Rain Dance (Sunshine & Scythes Book 1)

by D. N. Erikson

  “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  “She lives alone. Runs at night, through the forest. Leaves no soul untouched.” Mick took a step forward, the metal case containing his equipment banging against his leg. “Aldric’s Reaper is totally insane.”

  “If you’re done with the armchair psychology, maybe we can get down to business.”

  “I won’t accept that.” Mick nodded toward Darius. I heard the other wolf step out from behind the cash register, too. “I’d rather not end up dead.”

  The old man shuffled past me without looking me in the eye. His two hired hands closed in. I could sense their aggressiveness, see their desire to turn and rip me to shreds in their flashing eyes. I’d done something bad to their master, and they wanted me to finally atone.

  Maybe I’d overplayed my hand. But the walls were closing in around me. Which meant going it alone to this dingy, neon-bathed shit shack had been the best option on the table. Because, if the Feds kept digging, they were going to find out a much bigger secret.

  One that I wasn’t intent on sharing with anyone.

  They’d find out I could speak with Lucille. That one god hadn’t really left. And, maybe, that meant the others would return. The anarchy that would cause—no, that was rather untenable. It was one thing to light a couple candles and pray. It was another matter entirely for your prayers to be answered.

  “I wasn’t offering the bar to you,” I said. “I was offering you a chance to avoid his shit list.”

  “Aldric and I are already on quite amenable terms,” Mick replied, slipping into a back room behind the counter covered by a dark curtain.

  “And how’s that going to play when he hears you didn’t help me get his gold back?” I asked, giving Darius and the other wolf a big smirk. I stood my ground against the two encroaching wolves even though every instinct was telling me to run. They’d chase me down before I reached the parking lot. I had no other play than to pretend they were no more menacing than a pair of particularly large gnats. It helped that they were still in human form, with only the hint of the red bloodlust glow creeping into the corner of their eyes. They glowered at me, ready to tear me limb-from-limb. I could feel their primitive desire to shift and run free in the night, my entrails dangling from their jaws.

  A long silence settled over the grungy strip mall shop.

  “Not my problem,” he called from the back room.

  “We’ll see about that,” I said. “Because once I tell Aldric—”

  “It’s my son, James.” The curtain rustled, but instead of Mick, the young man came out wearing a sullen expression. His father didn’t step out with him. Offering him up as a sacrifice wouldn’t win Mick and father of the year awards, but it was the prudent call when the threat of a vampire warlord’s wrath loomed over your head.

  A boot briefly emerged from behind the curtain, giving the young man a literal kick in the ass. James shuffled forward, still wearing the suit I’d seen him in last night. His hair was well-coiffed, and he looked every bit the antithesis of his father—a well-heeled corporate lackey.

  The young man stopped near the register and leaned up against the stickered counter.

  “I don’t hafta tell you shit.” His voice and tone didn’t match the clean-cut demeanor. Not a corporate lackey—not by a long shot. He was a thug in a nice a suit, probably on Aldric’s payroll. The more I thought about it, the more everything came back to my employer.

  “Why’d you kill Roan Kelly?” I asked, my mind registering the fact that Roan was actually dead as the words came from my mouth. Strange to think that someone I’d spent so much time with was just gone. No time for sentimentality, though.

  “Oh, you know.” He shrugged, his nondescript features twisting into a smirk. James would make the perfect fixer: bland, forgettable, non-threatening. Out of place nowhere at all. “Money, jealousy, revenge. Take your pick, lady.”

  I went to take a step forward, but Darius and his fellow wolf blocked my path. He knew what happened when I was angry and got close to someone holding my Reaper’s Switch. James would be lucky if all he lost was his eye.

  I scowled at the two werewolves and held up the gold brick. “Tell me what you know about this.”

  “I don’t know nothin’.” But he was a bad liar, too inexperienced to sell the bullshit. I’d caught him off-guard by showing up here. After all, he was used to just fading away, never being seen again. Tell the cops white guy in a suit and they’d have to arrest half of the continental United States. But the cops didn’t have connections like mine.

