To Dance with the Devil

8

Gwen had blocked out enough time for a double session, figuring that we would need time after the family therapy conference to go over anything I needed help dealing with. Even though family therapy had been a bust, we needed the time anyway.

There was a lot to discuss. We talked about my mother a little, but not for long. I’d hashed out those issues again and again over the years. I’d made peace with my decision to cut my mother from my life until she became less toxic. I love my mom. I can’t seem to stop. But I’ve decided I don’t have to participate in her drama, don’t have to accept the blame she keeps shoving in my direction. And I won’t. So while her histrionics were upsetting and made me frustrated and angry, they weren’t the huge problem they could have been.

No, my big worry was the problem with my gran. She was in so much pain. For good or for ill, she loved my mother with her whole heart—sometimes to the exclusion of her whole mind. Again and again over the years, Gran had done stupid things that had enabled my mom’s bad behaviors. But she’d done those things for the right reasons, truly believing Mom was a better person than she actually was. I felt bad, knowing how much it must have hurt Gran to have that illusion shattered. I told Gwen that I wished I hadn’t suggested she see a psychic to find out the truth.

“But you did. Why?”

“Because I was tired of being the bad guy. It was always my fault. I was always the problem.”

Gwen nodded. “And now you’re not.”

“But I hurt her.”

“No. The truth hurt her.”

“But I’m the one who forced her to see it.”

“No. That was her choice. She could have ignored your suggestion. Instead, she found a psychic and had that person show her the truth. Now that she has that knowledge, she can make informed choices. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Gwen was right. The Bible says that the truth will set you free. I’m not sure I agree, but I hoped that in this case it would lead to much more honest relationships among the three of us in the future. But oh, getting through the present was going to be hard.

By the time I left Gwen’s office, I was better, though I still felt like I’d been put through the wringer. Intellectually, I knew that we’d made huge progress, but I was emotionally shaky. That always brought the vampire in me closer to the surface. So before I did anything else, I made sure to drink a nutrition shake and chow down on some baby food. I wasn’t hungry, but I ate anyway, and was rewarded by feeling the beast settle back down.

I stuffed the trash into the garbage sack I keep on the passenger-side floorboards and tried to think of what I wanted to do with the rest of my day. I wasn’t due to see Dawna for hours yet. I really didn’t feel up to looking at office space again, but I wasn’t ready to go home either. Bruno was at work at the university and probably way too busy for me to stop by.

So I locked the doors, cranked up the air conditioner and the stereo, and went for a drive along Oceanview. I wished I could have the top down, but that would have to wait until the sun set. For now, it was enough to just drive. Eventually, I even felt up to singing along with the stereo. I’m not in the least bit musical. But nobody was there to hear me, so I sang my heart out.

I should have been paying attention, but my mind was elsewhere. I didn’t notice the vehicles boxing me in until it was too late.

My doors were locked, but my Miata is a ragtop convertible, and while I have reinforcing spells in place, it’d been awhile since I renewed them. Stupid and careless. Not my usual style, but everyone makes mistakes. I just had to hope this one didn’t cost me my life.

I hit the button to make a cell phone call as the car beside me started moving into my lane, trying to force me off the road. No signal. The tow truck in front of me was slowing, the SUV behind tailgating. All I needed was a tiny opening for the Miata to get through, but they weren’t giving me anything. I tried using my psychic ability to reach out to Bruno—to anyone—for help. Amped up by the ring Adriana had given me, that should have worked. Instead, my thoughts rammed into a barrier as smooth and white as an eggshell but hard as titanium. The effort of trying to break through gave me an instant intense headache that brought tears to my eyes. Water streamed, unheeded, down my cheeks as I tried to come up with some plan for escape.

Oceanview is a beautiful stretch of road, but it is not an easy drive. It twists and turns, and there are many areas where the drop-off is steep and rocky. Lots of folks have died going off this road—I didn’t want to be one of them. The thing was, every one of the surrounding vehicles was bigger and more powerful than my little roadster. They could’ve crushed me, or sent me off one of the cliffs easily enough. But they didn’t. They were just very deliberately forcing me to stop on the shoulder.

That was pretty damned scary, because I knew full well that there are worse things than dying—maybe not as permanent but definitely worse.

I pulled onto the shoulder and stopped, putting the car in neutral but leaving the engine running. I got my gun out and laid it in my lap, then set a couple of spell disks on the dashboard as backup.

I was about to be attacked by three men. I grabbed my phone, again trying to dial 911, but the signal was still blocked. But hey, my cell has a really good camera. So I snapped quick shots of the three of them and the license plates of their vehicles, then shoved the phone under my seat.

Ready as I would ever be, I waited. The two who went to the passenger side of my car had the look of hired muscle: big, brawny, with attitude and prison tats. One was black, the other white, but other than that they were interchangeable, both wearing jeans and battered band T-shirts that had seen better days. The white guy held a classic Louisville Slugger in his left hand, its tip resting gently against the rough gravel of the road’s shoulder.

