Rain Dance (Sunshine & Scythes Book 1)

by D. N. Erikson

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, clutching the small bag. “Anything else?”

  “Do you need more tasks? You are more ambitious than I believed.”

  I swallowed, throat dry. “I’m good.”

  “I can rustle up a few more, perhaps.” Aldric’s sharp features tightened into a hawkish smile, like he was toying with me.

  “Said I’m good, asshole.” Whoops. Couldn’t help myself.

  “Now why would you say something so hurtful?”

  “You’re right, completely ridiculous.”

  “I sense some sarcasm.”

  I refrained from speaking further, lest my employment offer suddenly found itself suddenly amended once more. It dawned on me that he had never intended to allow me out of our original contract. The rug would have been pulled out from beneath me on the last day. This whole catastrophe had just given him the perfect veneer to give our new contract the thinnest veil of legitimacy. After all, he’d bailed me out from jail—didn’t I owe him? The notion, of course, was laughable, considering he was likely responsible for it in some way.

  Since the conversation seemed to be over, I walked to the spiral staircase to begin my descent.

  “Do stay safe, Eden.”

  “When am I not?”

  “Are you not going to open your gift?”

  “Of course,” I said through gritted teeth, staring at the blue ribbon. I tugged on it, and it drifted to the polished hardwood. With tentative fingers—because, let’s be serious, this had a serious Trojan Horse kind of vibe—I undid the velvet folds and peered inside. The scent of mint and a pungent lemon aroma hit my nostrils. My arm felt better just from that.

  “Report back to me by the end of next week.”

  I started down the stairs and called up, “Wouldn’t dream of anything else.”

  “And one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “It is important that those responsible find their way to my door.” I heard Aldric’s knuckles crack. Or maybe it was his neck, or fangs. God, vampires were frigging creepy. “Because I have a certain type of justice planned for those who willfully cross me.”

  Great. I’d just have to rent one of Moreland’s vans and toss Dante in the back. Chewing on the tangy herb mixture as I shuffled down the stairs, I couldn’t help but be nagged by one thing.

  That mother fucker wasn’t just talking about those who had recently crossed him. That was a threat, clear as a bell, directed toward me. If I didn’t deliver come Friday, it would be me who learned exactly what kind of justice he had in mind.

  I opened the glass door, and Moreland was there to greet me. The morning light stung my eyes after spending the last fifteen minutes in the shaded third floor room. I squinted at the warlock, watching his tuft of hair wave in the gentle wind. Waves lapped against the boardwalk with a gentle lilt that made me sleepy.

  “It is time to go home,” Moreland said, and pointed toward the road. It was overgrown and cracked. Didn’t get much traffic out here, I guess.

  “What, I don’t get a ride?”

  “Do you not have friends to pick you up?”

  “All out of those, I’m afraid.”

  “There’s an inn up the road. I hope you brought cash.”

  “Funny, you didn’t ask that before he kidnapped me.” My mouth was going to get me in trouble one of these days.

  At some point in the night, I’d had cash, but between the taxis and getting tossed in the van, it hadn’t made its way along with me. Moreland didn’t offer to refill my coffers.

  “Enjoy your little stay away from home, Eden,” Moreland said, gesturing for his goons to take me away. They stalked forward, even though the warlock could have easily led me out on his own. Just an extra display of power to hammer home exactly who was in charge here.

  Spoiler: it wasn’t me.

  I shook off their grip and walked up the empty road, giving them the bird.

  At least I could do one thing on my own terms.

  16

  I could get service, just barely, but the taxi companies were either not answering or the lines were busy. Regretting my resistance to downloading app-based transportation prior to being stranded in a place where mobile internet ran at the speed of a snail running a salt gauntlet, I trekked up the empty road alone in the early morning. The gray haze of dawn was giving way to the brightness of the actual day. After the last day, all I wanted to do was curl up on the side of the road and sleep. Given the roars in the jungle running along the derelict road, however, that seemed like a poor idea.