  I stifled a scowl as I recalled the price of getting this particular piece of intel. The soul was still clutched in my hand, like some sort of sordid memento. I really missed pockets. Guys didn’t know how good they had it sometimes in the clothes department.

  “I’m sending the FBI to your doorstep, then, and you can explain why your prints were on my window sill.”

  “I do installations,” he said, still cocky.

  “And then I’ll tell Aldric.”

  The young man bit his lip and gave me a mean glare. It didn’t scare me much. I’d seen far worse. Finally, after a long pause he said, “Fine.”

  “You want me to tell him?”

  “No, I meant some guy gave me a call. Told me if I got down to the beach, put the gun in the lady’s house, he’d give me fifty grand.”

  “Sounds like bullshit.”

  “Pops?” James looked over his shoulder pleadingly toward the curtain. The old man didn’t emerge, but a small duffel bag flew through the fabric and bounced off the counter. A couple stacks of banded twenty dollar bills sprawled out of the open top, skittering up close to Darius’s boots.

  James gave me a look like you satisfied?

  Nope. Not by a longshot.

  “This guy have a name?”

  “Yeah, we’re Facebook friends.” James yanked the bag off the floor and stuffed the errant bills back inside. “The fuck you think, lady?”

  “I think you’re a dumb shit who stuck his nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “I ain’t the one with the wolves surrounding her.”

  “You touch me, you all burn.” I glanced up at Darius, who despite standing a head taller than me, looked concerned about the prospect of Aldric showing up. At least there was one person who wasn’t a complete moron in this room.

  “I told you all I know.”

  “What’d the guy sound like?” I asked.

  “I dunno. Knew you, though.”

  “Knew me?”

  “Called you Eden Hunter. That’s you, right? The chick who slashed up my pops?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “Anything else?” I recalled Magnus’s description of the guy looking for information on me at the Loaded Gun. Trying to pay with the gold brick I now held in my hand. “Did he sound charming?”

  “What, I look like some sorta fag to you?”

  “I’m sure you’re quite the ladykiller,” I said. “Just answer the question.”

  A pained look crept over his face, and then he kind of mumbled, “Guess he was a smooth talker, you know?”

  I did know—and I was beginning to get a very clear picture of who had set me up. I winked at James and headed toward the glass door. The three men didn’t move, like they’d been stunned by the tornado that had just run roughshod over the shop.

  Stepping into the warm, sweet night, a wave of satisfaction rushed over me. I’d have this case wrapped up in twenty-four hours, tied up neatly with a bow on the FBI’s desk. Then Rayna could shove her blackmail scheme straight up her ass, and the Feds would have no reason to burrow further into my backstory.

  And that good feeling lasted all of thirty seconds until I saw who was leaning against the sports car. Tall, slender. Most definitely charming.

  And almost definitely a murderer.

  “Thought I’d see what you were up to out here,” Dante said with a casual wave. “Care for a ride home?”

  I did not. But I
mustered up a smile from the depths and said, “That’d be lovely.”

  And I walked straight across the lot, into the belly of the beast.

  14

  Dante slipped into the sports car and opened the passenger side door from within. I slid inside, feeling the cool leather caress my skin. He leaned back in his seat, and before I had my door shut, we were spinning smoothly out of Lionhawk Ink’s parking lot, headed the other way.

  Dante broke the silence as we headed onto the cliffside drive back into town.

  “So, you know the mayor.”

  “Better than I ever really wanted.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “Not like that,” I said.

  “I wasn’t saying anything.” He gave me a friendly smile, but given the circumstances, it felt empty. Suddenly, it was like an illusion had been lifted. And now, I couldn’t trust anyone. Paranoia was never conducive to productivity, but in this case, it was justified.

