Blood Call

by Lilith Saintcrow

  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 façade 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.

  Chapter Three

  He hated to use the valet parking—too easy to get caught without wheels—but he gave the pimple-faced Hispanic kid a twenty and told him to keep the car handy. That might make up for it. He was in a hurry, which a professional should never be.

  Where are you, Anna? Just be safe until I can spot you, baby. That’s all I ask.

  He came in the south entrance and cased the lobby, realizing that he’d been a stupid jackass. He hadn’t even asked what she looked like now, if she’d dyed her sandalwood hair or would be wearing shades.

  The chandeliers overhead glowed. Soft carpet muffled his footfalls as he drifted through the lobby, just a guest, just an anonymous face. Inconspicuous, chameleonlike, blending in. There were a few short, slim women, but none of them moved like her or had her habit of tilting her head slightly as if listening to a sound nobody else could hear. Her habit of being instantly visible, at least to his eyes, in a crowd. It was the way she carried herself, head high and shoulders back, all those childhood dance lessons.

  She had such beautiful fucking posture.

  Keep your mind on business. He made one more pass. No, she wasn’t in here, unless she was hiding behind a potted palm or the bar. The bar looked good—chrome and glass, not trying to blend in with the 1920s décor of the rest of the lobby. A couple of shots of something eye-wateringly strong would go down really well right now.

  The revolving door on the east side began to move again. He’d checked out each arrival up to now; none of them was the woman he wanted to see.

  Maybe it had been a practical joke. Those weren’t her style, though.

  She said she was only three blocks away from here.

  His heart threatened to stop.

  She stumbled free of the revolving door, her heels clicking against the marble flooring; she headed for the carpeting with quick little mincing steps, limping slightly.

  She still had that beautiful fucking posture. He could still pick her out of a crowd, out of any crowd.

  Anna’s long pretty brown hair was slightly mussed, as if air-dried and finger-combed. Her gray tailored suit might have been crisp a couple of days ago. Only good tailoring and quality material kept it from looking rumpled now. Her nylons were visibly ragged and she wore a pair of very nice black heels marred with traces of mud. No coat, and her lips were almost blue with cold. She clutched a large black canvas purse to her side, and her gaze swept around, a deer-in-the-headlights look that gave Josiah a very bad feeling, right down low.

  Right next to the sensation of being punched in the gut by how beautiful she still was. Underneath both was the lead bar of arousal, way down deep.

  There was a bruise on her right cheek, a nasty dark one that only accented her otherwise flawless skin. She bit her lower lip gently, vacantly, and he was suddenly shaken with memory.

  God, he used to love that lower lip of hers.

  Still did. The thought of tasting that lower lip himself made him uncomfortably aware that he hadn’t lost his earlier hard-on. No, he still had a bad case for her.

  Well, call the goddamn newspapers. I knew that.

  It wasn’t going to be long before a hotel employee noticed her. Josiah detached himself from his holding pattern and strode toward her, peripherally aware of everyone else in the lobby. Nobody had observed her yet, thank God.

  Just him. And he wanted to keep it that way.

  She stared, her gaze flickering through space, looking for something invisible. Her pupils were wide and dark, the intermediate stage of shock visible to trained eyes.

  Josiah shrugged out of his coat and took the last few steps, his shoes soundless as the flooring switched from carpet to marble. “Anna.” He had to get her away from that goddamn door. “Hey, baby.”

  She blinked up at him, and sighed. It was such a relieved sound that his heart squeezed in on itself.

  She put her arm out like a child, letting him slide the coat on. But she didn’t take the purse off her shoulder. Fortunately, his coat was big enough to hide it. She was short; he used to rest his chin atop her head and close her in his arms, feeling like he could shut out the entire world as long as he had her sheltered by his body.

  Her gaze swung up to meet his through layers of shock. Green eyes, the pupils wide and dark, swimming with tears. Jesus Christ. What the hell’s going on?

  “Josiah?” She sounded even more terrified than she had on the phone.

  “Come on, let’s get you out of here. How far did you walk in that getup?”

  “A long way.” She shuddered, and he scanned the hotel lobby one more time. The doorman outside was occupied with a fat, expensively dressed woman with two brightly wrapped packages and a little yapping dog; that was pro
bably how Anna had slipped past. “Jo—Josiah. I want to hire you.”

