by Devon Monk
I held up one finger. “Time out. I didn’t call the cops on that jackhole. I don’t even know what they took him in for. Also, you really want to put that bat down, mate.”
He did not put the bat down.
Eleanor was floating a few yards in front of me. She was shaking her head and waving her hands in very clear “no,” “stop” gestures.
Right, like I was going to stand here and let them beat the crap out of me.
Driver stepped all up in my space, breathing garlic and beer over every word. “We are going to fuck you up.”
His heart was thumping up in the heart attack levels. He was excited. Revved up. Alive.
“One last chance,” I said evenly. “Walk away. I have no quarrel with you. You’ll regret having a quarrel with me.”
It made him pause. At least he had some sense of self-preservation. I am not joking when I say I look like death. And right now I was doing nothing to hide what I really was. I was trying in no way to look human.
The magic that had changed me was usually enough for people to know there was something terribly wrong with me.
Driver saw what I really was.
I gave him a slow nod. Permission to back away.
He took a step back.
But the other guy? Not so much with the smart. He’d come up on my right and swung the bat at my ribs.
I moved out of the way enough that it just clipped me. Which, yes, hurt like a bitch. Bruises, though I don’t think anything cracked.
Unfortunately for the guy swinging the bat, I didn’t need weapons in a fight. I am a weapon.
I rushed him and caught hold of his arm with my left, unringed hand. Stepped in close. “This is not your lucky day.”
I squeezed his arm, my fingers curled over the veins beneath fabric, beneath skin. Easy to find that pulse, easy to drink that life.
Counted his heartbeat. Fast. Terrified.
Fear made it taste better. I hated it, hated that I wanted it. Hated even more that I liked it that way.
But the man was going beat me with a baseball bat. He had it coming.
I inhaled. Easy as breathing, I drew on his life.
He groaned and tried to pull away.
But I’d only had one little mouthful, barely a taste. I wanted more. Hell, I wanted his life, his buddy’s life, and maybe the lives of all the people on this side of the river.
I licked my lips and then gave him a smile. “You will never cross my path again—understand me?”
His eyes went wide and he was sweating hard. He dropped the bat and it clattered against the street. He made a sound that never quite formed a word, but I took it as yes, he understood I’d kill him if he ever bothered me again.
Just to make sure, I drank down a little more of his days.
He slumped to his knees. Passed out.
A slap of ice punched my face. I blinked. I’d gone on my knees next to the guy. Couldn’t seem to let go of his arm. Couldn’t seem to let go of this meal I hadn’t finished.
Like a goddamn brainless leech.
Eleanor was next to me, her hand cocked back in a fist. She was ranting off a list of filthy swearwords I could make out even without sound. Angry ghost.
I owed her for that. For being angry enough she had pulled me back from the brink. Again.
I rocked up onto my feet. Stood. The guy wasn’t dead. But he’d feel like shit for a few days.
Okay, probably a few months.
I was feeling much, much better.
“What the hell did you do to him?” Driver yelled.
I bent, picked up the baseball bat. “What you need to know,” I said, “is that I could have killed him, and I didn’t. Just like I could have killed your friend in the alley this morning, and”—I lifted the bat, adjusted my grip on it— “I could kill you too. But I’m not going to. And you know why?”
I didn’t wait for his answer. “Because I want you to scrape that piece of shit off the sidewalk.” I pointed the bat at his friend. “And I want you to go back to whoever you work for and explain to them that I am not a person with whom to fuck. Understand?”
He nodded.
“Good. Now give me your keys.”
He reached in his coat pocket and tossed them at me.
Huh. I’d expected him to argue over that one.
Cool. Free car.
I caught the keys and stepped over his friend on the way to the Vette. Kept the bat.
Got in, checked the rearview mirror to make sure Driver hadn’t suffered a sudden case of bravery. Nope. He was crouched next to his friend, making sure he was breathing.
Me? Doing shit like that did one of two things: threw me into a self-hating bender, or bright-siding it, made me feel pretty damn good about not killing someone.
I was a man with a monster in my bones. And this time the monster had not won.
So, yeah, I felt pretty pleased with myself at the moment.
The car? Damn sweet ride.
I adjusted mirrors and seat and rolled out into traffic.
I’d lost my job, but I hated it anyway. I’d lost my grip on my hunger—twice. But I hadn’t killed anyone today yet.
It was a low bar, but it felt good to hit it.
Also, now there was a definite chance I was going to beat Terric to the office. What wasn’t to like about that?
Chapter 5
Okay, a small detour.
The Corvette’s navigation system was too tempting to ignore. Since it stored locations where those punks had been lately, I decided to give it a look.
I pulled down a side road, parked, and scrolled through the list: a couple out-of-state addresses, a few trips to the east and west side of the state. Then an address I knew very well.
Terric’s house.
They knew where he lived. Which meant they either knew him or were keeping an eye on him. I didn’t like either idea. A couple other addresses showed up on the list: someplace out in the West Hills, Allie and Zay’s house, and the inn.
