Wicked as They Come (Blud #1)

“And what’s the small token?”

“Just this: tell me my fortune.”

“You can give me a potion that’ll take me to another world, but you can’t tell your own future?” I asked.

“One day, you’ll learn that power doesn’t work that way,” she said with another deep chuckle. “Every time I lay my cards, I draw the Witch. Every time I look into my own teacup, I see a tempest. And my palms are smooth as glass.”

“Fine,” I said quietly. “I’ll tell your future.”

Criminy broke in, almost pleading. “Letitia, love, there’s bound to be a catch. A trick. She won’t give you something for nothing.”

“Glancing isn’t nothing,” I said, my hackles rising. “It’s a valuable talent. You said so yourself.”

“It’s very valuable,” he agreed. “But there’s something else she wants, or it wouldn’t be so simple.”

We had a little staring contest, each willing the other to give in. I refused to drop my eyes. What Madam Burial wanted seemed a simple enough request. He just didn’t want me to have that potion. And it wasn’t even that I wanted it so badly, not really. I just wanted my own bolt hole, my escape hatch in case the locket was broken or gone forever. I wanted a choice.

I took off my glove, and Madam Burial smiled like a vulture folding its wings over a carcass.

“Don’t touch her!” Criminy snapped. “Don’t do this. Love, she tricked me once, and she won’t let you go so easily. I promise you.”

“Don’t tell her what to do, Master Stain,” she warned. “Your sweet little kitten doesn’t like that.”

Caught between the two of them, I was furious. And I wasn’t about to back down.

Madam Burial took off her black lace glove, and her scaled hand hovered in the air, waiting. I grasped it and gasped. The jolt was explosive and strange, a black vortex drawing me in deeply. I dropped her hand as if it was on fire and staggered backward.

Criminy was there immediately, his arms around me, asking, “Are you all right, love?”

“And what did you see?” Madam Burial asked, her tone conversational and teasing.

“How much did you take?” I said, my voice low and dark. I had a sudden vision of what it would be like to rip her throat out with my blunt little Pinky teeth.

“Just five years,” she said. “A pittance. I’m surprised you even noticed. Yet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She giggled, a high, mad sound. The hair on my arms rose.

“Can’t you feel it, little kitten? Doesn’t time here seem to run fast for you? Haven’t you noticed the crow’s feet marching across your face? That locket draws the years from you as surely as my hands. You’ll wither in his arms yet, if you don’t make your choice soon. Or break the locket.”

“Is it true, Criminy?” I asked, my ungloved fingers going automatically to my face, to the tiny ridges that I was sure hadn’t been there yesterday, that maybe hadn’t been there five minutes ago. “Am I really older?”

“There’s always a catch, my love,” he said. “But you’re beautiful to me, no matter what.”

So I couldn’t have both worlds, both lives. I’d seen it all in that desperately dark and dizzying glance. The locket was stealing my life, taking my time, drawing my youth and transferring it to the witch as I aged supernaturally fast. I was going to have to choose, and choose soon. It all came down to the potion, the blud, or the locket. Every moment I spent in Sang as a human meant that I grew older faster. My dream of having everything was gone, replaced by images of my hair turning gray with a locket around my neck and a forever-young lover in my arms.

And then there was Criminy’s glance, which made a little more sense now.

But it didn’t matter. The witch was going to pay.

“Let me tell your fortune,” I said. “So we’ll be even.”

“You saw nothing,” she said, drawing up and pulling her cloak tightly around her.

“Suit yourself,” I said.

Pushing away from Criminy, I rubbed my temples and stretched my shoulders, feeling tired to the bone. When I stepped up to the counter, Madam Burial looked just a little more lively, the lines on her face smoother and her smug smile brimming with joy at having bested me. But underneath it, I could tell that she was just a little bit scared of me. Good.

I snatched the little bottle off the counter and looked her dead in the eye.

“I know how you die. It’s going to hurt. And you don’t have long,” I said.

The horror in her eyes made me smile as I grabbed Criminy’s hand and dragged him back across the road.

As I stepped into the conveyance, I called over my shoulder, “And watch out for flying monkeys, you old bitch!”

I couldn’t stop staring at myself in the mirror Criminy had dug out of his waistcoat. Was that my first wrinkle, or had I just slept on my arm? Were the bags under my eyes from exhaustion or dehydration or something more sinister?

