Rain Dance (Sunshine & Scythes Book 1)

by D. N. Erikson

  Being back to square one never felt so damn good.

  34

  I hitched a ride back to the service road, and then I willed myself to the villa. Khan bitched at me about lack of ample food—whiskey being a poor source of quality calories for a cat, apparently—but I paid him no heed, falling into a deep sleep on the couch.

  Saturday rolled around, and I was awakened by a deep knock at the door. Scrambling over the scratched hardwood in the same sandy, sweat-stained clothes I’d slept in, I glanced through the peephole to see who was outside.

  Kai. He’d been gone when we’d traveled back up the beach. How was hard to say.

  I threw open the deadbolt and he glanced at me. “How’d you survive?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “Rayna tracked my phone when she couldn’t find us at the base of the mountain.”

  “And what, she didn’t send in backup?”

  Kai held up his arm, which had a hospital band around it. When he stepped inside, I could see that he was moving slowly. Guess getting slammed by a goddess’s wind spell will do that. “By the time she’d called in backup at the hospital, the beach was empty. Save for a couple searchlights.”

  “Probably lucky for everyone involved,” I said.

  Kai nodded and limped toward the kitchen. He grabbed the whiskey and poured himself a healthy cup. He sipped from it, then looked embarrassed. “I should have asked.”

  “Good that you’re back to your old self.”

  “Closer than I’d like.” A faint darkness danced in his gentle eyes, then vanished. The spear sigil branding him as a warrior glowed for a miss-it-if-you-blink shred of a moment. “Thought I’d come by to tell you what’s going on.”

  I glanced at the digital clock on the microwave. It was eleven. A lot could have happened since I went to sleep. I pulled up a stool next to the polished granite island and took the whiskey cup from him. After a heavy drag, I slid it back to him.

  “You should really get some snacks at least,” Kai said.

  “This is what I have been telling the stupid human,” Khan said from the living room.

  “File your complaints in the customer service box.” I flipped him off. “Tell me what happened.”

  He ran down the highlights. The FBI had gone to the mayor’s house to make an arrest for last night’s kidnapping and illegal detainment. Instead, they’d found Stefan Cambridge’s headless body in the backyard, lined up next to twenty-four headless skeletons and a matching number of graves. It was hard to tell whether Lucille or Aldric had gotten to the alchemist first. They’d probably drawn straws for the honor.

  After that, the FBI had retrieved Moreland’s arm-less—and headless—corpse from the melting frost around his cabin. There had been an empty glass cabinet that no one could quite explain, but the murder MO seemed like a close enough fit to the prolific mayor’s that everyone had been comfortable calling him victim number twenty-five.

  Alkemy had officially been shut down due to public safety violations, but Sierra hadn’t been found, nor implicated in the whole operation.

  And Rayna, off the record, had explain to Kai why—when he had asked—she had helped stolen the money from Aldric. One motive was obvious: Aldric was an asshole. But the other was more troubling: Drake’s treasure was a long-lost cache of artifacts imbued with the power of deicide-arcana—that is, god-killing magic. The coin had been a tiny taste of the power contained within the cache. The real power lay within the Sword of Damocles, which could topple a god—or even an entire pantheon—with its strength. It had been created as a check against wanton abuse of power, should the rulers of humanity get too comfortable surrounded by the trappings of their celestial kingdoms.

  Good thing I’d buried that glyph-cipher.

  Kai drank the last of the whiskey and put the mug down with a light—but still decisive—clink.

  I said, “I never knew bureaucracy moved this fast.”

  “Our branch of the FBI is a little different.” Kai batted the mug between his strong fingers. “It has to be, given the island.”

  “Did you figure out who killed Roan Kelly?”

  The skin around Kai’s eyes bunched up, and he looked away. “That’s actually why I came.”

  “Bad news?”

  “I have to take you in. Trial’s being pushed up.”

  I let that linger for a second, and then I said, “How about one last favor?”

  “I don’t know, Eden. Protocol.”

