Roadside Magic

by Lilith Saintcrow

  He was already moving, taking the small pad on his desk and making notes. Pay phone. Maple and 20th. Pond. “Stay put. I’m coming to get you.”

  “I d-didn’t know who else to call,” she whispered, and the most amazing thing happened.

  Josiah began to get a hard-on. He still remembered the way her hair smelled. Still remembered the taste of her sweat, and her low, throaty moan at delicious intervals.

  Jesus. Three years, and the woman still managed to turn him on.

  “I’m in trouble,” she whispered into the phone, as if afraid someone might hear. “Bad t-trouble.”

  So you called me. “Maple and Twentieth.” He was already scooping up his car keys and his black hip-length jacket. His legs shook, but they would carry him. Of all the scenarios he’d played out in his head over the years, he hadn’t ever dreamed this one up. “You’re outside?” Idiot. She said a phone booth. You can hear the traffic behind her. Is she at a gas station? Good for a grab, someone could just take her right off the street. “I’m on my way.”

  “No!” She practically yelled, and he stopped dead, inhaling sharply and closing his eyes.

  Focus, Josiah. Control is everything.

  Calm returned, the killing quiet. Anna was in trouble, and he had to be cool and collected. Get her locale, get in, and retrieve her. It’s that simple. He opened his eyes and got going again, placing each foot with precision.

  “No,” she repeated, as if he’d argued. “It’s not . . . it’s not safe. The Blake, in the foyer. Come in on the . . . the east side. Through the revolving doors.”

  The Blake Hotel was less than three blocks from Maple and Twentieth. It had three exits and usually a clutch of tourists taking in the old-fashioned foyer with its crystal chandeliers, ancient wainscoting, and red velvet upholstery. In other words, a security nightmare. He’d done a few jobs in the Blake, none serious. Just deliveries, a long time ago.

  Don’t foul your own nest was a good maxim to follow.

  “It’s not safe?” The question was out before he could stop himself. Even worse, it sounded cynical. Condescending. As if he suspected her of setting him up.

  Nobody in the gray knew about him and Anna. He’d kept that secret successfully, at least. Of course, in this business, it was hard to be sure.

  “I think they’re still f-following me.” She was whispering again. “If you see someone . . . oh, God. God.”

  A cool bath of dread began at his nape and slid down his sweating back. Just what kind of trouble are you in, baby? He didn’t want to waste time asking. “Anna. Calm the fuck down and breathe, I’m coming to get you. The Blake. I’ll be there in twenty.”

  Hitching sobs, again. “I d-didn’t know w-who else to—”

  Yeah. Who else could you call if you were in trouble? “Get to the Blake, get inside, and put your back to the wall. Warm up. I’m coming to get you.” He was already on the stairs on his way to the garage, thankful that it was Hassan’s day off and Wilhelmina was in the kitchen; nobody would see him leave. “Hang up and get moving, baby.”

  “Oh, God . . .” She sucked in a sharp, hissing breath. “The car. That goddamn black car.”

  What the hell? “What black car?”

  Too late. She’d hung up, or had run out of time on whatever change she’d dropped into the phone. Unless she’d used one of the newer ones with credit card readers. No, she was too smart to do that, if she was in trouble bad enough to call him. She was too goddamn smart for her own good.

  The wonder was that she’d found a pay phone at all. They were a vanishing breed.

  Great. Now his heart was hammering and he tasted copper, as if he was under fire. He shrugged into his coat and checked his watch, habitually noting the time, and slipped the cell into his left-hand pocket. There were a couple of prepaid ones each in the cars, nice and disposable. His shoes made no noise on the stairs; he avoided the creaky spots out of habit as well. He made it to the garage, chose the blue BMW because it had a 9mm and ammo in the concealed compartment, and it would blend in around the Blake.

  He’d never expected her to call.

  Then why did you keep the phone, Josiah? The garage door went up, and the engine roused itself like a sleepy cat. Willie’s little red sedan, the sleek gleaming SUV, and the dirty, primer-spotted Taurus sat in their accustomed places, watching with blank, dead headlights as he pulled out.

