Chapter 19 #2
“Quite a lot, actually, but only if she’s dead.
” The bear-man shrugged, backing up with eerie, soundless grace.
Someone that huge shouldn’t have moved so quietly, but somehow he managed.
“Some interested party dangled a prize for a hit. Then something went wrong a few nights ago. Some sort of rumor about downtown and a Puppet ripped to shreds—”
“A Puppet?” Amazingly, Zach perked up. “I thought…”
“Where have you been living? Probably on the rough, if that’s your only shaman.” Cullen backed up yet more; Zach moved, too. It was as if they were dancing, neither really giving ground. She followed in Zach’s wake, trying not to feel clumsy.
“We’re new in town.” Danger lay under Zach’s tone, as if daring the man to comment further.
“I guess so.” Cullen’s laugh was a basso rumble. As if by some invisible signal he turned on his heel, presenting a broad back.
The tension snapped like a rubber band. Zach settled on a maroon vinyl barstool like he belonged there; Sophie hitched herself awkwardly onto the one next door.
The clacking of pool balls and low murmur of conversation resumed.
The bear-man poured them both a shot of Johnny Walker Red and settled behind the bar, one eyebrow raised expectantly.
Zach tossed his shot back, cracked the glass against the bar like an expert, and brought out the newspaper he’d been carrying tucked under his arm. “Look at this.” He spread the paper on the counter.
Sophie leaned over, not daring to touch her own shotglass. My God, that’s from my wedding picture. The one hanging in the master bedroom.
She remembered that day, the sickly taste of cake frosting and sour fizz of champagne, the heavy yards and yards of white satin train, the veil’s band digging into her forehead—and how Marc had squeezed her arm right before she threw the bouquet, because she hadn’t been paying proper attention to him.
She’d had finger-shaped bruises for two weeks afterward. And on the honeymoon, he’d been so charming and repentant, until the night she’d accidentally slammed a door and he’d… he’d bitten…
That’s in the Past, and it’s an Unpleasant Thing. Don’t dwell on it, Sophie.
She focused on the columns of text, felt the world slide a few more degrees over into unreality. Wait a second. “But I’m not dead,” she heard herself say.
“I know that, and you know that.” Zach’s fingers touched damp newsprint, smudging the curve of her cheek. “But they found a body someone’s identified as yours. That means cover-up.”
“Christ.” Cullen set another shotglass out, poured himself a jolt of Walker. “Is it open war on our shamans now?”
“Since when does Tribe fear upir so much?” Zach sounded honestly puzzled, and dangerously calm.
“You forget most of us aren’t Carcajou. If the bloodsuckers band together they can make it difficult for us.
And here… well, the upir have worked their way into high society.
They own the town, we keep a low profile for fifty miles in every direction.
This is like a hunting preserve for them, and the head skeeter’s is a piece of work. Name’s Armitage.”
What? “Armitage?” Sophie couldn’t stay quiet. “But—”
“Harold Armitage.” Cullen shrugged. “Big name in town, I guess. You want some club soda or something, shaman?”
“No.” She shook her head, curls falling in her face. “I—Jesus, Harold’s a stockbroker. I know his wife. Old money, they do the country-club Christmas each year.” She realized how idiotic it sounded—who here would care about such things? “You’re saying he’s a vampire?”
“He’s upir, yeah. Has been for the past forty years. He hands out the Change in return for favors, and other services rendered.” Cullen gave her a narrow look.
Sophie leaned back, the bar stool creaking as her weight shifted.
“Accept something to drink, Soph. It’s polite.” Zach wore a tight smile, but a vertical line had appeared between his eyebrows.
Great. Yeah, sure. Fine. She picked up the glass, downed the whiskey, coughed as it stung her throat and exploded in her stomach.
The gauzy faces hanging over the world sharpened briefly—some of them clustered around Cullen, whispering.
He tilted his head briefly; one of the ghost-things solidified, its lips moving.
Oh, God. I’m going crazy, no matter what Zach says. Her eyes watered; she blinked furiously, and Zach’s smile turned absolutely genuine. He even winked at her.
But that line didn’t go away.
“So they have a body, and they’re calling it hers. When exactly was she triggered?” Cullen laid his hands carefully on the counter. Broad, blunt hands—if she looked closely, would they turn into paws?
“Couple days ago.” Zach, now all business, pushed the newspaper aside, resting his elbows stiffly on the bar.
“We found her during an upir attack. Thought it was a rabid sucker since it was hunting in the middle of bright lights and crowded prey. It took a friend of hers outside, ripped her open.” The smile was gone as if it had never existed.
