by Beth Dranoff
“Testing the theory that what you’ve lost will always be in the last place you look.” Gus chuckled. “Did you see what I did there?”
“Idiot.” I was muttering but given the look both males flashed me, I guess I could have been more under my breath about it. Then, louder: “What do you want?”
Gus sank back into the chair, his shoulders slumping and his third eye—the one above the bridge of his nose and a little to the left—fluttered and rolled. Adolescent defiance paired with adult maturity-level resignation.
Sam and I shared a look. Gus really didn’t want to be here. So why was he?
“My brother,” Gus said. “The tables have flipped, yes? I’m being hunted now?”
By a giant cephalopod that can render pickup trucks useless, an octopod squid named D’Lee and who knows how many others? Karma coming around to tentacle his blue ass?
“Yeah,” I said. “Still waiting on why you’re here though.”
“You’re gonna help me,” Gus said.
I started laughing. Tears streaming down my face. Too bad I was the only one in the room who got the joke.
“No. I’m not.” Swiping at the tears with the back of my hand. The irony sitting around my coffee table was a spiced cinnamon candy on my tongue that burned. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Sandor told me to come here.” Gus ignored my insult. “Yours is literally the last place anyone would look for me.”
“There’s a reason for that,” I muttered. Then, louder: “So what?” I leaned forward, met his gaze. Scary, ice-cold; my spine stiffened and I felt my fingertips tingle with claws shifting under the skin. I grabbed a throw pillow, turquoise with threads of pinks and orange, and wrapped my arms around it, hiding my anxiety spike with restless motion. No. We were two to one in here.
Still, I may have snagged one of those bright strands by accident.
“You break into this woman’s home,” said Sam, leaning forward to break Gustav’s fixation on scaring the crap out of me. “A woman you were trying to kill quite persistently until recently. You tell her you’re here because you’re being hunted and you’re, what, surprised she’s disinclined to help you?”
“No,” said Gus, the moment broken. “But she’s still going to do some things for me.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” Smart-ass Dana was back, or at least pretending to be. It helped that Sam was there.
“Because,” Gus said, turning his head so I could see the fathomless certainty of his stare; alien, in that moment, from anything I’d seen before. “Me owing you a favor is worth it.”
I stared him down. My heart may have been pounding but fuck it—this fear of everything, of him, was making me crazy. Maybe I was chicken or egging it. Crazy therefore fear. Did it change my irritation at yet another somebody trying to push me around?
“No guarantee you’ll stay alive long enough for me to collect,” I said.
“Odds are better if you help me,” Gus countered. “Even more so if pretty boy here gets that Pack of his behind it.”
“Pack sanctuary?” Sam shook his head, arms crossing over that chest I had a distracting urge to touch. And taste. And this was so not the time. “Why would we give you that?”
“I could pay,” said Gus, opening his six-fingered hands and scattering a glitter of azure diamonds across my table. “Enough here to buy weapons, pay some property taxes,” swiveling to look around my space, “get yourself out of this shit hole and into someplace less shitty.”
“Hey,” I said. “Not a shit hole.”
“I’ll take your offer to my Alpha,” Sam said at the same time.
I stared at him. Gus chuckled at my surprise.
“What, girlie, you thought you were special? There’s the kind of loyalty that comes from blood, like my brother, and then there’s everything else. Everyone can be bought. Even your precious Pack.”
“Sam?”
“It’s Anshell’s call,” he said. Not a straight answer, not meeting my eyes. Oh this was just great. What happened to loyalty for each and every one of us? “We’ll be in touch with our answer.”
“How do you plan to do that?” I wasn’t letting this go. “More importantly, where do you plan to do it?”
Gus watched me. None of his eyes blinked. Mine started to water, trying to outstare him and failing. I brushed the moisture away with the back of my hand. Annoyed.
“No,” I said. “You’re not staying here.”
“Then where?” Gus spread his hands again, scattering more diamonds onto the table.
