Soul Merchant (Isabella Hush Series Book 5)

by Thea Atkinson

  Even so, I couldn't shake the dread that made my shoulders pinch together as he and his partner rolled the gurney along the sidewalk toward the back of the ambulance.

  I was left alone in the doorway, watching them hoist the gurney into the back of the vehicle. Lights swept across the yard, illuminating the garbage and the rats and diaper mountain near the fence, and then it flared over my face, making me squint.

  When I opened my eyes again, the first paramedic had disappeared into the back with the patient. The second slammed the door and rounded the vehicle to the driver's side.

  I blinked as the breeze burned my eyes.

  I realized I was still holding the box. I felt as empty as the contents as I stepped back inside and closed the door.

  I couldn't just go home and pretend none of it had happened. I'd make myself useful like I'd said I would. I'd gather the meds list if there was one. I'd put the box in a bag to keep it untainted and make sure it got to the hospital.

  I stooped to pick up the string and laid it inside the box, then ascended the stairs in my shoes, feeling the familiar haunt of the thieving Isabella lurking in my psyche. I told myself this time I was using my skills for good instead of evil, and then I tittered aloud to myself when I realized I'd never truly been evil. Not compared to the things I'd seen since moving here.

  The meds in his medicine chest held vitamins and a prescription for Viagra. I tried not to judge what a man his age, with no apparent partners, might be doing with a scrip for 60 of the things dated a month earlier and was half empty.

  I tried not to judge as I noticed his bathroom was filled with lotion bottles and lube and one single latex glove.

  None of that was any of my business and I decided if he got out of this safely, that I'd hire a high class escort to make up for the lonely taint of need I witnessed in his lavatory, because in the end, I couldn't shake the sense that I was responsible somehow.

  If it was a snake, if it was poisonous, it was meant for me. That was the truth of it.

  And that was when it struck me. The snake.

  It wasn't in the box.

  So where the heck was it?

  The Viagra bottle fell from my grip to the tiled floor with a smack as I realized it had to be still slithering around the house somewhere.

  The back of my neck went cold.

  I glanced down at my feet with more than a bit of trepidation. Everything took on a different hue. Every space could be a hiding spot. Could the damn thing have found its way up the stairs? How long had it been anyway? Did one of those things die if they discharged their venom? Were they less or more angry if they had to use up their stores of poison?

  I decided to scout the damn house like a cop on a murder scene. If I could find the thing, I'd drop the box over it and answer that question later. Or not. Depending on whether I could put my hands to a hammer or not.

  The upstairs was a clean sweep that took me about ten minutes to go through. There was one bedroom, a closet, and the bathroom on that level. I could see the third-floor door was closed so I doubted the snake would have gone that way.

  That left downstairs, and I tread down the stairs slowly, panning my gaze left and right, barely blinking. I could see the box on the hallway table and the string draped over its edge. From my vantage, it was obvious there was nothing in the foyer. It was sparsely furnished and perfectly clean except for the mess the paramedics had made.

  I edged around the box, staying as close to the open areas as I could. I had to admit, my experience being quiet and careful came in handy. My ears were primed to hear the slightest noise as I shut down the sound of my heart hammering inside my head.

  I made for the kitchen first so I could grab a broom. Suitably armed, I backtracked to the living room. It was filled with furniture and bric-a-brac and the drapes were heavy things that made for perfect camouflage.

  I swept along the bottom with the handle of the broom, pulling the drapes out horizontally into the open space. I stayed far back, out of reach of what I assumed would be striking range.

  "Come out, come out you dirty bastard," I said, singing it to the tune of Hide N Seek.

  I had a short moment of panic when I caught sight of a long brown coiled up thing close to my foot, until I realized it was the lamp cord.

  "Jesus, Isabella," I said. "Get a grip."

  I continued on that way, intermittently scaring myself and chiding myself until I'd gone through every inch I could think of. All that was left was the wall shelf that took up the southern part of the apartment.