  What kind of trouble was she in? Trouble so bad she would call him, of all people.

  I don’t care.

  The sun struck him fully, and he slid a pair of shades on. Frost still glimmered in deeper shadows where the light didn’t hit until afternoon; the roads would be treacherous. He flipped the radio off and felt the little subconscious click inside his head that meant he was thinking clearly again.

  She’s called me. She needs my help.

  All right. This time she’s not getting away.

  Josiah Wolfe smiled as he drove.

  Chapter Two

  She’d wanted to warn him about the black cars, but she’d run out of change and she didn’t dare use her bank card or her beloved iPhone. Who knew what they could trace? They might think she was dead.

  I certainly hope they think I’m dead. Everyone else, too. Maybe nobody else would . . . die . . . if they all thought she was gone.

  Anna shivered, glancing nervously at the gas station. She looked like hell; she hadn’t combed her hair and she was still wet to the knees from the goddamn pond; her makeup was probably running and blisters were starting inside her shoes. Heels were not the best way to escape men with guns and walk for miles, ending up in a phone booth that smelled like someone had used it for a urinal. Vivian at Fillmore West would be furious, thinking Anna wasn’t even bothering to show up to her own showing; Tasha would be heartbroken. She’d missed drinks with Robbie and Tor; they would be perplexed and hurt.

  Also, she was beginning to run out of ideas.

  Not only that, but she’d stood and stared at the phone for a little while, zoning out. The numb, glazed calm echoing inside her head and chest had to be shock. Nobody could be as calm as she was right now after seeing what she’d seen.

  Eric . . . oh, Eric . . .

  She pushed the thought away, shoved the door open, and stepped into a light breeze knifing up from the lake’s faraway, innocent baby-blue shimmer. Her black canvas purse strap dug into her shoulder; the purse itself was freighted with the files they presumably wanted to kill her for. Pale winter sunlight poured down on a convenience store parking lot, weeds poking up through cracked concrete and graffiti tangling on a wall over a huge Dumpster around the back. The booth was at the very edge of the lot, and she stepped over two broken syringes as her weary body started to shiver again, reminding her that she’d run away from George Moorhouse’s lovely split-level wearing only a gray business suit with a thin jacket over a silk shell, a knee-length skirt, and a pair of nylons that were definitely the worse for wear now. She’d had a long black scarf, but she’d lost it in the mad scramble to get away, hearing bullets pockpockpock into the freezing earth behind her.

  A car horn blared. “Hey, baby! You sellin’?”

  Anna, yanked back into the present, whipped the guy in the chopped-down Cadillac the finger. I look like a hooker? Or you’re just an asshole. The Caddy zoomed off, the kids inside laughing, and she choked back another black wave of desperation masquerading as hilarity. Little jackasses in mama’s car. What a way to get propositioned.

  She had to wait, shivering and shifting her purse from shoulder to shoulder, for the light at the corner of Fifteenth and Verne; she hadn’t told Josiah exactly where she was, for no other reason than the instinctive caution of a hunted animal.

  I’m doing pretty well. At least I’m still alive. And he might help me.

  At the thought of Josiah, she shivered again. She crossed her arms and stared at the red DON’T WALK sign, willing it to change.

  For a horrifying second
, she’d thought she’d forgotten his number. Then her brain had kicked into gear and she’d dialed, hoping, praying, begging God. After the last four days, she seriously doubted she could do anything else but pray.

  I don’t have anywhere else to go. And he . . . knows about this sort of stuff.

  That’s why you dumped him.

  Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. The wind was going straight up her skirt. She was down to ten dollars in cash and a purse stuffed full of incriminating paperwork she hadn’t even had a chance to look at yet. Tears burned under her eyelids. Eric. God, Eric.

  Don’t start. You already look strange; you start sobbing on a street corner and someone will call the cops, and you’ll be dead before you know it.

