An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose #1)

by Charlaine Harris

  “This gentleman wants to talk to Felicia, if she is truly Oleg’s daughter.” I spoke in English because I wanted Eli to understand what I was saying now.

  Sergei looked at me hard, trying to figure out the right answer. He was still holding the revolver at the ready.

  And Eli’s hands had not wavered. I didn’t know how much he’d understood of the conversation, since there had been a lot of Spanish and a lot of tension, but he realized that the child’s parentage was in question. “I need to talk about this girl’s future,” Eli said, to prod Sergei into an answer.

  This weird standoff had to end. I was trying to weigh the problem a gunshot would cause us against the itch to kill Sergei. Or I could throw the rock at him . . . if only I knew what the consequences would be. Would it blow him up? Would we get caught in the boom?

  Felicia was just inside the door, her back to it, looking from one of us to another with a lot of fear. The door behind Felicia opened, and I had a sliver of time to think, A neighbor’s come to check.

  But it was Paulina.

  “Felicia, move,” I said urgently, and she understood my alarm if not my words. She jumped to her left, glanced behind her, and screamed.

  I just about did the same.

  The thing that had been Paulina was stained with blood and dust, her gummy eyes staring out of a parched face, her fingers ripped and torn. My gun was up and ready. Sergei’s revolver was trained on her, too, but I don’t think he knew he’d pointed it at her. He was stumbling backward to get farther away, as much as he could in the small room.

  Eli said uncertainly, “Paulina?” He didn’t know if he’d buried her under the rocks while she was alive, or if this was a revenant.

  But I knew. My gun was out instantly. I shot her straightaway. I shot her five times. It was hard to aim because of the girl and Sergei, but I got her each time. She fell to the floor.

  Eli yelled, “No!” I don’t know if he was telling me not to shoot (too late on that one), or if he was protesting Paulina’s ghastly appearance.

  The thing that used to be Paulina kept struggling to roll over so she could crawl to Eli. I didn’t know if she wanted to hug him or kill him. I was betting she was aiming to kill him, since that seemed to be the theme of this trip.

  Eli seemed stuck to his chair, so I circled it as I reached under my skirt to draw out another pistol with a full clip. I stood between him and the thing. Since it was still twitching, I fired into its head. It quit moving. I’d settled it. I took a deep breath in, expelled it. Felt calmer.

  The child, Felicia, was backed against a wall, her hands balled up and pushed against her mouth. Sergei was wide eyed and speechless, his mouth hanging open from shock.

  Eli’s eyes were wide open. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. He didn’t seem aware of anything around him.

  I was disappointed, because Eli had been showing some grit. I reminded myself he’d seen what he thought was his dead brother a couple of days ago, and he’d seen his dead partner rise from the dead just now. I should make him an allowance for that.

  A man’s voice called from outside, “Sergei! What’s going on in there?”

  I pointed at Sergei, who understood he had to pull himself together. He made a big effort. He cleared his throat a couple of times. “Nothing urgent,” he called back. “We had an intruder. The problem is solved.” It was the kind of neighborhood where no one called the police after they’d heard that.

  To my relief, I could hear the voices grow fainter as the people scattered. They’d decided it was none of their business. They were right.

  It was hard to figure out what to do next. Sergei and Felicia seemed pretty much fixed in position and quiet, so I knelt beside Eli’s chair. “Look at me, grigori,” I said, and I didn’t sound like I cared that he was crying.

  He did look.

  “I’m real serious,” I told him.

  Eli nodded.

  “That wasn’t Paulina. That was the same kind of magic that made you believe you saw your brother, you know that’s true. I thought Paulina was dead. You thought Paulina was dead. Because she was. We know what dead looks like. Even if we’d both been wrong and we’d left her alive in the desert, she could not have walked from her burial place to this house without help in the time since then. And who’d give her a ride, looking like that? You hearing me?”

