Devil’s Luck

by Kory M. Shrum

“Why are you so worried about her?” Dani asked, her dark eyes on Piper.

  “You mean except for the fact she kidnapped us and gave you a heart attack?”

  Dani didn’t answer.

  “I don’t like her. Having her around is screwing with Lou’s head.” These excuses sounded pathetic, even to her own ears. I don’t like her wasn’t a great reason for conspiring to send someone to prison or wishing them dead.

  It was more than that.

  To Piper, Diana felt dangerous. Dangerous in a way that Lou, and even Konstantine or any of her work for King, had never felt. Even when Dmitri Petrov was joking about cutting her finger off, she hadn’t been this afraid.

  Maybe I’m an idiot for that, she thought, but she didn’t think so.

  She said, “The sooner she’s away from us, the better.”

  “I can help with the research,” Dani offered, rubbing at her eyes. “I’m doing it anyway with my story. We’ll need someone to officially open a case and charge her. If we can make her a national fugitive, put her face everywhere, that would be a bonus. Journalism can only take us so far. We’ve got to get someone else involved. Preferably someone with connections to the law.”

  “Konstantine might help,” Piper said hopefully. “He knows good and bad cops.”

  “Yeah,” Dani yawned. “Maybe.”

  “I could call Sampson, but he’s going to want to know why I’m calling him instead of King.”

  Dani smiled. “Your mind is really working this over.”

  “I don’t like her,” she said again. What am I, five years old?

  Dani snuggled closer. “So you’ve said. But I’ve never known you to hate anyone apart from Mel’s husband.”

  Piper shrugged. “She slapped me.”

  Dani pulled back, mouth open. “When?”

  “When I was yelling at her to let you go.” Piper felt the heat rise in her face. “It didn’t hurt.”

  A lie.

  “But it pissed me off.”

  Dani came up onto her elbows. “Does Lou know that she slapped you?”

  “No. I think she appeared a second or two after that.”

  “You could just tell Lou that she slapped you, and that’d probably solve all your problems.”

  What if it doesn’t? What if Lou straight up sides with a psycho over me?

  Dani’s brow scrunched. “You do know that Lou would kill her for touching you, right?”

  “Hmm. Would she?”

  Dani sighed, collapsing back against the pillow. “You don’t know. That’s why you haven’t said something. Piper, what’s going on? Ever since the road trip you’ve been weird about Lou.”

  The shift in her voice made Piper look at her.

  “Spit it out.”

  Piper tried to articulate this feeling choking her. Nothing came. If she couldn’t say what was wrong, she’d start with when. “I think it started when she hurt her shoulder.”

  “What started?”

  “This feeling.” She saw Dani’s face and shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Walk me through it,” Dani said, adjusting the pillow under her head.

  Piper sighed, searching an invisible point on the wall. “Maybe this isn’t the right way to enter it, but it’s the moment that keeps coming to mind.”

  When Piper didn’t go on right away, Dani added, “I’m listening.”

  “It’s like…King was an agent for decades. He’s got a million cool skills. You’re only a year older than me and you’re this amazing journalist with a college degree. I don’t even have thirty credits yet. I can’t fight. I’m not a ninja. I don’t have powers like Lou and I don’t own half the world like Konstantine. I don’t even have my own thing like Mel. I’m just…I’m just me. All I can do is be her friend, but we’re not even friends. Not really. We’re disaster friends.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dani laughed, disbelieving. “Are you serious?”

  “When we first met, you even targeted me as the weakest link for your story. You thought I could get you close to Lou. You picked me because there’s nothing about me—”

  “Whoa, wait. First of all, that was a stupid mistake on my part, and says way more about me than about you. You’re not a weak link. I’m sure King, Lou, and Mel would all say that you are very important to them. Everyone relies on you, baby. You’re essential.”

  “I barfed on a Russian guy trying to crawl up the fire escape. That’s not what I would call essential. There’s nothing that I do that makes me critical to this team. You guys could replace me with anyone.”

  “Piper,” Dani interjected. “The work you do for King literally puts criminals in jail. Secondly, how many times have you helped me through my attacks on my bad days? My own mother would’ve thrown me in the loony bin if she’d seen me like that. Mel wouldn’t be able to keep her shop open without you. You’re in there every day, keeping the shop running, and I see the way she looks at you. You’re practically her daughter. And how about the fact that it doesn’t matter what you do? You’re a lovely person to be around. Period. Your very existence makes people happy. It’s not about how useful you are to them or what degrees you have or don’t have. It’s about how you make people feel.”

  Piper’s face must’ve conveyed her disbelief.

  Dani wrapped her arms around Piper’s neck. “I guarantee that Lou hangs out with you because of how you make her feel. Not because she needs you to dig up bodies in the dead of night. She had the bodies thing covered long before you showed up. As hard as it might be to believe, she asks for your company because she likes it.”

  “Then why does she have to act like she’s got more in common with a complete psychopath than with me?”

  “I would tell you to talk to her, but I don’t know if Lou is self-aware enough to clarify this for you.”