“But I don’t want to be thirty-one,” I moaned.

Criminy glanced at me lovingly and said, “Darling, you don’t look a day over twenty-six.”

“I can’t believe I fell for it. You told me there would be a catch, but I was just so certain that I knew what I was doing. I let her steal five years of my life. Five years, gone in seconds.” I sighed. “And as long as the locket’s around, I’m getting older even faster. I didn’t even get to have a big party for turning thirty.”

“I’m nearly a century older than you are, if it makes you feel any better,” he said.

“And you actually don’t look a day over twenty-five,” I said wistfully. “I guess being a Bludman has its advantages.”

“I like to think so,” he said with his most dashing grin. “But there’s still plenty of time for that. The important thing is that you have what you wanted.”

I looked at the little bottle. I didn’t really want it. But I didn’t want him to know that. And I wasn’t ready to admit that I had given up five years of my life just to feel independent and strong.

“I guess,” I said.

I hoped I would never run into Madam Burial again.

But of course, I knew I would.

After that, we met no travelers on the road. I fell into an uneasy sleep until a giant bus tank passed us. We had to veer off the road in response to its vicious honking. The driver, just a pair of goggles behind the dirty windshield, would have mowed us down without a thought.

“Foolish Pinkies fleeing Brighton, no doubt,” Criminy muttered. “Run over their own grandmothers to get to safety.”

“Durgoin da Manblaster?” I slurred, still half-asleep.

“Yes, love,” Criminy said with a smile. “They’re probably going to Manchester. For all we know, Jonah Goodwill is throwing a ball to celebrate, and they want to shake his hand.”

I rubbed my eyes and sat up with a jaw-cracking yawn. “Are we there yet?” I asked.

Criminy pulled out his compass with one hand, and the carriage jiggled all over the road.

“Bugger,” he said, shoving the little brass object back into his pocket. “I can’t tell for certain. I’d guess we’re an hour or so from the caravan. It’ll be good to be home, eh?”

“Yes,” I said archly, “it would be great to be home. With my grandmother and my cat. Which is why we’re going to Manchester now.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but our first stop’s the caravan.” With both hands on the wheel, he gave me a quick grin and shrugged. “I have my responsibilities, and they might have news. And we need to get cleaned up before we head into the city. You’ll scandalize the kingdom in that get-up, if the rats don’t get to you first.”

He had a point. But that didn’t mean I liked it.

“Don’t sulk, precious,” Criminy said. “But speaking of the dangers ahead, there’s something I need to ask you.”

I waited. His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. It was as close as I’d ever seen him to nervous and fidgety.

“There’s no good way to put it. But do you want to be bludded?”

“I’ve already told you no,” I said patiently. “I appreciate the thought, but I’m not ready to go that route yet. No eternal kiss for me.”

“Eternal kiss?” he asked. “That’s a bunch of poppycock. It’s simply practical. It would be so much safer if you were a predator instead of a delicious little morsel. We’re about to go into a city where there’s a price on your head and try to sneak into the well-guarded house of a very powerful man to steal a magical object—which is all in a day’s work for me, of course. But you could be killed. And worrying about you being killed makes me more likely to get us both killed. And there are still plenty of things around here that want to eat you.”

“When you put it that way,” I answered, “I guess it is pretty practical. But here’s the thing. I don’t know what would happen when I got back to my world. If I would be my world’s first Bludwoman or a vampire or a corpse. I’m not going to risk it, even if it would make life a lot easier here.” Aiming for silly, I added, “Besides, blood’s icky.”

“Oh, Letitia,” he mused, but I could hear pain lurking underneath. “Will you ever accept that this is serious? Do you think me a schoolboy, mooning after a pretty lass? I wonder if you even care for me. If you’re just toying with my heart.”

“Quit acting soft,” I muttered. “Quit playing.”

“I think you’re the one who’s playing,” he snapped. “What you’re seeing is pain. And you’re the only one who sees it,” he said more softly. “You’re the only one who can cut me, and you wound me deep.”

I watched him for a moment, his jaw clenched as he gripped the steering wheel, as if his will and his hands were the only things holding the conveyance together and keeping it on the road. His eyes were focused far ahead, and he let out the saddest sigh.