  A molten tear trickled down her cheek. She swiped it away with the back of her cold hand, swallowing the sudden lump in her throat.

  The nightmare rose behind her eyes again, Eric’s head tilted back and the gruesome smile of the gash in his throat leering at her, the terrible stink and the heat; someone had turned the thermostat up and it had been tropical in the bedroom office. They’d stuffed a ball of paper in his mouth, probably one of the scattered pieces always strewn around his offices like confetti. They had torn his place apart, probably looking for the folders she had in her purse right now.

  The files Eric had asked her to keep safe, because he thought his place might be burgled. One thing, Annie, he’d said, laying his hand on her shoulder. If my house is tossed, I’m not calling the police. You get me?

  She came back to herself with another jolt. The DON’T WALK sign was flashing; had she missed it?

  Her high heels clattering, Anna bolted across the street and took a right. A stitch slammed up her ribs, forcing her to slow. A short Latino man walking his dog gave her a curious look but stopped outside a bakery, which was sending out a tantalizing smell into the chilly air. It would be break time at work, leaving the desk to Alan so she could run out for her morning latte. Hunger cramped as fiercely as the stitch in her side.

  Don’t stop, and don’t spend any money. If he doesn’t show up you’re going to need every penny.

  Yeah, like ten bucks is going to get me very far.

  When she could walk again, she set off toward the Blake. The buildings were getting higher on either side, breaking the force of the wind, but they also blocked the sunlight. There wasn’t much of a crowd at this end of Verne Street. Nearer the Blake, there would be well-dressed people out for shopping or the tourist attractions; the museum was up a few blocks and the opera hall a short cab ride away.

  Could you hide out in a museum? Now there was a thought.

  Anna’s arm clenched, keeping the black canvas purse tight against her side. She swiped at the icy tears on her cheeks, willing herself to keep moving steadily. If I could get away from armed men, I can do this. I’m going to make them pay, dammit.

  She had never even dreamed she would ever dial Josiah’s number again. She racked her brain for alternatives one last time as she walked, her heels clicking against the pavement and her teeth clenched to stop them from chattering, her head held high.

  There was nothing else she could do. Eric and George had both warned her not to go to the cops, and she didn’t know anyone else who was likely to have even an idea of how to handle this. She was a temp; nobody at the office would miss her or think anything of her sudden absence. Her few friends and fellow artists were good people, but you couldn’t ask someone whose last installation had been all Plexiglas cocks and red Jell-O vulvas to risk taking a bullet over this. Tasha would hide her, but how could Anna ask her best friend to take that sort of risk?

  There was no one, now.

  Nobody except the man she’d walked out on. Less than a week before their planned Las Vegas elopement, as a matter of fact. She had gone on with her life and her art, and done her best to forget him.

  No matter how much it hurt.

  Her hair fell in her face, tendrils of dark brown she wished she’d had a chance to dye. Maybe blond. She’d look bimbo-licious as a blonde, but it might be enough to throw someone off.

  The walloping unreality of the last four days hit her again. I’ve called Josiah.

  He’d sounded unsurprised. Calm, as usual. I’m coming to get you. As if she’d been stranded at a bar or with a flat tire somewhere. Even, casual, and completely confident.

  For a killer, she supposed, an ex-girlfriend calling at ten in the morning with a crazy story and a hysterical demand for help must be small potatoes.

  Can you just focus on getting to the goddamn hotel? You don’t have anyone else you can trust right now. Tasha knew a woodcarver who happened to be a cop; she’d probably want to go to him—and end up shot.

  Don’t trust the police, Eric and George had both said.

  Anna walked along at a good clip, each step hammering into her sore ankle, her busted-up knee—scraped from falling into the ornamental pool; she’d erased most of the skin on her kneecap with that move, but it had saved her head from being turned into hamburger—her aching hips, and finishing up by stabbing into her lower back with a bar of fire. As she got closer to the hotel, crossing Verne Street and cutting up Eighteenth, she started running her fingers back through her hair, trying to straighten it. Maybe she had a comb in her purse?

