Mez growled at me under his breath as we stepped off the curb onto the communal parking lot. “Why do you keep staring at me? Did I get something wrong with my human guise?”
I smacked at his arm without connecting and scrambled to reassure my friend. “It’s not that, Mez, I just like your normal face better.”
Silver tilted her head back and laughed at the sky. “Good save, Cass.”
James was in the lead, and I didn’t miss how his shoulders hunched when Silver spoke. He changed his direction and we all angled toward my favorite vehicle in our stable of motorized transportation—the recently returned 1990 Suburban I’d nicknamed The Beast. The two tone original paint was in good shape and the tires were giving off an Armor All shine.
Tim was serious about his charges, and he’d been pissed to the max when James, Silver and I went to town with one of his metal babies and abandoned it in a hotel parking lot to flee a Warp hit squad. He forgave us later when he realized our negligence saved it from being sucked into the tornado that zigzagged through the old compound, leaving a trail of random destruction and twisted wreckage. Our clan lost half its fleet in one chaotic afternoon.
As James opened the driver side door the heavy metal hinges popped and groaned.
I yelled, “Shotgun!”
Silver hugged Mez’s arm. “I’d rather sit in the backseat anyway.”
Once we were all loaded and buckled, James turned the key in the ignition and fired up The Beast. The cracked vinyl under my butt vibrated with power and I thinned the shield so I could feel it in my palms and on the soles of my feet through the thick leather of my boots.
James put the Suburban in drive and we navigated the curved lanes to the front gate where we were waved past by a curvy, redheaded ex-girlfriend of James’ named Swindell. I rummaged deep to feel some jealousy of the Scarlett Johansson look-alike but there wasn’t any. She even smiled at us as we blew by going a whopping twenty miles an hour through an already open wrought iron gate.
Traffic was tame since the morning rush hour was over, but the accelerator got pushed to the floor anyway and I smiled at the growl of the automatic transmission as it cycled through the gears on its own without hesitation. I glanced from under lowered lashes at James and one of his hands slid off the steering wheel to cup my knee as he settled further into the driver’s seat.
Silver spoke up from the first row of bench seats. “So are we allowed to eat again or are y’all gonna drive us all the way down 19th Street just to tell Chavarria to shove it?”
Lone fist tightening on the steering wheel, James darted a glance in the rear view mirror, then quickly went back to surveying the road. “Do what you want, Silver, you usually do.”
Mez leaned forward to rest his forearm between our heads. His voice was loud, even over the roar of the engine and the wind noise leaking in around the aged rubber door seals. “You will not punish Min Leoght Cor for her enforced use of your sister’s body. No one wants this, least of all my beloved.”
I turned to look at my friend, but all of his attention was aimed at James so I was treated to a view of his ear. This close, because I knew what I was looking for, faint shading around his jaw let me know where the light field began and ended. Mez had really only had to alter his eyes and mouth, the rest of his body was close to human in basic structure.
Something nagged at me. I started to speak before I’d really thought it through, forming the question as the words tumbled between my lips like rubber pebbles. “Everyone keeps saying it isn’t Silver’s fault, but what if it is?”
My twin exhaled as if I’d sucker punched her. “What?”
Mez and James gave me all of their attention and I caught the red eye of a stop light in the corner of my vision before I screamed, “Red light!”
Brakes squealed and rubber burned, but we managed to stop mere centimeters from the older model VW Passat sedan in front of us. The driver, a female with a messy bun and a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth, casually flipped us the bird right in front of the toddler in her back seat. Parent of the year she wasn’t, but I didn’t feel like wiping out any families today.
Mez punched my headrest. “Explain, Sustor Cor.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and turned sideways against the band of the seat belt that I wore to avoid a ticket rather than bodily harm. “When Silver restored balance to Kara’s mind, body and soul, she told Kara that she’d made sure she wouldn’t ever get lost again. Silver, I believe your exact words were, I took precautions, so what did you do and is it still active?”
