Mystwalker 01: The Trouble with Fate Page 11

  “They can kill witnesses.”

  He smiled. “Only if I let them.”

  I didn’t realize I’d been taking steps backward until my butt hit a washer. I corrected my course, and kept backpedaling, heading toward the door. “Why don’t you just call the pack?”

  “What pack?” He made a minute adjustment to his club.

  “Your pack.”

  “I don’t have a pack,” said Trowbridge, eyes on the Weres. Outside, Biggs passed a phone to Scawens.

  “He’s calling for reinforcements,” I said, bumping into the purple pant lady. “Sorry,” I said automatically. She frowned fiercely and planted her feet firmly in the aisle. She had a cell phone tucked between her shoulder and ear and a bottle of detergent hanging from her other meaty fist. A cornered woman could do a lot of damage with her bulk and a full bottle of scent-free Tide. “Sorry,” I said again, sucking in my gut to get past her.

  “Kid, stop heading for the back door,” said Trowbridge.

  He had to stop calling me a kid. Particularly as he kept calling them kids. He was by the door, watching the Weres through the long stretch of plate glass that fronted the place. I could see myself reflected in it. If I looked past my reflection to the dimly lit parking lot, I could see three Weres outside, clustered by the Honda. A scowling Scawens was punching numbers into a cell phone with sharp, quick jabs. Judging by the way Eric was bouncing on his toes, the dyed-blond Were knew exactly what he wanted to do, but a significant lack of balls was keeping him from doing it. Biggs worried a pothole with the toe of his sneaker. His hands were tucked into his jeans pockets.

  When I blinked, the outside drama fell away, and I was looking at the reflection of the inside of the room again—the long row of dryers, and me, edging my way backward toward the emergency exit, and the lady in the purple pants and her towering basket of laundry and then finally, him. He was watching them and me, all at the same time, and suddenly I felt a flash of kinship toward him. Inexplicable and untimely. Like me, he was outside of the world, and inside all at the same time.

  “No one would send just a trio of kids after me. There could be ten of them out there by now.” He changed the angle of his head, and I knew he wasn’t studying my reflection anymore. “You open that door, and you’ll be letting in more than I can deal with.” His deep voice was flat as he studied the two outside. “And if I can’t deal with them, you’re dead.”

  At the word “dead,” the purple pants lady said into her cell phone, “You got that? You get your asses out here, right now. He said dead. Dead. I’m not waiting around to be killed. You get those cops out here now.” She nodded, and then said to me, “You better get yourself gone, girl. The cops are coming. They’re on their way.”

  But I didn’t get myself gone—I stood there indecisively.

  Trowbridge jabbed a finger at Scawens. “Who is he?”

  “Someone who really wants to hurt me.”

  “Well, there’s a surprise.” He let out a huff of air. “His name?”

  “Stuart Scawens.”

  Trowbridge closed his eyes briefly. “Repeat that.”

  “The guy on the phone is Stuart Scawens from Creemore.” I waited for his reaction, one foot shifting behind, ready to haul ass when he smacked his head, and said, “Of course!” But he didn’t.

  “Stuart Scawens from Creemore,” he repeated slowly. I could swear a bright blue light flashed in his eyes for an instant. His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. “That,” he said, jerking his head at the Were, “is Stuart Scawens.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. When he spoke, his voice was flatter than the prairies. “Well, there goes killing them.”

  “No, you can kill them.”

  “Oh, you think?”

  I’d hit Scawens with a fifty-pound RCA, and a number ten knitting needle and he’d bounced back like Wile E. Coyote. “Killing him seems to be the only way to stop him.”

  “Thanks for the blessing. But as it happens, I’ve got a problem with that. Right now, Stuart Scawens is the one person on the planet I can’t kill. And I want to kill somebody. The longer I stay around you, the more I want to kill somebody.”

  Purple pants had thighs like hams, and they rubbed together as she crept backward toward the emergency exit. “Lady, don’t even think about it,” Trowbridge snapped. She seemed to shrink, and then she took herself to the corner where dryers met washers.

  In the parking lot, the phone call had come to an end. Biggs pushed the cell into his pocket, and then glowered at nothing in general.

  “Stay here, Biggs, and watch how it’s done.” Stuart sent us a feral smile.