  My phone beeped, indicating I’d received a text message. Dante. The guy had some serious balls, I had to give him that.

  “We need to talk,” I said, reading the message aloud as I munched some of the lemon-mint healing mixture. The relief flooding through my shoulder almost made me forget the indignities I’d suffered over the past day. Almost, but not quite.

  I was about to put my phone away, but I didn’t have pockets. That extra half-second of indecision spawned a new idea. I tapped the screen, and found—much to my delight—that the friends and family location feature required a two way connection. To play ball, you had to offer up your own location. And, as it turned out, Dante was just up the road, about four miles.

  Maybe that was why he’d been cryptic last night regarding his whereabouts. I took a final glance at the dot, which seemed to be stationed on the Happy Paws Vet Clinic on a rather permanent basis. Then I bashed the phone into a pulp of circuitry and glass against a nearby rock and tossed it into the jungle. A panther roared in response.

  “I know how you feel, bud.” I was done being surprised or ambushed. With a surprisingly light step, I headed up the road, velvet bag swinging from its drawstring on one finger, Reaper’s Switch clutched in the other. I could only imagine what I looked like—probably like I’d just woken up from the most epic cocaine binge in history. But my appearance didn’t matter, since not a single car passed me on the way to the clinic.

  My feet howled in protest as I rounded a curve in the road. Sweat soaked the dress through, making it feel more like a damp towel than an article of clothing. But, when I saw what lay around the curve, I felt like I’d stumbled upon El Dorado itself.

  If El Dorado had been a vet clinic with a burnt out sign, half-collapsed roof, and two beaters in what one might generously call parking spaces. Others might simply say that the cars were parked in the jungle. Right in front of the cracked concrete steps, however, was the real reason for my excitement: Dante’s Porsche, bright and shiny as the day it had come off the lot, announced that he was still inside.

  Of course, there was the minor detail that I was out here alone, without backup, about to confront a murderer while I was totally running on fumes. Not the best of plans, especially for a girl who had vowed only hours before to quit jumping from fire to fire. I felt a little like someone who vows to never smoke again, only to be puffing away fifteen minutes later after a boring meeting.

  I couldn’t see any movement inside the clinic, but the blinds were drawn, and the windows were plastered over with old, yellowing newspapers. If this place had ever resulted in any happy paws, it hadn’t been in the last decade.

  I crept to the first car—an old beater sedan that looked about to be reclaimed by rust—and slid down against the back wheel. The lush ground felt like a luxury mattress. I fended off the siren’s call of sleep, pulling out another pinch of the healing mixture. The lemony herbs soothed my aching body. A quick glance at my shoulder indicated it was doing more than pain management. The alarming gray shade had disappeared. I ripped off the sweat-soaked bandage on my hand and shoulder. The wounds were but a distant memory, the skin only slightly pink.

  Hearing the deep rumble of an engine, I peeked out from behind the sedan’s trunk. A beat-up truck swerved around a bend, fishtailing like it was being chased. Nothing followed, however, and the truck veered into an open spot in front of the clinic as I dove back behind the sedan. I thought I’d been
made, but the driver got out of the truck and slammed the door. From his groaning and the cadence of his steps, it sounded like he wasn’t going so well. I wriggled on my belly along the ground and peeked out under the back wheel. Blood stained the grass.

  More interestingly, I recognized the guy: it was Magnus. While his appearance out here was curious, it didn’t take a forensic investigator to tell what had happened: he’d been attacked. Maybe he’d lost a fight in his underground arena. That seemed unlikely, but I didn’t know exactly who else would have the stones to mess with a dwarf Jotun.

  The giant crashed right through the thin wooden doors. A short woman glanced out of the ruined entrance, then ducked back into the clinic. She called for help, and I heard pounding footsteps from the building as they rushed to help Magnus.

  I kept myself plastered to the ground behind the sedan as they conversed in low voices about what to do. I wasn’t sure if Dante was one of them. Ultimately, they dragged the giant toward the back—I could tell from their exaggerated groans and his occasional yells of pain—and the voices disappeared.

