Rune Thief: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Isabella Hush Series Book 1)

by Thea Atkinson

  "Hold on, buddy," I murmured. "We're going to get you help."

  "Infacto," he said again, stressing the middle syllable. His eyes rolled sideways and up again. "Mortem."

  "Yeah, yeah," I said.

  I couldn't watch it anymore. I felt for his hand and found his index finger. It was cold and clammy. Time was running down. I pressed the pad of his finger onto the phone. As it lit up, I could see it was indeed one of those newfangled phones, the ones that allow for optic security and that measured your alcohol blood level. But the poor sod hadn't thought enough to lock it down.

  "You are one lucky fuck," I said, noting quietly that I imagined he didn't think so at the moment.

  Holding onto the tip of his index finger, I pressed the three numbers: 911.

  Relief washed over me as I pressed the last button and dropped his cell phone onto his chest. I did my best to hold him still, to keep him from thrashing around enough to knock the cell phone off his chest while I listened for the operator. She'd hear his breathing. She'd hear his gagging. The cell phone GPS locater would do the rest.

  I'd done what I could. I just hoped the ambulance would arrive fast enough. The high-pitched voice came through from the speaker and I let go a breath. A woman. Despite the high pitch of her voice, she was calm, far calmer than I had been. Two heartbeats after asking what the emergency was, she was already telling him help was on the way.

  I sagged in relief at those words. I fell back onto my backside from the crouch I'd been in. The muscles in my thighs were screaming and I accidentally put my hand out to catch myself on his arm.

  It was that moment when his eyes rolled back to land on my face. Bright green. Impossibly so in the dim light. Just like the color of money.

  I thought I heard a crack of thunder and a blast of light spilled into the alley as though someone had thrown open a door.

  The man at my feet drew in a sharp breath and grabbed hold of my forearm. His fingers dug into my skin.

  "Buddy," I said and tried to yank away again. "What's with you and your death grip?"

  Before I could tell if he was going to answer, a jolt of hot pain went up all the way to my elbow as though someone had Tasered me where his hand met my skin.

  I winced and tried to break free but those eyes pinned me with a hard, panicked gaze.

  "Behind you," he said.

  Everything in my stomach seemed to fight for the exit all at once at those words. Behind me.

  Scottie.

  My heart thudded in terror.

  He'd murdered this man just to teach me a lesson. He controlled me. He would always control me. I thought I heard myself whimper and then I sucked that back in.

  My eyes squeezed shut, sending explosions of colored lights into the blackness beneath my eyelids. I inhaled a bracing breath through my nose. Then I spun, almost so fast that I felt a moment of disquieting vertigo.

  Nothing there.

  A scuttling sound echoed in the far part of the alley next to the dumpster. I waited, breath held, but still nothing. It didn't do anything to soothe my fear or offer relief from it; rather the sense of dread magnified the heavy claustrophobia that still clung to the air.

  But something had shifted. Something was different. I only realized what it was when I looked back over my shoulder toward the fallen stranger that it was because the grip on my arm had disappeared.

  And so had the dying stranger.

  CHAPTER 8

  A BAD TRIP. THAT'S what this all was. Had to be. There couldn't be any other explanation for a flesh and blood man to disappear into thin air. I had touched his clothes with my own hands, felt his blood on my fingers. If he was a figment of my imagination, then it had to be because I had choked back far too much alcohol and chased it with that huge crystallized chunk of absinthe.

  It didn't comfort me to think that particular combination of substances—one that I had enjoyed on occasion over the last three years to pleasant distraction-–could have caused a hallucination so realistic, it was wrapping my insides up into knots. But there it was. The most logical explanation.

  To quote a famous fictional detective, once the impossible was ruled out, what remained had to be the truth of it.

  I swung around in the alleyway, almost staggering off my feet as I scanned the cobblestones for the stranger one last time. A rat scuttled out from behind the dumpster with a rag of wet paper in its mouth. It froze when it saw me then waddled forward brazenly.