  “Look at where following protocol got you yesterday.”

  “About the same batting average as not following it,” Kai said with a short laugh. “Lots of strikeouts.”

  “Then do it for justice,” I said, trotting out that line again.

  This time, though, he said, “One hour.”

  I said, “That’s all I need.”

  35

  Looking up James’s phone records turned out to be a bust. Most of his calls were to Moreland—his employer—and his father. Nothing unexpected. It was conceivable that the call to plant the gun had come in on the shop’s line, or some designated pay phone. It was also plausible that I was grasping at straws, and there had been no call. In that case, James was the killer—or we had no way of tracing the killer, which was about the same outcome. Zero evidence, Eden hangs out behind bars for a long time.

  In my book, I’d file that outcome under “suboptimal.”

  We pulled into the cracked parking lot outside Lionhawk Ink. At noon, the neon sign didn’t throw the same sort of light over the faded asphalt. In the day, the entire strip mall seemed like a relic from a past age.

  “I’m due back at the Getaway in thirty, Eden,” Kai said as we got out, the unspoken subcurrent clear. I had thirty minutes to crack this case, otherwise it was straight to jail. I wondered if Aldric would still shell out for Agnes to represent me.

  “The Getaway?”

  “It’s what we call the office,” Kai said. “You know, because it’s a hotel.”

  “Sure. I get it. Clever.” My mind was focused on other things. How would I get James to talk? Kai had done me a solid and pinged his phone, so we at least knew the fixer was inside. But he hadn’t talked last time, and now that his boss was dead, he had even less of a reason to spill. I’m sure most people thought that Aldric was responsible for killing Moreland, especially since Lucille was still incognito to most of the island, as far as godlike powers were concerned. Opening up to me would only paint a target on the back of his nice suit.

  No, I needed a different tactic.

  “Just go with me,” I said as we walked toward the parlor. No one was inside, save for the staff. That was good. “Follow my lead.”

  Kai said, “Should I be worried?”

  “I’ll let you know.” I swung open the door with a big flourish, the bell rattling loudly. Darius looked at me from behind the counter and set down his sandwich. Mick barely looked up from his silver case.

  “I would say your return is welcome, Miss Hunter, but we both know that would be a lie.”

  “We’re here to arrest your son.” I glanced around the shop, taking in the four empty chairs and the wall of tattoo designs. “Where is he?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “We know he’s here,” I said, nodding at Kai. “He killed that guy outside my house and set me up.”

  “Did he, now?”

  “His prints are on the weapon,” I said. “Forensics are a real bitch.”

  I sensed tension from Darius, so I turned to the werewolf and wagged my finger at him. He placed his elbows down on the stickered countertop and kept a watchdog-like gaze on me. I smiled, then returned my attention to Mick’s craggy face. The old man was showing no signs of cracking, although his sigil-covered knuckles were glowing a faint shade of blue. That was funny. I thought they would only be activated when he was inking someone. But perhaps the magic had other uses as well.

  “Something on your mind, Mick?” I asked. “You seem a little…les
s sanguine than usual.”

  “I don’t know what means, Miss Hunter. Some of us didn’t go to college.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said. “You know what I think, actually?”

  “I can’t wait to hear.” His rough voice contained a bit of an edge that I hadn’t heard previously. Good. I was rattling him. A few more minutes, and maybe he’d reveal something he shouldn’t.

  “I think I’m feeling a little vengeful. A little pissed off.” I came closer, taking measured steps across the dirty plastic floor. I slid into the vinyl seat next to him, my jeans squeaking against the worn material. “And maybe I’m thinking the FBI isn’t enough punishment for someone who tried to ruin my life.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Now his voice was quiet, his good eye cast at the floor, while his scarred socket seemed to stay fixed to me.

  “Maybe I call Aldric. Tell him who tried to eliminate one of his prime investments.” I drummed my fingers on the metal case right on the tray table before him. “You heard what happened to Moreland, I presume? And then there was Mayor Cambridge…”

  The lights buzzed. Mick’s chest heaved in and out, his breaths loud. “You bitch.”