“Not my problem,” I said. “And put those toys back in the Cracker Jack box they came out of.”
Gus narrowed his eyes. Yeah, that’s right. You go right on serving your bullshit. I’m on a crap-free reality diet right now, thanks.
“Consider it payback for Sandor covering your ass since you showed up in his bar looking for a job. Helping me would be a drop in the very deep bucket of things you owe him.” Gus smiled; he thought he had me. But my debt was to Sandor, not his brother, and it’s not like Sandor was calling in his chits.
“Don’t owe you anything,” I said. “Sandor wants a favor? He can ask me himself.”
“Dana.” My phone was vibrating. Call display said The Dude. Sam used two fingers to nudge it towards me without taking his eyes from Gus for more than a second. “Maybe you should answer.”
I glared at him. Long enough for the call to go to voicemail before it started buzzing against the hard wood surface again. The Dude. Stopping, restarting. Fine. Third time was apparently the charm I needed to push me past my situational passive-aggressiveness.
“Please don’t be calling for the reason I think you’re calling,” I said, skipping the hi-how-are-you formalities.
There was a hum on the other end of the line as Sandor hesitated. But he’d called for a reason, and it was important—to him.
“I need your help,” he said. “You’ve got to hide my brother until I can either get him to safety or get that price off his head.”
I grabbed the phone and went out into the hallway. Not much more private, but I needed that illusion right now.
“He tried to kill me.” My voice low. “More than once. Sandor, I can’t.”
“Dana, he’ll behave.” I’d never heard that pleading tone from Sandor before. His voice was usually so chest-rumbling deep, it was weird to hear the plaintive rise on the word behave.
“You don’t know that.” There’s no way he could, right?
“I’ll talk to him,” Sandor said. “He’ll behave.”
“Uh huh,” I replied, walking back into my apartment. Neither Sam nor Gus had moved. They’d probably heard it all. Oh well. I handed the phone to Gus. “It’s for you.”
“Yeah,” he said, flashing me a pointy-tooth victory smirk before turning away to focus on something Sandor was saying at the other end. “But—” Sandor’s voice getting louder. “I was just—” Shoulders slumping, ingesting the words being hurled by his older brother. “OK, OK. Fine.” Eyes down as he passed the phone back to me. “Your turn,” he muttered.
I shared a look with Sam as I took my phone back. Still irritated, but it’s not like we were married. Or even exclusive. Sam owed me nothing.
“Dana?” Sandor had been talking; I’d missed all of it.
“Sorry, Sand. Could you possibly repeat that?”
“Gustav won’t try to kill you. Even if the deal is lucrative. He’s going to behave on the understanding that he’s under your protection.”
I snorted. “My protection? Who are we kidding here?”
“You find a way to keep him safe,” Sandor said, “and your debt to me is done.”
* * *
Apparently with or without Pack protection, an oversized Dana-themed apartment-sitting party package would also work.
Anshell’s cooperation with any such plan was still to be determined.
Until then?
The big blue demon was staying with me.
Fanfreakingtastic.
Chapter Fourteen
“What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”
I stared at the blue-skinned, three-eyed assassin that spread nearly worthless cerulean diamonds in his wake to deflect threats, and would kill anyone if the price was right. His only allegiances, as far as I could tell, were to making bank (however the dimension he found himself in defined it) and to his brother, who was also my boss.
Yes, I owed Sandor my life many times over. At least the way he tells it. I was kind of oblivious at the time, sure, but apparently lack of awareness of an event in no way diminishes one’s debt resulting from it. Sandor had never drawn a tit for tat line between everything he’d done and why I had a responsibility to help. But come on—I’m Jewish. I speak fluent guilt, with a practical working knowledge of both undertone and inference.
Bottom line: until we figured out who the cephalopod crew was representing, and how to get the bounty on Gus released, I was going to have a big blue shadow.