  “You saying that’s a dead woman?” Felicia said in Spanish. She had a shrill little voice, and I didn’t want to hear it right now, no matter what language she used.

  “That’s what I’m saying. Shut up.” I had always heard sisters were annoying.

  At least Eli was not crying anymore. But he was not speaking, either. I hoped he understood me, and I hoped he got back inside himself right now. Every bone in my body told me we needed to get the hell out of Juárez.

  “You’re the daughter,” Eli said, as shocked as if the ceiling had fallen on his head. Or as if his dead partner had just walked into the room. Evidently, Eli spoke more Spanish than I’d given him credit for.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You shot your father.”

  “He raped my mother.”

  “You shot Oleg Karkarov. The man we’ve been looking for on this whole trip. And you never told us.”

  “Yes. Can we talk about this later? Someone’s trying to kill us now.”

  Eli narrowed his eyes at me.

  “Yeah, I know, that’s always.” I took Eli’s hands and pulled. I got him standing upright. He took a few deep breaths.

  Sergei exploded. He’d been so quiet. I’d hoped he’d stay that way. “You little bitch, bringing all this to my house! What do you really want with Felicia?”

  Jesus, I wanted to shoot him. I just couldn’t take any more.

  Eli said over my head, “I ask you again, whose daughter is Felicia?”

  “Depends on why you want to know.”

  I aimed my gun at him. “No, it doesn’t. Talk.” I wasn’t negotiating anymore. I was going to start shooting again.

  “She’s mine,” Sergei said.

  I glanced at the girl as he spoke, and she looked surprised. Well, hell. “Is he telling the truth?” I asked Felicia. By that time, I wasn’t sure what language I was speaking.

  “Depends on why you want to know,” she said. I was so willing to suspend my no-killing-kids rule.

  Eli said, “If you are the child of Oleg, you can return with me to the Holy Russian Empire, and you will serve a greater purpose. You will have a good life in decent surroundings. But if you come with me, and I find out you are lying about your parentage, you will serve no purpose at all and you will be discarded.”

  That was almost as bad as shooting her, going by her reaction. Eli’s tact had flown out the window. He was at the end of his rope, too.

  “What does ‘discarded’ mean?” she asked Sergei in Spanish.

  “Tossed aside,” he replied in the same language.

  Felicia chewed on her lip, while I pulled on Eli, trying to get him to the door. Go, go, go, my brain was chanting.

  Eli was still knocked down with the shock of Paulina’s appearance. (Or maybe with knowing I’d been lying to him from the beginning. Though why he would expect anything else, I couldn’t figure. But I felt guilty.)

  “Give my friend a drink,” I said to Sergei, and he turned to get a bottle off a shelf. I could see when he considered hitting me with it, I could see him weighing the gun in my hand against his longer reach and his speed, and I could see him decide against attacking me. He opened the bottle and passed it over to Eli, who took a big swallow, then another.

  After a moment Eli’s legs worked. He was able to move with me pulling and supporting him. He was so heavy, so tall. I groaned but tried to keep it quiet.

  “Go with us, or stay?” Eli asked Felicia. “You can choose. I will not force you. I should not have
frightened you.”

  Felicia gave Sergei a glance that was all one big question.

  “Whatever you wish,” he said, a cruel burden to lay on someone so young.

  “I will stay here,” she said, making up her mind. She glared at us, all bravado. “Go to hell, you two gringos.”

  “Felicia,” I said. “If you change your mind, meet us tomorrow at the train station. I think we’ll try to catch a train out of here.”

  After a moment Felicia’s head moved in a jerky nod. I realized the girl, my cousin or my sister, was terrified of the choices in front of her, no matter how angry she tried to seem.

  We began to move awkwardly toward the door. I felt like a building was leaning against my shoulder. “It would sure help if you could walk on your own,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. “But we’ll figure out a way to get it done.”