So those dicks who liked to settle arguments with a baseball bat were keeping an eye on all of us Soul Complements. Who were they working for?
Terric said the ox, Hamilton, might be involved with the girl killed by magic found up in Forest Park. If these guys were his friends, were they magic users? Murderers?
Probably would have been smart of me to ask Terric a few more details about the whole thing. Maybe then I’d understand why they were stalking members of the Authority.
What did they, or their boss, want?
I forwarded the last-visited addresses to my phone, which was back in my room, and did a quick search of the car for anything else that might tell me something about these guys. Nothing in the glove compartment, nothing in the trunk. I did find a black crow feather tucked beneath the visor. Not exactly useful.
Then I rubbed my fingerprints off the dashboard and everywhere else I’d been snooping. Time to hand this thing over to someone who might get some information out of it.
In under five minutes, I was strolling into the police department and wishing the cool, clean air from outside reached more than three feet into the stale funk of the place. But it didn’t. It never did.
Detective Stott’s real office was somewhere downstairs, but I didn’t want to stay that long or get that cozy. Walked up to the first workstation at the end of the hall, knocked on the top of the desk. Waved at the security camera. Didn’t have to wait long for a cop to show up.
“You still breathing, Flynn?” Cop was a huge dude from Hawaii, name of Mackanie Love. We’d met back in my petty crime days. He’d never cut me slack. But then, I hadn’t deserved any.
“Once or twice a day, whether I need it or not. I have something for you.” I held out my hand, the car keys hanging from my fingers, the baseball bat in the other.
He eased his bulk down into the chair and nodded at the keys. “What’s that all about?”
I placed them on the desk. “Car about halfway down the block. Black Vette. It belongs to
some people you might want to keep an eye on.”
“Did you steal a car?”
“Please.” I pressed my fingers against my chest. “You think I’d steal a car and just walk in here to turn myself in? I’d make you work for it, mate. You know that.”
“So what’s that really?” This time he pointed at the keys.
“Detective Stotts was pretty interested in a guy Terric tipped him off to this morning. Name of Hamilton. And those”—I nodded toward the keys—“belong to two other guys who didn’t like Terric and me getting in the middle of their friend’s business.”
“Tell me you didn’t steal a car from the Black Crane Syndicate.”
“Okay.”
He leaned back just a little, the chair creaking in protest. “You know what Black Crane is, yeah? Blood and drugs. Human trafficking. Dark magic.”
Black Crane. A crime syndicate we’d kept under control when magic was strong, and that apparently continued to thrive off the magic and drug trade, even though magic didn’t have the kick it used to.
“Sure, I know Black Crane.” Oh! Crow feather. Suddenly made sense. “But I only borrowed their car. Borrowed. After they stopped me in the street to express their displeasure with me.”
“Are they dead?”
“Not stupid enough to come in here if they were.”
From the look on his face, he didn’t think that was funny.
“Listen, I don’t care what you do,” I said. “Terric got me involved when he chased down Hamilton this morning. And, I’d like to point out, nobody told him to mind his own business. But when two guys get out of their car and tell me they want to beat me senseless because I’d gotten their friend arrested, I’m not going to stand there and take it.”
“What did you do?”
“Left them reconsidering their manners beside the road. And brought you their car.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“What part?”
“Any of it. Don’t you own a phone?”
“Not on me. Would you rather I had brought them here with me? Citizen’s arrest?”
“No. I’d rather you stayed out of this, Shamus. From now on.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say. I am staying out of it. See you around, Detective.”
I turned and strolled off, baseball bat over my shoulder.
“Flynn?” he called out. “Go see a doctor. You look like death warmed over.”
He had no idea.
I just kept walking.
Fresh air and more sunlight. It wasn’t far to the office. Fifteen or twenty minutes. If I walked fast enough, Eleanor might not even notice all the fancy shops we were passing by.
Keep walking. Keep walking. Dodge the man with the dog. Dodge the woman on her phone. Green light. Yellow. Sprint across the intersection. Almost clear of the shops. . . . no luck.
Eleanor went from drifting along to a dead stop. She got one look at a hat shop on the corner and clapped excitedly. I groaned.
“I promised Terric I’d be there,” I whined.
She just raised her eyebrows. Yeah, telling her I didn’t want to be late for work was not going to fly. She knew I didn’t care.
“You can’t even wear them.”
She drifted toward the hat shop door. Got her max distance from me and waited, arms crossed.
“I don’t wanna.” I started toward her anyway. Living women: stubborn. Dead women: about a hundred times worse.
I walked to the front window, close enough she could go in the shop. She waved at me to follow her.
“No.” I pulled out a cigarette and backed away from the door so the shop owners wouldn’t call the cops on me for smoking. I lit up.
Glanced over. Eleanor stuck her tongue out at me, then slipped through the glass door into the hat shop.
I leaned my head against the brick and ignored everyone around me. Didn’t care that they were alive. Didn’t care that their pulse echoed in my skull like drums. Didn’t care that my cigarette was out before I’d had more than two drags on it. Did. Not. Care.