  I played with the radio, but couldn’t find anything to my liking. A rock song cut off mid-solo as I tapped the power button, plunging the car into silence. The sports car’s engine growled in the night, devouring the narrow road before us. Over the cliff only feet to our left sat the endless ocean. A black abyss if I ever saw one.

  Dante’s smile disappeared, and he said, “You’re not thinking about yanking the wheel, right?”

  “That’s pretty dark, man.”

  “You have a look, Eden.”

  “And what look would that be?”

  “Like you just lost the biggest score of your life, you caught your husband fucking a model, and your house burned down with your dog inside.”

  “Still sounds better than my life.”

  “Now who’s being dark?” Dante slowed the car at the light, which was red despite there being no cars around for miles.

  “Go through,” I said.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “What are you, a pussy?”

  Dante extended one of his long fingers toward the stoplight. “There’s a camera.”

  “I know the mayor. He won’t mind.”

  Instead of moving, Dante cut the engine. The light flashed to green, and then back to red as we waited. Neither of us spoke. No cars came through, and nothing moved in the brush that now lined the road, the cliff being little more than a distant roadside memory.

  I tried to organize my wits, focus on the rational side of things. But I’d been having a hard time of doing that since yesterday. Roan’s death had been like a sucker punch to the gut, and the most annoying thing about the whole situation wasn’t the frame job, or the FBI, or a disgraced cop breathing down my neck.

  Nope.

  It was that I cared. Not in that lovelorn teenager kind of way that I used to look at him, but still, I cared. And that seemed like weakness. It’d been four years, and my old life was nothing but ash and faded photographs. Time to move on. Wallowing in sentimental nostalgia wasn’t useful, which maybe was why I’d thrown any semblance of rationality to the wind. I mean, shit, I’d basically shown up at the tattoo shop and accused the owner’s son of murder.

  “That’s quite a story,” Dante said, and I jumped.

  I gave him a look, and then realized from the dryness of my lips that I’d been speaking to myself the whole time. A rush of blood flooded my ears, and heat swam in my cheeks. Then I got angry.

  “How the fuck did you know where I was, anyway?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Dante said, pulling out his phone. “I turned on the friends and family locator.” A little dot blinked, along with a picture of Khan pretending to pee in my sleeping face. Very nice. He must’ve done that after I’d been attacked by the sandstorm viper in the basement.

  “Stalker, much?”

  “Maybe I wanted to make sure no demons were going to come and eat your face. Ever think of that?” Dante raised his eyebrow and tried to look serious. I wasn’t buying it.

  “That why you’re asking around town about me?” I slammed the gold bar on the dashboard with a hefty thud.

  “Always good to know who your friends are.”

  “But you already knew. Because you were Roan’s partner.”

  Dante sighed. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I just wanted to know why a guy like Roan decided to sell you out. Didn’t make sense after I met you.”

  “Sold me out?”

  “In New Orleans.” Dante waved his hand in the air, like none of it mattered. “No one told me anything good.”

  “Let me out.”

  “There aren’t any cabs running this late, Eden. I’ll take you home.”

  I didn’t want him to take me home, but I also didn’t want to tip him off that I knew. No use confronting a murderer and then getting added to his victim list. I was done being rash and just reacting. It was time to build a case, find some evidence, and get his ass locked up.

  Or have Aldric take care of it. That was always an option.

  “Fine,” I said. “As long as you shut up.”

  Dante obliged, and silence descended on the sports car as we headed home. As we wound through the tropical road, I began to almost relax. Sometimes, all a girl needs is a ride in a sports car to clear her head. Or a night drive. At some point, Dante put the top down, and the night wind streamed through my hair. It was almost normal, and for a couple minutes, I felt pretty damn good about myself. Things were going to work out. I was in control.

  Over the roar of the wind, I heard screeching tires. Two vans—the kind children are forever warned to avoid—came out of nowhere, their lights slicing through the darkness like predators in the ghostly moonlight. They quickly blocked our path forward, and Dante had to slam on the brakes. Scorched rubber filled the quiet air as the sports car stopped on a dime. A trail car that I wasn’t even aware of quickly boxed us in from the back.

