I noticed a phone propped up in its cradle at the end of the countertop, and on the spur of the moment, I picked it up and dialed Sam’s number. He was the only person in my life who wasn’t out to get me in one form or another. I needed that normality.
“Hi, this is Sam Harwood, Architect. Leave a message and I’ll call you back between the hours of nine and seven.” Even the sound of his voice on his answering message lifted my mood.
“Hey.” I sounded gruff in comparison. Glancing at the door, I wondered if I’d ever see him again. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. For everything. You’re a good man, Sam. The best. You…” My vision blurred, forcing me to lift my head and blink. “We had some great times. I’m sorry if I hurt you. You didn’t deserve that. But I’m not who you thought I was. I’m not a good woman, Sam, and the people around me, they’re dangerous. I just… I just wanted to hear your voice again before…” The phone beeped, cutting me off.
I wanted to go to him. He was honest, and I meant what I’d said. He was a good man. Too good for me. He would wrap me in his arms and listen as I talked. We’d crack open a few beers, rent a movie, and I’d curl up beside him on the couch, head resting against his shoulder with his arm hooked around my waist.
I could no more go to him than I could go to the police and tell them I was being hunted by my demon boyfriend, not to mention the dozen bit-part demons that thought it was their duty to separate my head from my neck. I placed the phone back in its cradle and cast one last look around the basement apartment. The closed front door loomed in the corner of my eye.
“Here goes nothing.” I shoved away from the countertop and left the apartment.
Chapter 12
It took all of about thirty minutes for Nica to arrive and sit herself in the comfy armchair across my table in Starbucks. I’d been sipping a grande latte while people-watching as I waited for her to arrive, hoping the safety in numbers theory applied to me. The coffee house buzzed with activity. Professionals tapped away on their laptops. Some teens sat engrossed in a game on an iPad beside a line out the door for coffee. It was exactly what I needed. Should Akil or Val show their faces, they weren’t likely to try anything untoward in such a public place. That didn’t mean they couldn’t though.
“Thanks for coming.” I smiled at Nica, hoping it reached my eyes.
“No problem.” She crossed her legs, straightening her pencil skirt as she watched me sip my coffee. “I’m due about a dozen lunch breaks, so figured I was owed a little personal time.” Her bright smile had already begun to lift my mood.
“You didn’t tell Akil?”
She shrugged. “I doubt he’d be interested in the fact we’re having coffee together. It’s not exactly high on his agenda.”
This time, my smile hitched a little higher. I’d called her from a public phone and asked her to meet me. In all likelihood, Akil would have sent her after me as soon as I’d left the safety of the basement apartment, so I figured I might as well preempt his move with one of my own. “You know that file you gave me on Stefan?”
“The assassin?” She tucked her short blond hair behind her ears and leaned an arm on the table.
“Yeah, whatever he is. Did you discover anything about where he lived?”
“No, he covers his tracks really well. But there was something… We had a lead on a guy who deals in guns. He’s sold some ammunition to Stefan in the past. The gun Stefan uses, the one with the scorpion brand on it, it’s a fifty caliber brushed chrome Desert Eagle. A gun like that gets noticed.”
I wondered briefly if Stefan had retrieved the weapon from his car after it rolled. I hadn’t seen it on him afterward, and I’d had an eyeful of him post-accident, but something told me he wouldn’t leave a gun like that behind.
“Why?” Nica’s smile teased across her lips, her eyes brightening with mischief. “What are you planning?”
“Who says I’m planning anything?” I placed my cup down on the table, licking my lips. I couldn’t trust her; I barely knew her. She worked for Akil—spent every day with him from what I could gather. Whatever I told her, I could assume it would go straight back to him.
“Okay.” She tried to catch my eye. “I can get you the address of the dealer if you want.” She plucked her phone from her bag, fingers tapping out the security code to unlock it. “Why do you want to find Stefan?”
I had to tread carefully. “I want to know what he knows.”