“I’ll take the couch,” Gus said by way of response. Because the sun was up now and who wouldn’t be thinking about sleeping arrangements? “Better view of the door. Your building security sucks.”
No kidding. If there was any kind of useful barrier to entry, Gus might actually have been prevented from entering.
“See you in a few hours,” I said instead, heading to my bedroom area. “Don’t make me regret this more than I already do.”
“Don’t tell anyone I’m here and you won’t.”
* * *
The alarm on my phone went off at 2:45 PM. Had to be at work for 4:30 so there was just enough time for a quick set of pre-shower stretches, sit-ups, push-ups, squats and a Sun Salutation before I headed out.
Demon Blue was still sleeping. I kept my footsteps as silent as possible, his snoring shifting to a snort as I passed by. Paused to watch this beast who was an ally—however temporarily—but could just as easily flip to foe. The eyeball above his brows was sunken into his skull, the folds of flesh around it bunched into shadows lined with yet more shadows, and the skin glowed with a scarab-blue-freckled iridescence.
I probably shouldn’t have kicked Sam out. But I was irritated on principle: my sort-of boyfriend not backing me up was so not cool.
Ignored that little voice whispering in my head. The one that pointed out Sam owed his allegiance and loyalty to Anshell, not me. That their bond pre-dated ours by a lot. That they were actually brothers-in-law from the time Sam spent married to Anshell’s sister. Before she died.
Yeah. So maybe I wasn’t being reasonable.
Still, I felt the way I felt. And we owed each other nothing I guess. My bed was my own, and the demon dangling his six-toed feet over the arm of my couch was mine to deal with as well.
Did I want to change the dynamic between Sam and me? The thought of exclusivity twisted hard in my chest, and my stomach clenched into a white-knuckled fist.
Yeah. Maybe status quo would be fine for a while longer.
It was weird showering, knowing Gus was there, but I had to trust that I was safe. Or at least safe enough. He could have killed me in my sleep, maybe, and hadn’t.
I poked my head out of the bathroom. Fully covered in towel, or at least the pertinent bits.
“You staying here at my place the whole time? Or will your escort services extend to my shift at the Swan?”
Gustav’s top eye opened while the other two stayed shut, sweeping across my mostly exposed bits from the top of my ears to somewhere around my knees. Clinical. Not sure whether he did human, or female, but I didn’t appear to be getting any kind of rise from him. Did this species have sex organs? Genders? Too many questions suddenly.
He closed his eye again.
“Staying here,” he grunted. “Safer. Less expected.”
I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see it. “OK,” I said aloud as I retreated into my room to get dressed for work.
How did my life get so weird again?
Maybe “normal” was a delusion, an impossibility too many strive for and fail. Maybe this thing we call normal doesn’t actually exist.
* * *
“Coffee,” I said, staring at the Swan Song’s coffee maker and willing it to get itself ready without my assistance. Sadly voice activation wasn’t one of the machine’s standard features, nor was it yet one of my superpowers.
So instead I cleaned and waited for the brew that is true to pour through.
Eight PM was late for me and coffee, even at work. But I’d been here a few hours, and I hadn’t exactly slept well what with an assassin who’d tried to kill me crashing on my couch, and finding out that Alina was trying to convince members of the Pack to turn on me.
Maybe I’d take my caffeine with a shot of something. Bailey’s? Pretty sure I still had a bottle in the fridge somewhere below and...yes.
“I’ll have what you’re having.” That Irish brogue. Again. He thought his smile was charming but I sure as hell wasn’t going to validate that ego for him.
“What do you want, Owain?” I poured him a coffee, added a shot of the creamy whisky liqueur. “I told you I’d think about your offer. It’s only been twenty-four hours.”
“Can’t a lad share a pint,” he took a sip, grimaced at the taste, “with an old friend?”
“We’re not friends.” Rolling the sweetness around my mouth, my tongue curling at the bitter offset of the charred liquid caffeine.