  Silence stretched out between them. Piper was listening for Dani’s breath to change, to drop off into peaceful sleep, so she could get back on her laptop, though she wasn’t sure how she was going to open it without waking the girl nestled into her neck.

  But into the darkness, Dani said, “I hate her too.”

  “Lou?”

  “Dennard.”

  “You didn’t hate her before?” Piper asked, sincerely surprised.

  “No, it felt like my own fault that I had a panic attack. But now that I know she put her hands on you, ugh.” Dani growled. “I want to take her down.”

  Piper grinned, opening her laptop again. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”

  27

  King found Mel’s apartment door open. He stopped at the entryway regardless, raising his fist and rapping on the wooden frame. “Anybody home?”

  Lady appeared first, her tail swishing back and forth as her nails clicked across the tiled floor. King took this as a good sign. If something was wrong and Mel’s door was ajar for some nefarious reason, surely the dog’s behavior would reflect that.

  He inhaled, smelling popcorn.

  “Come on in,” Mel called from somewhere deep in the apartment.

  He entered and hesitated. “We expecting anyone else or can I close the door?”

  “Close the door.”

  King shut it behind him. Mel’s apartment was a mirror of his own. They had the same counters, appliances, and tile. They both entered through the kitchen and beneath an arch, a spacious living room spread out beyond that. Both their living rooms ended in a door leading to a balcony. Both connected to a single bedroom and bath.

  There were some differences, of course. Mel’s furnishings were lighter, pale lavenders and pinks. Instead of a large armoire doubling as a TV cabinet, she had a simple TV on a stand opposite her sofa. By the balcony door, where King had his record player, she had two armchairs and a potted plant that fanned out against the wall almost like feathers. In the small corner between the kitchen wall and bedroom door, she had an antique rattan chair with a peacock back. King’s mother had had one of those chairs. But that one didn’t ha
ve the bright orange pillow that Mel’s had.

  Mel came out of the dark bedroom and closed the door behind her.

  She checked her watch then crossed to the television. “We’ve got five minutes. Will you grab the popcorn off the counter? And your soda is in the fridge.”

  He did as he was told, grabbing two cans of Coke with one hand and the large bowl of popcorn with the other.

  They settled onto the lavender sofa together, the bowl between them. He handed her one of the Cokes.

  “Who do you think will be eliminated this week?” King asked.

  “It’s hard to tell,” she said. “I think it should be the one who rapped. She should’ve been eliminated last week.”

  King laughed. “What do you have against rappers?”

  “Nothing,” Mel said, bringing a handful of popcorn to her mouth. “When they can actually rap.”

  “I think the rabbit might go.”

  “Kalynda Kicks?” Mel asked, surprised. “I thought she was pretty good with the song she sang.”

  “Me too,” King said. “But the judges have been giving her a hard time for three weeks now. I think they’re going to toss her soon.”

  “Or they’re building us up for a comeback story.”

  King shrugged, shoving another fistful of popcorn in his mouth.

  “How’s the Diana bullshit going?” Mel asked.

  King snorted. It always amused him when Mel swore, because it was such a rare occurrence.

  “Still mad at her for tying you up in the dead of night, huh?”

  Mel harrumphed. “She didn’t even buy me dinner first.”

  Coke went into King’s nose as he sucked in air to laugh. “See what you made me do?”

  He rose, went to the kitchen, and grabbed a napkin. He dabbed at his jeans, which had taken the worst of it, and a small spot on his shirt. Lady lifted her head from her paws to watch the show, before deeming him boring and putting her head on her paws again.

  As he settled back down beside Mel, the program started. They watched it without speaking. It was an unspoken agreement between them.

  But once the first commercial break aired, encouraging them to switch insurance companies, King turned to her.

  “Are you sick of us?” he asked, his face serious.

  She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” he said, turning the Coke can on his knee. “First it was Chaz who broke in and put a gun to your head.”

  Just the idea of it made King’s blood boil.

  “Then it was Petrov and now Diana. Aren’t you sick of it? Aren’t you afraid one night it’s going to end in you getting shot?”

  Mel looked at her hands for a moment, as if considering each of her gold rings carefully. Then she met his eyes and said, “If I get shot, I’ll know I had it coming.”

  “Lou didn’t die.”

  “I still shot her,” she said. She sighed, letting the silence rest between them. “When Terry was still around, I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping. I was scared he would come home, knowing if he did, he’d hurt me. And scared that he wouldn’t and what might happen to me if he didn’t. I know what it feels like when your home isn’t safe. That’s not what we’ve got here. You, me, Piper, even Lou and Dani. It feels right. It feels like we’re supposed to be together, all five of us, here, in this place. It’s why I haven’t hired another person to run the shop. It’s not that we couldn’t use the help. And I’ve got the money put back for it now if I change my mind, but no. It’s because we’re all here now. Do you understand? We’re all here.”

  King took her hand and squeezed it.

  She squeezed back. “If some bastard comes up in here and makes trouble once in a while, fine. Let ’em. But we’re together and that’s how it’s supposed to be. I feel it deep inside. That this is how it’s supposed to be.”

  When Terry was still around, King thought, remembering the lean man in the bone choker and denim, the crow feather sticking out of his hat.