  I had no idea my landlord had such eclectic tastes. While his sofa, chair, and furniture were a mix of Shaker style and Arts and Crafts, his kitchen furniture was more modern. Mixed steel and grey appliances complimented everything in a way that would beg a decorator to cry out for joy.

  He decorated with a good eye, I had to admit. There wasn't a single sock on the floor, either. So. No cat, obviously. But the shelf was another matter. It was a hoard of material, like a cache of mismatched treasure.

  The thief in me was drawn to it.

  I laid my hand on what looked like a medieval crown, the kind you'd expect to see in movies. Beside that was a velvet-lined display box of ancient coins. My mouth twitched at that. I had no problem stealing from someone I knew, but he'd miss those and he'd certainly know who took them if he had a rational brain at all.

  But the insignificant, even dusty looking book lying on its side underneath a heap of other books took my attention. It looked like the grimoire I'd seen in Lucifer's display room, except it was smaller than the arm sized one and held vellum pages written on in red ink, in a language that was all symbols. I doubted Mr. Smith knew what he had or, judging by its placement and the dust on its page edge, that he paid it much mind.

  I knew a grimoire had to have an original owner.

  Maybe one who was still alive and looking for it.

  In one second, I reached for it. I had to push past a few other larger items to get to it. But when I wrapped my fingers around its binding, I knew I'd done the right thing. I had something to offer Maddox. Something to earn a few rubles to keep me floating a bit longer. He could keep me off Cleo's case and I could earn some coin.

  I had my fingers on it, my forearm resting against the wood of the shelf as I used the leverage to heft it from its spot. And in that moment between lifting the book and pulling back, a flash of black shot out from the depths of the shelf to strike at me.

  I dropped the book onto the floor and yelped in pain. Heat streamed up my arm as though I was running a line of boiled water over my skin.

  My one thought as I clamped down on the bite with my free hand was that Cleopatra had been looking for her poison’s chest.

  And she'd been killed by a snake.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I FLICKED MY ARM SHARPLY to the right out of instinct. The thing that had bit me remained attached.

  "Fuck," was the most intelligible thing that came out of my mouth. Not just because of the pain that was already coursing up my arm, but because I knew what dangled from it, refusing to unlatch.

  The snake.

  I felt dizzy seeing it hanging there. I wasn't sure if it was because of terror or adrenaline or a blast of poison moving through me that was making me feel that way, but I definitely was losing my cool.

  My feet spun. I whirled in circles. I shook my arm like I thought I was about to lift off on my own steam.

  All I knew was I wanted the thing off me. I didn't even care if it tore a hole in my skin.

  It. Had. To. Come. Off.

  The snake was stubborn. The more I shrieked and shook, the harder it clamped down. The more the strike site hurt. The dizzier I got.

  It was pure terror that sent me back to the bookcase. Books and knickknacks got swept aside in my haste to lay my arm against the shelf. I braced. Inhaled. The snake hung from the edge with its tail curling and uncurling in time with the waves of nausea cramping my belly.

  My own breathing was so l
oud in my ears I knew some part of myself had separated and stood aside my body. That part of me was cool and collected. It measured exactly how bad the situation was, eyed the length of the snake, and then added it all up to pretty freaking bad.

  I grabbed the nearest item to me with my free hand. Something solid and heavy. I swung.

  It connected to the snake's body with a dull thudding sound that told me it had done nothing to injure the serpent at all.

  I struck again.

  And again.

  Whatever I was holding collided against the edge of the shelf through the snake's body and bounced off.

  Bile rose up into my mouth, but I hammered at it once more.

  I let go a little sob as I felt it unlatch and dropped clean off my skin. It fell to the carpet near my feet.

  I hopscotched out of the way with a yelp, then blustered at it with the object—a See No Evil monkey statue as it turned out—and dropped the weight down onto the serpent's head three more times.

