by Jenna Black
As soon as it was late enough for businesses to open, I located the nearest shooting range—which, of course, was outside the D.C. city limits, making me thankful for our efficient public transportation. I had a feeling that with Anderson and his crazies potentially after me, I might need to use the gun whether I wanted to or not, and it wouldn’t hurt to try to upgrade my shooting ability from “poor” to “okay.”
I picked up a new cell phone to replace the one that was destroyed in the accident. Then I showed up at the shooting range by ten o’clock, my nerves taut with one hell of a caffeine buzz even while I found myself yawning every two point five seconds. There were three other people shooting—all men—and even through the earplugs, the sound of all those gunshots made me jumpy. Probably just the caffeine. Or the fact that the guy standing nearest to me was firing an assault rifle, which sounded rather like a cannon.
I figured with the exhaustion, the caffeine, and the way I jumped every time the assault rifle fired, I was going to have one of my worst shooting performances ever. I took aim at the target, taking a few slow, deep breaths in hopes that it would soothe my frazzled nerves. The guy with the cannon fired off a shot right as I was squeezing the trigger. My attempt to go Zen notwithstanding, my arms jerked as I jumped at the noise.
I almost laughed when I saw that my shot had hit the bull’s-eye. Maybe I should take target practice while exhausted and jumpy more often. I took another couple of deep breaths to dispel the remainder of the adrenaline, then fired again. This time, my hands were steady.
And I hit the bull’s-eye again.
Luck, I told myself. Even a bad shot had to hit the bull’s-eye occasionally. That I’d just done it two times in a row was nothing more than a freaky coincidence. I lowered the gun so I could roll my shoulders a little bit to work out the tension. Then I took my shooter’s stance again and squeezed the trigger.
I swallowed a yelp when I saw that for the third time, I’d hit the bull’s-eye. If two times in a row was a freaky coincidence, what was three times in a row?
I lowered the gun again, this time looking it over as though I might find some magical can’t-go-wrong gizmo had been attached while I wasn’t looking. Of course, there was nothing different about the gun. I couldn’t help remembering Maggie telling me that my glyph meant I was a descendant of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt. Crazy talk, right? But if it was crazy talk, then it seemed like an awfully strange coincidence that suddenly I seemed to have become a sharpshooter.
Telling myself three bull’s-eyes in a row was statistically within the realm of possibility even for a lousy shot like me, I raised my shaking hands and took aim again.
I was considerably less surprised this time when I hit dead center.
I took about twenty shots after that, experimenting. I tried aiming at things other than the bull’s-eye. Being nowhere close to ambidextrous, I tried firing with my left hand. I even tried shooting with my eyes closed.
Whatever I aimed at, whatever crappy technique I used, I hit my target one hundred percent of the time, once and for all dismissing the statistical realm of possibility.
There was no more denying that I’d become a supernaturally good shot.
I headed back to the hotel in a daze, spaced out enough that I missed my stop on the Metro. I decided to walk the rest of the way, figuring the fresh air might do me good. I’m generally pretty good at denial, but the evidence was piling up too high. I might have been able to talk myself out of believing the things I’d seen the cultists do last night. They could have been tricks, after all, though who would go through such elaborate lengths to pull a trick like that on me? But it was much harder to explain away the glyph on my face, or the way my body had healed overnight, or the way I had suddenly become an expert marksman.
What am I talking about, “much harder”? It was impossible to explain away.
Much as I tried to convince myself that there had to be a rational explanation that didn’t involve woowoo, I failed. I didn’t know where that left me—except with an aching head and an urge to give in to hysteria—but I’d had to learn to accept some very unpalatable truths in my life, so I would eventually find a way to accept this one.
I was in too much of a stupor to pay attention to what was going on around me, so at first I didn’t notice the black Mercedes with the tinted windows that was pacing me. Even when the car behind it started honking indignantly, it barely registered on my conscious mind. Then, the Mercedes sped up a little, getting ahead of me and pulling into what would have been a parking space if it weren’t for the fire hydrant.
The Mercedes’s door opened and a man in an expensive charcoal gray suit got out. I froze in my tracks when I saw the stylized lightning-bolt glyph on the back of his hand.
SIX
He was not one of Anderson’s people. He was a complete stranger to me, and the warm smile that curved his lips as he looked me up and down did nothing to ease my instant, instinctive dislike.
Many women would find him handsome. I supposed that objectively he was—tall, nicely muscled, manly square jaw softened by dimples when he smiled, and lovely gray-blue eyes. But the way he carried himself reminded me of every arrogant, entitled, self-centered country club asshole Steph had ever introduced me to, all rolled up into one pretty package.
I considered trying to walk past him, but the look in his eye told me he had no intention of letting me ignore him. There was nothing overtly threatening about him, but my gut was screaming “danger, danger” even so. I’d ignored my gut instincts last night, and look where it had gotten me.
“What do you want?” I growled at the stranger.
He blinked in what I suspected was surprise. I bet that smile of his had charmed every woman he’d ever used it on, but I was made of sterner stuff.
The smile flickered for a moment, then came back at full force as he took a step toward me. “My name is Alexis Colonomos,” he said, holding out his hand for me to shake.
