Private Demon (Darkyn #2)

"Good morning, Mother." Jema dutifully went to her place at her mother's left hand and sat down. A maid appeared to pour coffee and set down a bowl of oatmeal and a small plate with a bran muffin. She picked up her glass of water and drank half before her thirst eased a bit.

Meryl did not immediately reply, concerning herself with adding some cream to her tea. She did not offer the tiny pitcher to Jema, who along with being diabetic was also lactose intolerant. "Did you sleep well?"

The cut inside her lip stung as she finished her water and started on the black, unsweetened coffee in her cup. "Yes, I did."

"I did not." Meryl picked up her fork and cut a small piece from her French toast. "Bradford had to give me a stomach treatment, and then I tossed and turned until dawn. Where were you last night?"

Jema accepted another glass of water from the maid and glanced at her. "Are you feeling better?"

"That is not the point." Meryl set down her fork. "I had thought the rebellious stage occurred only during adolescence, but your behavior indicates otherwise. What is next? Body piercings? Tattoos? Loud music played at ridiculous hours?"

"I'm twenty-nine," Jema said. "Too old for navel rings and Kid Rock."

Her mother sniffed. "Thank heavens."

"I wouldn't mind a tattoo, though." Jema held out her forearm and pretended to study it. "Maybe a little parrot on the inside of my wrist."

"I'd rather see Daniel amputate your arm," Meryl snapped.

Dr. Daniel Bradford walked into the dining room, where he stopped and looked at both women. "I hate walking in late on a conversation like this," he joked. "Especially when it involves me dismembering someone."

Jema smiled at Daniel, whose round, sturdy form, pleasant features, and silvered hair and beard made him look more like an off-duty Santa than a physician. "Mother was just giving me her opinion on tattoos."

"Disgusting, filthy things." Meryl gave him a cutting glance. "Sit down, Daniel."

"We were just talking about why I didn't get home on time last night. For which I am sorry, Mother," Jema tagged on quickly. She quickly drank some water from her refilled glass. "It was inconsiderate of me and it won't happen again."

"You didn't answer my question," Meryl snapped. "Where were you?"

Now she would have to lie again. "I went for a drive down by the lake after work. I left late, and I thought you would be in bed by the time I got home." Jema stared into her eyes and kept her expression guileless. "I'm sorry." She drained the rest of her water.

"There, Meryl," Daniel said as he took his place across from Jema. "It won't happen again."

"Of course it will. This is the third time this month. Did the two of you think I wouldn't notice?" Her mother picked up her teacup and then placed it back on the saucer, hard enough to make the china clink. "It's a man, isn't it? Why are you hiding him from me? Is he someone unsuitable? Someone you met at the museum?"

"No, Mother."

They all fell silent as the maid came in to serve Daniel and refill Jema's water glass a second time. We can bicker all we like in private, Jema thought, but God forbid we say anything in front of the servants. Sometimes she hated her life so much she could cheerfully run away from home.

Where would you go? The snide voice of her reason demanded. What would you do? Live in a trailer park? Work at McDonald's? How would you even pay for your insulin?

"I've never stopped you from inviting anyone to the house," Meryl said, picking up the conversation as soon as the maid retreated back into the kitchen. "I'd like to meet him. I can arrange a quiet dinner for us—"

"There is no man in my life, Mother."

"You two need to eat before it gets cold," Daniel said, picking up his own fork. "This French toast looks marvelous. It's always better with powdered sugar and strawberries, isn't it?" He made a face at Jema. "I'd share, but it would knock your blood sugar through the roof."

"I'm not a fool," Meryl said, completely ignoring the doctor's attempt to redirect the conversation. "My marriage to your father may have been brief, but I remember what it's like to be in love." She pursed her lips and at last dropped her gaze to fuss with her napkin. "I don't understand why you'd waste your time, but that's your affair, of course."

Jema closed her eyes for a moment. "I'm not seeing anyone."

"Would either of you like some juice?" Daniel broke in with forced heartiness. "I think you could manage a small glass, Jem." He eyed her water glass, which she had emptied a third time. "Unless you'd like to keep doing your excellent imitation of a camel about to cross the desert"

"No, thanks, Dr. Bradford. I don't know why I'm so thirsty." She tried to smile at him, but her mother's basilisk gaze had fixed on her again, and this time it was impossible to escape.