  “When’s the court date?” he asked.

  “The twenty-first,” she said. “I’ve already gone over my testimony with my lawyer several times. I feel like I could testify in my sleep at this point.”

  “Nothing wrong with being prepared,” King said, watching her face carefully. He saw the strain there, the worry. “They’re going to put him away.”

  She turned and gave him a weak smile. “I know. And I can’t wait to see it.”

  28

  When Lou appeared in Konstantine’s apartment, he was standing at his bedroom window. The window’s high arch was laid bare, the shutters pulled open to reveal an unfettered view of the Arno River. He stood there with his back to her, and her eyes traced the planes of his shoulders, his bare neck. The back of his exposed arms and the tattoo peeking out from under his sleeves.

  Beyond him, the river glittered as the light from the lamps shone on its surface. Laughter carried up from the street below as a warm breeze pushed past him.

  His heady, dark scent washed over her.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  Something in his back relaxed. “I was thinking about your world. La Loon. It’s very different from ours.”

  “Miss it already?”

  He laughed, turning to face her. “No. But it would be nice to get out of the city. Even if only for a night.”

  In the soft light from the lamps outside, she could see the dark circles under his eyes. This gave her pause.

  Bad day? she thought. She didn’t ask.

  She suspected running one of the largest criminal organizations in the world had its fair share of stress. And this was the thin line they walked. She the destroyer of the criminal world. He its benevolent manager.

  Lou stepped toward him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Before his hands could fully envelop her in return, everything shifted. His sensuous touch tightened in reflex.

  When all resettled, the scent of a forest swelled around them. Thick green pine sap and packed earth.

  “Wish granted,” she whispered.

  They were at the edge of a clearing, the tall grass connecting the woods at their back with those on the other edge of the circle.

  At the far end, something moved through the trees. Moose? Wolves?

  “It’s beautiful,” he said, stepping forward to behold the moon.

  Though not as quiet, she thought, noting the swell of crickets, frogs, katydids, beetles, and all the other voices vying for their part of the night.

  She shrugged her shoulders in her leather jacket. It was too warm for it. It made her long for fall and winter, her preferred seasons. Summer was always too bright, too hot. But it was almost over. She could taste it on nights like this, that first crisp shift in the wind.

  Soon the nights would run long again.

  “How does your shoulder feel tonight?” he asked.

  “Fine.” She would have said this even if it was torn in half and hanging limp from her body.

  He smiled as if he knew this, the moonlight collecting in his teeth and the whites of his eyes. “Of course it is.”

  Lou didn’t want any more questions about her shoulder or whether or not she felt well. Instead, she shrugged out of her leather jacket and laid it on the ground.

  “You can sit if you want,” she said.

  He laughed. “How chivalrous of you. But what about your jacket?”

  “I’ll wipe it down later.”

  He looked reluctant to sit on the packed earth even with the jacket.

  Lou suppressed a laugh. He was fussy about clothes. It wasn’t only that she often caught him wearing expensive brands that hung off models on the runway, but also how he cared for them. Her own wardrobe was much less luxurious. When every other night ended with her covered in someone’s blood—not to mention the sweat—it didn’t pay to waste money on nice clothes.

  Lou got most of her t-shirts and jeans from thrift shops. She had only a few items
she really cherished: her father’s two flannels and his bulletproof vest. She didn’t wear those when she hunted. She also loved her leather jacket, but it was far from irreplaceable. She could have another one if she wanted it.

  “Are you thinking about tomorrow?” Konstantine asked, looking up at her from the ground. “Everything has been prepared. My men will meet King at the rendezvous point he’s chosen.”

  “I was thinking about your clothes,” Lou said.

  This surprised a laugh out of him. “Why?”

  “I was wondering if I could take them off without you objecting.”

  “Yes,” he said, too quickly.

  She knelt in front of him, bringing her eyes to his level. “Are you sure? Because they might touch the ground.”

  He laughed harder. “I’ll make the sacrifice.”

  “Lay back.”

  He did, his eyes roving her body.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he said. “Do you know it?”

  Did she? Sometimes. When she caught her reflection in the mirror, there was nothing there that pleased her, but there’d been hints in the way others regarded her. The way their eyes lingered on her face or her body. It was something she noted, distantly and only in context.

  She didn’t answer the question. “Is that what you’re thinking about when you look at me like that?”

  “I’m thinking about a lot of things,” he said, his eyes sparkling with starlight. “About you. Tomorrow. Diana. The yakuza. My mind often rehearses before the actual event.”

  “And you’re rehearsing for tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Do you wish you could read my mind?”

  She hesitated.

  “Would you trade your ability to be anywhere at any time to know what people are thinking?”

  Lou considered this, placing her hands on his chest. “No. I don’t think I want to know what people are thinking all the time.”

  “Will you lie beside me?” he asked.

  He sounded small. Sad.

  “Why?”

  “I want you closer.”

  She lay down beside him. The earth was cold despite the warmth of the day. They were in Tennessee, quite close to the eastern mountains, and it had been nearly a hundred degrees all day. Yet the earth was cool on her bare arms.