“Stop holding the past against me,” he said, dropping the expected charm for something else. Something real?
No.
“Give me a fucking break,” I said. “You left. Now you’re back—and I know the back part has nothing to do with me. Us.” I lowered my voice. My tone had the six-eyeballed Glo-var podlet, with her shiny mauve skull and eyes like blooming tulips attached to waving pink stems, craning her corn-husk-shaped ears to hear more. I shifted the angle of my body to block our conversation. Maybe I was a cat sometimes. Didn’t mean I wanted anyone to suffer for that curiosity.
“Really? It’s like that?” Owain actually feigned surprise. I knew better. You don’t spend so many years shooting up the ranks of the Agency as an idiot. Even an idiot savant, which Owain definitely was not. Nope. He was just your normal, crème de la crap variety. Although not an idiot—fair is fair. No, he was the man who chose to leave. Leave me.
So yeah. It was like that.
Making his tracking me down with an Agency offer that much more curious.
“What do you want, Owain?” I couldn’t even look at him, wiping at the already spotless bar counter surface, firm underneath hands that would otherwise belie my bravado with their tremors.
He didn’t respond; instead he nudged his coffee cup to the side, a few inches to the left, and started drawing circles in the moisture with his index and forefinger. At least that’s what it looked like from here. Something he used to do. Like doodles, only with water and hands.
“You happy here?” Owain looked up at me, stilling his finger sworls by wrapping his hands around his mug. “You did all that school, training, for what? So you could become Bartender of the Year in a mixed-species dive bar down by the docks? I don’t get it.”
“What’s to get?” I stopped cleaning, clenching the edge of the curved surface, white-knuckled. “It’s not forever.”
“I’ve read the terms. It’s a good offer from the Cinegon,” Owain said. That would be the elite leadership team of the Agency’s Ottawa office. “Good enough to get you out of this shit hole and back on the path you’re supposed to be on.”
“Oh?” My laugh, brittle, broke off a bit at the end. “What the hell do you
know about my destiny? I’m not that sweet little innocent Dana you used to know. Shit changes.”
“I can see that,” he replied, holding my stare without flinching. “But so do people.” He reached out to touch my hand and I jumped back. Out of his accessible range. “What, you can change and I can’t?”
“Why would you?” I struggled to keep my voice from shaking. Still angry. “What would you get out of it?”
“You?” He glanced at me as I glared back, then looked away again. “Your forgiveness?”
“Bullshit,” I said. “After all this time, you come back with an offer from your boss to get me to do a job—and all you really want from me is to pat you on the head and say there there, I forgive you, I trust you, everything will be rainbow-farting unicorns? Seriously? How stupid do you think I am?”
“You’re not,” Owain said. “Stupid.”
“Gee, thanks for the validation,” I said. “But I don’t need your approval.”
“Clearly,” he said. No trace of flirt on now.
“Let me guess,” I said. “Our past connection is a flag in both of our files. Someone Agency-side thinks I’ve got something they need to make a mission all it can be. But why would I help them out? Can’t just ask. Hmm.” I tapped my lower lip with my index finger, pretending I didn’t know what I was going to say next. “Maybe sweeten it with a former lover. Things ended abruptly there, right? Maybe go, do a bit of give and get on the closure, see if you can ride all those untapped emotions with a deal and seal?” Owain didn’t respond, looking down at his hands. “Yeah. Not much to say to that eh?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Then looked up again. Blue eyes cool, ice chips floating in a frozen martini. “That’s what you want to hear, right?”
“Fuck you,” I said. “And the horse you rode in on.”
“That horse, I’ll have you know, has an engine with power your truck can maybe glimpse at in a late-night pizza dream. And,” he continued, “I paid for it in cash.”
“Should I be impressed?”
“Hate me all you want,” Owain said, “but this job will make you good bank. Don’t throw the opportunity away because you’re pissed at something I did when we were basically kids. Be smart.”
