“It’s a good trick,” Pritkin said, not letting me up, “but of limited use if it’s the only one in your arsenal. We’re going to have to work on—”
I gave a final heave, and when it had no more effect than the others, shifted once more. It was perceptibly harder this time, and the dizziness on landing was a lot stronger. I’d aimed for the far side of the room, but by the time I recovered, Pritkin was almost there. “Enough, already!” he yelled. “Making yourself sick isn’t going to—”
“You’re just…a sore loser,” I panted, trying to get my breath back. Shifting the first time had been like running up a couple of stairs; this one had felt more like ten flights.
“I wasn’t aware that I had lost,” he replied, sword point getting friendly with my ribs. But he wasn’t taking me seriously, wasn’t watching my body language, probably expecting me to shift again. So I didn’t.
A twist and a step took me inside his reach, the pommel of my sword caught his chin and my foot hooked around his ankle. With a pull we were on the floor again, but this time I was on top, with a wooden blade against his neck. He made a choked noise of surprise, or maybe it was protest over the fact that I had pressed a little too hard. It wasn’t enough to break the skin, but it left a mark, red and raw-looking. I rolled off, my heart threatening to pump out of my chest, my legs rubber.
I leaned back against a mirror, chest heaving. I would have liked to gloat, since I’d likely never have the opportunity again, but I didn’t have enough air. “I win. So talk.”
“What would you like to hear?” he asked, sitting beside me. His tone was even—the bastard wasn’t even breathing heavily—but he dragged the sword point across the floor hard enough to scratch the wood. “That that creature forced himself on my mother, knowing she would die in childbirth like the hundreds of other women he’d assaulted? That only the small amount of Fey blood she possessed gave her the strength to survive until their child was born? That I exist solely because of his perverse curiosity to see if such a thing was even possible?”
I blinked. I’d had a mental list of arguments lined up to talk him into telling me something, all of which now had to be trashed. The one thing I hadn’t expected was for him to just come out with it like that, with no embarrassment, no twitching. And therein lay the problem with every single conversation Pritkin and I had ever had.
I was used to the way vamps quarreled, in convoluted, subtle conversations, a dance of lies and hidden truths, more silent than spoken. I knew that dance, those steps. But with him, there were no convoluted discussions, implied threats or discreet bargains, just blunt statements of fact that left me oddly confused. I kept looking for the hidden meaning when there wasn’t one. At least I hoped there wasn’t.
“I’m beginning to understand why you hate demons,” I finally sa
id.
“I hate demons because they exist solely and utterly to plague humankind! They have no redeeming qualities—they are pests at best and scourges at worst—all of which should be hunted down and destroyed, one by one!”
“You’re saying that in an entire race there isn’t one good—”
“No.”
I knew what it was to grow up feeling that something important was missing from life, to have no reason to mourn people I never knew, yet to feel their absence like an ever-present ache. Pritkin certainly had reason to hate Rosier, maybe even demons in general, but I thought genocide might be taking things a little far. “And you’ve met them all?” I asked, trying not to flinch under that burning green gaze.
“You grew up with vampires,” Pritkin said savagely. “Would you care to guess where I spent my formative years?”
A little late, I remembered Casanova saying something about Pritkin being thrown out of Hell. I’d assumed he was exaggerating. Or not, I thought, as Pritkin jumped up and began pacing, his face redder than when we’d finished practice.
“You grew up with those creatures, yet you defend them! I have never understood that, how any human could align herself with the very beings who feed on her!”
“You’re confusing demons and vamps again.” He’d had that problem all along, and living around Casanova, the only incubus-possessed vamp, probably hadn’t helped.
“Am I?” Tension radiated from his body, and his mouth tightened to its usual downturned line. “They’re self-centered, morally bereft predators who feed off any humans foolish enough to give them the chance. I fail to see a great deal of difference!”
I was beginning to understand why Pritkin had never been a big fan of vamps. The way they and incubi fed might seem a little too close for comfort. Vamps took blood, while incubi fed directly on the life force itself, accessed through the emotions. But the distinction might get a little blurry for someone with his background.
“It’s not that simple.” I struggled to my feet, trying not to wince at the ache along my spine. I’d twisted too fast or stepped wrong, and rolling my head left, then right didn’t seem to help. Pritkin noticed, but I didn’t get a neck rub. Somehow, I hadn’t expected one.
“Some vamps, like Tony, are monsters,” I agreed, “but I strongly suspect he was that way before the change. There is no typical vampire, any more than there is a typical human.”
He stepped closer, pain and anger warring on his face. “There is a typical demon! Rosier is no different from your friend downstairs, or from any of the others. Except in the amount of power he possesses, in the amount of pain he can cause.”
“My father may not have been a monster, but he worked for one,” I reminded him quietly. Pritkin wasn’t the only one who’d had to face a few unhappy truths about his background. “I’ve had to come to terms with that, to accept that just because he refused to hand me over to Tony, doesn’t mean he refused to do other things—”
“Your father was human,” Pritkin hissed, the abrupt lash of his anger hitting me like a slap, backing me up a step.
“So are you!”
He laughed his short, humorless laugh, and I realized that I’d never heard him laugh for real. He had smiles of wry amusement occasionally, but that was as close as he came. And even they were mostly in the muscles around his eyes. I wanted to see him really laugh, just once. But, somehow, I didn’t think today would be the day.
He moved suddenly, so that we were pressed together from thigh to hip to shoulder, but I refused to give ground again. “Am I? Have you never wondered why your geis reacts so much stronger to me than to anyone else, sees me as so much more of a threat?”
“It doesn’t seem to feel that way lately.” The goose bumps running up my arms were proof of that.