  I stomped my foot in its direction and wavered drunkenly on my feet as I did so. When the vile thing refused to scoot off afraid, I yelled at it. Its steadfast refusal to halt had me hightailing in the opposite direction.

  That wasn't like me to just flee like that, but it was obviously time for me to haul ass home.

  I woke the next morning to a hot pain raking across my belly and feebly scratched at what I knew was causing it in an attempt to brush away the discomfort. A hissing ball of fur met my fingers. My cat, obviously. Enjoying the warmth of my skin.

  She'd been a snooty thing from the day I'd found her as a kitten six months earlier, swiping her double-pawed foot at a rat who seemed to think she was dinner. Something about the way she stood her ground despite the scrawny, wet and tiny thing she was prompted me to pluck her from battle and pop her into my pocket. She hissed in there in a roiling ball of fury the entire way home. I'd yet to find a suitable name for her that could encompass all the aspects of her personality.

  I gave her a weak swat now, to rob her of the chance to scratch me again. Just that one movement sent goosebumps rising all over my body. It was a strange enough sensation, it chased the drowsiness away.

  That was when I realized I was naked.

  And sprawled across my armchair in my living room with what felt like a fist of bony knuckles digging into the muscles of my neck.

  And with flakes of dried drool coating the corners of my mouth.

  And with a throat that felt like someone had put a burning match head to it.

  The ache in my right ear told me I had slept with my earlobe folded over on itself sometime during the last several hours. I had a headache that made me wonder if it was possible for a skull to squeeze into a single clenched ball of bone somewhere behind a gal's eyes.

  All in all, pretty much par for the course the morning after a binge like I'd indulged in. But it was the way my calf felt like it was on fire that made me squeeze my eyes closed again, focusing on the thread of some half remembered bit of information.

  It took several seconds for the evening to come flashing back. Every bit of visceral reaction I'd suffered the night before at the hallucination the absinthe had given me tripped its way through my consciousness again. This time wearing combat boots.

  As bad as I felt physically, the memory that I'd had a shitty heist quickly shoved out the nasty hallucination because while that had been nothing but imagination, I couldn't escape the fact that a bust heist meant I didn't have the cash I needed to get the hell away from Scottie's bandits.

  And that was of paramount importance.

  I moved my hands in front of my face to make sure I wasn't actually having a seizure. I stuck my tongue out. Everything seemed to be working. Painful and sluggish, but physically capable of proper movement. At least there was that. Absinthe. Never again. Chasing the green fairy simply wasn't worth this agony.

  I groaned and rolled onto my side, testing the weight of my head as I tried to lift it up from the cushions. I spied my clothes littered all the way from the door to the foot of the chair. My favorite heist gloves were in a ball next to the door.

  My heist bag lay on its side next to the coffee table.

  Given my nudity and hangover, I wondered if I still had any money left in the bag or if I'd wasted it all. I spilled onto the floor on my hands and knees and crawled over to it, wincing as my calf fetched up on the cat's indignant swipe.

  I crouched there with the bag in both hands and heaved it onto the coffee table. It upended and all those bits of things
slid out and across the glass surface.

  None of it was mine. A quick gaze over the contents, mundane as they were, told me most of it would have had to be the castoffs from the pawnshop.

  A pack of gum. Something long and crooked and distinctly woody looking. A straight razor—I winced at that one, the shiver of memory reminding me of the stranger at the bar's words to me. That he could hurt me. Kill me, even. Good thing that was all fanciful green fairytale.

  I flicked my finger around the contents on the table, following up with my gaze until both fell upon an inch square tile of some sort. I cocked my head, thinking. That incredibly realistic hallucination had included something square.

  I reached out for the little tile and as my fingers wrapped around the edges, my palm burned. I dropped it without thinking to the floor. It sat on the carpet upside down looking ridiculously ordinary.

  I laughed out loud.

  "I've got to get a grip," I said to the cat who had taken to batting at her food dish and squalling in my general direction.