  “So it begins,” said Trowbridge, softly.

  Scawens didn’t even bother with the locked door. With six bounding steps, he leaped. Glass sprayed inward in a showering arc as he came through the storefront. Momentum carried him into the first row of machines. Eric leaped through the same hole, a great deal less tidily, as he skidded on the glass shards littering the floor.

  Well, so long, Trowbridge. I’m no idiot. I sprinted for the back exit as his club connected with Eric’s flank. As soon as my hand met the metal bar of the emergency door, Merry started to writhe inside my bra. It barely checked me. I stuck a cautious head outside. I had expected ten Werewolfs to be outside, doing crosswords while waiting for me to come pelting out. There was nothing but a scrub of weeds lining the chain-link fence and asphalt. I put a foot out on the pavement.

  Merry whipped her vines around my left boob and squeezed. I mean, squeezed. “What?” I shrieked in disbelief. “You want me to help him?” Bent in half, holding my boob, I squinted behind me. Trowbridge and the two Weres were doing a dance around each other. Mostly it seemed like Scawens and Eric were making increasingly infuriated swipes as Trowbridge danced nimbly out of their reach, deflecting each strike with his makeshift club.

  “He left me in a burning house. A freakin’ burning house. Did he ever stop to say, ‘Gee, I think there were kids in that house too? Maybe I should check for them?’ No. He did not. Let him take care of himself.” Unappeased, Merry bore down on my flesh. “Seriously, help him? Let the Weres fight it out. Someone will end up with the amulet, and I’ll follow them.” She hung on like an evil twisted clamp. Through clenched teeth, I said, “It’s the amulet, right? I won’t lose sight of the amulet.” She curled infinitesimally tighter, adding heat to the misery. “Geez Louise, knock it off. Okay,” I whined. “I promise I won’t leave until I get the amulet.” Her vines fell away, and then she dropped off my boob to swing from her chain. Her stone was still shot with red streaks. Probably matched my breast. I breathed hard through my nose against the pain before I could tolerate straightening up. Ten years of no pain, and now look at me.

  Trowbridge and Eric were dancing, unconsciously matching each other in an intricate pattern of nimble footwork. Every second beat, the younger Were tried to slash Trowbridge’s neck with hooked fingers, the Were-hard nails of which had been sharpened into predator’s claws. But Trowbridge was too fast. He was a feinting Beckham, all grace and supple agility. Teeth bared, he brought the deadly minuet to a quick end. He dodged, and then he spun, slamming a fist into the kid’s kidneys, following it up with a hard jab of his knee to his opponent’s midsection. The kid went down, but as he did, he swiped his leg out and brought Trowbridge with him. Trowbridge rolled and was up before Eric could leap on his back.

  Trowbridge was good. He was fast. He was strong. He didn’t need my help. He could clearly outdance Scawens and Eric. What he couldn’t outmaneuver was a gun. I heard a shot, and gasped as the impact spun Trowbridge around.

  I’d forgotten about the female Were. She shouldered through the Laundromat door with the gun in both hands, dressed in dark, fitted pants, and a tight black body-hugging top. She was beautiful, with dark smooth hair that fell in long wings around her face. Her face was taut, battle ready, with brown eyes that flickered nervously as she watched the two Weres circle the bleeding Trowbridge. She adjusted her aim. The handgun
in her pale hands was dull grayish-black, pointed at Trowbridge.

  “Don’t kill him,” Stuart said sharply. “But I won’t mind if you hurt him some more.” His face broke into a triumphant smirk at the sight of Trowbridge’s bloody right shoulder.

  The girl with the gun wasn’t shaking out of fear, but out of sheer adrenaline. I could hear the soft pants as she breathed through her mouth. She lowered her chin, centered her balance, and held that ugly gun like she was posing for a Charlie’s Angels poster.

  “Don’t do this,” Trowbridge said slowly. “You add a gun to this and someone’s going to be dead. It won’t be me.” He made a slow motion with his good hand, urging her to drop the weapon. She raised the gun higher, but took a cautious pace backward. It brought her closer to the washer.

  Washers come with doors.

  I pointed my hand at the machine, and said, “Open.” The power sprang from me, whistled through the air, found the machine, and popped that washer door open right into the small of the female’s back. She fell with a startled grunt.

