Hell Bent

Chapter 13

I’d be lying if I said I was completely sober by lunchtime. But just like the cigarettes that burned down too quickly in my hands, the edge-dulling effect of the bottle I’d drunk was fading fast.

Zay and Allie and Terric had left the inn so the staff could open it up for the lunch and dinner crowd. I decided a cab was my best bet. I didn’t want to deal with the bus or light rail crowded with beating hearts.

The pizza place was over on Mississippi Avenue, a two-story green-on-green stucco building with a clay tile awning stretched over white-framed windows and doors. I strolled in and helped myself to a booth by the window.

Eleanor drifted between wooden tables and patrons, then paused to study the pizzas lined up along the counter behind glass.

I glanced out the window and watched Dessa walk across the street. She’d pulled her hair back in a clip that allowed most of it to fall down around her shoulders, and had put on a gray formfitting dress that showed a kick of orange at each step where the skirt hit her knees. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, or carrying a purse big enough for a handgun.

She was poised, confident, strong. And beautiful.

Eleanor floated back over toward me and put her hand on my shoulder, pointing a finger out the window.

“I see her,” I said.

Dessa stepped into the room and strolled right over to me. She’d probably staked out the place and had watched me walk in.

“Didn’t think you’d come,” she said as she took the bench opposite me.

“Why not?” I asked.

“You don’t seem like the kind of man who likes to be inconvenienced.”

“Who says this is an inconvenience?”

She stopped, studied me. “Do you ever take those sunglasses off?”

“Only when there’s something worth seeing.” I reached up, pulled them off, and gave her a smile.

She blushed just a bit, which was cute. “I see you brought your charm.”

“What did you bring, Dessa?”

“I do have information you want.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Should we pretend to like each other over pizza and a beer?”

“What if I already like you, Shame Flynn?”

My turn to pause. “Naw, you just like what I can do.” I leaned forward a bit. “How I can kill.”

“That’s why I found you,” she said, her gaze holding mine. “That’s not why I’m on a date with you.”

“Mmm,” I said. “Then how about I buy us a beer?”

“Let’s make it two.”

We ordered pizza and a couple pints. Talking took a backseat while we made a dent in our slices. She’d gone for a mix of veggies and meat, while I’d opted for the full-on carnivore. She ate her pizza the right way—with her fingers.

“Dating me, yeah, sure, I can understand the draw,” I said after I’d demolished my lunch. “How could you resist tall, dark, and dangerous?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Tall?”

“Hush. What I don’t understand is why you want to give me any information at all.”

She shrugged and wiped her mouth on a napkin. “My brother was a part of your organization. He was the most honest, caring man I knew. He wouldn’t have gotten involved with the Authority if he didn’t agree with what it stood for.”

“That’s a lot of blind faith you have there.”

“Just faith. I know you people have done illegal things. But from what I can tell, he believed the Authority was dedicated to doing the right thing, even if that meant making some hard choices.”

I nodded. “That was the idea. But like all ideas, once people are added to the mix, there are bound to be problems.”

“Problems like the man who killed my brother.”

I took a drink of my beer. I wasn’t going to give her information on Eli, didn’t want her in the way of whatever he was planning on doing to people. “Did you grow up in the area?”

“My dad was in the army. I grew up everywhere.”

“And when you got out on your own, where did you settled down?”

“San Francisco.”

“What did you do there?”

“Officially?” She smiled. “I was a national account manager for a bioscience division of a tech company.”

“Unofficially?”

She sipped her beer. “I spied on people.”

“CIA? FBI?”

“I wasn’t offered details,” she said. “Just money in exchange for being reliable and discreet.”

“Is that what you’re doing now? Gathering intel?”

“Not for them. I said I was ex-government. I meant that. The only intel I want is who killed my brother.” She held up her hand. “I know. You’re not going to give it to me. But I said I had a few things to tell you, and I’m going to.”

“Why?”

“We started off on the wrong foot,” she said. Her eyes slid away to the window and the people moving about out there, then back to me. “I misjudged you.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I thought you didn’t care about anything. I thought you’d like the deal, the hunt, the payoff.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Maybe. But it’s not what you care about.”

“It’s fascinating how you think you know me and we’ve barely met.”

“You’ve seen me naked.”

“Not quite.”

“You care about Terric, Dash, and Clyde,” she went on. “You care about Zayvion Jones and Allison Beckstrom and Cody Miller.”

I was surprised she’d brought up Cody, not that she was wrong. He and I had run together, gotten into a lot of trouble when we were younger, before he’d had his brain broken by the last set of Soul Complements who’d wanted to take over the world. He’d ultimately been the one who had held magic together long enough for it to join. He was the one who had healed it. And, yes, he was my friend.

“You care about the missing people who have been showing up dead in Forest Park,” she said.

At my raised eyebrows, she shrugged. “Just because I’m not working for the government doesn’t mean I don’t know how to gather information. You are a target, you know.”

“Yeah, sure. Plenty of people want me dead.”

“People, yes. But so does the Black Crane Syndicate.”

It was my turn to drink beer and look out the window for a bit. “What do they want me dead for?”

“They want Terric Conley. They know you’re the only person standing in the way of them owning him.”

“Owning?”

“I don’t have the details, but they are grooming him for something that involves magic and their drug trade. There’s a man who is part of the power in the organization. Jeremy Wilson. He’s promised he can deliver a new mix of magic and drugs. He’s promised product that will send half the world begging at their feet.”

