To Dance with the Devil

13

Of course I didn’t retreat straightaway. Instead, I leaned around Alex to get a look at what was inside—and immediately wished I hadn’t. Slugger lay naked in the center of the room, his hands pinned to the wooden floor by my knives. The blood had attracted rats, and while he wasn’t dead, he was a mess.

I threw up off the edge of the loading dock, then ran to the car to call for help as Alex went into the warehouse and started giving what first aid she could.

Slugger had been a thug and a potential rapist. He’d left me on the beach to burn. As I sat in Alex’s car, shivering and nauseated, I told myself he’d made his bed. It didn’t help. It had been obvious from my quick glance that Slugger had been there for hours before anyone had bothered to call Alex. The casual brutality of it was chilling. I thought of the man in the hologram—the one in charge. Presumably he was the one who had arranged to have this done.

“You okay?” I started—I hadn’t heard Alex approach. Not good. I must be a little bit shocky. I’d need to take care of that.

“Not really,” I admitted.

“Too much like what happened to you?”

“Yeah.” I hated to admit it, but it was the truth. As if from a distance I heard the slam of the ambulance doors.

“Do I need to take you back to the hospital?”

“No. I want to go home.” I wanted a hot bath. I felt like I’d never be clean again. I needed to brush my teeth. More important, even though food was the last thing I wanted, I needed to eat something. It must be close to lunchtime.

Oh, shit.

“What time is it?” I turned to Alex, a little panicked.

“Eleven fifty-three, why?”

“I have to call Bruno.”

She didn’t ask why, just retrieved the cell phone from her pocket and passed it to me. My fingers were shaking so badly that it took me three tries to dial the number.

He picked up on the first ring. “Celia, is that you?”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t say much more than that. All of a sudden my throat was tight. I wanted to be sick again, wanted to cry.

“Are you okay?” I could tell from his voice that he knew I wasn’t.

I searched my brain for what to tell him, but my mind couldn’t seem to focus. Finally I said, “You don’t need to look for my knives anymore.”

“Celie…” Alex grabbed the phone from my hand, so I didn’t hear the rest of what he said.

“Bruno, it’s Alex. Celia needs to go home now and get some rest. She probably shouldn’t be alone either, she’s a little shocky. I’ve got a crime scene to process. If I send her home with somebody, can you meet her there? If not, I’m sending her back to the hospital.”

“Where are you? I can come get her.”

“No, she needs to get away from here. The sooner the better. Can you meet her at her place in a half hour?”

“Yeah, I’m keyed into the security.”

“Good.”

I didn’t exactly sleep through the ride home, but I wasn’t alert enough to pay much attention to it. The cop, a guy I’d never met before and whose name I didn’t remember, was very nice, taking me through the drive-through at PharMart to buy nutrition shakes on the way to my place, and then waiting to make sure that Bruno had arrived and I wasn’t alone before leaving.

Bruno met me at the front door. He took one look at me, swept me up in his arms, and carried me off to bed. He tucked me in like you would a child, and went to run a hot bath. Only when I was in the tub and, finally, finally beginning to feel warm, did he ask what happened. I told him.

“Oh, fuck. Do you need me to call Gwen?”

“No. I’ll be okay. It was just—”

“Too much like what happened to you.” Gee, everybody was getting that. Of course it hadn’t exactly been subtle.

I nodded.

“Fine. You finish your bath. I’ll make you some tomato soup.” He left, pulling the door shut behind him.

I rinsed off and climbed out of the tub. Patting myself dry, I padded naked over to the full-length mirror. This was my first chance to look at all of myself since the day I’d been stretched out on the beach.

I looked … odd. My skin was fine, except for that weird lack-of-tattoo thing on my leg. I had little stubby lashes coming in, maybe an eighth of an inch long, but my eyebrows were still just stubble. The combination made me look like some sort of exotic lizard, especially with my new hairstyle.

I brushed my teeth, then got dressed, choosing loose, gray sweats and one of Bruno’s ratty Bayview T-shirts. I didn’t bother with shoes or socks, preferring to go barefoot. I went to the living room, settling onto the couch as Bruno brought me a bowl of soup. I had to clear a space among the flowers on the coffee table to set down the bowl. There were flowers everywhere. Huge arrangements, small arrangements, plants, and every conceivable color and type of flower. The scent was thick enough to walk on.

“Can I ask you a favor?”

“Name it.” He smiled.