  Jesus. Have you lost your mind, woman? “Shut up.” He got her under his arm and started for the south door. “Walk with me. Put your head on my shoulder.” So we can just be a guy and his girlfriend. Try to act normal. Blend in. Good luck, though, with that bruise. Looks like someone popped her a good one.

  Anger rose, smothered by his training. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. He set off, automatically shortening his stride so she could keep up. It felt natural; after all, he’d spent a long time walking with her.

  A long time afterward remembering what it was like, too. Sinking into memory the way a drowning dinosaur sinks into tar.

  She smelled like outside, like the cold wind. How long had she been out there without a coat? Little shivers raced through her, but her teeth weren’t chattering. He’d seen that before, in men too cold and tired to do much but lie down and wait for death.

  He slowed, his arm tightening around her. He was going to have to take the chance of the doorman on the south side, not to mention the valet, remembering them. A woman with a bruise on her cheek and a man who came here alone but left with company. With any luck they’d think he was retrieving a battered girlfriend or make some other assumption. The Blake had a reputation for being discreet, but the risk still made him nervous.

  It took less than five minutes to get her into the passenger side of the BMW. The spotty-faced kid valet closed her in, accepted another ten from Josiah with a wink, and held his door, too. The car was still warm; Josiah turned the heater on full blast, made sure she was buckled in, and crept forward past a big silver SUV being unloaded, the owner fussing at the bellboys while his thick-hipped wife stood and looked miserably cold.

  Anna’s teeth chattered. The heater was turned up all the way. She still smelled like cold wind, but there was another smell. Dirt, damp, wet moss.

  And the acrid odor of violence.

  He checked the rearview mirror, pulled out into traffic, and pointed them toward the freeway. He was going to drive for a little while, get her warmed up, and make sure nobody was tailing her. Ridiculous, maybe…but he didn’t like the feeling he was getting; a little caution was in order.

  And he knew all about caution, didn’t he.

  So why was he involving himself in whatever trouble she had?

  We have unfinished business. And because she called me. Me.

  He heard a soft sigh, and was gratified to find out her teeth had stopped clicking. She slumped into the leather bucket seat, her eyes closed, her lips still a little blue but recovering nicely. The bruise on her cheek glared at him. Who’d hit her?

  Whoever it was would get repaid with interest, if Josiah had anything to say about it. Despite knowing better, he opened his mouth. “How long did you walk?”

  Another weary sigh. “A long goddamn way.”

  I can’t work if you don’t give me specs. “What’s going on, baby?” Nice, casual, even. No pressure.

  She made another soft little sound, a helpless moan that was all too familiar. And damned if that didn’t make every muscle in his body tighten a little.

  “I want to hire you.” Then, the crowning absurdity. “I have money. Left over from Mom’s inheritance.”

  He almost drove off the road. Recovered, hit the freeway on-ramp, and accelerated. “Anna…” He stopped right there. “I want to hire you”? After slapping me, swearing at me, and walking out on me? Three fucking years, and now you want to “hire” me? Jesus Christ in a fucking sidecar. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I want to hire you,” she repeated stubbornly. “I want you to kill someone for me.”

  It was a damn good thing he didn’t steer off the road again. Wonderful. She’s lost her goddamn mind. And so have I.

  Chapter Four

  He was quiet for a long time. Anna opened one eye, despite the fact that every particle of her body had taken on lead weights. Welcome warmth bathed her, the heater blasting away.

  Josiah drove, his hazel eyes slightly narrowed. There was more green in his irises today, either because of what he wore or because he was agitated. She’d be willing to bet on both.

  He looked just the same—long nose, mouth relaxed and even, his cheekbones marvels of architecture. His dark hair was a little shorter, but still cutting-edge fashionable; he wore a dark blue cable-knit sweater and a pair of designer jeans. He was still deceptively quick and graceful for such a muscular man. A heavy silver watch glimmered on his left wrist. He’d shaved this morning but a shadow clung to his chin; he got his five o’clock stubble earlier than most.

