Shades of Memory

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  A gunshot exploded the stillness. Mine followed a millisecond later, but I swear blood erupted from Ocho’s head before I got my shot off. Somebody had decided to stage a coup.

  The room exploded with ratcheting gunfire even as a whirlwind spun to life around me and Price. Make that a small tornado. All sorts of crap got sucked up in it almost instantly, and I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything above the roaring wind.

  I spun around, my empty hand reaching out for Price as I searched him for blood. I dropped the gun and tore at his coat. The black fabric didn’t show a hole, but there was no way he hadn’t gotten shot. I had to stop the bleeding. Hands closed around my wrists. The binding spell no longer held his arm up in the air. He dragged me against his hard chest, closing iron arms around me.

  “Easy, Riley. I didn’t get shot. Tell me you’re not hurt. Please, baby.”

  It took a bit for the words to sink into my panicked brain. “I’m good,” I said, even though I had no idea if that was true. I did a quick mental inventory. Who the hell was I kidding? Getting shot hurt. I definitely didn’t have new holes. “No lead poisoning for me,” I added. “What now?”

  Once before he’d lifted us out of a big hole, aka, the basement of the FBI building, using his talent. He could sweep us out the front doors now. Couldn’t he?

  His arms trembled, like muscles trying to hold up heavy weights for too long. White lines bracketed his mouth and nostrils, and his neck corded with strain.

  “I just—I don’t know—” His teeth clenched together, his jaw knotting. He shook his head. “It’s so strong and it keeps growing stronger every day.”

  I’d never heard of anything like that before. Talents erupted and didn’t weaken or grow over time. But Price was an elemental, and that made his talent a wild card. “Can you hold this and walk? Just nod or shake your head.”

  Price’s head jerked to the side. So that was a no-go.

  “Push it out and let it go. Knock them down and let it go and we’ll make a run for the front doors.” Hopefully the walls wouldn’t collapse.

  I pressed my palms to Price’s cheeks, trying to help him center himself. “Can you do it?”

  A jerk of the head. This time in the positive.

  “Then go.”

  His face twisted in concentration and pain, and then the calm eye of the whirlwind exploded outward. In the same moment, Price grabbed my hand and yanked me into a run.

  Bits of loose ceiling tile rained down, along with other flying debris. I lifted my free arm to shield my face as we raced up the low ramp and through the old snack bar and past the counter where they used to rent skates. We dodged and leaped over people still stunned from the hard blow of the whirlwind. What glass had remained on the front doors had shattered, leaving toothy holes interspersed with plywood.

  We ducked through one of the empty panes. The cold slapped my face. I sucked in deep breaths of needle-sharp air, adrenaline tearing through me. Price shot left toward the side parking lot. Belatedly, I remembered Tiny. Please God, don’t let his crew shoot us.

  I heard voices and shouting. Price and I launched ourselves up the big berm. We half jumped, half slid down the other side, only to find ourselves surrounded. Hands grabbed us.

  “Let them go!” Tiny bellowed.

  Our captors responded instantly.

  I looked at the young Tyet lord in training. “Go in now. Ocho’s dead, I think. Everybody else is temporarily flattened.”

  He didn’t hesitate, barking orders. Seconds later, his small army rushed over the berm, leaving Price and me alone. My breathing gradually slowed, and my heart steadied. It felt good to have the mountain of snow at our backs.

  Price took my hand. “We’ve got to keep going. We’re done here.”

  I nodded, and we took off in a slow jog, careful not to fall on the rutted ice covering the parking lot.

  We retraced our path to the school where we’d filled the Molotovs and kept going. A few more blocks down, we stopped. Price bent over, drawing deep, ragged breaths. He didn’t let go of my hand. I rubbed his back with the other. Abruptly he straightened and pulled me into his arms. He buried his head in my neck.

  “Dear God in heaven, you’ve got to stop doing that to me. My heart can’t take it.”

  I didn’t bother telling him the same thing. The chances of our lives getting less dangerous were about as good as the odds of the dinosaurs coming back. Zilch.

  I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but we were still on the clock. “We should get out of here,” I said, gently pushing at his chest. “Find out what happened to your brother.”

  At the mention of Touray, Price stiffened, and the wind around us picked up, scouring the street and making the nearby trees toss. I could see fear in his eyes.

  “Let’s boost a ride,” I said, twisting out of his arms. We should have taken one of Tiny’s vehicles, but I had no intention of going back to get it. Just then, the sound of an engine broke the cold stillness of the morning.

  We stepped into the shadows between a couple of juniper bushes and waited for the car to pass. It was one of those little boxy jobs that look like a loaf of bread on wheels. It went a couple of blocks down and turned into a dilapidated apartment complex. I looked at Price.

  “Let’s see what we can find.”

  The apartments looked like they’d been built in the fifties, with flat roofs and oversized windows. Three two-story buildings faced the street in a U shape. Out in front were rows of carports. The little car we’d seen had slid into a slot in front of the left building. A young woman still sat inside, her fingers tapping over the screen of her phone.

  Convenient. We wouldn’t have to break in and hot-wire a car. “Think she’ll give us her keys if we ask nicely?”