“Even if he tries to kill you?” Her thumb navigated across the touchscreen of her phone.
“He won’t.”
Nica lifted her gaze over the phone to question me with her eyes. “What makes you so certain?”
He saved me from the Hellhounds, saved me from the explosion at my workshop, saved me from the demon in the stairwell. Right now, anywhere he occupied was the safest place for me. “I’m not that easy to kill.”
Nica grinned and showed me a map on the screen. “If we take my car, we’ll be there in less than fifteen minutes.”
I nodded. “Won’t Akil miss you if you don’t return to work?”
Nica flicked her hair back, suddenly becoming animated with excitement. “No. He’s out most of the day. I can catch up on the paperwork tonight. I’d much rather be shaking down a back-alley arms dealer than filing tax returns. Wouldn’t you?”
I chuckled. “That’s not what this is. I’m just going to ask some questions.”
“Right, and he’s going to tell two uptown girls what we want to know because he’s a nice guy?”
“You’re uptown. I, most certainly, am downtown. Trust me.”
At least it wasn’t night. The dead-end street would have looked much less appealing draped in darkness. In full daylight beneath the winter sun, the dumpsters glistening wet from a recent rain shower, it didn’t look quite as foreboding, but it still wasn’t going to feature on a tourist map any time soon. Air-conditioning units hummed from the mismatched buildings lining the narrow back street. An abused ‘70s Corvette sat beached unceremoniously on bricks outside a car workshop, its wheels gone. Either it was in a state of repair or in the process of being picked clean by local thieves.
A group of three young men loitered on the corner of a side street, hoods up, watching Nica and me climb from her silver Mercedes. I had to wonder if her car might resemble the Corvette on our return.
“I have mace,” Nica said, not all that quietly, as she walked beside me, clutching her bag a little tighter.
I smiled. “Don’t worry. Mace will be the least of their concerns.” A tingle of energy trickled through me. My demon half stirred at the promise of violence. I shook the thrill of it from my hands, pushing back the thirst for chaos.
Nica gave me a sideways glance. She saw my smile and loosened her white-knuckled grip on her bag. “I forget what you are sometimes.”
“Thanks.” I took it as compliment as we approached a solid black back door in a three-story brick building. A scribble of unintelligible graffiti adorned the wall beside the door, but it was the small symbol etched into the painted wood beside the handle that caught my eye. The entwined scorpions stood out because they’d been painted white against the black of the door, but they were small, barely larger than a dime, not meant for the whole street to see. Just visitors. Nica saw it too. We shared a knowing glance before I knocked on the door.
Behind us, the three hoods watched our every move, muttering among themselves. They were unlikely to present a threat, just curious as to why two young women were entering their neck of the woods. Nica and I probably weren’t the usual type of client in these parts.
The door opened, revealing a man who looked as though he’d just rolled out of bed with creases everywhere. His jeans and shirt were crumpled like waste paper. Even his face had creases, hiking my age estimate to late thirties. He peered at us through narrow eyes and chewed on a toothpick. In dire need of a shave, his bristly chin and short, ruffled hair completed the “disheveled and don’t care” look.
He seemed
to like what he saw in us, because he grinned and draped an arm against the doorframe. “Hello, ladies. Yah lost?” He slipped his attention past us to Nica’s car. The spotless paintwork gleamed like a beacon of temptation for any would-be thieves.
Plucking the toothpick from between his teeth, he pointed it at me. “He won’t be happy you parked that hunk of German metal outside his shop.”
“Are you David Ryder?” I asked, not in the least perturbed.
He tucked both thumbs into the waistband of his jeans. The last few buttons of his shirt were open. Evidently, he had problems dressing himself. I wasn’t surprised.
“Ryder, sure. Whatever. What d’yah fine ladies want?”
“Can we come in?”
He took another long look at us then glanced over his shoulder into the dark hall. “Well, sure, why not.”
