by Cat Adams
“Are we expecting trouble while we’re on land?”
“I hope not. But it’s a possibility.”
“Fair ’nuff.” He nodded. “Let’s do it.”
I gave him a sunny smile. He’d earned it. Because while everybody else was being macho, arguing with me, and being general all-round pains in my ass, Bubba just trusted me to know what I was doing. How refreshing.
“Who’s with me?” Bubba asked.
“Robert and I will ride with you in the truck,” Dahlmar said. “No insult to you, Mr. Creede, but your vehicle is not meant for three.” He climbed out of the car and stretched. I heard a couple of the joints in his back pop.
“Fine. Bubba, give Creede directions while I go do my shopping. I won’t be long.” I walked toward the store entrance, half-listening to Bubba telling Creede where they would be heading next. I saw movement from the corner of my eye just as I reached the door and my heart skipped a beat. It was a bat, swooping under the light—but it was just the furry mammal sort, not the evil, undead sort.
I stepped inside the brightly lit store, trying to get my emotions and my blood pressure under control. I didn’t want to think about Bruno, but being here brought back the memory of that horrible night, of Matty hurt and bitten and Bruno holding his broken body. It had worked out all right in the end, but it had been touch-and-go. The events of that night were part of what had drawn Bruno and me back together.
I shook my head. I needed to stop thinking about him. If I kept this up, my emotions would get the best of me and I wouldn’t be able to think clearly enough to do the job.
Have you ever tried to not think of something? The problem, is if you’re thinking about not thinking about something, it’s already on your mind.
It didn’t take me long to go through the aisles and get what I needed. I was trying to decide which baby food I was least sick of when one of the clerks came up to me.
“Hi.”
I looked up at the same kid who’d waited on me right after I was attacked—who was, not so coincidentally, the selfsame kid we’d later saved from Lilith and her companion.
“Hey.” I smiled at him. “I’m a little surprised you’re still willing to work nights.”
He grimaced. He was a bright kid, smart enough to know just how close a call he’d had. It didn’t make much sense for him to be here. “My dad lost his job. Right now I’m the only one bringing money into the house.”
Ouch. Didn’t that just suck. But it explained him being willing to take the risk. Still, I noticed he was wearing a very conspicuous cross around his neck.
“Well, be careful, okay?”
“Oh, I’m being careful all right. And the store’s doing their part, too. The manager’s arranged for the wards to get recharged every week now.”
“Good.”
He shuffled his feet. I didn’t blame him for feeling awkward. I did, too. “Look, I didn’t get the chance to thank you.”
“It’s okay, really.”
“I mean, I know your friend got hurt real bad and all. And I’m really grateful, so, thanks.” He smiled again. It was a nice smile. He was a good kid. Seeing him here, alive and well, made me feel good, like I’d done at least one thing right.
He changed the subject. “So, baby food and liquid protein shakes. Doesn’t look particularly appetizing.”
“It’s not,” I admitted, “but it’s what I’m stuck with, at least for now.” I pushed the cart up to the cash register with him at my side. He introduced me to the girl behind the counter as the woman who had rescued him. He made me sound really impressive. It improved my mood when I’d thought nothing could. In fact, I was actually feeling pretty good as I paid my bill and took my bags. The good feeling lasted right up until the automatic doors whooshed open.
The parking lot looked empty.
It wasn’t.
I could smell them. There were three of them. One wore cheap aftershave and I tried to remember who I knew who favored that scent. It mingled with the smells of gun oil, fresh shoe polish, and stale beer. There were other smells, too, but those were the most prevalent . . . until a man stumbled out of the shadows, covered in blood.
My pulse pounded. My vision shifted into hyperfocus; I could see every pore of his skin, that there were no actual injuries under the shredded T-shirt, that the mouthwatering blood he wore was not his. It was the blond cop from court . . . Officer Clarke. I felt a growl escape from between my lips. He would be easy prey. He believed he had the upper hand here and his fear when he realized he didn’t would make his blood taste all that much sweeter.
I looked around for Creede and the others. No surprise Bubba’s truck was gone, but where had Creede got to?