  “Well, shit.” Dante reached for the glovebox. I saw a chrome pistol flash in the moonlight.

  I watched the goons in perfect import suits and dress shoes filter from the van. Most of them were the faceless lackey-types that are soon forgotten, but one I was familiar with: Aldric’s Head of Intelligence Operations, or as I liked to call Moreland, the Marauder in Chief. Aldric’s right-hand man and most trusted adviser.

  Maybe Aldric had already figured everything out.

  I wrapped my fingers against his wrist and said, “No, be cool.”

  “They don’t look cool, Eden.”

  “Trust me.”

  Moreland was an insanely powerful warlock, no idea how old, but that didn’t really matter. What did matter was simple: he could toast Dante’s little import convertible into the next century with a sneeze. I placed both hands on the dashboard, like I’d been pulled over for a traffic stop, as Moreland approached.

  “Remember what I told you,” I said under my breath. Dante didn’t respond, but he put the gun back into the glovebox. I took that as a promising sign.

  Much like his underlings, the warlock was dressed like he was going to a stockbroker’s meeting after our little chat. His well-starched clothing vibed well with the stern face that suggested he’d had a few too many sticks surgically implanted in his butt.

  He leaned over the door, into my personal space and brought his face about two inches from mine. As usual, he didn’t smile. A pale patch of hair clung to the middle of his head, dangling before my nose. “My dear girl.”

  “The ladies must love you,” I said.

  “Your kind has never done it for me, if you catch my drift.”

  “I should hook you up with my friend, then,” I said, nodding toward Dante.

  Moreland gave a dismissive snort. “I do not like the surfer look. Or the debonair adventurers.”

  “That wasn’t a real offer.”

  “If you’re me, then you don’t wait for offers.”

  Ah, how liberating it must’ve felt to be shackled only by the scantiest of 11th century laws. If you’re the king, it wasn’t rape or murder, i
t was simply divined by the gods. Admittedly, such a judicial system had its appeals, provided you’re at the top 0.1% of the food chain—and a fucking sociopath.

  I didn’t back down from Moreland’s dead eyes, a show of defiance which he didn’t appreciate. As a display of power, he made the sports car rock back and forth.

  Dante, cool and collected as ever, said, “I’d prefer if you didn’t do that. Service is inconvenient on the island.”

  I said, “Quit the dick-waving, Moreland, and tell me what you want.”

  “It’s not what I want, dear girl.” Moreland stood up straight and the car stopped rocking. The gold bar clattered against the windshield and bounced to the floor between my feet. “But who Master Aldric wants.”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re on a first-name basis by now.”

  “What is it the two of you have here?” he reached over the side and plucked the gold bar from the ground. “Oh, you have been a naughty girl.”

  “Magnus gave it to me.”

  “Always with the silver tongue, dear girl.”

  “Yeah, check the trunk for the rest of the haul, asshole,” I said. “Brilliant plan, ripping off Aldric, considering I can’t leave the island.”

  Moreland backed away from the car and gestured for one of his faceless lackeys to pop the sports car’s small trunk. I turned around to watch the production, which I knew from experience would be ridiculous and unnecessary. Suffice to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Instead of asking for the keys, one of them unlocked it with some display of dark magic and then lifted it up with a different spell. Overkill, but the message came across loud and clear regarding who was in control.

  Hint: it wasn’t the two people seated in the convertible.

  “What do you see?”

  His fellow warlock shook his head and said, “It’s empty.”

  “What?” Moreland stomped over, his willowy, long limbs a blur of confused fury. He stuck his head inside the trunk and looked around, as if certain we’d hidden something inside. Finally, after much huffing and puffing, he emerged from the trunk and glared at me.

  “You are hiding something.”

  “If that’s all—”