Silver’s expression on Kara’s altered face looked dumbstruck. “Oh shit, I’m so stupid.”
I shook my head. “You aren’t stupid, Sister, we both forgot. The question is, do you know how to reverse it?”
Eyes that matched my own looked inward as my twin went through the process in her mind. The combination of darker skin and white hair actually looked pretty with the honey brown of her iris, and I didn’t see our dead friend any longer in the lines of her face. Silver closed her eyes, I assumed to examine the problem in the Web. I wanted my sister back where she belonged though, no matter how convenient Sil or Corinne thought this current bodily arrangement was.
James gunned it and almost rammed the Passat when the light turned green. His hands gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and the muscles in his jaw rippled and jumped as he ground his teeth together. He pushed one foot down on the floorboard and shifted his hips on the bench seat as he mumbled, “Sorry.”
Silver broke out a smile that was brighter than the chemiluminescence of white phosphorous and just as brief. “I’m free.”
Our eyes met as Mez wrapped a long arm behind her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She darted a glance at the back of James’ head and then at me. I patted my sternum and said, “Love you forever, love you for always.”
A tear glaze was blinked away before she whispered, “I am real and I will never leave you.”
I faced the windshield again before we got any sappier and dared a look at James. His body was so stiff, he looked petrified. He seriously needed to lighten up and stop trying to wreck The Beast—Tim wouldn’t be the only person pissed if that happened.
“Have you been drinking from Lake Natron?”
He ducked his chin but kept his eyes glued to the road. “If you’re referring to the alkaline lake in Tanzania that calcifies animal corpses, no. Is that your clever way of telling me to cool out, Cass?”
“Maybe.”
Something plucked at my strings; a feeling of unrest and puzzlement. I asked over my shoulder, “Silver, if Kara could fade how were your Web precautions strong enough to hold you in her against your will?”
Mez’s jaw lowered in preparation to defend her, but Silver smacked his arm down when he went to grip the top of the seat by my cheek.
She held one finger aloft, aimed at the sky. “You’ve got a point, Cass. Hmm…”
James stared ahead with dead eyes through the bug spotted glass. “You said what you did was to prevent Kara from getting lost, Silver. Well she wasn’t. Kara knew exactly where she wanted to go.”
His breathing went slow as I watched his chest rise and fall.
James blinked and shifted his left leg on the floorboard. “Besides, I kind of picture fading to be amorphous. Poof, you’re gone in a cloud of smoke, or you melt so fast there’s no way to be held.”
Silver dropped her finger, at a loss for words for once.
We all lapsed into silence after that, and I stared out the passenger window as we drove by one of two major hospitals in town and then onward toward the sprawling green lawns of Texas Tech University. New dorms were going up with stunning speed. The University had taken great pains to make sure all the new buildings had brick in the same patchwork tan as the rest of the campus. For an institution of higher learning Tech was young—founded in 1923. Classes were in full swing and pedestrian students walked along the curbs or hitched heavy backpacks on their shoulders
as they waited for a chance to cross the busy road.
Past University Avenue the structures switched to fast food and commercial buildings, anything from a bank’s imposing glass fronted multi-floor rectangle to a mom and pop donut shop in a tiny white cinderblock single story square. We passed a high school, car dealerships, title loan vultures preying on the desperate and one empty lot advertising the construction of a new fire station.
The Cast Iron Skillet sat on the left just before the I-27 overpass. Their hours were limited to breakfast and lunch—no dinner—and they were closed Sundays. I wondered if being tucked on the edge of the bar district had anything to do with it. Maybe the owner didn’t feel like dealing with drunks craving pancakes.
A sculpture of giant black glasses, made to honor a famous long dead local musician, sat on the green lawn in front of a museum across a side street, and a multitude of vehicles had spilled over to park there since the tourist spot wasn’t open at this hour and downtown parking was limited.