  Now alone, I took the opportunity to reflect on my options. It was decision making time. Was I going to be a desperado and rush in, or was I going to be sensible?

  I settled on a happy medium, and took the opportunity to break into Magnus’s truck. That was a generous way of putting it; the giant hadn’t locked the doors, which was basically inviting a free-for-all on his belongings. The driver’s seat was slick with blood that dripped all the way down to the pedals. The engine was still running. I opted for the other side the pickup.

  “Not the cleanest guy, are we?” I brushed a mountain of crumpled hamburger wrappers off the seat, the scent of stale beef indicating they were well over a week old. I rummaged around in the glovebox, finding nothing but an expired registration and a few sticks of unwrapped gum that crumbled in my fingers like chalk.

  There was a sound from the clinic, and I glanced through the front windshield. The short woman emerged from the clinic, coming down the concrete steps toward Dante’s sports car. I ducked, disappearing on the floor with the stale wrappers. My heart hammered as I hoped that she hadn’t seen me.

  My concern was overridden by what I saw beneath the seat: gold. More specifically, gold bars. A dozen of them, glinting like they’d just been removed from a casino vault. They were the same size as the one Magnus had offered me earlier to get Aldric off his back. I grabbed one, feeling the weight in my hand. Like the one I’d carried around for half the night, it was no larger than a smartphone. Kilobars, containing a little over 32 ounces of gold a piece. A quick, back of the envelope calculation indicated that I was staring at about a half million in gold.

  I flipped it over, and sure enough, the cloaked rider atop his galloping steed was stamped into the metal. Which left another, oh, twelve and a half million of Aldric’s gold still unaccounted for. Apparently there had been a good number of people dumb enough to rip off Aldric. Could be that Dante was taking out his co-conspirators one-by-one to claim the haul for himself. First Roan had caught a bullet, and now Magnus was bleeding out.

  There was an alternative: Aldric had unraveled the plan and was now hunting the would-be thieves down like dogs. The truck’s passenger door opened, and the short woman screamed.

  “Quiet,” I said.

  “Thief!” she yelled, and grabbed my arm. I heard rumblings in the clinic as her allies rushed through the clinic to help. Dante was the first one out, his messy brown hair streaming around his head. His gloved hands were covered in blood.

  I pushed the short woman away and slammed the door. Then I hopped into the driver’s seat, feeling the sticky blood against my bare legs, and threw the truck into reverse. The bald tires screamed, and the cab filled with the thick scent of diesel. In a cloud of smoke, dust, and jungle foliage, I wheeled onto the road and hit the gas. The wheels squealed in protest, and the truck fishtailed like it had hit a patch of ice.

  I frantically tried to course correct as I headed for the curve in the jungle, but the beater refused to cooperate. The truck groaned as the weight shifted to the driver’s side, the wheels on the passenger’s side leaving the ground. As a last ditch effort to keep from going airborne, I jerked the wheel right, which tipped the vehicle’s weight back.

  But it also steered me right into an almond tree. The truck snapped the trunk in two, but the collision stopped our momentum cold.

  I slammed right into the steering wheel and the entire world went dark.

  17

  New Orleans, 2014

  There are multiple ways to run a con. The classic pretty girl in a bar milking you for drinks is one—if a bit cliché. Gambits like three-card-monte or a corner shell game take more skill than a smile and a tight dress, but they’re still in the minor leagues. The hot tip or insider information is another classic, but harder to pull off. And then, of course, you have your ambitious schemes: the Spanish Prisoner, maybe, or a Ponzi scheme.

  Or you could just go to Wall Street and become a banker. That’s an attractive option if jail’s not your thing. As I said, there are plenty of ways to run a successful con. What you decide is based on your skills and personality. Some people like walking on the tight rope, no net, above a blazing inferno.

