by Devon Monk
“I’m sure you are a very busy woman.” Trager put his hand out, and his thugs sat back down in their seats. “Please sit, Ms. Beckstrom. We wouldn’t want anyone on this bus to have an unpleasant experience.”
I was so screwed. If I yelled for the bus driver to call 911, or even if I silently traced a glyph to cast magic, Trager’s men would pull their guns. Everyone on the bus could be killed.
Magic is fast.
So are bullets.
Think, Allie, I told myself. There had to be a way out of this.
But the only other thing I could think of was to sit down, listen to his threats, and maybe oh-so-casually trace a glyph that I could use on him before his goons killed me.
Life or death before coffee. Welcome to Monday.
I sat on the edge of the seat and half turned so I could meet him eye to eye.
His eyes were brown enough to be black. Cool, flat, and alien in a way that made me squirm inside.
“Cops know you’re out?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Yes, they do.”
That sent chills over my skin. He had gotten out legally. Or maybe he had bought his way out. Either way, he was free. Really free.
Holy shit.
“Does it worry you?” he said. “You know, this . . . bad blood between us”—he smiled, and it made him look hungry—“could be wiped away. I’m willing to call it clean, done, over, no harm, no foul, so long as you do one thing for me.”
I had no intention of doing anything for him. But he didn’t have to know that. “Really? Must be my lucky day.”
His smile wasn’t doing anything for his looks. Unless he was going for the crazy psycho-killer thing.
“Ms. Beckstrom,” he chided, “you don’t know how lucky you’ve been. I will kill you.” He shrugged his shoulders as if he were discussing which pizza to buy for lunch. “Today, tomorrow. If not by my hand, then by my voice and the hands of my people. My people are everywhere. Even your rich, dead daddy knew that. Even your rich, dead daddy bowed to me.”
I blinked like I wasn’t the least bit intimidated. And in some ways, I wasn’t. He could insult my father all he wanted—I didn’t care.
“Is this going to take all day?” I asked. “My stop’s coming up.”
A flicker of raw anger flashed in those alien eyes. “Bring me Martin Pike,” he said with such emphasis that his spit peppered my face. “Bring him to me alive. By tomorrow night. Tuesday, no later than midnight. If I don’t see both of you strolling across my floor, you will be dead before the sun rises on Wednesday.”
The bus grumbled and slowed, kneeling toward the stop at the curb. His goons all stood.
I should have seen it, should have sensed the change in his body language. But when six guys with guns stand up at the same time, I am all about keeping an eye on them.
The bite of a needle plunged deep in my thigh hit me like an electric shock. I grunted but didn’t have time to yell, didn’t have time to cast magic or even punch him in the face before Lon Trager was on his feet. In his hand was an odd double-chambered glass syringe wrapped from tip to plunger in a fine metallic cagework of glyphs. And in that syringe was my blood. Six guns from his goons were pocketed and pointed at me.
Subtle. Deadly. “Tomorrow by midnight.” Trager deposited the syringe in his pocket.
I stood to throw a spell at him, regardless of the stupidity of taking him down with all his gun-buddies ready to waste me, and thumped back into the seat on my ass. A wave of dizziness washed over me. The sickeningly sweet taste of cherries exploded in the back of my mouth, and the entire bus slipped sideways while a flood of heat spread out over my thigh.
What was on that needle?
By the time the dizziness passed—maybe a full minute and a half—Trager and his men were gone, the bus was no longer at the curb, and the seat across from me was now filled with a mother and two kids sitting on their knees so they could look out the window behind them.
Sweet hells. I was so screwed.
Lon Trager had my blood.
And I didn’t know what he was going to use it for.
I thought about calling the police on my cell, but it was beyond busted.
Magic shifted in me, pressed to slip my tenuous hold on it. It promised anything, promised to destroy Trager, if I was willing to pay for it.
No. I’d find a traditional way to throw his ass back in jail. Some way that he wouldn’t be able to plea or bribe his way out of.
I’d be at the police station in just a few minutes. Enough time to calm my pounding heart and regain my cool.
Tall buildings slid through the branches of trees that lined the streets as the bus continued into downtown. At the next stop, a man wearing a ski hat, a gray trench coat, and a black scarf walked up the two stairs and paused to scan the bus like he was looking for someone. He had a newspaper folded under his arm. The brown paper cup in his hand sent out the scent of coffee like strains of music from a caffeine angel’s harp.
He paid, glanced again at the mostly full seats, and caught me looking at him. Okay, I was really looking to make sure he wasn’t carrying a gun, but still, he caught my glance.
Here is something else that’s weird about me. I do not look away when people catch me staring at them. I’d spent too many years staring down my father even though I hadn’t ever won. My father had a deep need to control people—his only daughter perhaps most of all. Still, it taught me not to back down from confrontation.