“I hate to ask, but I’m going to be taking in Minnie the Mouser. Is there any chance you can do an aversion spell? I don’t want her to get sick from gnawing on any of this.” I gestured at the greenery.

“No problem.”

He was as good as his word, working the spell as I slurped my soup. When I’d finished eating, I went to bed. He climbed in beside me, not saying a word, and held me till I fell into a dreamless sleep.

I woke at four in the afternoon, feeling much better. I padded out into the living room to find Bruno sitting on the couch, working on his laptop.

“Don’t you have a meeting on campus this evening?” I asked.

“This is more important.”

I was more important than the job he loved—that was so good to hear. His work meant as much to him as mine did to me. “I’m fine. Really,” I assured him.

“Uh-huh.” His sarcasm was evident.

“Sweetheart, you can go. I’ll be fine. I promise I’m not going to do anything but lie around, maybe look through the mug shots Alex sent me.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.” It was a simple statement of fact and his tone of voice didn’t invite argument.

I argued anyway. “Bruno, you just got this job and you’ve already spent days having people cover your classes. You can’t afford to piss them off. I’ll be fine.”

He glared at me, his jaw set in a stubborn line. I knew that look, knew exactly what it meant.

I sighed. He wasn’t going to bend on this. I knew it. It was annoying, but only a little bit. I really wasn’t doing that well right now. But I also knew that he needed to be at that meeting. Getting started on the wrong foot could really hurt him when it came to campus politics. “All right, how about a compromise? Why don’t you call Emma, see if she can come. Then you can go to your meeting and I’ll have somebody to watch over me.”

He waffled. “You’re sure? I’ll stay if you need me to.”

“Go. If Emma can’t make it, maybe Dawna can come.”

He closed the laptop. Leaning over, I gave him a kiss. He whispered. “I love you. You’re the best.”

“I love you.”

While he was making calls to line up my babysitter, I went over to my computer and got online. Following the link Alex had sent, I began searching for familiar faces. Slugger was there. His name: Rob Douglass. I found the second guy, too, but there was no sign of either Suit or the leader. Not that I got through all of the shots. Not hardly. There were far, far too many of them. It was downright depressing knowing just how many career criminals were at large here on the West Coast.

Bruno came up, sliding his arm around my waist. “Emma said they can be here by seven. Think you’ll be all right until then?”

“I’ll be fine. I really am feeling better.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Go. Scoot. Git.” I made a shooing motion with my hands.

He laughed at that. “Fine. I’m outta here. Call me if you need anything,” he said as he ducked out of the door.

It was seven on the dot when I heard the sound of cars in the driveway and the buzz of the intercom. I pressed the button for the speaker at the same time as I pulled aside the curtains to take a look outside.

There were a pair of vehicles in the drive. Emma’s little beater and Chris’s das Humvee. Even from this distance I could see that Dawna had Dottie with her, and that the big SUV was completely packed with stuff.

“Come on, girlfriend, I know you’re in there,” Dawna called. “Open the gate already. No more moping.”

I found myself smiling. She was right. I had been moping. I was alive. I had friends who cared enough to come to see me, to make sure I was okay. That was no small thing. So I hit the gate release and said, “Come on in,” with as much gusto as I could muster. I’d barely made it across the room when the front door swung open, admitting the sounds of laughter and the smells of a dozen different kinds of food. Delicious aromas assaulted my nostrils from cartons of the spiced broth and drippings from one of my favorite restaurants, plastic containers filled with strained pho lovingly made by Dawna’s grandma, and a Sunset Smoothie.

“Get out of the way,” Dawna shouted. “It’s a girls’ night in.”

“Barbara even sent some margaritas in a sealed container,” Emma added.

I shook my head, smiling as I looked at the three of them. Dawna, still dressed for work in a designer suit and heels, was carrying a box filled with plastic shopping bags and take-out boxes. Emma wore jeans and a T; she held a large gray cat carrier with a mewing Minnie inside. Dottie, in her usual sensible shoes and a mint green track suit, brought up the rear with her walker.

Dawna breezed past me, heading straight into the kitchen. Dottie paused just long enough to give me a kiss on the cheek before following. Only Emma actually stopped. When she was sure the others were out of earshot, she spoke. “Are you okay?”

The hug I gave her was a little awkward because of the cat carrier, but I did it anyway. I’m not much of a hugger, but she deserved it. When Bruno called, she knew I was in trouble and brought the gang to the rescue. You don’t get a better friend than that.

“Thanks, Em. I’ll be fine. It’s been a rough few days, but I’ll get through it.”