  Thus, it was with a mixture of adrenaline-pumping curiosity and stomach-clenching horror that I viewed the disaster currently in progress in the dingy Bourbon Street dive bar. The mutt I’m staring at growls on the chipped concrete floor, its red-rimmed eyes and mange warning me not to come closer. No magic, no special circumstances. Just a dog in the bar, because we’re in one of the last places that doesn’t need rules and gets along just fine without them, thanks. Its gutter punk owner is passed out in a sea of vomit, crust mingling with the guy’s face tattoos. He was definitely not helping the smell, which was a perpetual mixture of piss, stale beer, and centuries of poor decisions.

  I sat on the edge of the uneven barstool gritting my teeth, watching two months of hard work circling the drain.

  Roan whispered in my ear, “Didn’t think anyone could resist little sis’s charms.”

  I swatted him away like an annoying fly. “It’s all going to shit.”

  “Maybe you should go over and swap places.” He winked at me in that way nerds who think they’re slick do. He had long brown hair and a nice smile. And he was smart. That was what got me. But man, he made some jokes.

  I curled my lips up in disgust. “Not for all the gold in the world.”

  “I’m just saying, he had a thing for you.”

  “The plan doesn’t work then.”

  “You could make it work. Just head over.” He handed me his vodka double. I chewed on the straw and then downed it for courage, tipping the decision toward intervening.

  We’d pitched the Silicon Valley whiz-kid our vaporware app. He was about ready to write a check, but hesitant. This was the final step in the plan—we need to solidify our trust. Like the man who steals your wallet and then pretends to give it back to enter your good graces, this was the part where he’d wire the funds over on the spot in gratitude.

  The plan was simple: the pretty girl—that’d be my sister—would seduce him in the bar. They’d make the journey back to their hotel around the corner, onto one of those side streets in the French Quarter, where you fall into the oblivion that the hurricane left behind. She’d pull a gun on him and hold him up. Then, Roan and I would come and bravely intervene. As for her avoiding armed robbery charges, that was easy: she’d drop something that clearly identified her as a hooker. And Maxwell Smith, tech darling, didn’t need that kind of publicity. The whole thing would die, and we’d abscond with our funds.

  As I said, easy. Except for one tiny hitch: Maxwell was getting ready to leave. Without Sierra.

  I took a final sip of lukewarm vodka and, after a glance back at Roan, rose from the stool to venture across the hazy dance floor. It was late, too late for a girl like me to be out here. I won’t regale you with how at, twenty-four,
I found myself ripping people off. Suffice to say it wasn’t because of bad parenting.

  My hands shook, and I tried to stuff them in the pockets of my business casual blazer. We were out “celebrating” with Maxwell, about to put ink on paper. But there would be no contract if he didn’t leave with Sierra. Deals were fluid, especially when there was no corresponding app to sell for seven figures, sight unseen. Sure, there’d been the “demo” Roan had whipped up, but it was all smoke and mirrors. Turn down the wrong corridor and you’d bang into the glass.

  All told, it was time to bail. Maxwell was already across the dance floor, heading toward me. But that’s what happens, though, when you become ambitious. Risk grows, and you can’t let things go. And risk is the type of monster that you cannot control.

  Sierra tried to wave me off as I headed to intercept our mark. She tagged behind Maxwell, hand on his shoulder, trying to lure him back in with false promises and sweet nothings. My mind was working fast, trying to lay a jazz-like improvisation over a plan we’d honed for months.

  Appropriating a tech millionaire’s earnings for ourselves was an ambition step up. Everyone had been talking about wealth redistribution. We were just doing our little part.

  I adjusted the suit pants. The attire made me look older than twenty-four, which was kind of the point. I looked like someone he could trust, who was old enough to have her shit together. A year before his app had exploded, Maxwell had probably been pouring bongwater over his Lucky Charms. People respond to the trappings of authority and power, even when they don’t have a goddamn reason to. My role was the banker, the money manager, the CFO to Roan’s brilliant programmer, trying to broker a deal between two future kings of Silicon Valley.

  I glanced back at the barstool, where Roan had been only a moment before. But he had vanished, seemingly into thin air. Whatever—it wasn’t like he was necessary for this part. He’d played his role well. Now I needed to salvage everything.