  Only when a small smear of black ooze seeped into the carpet did I stop.

  I fell onto my ass and stretched my legs out in front of me but kept the snake within view.

  Even after all the blows, even after it bled black fluid, it still didn't look dead. Just stunned. The glassy crimson eyes rolled back in a very human way. Long, thin, and shining in a way that made you think of wet tar on the streets in summertime. The head made a popping sound and with a squelching sound reformed as though someone was blowing air into its cheeks.

  A shudder wracked my shoulders.

  "Fucker," I said, and went at it again.

  This time I left the weighted statue on top of its head for good measure and when the popping sound returned, the monkey careened sidewise an inch before it settled, a drunken looking statue slightly off keel.

  I needed to put it into something. A box maybe. Or a plastic container with a tight-seal lid.

  Smother the mother, I figured.

  But I didn't dare leave it. What if the thing got away? It survived the pretty brutal beating I gave it and even now, its tail was curling up and out at the very tip.

  I don't know how she did it so quickly, or how she had found me, but I knew the vampire Cleopatra was responsible.

  And Maddox was responsible for that.

  I rolled onto my palm and pushed myself to my feet. With my eye on the snake, I backed into the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards until I found a bag. Plastic for some reason, which eluded me. Maybe the man was an old hippie who didn't believe in saving the Earth.

  I somehow found the courage to grab the snake by its tail and dropped it into the bag. Then I rolled the bag down over the bulge inside. Only then did I feel as though I could breathe easier. I shook it for good measure.

  No responsive movement from within gave me the courage to carry the bag into the foyer and drop it into the box. I plucked the string from the table and tied it up nice and tight.

  There was no way I could bring the box to the hospital. Whatever the heck that was, it wasn't normal and I had no doubt it hadn't come from any place that a human would be able to research.

  And there was no way I was going to try to explain it or be responsible when someone poked around inside and got themselves bit.

  There was only one man I could trust to leave it with.

  I swaggered on my feet as I looked at it. I felt pretty certain Mr. Smith was not going to be OK.

  I twisted my arm and looked at my skin. Two tiny dots sat in the middle of a purple bruise much like two eyes in a blushing face. But there wasn't a bullseye rash like on my landlord's skin. That had to be good, right?

  A small red speck adorned one edge of the bruise. It looked like a freckle. A tiny, innocuous, friendly freckle that took the sting out of the fear. Whatever poison the snake had, no doubt it had discharged all of it into my landlord. Surely, it had to be so. Otherwise, I'd be lying on the floor wheezing out my last conscious breath.

  I laughed out of relief and nerves. That was close. I was still standing metaphorically speaking. Dizzy maybe, and a little swoony from all the adrenaline. My knees were weak from the exhaustion of the rush of it all.

  But I was alive.

  I blew out a breath and kicked the box toward the door. I was loathe to touch it, but I needed to bring it to Maddox. To hell with the hospital. They wouldn't find what they needed from it. But Maddox needed to know what his client was capable of.

  And she needed to be held responsible. At the very least, she should be made to provide the antidote for Mr. Smith.

  I looked at my arm again and decided I might need a swig of one too. For good measure.

  I decided to go back into the living room and pluck the grimoire from the shelf too. If the old man lived, he'd owe me at least that much. If he didn't, someone would just come in and clear out all his stuff anyway.

  I might as well have the things that could help finance all the damage to my brownstone that he'd let creep in over the weeks.

  I pulled my cellphone from my back pocket and swiped the screen to bring up the text app. I didn't have many people on my contacts list. I scrolled past Kassie's entry, one I had continually updated and changed each time I gave her a new burner phone. I stared at it a long time, feeling a longing for the teenager I'd thought was a runaway. I still didn't have the heart to delete her, even knowing she was actually the Morrigan.

  I sighed and scrolled past to Maddox's number. The last text he'd sent had been a bad joke about vampires and colds and coughing when you sleep. I'd not responded to that one and he'd called me instead, asking me to meet him at the Rot Gut Tavern. That was just a few hours ago.

