Devil’s Luck

by Kory M. Shrum

  “You too,” Lou said, sidestepping into a shadow between the building and dumpster.

  Then she was back in the car.

  “Lou!” Piper cried. “Where did you go?”

  “I told you.” Lou held up the food. “I got dinner.”

  “No,” Piper whined. “We gotta hit the drive-through. We gotta—”

  “Thanks, Louie,” Dani said. “Can I get that Sprite?”

  Lou handed her the soda. “Here’s your veggie burger.”

  “Amazing! And ketchup for the fries! Babe, help me out.” Dani was giving Piper a look Lou didn’t understand.

  Piper rubbed the back of her neck again, accepting the milkshake Lou offered. “Yeah, thanks.”

  They ate in silence, Piper tearing open little packets with her teeth and squeezing sauce out onto the wax paper.

  When the gas light came on, they pulled off the interstate.

  “Let’s just stop here,” Dani said, pointing at the hotel across from the gas station. “We’ve already done twelve hours today. That’s enough. Maybe we’d all do well to get out of the car for the night.”

  “I didn’t even drive,” Piper said.

  Dani handed her the keys. “You can start tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Piper opened the hotel room to find their bags piled against one wall. On the desk was a note scribbled on the hotel’s stationery:

  I’ll be back in a couple of hours. ; ) – L

  Dani came up behind her and put her chin on her shoulder. “What do you think the wink face means?”

  Piper huffed. “She thinks she’s giving us some privacy.”

  “That’s nice of her.”

  “Is it?” Piper asked, throwing the keys down on the desk beside the note.

  “Come on,” Dani said with a grin. “This’ll be our bed. Lou can have that one.”

  The look in Dani’s eye drew a nervous laugh from her. “Are you implying—?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m implying.” Dani came up onto her toes so that she could kiss Piper’s lips.

  But Piper broke the kiss first. “I can’t. I’m sorry. She could just pop in at any time.”

  “She’s got her compass thingy,” Dani said, undoing the button on the top of her shirt. “I think she’ll know when it’s safe to come back.”

  Piper liked the look in her eyes. They were dark and hungry. Her hair was cascading over one shoulder as she looked up at her through thick lashes. That look alone was almost enough to undo Piper.

  “I can’t,” Piper said, and this time it was harder to say. “I don’t want to be thinking about Lou while I’m…”

  She let the insinuation slide.

  Dani sat down on the edge of the bed, kicking off one of her boots. She was noticeably colder.

  Well, now I’ve screwed up, Piper thought. Left and right today.

  “You seemed a little irritable today.”

  Piper looked at the luggage on the floor and then at the note. “Do you think the road trip idea was stupid?”

  Dani frowned, shrugging out of her shirt. The sexy look was gone with the clothes as she rummaged in her bag for a night shirt. “No. Why would it be stupid?”

  Piper sank into the desk chair and covered her face. “I don’t know. I guess I had this big plan in my head that we’d go on this epic adventure and eat snacks, and listen to music and talk, but this whole trip she’s just been sitting in the back of the car, grimacing.”

  “Honey, Lou’s never been a big talker.”

  “I know. But I wanted us to bond, you know? I wanted us to have moments like real friends.”

  Dani unhooked her bra. “What do you mean, real friends?”

  “Right now we’re disaster friends. We hang out when there’s a bad guy to hunt or kill or someone to save or if everyone is being held captive by some psycho. What if that’s the only reason she talks to me? Out of necessity?”

  Dani pulled a Tulane t-shirt over her head and swept her thick hair up into a messy bun. “Listen. You know that Lou is different. A road trip with Lou isn’t going to be like a road trip with me. You’ve got to accept that. Just try to have fun with her the way things are.”

  As things are.

  But as things are meant accepting that Lou was distant and unpredictable. Unreadable at the best of times. She could disappear at a moment’s notice, and what then? Where would that leave Piper?

  Disaster friends come and go, Henry had warned.

  No. That can’t happen, she thought. I can’t let that happen.

  4

  The hotel room fell away. Lou relaxed against the shift of the world, feeling points in space realign. She felt it first low in her chest. In the solar plexus, it came as a tug forward, the compass inside her reaching out for its destination. Then her mind dilated, opening like night-blooming jasmine to the darkness consuming her.

  But there was only silence, soft shadows, and the smell of water.