Nica and I helped ourselves inside. The oppressive atmosphere of the hallway embraced us as she closed the door. I followed Ryder’s quick retreat down the hall, passing several closed doors before we reached what had, at one time, been a kitchen but now resembled a workroom. Cardboard boxes were stacked high in one corner. Beside them, on a small round table, two guns had been stripped and were in the process of being cleaned. Small rectangular ammunition boxes lined the countertops beside half-finished mugs of coffee. Some harbored islands of mold.
“’Scuse the mess. Wasn’t expecting guests.” He made a halfhearted attempt at cleaning a space on the countertop but quickly gave up.
Nica stood very still beside me, hands clasped in front of her as though afraid to touch anything. “Those marks on the door?” she asked in a rather curt voice. “The scorpions…”
Ryder shrugged. “Previous owner of this place, I reckon. Why? You recognize them?”
“No.” She smiled a little too sweetly to be convincing.
“Yes, actually,” I intervened. “I want to ask you about a man who has that exact same mark on a gun, a Desert Eagle.”
Ryder leaned back against the countertop, folding his arms crossed. His beady eyes assessed me. “Nice gun. Don’t get many of those ‘round here. Too big, bulky. You can’t stash ’em easily, if you know what I mean.”
Not really. “The guy who owns that gun, he’s a friend of mine. I just need to find him.”
Ryder suppressed a smile. “A friend, and you don’t know where to find him, huh? Maybe he doesn’t want to be your friend.”
“He’s tall. Blond hair about this long.” I touched the corner of my jaw. “Has a thing for red leather. Drives an old Charger—well, used to.”
Ryder’s smile had begun to fade away, the laughter fleeing from his eyes. He knew Stefan, all right, but I was getting a distinct angry vibe off this guy, so perhaps they didn’t get along too well. Not surprising. Stefan appeared to have that effect on people.
“What did you say your name was?” he asked.
“Charlie. And this is my friend, Nica.” I held out my hand only for Ryder to look at it as though I’d just offered him a dead rat.
He popped the toothpick between his teeth, chewed on it, then grabbed my hand in his and shook it hard. Only when I tensed to pull away did I realize he wasn’t letting me go. I tugged, frowning, about to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, when he yanked me forward.
“I think you lost your way.” He leered down at me. “Best you run along now. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you fine ladies, now would we?”
Perhaps he expected me to squeal and flee. His leering face certainly betrayed a confidence in himself. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t look like much. Perhaps it was the way I held his stare and smiled a little, or he may even have sensed the temperature change in the room, but he was human, so he couldn't have seen the elemental magic spilling down my arm. It heated my hand. From the widening of his eyes, I knew he felt my grip tighten. The rising heat radiating from my palm must have been uncomfortable.
“You’d better leave,” he warned.
I pulled him toward me. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know who…” He yanked on my hand, trying to pull himself free, then growled when he realized I wasn’t letting go. “What the hell are you?” He twisted, trying to writhe free, but I wasn’t budging. The acrid smell of burning flesh permeated the air.
“Okay, okay!”
“Where?”
“I’ll take you! He’s right across the street.”
I released his hand and watched with a little too much glee as he quickly turned toward the kitchen sink and plunged his hand under the cool water.
Nica arched an eyebrow. She had her hand in her bag, ready with her can of mace just in case.
“Holy crap.” Ryder stepped around a knee-high tower of magazines and tugged open the rusted refrigerator. With his burnt hand, he reached inside and grabbed a can of beer, clasping it in his hand with an audible sigh of relief. “Remind me never to piss you off.”
“That’s nothing compared to what I can do, so don’t get any ideas.”
Ryder didn’t look surprised by any of this. No flurry of questions about how I could heat my hand to those temperatures without burning myself. It made me wonder what he knew about demons. Despite appearances, he was not a typical gun dealer.
