Page 5 of A Dance With Devils
“You invited me here. Although I’m not sure why given the area,” he says, affronted. “Why are we walking after her?”
“I told you, she’s interesting.”
Gray doesn’t seem interested.
I smirk at him and keep moving anyway, reasonably content to have him along for the hunt, and then realise just his presence makes this more challenging than it was. He sticks out down here. Too well known. Too well dressed and – my gaze takes in the surly attitude brimming under the facade – too damned attractive. Although, we could abduct her. I doubt anyone would care.
I look him over again, taking in the suit, the now angry glower, and the way he’s checking his watch permanently as if this idea is beneath him or he’s got to get back to Hannah or meetings. Considering the fact that I was contemplating killing myself again a while ago, and now I’m not because of new things to hunt, he should be as interested in her as I am. Instead, he’s becoming dull. Mind-numbing, leaden, and insipid. But that’s what happens to men when they fall in love. I don’t know why I helped him with it. He was more interesting without her than he is with her.
Maybe I should tear them into two again.
Or not.
There’s still time.
“You can go,” I mutter, cutting through people on the way.“I’ll deal with my new thing alone.”
“Malachi, she’s a bar worker.”
“As I said, interesting. I’m bored of typical.”
“You’ve never been interested in that anyway. Why her?”
I keep scouring the faces on show, looking for that black hair scooped up and the elfin features amongst the rest of the characterless. “She told me off.”
“Told you off?”
I nod. “Called me presumptuous and tossed my money back at me.”
Another glance at his watch, his eyes roaming the crowds nervously, and he half chuckles about something. “Why did you give her money?” he asks.
“I was being unpredictable. Trying for gentlemanly. Hero of the hour?”
He snorts beside me and puts his hand on my shoulder, twisting me sideways. “You, Malachi, are no hero,” he says, pointing. “But she’s over there if you must.”
My eyes land on her the moment I follow his line of sight, smile widening as I watch her trying, and failing, to create some space around her. “I could be heroic.”
He doesn’t comment on that. Probably because he knows as well as I do that heroic undertakings are the last thing on my mind when it comes to a new stimulant. They’re actually the last thing on my mind permanently. It’s not in my bones to give too much of a damn about anyone unless the sequence of events leading to the eventuality has some element of strategy employed.
“I’m going if this is your new game,” he says. “I only came for dinner. Thank god I haven’t had to eat it in there.”
She’s fidgeting, gripping that bag like her life depends on its contents. I don’t like fidgets. She didn’t fidget in the bar. She owned it. Quietly maybe, but she owned the space around her like a goddess would her throne and sceptre. She stood there with her perfectly fuckable frame and ground her feet in, as if she was about to throw the entire elite class of New York’s societal youth out the door on their very next curse.
“Malachi?”
“Mmm?”
“Going?”
“Good. Go. Too many people here for you anyway.”
My hand waves him off, gaze still transfixed on my new little thing, as I walk down the steps towards her. Gray isn’t significant now. This woman is. A new game. Something to inspire. Perhaps she’ll divert me long enough to get my mind off Hannah’s skin and where my other depressive feelings were leading me. Probably not. These last six months of them not visiting have done nothing but increase my thirst to debase her. In front of him. Because he dared punch me – three times.
He needs repaying for that.
Still, I suppose I should give them some time to bed in together, to find their path as a couple. It won’t last long out here in mundanity. It never does with wealth and privilege. They’ll be clawing to get back to pills and fun soon, ready for more of me and my kind to entertain them. He might say she’s not ready, but it’s not her - it’s him. Too damn busy coveting the new thing he’s found to play with. And too interested in attempting to find a decency he doesn’t own in any way.
The creator needs time.