  When the world reformed around her, she was in a dim bedroom. A man slept beneath a plush green comforter covered in gold fleur-de-lis splattering the fabric. His chest rose and fell softly with his breath as moonlight made the pillows glow. Behind her, the high arched window overlooking the Arno River was open, filling the room with a gentle August breeze. Even though it must be three or four in the morning, Lou could still feel the heat of the day in the air.

  She stepped up to the end of the bed and Konstantine stirred.

  He rolled onto his back, revealing the pistol gripped loosely in his right hand.

  He must’ve had it hidden under his pillow, she thought. He pretended to be asleep until he could grab it.

  She pushed her mirrored sunglasses up on her head and smiled. “Bad dreams?”

  He left the gun on the bed and sat up on his elbows. His eyes raked her body. “You look good to me.”

  She arched a brow. “Smooth.”

  “I thought you were with Piper,” he said, careful to inflate the i in her name.

  “We drove all day.” She sounded exhausted even to herself.

  Konstantine gave her a knowing smile. “Was it difficult for you? Traveling the way we mere mortals do? I bet when the sun went down it was harder.”

  “It’s a waste of time,” she said. “I don’t know why she insists on doing it this way.”

  “It’s an American pastime,” Konstantine said, lying back against the pillows and putting his hands under his head. Lou noted his bare chest, letting her eyes scrape down his torso, with no attempt to hide her thoughts.

  “How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

  “The same.” She wasn’t sure why she’d admitted that. It was the truth, but it sounded dangerously close to whining.

  Louie Thorne did not whine.

  “Do you want to lie down with me?” he asked. “Or do you need to get back?”

  She shrugged out of her leather jacket and reached down to unbuckle her boots. She kicked them off onto the floor as she climbed into the bed.

  Konstantine moved over, lifting the comforter so she could slip inside.

  “I told them I’d be back,” she said.

  “I’ll be sure to keep you awake then,” he replied with a devilish grin.

  When he moved in, placing the length of his body against hers, warmth radiated through her. Without realizing it, she moved in closer. He placed a kiss on her throat. Then another. On the third, she stiffened, her body going rigid with the pain.

  He pulled back, his shadowed face pinched. “Sorry.”

  Her irritation spiked. “My shoulder should be better by now.”

  Konstantine arched an eyebrow. “First of all, shoulders are notoriously difficult to heal. Secondly, you were shot. The doctor said you would need at least six months. By my count you are six weeks short of that.”

  “Five,” she corrected.

  The truth was, it had never taken Lou this long to heal. She’d been shot before, many times. She’d been stabbed, and suffered every other type of injury one could when throw
ing themselves headlong into battle.

  “I’ve never been so—”

  “Bored?” Konstantine offered with a smile. “It’s good that things are quiet. You’re not as capable as you usually are.”

  Lou dematerialized, allowing the shadows in the darkened room and those layered by his body over hers to provide the gap she needed to bleed through the world.

  She reappeared behind him on her side, her good shoulder bracing her, and put her finger to the back of his head. “Bang.”

  He rolled over and enveloped her outstretched hand with his. “Yes, you’re still fast. And you’re still strong. But there is nothing wrong with rest, amore mio.”

  The truth was, Lou had never been one for rest. When Aunt Lucy was alive, she made frequent comments about Lou’s restlessness, the way she would pace like a lioness in her cage at even the slightest agitation. At times it felt like a current ran through her, a live wire. And if she didn’t do something with all of that energy, that desire, it would tear her apart.

  “You could rupture your shoulder,” Konstantine said. “Then you wouldn’t lose months, you’d lose years.”

  All this talk about her shoulder wasn’t sexy. It rubbed against her mind like steel wool.

  He must’ve seen the look on her face.

  “I don’t mean to lecture you. You know your limits.”

  Her aunt had often accused her of going too far, pushing too hard and not knowing when to quit. That was great when it came to hunting murderers and mafia kingpins. Less so when it came to the care and maintenance of her own body.

  She met his eyes. “I haven’t gone looking for trouble.”

  “No,” he said, and placed a kiss on the tip of her nose. “But trouble will find you sooner or later.”

  She grinned. “You’re one to talk. I seem to remember pulling you out of a burning villa after Nico carved up half your face.”

  “You set the villa on fire.”

  Lou didn’t remember that part.

  “Besides,” he said. His voice dropped an octave and a hungry look overcame his features. It was the wolfish way he was watching her lips, relinquishing them only to trace the line of her throat and collarbone. “The sooner you’re healed, the sooner we can…”

  He bit his lower lip.

  “We tried that,” she reminded him.