I didn’t say anything. Couldn’t hear over the hard anger that scorched hot and unreasonable across my brain. Dash was right. Jeremy was using Terric. For more than just a clean bill of health.

“And what?” I said, like I was exhaling a hard stream of smoke. “Do you want me to pay you for this information?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just doing . . . something I think my brother would approve of. I might not be positive that the Authority has always done the right thing, but I know some things about the Black Crane. Drugs, magic, human trafficking, blackmail, backdoor deals. I know what they are. And if they’re coming for you, for people who my brother believed in, then I want you to have a fighting chance against them.”

“This means something to me,” I said. “You telling me this—if it’s true.”

“It’s true.”

“I don’t leave a debt unpaid.”

“Reconsider telling me who killed my brother.”

“No.”

She held still, didn’t even breathe, her hands clasped together in front of her on the table. “It was worth a shot, right?”

“I would have done the same,” I agreed.

“All right.” She tipped back her beer and set the glass on the table. “How about you buy me a beer, and we’ll call it even?”

“That easy?”

“I still want information,” she said. “But I don’t have to get it from you. Tonight.”

So I bought her a beer.

She might be a player, willing to bribe or bludgeon her way to what she wanted, but she was sincere about this, about giving me information because she thought it was the right thing to do, even if I didn’t give her what she wanted in return.

Looked like I’d misjudged her too.

Somehow day burned down to evening. We finally moved away from our table and back toward the lounge and bar. We spent a couple hours listening to live music, drinking, and talking over other things—not the Authority, crime syndicates, or dead loved ones. Just movies, politics, and embarrassing high school memories.

Everything felt normal with her, easy with her. Like this was a life I could live. Wasn’t that a surprise?

When the band turned to reggae music, we both groaned.

“Don’t like reggae?” I asked.

“I do not,” she laughed. “It’s getting late. I should be heading home.”

I threw some money on the table to settle our bill, then walked with her out of the place. The cold night air stole away the remaining warmth of the club as we lingered outside the door on the sidewalk.

“Do you need a ride?” she asked.

“So you were spying on me before you walked in. I wondered.”

She paused, her hand in her purse, and grinned up at me. The color was a little high across her cheeks, and the whiskey gingers she’d been drinking put a soft glitter in her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Now, now, darlin’,” I said. “Let’s not ruin a good night with bad lies.”

“So good lies are okay?”

“Sometimes those can be the best.”

“Are you sure about the ride?” she asked. “It isn’t out of my way.”

“I think I’ll find my own way home tonight.”

“All right,” she said. “Good.” She took a step to the corner, then turned back toward me. “This was nice, Shame. Maybe we can do it again sometime.”

“Maybe we can,” I said. “But we probably shouldn’t.”

“Well, then,” she said. “I guess this is good-bye. Good-bye, Shamus Flynn.”

“Good-bye, Dessa Leeds.”

She gave me one more smile, then crossed the street and strode down the alleyway opposite before I could change my mind.

I started walking and did not look back. Waved down a cab three or four blocks later, and closed my eyes, trying not to think of Dessa, or what might have been between us.

It wasn’t long before the cab pulled up to the inn.

The inn was winding down for the night, the cleaning staff turning down lights and setting the locks. I crossed through the dining area and down the hall, then up the stairs toward my room. Halfway up the stairs, I heard the front door open and shut.

I wondered who was returning to the inn so late.

By the time I reached my room, I heard footsteps thunking up the stairs behind me.

Just because I am a curious bastard, I took my time unlocking my door, waiting to see who had arrived behind me.

The footsteps paused. Something scratched and skittered.

An animal?

I glanced over at the stairs.

Dessa slipped up the last few steps, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, large purse over the other, and a square, cloth-covered wire cage in one hand. She stopped. Waited for me to say something.

“Miss me already?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, you appear to be stalking me.”

“No,” she said, “I’m renting a room.”

“Next to mine.”

“Is it?” she asked with an air of innocence that fooled no one. “They said it was the only room that was open.”

“Really.”

“You aren’t worried about me being here, are you, Shame? Afraid of a little girl next door?”

I smiled, leaned against the hall, and pointed at the cage she was carrying. “What’s in the cage?”

“It’s not a cage, it’s a hatbox.

“With a cloth over it.”

“I have shy hats.”

“Come on, now. Let’s have a see.”

She shook her head. “My curtains don’t rise just because some man expects them to. Ruins the mystery.”

The hatbox scratched and skittered again.

“Bird? Gerbil? Lizard? Am I close?”

“Fedora, cloche, baseball. Hats.” She walked down to the door on the left, flicked her keys forward into her fingers. She unlocked the door and leaned into the room.

This was an old inn and the doors were narrow. She had to slide in sideways, which meant the cloth over the cage lifted and I saw a tiny, furry black-and-white face, with close-set ears.

A ferret. She was smuggling a ferret into the inn.

“There’s a no-pet rule, you know,” I said.

“Oh?” she asked, unconcerned.

“Yes. So make sure your hats don’t go for a stroll in the middle of the night.”

She was in the room now, and had placed the cage on the floor. “I assure you, my hats are very well behaved.” She shut the door, and I heard the slide and click of the locks setting.

Ferrets. I shook my head. Not what I’d expect out of an ex-government spy. But then, Dessa was proving to be a lot more than just a woman on a mission of revenge.

I smiled, stepped into my room, and closed the door behind me.