  Anna remembered what it was like to run her fingertips along his jaw, to touch his cheek and feel him shudder over and inside her, muscle flickering as he spent himself. It had always been so touching, to have him helpless in her arms, shaking with the last few moments, a softness she saw nowhere else in his life. She’d wondered what made him so serious all the time, done her best to cheer him up, show him someone cared about him…that is, until she’d found out why he was so goddamn serious.

  When she’d found out exactly who he was. What he was.

  “You want to hire me.” His tone was flat, but she saw the tiny change in his face as his jaw tightened. That was often the only mark of frustration or anger he would allow himself. The subtle shifts in eye color didn’t count.

  Paper crackled in her purse as she shifted. The leather was deliciously warm and butter-soft; he had pressed a button and now the seat itself was warming up. Pure luxury. Just hearing him breathe next to her made her feel safe. Her knees had almost given out when he’d stepped close, surrounding her with his coat and the smell that had always whispered everything’s okay.

  He continued in the same even tone. “Let me see if I get this straight. You want to hire a filthy fucking murderer you walked out on. Oh, yes. And how could I forget that last little parting shot? It makes me sick to think you ever touched me. Yeah, that was it. And now you want to hire me?”

  To give him credit, he didn’t sound angry. It was the same flat, reasonable voice he’d always used during their infrequent arguments, as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

  It might have made her flinch, but she was far too exhausted. It just about killed me to walk away from you, she wanted to say. I spent every night after just trying to get through until morning without calling you. How do you think I felt, finding out that you’d hidden that from me, of all people? If you just would have told me…

  What did that make her? She would have been more than happy to stay with a goddamn murderer if he’d just been honest with her. And now she was perfectly prepared to do whatever she had to.

  For Eric in his shattered apartment, with his throat cut open and his swollen hands handcuffed to the chair. She would fight for her brother, the way he’d always fought for her. Even if it meant spending her last penny on this man, to pay for something she could barely admit to wanting.

  “You work for money, don’t you? I have some. Isn’t that how it works?” Her voice broke. She closed her eyes. She was so tired.

  “No. That’s not how it works.”

  She let out a sharp breath, not believing he’d refused her so quickly. “Jo—”

  “Even a filthy fucking murderer is allowed some discretion in the type of jobs he takes.” The car slid smoothly forward, engine purring and the heat bathing her, working in toward her frozen core. Her fingers were swelling like sausages. The wetness inside her shoe was still chilly, but her feet weren’t numb anymore.

  So tired. For the moment, she was warm and at least partly safe. “What do I have to do?” Her throat almost refused to let the words out. “To convince you. How much do you want?”

  “It’s not a question of money. How long were you out in the cold?”

  Three days. I ran out of Eric’s apartment with my purse and my coat, and lost my scarf escaping the men who gunned down George. I haven’t slept, I’ve barely eaten, and I
’m out of my goddamn mind. “How much?” she persisted. “How much will it take to buy you, Josiah?”

  “You can’t afford it. How long were you out in the cold, Anna?” That same ultra-reasonableness. God, it was annoying. Ten minutes in his company and she was already remembering why she’d walked out.

  As if she’d ever stopped thinking about it. Ever stopped thinking about him.

  Oh, for God’s sake. “Pull over.”

  “What?” One point for her; he sounded startled.

  “You heard me.” She tried for furious, settled for sounding exhausted. “Pull the fuck over. I called you because I have nowhere else to turn. If you don’t help me I’ll be dead by morning. I’m in deep goddamn trouble and people have already died and I don’t know what else to do. If you won’t help me…”

  It was a good speech. Movie-worthy, even. She seriously doubted she could get out of this nice warm car and hike down the freeway in her heels. Any of her friends might hide her, but they would end up like George, their heads evaporating with that sickening sound. Eric and George had both warned her not to go to the cops.

  I’ll figure something out. If he won’t help me, I’ll do something, anything, whatever I can.

  Josiah was silent for a long moment. Then he reached over and turned the heater down a notch. “What’s going on?” He didn’t sound flat anymore. He sounded, instead, thoughtful.

  Relief slid through her, turning her legs into wet noodles and her arms into heavy weights. “You’ll help me?”

  “I didn’t say that. I asked you what was going on.” He sighed. “How many people are dead?”

  She swallowed. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she was hungry. “F-four. That I know of.”