  When she bounced back to her toes, the weapon was pointed at me. I ducked and the bullet aimed for my head went whizzing by my ear to ping harmlessly into a washer. Me, apparently, they didn’t mind being dead. I don’t know what other people think when someone fires a gun at them. But all I could think was, She shot at me. The bitch shot at me.

  Even as I dodged death, I was still attached to the line of magic. It stretched thinly between the machine and me, vibrating with tension. Rage fueled more power to surge up my arm, burning my fingers, swelling my hands. Sickening power. I felt my stomach knot with the tension of holding it, and then with a harsh whisper, I said, “Push.” My Fae gift flew down the invisible cable of magic to hit the machine with such a cataclysmic jolt that it ran a savage reverberation right back to my hand.

  I yowled as the machine went shrieking across the floor, pleating up linoleum as it sped toward the female Were. Fueled by my magic, the washer plowed into the girl like a freight train. Her gun went spinning up on impact, and then she became the hood ornament to the Christine of washers. Ornament and machine slammed into the corner with a bone-crunching smack. I didn’t see it. I’d closed my eyes as she careened toward the corner. When I opened them again, the wall was decorated with a fanning spray of wet blood. The woman’s arm stuck up over the top of the machine, like a white broken flag. I couldn’t see her head, just blood. Red on a white wall. Three sprays of it, to be precise. And one long vermillion smear. Did she still have a head?

  Don’t think about the blood. Don’t look at it. Don’t smell it.

  I was still linked to the machine, like some damned creature in a Poe story, tied to the scene of the crime by guilt and the supernatural. I couldn’t detach. The power held on to me, and held on to the machine, and all memory of squashed boob was overlaid by the horrifying misery of being held between the push and pull of my tethered magic. I strained, as I desperately tried to cut myself off from it. Smoke started to curl up from my fingertips.

  “Oh Goddess.” I groaned, arching my back against the horrible sensation of being linked and pulled and torn and burned. Merry scrambled over my chest and maneuvered into a healing position. “Don’t,” I said, pulling her away.

  I was deeper than I’d ever been before, practically bathed by the power that was no longer adequately contained. It simmered and swelled inside me, a hard knot of unnamed fury, ready to explode, multiply, and consume. The Fae part of me was lost. It was just a speck, being squeezed by all that venom. Hunched over that machine, with one hand holding Merry away from my chest, I let out a whine. I was burning. Outside and in.

  I plummeted deeper and then bumped into something. Something other, which had been locked deep inside. Another identity—a hot hungry implacable hunter, one that liked being linked to that vengeful power—rose up, took a pitying glance at the weak half Fae who was floundering, and reluctantly snipped the link.

  Oh Fae Stars, the Were-bitch was loose inside me.

  My knees buckled, and I slid down the cool surface of a washer. In the background I could hear noises of men struggling. Grunts. The sound of bodies hitting the sides of walls, dryers. The squeak of sneakers on the tile.

  There was something “other” in my body. It was running up and down my spine. It was stretching out my sore fingers, rippling under my skin. She was lean inside me, but foreign. So foreign. She was also strong. I borrowed some of her strength to rise to my feet, and then we three, the Fae that Lou had reared, the Were-bitch inside me, and what was left of Helen Stronghold, stumbled to the front of the Laundromat.

  Scawens was on the floor, facedown, not moving. Dead, I hoped. Trowbridge was still on his feet, even though blood was dripping down off the fingers of his right hand. He was using his left to hold the club across Eric’s windpipe. Eric was turning purple. It would be over soon. Then Scawens got back unsteadily to his feet. He looked around, grabbed a chair, and swung it in a clumsy arc down on Trowbridge’s back. Trowbridge fell to one knee, but he didn’t let go of the weakly struggling Eric. There was a long squeak of sneaker as Eric struggled to hold his balance. He lost it, and fell backward, choking, onto Trowbridge.

  Scawens shook his head to clear it, and brought the chair up high again.

  “No,” I said. Mine, mine, mine, said my Were-bitch.

  I pointed to the chair poised over Scawens’s head. Fae magic spun out, stuck to the chair like a spider’s web, and held. Scawens tried to swing the chair, but to his surprise, it seemed stuck solid to air. He looked up at the chair, and then behind him, before the penny dropped.