“Then, just as we got our shaman out of town, a clutch of young suckers broke into our nightly den. And there were more of them at her apartment last night. They fired the building.”
“Upir using fire?” Cullen’s eyebrows drew together.
He uncapped the bottle, and Sophie hoped he wasn’t going to offer her more booze.
He didn’t, just poured himself another shot.
It looked like he needed it. “Just who is she, anyway?” He leaned down, lips moving slightly as he stared at the newspaper.
“She’s our shaman.” Zach watched the bear-man scan the article.
“She’s Harris’s ex-wife?” Cullen’s eyebrows nested in his wiry, curly hairline. “Holy shit. I heard that there was a sacrifice gone wrong and someone was paying big money, then we started to hear about upir chasing down a shaman. But—”
“A sacrifice?” Zach wanted to know, but she had a different question.
Sophie grabbed the edge of the counter. The world was still spinning off course, and she needed the anchor. “How do you hear all this?”
“Oh, you know.” Cullen set the bottle down. “The air talks, we listen.”
“No. I don’t know.” Sophie shut her mouth, took a deep breath. Zach’s knee bumped hers. A wave of heat slid up her neck, filled her cheeks. “I don’t know at all.” I know nuh-thing, a mad voice from childhood reruns of Hogan’s Heroes crowed inside her head.
Lucy did a great Sergeant Schultz impression. It had cracked them both up to no end.
Wet heat filled Sophie’s eyes, blurred the whole bar. She blinked furiously, forcing the tears away.
“Well.” Cullen didn’t take offense, but also didn’t drink his next dose. “You’ll find out soon. When you’re ready, the air will talk to you.”
You know, that really isn’t comforting at all. “Like the faces?” she hazarded. “The ghost faces?”
“Exactly.” A pleased nod, as if she’d passed some kind of test. “The majir.”
“Right.” I am handling this very well. She stole a glance at Zach.
He was looking at her like she’d just won a prize, too, and there was something else about that smile that made her breath hitch.
Something warm and interested, adding to the musk threading through his scent.
I am handling this very, very well. Even if it’s weird as fuck.
“Well, if you’re seeing them now and you were just triggered a couple days ago, you’re going to be one hell of a shaman.
I’ll bet you’ve always heard weird things, seen things out of the corner of your eye.
You were a big daydreamer when you were a kid, right?
” Cullen outright grinned, thankfully different from the feral baring of teeth aimed at Zach.
She gave a half-guilty start. “How did you—?” Well, that’s a useless question, Sophie.
“I was the same way. It about knocked me sideways when the old shaman from our sleuth found me. Kind of a relief to find out I wasn’t crazy.” He tapped his fingers on the bar, meditatively.
“So you were normal? Before?” This was the most information she’d gotten from anyone.
“Yeah, sort of. Nobody’s really normal.” A shadow crossed Cullen’s broad face, quickly submerged. “Being a shaman, though, it’s a lot of fun. Wait until you take your first run.”
Is that like taking a bowel movement? “A run?”
“I hate to interrupt.” Zach’s knee bumped hers again; Sophie realized he was trying to be comforting. “So that first upir we killed was a Puppet? Armitage’s? And there was a—”
“Right.” The bear-man gave his shotglass a quarter-turn, returned to tapping his fingers in succession. “He was spitting mad about it, too. Or so I heard. I guess there was something about the target not being hit.”
“Wait.” This just kept getting more outlandish; Sophie’s knuckles were white as clutched at the edge of the bar. “Target means me, right? The vampire wanted to kill me?”
“It’s certainly looking that way.” Zach tried to shift closer, his knee hitting hers yet again, and Sophie hopped off her barstool. “Hey. Sophie—”
“No.” She took two quick, nervous steps backward. Her legs turned to rubber, threatening to give out completely. “It was after me, right? And it killed Lucy. That means—”
“I’m not sure yet, and there’s other questions to answer.” Zach slid the barstool a hundred-eighty degrees and leaned back against the bar, eyeing her. “I’m guessing you didn’t spend a lot of time out partying, right?”
“I… no. It was the first time I’d gone out in ages. Lucy said I needed to have some fun.” She said she was going to get me to have fun if it killed her.
I guess it did.
“So maybe they were watching your friend—the only friend you had—and waiting for you to show up someplace out of daylight.” Pitiless logic, in a soft, musing tone. “And the—”
“Hold on,” Cullen said. “Can I get a word in edgewise? The target wasn’t hit. Only one of the two people they were looking to kill ended up dead, then a shaman somehow got mixed up in it. That’s what I heard.”