“Get away from me. Do you know who my family is?”
“Yeah, and the Geistwalds aren’t your real family, are they, Aki?”
He blinks at me. His hands open and close around his bleeding foot. I tear the Drifter’s shirt into strips and wrap them around the wound.
“I remember you at Bamboo House of Dolls. You came over to the bar like a snotty little prince and ordered me to do my portaling trick. When I told you to go away and you wouldn’t, there was almost a scene. But it was all an act, wasn’t it, Aki? Your mom was there hoping to find someone who could track down her lost boy. Someone told you she was going to be there. You weren’t in the bar to impress your friends or get under my skin. You were testing your glamour. You knew if you could walk by your own mother without her recognizing you, you were home free. No one would ever see anything but Rainier Geistwald.”
“Keep talking, asshole. You’re dead.”
I pull the bandage tight and make him wince.
“If Cabal did such a good job with the glamour, why did you have to kill him?”
“Have you smelled the guy? Besides, I never killed anyone.”
“Right. You just opened the door and let your friends do the dirty work. I bet you didn’t even go inside to watch the fun. You stayed by the door until the screaming stopped and then shooed your friends back out. One thing. I know why Drifters don’t eat me, but why don’t they eat you?”
The kid shrugs. Hits me with a very professional sneer. I bet he practices in a mirror.
“Maybe I was good in Sunday school and Jesus loves me.”
“Or someone threw a protection spell your way.”
He shrugs.
“There’s so much going on right now, who can remember?”
I flick his bleeding foot with my finger.
“You still haven’t told me why you killed Cabal. Mind if I take a guess? Cabal and Cosima had hit some hard times, so when he found a ripe young rube like you on his doorstep asking for illegal hoodoo, he had to say yes. Not for the fee, but so he could blackmail you later. Isn’t that what happened? He threatened to let slip that you weren’t really Rainier?”
Aki shakes his head.
“You have no goddamn idea what’s going on.”
“I know you’re impersonating the Geistwalds’ son and that someone is gunning for the old families. I have to give it to you. Hiding with an old family while you take out the others is pretty slick. You already got Cabal, the Springheels, and Spencer Church’s family. Probably others I don’t even know about. Tell me, when do the Geistwalds get it?”
“Gee, I don’t know. You’re the one with experience killing Geistwalds. You tell me.”
I look at him and keep looking until he turns away.
“You’re not a Geistwald, so don’t give me any family outrage over Eleanor. And she was a vampire. She was already dead when I got to her.”
“But she was still walking and talking. That’s an okay kind of dead. Not the best because she needed blood to keep going, but it’s better than nothing. And you had to take that away from her. Were you jealous that for all your supposed powers, you’re still going to die like all those anonymous sheep back in town? You should have been smart and let Eleanor bite you. Or do you have something against living forever?”
Interesting question. I hadn’t thought about Eleanor’s death beyond it being one more thing I regretted. But Aki has a good point.
“I don’t have anything against immortality, but I’m not begging for it either. Are you? Is that what this is about? You think you found some way around death? How? As one of these things? Jesus, kid, I hope your brilliant idea isn’t to somehow get yourself turned into a Savant.”
“You don’t understand one damned thing that’s going on.”
The angel whispers something in my ear.
“Are you sure, Aki? If you’re not going to night school to become a Drifter, what was Eleanor doing with the Druj Ammun? Where did she get it? From you?”
“How do you even know about that?”
Aki thrashes around. Almost grabs me before falling back down.