“Good thinking.” Chuch took a seat in the recliner, leaving Chance and me leaning up against the wall, Butch nestled against my shoulder, and Kel listening from the hall.
“The place was totally ransacked.” She clicked a few times on the computer and brought up a folder. “I downloaded some snaps from his cell phone before he left.”
We all leaned over to take a look. Blood spattered walls, paper shredded all over the floor.
“Christ,” I said. “It looks like somebody died in there.”
“Probably the agent,” Chuch said with a shrug. “With the warlock in charge of the operation gone, Montoya is cutting his losses and tying up loose ends.”
Shit. Good thing we had another avenue open for finding Montoya. I hoped like hell Esteban would come through.
War Council
We sat around waiting for Chuch’s phone to ring. I fed Butch, let him out, and then held him in my lap while others did the talking. I wondered if he missed Lenny.
Arguing passed the time best, and Eva was all over that.
“When we hit, I’m going too.” She folded her arms and dared anyone to disagree. “I know how to handle myself.” I expected Chuch might have something to say about that, but she went on. “And it would be stupid to leave me here by myself where anything could happen to me. At least if I’m with you, you can protect me, right?”
Oh, well played, Eva.
That silenced the rising protest from her beleaguered husband. I glanced out the window, saw the wide open sky fading to dawn—mauve, pink, and pearl streaks along the horizon. Like a nocturnal monster, I yawned. Man, my sleep schedule was all screwed up.
Still, we needed to lay our plans. Yesterday morning, we hadn’t done such a stellar job of that, and only Chance’s luck combined with Kel’s berserker battle prowess carried us through. We couldn’t count on that again.
Apparently Chance shared that opinion because he said to Eva, “Get a pen and paper, will you? We need to talk strategy.”
“Good idea!” She bounced to her feet, hurried to the kitchen, and returned, ready to take notes. I laughed softly at the idea of having an assault secretary.
“Here’s what I have in mind.” Because Chance thought better on his feet, he slid off the couch and paced the length of the living room. “Once I find the location, we send Booke in first to check for magickal traps.”
“You should ask him,” I pointed out.
He nodded in agreement. While Chance went to look for Booke online and Chuch checked his weapons cache, I ate a bowl of bean soup for breakfast. No one came to see about me. I sighed and took my bowl to the sink. I had a wounded palm and a festering zombie bite on my shoulder that needed tending.
Was it unreasonable of me to want Chance to put me first? The way he blew hot and cold comprised my chief objection to resuming our relationship. With that dance, I thought maybe he’d changed, but now I stood in the kitchen with a burned hand and no help. I knew he was worried about Min and wanted to be ready to move on a moment’s notice. I got that, but I hated he hadn’t asked if I was okay after all we’d been through in the last twenty-four.
Shit. Maybe I was just high maintenance.
Since everyone else was busy, I went around checking wounds. Chance waved me away; he was talking to Booke on IM. Well, fine, let him get gangrene. No help for it, I’d have to do for myself, so I headed to the bathroom. The bite on my shoulder looked puffy. It hurt when I poked it, but all I could think to do was slice it open and pour peroxide on it. I probably needed a tetanus shot.
Hesitating, I gazed at myself in the mirror. Didn’t recognize the woman with the bruised eyes and cuts on her face. Only the long red hair looked familiar.
“You want me to?” Kel asked from behind me.
I froze, fixated on the knife in his hand. Maybe I had a death wish because I heard myself say, “Yeah, please. I don’t think I can cut myself.”
If he’d said, My pleasure, I’m sure I would’ve run screaming. Instead he set about sterilizing the blade. Then, with the precision of a surgeon, he made a small incision, opening up the inflamed skin. I tried not to think of the dead woman’s teeth that had made those marks.
Not for the first time, I wished I had some kind of healing ability instead of the “gift” of being able to read objects. Part of me wished I couldn’t do that either, but ambivalence crept in when I considered being without it. Good or bad, the touch defined me every bit as much as my blue eyes.
Could I actually live a normal life? And would it feel like giving up the last link to my mother if I did figure out some way to burn out this gift I never wanted?
It shook me, how ably Kel treated my wound. Such a fine line between killing and healing. One small slip of the scalpel and the doctor becomes the murderer. By the time he finished bandaging my shoulder, I could feel myself trembling.
“Thank you,” I muttered, and ran for the kitchen, where I stood gazing out the window above the sink.
“You okay?” Eva asked.
I started and tried to pretend I wasn’t edgy as a cat in a guitar shop. “I don’t know,” I said. “I feel like shit. I’m tired, and I want to go home, but I don’t know if I’ve got one.”
The shop might not feel the same when I got back to it. If I did. That seemed less and less likely as the days wore on.
“You’ll always have a place here with me and Chuch.”
Her offer surprised a sniff out of me. Kel and Chance filed in just as we hugged. Chuch was still out in the garage, taking inventory.