I forced myself to turn back into the store, shouting at the girl at the nearest cash register, “There’s an injured man in the parking lot. You need to go help him.” The clerk I knew started to run past me, but I grabbed him by the arm. I whispered urgently in his ear, “It’s a setup. Someone’s trying to frame me for this. I need to get out of here. Back door?”
His eyes widened, then narrowed in anger. He pointed toward the swinging doors at the back of the store, then dashed out the front after his coworker. I didn’t waste any time, racing toward the back, plastic bags of groceries banging against my leg as I ran. Yeah, I should have dropped them, but what good is surviving if I’m still hungry when I get to safety? That really would endanger the client.
I have to admit I was proud of myself for thinking of that while running for my life.
I burst out of the back door onto the loading dock, moving at vampire speed. All of my senses were ramped up—which was a good thing, because they’d thought to put reinforcements on the back exit. Gerry, nice guy Gerry, who now apparently thought I should be put down like a dog, shouted something to the other two as he reached under his jacket for his gun. I didn’t dare hit him—they wanted me to fight, wanted the excuse to execute me. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. But the monster within me was very close to the surface now that I’d smelled fresh blood. So I gave Gerry a gentle shove, intending to throw him off balance, keep him from clearing his weapon. But adrenaline and vampire strength gave more oomph to the move than I intended. He went flying, body slamming against the building with a sickening thud and a crunch that I hoped wasn’t his spine breaking.
I didn’t slow, just kept running, leaping right off the edge of the dock between two trucks. There were gunshots and I felt a sharp stinging in my legs. But it didn’t hurt enough to be a gunshot wound, so I kept going. I spun, making a sharp right, putting a parked car between me and the shooter. Seconds later I heard more shots and the explosion of car glass shattering.
A hard left took me up a driveway and into the welcome embrace of the shadowed alley between a pair of boxy warehouse-style buildings. I passed a vampire feeding on some hapless drunk. I only caught a glimpse of his shocked expression before I was out the other end of the alley, pelting down Ocean View.
I glanced backward as a squeal of tires and the roar of a high-performance engine raced past me in a blur of red and the scent of gasoline. A familiar Ferrari pulled to the curb just ahead of me, the passenger door swinging open before it was even stopped. I caught a whiff of Creede’s distinctive cologne and felt his magic rake over my skin. I hurled myself into the car, slamming the door shut. As we peeled away from the curb, I caught sight of four armed men converging on the spot where I’d just been.
13
I didn’t get a good look at the boat as we went on board, what with trying to keep the scent of my own blood from making me leap on Creede and suck on that amazing-smelling neck. I’d taken a previous fishing trip with Bubba and knew that Mona’s Rival was a really nice boat. Bubba was telling King Dahlmar all about her.
“She’s a 1986 Chris-Craft Catalina, but I put in a custom hardtop and upgraded the motor and dinghy. My wife decorated the mess and the stateroom.”
I was lying on my stomach, facedown on the pillows in
said stateroom, trying not to scream or break something as Creede used a sterilized knife and tweezers to pull fragments of baby food jar and shake-can shrapnel from my calf. That’s what the pain had been. A shotgun blast had shattered the jars and exploded the cans, which had sliced right through my jeans and embedded in my leg.
He had to reopen the wounds over and over again to dig out the bits because my skin kept healing over. I was watching television and trying to pretend that he didn’t have his hands all over my bare legs. Because it felt really, incredibly good. Until it hurt, that is. But then it went back to feeling good.
No, he probably didn’t have to keep putting his hand on the back of my thigh for balance, but . . . some of the glass had gone that deep, and it didn’t want to come out with the tools in the rinky-dink first-aid kit on the boat.
“Okay, hold still. This is the curved one I’ve been avoiding.” I braced myself and stared at the cartoons on the screen—a DVD of SpongeBob SquarePants. Bubba’s a huge fan, for some reason. The sound was off, but at least there was motion and bright colors to distract me. Still, when Creede dug out that last shard I screamed and it was all I could do not to break something.