It was time for another of Meryl's lectures. Jema guessed it would be yet another version of "They only want you for your money."

"These men pay attention to you for only one reason," Meryl said, not disappointing her. "Your money. When I'm gone, you'll be one of the richest young women in the country." Meryl's expression didn't soften, but her voice did. "Have you told him about your condition? Mentioned anything about how it's deteriorating?"

Daniel's smile faded. "Meryl, I hardly think this is the time or place to—"

"Be quiet, Daniel. Jema, don't you see how that is the only thing they find attractive about you?" Meryl's voice became strained. "The fact that you'll be dead before you're forty—"

"There is no man." Jema couldn't stand another moment of this, and pushed out of her chair. "I was late getting out of work. I went for a drive. I came home from there. That's all it was. That's all it ever is."

Daniel got to his feet, his expression filled with something more immediate than sympathy. "Did you already take your morning injection?"

Jema was sick of being questioned. On the other hand, too much insulin could cause an adverse reaction, and Daniel was simply doing his job by asking.

"Yes." She picked up the bran muffin to tuck it in her pocket. "I'll eat this on the way to work, to be safe." She faced her mother. "I apologize for being late last night. You're right: It will probably happen again. Maybe it's time I made arrangements to get my own place."

"That isn't necessary, as you know." Meryl Shaw pushed away from the table as well. She could not rise, because an accident at a dig in Greece thirty years ago had left her paralyzed from the waist down. She used the switch on her battery-powered wheelchair to come closer. She lifted her chin. "I understand your need for… privacy." She said it the same way she would prostitution. "I know I can be demanding at times, but it is only out of concern for your welfare."

That was the only way her mother ever expressed her affection for Jema, and it preserved the distance between them like nothing else. Jema had tried to change that, but Meryl's emotions were too well guarded. She lost her heart with my father, she reminded herself. Once it had been enough to make Jema feel a helpless love for Meryl, but love had to be returned or it dwindled into misery.

All she had left was pity for her mother, and a sense of obligation that was becoming as weighty as her loneliness. It didn't help that most of what Meryl said was true.

No man would ever love her for who she was. All she could offer was her inheritance, and a disease that would ensure he could spend it with another woman while he was still young.

Dream of me.

There was no one for her to dream of. No one who would dream of her.

"I have to go to work." She left quickly, before Daniel or her mother could see her face, or guess how much she hated herself in that moment.

Chapter 6

JEMA'S BENZ. Jema. Thierry tried to explain it away. Many women in Chicago could be named Jema. A dozen? A hundred? A thousand?

He knew only one.

Jema was the name of the woman he sought. A name had been listed in the list of people interviewed in Cyprien's file. Jema Shaw, an anthropologist who worked at the Shaw Museum, the same place the girl had been employed at night. This Jema Shaw was also the only daughter of James Shaw, the founder of the museum. She might know someone or something that could help him find the men responsible.

He could not tell if his little cat was the same Jema. There were no photographs of her. The only other information in the file about her had been an odd notation, written in a dark, heavy script: Jema Shaw has acute diabetes and her health is presently in decline. Any contact with the Kyn must be first approved by Suzerain Jaus.

Perhaps the warning had been made because of Jema Shaw's position in society, or to safeguard her from being casually used as nourishment. And he had used her, fed upon her, taken her without a second thought.

Had he harmed her? Was she even now being rushed to a hospital, where she would die from blood loss? He was sure he had stopped in time—but she was ill. Ill and he had fed on her.

The only woman who might be able to help him, and he had used her as if she were no one, nothing.

Thierry's thoughts curled like snakes in his head, alternately hissing and striking, from dawn until sunset. As soon as the sunlight had disappeared, Thierry left the alley and searched until he found a ear with an ignition system he knew how to cross-wire. He did not like stealing vehicles, and he hated driving on the wrong side of the road, but a car would provide a faster means of escape if he encountered trouble in the city. Also, he could not go to the Shaw Museum too late; if Jema Shaw worked there, she might leave after the museum closed.

If his Jema from the night was Jema of the museum, and he had not harmed her, she would know him the moment he came near her. Through l'attrait, her body would recognize his.