Page 55 of Cold Curses
Fury seemed to choke him. He walked back to the couch, sat,and then smashed his balled fists into the new coffee table’s glass top. It shattered, shards spilling like water droplets and hitting the floor with a shrill crash.
“I didn’t kill them,” he said, blood dripping from his hands, wisps of smoke rising from them.
“I guess that means the upstart did. Who is she?”
One of the remaining demons offered Dante a handkerchief. He wiped the blood from his fingers, handed back a stained and smoking ball of silk.
“I don’t know her name,” Dante said. “Only that she has expectations.”
“Of you?” I asked.
“Of any demons that came here after Andaras.” Rosantine, he meant. “The upstart believes she has claimed Chicago as her own. I disagree.”
He leveled his gaze at me. “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d been more careful. If you hadn’t given all your secrets away.”
“My secrets?” I asked, and thought he meant monster. But monster had nothing to do with the demons; whatever questions I had about it, that wasn’t one of them. “What secrets would those be?”
Dante rose, stepped around the coffee-table frame and through the broken glass, which crunched like ice beneath his feet. The temperature seemed to increase as he moved, as if he were dragging a bit of hell along with him. I felt Theo and Connor move in behind me, but I held them back with a hand. We were close to something, and I wanted to see it through.
“The wards,” he said. “You let Andaras in. You let her breach the wards. If you hadn’t, much would be different now, would it not?” He stopped a foot away now; his scent—cologne and burning things—traveled farther.
“You’re right,” I said. “You wouldn’t be here right now.”
Dante didn’t take that particular bait, but looked at me for a long time, frowning as he stared at me. I expected more insults. But got a question instead.
“The upstart wasn’t there?” he asked.
“Not that we saw.”
He looked away. “What you’re saying—if you’re telling the truth—would take power, especially at a distance. I don’t think she has that kind of power.”
“You’ve met her?”
“We talked via screen.”
“How do you know how much power she had?”
“It was an impression.”
“Give me her number.”
“It was a disposable.” He slid his gaze back to me, and his eyes went hard. “And I don’t need others to fight my battles.”
“Then you need to take your battles out of Chicago,” Theo said, his voice cold. “You’ve done enough damage here.”
Dante’s gaze slipped behind me. “The world is changing. Compared to the rest of us, humans are nothing more than meat. Get used to it.”
He put magic behind the threat, and it made the air go thick. We were running out of time.
“One of your demons put someone in a magical coma,” I said. “How do I fix her?”
He barely blinked. “If she isn’t a demon, she’s meat, too.”
“What do you want in exchange for fixing her?”
His smile was thin. “A kingdom. And you can’t give me that. You have bigger problems anyway.”
My own frustration was rising. “What would that be?”