There was an abrupt moment of silence topside, where Bubba, Ivan, and Dahlmar were enjoying a perfect night under glittering stars as the boat skimmed toward the Isle of Serenity.
Creede said, “Look, lighten up a little. You’re alive. We lost them for the moment. We’re on a boat over moving water, so they can’t track you. And on the ocean you have the advantage.”
“They’re cops, Creede, and they’re hunting me. ’Splain to me how this can possibly end well.” I didn’t mention that I wasn’t sure what advantages the ocean gave me.
He didn’t like the sound of that at all. I didn’t blame him. “You’re sure they’re cops?”
I nodded. “They were at my court hearing. They were supposed to be witnesses for the prosecution. They were seriously pissed when I got off, swore they’d get me.”
He swore a little under his breath and I felt a tug as he pulled another shard from my skin. A soft clink as he dropped it onto the growing pile and he was back to digging. “Missed one. I’ll try for the big one again now.”
I grunted a little from the pain as he cut open my skin once more. “I’m guessing it was bad enough when they thought I’d be locked up in a ritzy mental health spa like Birchwoods instead of being put down or locked up by the state.”
He finished the thought for me. “But you didn’t even get that.”
“Right. So the best they can probably hope for is to get me deported, or ‘catch me in the act’ and be forced to kill me in ‘self defense.’ ”
“Good cops don’t pull vigilante bullshit.” He sounded disgusted. His next cut was deep enough that I let out a hiss. I couldn’t blame him. Cops are supposed to be the good guys, protecting the innocent and upholding the law. Vigilantes make their own law and they’re considerably less fussy in the application.
“So they’re not such good cops.” Of course they probably thought they were. To serve and protect. Protect the humans. I was getting a little bit bitter about that. After all, I hadn’t chosen to get turned, hadn’t wanted this life. I’d accepted the risk of injury as part of the trade. Bodyguarding is a rough business. People get hurt, disabled, sometimes even killed. But they do not generally get turned into one of the monsters. I suppose I should be grateful. But for a freak of genetics and the intervention of Kevin and Emma I’d be dead. Looked at that way, I’d been unbelievably fortunate. But I didn’t feel lucky in the least.
We were silent for a minute or two. When Creede spoke again, his voice was flat and unhappy. “They got a good look at my car. All they’ll have to do is run the plates to know it’s me.”
“Sorry.” I really was sorry. The men stalking me were assholes with power. They could, and probably would, make his life hard. They wouldn’t be able to arrest him—this little escapade was completely off-the-books. That wouldn’t keep them from harassing him, pushing and prodding, trying to find something they could use against him. Of course that would be against the rules. But I’d noticed that they’d already shown a certain . . . cavalier attitude about that sort of thing.
“Shit,” he growled. He dug a little more forcefully after a curved shard and I yelled again before I could stop myself.
“Sorry. Sorry.” His voice was apologetic as he was using a cloth soaked in rubbing alcohol to disinfect the most recent cut. He was going through a lot of alcohol because he had to keep resterilizing his tools and reopening the cuts. He started to rub my thigh in a very comforting way. I didn’t stop him, which surprised me. Yeah, I didn’t know if I could get an infection, but having food- or crud-encrusted stuff embedded in your body can’t be good for you. So, if I had to put up with a little more pain to be on the safe side, that was fine. But the parts of my body that were tightening from his magic and his touch didn’t seem to care that I had just been dumped.
Apparently, he hadn’t even realized he was rubbing my leg, because when he did finally notice the slow, smooth back-and-forth motion of his hand from the back of my knee nearly up to my panty line he pulled back his hand as if he’d been caressing a hot stove.
For the next few minutes, I felt nothing but pain as the curved shard of baby food jar inched its way out of my leg. I did my best not to kick or scream, though I pounded a fist against the wall once or twice. When the glass shard was finally out, he spoke. He sounded tired, which might be the reason he was letting down his guard. “I know it’s not your fault, but I really don’t need any more trouble than I’ve already got at the moment.”
Was he still talking about the cops? I didn’t ask. “Yeah, you and me both.”