  "Okay, okay," I told her. "I get it. You're starving."

  I scooped up the tile with my nails and tossed it onto the table again. It had an interesting heft and it even more interesting face now that I looked at it. Definitely old looking. Maybe a couple of centuries. It reminded me of ancient Greek mosaic piece. It wasn't complete by any stretch as a picture, but looked like it could certainly fit into something bigger.

  Pretty in its way, but useless. I sighed and groaned my way to my feet.

  I strode to the kitchen and pulled open the bottom cupboard to pull out the box of cat food.

  "Might be able to sell it to that creepy old antiquities dealer on 11th," I said out loud. More to convince myself than anything else.

  I hated going there and only did so when I had something I couldn't unload anywhere else. I'd have to put on the wig and fancy boots again. The old creep had a fetish for dominatrix and I always sold better to him when I was dressed up. I hated that, using sexuality to score like an old cliché. But he paid better that way and who was I to complain about a few extra dollars in my pocket.

  "What do you think, cat?" I said and in response, she jumped onto the counter to take a swipe at the box.

  Absently, I moved to scoop her off the sideboard and toss her next to her bowl.

  I didn't get the chance to touch her. Before I came within half a foot, she lifted her back in a sharp arch and hissed at me. Fully arched back, sharp canines showing.

  "You little bitch," I said, hardly able to believe her nerve while at the same time admiring the moxy.

  "On your own terms, I guess," I said. "I get it. But just remember which side of your bread is buttered."

  Tuna it was then. She had never truly got used to the box food. Couldn't say I blamed her. It looked dry and unappetizing.

  I rattled the drawer and pulled out a can opener, snapping it over a can of cheap fish. Just the sound of the soft hiss it made as the seal was broken sent the cat into a frenzy. She wound in a circle like a dog chasing her tail.

  I opened the can into her bowl with a smacking sound and stood back with my arms crossed, waiting for her to dig in. She literally leapt for the bowl but as she got her nose to it, she started snarling and backed away from it as though I put poison in it.

  "Seriously?" I said. "It's not that cheap."

  I lied and I knew it.

  "Okay," I said, conceding. "Milk it is." I yanked open the fridge door and pulled out a jug. It splashed over the edges of the bowl as I poured without so much as kneeling over.

  "Well?" I said.

  The hissing continued. I toed the bowl toward her.

  When she refused to come closer, I leaned over to scoop her up. This time she scratched me on the wrist. Quick, so quick I didn't see it coming until the pain shot up my wrist and blood welled on the surface of my skin.

  I glared at her.

  "If you don't want to eat, then fine. You can starve. I have things to do. "

  I lifted my wrist to my mouth automatically, thinking to ease the pain.

  Except there wasn't just a bloody scratch on my wrist. There was also a small red mark next to it. I stared at it for a long moment, trying to figure out how I had got it.

  I searched through my memory banks of the night before, filtering through the hallucination with tiptoeing feet because those few moments were too vivid for my queasy stomach, but came up dry. It didn't look anything like a tattoo. Instead of being inked into the skin, it seemed to sit on top like a henna mark. I scratched at it with my thumbnail. Nothing. I wet my index finger and rubbed at it. It stayed crisp.

  No doubt there were some parts of the night that I had blacked out, but if I was honest with myself, I knew that during that hallucination, that stranger had grabbed my arm. Hallucinations just didn't leave a mark.

  So he'd been real. No doubt the tat had been something I'd paid for in the alley and my absinthe-hazed mind had made the rest of it up.

  "Nice nightmare," I muttered to myself. "Couldn't have given yourself a nice, spa day as a vision, could you, Sis?"

  Obviously my mind wasn't wired that way, at least, not under all the stress of the Scottie threat. Even so, I resolved to visit the bar again later on to check in with Fayed. He might have a different take to clear a gal's muddy memories.

  I reached for the cat again and this time she snarled at me and took off like a shot toward the bathroom, her favorite hiding place whatever she flipped the kitty litter all over the floor and I yelled at her. I sighed, frustrated.