  “She doesn’t get a choice.” Price stalked along the line of parked cars.

  The girl finished with her phone about the time we got to end of the carport. Oblivious to us, she fumbled in the seat beside her, bending down to pick up something off the passenger floorboards. She opened the door and got out. She wore blue scrubs and looked like she hadn’t slept in a couple of days.

  Shit. I did not want to steal from a doctor or a nurse or whatever she was. Of all the people on the planet who did not deserve to get carjacked, first responders topped the list. I didn’t have much of a choice.

  She slung a tote bag over her shoulder and reached for her purse. That’s when we pounced.

  “I’m sorry, but we need to take your car,” Price said.

  She gasped and spun about, eyes wide. She clutched her purse to her chest like a shield.

  “What do you want?” Her voice squeaked.

  “I want to borrow your car.” Price held out his hand. “Give me your keys.”

  She shook her head, anger filtering into her fear. “I don’t think so. I’ve just had the worst night ever and I’m not going to get my fucking car stolen on top of all of it. You can just go screw yourself.”

  Price just grabbed her wrist and twisted the keys out of her grip. “I’m sorry, but it’s a matter of life and death,” he said. “I’ll return it, with a hefty rental fee. I promise.”

  “Right,” she said. “Please. I’m not stupid. I’m fucked and I know it. The only reason I’m not screaming is nobody would come to help, so you can save yourself the buttering up. Cops won’t do a damned thing either. So take the damned thing and get the hell out of my way.”

  I had to admit I liked her style.

  She glared up at Price. She wasn’t all that tall. Maybe five foot four. A little taller than Patti and just as feisty. “Well? Are you going to move, asshole?”

  “Give me a pen and paper,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Pen. Paper. Give them to me. You’ve got to have some sort of writing to
ol in that tote.”

  She shook her head and muttered, but dug into her tote and handed me a little spiral notebook with white kittens on the front and a pen from Carter’s Garden Supply.

  I flipped open the notebook and scribbled down my name and the number of the diner. I handed it back to her. “Call me. You’ll get your car back and chunk of cash for your trouble and aggravation. I swear if someone’s life wasn’t on the line, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Right. I totally believe you.” With that, she thrust past us and stomped away.

  We slid into the seats, and Price whipped us out of the stall and back onto the main road in a matter of seconds. The car was a stick, and he drove it deftly.

  “That was easier to accomplish than I expected.” I switched the heater to high and sighed as warmth poured out of the vents. “Where are we going?” I asked, tipping my head back against the seat rest.

  “Gregg’s.”

  “Is that a good idea? I mean, he would have come back if humanly possible. That means someone got him. It probably happened at home—I can’t imagine where else he’d have taken Cristina.” My stomach churned as I realized that whatever had happened to Touray had put the girl in the cross fire. Had we rescued her from the frying pan just to dump her into the fire?

  “All the more reason to go there.”

  “Unless whoever got him is waiting to get us, too.”

  Price made a growling sound, my logic annoying him. “What do you suggest, then?”

  I dug in my pocket for my phone. “I’ll call him.”

  Price didn’t comment on what a ridiculous plan that was, for which I was grateful. What were the chances Touray would be able to pick up? If he’d been attacked like I thought, he wouldn’t answer. Still, I hit the dial button.

  As expected, I got his voice mail. I almost hung up without leaving a message, then decided I’d better. “We got out. We’re okay. Call us. We’re worried about you.” I cut the call.

  “Now what?” I said.

  Price slid a swift glance at me and then back to the road. He was still on his way to Touray’s. I closed my eyes, trying to think. My adrenaline had dissolved, and exhaustion pulled at me. I felt like a bag of wet cement. I could barely lift my eyelids, I was so tired.

  “I need to sleep,” I said, yawning. “So do you.”

  “I’ll sleep after we find Gregg,” came Price’s clipped reply.

  “We’re not going to be much good if we—”

  “Crawl in the back and sleep if you want,” he snapped, cutting me off.

  He swerved around a pothole. The tires spun and skidded on ice. The back end fishtailed.

  “Kill us on the way and we aren’t going to do him much good,” I murmured. His “crawl in the back” dismissal annoyed me. Then again, if Taylor, Jamie, or Leo were missing, I’d be going after them like a crocodile after a wildebeest.

  “Is there any chance of caffeine?” I braced my feet on the dash. It helped keep me from flying around the car with the twisty driving.

  “No.”

  Short, sweet, and very final. Not that I really expected him to stop, but a vat of coffee would sure make me a lot more capable.

  I leaned my forehead against my upraised knees and closed my eyes to relieve their sawdusty dryness. Think. Price needed me to be helpful. Touray not coming back meant he’d been forcibly kept away. The only other possibility was that another, more pressing disaster had reared its head. If it came down to a choice between the city and Price, the city would win.

  God, I hated relying on other people. No, I corrected myself. I had no problem relying on Taylor, Leo, Jamie, Patti, and Price. Cass, too. I knew they’d come through for me no matter what. But Touray? His agenda didn’t necessarily include keeping me and mine safe. His promises always had exception clauses.

