“Oh, maaaan,” I murmured. How was I supposed to talk with . . . this?
But Bethany broke the ice, sounding relatively coherent. “Skinwalker,” she said. “Welcome.”
I threw back my shoulders and I asked, not the questions of the hour, but the question her welcome inspired. “When did you first know I was a skinwalker?”
Bethany shrugged and the silk sheet slipped to her waist. Oh goody. “I knew when you shifted into the screamer cat.” Her full lips stretched to reveal her blunt human teeth, the smile of a succubus, had they ever existed, wicked, entreating, passionate, demanding. “My Leo was most distressed about his upholstery but was most delighted to have found one such as you.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet he was,” I said, my tone uncaring.
“But before that, when I healed you of the injury you suffered at the hands of my friend, I tasted your blood. Blood that I knew from before and yet could not name.”
That was a lot of info from a vamp. They usually held their cards closer to their chests, but maybe the blood-feeding had made her mellow. I wasn’t sure where to go with the information. The event Bethany was talking about had happened soon after I came to New Orleans. I’d been injured at a vamp party and Leo had ordered Bethany to heal me. It had been a . . . harrowing experience. But if Bethany had tasted one like me before, that could only mean she had drunk from Leo’s son, Immanuel, whom I had killed. The only other skinwalker I’d met in the modern world. Of course, he’d become a liver-eater by then and was killing humans and vamps like they were his own personal buffet bar, so I hadn’t really had a choice.
“When did you drink from Immanuel?” I asked, knowing it had nothing to do with Santana but unable to help myself.
Bethany shrugged again and pulled the silk sheet over her, turning on one side, so I could see only part of her face, one black eye glittering and cold and nutso insane, no matter how lucid she might sound from time to time. “We were lovers,” she said, “Immanuel and I, before he went up the river to explore. We were lovers when he returned, but his blood was different then. When I spoke of it, he refused to allow me to drink again. There was no more sharing. You tasted as he did. Will you allow me to drink from you? A true sharing, not a healing?” Bethany pulled the covers away from her body in welcome.
Ick. Blood and sex. Not gonna happen. But I said it more nicely. “I’m honored. But I’m otherwise involved.” Eli slanted a look at me and I wanted to elbow him. I refrained. “Did you drink from Joseph Santana the night he was taken? Did you bring him to Leo? And most importantly, did Santana drink of Immanuel before the rest of you got to him? And then did the arcenciel bite Santana? It’s vitally important that I know what happened that night.”
“You ask too many questions and offer nothing in return. No blood, no sharing, no love. What do you barter?”
I had expected this and I opened the gobag. Carefully, I removed the magically empty gold arm bracelet shaped like a snake, the one I had taken from Adrianna. “This is worth much more than answers to questions. This is—”
“The little whore’s armband.” Bethany thrust up her hand, rising to her knees so fast I missed the motion, the sheets forgotten. “Give.” Eli tensed, his pheromones going from merely alert to something like interested. Bethany’s eyes flicked from me to him and back to the gold.
“We’re bartering. I want honest and complete answers to all my questions, today, now. And your assistance at some future date, such assistance to be determined.”
Bethany snapped her fingers at Wrassler. “Witness.”
“So witnessed,” Wrassler said.
“Give.”
“You understand that it has no magic at this time.”
“It can be used for many things, none of them your concern. Our bargain has been struck. Give!”
I tossed the armband to Bethany. Faster than a snake striking, she leaped up from her kneeling position, stretched, and caught the gold band out of the air. Landed on her mattress with a creak of the hemp ropes. It was a slithery motion, more reptile than human, and it made my skin crawl. If the scent change was any indication, the snaky act also decreased Eli’s interest considerably. Bethany slid the gold band onto her arm with such glee and covetousness that I felt like I was watching a scene from The Ring or The Hobbit, or one of those movies that Alex was always playing on the TV as background to his work space. A sick sort of desire. It made me acutely aware that I might have made a mistake giving her the band, but it was a little late at this point.
Bethany, naked as the day she was born, sat back on the sheets, caressing the bracelet. Without looking up, she said, “Ask your questions.”
“Tell me about the night Joseph Santana disappeared.”
She tilted her head and gave me a look so sly it could have come right out of the Garden of Eden. “No. I will not.”
I started to argue and then realized what I’d said. I’d already violated the agreement. Crap. “Did you drink from Joseph Santana the night he was taken?”
“Yes.”
“Did Santana drink of Immanuel, and Immanuel drink of Santana, before the rest of you got there that night?”
Bethany tilted her head in a way that no human could do, short of a broken neck. “I do not know. It is possible.”
When she didn’t elaborate, I tried to figure out a way to learn more. “Ummm. Were you there when the fight broke out?”
“Yesss,” she drew out the sibilants like the snake she looked, her locks fallen in her leap and now flared out like a hood, like a cobra. The candle flames flickered and her head seemed to swell and return to normal. A trick of the light. Her eyes, focused on me, seemed to have a dark glow.
I felt the rising of her vamp power in the air, tasted it on my tongue when I took a breath to speak. “Who was there when the fight broke out that night?”
“Joseph. Adrianna and her scion. I have long ago forgotten her name. She was always unimportant. Immanuel. Me.”
But there were only four teacups. Interesting. I asked, “Who got there first?”
“I do not know.”
“Speculate,” I spat.
Impassively, Wrassler said, “That violates the bargain.”
I let a bit of Beast into my eyes. “Who was there when you arrived?”
“All of them.”