An extended cab short bed half ton GMC Sierra with cheery cherry paint and a stainless steel tool box you could eat off of backed out of a prime side parking spot. James inserted the Suburban in the vacated rectangle with two smooth hand shuffles of the wheel.
The wind wasn’t blowing too hard, judging by the scraggly skeletal limbs of the leafless trees across the street. Since we’d promised to keep our shields up I hoped no one would notice if our clothes and hair didn’t get ruffled. With that in mind we hurried to get inside.
I took point with James behind, then Silver and Mez making the caboose. The dessert case was already full of various pies and an odd nut-covered brownie or two. Any kind of sweet you desired from traditional cherry to sawdust could be bought by the slice and served direct to your table on a small Styrofoam plate. The hostess stand was unoccupied but the shoeshine gentleman gave us a nod and an ingratiating one sided lip twitch.
When we didn’t indicate interest in his services he went back to staring out the window at the passing cars and stropping a rag through his palm as a way to pass the time. It was hard to tell his age. The whites of his eyes were yellowed like you sometimes saw in the elderly. His arms moved steady and strong with no tremors or weakness. A black Tech baseball hat hid any gray in his close cropped curly hair and his slender legs were covered in well-worn but serviceable steel gray slacks with a tucked in collared golf shirt. The loafers he wore looked like an advertisement for the care he committed to his trade.
All the square Formica tables were occupied with construction crews, city employees and a general population of the working class with a few white collar types in the mix. James stepped out and waved down one of the waitresses after she dropped off the steaming plates on her delivery tray. The twenty something’s kohl-lined eyes counted us and she held up one finger before hot-footing it to the bustling kitchen. As the metal door swung open the racket of pans and the hiss of grease grew louder over the voices of chatting diners.
A few strangers looked our way with random, passing interest but no one we knew or recognized sat in the large open area at first glance. Most of the curious stares were drawn to Mez; it wasn’t often that anyone saw an eight foot tall man in daily life. Most of them would probably assume he played ball of one sort or another at the University.
At the back through a glass window I could see a smaller area with tables that must be used for meetings or parties sometimes. It was fully utilized this morning for the breakfast crowd, and Chavarria lifted his chin at us from that room. I noticed he was seated at a table with space for five more.
We made our way, dodging rushing wait staff and shoulder-held trays, both full and empty. Most of the girls were trim but a few past their prime were dressed in low cut tanks and too tight jeans with soft bulges of extra weight around the waistband.
The kitchen door opened right next to James, and the owner, a short highlighted blonde, smiled in apology, framing whitened teeth with expertly applied lipstick. “Did you get tired of waiting on me, honeys, or are you meeting Marco?”
I spoke around James’ arm, “We’re here for Agent Chavarria. Can you bring us menus?”
Her smile got brighter and the delicate wrinkles in the corners of her sky-blue eyes made her words appear heartfelt. “Any friend of Marco’s is a friend of mine! I’ll get y’all fixed up in a second, and Carrie will be by to get your drink orders.”
She disappeared behind the swinging door again after she paused to survey her domain. Customers waved and called hello or goodbye depending. This was a genuinely appreciated woman.
Silver leaned against my back with her chin on the top of my head just the way Kara used to do. I had a moment of frozen time where the past and the present collided. When I ducked forward and looked up into her face, the memory image of Kara’s mixed green and brown iris superimposed itself over the real light brown of today. Something must have betrayed my thoughts because she jerked a step away and bumped into Mez who steadied her. I snagged a hand and squeezed. Silver accepted my silent apology and we hurried to catch up with James, who’d already made it to Chavarria’s table.
The setup was actually two smaller square tables pushed together so I chose the metal-framed red vinyl cushioned chair to the right of the busily eating Agent. He barely glanced up from sopping a toasted triangle of bread in the leftover yellow guts of his already consumed fried eggs. My back was to the wall and I had a good view out of the glass into the larger area of tables. From this vantage I’d see everyone who came in the door, but they would see me too.