Eva fetched her notes. “What did Booke say?”
A knock at the front door forestalled whatever Chance might have said. Though it was a warm morning, we had the curtains and storm door tightly shut, for obvious reasons. I unhooked the chain, turned the bolt, and peered out the screen door cautiously.
Jesse stood there looking like he’d lost his best friend. Dark smudges cradled his eyes, and he’d gone way past five o’clock shadow. The stubble on his chin had probably taken two days to accumulate. Since he didn’t wear his badge clipped to his belt, I concluded his visit must be unofficial.
I didn’t know where we stood. We’d kissed on the couch. Yesterday morning he had my face in the dirt, shouting at me not to make any sudden moves.
“Come on in.” I stepped back.
What the hell would we do if he recognized Kel? The tattoos and the bald head were new, though. Maybe Jesse wouldn’t recognize him without the mop of dirty blond hair.
Jesse paused just inside the doorway, took in the activity, and managed a smile. “Throwing a party and I’m not invited?”
I hesitated. “Not exactly.”
“Look, is there someplace we can talk in private?” Saldana obviously lacked the mental energy to pretend he wasn’t on his last legs.
Chuch called from the garage, “You can use the computer room.”
As we went down the hall, I ignored the looks Chance and Eva gave me. Kel seemed to miss the undertones, or maybe he just didn’t care. I went into the office, shut the door behind us, and dropped down into Chuch’s plaid recliner.
Instead of sitting, Saldana propped himself against the wall and stared up at the ceiling.
“How bad was it?” I laced my fingers in my lap to combat the urge to touch him.
“Bad,” he said heavily. “I’m on suspension, pending an investigation. I came out here because I did a little digging. Took me all night and a handful of favors, but . . . Moon was made, Corine. He started out in life as a Montoya, changed his name back in ’eighty-two. They got him on the force, and he’d been working for the cartels from the inside ever since.”
Weird. It apparently bothered Saldana more that his partner had been dirty than the fact that he’d also been a warlock who bound people’s souls to feed his own power. I nodded, listening.
“Anyway,” Jesse went on. “I know you’re planning a strike. I recognize a tactical meeting when I see one. My partner did a hell of a lot of damage, and I may lose my badge over it. If you’re going over the border, I want in.”
I thought long and hard about my reply. “You can’t go as a cop. This is vigilante territory, Jesse. I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m on leave, so this is for me and for Maris, who died because I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. What’s that they say? There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
“You can’t blame yourself for this. I’m just sorry it turned out like it did.” My head started to throb.
A slow breath escaped him, like a balloon deflating. “You and me both, sugar.”
“I bet you wish you never set eyes on me,” I said quietly.
Jesse shoved away from the wall then, came toward me. I didn’t know what to make of that until he knelt, took my hands in his where they rested on my knee. He bent his head and rested his brow on our joined fingers, oddly like an obeisance.
“No,” came his muffled reply. “That’s not what I wish.”
I wanted to stroke his hair, but I’d put ointment on my palm not long ago. He probably wouldn’t want that on his head, so I held still, listening to him breathe. This man would never hesitate to give me what I needed emotionally; to do otherwise would go against his very gift. I think he wanted me to ask what he wished. He was waiting for it.
When I didn’t, Jesse pushed to his feet with a faint sigh. I held firm, though. This just wasn’t the time to talk about personal affairs. With a faint flicker of regret, I followed him to join the others.
The day went slowly, but we had no way to motivate Esteban beyond what the information I’d given him should have already done. Since I’d been up all night again, I crashed on the couch with the others all around me, talking strategy. I woke in late afternoon to the sound of Chuch holding forth on why it was best to burn Montoya’s compound to the ground once we found it.
After rubbing my gummy eyes, I pushed to a sitting position and took stock. Kel was the only one in the room, but the TV was off. Apparently he’d been watching me instead. That should have sent a cold chill through me, but he didn’t terrify me anymore.
I must have a transparent face because he said, “They’re in the kitchen. Esteban called five minutes ago. They faxed him the cargo manifest and he passed it along to someone in his organization who could make sense of it.”
“Thanks.”
“How’s your shoulder?”
I wished he, of all people, hadn’t shown concern. That softness humanized him in ways I didn’t care to entertain. Since it was a good question, I slid the shirt from my shoulder, craned my neck, and examined the bite.
“Seems to be healing,” I answered after a moment. “Is there anything I should know about an undead bite? I won’t turn into a zombie by the next full moon?”
He actually gave a half smile. “Not as far as I know, but human bites are more likely to become infected.”
“Noted. I’ll keep an eye on it.”
I felt like I should say something more, but damned if I knew what, so I just nodded at him in thanks and made my way into the kitchen. Chuch, Eva, Chance, and Jesse sat around the table, like when we’d held the séance, except Chance was staring at a list. The top seven things on it had been crossed off, with eight more to go.