He gave a wry laugh. “We’re quite the pair.” With brisk efficiency, he gathered the mess into a neat bundle and walked toward the door. “I’ll take these up top. Bubba has a grill we can use to burn off the blood before we put it in the trash.”
“Thanks.” Leave it to a mage to take care of the magical details. My blood could be used against me magically in all sorts of nasty ways I didn’t even want to think about. Oh, it usually isn’t. Blood goes bad pretty quickly. But under the circumstances I was inclined to be cautious.
“I’ll be up in a minute.”
“Don’t bother,” Creede suggested. “We’re going to be on the water for hours and you need to get some rest.”
“So do you and the others.”
“Yeah, well there’s a bench in the mess that looks fairly comfy and a couple of decent chairs. We’ll make do. You take the bed.”
“Because I’m a girl?” I asked with a smirk.
He snorted and somehow that restored us to the way we usually behaved toward each other. At least it made the tension in me ease. “Hell no. Because you’re injured.”
I wouldn’t be injured long. But I was exhausted. And somebody was going to get the bed. I closed my eyes and slept.
“Yo, Graves. We’re almost there.”
Bubba’s voice boomed down the staircase. I blinked a few times, trying to wake up, remember where I was, and get oriented. Bright sunlight filled the stateroom and I was glad for the air-conditioning that kept the room comfortably cool and doubly glad for the sheet I’d pulled over myself. Otherwise I’d have been crisped. One good thing about boats, they’re small enough that you can find things fairly quickly. Things like the bathroom . . . I mean, the head. I threw back the sheet and stumbled over to avail myself of the facilities and wash up.
My legs looked fine. Not a scratch, and the only scars were the old ones from back when I was full human. I’d been afraid that the cuts would screw up the ivy tattoo I had climbing up one leg, but it had come through it just fine. I’d spent a fortune getting it done, in honor of my baby sister. Thinking of my sister usually brought me a sense of her spirit presence. Not today. I didn’t know if she couldn’t follow me onto the boat or just hadn’t, but neither she nor Vicki was here. Of course, they weren’t
always near. They came and went as they wished. Ivy usually came if I called her—but not always. Unlike my sister, I’ve never had actual power over the dead. Thank God. Just thinking about the horrors Ivy’s uncontrolled talent had visited on our family in my childhood gave me chills. She’d been so young and so powerful it had been really hard on all of us.
I shook my head to clear it. I needed to eat and get topside. It was only a couple of steps from the door of the stateroom into the kitchen and dining area. The tiny, galley-style kitchen was well organized and spotlessly clean. The microwave and dorm-size refrigerator were built-in, and everything else was designed to keep things from moving around in rough weather.
Opening the fridge, I grabbed one of the three cans of diet shake that had made it through last night’s adventure, flipped the top, and drained it as fast as I could. I’d been getting increasingly tired of them. The Creamy Chocolate Mocha didn’t taste too bad, but I seriously regretted the loss of the toothpaste and toothbrush I’d had in the bag that got shot. And I definitely needed a hairbrush and . . . aw, crap, sunscreen. I’d completely forgotten to buy any.
“Bubba, do you have any sunscreen?” I shouted. I really hoped he did.
“I think Mona’s got some stashed in a cabinet in the bedroom. Help yourself. But hurry up. You gotta see this.”
He sounded both awed and amused. Curious, I hurried past Dahlmar and Ivan as they came down the stairs from the deck. Based on their expressions and the tones of their voices, they seemed to be arguing, but they were doing it in a language I don’t understand, so I didn’t worry too much about it. Either I’d find out about it later or I wouldn’t.
I grabbed the sunscreen and stepped out onto the deck while slathering it on, momentarily blinded by mid-morning sunshine. I could still hear and I heard boats: lots of them; and the raucous call of gulls. Lots and lots of gulls.
Holding up a hand to shield my watering eyes, I looked to the west. A group of perhaps a dozen boats of various sizes and styles was coming up fast, moving in perfect arrowhead formation. Above them, the sky was dark with seabirds, also in formation.