Instead of shaking his hand, I stepped backward, trying to keep a safe distance between us. I had no idea what a safe distance might be, however. Despite my recent skepticism, I had no doubt Alexis Colonomos would turn out to have supernatural powers of some sort.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, making no attempt to sound like I meant it. “Now what do you want?”
The smile flickered again, and his eyes narrowed in what might have been anger as he let his hand fall back to his side. When he put the smiley face back on, it had lost some of its wattage, and there was a hard glint in his eye that suggested he was a man used to getting what he wanted.
“I just wanted to introduce myself,” he said, and there was an edge in his voice that hadn’t been there before. “And have a little talk.” He gestured toward the open door of the Mercedes.
“If you think I’m going to get into a car with a total stranger, you’re nuts.” I took another step back, prepared to turn and bolt if he made a hostile move.
He didn’t, but his smile lost even more wattage, until it started to look more like a snarl. “You’re Liberi,” he said from between gritted teeth. What were the chances he and Maggie would use the same unusual term to describe what I apparently was if it were all some freaky cult delusion? Yet another nail in the coffin of denial. “I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to.” And everything about his body language said he wanted to very much.
Personally, I didn’t think I’d been rude enough to warrant the level of hostility that radiated from this guy, but based on the behavior I’d witnessed last night, either it didn’t take much to set a Liberi off, or I just had a natural knack for it.
“You can’t kill me,” I clarified, though I felt ridiculous making the claim. It was one thing to almost kind of believe it, and quite another to truly accept it. “That doesn’t mean you can’t hurt me.” I’d seen evidence enough of that last night.
The smile turned into a sneer. “Cowardice isn’t becoming to a Descendant of Artemis.”
I guess I wa
s supposed to be so insulted by the suggestion I was a coward that I would meekly climb into the car. “There’s a difference between cowardice and caution,” I told him. “If you want to talk to me, then do it. If you don’t want to do it standing here in the street, then offer to buy me a cup of coffee. I might take you up on it.”
Maybe the smartest thing for me to have done was to turn around and run away. The vibe I was getting off this guy was anything but friendly. But I didn’t know what he wanted from me, and I wasn’t sure that ignorance was bliss. Plus, I had no idea how he’d found me. Even if he was some friend of Anderson’s—a friend I’d never seen hanging around the mansion—he shouldn’t have been able to locate me when I was nowhere near any of my usual stomping grounds.
Obviously, he could find me, and if I ran off now, he’d probably be even less friendly the next time he did. Which was why I was prepared to at least listen to what he had to say.
“Then may I buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked, and it looked like it physically hurt him to concede.
“I’d love one. How ’bout we head over to that diner?” I pointed at a greasy spoon on the opposite side of the street. It was doing a brisk business, so I figured it had good bad food and served bottomless cups of coffee.
Alexis looked at the place and curled his lip in disdain. I pegged him for the kind of guy who thought he was slumming it if he ate in a restaurant that charged less than five bucks for a cup of coffee. “Fine,” he said, then slammed the door of the Mercedes with more force than necessary.
I hate sore losers.
I kept just enough space between us to be out of arm’s reach as we crossed the street and headed to the diner. He probably wasn’t going to try anything in broad daylight, in front of tons of witnesses, but you can never be too careful.
When he reached the diner, he pushed the door open and held it for me. It meant I had to brush by him to get inside, and I didn’t like it. I reminded myself once again that he wouldn’t dare try anything on a crowded street. His expression darkened as he noticed my hesitation, but I went inside before he could make an issue of it.
A waitress was clearing a table for two just as we walked in the door. The hostess directed us to that table with a wave of her hand, and we slid into the booth in silence while the waitress gathered up the remains of the previous patrons’ meal.
“Be right back,” she said with a distracted smile, then carried her loaded tray to the kitchen. As far as I could see, there was only one other waitress in the whole place, which explained why they were both moving so fast and looked so wild-eyed.
There were crumbs all over the place, and a smear of ketchup looking rather like a bloodstain threatened to drip over the edge and onto my lap. I grabbed a napkin from the dispenser to wipe it away, watching Alexis surreptitiously as I did. His lip remained curled in that singularly disdainful sneer, and his arms were crossed over his chest as if he were trying to minimize contact between himself and the diner. To say he looked out of place was an understatement. No one else was even wearing a dress shirt, much less a suit and tie.
The waitress came back and wiped off our table with a damp rag, but she had a harried look and wasn’t very careful about it. A couple of crumbs tumbled off the table and onto Alexis’s lap. His face reddened and his eyes sparked and I thought sure he was about to make a big scene. He restrained himself, however, and settled for staring daggers at her. It was all I could do not to smile.
Have I mentioned that this guy rubbed me the wrong way?
“What can I get you?” the waitress asked, pulling out her pen and order pad without making eye contact.
“Two cups of coffee, please,” I said, because I was afraid that if Alexis opened his mouth he was going to be a total asshole.
“Anything else?”
“That’ll do it,” I said, and Alexis didn’t contradict me. I suspected he’d rather starve to death than eat anything served at this place.
