Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online

“You close to this Musette?”
    â€œLieutenant, can we please go? I want to get there as soon as possible.” I was already looking around for my gym bag. I was glad it was already packed. My skin was cold with the thought of what Musette might be doing right now to people I cared about. The very mention of her name had always been enough to make Jean-Claude and Asher go pale.
    Nicols nodded again, putting up his gun. “Yeah, go on. I hope . . . your friend is okay.”
    I looked up at him, and didn’t try to hide the confusion in my eyes. “I hope so, too.” I wasn’t thinking of Musette, I was thinking of everyone else. So many people she could hurt if she had the blessing of the council, or at least the blessing of Belle Morte. I’d learned that council politics meant that having one member as an enemy didn’t mean that the others hated you. In fact, many of the council seemed to believe the old Sicilian adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
    The judge murmured his thanks, and hopes for speedy recovery of my friend. The court reporter didn’t say anything—she was gazing at Asher as if mesmerized. I didn’t think he’d bespelled her, more like she’d never seen anything so beautiful. Maybe she hadn’t.
    His hair in the reflected glow of the headlights was truly gold, a curtain of nearly metallic waves flowing like a shining sea across the right side of his face. The hair looked even more gold against the dark brown of his silk shirt. The shirt was long-sleeved and untucked over blue jeans and brown boots. He looked like he’d dressed in haste, but I knew that was how he usually dressed. He made sure that the left side of his face, that most perfect of profiles was what showed to the light. Asher was a master at using lightand shadow to highlight what he wished seen, and hide what he did not. The one eye that was visible was a clear, pale blue like the eyes of a Siberian husky dog. Human beings just didn’t have eyes like that. Even in life he must have been extraordinary.
    You got glimpses of that full mouth, the glimmer of his other blue, blue eye. What he was careful not to show to the light was that a few inches past his eye, trailing in a line nearly to his mouth were scars. Rivulets of scars, where holy water had been poured on that most beautiful of faces. More scars ran down the right side of his body, hidden under the clothes.
    The court reporter stared at him so still, as if she’d stopped breathing. Asher saw it and stiffened beside me. Perhaps because he knew that with a flick of his head he could show her the scars and watch that adoration turn to horror, or pity.
    I touched his arm. “Let’s go.”
    He walked towards my Jeep. Normally he sort of glided, as if vampire feet never rolled on gravel but floated just above it. Tonight he moved almost as heavily as a human.
    Neither of us spoke until we were inside my Jeep. We had the privacy of the darkened car, no one would overhear us.
    I buckled myself in while I talked, “What’s happened?”
    â€œMusette arrived an hour ago.”
    I put the Jeep in gear and began to drive carefully over the gravel around the still-parked police cars. I waved at Nicols as we went past, and he waved back, a cigarette flaring in his other hand.
    â€œI thought we hadn’t finished negotiating on how many people she could bring over with her.”
    â€œWe had not.” His voice held sorrow so thick you could have squeezed it out, tears in your cup. Jean-Claude’s voice was better at sharing joy, seduction, but Asher was the master at sharing the darker emotions.
    I glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead, his face very still, hiding whatever he was feeling. “Then didn’t she break some treaty or law or something by invading our territory like this?”
    He nodded, his hair sliding around his face, hiding himself from me. I hated to watch