The man with the coffee smiled, just the slightest curve of his lips, and walked my way. He didn’t look away either, and I found myself staring into a pair of eyes the color of winter honey. He had a square face with heavy brows and eyes framed by very dark lashes. I didn’t think he’d shaved this morning, and it looked good on him.
“This seat taken?” he asked.
What was it with me and strange men today?
“Yes.”
He frowned, looked toward the front of the bus. No other empty seats. But instead of pushing it, which would have gotten him a broken nose because no one was screwing with me again, he took a couple steps forward. He switched his cup into his left hand so his right hand was free to hold the overhead bar. With the newspaper pinned under his arm, he took a sip of coffee.
I sniffed him out, searching for a hint of Trager’s French cologne. Instead of Trager’s overpowering scent, this man’s cologne—sandalwood and sweet oranges—mixed with the fragrance of coffee. A delicious combination made more delicious because he didn’t smell like Trager, didn’t smell like the goons, the guns, or the danger that had suddenly pushed its way into my morning.
My gut said he was just a regular guy.
Well, Regular Guy would just have to ride the bus on his regular feet.
We rode awhile in silence, me looking out the window across the aisle, keeping him in my peripheral vision, him looking ahead. He took a sip from his cup, and the smell was sweet torture.
At the next stoplight, he let go of the bar and extended his right hand. “Paul Stotts,” he said.
I did not shake his hand. “Good for you.”
“I know you,” he said. “Allie Beckstrom, right?”
I did a quick search through my memories. I didn’t remember him, but instinct told me he wasn’t as Regular Guy as he appeared to be. “How long have you been following me?”
“Hmm,” he said around a swallow of coffee. “Just today.”
He didn’t hold himself like a Hound, didn’t have that desperate look of a Hound, and was wearing too much cologne to be a Hound. He also didn’t look or smell like he was into blood magic or drugs, so maybe he wasn’t a part of Trager’s game. But with Trager’s “my people are everywhere” speech ringing in my head, I did not want to chance it.
“Police,” he said. “Detective Stotts.”
Oh. I hadn’t expected that.
“Police? Where were you two stops back?”
“Waiting for the bus. Why?”
I hesitated. Did I really want
to go into this in public? Just because the goons got off the bus with Trager didn’t mean someone else wasn’t here acting as his ears. If Trager had any brains—and I had to assume he did, since he had not only created the largest blood-and-drugs cartel in the city, but he had also pulled a get-out-of-jail-free card—he would have left someone behind to watch me and report back.
Hells, for all I knew Stotts could be his guy.
I rubbed at my forehead with the tips of my gloves. “Never mind. Are you here to make sure I get to the station?”
He glanced at me and then away. “Well, we didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”
He had no idea how chancy it had been. Still, that was interesting. I’d never had police protection or escort. At least, I didn’t remember having it. So far, I wasn’t all that impressed.
“Didn’t think I could manage it on my own?”
He smiled, that soft curve of his mouth. Okay, this close, I noticed that his bone structure had a Latino influence: arched cheekbones, square jawline, but soft eyes and lips. A very nice combination.
Yes, I looked at his left hand. Saw the wedding ring. Can’t blame me for being curious.
“We thought it might be better if you had an escort.” And I could tell by the tone of his voice, and the rhythm of his heart, that he was telling the truth.
So it was a friendly gesture. The police were looking out for me, not against me.
“How thoughtful.”
He took a drink of coffee, nodded. “You haven’t exactly been living on easy street lately. Pegged for murder, shot, chased, nearly killed by wild storm magic.”
“And the coma,” I said.
He nodded. “It just seemed like the odds of you getting to the station unscathed were pretty low.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I drawled.
“Could be worse,” he said.
The bus pulled to another stop, and I caught a glimpse of the police station through the rain-pebbled window. This was our stop.
“Worse?”
“Decker could have been on duty.”
I winced. Officer Decker and I did not get along. Not since the time I’d Hounded a drug deal back to his brother’s girlfriend and found out I’d been mistaken. It was his brother, not the girlfriend, who was dealing and Offloading the price of magic onto a retirement home. It had been my testimony that put his brother in jail. Since then I mostly tried to avoid Decker.
Detective Stotts stepped backward and waited for me to take the place in front of him.
“Aren’t you chivalrous?” I asked as I stepped into the aisle.
“No,” he said from close behind me. “Just trying to keep my eye on you.”
“Get in line,” I muttered. Actually, I appreciated his honesty. I would appreciate it even more as soon as I confirmed he really was a police officer.
I checked the people still sitting on the bus as I shuffled down the aisle. One woman, who I thought had been asleep, lifted her head and opened her eyes to watch me go by. She smelled like sweet, sweet cherries. Blood magic. One of Trager’s people, watching, listening.