The man on my side was cut from a different cloth. He wore a hand-tailored suit that was obviously expensive. The fit was as good as Isaac’s, but the spell work wasn’t—I could see a slight bulge where he wore his weapons. He stopped about a yard from my door, making no aggressive moves, doing nothing overtly threatening.

He was of average height and not particularly built, but that meant nothing. He was tough. You could see it in how he held himself, the thin veneer of polish over the hard reality of violence. There were old scars on his face near those icy blue eyes, and his nose had been broken more than once. But his reddish hair was perfectly styled and his face had been shaved as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

When he reached into his pocket, I tensed, readying myself to fight. But he simply drew out his wallet and removed a spell disk. He set it gently onto the ground between us, then rose to his full height, and with one stomp of his well-shod foot, he broke the disk.

A fine mist formed a full-color, three-dimensional, holographic image of the head and bare shoulders of a man who appeared to be an older, harder version of the guy in the suit. He was clearly a relative—probably his father, and despite the fact that he wasn’t actually present, I would’ve sworn he was looking right at me, across who knew how many miles and through the car window.

“Hello, Ms. Graves.” He didn’t give his name, which was no surprise, but otherwise he spoke quite civilly. I could live with civil. Maybe literally. So I played along.

“Hi. What’s up?”

“I have a problem, Ms. Graves … Celia.” He stared at me long and hard, taking my measure, much as Abigail Andrews had done the other day.

“Oh?”

His smile was chilling. There was very little sanity in his eyes, certainly no warmth or empathy. He was a stone-cold killer. I knew, knew that if he said the word, the men surrounding my car would do everything in their power to kill me. If they failed, he’d send someone else, and would keep sending people until the job was done. I had to fight not to shudder, to keep my expression and body language impassive.

He watched me, his smile broadening, with a little sparkle in his eyes. Apparently I amused him. “I have a … project I’ve been working on. It’s taken most of my life. Now, when it’s nearly completed, my clairvoyant friends tell me there’s a problem.”

He didn’t expect me to say anything, so I didn’t. I sat, waiting for the other boot to drop.

“You’re that problem. I was hoping that I could buy you off. After all, you’re a bit of a mercenary or you wouldn’t work as a bodyguard.” He paused, waiting for me to deny it. “But I see now that that won’t be possible. So I’m left with a dilemma. I’m told that if you become part of this, there will be trouble—but if I kill you, it will be even worse. The possibility of failure has been mentioned.

“I could tell you to stop. But you won’t. I can see that. You’re too tough.” He shook his head in mock sadness, but his eyes were avid. “So I’m just going to have to prove to you that I’m tougher.” The image turned to the suited man. “Do it.”

At the sound of his command, several things happened at once. I grabbed the nearest spell disk, the suited man broke a disk he’d palmed while I was listening to the hologram, and the thug with the bat smashed my windshield. Thug number two … walked away?

I didn’t have time to worry about him. I had worse problems. While the spell disk the guy in the suit had broken didn’t seem to have done anything, I could feel the magic of it filling my car. And my spell disk, my very reliable, guaranteed by the manufacturer shield spell, failed. I felt the magic start to build, but then it hit what was already in the car and just died.

Oh, shit.

I grabbed my gun, switching off the safety as Slugger continued to rain blows on my windshield. Safety glass began to crumble and a small hole appeared. Suit tossed a spell ball to the Slugger, then dived for cover. In the instant it took me to turn and take aim through the broken windshield, the thug with the bat managed to crack the ball open and drop it through the hole.

I froze, victim of a variation of the full-body binding spell that my ex-boyfriend had developed at my request.

Irony blows.

I got to sit there, completely motionless, barely able to breathe, watching as thug two returned and nimbly broke into my car. He hauled my unresponsive ass out like a sack of groceries, then set me down on the gurney he’d brought from one of their vehicles.

At that point Suit started disarming me, then cutting my clothes off—in full sunlight, with no sunscreen. With exquisite care and a little sound of admiration, he set aside my knives and their sheaths, along with my Colt. My ring, too, was set aside as if it were a weapon. It was infuriating and humiliating to be so utterly helpless. The man could have done anything he wanted to me and we all knew it. But this was just business to him, and he was careful and respectful: no leering, no wandering hands. I might as well have been a mannequin in a store window for all the interest he showed.

When he had me down to my lacy pink bra and panties, he muttered another spell, which loosened the binding a little. Not enough for me to move, but enough for me to be moved. Then Suit pushed, pulled, and prodded my body until I was lying on the gurney. Done, he walked away, leaving the thugs to wheel me down to the beach. I couldn’t turn my head to see him climb into his SUV, but I heard the engine start up and the crunch of gravel as the vehicle pulled onto the highway.

I wondered what was to come next.