  “Just a phone call away,” I said with deadly sincerity.

  “You don’t even care.” Mick stood suddenly, the sigils on his knuckles glowing a white-hot shade of blue. “Just come through and wreck things, and never look back.”

  The safety clicked off Kai’s gun, and I heard Darius growl. Things were heating up. Good. Maybe James would come out of hiding in the back room with a critical piece of information in tow. Mick stared at me wildly, his fists balled up. A tattoo needle stuck out the end, gleaming like a tiny scalpel.

  “If this is about the eye—”

  “Of course, you bitch. It was all about the eye.” His one remaining one blazed with intense fury, any calmness gone. Now, instead of his mess of hair making him look like an aging rocker, he now looked like a meth-addled mad scientist on the verge of blowing up a city.

  I didn’t feel good about being the city in this metaphor.

  “What was about the eye?” I asked as innocently as possible, just to press his buttons.

  “I killed your stupid boyfriend after Moreland told me who he was. He suggested it to solidify a new partnership between us. But I didn’t even need that. I just wanted to make you suffer.” A crazed smile crept over Mick’s wrinkled face. “And then, I thought, after I’d driven away, there was a way to make things even worse for you. So I called my son, and he planted the gun.”

  Well, that was certainly unexpected. Here I hadn’t even considered Mick a suspect. But he checked all the boxes: great motive, knew where I lived, could know about my association with Roan through Aldric’s network.

  “Interesting plan,” I said, keeping an eye on his fist. He was about five feet away, but with a quick lunge, he could try to jab me in the eye—or worse. That would be the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

  “Interesting?” Mick laughed bitterly. “It was genius.”

  “Until you just told it to an FBI agent. Very genius up until that point.” I shot him a look like I wasn’t impressed. “And Moreland pulled all your strings, if we’re really getting technical about it.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you say.” Mick shook his glowing fist at me. “You finally suffered for stealing my eye. And Aldric suffered for treating me like disposable dogshit all these years.” His mouth opened wide, the smile threatening to overrun his face entirely. “His precious investment.”

  Mick rushed forward, rearing back to strike. Kai’s gun barked, and the tattoo shop owner fell to the ground with a groan of pain. There was a growl and the sound of transforming claws touching the counter. The gun roared again, and a body crashed to the plastic floor loudly. I turned to find Darius, maybe an eighth shifted into a wolf, staring lifelessly at the ceiling. A single shot ran through his head.

  The murderer, however, remained very much alive. “You’re like a plague.” Mick spit on my shoes, or at least tried to. “Eden? More like Devil.”

  “Oh, don’t talk like that.” I knelt next to him, watching the blood seep from his shoulder. Perfect shot—incapacitating him, but no risk of death. A dead body wouldn’t do a whole lot of good for clearing my name. “You might hurt a girl’s feelings.”

  His empty eye socket glared at me. “You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

  “We all do in the end.” I rose and watched as Kai cuffed him. As the agent led the bleeding man to the door, I said, “One question.”

  “She has a question.” Mick sneered at me, his lips torn between pain and hatred.

  “How’d you burn Roan?” The screams had occurred prior to the final shots. It could’ve been from the hot barrel of the .45, but somehow I didn’t think that was the case.

  Instead of answering, Mick held up his faintly glowing fingers. The sigils. The heat and pain that I had felt when getting the lantern tattoo had been energy channeled with the aid of those sigils. It stood to reason that, when that power wasn’t being transferred through the tip of a needle, it would find another way to dissipate.

  Kai put Mick outside on the sidewalk, then reentered the shop. In a low voice, his lips close to my ear, so close I could smell his woody aftershave, almost feel his stubble on my skin, he said, “I don’t think you should be here when the ambulance arrives.”

  “I think James is still hiding in the back room.”

  He leaned back, his hair briefly covering his eyes before he swept it away. “Then we’re on the same page, Eden Hunter.”

