what they did?

Frantic, I pulled out the leather case I hid under a loose floorboard next to the fridge, but Pete’s ID was there on top, along with all the other IDs I’d collected over the years.

Nausea bubbled up inside me. Desperate to confirm the inevitable, I lumbered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Someone had strewn the contents every which way, and there was no need for that if our intruder was only interested in taking a couple beers from the door. Whoever had stolen my blood sample had probably searched this fridge for it first. Better and better. Between my nerves and Valerie’s, I was a couple breaths from an all-out anxiety attack. At least I wasn’t going to have trouble staying awake for my meeting with J.G.

“Are you sure they only took a couple beers?”

“Yeah.” Geoff sighed and stretched his hairy arms over his head. “’Cause the bastards took
my
beers.”

“So they’re thieves with bad taste? In that case, have you checked your DVD collection?”

Valerie snorted. “We should be so lucky. By the way, you have mail on the table. Stupid thieves didn’t steal any of our bills.”

I grabbed the envelopes with my name on them—a credit card bill and something from the New England Academy for the Magically Gifted. What did the Gryphons want from me? I opened the fridge again, took a can of diet soda and headed for my room.