James chose to sit across from Chavarria, Silver sat next to me and Mez moved a chair to the end leaving James all alone on one side. I rested my cheek on my open right hand and gripped my flexed bicep with the other and watched the last bit of crust disappear into Chavarria’s mouth.
“Why did you call us here?”
He was still chewing and apparently he believed in manners because a napkin got pulled from his lap and pressed to his closed lips as he pointed to the empty hostess station.
I recognized the man waiting to be shown to a table. It had been over five years, but I would never forget the penetrating eyes and the evil, pitiless way we’d shared our brief time together. I elbowed Silver.
She sat straighter and scraped the nails of her left hand on the tabletop. “I see him.”
My sister threw her right arm over to drape on the seat back to speak in my ear.
“Laser Eyes is shorter than I remember.”
Chapter Eighteen: The Hand that Feeds You
James did a fast turn in his chair and the screech of the legs on the concrete floor made me flinch.
His brow furrowed and his green eyes darkened as his hands clenched on the table edge. “That’s him in a different body?”
I nodded and answered through tingling lips, “That’s the Soul Eater.” Silver grazed my shoulder with her fingers in a gentle caress on my shield as a reassurance.
She leaned forward. “He hasn’t seen us, Cass. Why is he here though? That’s what I wanna know.”
Our waitress Carrie, a petite curvy Hispanic girl with charcoal eyes, introduced herself and blocked our line of sight. She laid menus out, took our drink orders and promised a ticket for Chavarria’s finished meal, addressing him by first name. The people here really liked him.
After Carrie was gone, so was Laser Eyes. As I searched the room with my eyes I asked the Agent, “So you come here a lot, huh?”
He dropped his crumpled napkin to his cleaned plate and put both elbows on the table, “The food’s good but the main reason is observation of a person of interest. I take it you’ve met the man I pointed out? Do you plan on telling me who he is and how he’s connected to what happened last night, mula loca?”
I stopped my fruitless search and turned to Chavarria. “You like these people and you aren’t a jerk to them. Admit it’s more than the food and your stakeout that brings you here and I’ll tell you more.”
He angled his chair in my direct
ion and pushed with his heels to give us both some space. His short-cut hair looked black velveteen soft. Dark lashes came down that would have made any woman jealous as he blinked once and answered, “You should never bite the hand that feeds you, Rainbow. I would think a smart girl like you had that figured.”
We locked eyes. He didn’t waver, and James slapped the table to break us up.
“Stop playing games, Marco, and we’ll share just like we promised we would.”
The Agent’s mouth bent into a wide crescent shape that was meant to be a smile but failed somehow. “Look at the right corner in the dimmer section against the burgundy wall.”
In my frantic scan of the crowd I’d missed the table in question because a full party of burly construction workers had blocked it out but they were gone, leaving plates filled with used utensils and barely a crumb.
I recognized the hats first. Cardinal Cap, Grand Canyon Eyes and Doe were facing the wall but Ramon was on the same side of the table as Laser Eyes and they were deep in a tense, frozen-faced discussion.
Silver pushed off from the table edge and began to stand. Mez pulled her down by a wrist and hissed, “Patience! Sit before they realize we are watching them. The best knowledge is gathered when others are unaware you are watching.”
She twisted her arm out of his hand and fell more than sat again before griping back, “Don’t talk sense to me when I’m ready to bust somebody up, Mez. It’s annoying.”
Everyone receded to silence as Carrie arrived with our drinks. When she asked for our orders all she got was blank faces. Her gaze drifted down to the untouched menus. I guess no one was hungry anymore. Chavarria told her we needed more time, and she struggled to reverse the confused dip of her brows as she stuffed her pad and pen in her apron pocket along with the spare napkin wrapped utensils and paper covered straws.
James caught Mez’s eye when we were alone again. “I think you and Silver should go to the bathroom,” his head jerked at our quarries distant table, “if you catch my drift.”
PHOENIX (The Weaver Series Book 4) Page 15