  Anger mixed with fear slid across his face. As the sweet stench of his fear spread like a pool of dismay around him, the bitch inside took over my facial muscles. I could feel my lips stretching into a murderous smile. Kill, she said.

  “No,” I said. But my other hand was already reaching for the last chair. Magic caught it before my fingers could and brought it to the air. Scawens turned, but he was too slow. Much too slow. The chair hit him. And as he ducked to avoid it, hands defensively over his head, the other chair followed. They weren’t much in terms of weight. The bitch regretted that. But it was enough. It brought him down to Trowbridge’s level, and once there, he fell victim to Trowbridge’s foot. The savage kick caught Scawens under the jaw, with enough force to snap his head back. He went down and, this time, stayed down.

  I walked unsteadily to Trowbridge. Eric’s legs twitched as he hung on to his last moments of consciousness. The bitch wondered why Trowbridge didn’t crush his throat. The metal bar could do it. The bitch wanted him to. But Trowbridge just kept the pressure steady, enough to render insensible, not enough to kill.

  Mine, mine, mine, said the bitch, feasting her eyes on Trowbridge’s snapping blue eyes. Lights were shining within them. Blue irises surrounded by a ring of white-blue light. So, I hadn’t been wrong before. His eyes shone. Just like an Alpha’s.

  Or a Fae’s.

  And with that, I remembered who I was. Hedi Peacock, almost all Fae. I slapped the wriggling bitch’s paws off the controls.

  “No,” I said, reaching toward Trowbridge. “He’s not yours. He’s not ours.”

  Trowbridge was leaning far backward on his knees, his neck arched painfully as he held the bar grimly across his opponent’s throat. I could smell Trowbridge’s blood. The Were inside me gave a wiggle that felt like butterflies under my skin when I touched his hair. My fingers slid through it. It was drying at the ends. I felt around his bulging neck muscles for the chain. I grasped it, and I looked away as I pulled the chain up and over his neck. He tried to snap his head to the side, but there was nowhere to go, was there? And then it was up over his chin, and over his head. One long lock clung to the chain briefly before it floated down.

  “This is mine,” I said, in Hedi’s voice. “This is mine.” I held the amulet, and then jerkily put it over my own neck.

  Merry surrounded the amulet with her gold, wrapping herself around it with s
inuous grace, until it was hard to tell what was Merry and what was the other. I stumbled toward the door like a drunk. My leg muscles felt odd. Weak, liquefied, like I’d run too far. With every step, I lost another fraction of my strength. It took too much effort to get to the door.

  Metal scraped as I pulled the door open. I looked over my shoulder. The Christine of washers was being pushed away from the corner by the dark-haired Were girl in a one-armed display of power. She was alive, then. Maybe that would mean more to me later. One of her arms appeared mangled. I could see bone, and tendons, and other things I didn’t want to see. Her middle section was stained bright red. There was more blood, red, visceral, disgusting, on her face. None of that seemed to make her pause. She didn’t even do the “Oh my God, look at my arm!” thing that I would have done. She just stared at me, and then at Trowbridge, much like the Akita I once saw charge at a retriever.

  I put one hand on the door frame to steady myself. Put the other into my pocket. Felt for it, found it. “Trowbridge,” I called. His eyes were still on me. Had they ever left me? I could feel the heat. The squirm inside. “Here.” I threw the alarm to him. He caught it in midair with his wet bloody hand.

  A second later, sound blasted through the Laundromat. Horrible noise. I pressed one ear to my shoulder, and covered the other with my heated hand. And then I staggered out and away from it all. The door swung slowly behind me. I took a step. Another. Three lurching ones. I made it past a pothole. Past Biggs who didn’t seem inclined to interfere. The Taurus looked farther away.

  I put a shaky foot forward and fell to my knees. Then both knees sort of oozed away, and I was on my side, lying on the crumbling asphalt of the parking lot. My head was turned to the door, and so I had an unwanted hazy view of what happened next.

  Trowbridge heaved Eric’s limp body off. He felt around in his jeans for his earplugs. He jammed them in his ears. The girl behind the desk ran to the back of the Laundromat, bent over in a crouch.