  Eli stood free of me and took up his suitcase. He left Paulina’s bag. I didn’t know why he’d brought it this far, except maybe out of sheer cussedness. Not wanting Señora Espinoza to have Paulina’s things. My little personal bag went over his shoulder. We were set to go. Then he staggered.

  “Shit,” I said. While he leaned against a wall, I reloaded both Colts. I gathered up my gun bag and put the long strap of it over my left shoulder so it’d hang to the right.

  “Open the door,” I told Felicia, and she leaped to do it. Finally she was willing to cooperate.

  Putting my left shoulder under Eli’s right armpit, my arm around his waist, we lurched forward, turning sideways in the doorframe to fit through.

  The alleys were narrow and my burdens were heavy. I was as tired as I had ever been in my life. I wasn’t happy about anything or with anyone. At least I hadn’t had to clean up the remains of whatever had looked like Paulina. Maybe it had been Paulina, reanimated. Or maybe it had been a likeness. “Fuck it,” I said, and Eli laughed like a coyote. “You’re feisty,” he said.

  “I’m a gunnie. I have to be feisty.”

  “Where are we going?” Eli asked after a few more yards of lurching. I was staggering a little myself.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and that, too, was funny to my companion. I was glad someone was laughing. I wondered what he’d drunk. “What did your drink taste like?” I said.

  “Like fire.”

  “Do you drink much alcohol?”

  “I never have. We’re not allowed.” He laughed.

  Things just got better and better, didn’t they? “Eli,” I said, having just enough spare wind to speak, “if we see any other grigoris, you have to kill them.” It was late afternoon, so we had hours of daylight left. The only way we were going to hide was to find a house or hotel we could shut ourselves into. Eli was shocked, drunk, or a combination of the two.

  “All right,” Eli said, giving the top of my head a kiss. Jeez. “I will.”

  And he did.

  They came around the next corner, looking for us.

  They were as surprised as we were.

  I shot the woman on the right—she was stout and old—and she went down with a gurgle of surprise, though it was a gutshot, so she was still alive. Eli withdrew the blood of the middle guy, a man with skin so black it was like coal. I shot the man on the left in the head, and whatever spell he’d had prepared went wide.

  It was over in less than five seconds. I ended the woman as we stepped over the bodies. What was one more shot now? I could hear people moving around, and voices calling out, but the inhabitants of this corner of Juárez had retreated inside whatever door was nearest when they’d heard the first shot. They weren’t coming out until they were sure the shooting was over.

  We ran. It was awkward as hell, but we had to move fast. We were the most suspicious spectacle possible, we didn’t belong here, and it would be amazing if we didn’t have blood spattered on us. I didn’t have time to check. We kept moving in the direction of broader streets and shops, the major thoroughfares.

  Until I wondered why. We couldn’t stop now, but we had to talk about that as we moved forward.

  “Eli,” I said in as low a voice as I could manage. We slowed to a shambling walk. “We have to decide if we’re going to try to find a hotel, or if we’re just trying to find a park or something to spend the night outside.”

  “A hotel,” he said instantly.

  “Okay, great.” That solved one problem, though I thought it was odd he was so firm. “Got any idea if we’ll see more of your grigori buddies?”

  “Maybe they’re all dead. That was the biggest team I’ve ever seen for any job.” He didn’t sound too certain, and I wasn’t counting on us finally having some luck.

  “All right, then, we’ll keep moving,” I said. We set off, sighting on the streetlights of the best part of town. Eli wasn’t leaning on me as hard, but he wasn’t letting go, either. It would be great if he could carry the bag of guns, too, but I wasn’t going to ask him. He was doing so well.

  “I don’t know how come there’s no crowd.” Even if this was the kind of place where people hid from trouble, it was weird how empty the alleys were.

  “I’m sending a stay-away message,” he said. “But I’m getting weaker.”

  No wonder he was having such a hard time walking. Doing magic; being shocked several times over by attacks, deaths, deception; alcohol; and no sleep . . . “Keep up the good work,” I said.