I couldn’t get off the bus and out into the freezing rain fast enough. I tucked my head and jogged toward the station doors, too many threats too early in the morning making me want to run.
But I knew better than that. One, it would exhaust me. Two, whoever was still watching me would know how spooked I really was. Instead of going faster, I slowed my pace, my boots slapping through dark puddles. I strode past the concrete blast barriers and up the steps to the front door of the police department. Other people milled along the stairs with me, too many people and too many scents for me to know which of them was part of Trager.
I pushed through the doors and expected Stotts to be right there with me, but once I made it to the lobby and wiped the rain off my face, I realized he wasn’t there. My police escort was gone, like a ghost in the wind.
Chapter Three
Before I’d taken more than three steps across the lobby, a man’s voice called out. “Hey, Tita!”
Detective Love, who, if you believed his stories, had a mama from Samoa and a daddy who was a Scottish pirate, strolled my way. Love was six foot three if he was an inch, and almost as wide. His dark wavy hair fell down to ox-thick shoulders as broad as a city bus. He wore a bright blue button-down shirt and tan pants, a combination that made me think of sand and sky on a distant, sunnier shore.
Tita, I’d learned, meant tough girl. Love had called me that since the Hounding job I’d done that put Lon Trager in jail.
“Why’d you have to make it in on time?” he asked with a wide, white smile. “Now I owe Payne ten dollars.”
“You should know better than to take bets against me,” I said.
He laughed. “Yah, yah. Come on this way.”
He started off toward his office, and I fell into step next to him, absorbing the sunlight good humor he radiated. “There’s coffee, right?”
“Oh, yah. Coffee’s onolisicious today.” He glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.
So much for coffee.
“You like the new apartment?” he asked as we left the lobby behind us for a maze of cubicles and desks. “I heard you moved away from the river.”
“I like it okay. It’s better than the Fair Lead.”
“Yah, yah. That place’s a pit. Don’t know why you stayed there so long.” He opened a door to the small office he and his partner shared. He lumbered around the desk to the right and sat. Payne was not in the room.
“It was cheap.” I pulled off my coat and hung it on the coatrack that leaned against the file cabinet. With me and Love in the office, I was fast running out of breathing space.
Think calm thoughts, I told myself. There was plenty of room for me, plenty of room for Love, and plenty of room for lots and lots and lots of air.
“You okay?” Love asked.
I nodded and took the seat in front of the desk. “Small spaces.” I shrugged like it was no big deal.
He raised his eyebrows. “Want me to open the door?”
“No. I’m good.”
He gave me a considering look. I (of course) met his gaze straight on.
“Okay,” he finally said. He pulled a file folder off of a stack to his left, opened it, and tapped his computer keyboard. “Right.” He looked over at me and gave me a nod. “You ready for this?”
“Sure.”
He pulled out a tape recorder and turned it on and then held it close to his mouth while he said his name, the date, and some other things I wasn’t paying attention to. What I was paying attention to were the pictures on the wall. Him towering over a group of kids at a school, him and a police dog. And one of him and his dark, lean partner, Lia Payne. Other than that, the walls were off-white cracked plaster.
There was something odd about the walls, a cool dampness that emanated from them. I looked closer. Those weren’t cracks in the plaster. They were very fine, very subtle Blocking spells, placed there by adding lead and glass to the paint or plaster and then drawing out the glyphs with Intent. Pulling a magic fast one in here would rebound back on the caster. The glyphs seemed strange to me, since I didn’t remember ever noticing them when I’d come in to talk with Love before. I wondered if they’d created the spells recently, or maybe if they’d done it because of my spectacular meltdown a few months ago.
Magic shifted in me, stretched so hard I had to take a deep breath to make room for it. I hoped Love didn’t notice.
The door opened and Detective Payne walked in, three coffee cups in her hand. The door stayed slightly ajar behind her, offering a tantalizing glimpse of the space behond it.
“Hello, Allie. I knew you’d make it. No sugar, right?”
She handed the coffee over my shoulder and I smiled up at her. The woman never smiled, but I liked her anyway. Clear, efficient, and not afraid to make hard choices on a moment’s notice. She must have a soft side since I knew she had a couple of kids at home that her hus
band took care of during the day.
And, hey, she remembered how I liked my coffee.
“Right. Thanks.” I took a drink and shuddered. It was really and truly horrible, but it was hot and caffeinated, and I was desperate. I held my breath and went for another gulp.
She gave Love his coffee, which smelled like powdered hot cocoa mix, and held her hand out to him.
“Pay up.”
Love sighed and shifted his weight to access his wallet in his back pocket. “Fine. Fine.” He sifted through a couple bills. “We said five, right?”