She waved away my thanks. I could see she was debating what she should tell me, what she could say without compromising the future and making things worse. Finally she said, “Celia, I looked in the mirror, tried to see what was coming up.” I wasn’t surprised. Emma wasn’t a very powerful clairvoyant, but with the mirror she’d inherited from Vicki as a focus, she was getting much more accurate. “You need to be really, really careful. These people are smart and absolutely ruthless.”

Did she really think I didn’t know? I’d just spent days in the hospital with burns over most of my body because Hologram Guy wanted to make a point. I shuddered, remembering Slugger, my stomach roiling. “I know, Em, but I don’t know what I can do that’s going to make a difference.”

“I know, I know.”

I took the cat carrier from Emma. I set it on the floor but didn’t open it. Knowing Dottie, there was an entire car load of cat accoutrements waiting in the SUV, and I didn’t want to risk Minnie getting loose and running off. “Do we need to unload the car?” I asked.

“Oh, yes.” Emma nodded vigorously. “Dawna said that Chris told her your inner bat had to pretty much take over to heal the burns, so you’re probably going to be back at square one on things like eating solids and fighting against the bloodlust. Dad agreed. So we’ve brought you lots and lots of your favorite liquids to stock the fridge and freezer. Dottie brought all of Minnie’s stuff, too.”

I knew it. Where I’d put the cat condo, scratching tower, and velvet cat bed I had no clue. Not to mention the litter box. My place was already ridiculously overcrowded. I really needed to find an office sooner rather than later. I shook my head, laughing a little at the byplay between Dawna and Dottie in the kitchen as I followed Emma outside.

It took three trips to get everything. But by the time we’d finished there were drinks and food waiting on the coffee table.

The combination of a Sunset Smoothie and a perfect margarita began working its magic. I felt myself start to unwind and was able to hold my own in a vigorous debate about who was the World’s Sexiest Man and which superhero was likely to be the best lover. Now out of her carrier, Minnie the Mouser began cautiously exploring her new digs.

We ate, we drank, we made merry, each of us determined to set aside her problems. Dawna was still upset with Chris. It was obvious that Emma had something heavy on her mind she didn’t want to talk about. So Dottie rose to the occasion, regaling us with tales of the things she and Fred had been forced to do to avoid getting caught with Minnie on the premises.

“I’m so glad you agreed to take her. I really think the landlord was getting suspicious. We could’ve moved to Fred’s place out at the lake if we had to. But it’s so far from everything, and with his heart the way it is … besides, he only has a life estate in it, and Mickey is pushing to sell, so that wouldn’t have worked long-term either.”

Apparently Mickey wasn’t too bright. In the currently depressed real estate market, they weren’t likely to get a fraction of what the place was worth. Of course, if he was out of work and strapped for cash, he might not have a lot of choice. Still, that he’d even consider putting his own father out of his home didn’t impress me even a little bit.

“It really has gotten a lot more urgent now that he’s come for a visit. Minnie hates him.” She looked over to where the cat was pawing intently at a box in the corner. “I don’t know what’s wrong. He walks in the room and she just arches up and hisses. She even took a swipe at his ankles when he walked by.”

I turned to look at the little orange-and-white fur ball, who had moved on and was now happily grooming herself by the French doors. She’d been our office cat for quite a while. I’d never seen her react badly to anyone—not even Ron, and he was a jerk. It made me wonder about Mickey, especially on top of everything else.

When the sun sank toward the horizon, the vampire side of me began to rise. Even though I’d finished my smoothie and some broth besides, I could feel the need to hunt stirring within me. My friends’ bodies began glowing, my hearing becoming so acute that their laughter hurt my ears, and the beating of their hearts was like so many drums.

When I caught myself starting to drool, I made my excuses and dragged myself out to the beach, away from temptation. I walked until I reached my favorite perch, a huge flat-topped rock at the very edge of the ocean. Sinking onto the rough stone, I stared at the water. I fought to master the beast within me, my body shuddering from the effort not to chase, not to kill. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t pretty. But eventually, when the moon rose and the last traces of orange and red left the horizon, I was able to think human thoughts again and I started back toward the house.

Apparently I’d been gone too long for Dawna’s comfort. I heard the scrape of metal on metal as the French doors slid open. In the background Emma was saying how she and Matty were waiting for word from the Vatican on his transfer. There was the soft sound of footsteps on the deck and Dawna called, quietly, “Celia?”

“I’m fine,” I called back.

We both knew I was lying.