Nica and I followed Ryder back outside. The hoods had gone, and Nica’s car had survived intact. Ryder jogged across the street to the workshop, and snatching the handle at the bottom of a garage door, he lifted it high above our heads to reveal another classic car in the throes of restoration, this one stripped back to bare metal and awaiting its body panels. Mechanic’s tools hung on the walls. Every inch was covered with assorted equipment, from wrenches to jumper cables, hub caps to hood ornaments. The pungent odors of oil and metal reminded me of my lost workshop. A pang of sadness stabbed me in the chest, and a brief grimace touched my face.
I heard Stefan’s voice coming from the back and nodded at Nica behind me.
“Yo, Stefan,” Ryder called out.
I followed Ryder’s path past the partially restored car into the back of the workshop and through a doorway.
Stefan sat behind a desk, rocking his chair back, boots up on the desktop, legs crossed at the ankle. He cradled a phone between his chin and shoulder. When he laid eyes on me, his conversation came to an abrupt end. He hung up on his caller and tossed the phone into a pile of papers strewn about the desk. Making no attempt to stand, he flicked his cool gaze across the three of us.
“Hell must have frozen over,” he drawled, looking particularly pleased with himself.
“She fried my hand.” Ryder lifted the beer as though that explained everything and then cracked it open and took a few gulps for good measure. “She made me bring her.”
“S’okay. I’ve been expecting her.” Stefan stared straight at me, waiting for me to speak. I deliberately stayed quiet, drawing out the silence. Nica shuffled behind me, her fingers tapping out a restless little tune on the side of her bag.
Ryder cleared his throat. “Anyway… as I’ve opened the beers, anyone else like to partake?”
Nica looked at me, saw my encouraging expression, and sighed. “He’s an animal.”
“You have mace.” I grinned.
Ryder scowled at the both of us. “Standing right here.”
With a grumble, Nica reluctantly followed Ryder back into the workshop. I heard him attempting to engage her in small talk, but she wisely avoided him. If he tried anything, I’d be out there in a shot, but given Stefan’s reaction to Ryder, I was confident he wasn’t going to cause any trouble.
Stefan, on the other hand… He hadn’t moved, and I wasn’t entirely sure how he’d react to my being there. His office—if you could call it that—was surprisingly normal. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. Having seen him in action, perhaps I was hoping for something like my old workshop: weapons on the walls, maybe a demon head or two—not that I had those, but he might have.
“You’re a mechanic?” I failed to keep the surprise from my voice.
His half smile wasn’t budging, but if he wanted an apology, hell would indeed have to freeze over.
I absorbed the normality of the surroundings. Apart from the mess of papers on his desk, the room was tidy, sparsely furnished, with one metal filing cabinet in the corner with a plant in a plastic pot on top as though that would make all the difference. It was an office in which he didn’t spend much time. That was clear.
He planted both boots on the floor and stood, moving out from behind the desk with a fluid stride. His blue jeans were worn threadbare in places, with a few smudges of oil and grease across his thighs. His gray t-shirt sported the occasional oil stain, a trend which continued onto his face, where a smudge of grease had been brushed across his forehead. He looked decidedly normal, and it completely threw me.
“How’d you find me?” He leaned back against the desk.
“Nica has a file on you.” I listened, hearing her clipped voice respond to something Ryder had asked. “I don’t trust her.”
“What does she know?”
“They think you’re an assassin, or a bounty hunter, depending on the money at stake, I guess. She’ll tell Akil about this place.”
He didn’t look concerned. In fact, he still had that smug smile on his lips. Placing his hands on the edge of the desk, he dropped his head. “I told you to stay in that apartment.”
“Yeah, I know.” I snorted a laugh. “I’m not very good at following orders.”
“This isn’t a game, Muse.” The smile had gone. In its place, he’d summoned concern from somewhere as though he actually cared.
“No?” I felt the power turning over inside me, roused by a little shiver of anger. “It feels like it is. Like some elaborate game and I’m the only one who doesn’t know the rules.”
“You’re right. You don’t know all the rules. They’ve been deliberately kept from you by a succession of owners, most recently Akil.”
“So why don’t you enlighten me?”
[The Veil 01.0] Beyond the Veil Page 10