  We were steering in a straight line, more or less. Surely a hotel had to be close. Maybe I could get a room without anyone seeing Eli. We could sleep and get clean and eat, all three things I wanted so badly.

  But then we ran into the chief of the grigori hunting party. He was a stocky, bearded man in a dark suit, and his face was covered with ink. He was waiting for his crew to return triumphant, I guessed. Eli and I were the last two people he expected to see.

  It was also lucky that he looked at me first, so he didn’t recognize Eli for one important second. In that second I stabbed him. But as he was falling, he opened his hand, and something terrible happened to me. I felt a huge blow. I saw the ground getting closer. I didn’t pass out completely, which was a pleasant surprise. Lately, I’d been unconscious way too often. But it would have been nice to be out of it for the next half hour or so. I was aware that a man in a grubby shirt was looking at me with the leer of someone who thought I was about to be taken advantage of, and I felt stairs under my feet, and I felt the huge relief of seeing a bed, being able to fall on it, having a soft surface under my back.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When I woke up for real, it was hours later. I could tell by the feel of the night.

  It hadn’t been only a happy dream. I really was on a bed in a large room. There was a ceiling fan, and it was rotating in a lazy circle. I was glad of the cool air moving over me. I glanced to the right, to see a dark window. It felt like past midnight.

  Eli was lying beside me, sound asleep. The bed was so big we weren’t even touching. His nose was pointed straight up at the ceiling. He was breathing so quietly that I put my hand on his chest to make sure it was rising and falling. His eyes opened and slewed toward me.

  “You lived,” he said with groggy relief.

  “You kill that guy?”

  “I finished what you started.”

  “What did you do with him?”

  “Left him where he lay. No choice. We had to get out of there.”

  I thought this over. “I don’t remember much after that. How did you get me here?” I asked, because I couldn’t imagine.

  “Hell if I know. I had bag straps hanging all over me, and I hooked my hands under your arms and just started dragging. I didn’t stop for anything, and I couldn’t focus on my magic anymore, and I think people were asking me questions. I just said I didn’t speak Spanish, that we’d been attacked by a grigori for no reason. They were glad to believe that. Some of them offered to help me carry you. I said
no thanks.”

  “Nice of them,” I said, finding I wasn’t sure if I was awake or dreaming.

  “It was. But inconvenient. I told them we were close to home, and our mother would be very angry if we asked others for help. Eventually we were on a halfway-lit street, and the first hotel I came to—this one—I told them you were dead drunk and asked them if I could get a room where you could sleep it off. It’s a pretty fancy place, but when I showed them the money, the bellboy and the desk clerk agreed to accept us, since they had an empty room. They took extra money in case you puked, but the desk guy helped me get you up the stairs. Then I got him to forget what we looked like. Magic, not money.”

  That was a lot of talk for Eli. “What did he do to me? The grigori?”

  “A stunning spell. He didn’t want to kill you, or maybe it was me he was aiming for. How did it feel?” he asked with professional interest.

  “Giant hammer.”

  “Lucky it didn’t strike you over your heart. It would have stopped it beating, whether he meant to kill you or not.”

  “Yeah. I’m really lucky.”

  He moved a little. I could hear his hair dragging along his pillow. “I feel you are being sarcastic.” He sounded almost playful.

  “You’re real smart.”

  “Very sarcastic.”

  “What do you intend to do?” I was tired of dreading the question.

  “Intend to do? I intend to help you to get us out of Mexico. I hope I never come back here.”

  That hadn’t been the question I was asking, but I would go with it. “But the bad stuff has been due to the people after you, and they could be anywhere.”

  “You’re right. You’re nearly always right,” he said. He didn’t sound happy about it.

  “I should have told you about my father. I didn’t like Paulina, and she didn’t like me. She would have hauled me off to Holy Russia without a second thought. And taken all my blood.”

  “That’s what you thought she would do.” He didn’t seem shocked or angry, though.