Mélusine by Sarah Monette Read Free Book Online Page A

came from and everything."

    "Well, I've heard their provenance. Three times. It might even be true."

    "Yeah, and dogs got wings." I meant to leave it there—she wasn't none of my business once I had my cut—but I couldn't help asking, "Your buyer got a name?"
    She looked at me sidelong, her eyebrows raised. "Do you have a better price?"
    "Don't I wish. Some people waving gorgons around for bits of Corundum Gate… well, let's say they ain't safe." And fire's hot and plague's a bad time. Calling Vey Coruscant "not safe" was like saying arsenic would give you a stomachache.

    "I know that. I'm not stupid."

    "Yeah, but do you know why?"

    "What are you talking about?"

    "Look, dammit, there's people out there might be planning to buy you right along with them fucking stones!"

    "I didn't understand a word of that," she said, and I took a quick chokehold on my temper before I boxed her ears. She'd said it on purpose to be nasty—and, yeah, I had got going too fast—but that was only because she didn't yet know what she'd walked into.

    "Look. It ain't none of my business. But if your buyer is Vey Coruscant—or Desirée Vaumond or Christine Cooper, 'cause she uses those names, too—you could be in deep trouble."

    Her eyes went wide. "How… how did you know?"

    "I didn't. It's what you call an educated guess."

    "Who's…" She licked her lips. "Who's Vey Coruscant?"

    "Dassament boss. Bloodwitch. You do know about bloodwitches, don't you?"

    She shook her head. But she was listening now, not mad.

    "It's nasty shit. People that get tangled up in it mostly don't come out the other side alive—or in one piece."

    She thought that over. "I don't suppose I can call it off."

    "Nope."

    "Can I hire you again?"

    I had my mouth open to say, Fuck, no , when she said, "Double your cut."

    "What d'you want me to do?"

    "Just come with me."

    "Bodyguarding ain't my thing."

    She gave me a look. And behind those raised eyebrows, saying as how I looked nasty enough for her purposes, I could see that she was scared. But she wasn't going to beg, and I admired her for that.

    "Okay, fine. What's the lay?"

    "We, um, we're meeting at nine o'clock tomorrow night in Adrian's Park."
    Of course they were. And that told me what Vey Coruscant really wanted. Gems from Corundum Gate, that had belonged to Sharon Thestonaria, were supposed to be extra good for blood-magic. "You ever been in Adrian's Park?"
    "No. Why?"

    "You know about it, right?"

    "About what? It's a park, like Richard's, isn't it?"

    Powers and saints, if she was any flatter, they'd be using her to pave the roads. "No. It's a cemetery." Adrian's Park was a cemetery the same way Vey Coruscant wasn't safe, but I didn't think Miss Thomson would believe me about that until she'd seen it for herself.

    "Are you saying you won't go?" She wouldn't let me see she was scared, so it was all prickle and a mulish tilt of the chin.

    "No, I ain't saying that." Though Kethe knows I should've been. "We're gonna have to be careful. Who d'you follow?"

    "Phi-Kethetin."

    "Good."

    "Why?"

    "He don't like blood-witches."

    "Okay, but, Dennis, I don't think he's particularly interested in me."

    She was in over her head and knew it, but she was brave enough to try a joke. The gal had guts. "Don't matter," I said. "You're consecrated, right?"

    "Of course I am." She even sounded a little offended, like I'd asked whether she bathed regularly.

    "Then we're okay. Get one of them little sun necklaces—"

    "Like this, you mean?" She pulled a long chain up over her collar. It was as fine as spider silk, and hanging on it was Phi-Kethetin's sun, the circle with the five spiky rays. The circle and the tips of the rays were set with tiny diamond chips. That had set somebody back, and not to a gorgon and change, neither.

    I had my mouth open to ask why she hadn't been wearing it last night when I realized the answer. Flat she might be, but not stupid. You don't go meet a thief wearing your good jewelry.