  “Don’t get used to it,” I said with a quick wink. Then I exited the shop, bell ringing behind me as I headed home.

  36

  I saw the Porsche parked on the service road near the orange tree. That meant Lucille had kept up her end of the bargain—not that I was surprised. Violating magically binding contracts tended to have bad consequences. Besides, she was presumably happy with her haul: a Reaper of her own, the fragment of her blackened soul returned, and Stefan’s head separated from his body. Of course, had she known Dante and his crew planned to unearth a god-killing sword, she probably would have reconsidered amnesty. For now, however, the carefree treasure hunter had survived to live another day on paradise.

  Spotting Dante up the black sand beach, I waved at him. He gave me a nod, his messy sandy brown hair blowing in the pleasant breeze. A loose t-shirt billowed around his bronzed arms, and he walked barefoot, his shoes located safely on the dry part of the sand. After all the storms, there wasn’t a hint of a cloud on the blue horizon. His golden-flecked eyes glittered in the mid-afternoon sky as I approached.

  “I received two visits today,” Dante said, poking at the wet sand with his toes. For someone who had lived for five hundred years, he seemed quite content with the simple act. When your life hangs briefly by the most tenuous of threads, tiny pleasures take on more significance. “I suppose I owe you my life, Eden.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Of course, you could have perhaps left my name out of the vampire’s mouth.”

  “Sure, if you wanted to end up hanging from a banana tree some day.” Better for Aldric to know and forgive—or bury it deep—than for him to discover those responsible a year from now and fly off the handle.

  “They said you have it in writing.”

  “Magically binding.”

  He winked slyly. “You’re a real shark. Remind me not to cross you.”

  “Hard to forget when I saved your ass.”

  “If I do recall, Eden, I saved you down in the caves.”

  “Technically, you brought me into your five hundred year feud,” I said. “By the way, about that—”

  “She gave me immortality,” Dante said. “Gold package. Can’t be killed, maimed. Not bad.”

  “But?”

  “You know Lucille. Everything comes with a trial.”

  “I’m more curious about who you had to kill for the ingredients.�
�

  A wave crashed on the dark shore, the tide running over my shoes, soaking them in salty foam. I watched a brown pelican dive into the water like a jackhammer and return with a glistening fish. Dante crouched and skimmed his fingers through the foam residue coating the wet sand.

  “The only person I’ve ever loved.” He looked almost wistfully out at the perfect vista, his devil-may-care guard dropped completely. His fingers were rubbing across his carefully maintained designer stubble as if they were searching for answers. “But that might be a story for another time.”

  “Then tell me your trial.”

  He glanced up at me, the friendly smile returning. “Oh, that’s easy.” He hopped up. “I was supposed to stop treasure hunting.”

  “How long did that stick?”

  “Less than two months.” Dante shook the water from his fingers and stretched out his shoulders, revealing the hard V in his lean torso. From the way he arched his back, it was intentional. Probably worked on all the girls. “Worse two months of my life.”

  “You’ve been running for five hundred fucking years? Are you insane?”

  “It only made it more exciting.” Dante tipped an invisible hat. “I believe there’s someone waiting for you at the house.”

  “Who?”

  “Platinum hair, long legs for days, lips to—”

  “That’s my sister.”

  “I know,” he said, giving me a cocky wave. “But I like your look better.”

  I bit my lip to prevent from blushing like a teenager.

  Dante picked up his shoes and walked away, back toward the service road. I watched him for a moment and shook my head. I could’ve told him about the glyph-cipher, but I’d have to feel him out a little more. A little voice in my head said, yeah, you’d like that, and I rolled my eyes at my baser instincts. That was a dumpster fire waiting to happen. He’d already gotten me almost killed once.

  With a strange mixture of trepidation and excitement, I hurried up the black sand to greet Sierra for the first time in four years. I saw her hair, glimmering in the perfect sun, before I saw the rest of her. Heart beating fast, a thin sweat trickling down my brow, I slowed down and tried to walk as casually as possible toward the marble steps.