  I touched the screen over the phone icon. It rang once.

  "That was fast," I said.

  "You sound tired," he said. "What's wrong?"

  I kicked at the box, making certain the snake didn't make noise inside and just hadn't alerted me it had come to. No movement. So far, so good.

  "Isabella?"

  I realized I'd been glaring at the box and that Maddox was waiting for a response. I shook my head to clear it.

  "I've got something," I said.

  "I'll be right there."

  "You don't even know what it is."

  "Unless it's the mumps," he said. "I don't care. Where are you?"

  I nudged the box with my toe and hefted the grimoire to my hip. It was getting awful heavy for a little thing.

  The sound of his voice rose sharply through the phone speaker.

  "Isabella?"

  "At my landlords," I said.

  "I'll be there in five minutes."

  I stared at the phone as though he could see my disbelief and pique.

  "Five minutes?" I said. "Are you staking out my apartment?"

  Silence on the other end.

  I hustled back into the living room to pull the curtain away from the window so I could look outside. I craned to see around the pane toward my brownstone. I couldn't see a thing, but I had the feeling Maddox had already stormed my door and was rampaging through my apartment. I listened hard for the sound of a cat's complaining yowl. There was the sound of a door closing and I knew he was inside my house.

  I sank onto the sofa and let the curtain drop as my butt met the cushions.

  "You know," I mused aloud as I eyeballed the living room. "I always expected his house to look all messy and dirty, but it's immaculate. His sofa is soft. Really soft."

  I ran my palm over the supple leather. Calf or kid. Whatever it was it was as good as velvet.

  "Kitten?" Maddox said. "You sound weird."

  "Shock," I said, spreading my knees wide and leaning forward so I could lay the cell phone on the floor face up. "I think it's shock."

  I hung over my knees as I spoke, telling myself the sudden shadows on the edge of my vision were quite normal for a gal who'd just got a pretty bad scare. That the sound of wind coming through the cell phone speaker was a vortex I was slipping into as I passed out.

  "Where are
you?" he said and added a shocked, "Ouch!"

  The cat no doubt. She'd probably swiped at his ankles from beneath the sofa. I giggled.

  "You do remember what I said about pussies," I said.

  "Where. The. Fuck. Are you?"

  There was absolutely no humor in his tone. In fact, it sounded pretty angry.

  I inhaled slowly, fueling my lungs. "I told you."

  "I don't know where that is, Kitten."

  I could imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose. I glanced toward the hallway and spied the package.

  "Well, if you saw the box you'd know," I said in a clipped tone as I thought of the neatly lettered address label, and then rattled off the address, which if I thought about it, was not quite next door but two doors away from my front porch.

  It wasn't but three minutes before the door swung open in the hallway and I heard the box slide across the floor. I lifted my head just enough to see Maddox filling the space in the foyer, and the box butted up against the table again.

  "Careful," I said. "The box is loaded."

  My head felt heavy, and it was all I could do to watch him without succumbing to dropping it back onto my neck or completely over my knees.

  He had put a fresh shirt and jacket on, I noticed before I couldn't hold my head up anymore.

  Next I knew, he was crouched on one knee in front of me. The smell of woodsmoke whirled around me.

  "You look awful," he said.

  "You do have a way with..."

  "Don't say it, Isabella," he murmured. "This isn't funny. What happened?"

  He didn't wait for me to answer, but instead hoisted me more firmly onto the sofa, grabbing a lacey throw pillow as he moved. He tossed it against the back of the sofa to fill in the space at the small of my back as he guided me in place. With a swift movement, he lifted my legs to stretch out along the cushions and sat beneath them. He leaned over my legs and torso toward me. The backs of his fingers fleeted along my throat until he reached my pulse. There, he spread his fingers over my skin and breathed deeply, making my heart tick up.