  After a quick shower, I pushed everything to the side of my closet as I dug deep for the more costume aspects of my wardrobe. Meant for the times when I needed to meet with parts of my networking and didn't want them to see the real me. The antiquities dealer on 11th Ave was just one of them.

  It involved a long blonde wig with a shock of red running through it and lots of leather and thigh-high black boots.

  I topped it off with a long trench coat because that kind of garb drew attention.

  I grabbed a cab for several blocks and hoofed the half dozen remaining ones with the feeling that I had somebody following me the entire time. I was confident that even Scottie wouldn't recognize me in the garb I had on, but it didn't ease the sense of vulnerability.

  CHAPTER 9

  BY THE TIME I MADE it to the shop, I was a bag of nerves and I couldn't throw myself through the door fast enough. I leaned against the door after it closed, scanning the shop with a nervous eye.

  The proprietor, who always had a keen eye for folks entering his shop, was out from behind the counter in record time.

  "Ms. Foster," he said managing to make it sound like the name was sliding around on a greasy plate. "I'm desperately delightful to see you again."

  Everything was desperately delightful when it came to him. He reminded me of so much of Ron Jeremy, I shivered every time I saw him. There was a bloated look to his face, as though rivers of water ran through his tissues and couldn't find a way out. His eyes were less piercing green and more a girlish fingernail polish neon. He had a long black ponytail that he let lay over his shoulder and that left grease stains on his gabardine shirt. He wore cowboy boots with silver toe tips that peeked out from beneath 70s style trousers.

  He constantly held onto a vaporizer although I never saw a plume of smoke come out the end. I always wondered if perhaps it was an affectation, something to keep his hands in motion so that his customers wouldn't notice that he was stealing them blind with the other one.

  I pulled in a bracing breath. I could do this. Just get it over with.

  "I have something I think you'll be interested in," I said.

  "You always have something I'm interested in," he said and in case I didn't get the inference, he licked his thin lips.

  I groaned inwardly and tried not to shudder visibly beneath the coat. He was the sort of man who bargained better when he thought he had the controls. Before I could change my mind, I slipped off my jacket and
let it hang over my elbow.

  I knew that the black vinyl hot pants outfit was a bit over the top. The bottoms barely skirted the crest of my backside and the mesh cut-out left my navel and everything all the way to the shoulder bare except for two narrow strips that barely covered my nipples.

  The whole gaudy thing was held together by a collar with decorative spikes that lay against the black mesh at the collar bone. Even the boots were too much, and although my feet were killing me, I couldn't have worn anything else. One thing I had learned from Scottie was that men would do anything for a woman in thigh-high black leather boots.

  It was Scottie's face that allowed me to stand there, as good as naked and vulnerable, letting that disgusting gaze of the shopkeeper's linger over my skin. A gal can do anything for a man if she wants to, and she can do anything to avoid him. I told myself that a lascivious stare was nothing to the things Scottie would do to me if he caught me.

  I sauntered my way across the shop with my trench coat flung over my elbow as though it was a casual thing when the whole time my arm was shaking beneath it.

  I passed the candy counter at the front, ignoring the smell of sugar floss and licorice and ginger that clung to the air as I breezed in. I'd never seen any kids at the counter, and I suspected its existence was more to cover up the stink of must and old paper that coated the underbelly of the shop's air.

  I resisted the urge to grab a chocolate bar on the way by and held the proprietor's greedy eye with my own until I got close enough to lean over the counter.

  I tapped the glass counter with my fingernail. I wished I had the forethought to polish the nails, but he didn't seem to notice if they were grubby and slightly chipped. He was too busy trying to see around the narrow strips that covered my breasts.

  "I've got just the thing to put in your showcase," I said giving the counter another tap.

  "And what's that?" he said without lifting his gaze from my chest.

  I dug into the pocket of the trench coat where I'd dropped the tile. It made a clattering sound as it dropped onto the counter.