She was walking away before the last word left my mouth. If I couldn’t see with my own two eyes how overworked she was, I’d have thought she was being rude.
I leaned back in my seat and eyed the dangerous-looking Liberi who sat across from me. I got the distinct impression that he’d been planning to charm me when he’d stepped out of that car, but I figured my attitude had killed that plan by now. Maybe I shouldn’t have come on so strong right from the start, but I had a right to be grumpy after everything that had happened.
“So, what was it you wanted to talk about?” I asked as the waitress put two ceramic cups on the table and filled them with dark-as-pitch coffee. She reached into her apron and pulled out a handful of creamers, leaving them in a pile in the center of the table. She opened her mouth—I think she was going to ask if we needed anything else—but shut it again when she saw the forbidding expression on Alexis’s face. He waited until she’d walked away to answer me.
“You’re new in town,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.
I raised my eyebrows as I took a sip of coffee. “I am?”
He frowned at me, dark eyebrows forming a severe V. “You have to be. You’re not one of ours, and you’re not one of Anderson’s.” He said Anderson’s name with another one of those little sneers of his.
I sipped my coffee, wishing I’d been able to believe Maggie last night so I could have asked her a lot more questions. There was a hell of a lot I didn’t know about being a Liberi. For instance, I had no idea what Alexis was talking about when he referred to “one of ours.” Nor did I have any idea what—if anything—I should tell him about myself.
“Let’s say for the sake of argument that I am new in town. What’s it to you?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and pushing his untouched coffee out of the way. “You’d best have a care how you talk to me,” he said in a menacing whisper that carried just fine even in the noisy diner. “Descendants of Artemis are rare, and therefore valuable to us, but that will protect you only so far.”
Ah, we’d reached the threat-making stage of the conversation. I’d had a feeling this was coming. Maybe if I hadn’t just had the scariest night of my life, I’d have been more intimidated. Maybe it would have been smart to be more intimidated.
I let my hand slide under the table and smiled broadly—not the reaction Alexis was hoping for, if his scowl was anything to go by. “You know what I was doing before you ambushed me?” I asked, keeping my body language completely relaxed as I unzipped the front compartment of my backpack. I rested my hand lightly on the .38 Special. “I was at a gun range, polishing my skills. Turns out I’m a very good shot. Feel like giving me some more target practice?”
I had no intention of actually shooting the guy, or even taking the gun out. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to shoot a person in the heat of battle, much less in cold blood, and I sure as hell wasn’t waving a gun around in a crowded D.C. diner. Felony charges and a prison stay would not improve my situation. But part of being a good P.I. is being a good actress.
I was a good P.I.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he growled at me.
I blinked at him innocently. “I wouldn’t? How the hell would you know that? You don’t even know my name, do you?” I’d seen no reason to introduce myself, and if he’d already known my name, I suspected he’d have flaunted the knowledge by now. “I could be sweet as sunshine or a total psycho bitch for all you know.”
I leaned forward till I was almost nose-to-nose with him, meeting his glare with a good bit of steel. “Back the hell off, or you’re going to find out the hard way,” I said as I cocked the gun, making as much noise about it as possible. The diner was kind of noisy, but not so much that Alexis couldn’t hear and recognize the sound.
I got the feeling Alexis desperately wanted to come across the table at me, but he just sat there glaring instead. Then his gaze flicked to something over my shoulder, and his eyes widened.
It was a classic distraction technique, but I couldn’t help taking a
peek over my shoulder anyway.
Alexis hadn’t been trying to trick me. Standing in the doorway, giving me a decidedly neutral look, was Blake.
The hostess—who had to be pushing fifty—was giving him goo-goo eyes, and practically every adult female in the place, not to mention a few men, were surreptitiously looking him over. There’s nothing like a well-built pretty-boy to get the hormones working overtime.
Blake ignored all of them—even the hostess, who was trying to direct him to an open seat at the counter—and started toward our table. I uncocked the gun, then scooted over in my seat so I could have the wall at my back while keeping an eye on both men.
Blake had been only slightly less hostile than Jamaal last night, but he was barely paying attention to me today. He and Alexis engaged in a hot and heavy alpha-male staring contest. I could practically smell the testosterone in the air, even over the bacon grease and coffee. I’d have liked to get out from between them, but there wasn’t anywhere to go.
When Blake reached the table, he casually leaned against my side of the booth, never taking his eyes off Alexis.
“She’s one of ours,” Blake said, his voice as challenging as his stare. “Tell Konstantin to mind his own business.”
Konstantin? Who the hell was Konstantin? And what was this “one of ours” crap?
Alexis raised his eyebrows. “If she’s one of yours, then why are you letting her wander around the city unaccompanied before notifying Konstantin about her?”
“Get out. And leave her alone.”
I’d have snapped at Blake for trying to protect the “little woman,” only I wasn’t sure that was what he was trying to do. It felt more like he was claiming his territory.
“I don’t answer to you,” Alexis countered. “And if she really belonged to Anderson, I’m sure she would have mentioned the fact by now.”
“For the record,” I said, though I wondered if drawing attention to myself was a bad idea, “I don’t belong to anybody, especially you assholes.”