Pushed the world into dimness, into fog. Away. So I didn’t have to feel the life. So I didn’t have to feel.
Cold fingers pressed on my fingers. Eleanor. I let the world back in.
Snap, click. Pow. Edges and beating hearts.
She pointed at her head, then at mine. Big grin on her face, all excited. Talking. Too fast for me to figure out what she was saying, not that I could hear any of it.
A few more gestures toward the shop, and finally I got the basic of it.
“No. Hell no. I do not want a hat.”
I pushed off the wall and ignored her for the next five blocks.
She finally gave up floating in front of me with her hand in my face—sorry; that doesn’t make me trip anymore—and flipped me off before window-shopping along behind me.
Building, up a flight of stairs, office: destination achieved.
Pushed through the second set of doors and past a short lobby that had four potted plants, all growing.
When had the place gotten so damn green? I pushed through the next set of doors, leaving two potted plants still growing.
Tall ceilings, lots of light coming in through windows, hardwood floors, shelves, and several desks. Modern, but unable to shake its past as a grain warehouse, it was expensive real estate the Beckstrom fortune had donated to the Authority back when Allie’s dad was moving and shaking the world of magic.
Eleanor floated off and sat outside on the window ledge to pout.
There was exactly one heartbeat in the room besides mine.
“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Dashiell Spade,” I said to the man walking toward me with a file folder in his hand.
He was younger than me by a few years, about five eleven, dark hair combed back and up with just a bit of muss to it, black-rimmed glasses that didn’t hide the fact that he had a face that had probably gotten him all the prom dates he could handle. Trim, dressed in a checkered long sleeve with a light sweater, slacks, and dress shoes. Northwest office chic.
Came in as our assistant three years ago. Looked like the poor guy hadn’t found a way to break free. Wondered what kept him here.
“Shame! It’s great to see you again. Coffee? Booze?”
“Yes, please.”
“The whiskey’s where you left it,” he said. “I’ll pour the coffee.”
I pushed off to the desk where I used to sit. Corner of the room where I could see the doors and all the windows.
Everything was pretty much where I’d left it. Phone, computer, knife stabbed into a stack of notes. There were also three potted plants on the desk, two of which were some kind of vine that crawled up the brick wall into the rafters and across the windows.
Those I had not left there.
“So, how’s life been treating you, Dash? I thought you’d have moved on by now.”
“Things are good, thanks.”
I crouched down and pulled the bottle out of the holster that kept it stuck beneath the top of the desk.
“We’ve missed you around here,” he said. “Most people’s long weekends don’t last for months. Or years.”
“Well.” I stood, studied the bottle, which was nearly full. “I knew the place was in good hands. Terric, he’s all right at what he does, I suppose.”
Dash grinned and shook his head. “No one’s cared more or worked harder than he has.”
“Proving my point. And you are damn near the best secretary . . . administrative assistant?”
He handed me the cup of coffee. “Second. I’m Terric’s second.”
“So, that’s a step up, right?”
He nodded. “I’ve left you a few messages lately.”
“Oh?”
He glanced over at the door and frowned.
“Terric should be here soon,” I said. “Out with it, lad.”
He seemed to make up his mind. “Come on back to my office.”
“You have an office?”
I, correctly, took the door to the left into the smaller office.
He stepped in behind me, and shut the door.
“You okay with this?” he asked.
“With what?” I gulped coffee and whiskey and savored the double burn. His heartbeat was steady, calm.
“Close quarters, all these plants, me living. That what.”
He sat behind the desk and watched me, waiting. He had hazel eyes that were moss green with bits of brass in them. And those eyes were giving me a very knowing look.
Jesus. He knew. How much I wanted to consume. That I barely held it in check. I hadn’t ever talked to him about it.
Well, maybe just that one time when I was really drunk.
“Want me to pinkie-swear I won’t kill you, mate? Worried that I’ll lose control of Death magic and squeeze the pulse out of your ticker?”
“No. You’ve got this. Your control is solid. Criminally so.”
“Bless you. Talk.”
“I try not to get into Terric’s personal life. But there’s something that I can’t stay quiet about anymore. I”—he looked down at the desktop, suddenly interested in the calendar there that he pushed slightly to one side— “care for him.” Eyes up again, steady on me. “As his second. We’ve worked together for a long time and he is—his health is important to me.”
Lie. Well, not lie. More like truth pushing to be heard behind all those careful, yet oddly clumsy words. He cared for Terric as his boss, sure. And he cared for him a hell of a lot more than that.
Huh.
“Right,” I said, letting the subtext go. “I know that. But if you’re going to give me the lecture about how I should be around more because I make him feel better, Soul Complements, and blah-de-blah, don’t bother.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You already know you should be. You’ll change your mind, or you won’t. It doesn’t matter what I say about that. I’m talking about Jeremy Wilson.”
“Who?”
“The man he’s dating.”
“Do I need to know about this?”