  She wasn’t going to be able to talk her way past the doorman. Which was why she’d asked Josiah to come in the east door; she could catch him on the street outside if she was lucky.

  I wish I could take my nylons off. That would be even colder, though. She shivered at the thought.

  The crowd thickened. One of the great things about living in the city was the way everyone minded their own business—or at least, pretended to. She got a few curious looks, but not many. At least she didn’t have blood or muck splashed on her; she had avoided the worst of the gunk in the pool and a scrubbing with paper towels in the gas station restroom had worked whatever wonder it could.

  She no longer looked like Anna Caldwell, secretary by day and mild-mannered freelance artist. No, she probably looked like a mad Lady Macbeth.

  Or just possibly like a woman on the run in a nightmare that just kept getting worse.

  Go figure; she was running for her life and worrying about if she should have tried to find a comb in the restroom, too.

  She sped up. Her heels clickety-clacked, traffic buzzed, and her head began to feel too big for her narrow stem of a neck.

  Don’t you dare pass out.

  She finally glimpsed, with a swimming delirious relief that bordered on the crazed, the carved white marble facade of the Blake rising up, catching a reflection of morning light from the mirrored skyscraper opposite and glowing like heaven’s doors. Anna let out a little sigh, chopped into bits by her chattering teeth. She must have been walking without paying attention, because her cheeks were still icy-wet and she didn’t remember the blocks between here and the bakery.

  Wake up. Look around, look for that goddamn black car. She clutched her purse to her side and clamped her teeth together. Stared at the hotel up the street. This was the south side; she would have to cross the street twice and go around the corner to get to where she could see the revolving door.

  What if he’d gotten here before her? Or not come at all?

  She almost moaned in dismay. Just because his cell phone number was still good didn’t mean that he’d forgiven her for walking out on him, or for what she’d called him the last time she saw him, or . . .

  Though she was perfectly justified, she reminded herself. Perfectly.

  Oh, God. I’m going crazy. Please help me.

  She swiped at her frozen cheeks with her jacket sleeve, shivering so hard she imagined her hands blurring like a cartoon character’s. She had to get inside, one way or another. If she stayed on the street she’d freeze to death.

  Josiah. The thought of him, tall and dark-haired and utterly imperturbable, was oddly comforting. Like putting her
head down on his shoulder and being certain she was safe; a feeling she hadn’t had since before that last, volcanic fight.

  He’d said he was coming to get her. She certainly hoped so, because she was out of options. Her last great idea had ended up with Eric’s editor shot and Anna herself running for her life. She had precious little left to lose.

  I’m just going to have to hope he still feels something for me. She swayed, a funny feeling of her head getting too big and stuffed with cotton wool making the world blur. The cold was working its way in through her skin; she was almost too tired to shiver. I can pay him, I’ve got savings left over from Mom’s inheritance. That’s what he always worked for before, money. And lots of it, if his apartment was any indication.

  She flinched at the turn her thoughts were taking, and almost tripped. Her left foot slid oddly inside her shoe. Something warm trickled down her heel.

  I am a total fucking mess.

  Her vision blurred. Eric’s throat with its horrible necklace of a bloody smile rose in front of her again. She cast a nervous glance at the milling crowd on the sidewalks, the cars crawling through downtown traffic, and took hold of her rapidly thinning courage with both mental hands.

  Get into the hotel. Have a goddamn nervous breakdown later.

  BY LILITH SAINTCROW

  Blood Call

  GALLOW AND RAGGED

  Trailer Park Fae

  Roadside Magic

  Wasteland King

  BANNON & CLARE

  The Iron Wyrm Affair

  The Red Plague Affair

  The Ripper Affair

  DANTE VALENTINE NOVELS

  Working for the Devil

  Dead Man Rising

  The Devil’s Right Hand

  Saint City Sinners

  To Hell and Back

  Dante Valentine (omnibus)

  JILL KISMET NOVELS