  It was only going to get worse. I needed his help to protect my family from Vernon, from the FBI, and from other Tyets, and yet he might throw any one of us under the bus for the sake of his goals. Noble goals, in their way, but I didn’t want to get ground up into hamburger in someone else’s war.

  The knowledge sat like a ball of cold lead in my stomach. What other choice did I have? Touray had the power, money, and resources to keep us safe. Nobody else did.

  “What are the chances Touray didn’t come back because he had something more important to do?”

  Price flicked a burning look at me. The air in the car swelled, and the front windshield cracked, sending zigzag lines across the expanse. The pressure against my ears hurt, and my chest felt like a giant was squeezing me in a bear hug. I rolled down the window. Frozen air rushed inside, but the pressure eased.

  Price swore and pulled over. He sat a moment, staring straight ahead. His hands flexed and clamped on the wheel.

  “Are you accusing my brother of abandoning us on purpose?”

  I winced. Yes. “Isn’t it possible?”

  Price’s eyes laced over with white. “I know you don’t like Gregg, but God dammit, he’s my brother and he could be fucking dead!” He slammed a frustrated fist into the center of the steering wheel. The horn beeped, a cartoon sound, totally at odds with his fury.

  Regret burrowed through me. I hated doing this to him, but we’d promised to be truthful with each other.

  “It’s not that I don’t like him,” I said. “He just scares the ever-loving shit out of me most of the time. And it’s not that I think he’d just walk away from us willy-nilly. I’m asking if maybe something more important came up. You know how he feels about the city.”

  Price opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. He shook his head. He knew I was right.

  There was a bright side. “So if he had something more important to take care of, then he’s probably all right,” I said softly, putting my hand on his thigh.

  His muscles bunched into stone beneath my touch. I pulled away, but he grabbed my hand in his, his fingers tightening.

  “It’s possible,” he admitted, hope threading through his voice.

  That’s when my phone rang. I checked the number. Patti. “Hey.”

  “You should know that thugs dragged Price’s brother away after he dropped off Cristina,” she said without preamble. “Broke in here and tied me up, then waited for him. Thing I can’t figure out is how they knew he was coming. I sure as hell didn’t expect him.”

  Fuck. So much for the bright side. I glanced at Price. “Did they say anything? Got any idea who they worked for?”

  “Nope. They hardly said a word.”

  “Is Cristina okay?”

  “They didn’t bother her. A few minutes ago, the two thugs left behind to guard us got a call. They cut us loose. I’m taking Cristina up to my apartment to clean up and maybe sleep.”

  “Can you call Emily and Luis and make sure she gets home?”

  “Sure. What are you going to do?”

  “How did they take him out of there?”

  “SUV.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  I hung up and repeated the conversation to Price. He was already pulling back onto the road.

  “How did they know to be there?” I asked. “There’s no such thing as telling the future.”

  “Maybe there is. People claim they can all the time.”

  “Crackpots and con artists.”

  “Maybe not.”

  I’d never heard of any legitimate account of someone reading the future, but then, ignorance wasn’t exactly proof the skill didn’t exist. The fact was, someone had managed to lie in wait for Gregg in a place he was not expected to be. The only logical explanation was that someone had seen the future and set the trap.

  “They took him by car, so I should be able to pick up his trace,” I said. If I could control my magic and stand the pain of it.
But I had to try. I’d damned well better succeed, because I wasn’t letting Price lose his brother because of me.

  The traffic had eased up on the outskirts of the city, but Downtown was practically a parking lot. Despite the explosions, people still had to get to work, and between regular traffic and the backups caused by the explosions, we found ourselves in a gridlock of epic proportions. Which begged the question—how had the SUV that had taken Touray managed to get anywhere?

  Maybe it hadn’t gone far. Maybe he’d be close to the diner, and we’d be able to find him quickly. Hell, maybe the kidnappers were stuck in traffic somewhere.

  “Do you think?” I asked Price, after explaining my logic.

  “Seems reasonable,” he said.

  His voice had gone flat. He’d already vaulted to the worst-case scenario, which unfortunately had the best odds. I hurt for him. I rubbed my knuckles over the ache in my chest. What could I do?

  “If they took him, then they wanted him alive,” I said by way of being comforting. But we both knew from dreadful experience that staying alive wasn’t a picnic, or even just a bad nightmare. Sometimes it was hell itself. All the same, better alive than dead, any day.

  “Right,” he said.

  Price’s tension ratcheted up with every breath. It wasn’t long before he twisted the wheel and drove cockeyed into a small niche between parked cars. He drove the front end up on the sidewalk and shut down the car. Faster to walk than fight the traffic. I opened my door and met him on the sidewalk. That was crowded, too. Even so, people took one look at Price and gave him a wide berth. I let him clear the way, feeling a lot like a water-skier getting dragged behind a speeding boat.

  All the subway exits were blocked with closed signs. No wonder the streets were so gridlocked.

  We passed a coffee kiosk. The line ran up the block to the corner. I smelled the sweet manna of roasted beans. Someone walked away with a couple of steaming cups, and it took all my self-control not to grab one and run. I reached up to run a finger under my lower lip just to be sure I hadn’t drooled.