  Two months after her brush with death, after the bullet tore a hole in the side of her neck, she’d tried to fuck him. When he’d put his hands on her hips and pulled her forward, the sharp pain shattering that side of her body had rocked her. It was a pain unlike any she’d known before, and few on this planet were more acquainted with pain than she was.

  Yet she’d been unable to move for several minutes, while he’d poured apologies into her ears. Of course, that hadn’t stopped her from trying twice more.

  Now Lou moved to adjust herself on the bed and find a position that didn’t allow her shoulder to roll forward, pulling at the weakened tendons there. She settled for lying on her back, her gaze skyward. This left Konstantine on his side, gazing down into her face.

  “I must admit…” he began. The hunger was still there in his eyes, but Lou saw the attempt to rein it in. “I’m more than a little jealous that they get to travel with you.”

  “I took you to New Orleans,” she said.

  He tilted his head, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “That wasn’t a vacation. We went to kill Dmitri.”

  “There was New York.”

  He tilted his head. “On our way to kill Nico.”

  She supposed none of their travels could be classified as vacations when one accounted for all the shootouts, hunting, and murder.

  “After we get back from San Diego, I’m going to La Loon,” she said. “I’ve been away for too long. I want to check on Jabbers.”

  “Take me with you,” he said, and seeming to hear his earnestness, he looked away.

  “Jabbers might eat you,” Lou said. “I’ve never brought…”

  She searched for the word. What was Konstantine to her? Boyfriend? Lover?

  “Anyone,” she decided on. “The men I bring are for her to eat. It stands to reason she’d see you and think you’re food.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” he said with a grin.

  Lou arched both brows. “That’s because you haven’t seen her.”

  She stopped short of adding, She’s going to scare the shit out of you.

  He considered this for a moment. Then his smile softened. “I trust you.”

  Her heart clenched as if kicked.

  “A trip will take your mind off your shoulder. We can do a proper exploration. I can collect soil and plant samples. We can discover the mystery of La Loon together.”

  He was searching her face, looking for her answer.

  She could admit, if only to herself, that La Loon was a mystery that taunted her. She wanted to know why—of everywhere in the world she could go—she went to La Loon.

  It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to use her power in other ways. But when she submerged herself in water, it was always La Loon that served as the first stop.

  La Loon, with its nightmare landscape of blood-red waters, two moons, and dense black forests. Why should she always slip to that unfathomable place? That said nothing of the monster that guarded the domain.

  A beast who Lou was half convinced would tear Konstantine open on the spot.

  “I’ll take you,” she said with a wicked smile. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  5

  Screaming ripped through the dark room. Lou came up out of a dead sleep, her gun in her hand.

  “No, no,” Piper said, holding out a hand toward Lou. “It’s okay. She’s dreaming.”

  Piper reached across Dani’s writhing form and clicked on the hotel lamp.

  “Dani, hey, Dani, wake up. Baby. Wake up.”

  Dani stopped struggling against her imaginary attacker and grew still in the tangle of sheets. Her heavy breathing continued until slowly, her eyes opened, squinting against the light.

  Lou’s shoulder burned. She lowered the gun, aware now that she’d pulled it with her left hand, her bad side. Now nerve pain shot up the side of her neck every time a vertebra shifted.

  “Was I screaming?” Dani asked, touching her face. When her hands came away wet, she looked at her fingers as if she’d never seen them before.

  “No big deal. You okay?” Piper asked, running a hand through her hair.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dani said, pulling herself up. She pressed her back against the headboard and clutched the covers to her chest. “I’m so sorry I woke you up.”

  “We don’t care about that,” Piper said, pushing the hair back from Dani’s forehead. Several strands were stuck to the side of her face, plastered there by sweat despite the humming air conditioner.

  Dani glanced at the gun in Lou’s hand. “I scared you.”

  Piper made a face over her shoulder. Lou chose to interpret the wide eyes and nod to mean, Say something nice.

  “I always sleep with a gun,” Lou said.

  Piper motioned for more.

  “In my hand. Like this,” Lou added.

  Piper rolled her eyes.

  “Excuse me.” Dani climbed out of the bed. She slipped into her flip flops and crossed to the bathroom. She flicked on the light before closing the door and shutting herself inside.

  For a moment the two of them remained where they were, unmoving. Piper stared down at Dani’s pillow as if just discovering it empty.

  “Does that happen a lot?” Lou asked, putting the gun on the nightstand and trying to roll her shoulder back.

  Piper ran a hand down her face. “Yeah. Petrov really messed her up.”

  Lou imagined that was true. She’d seen the condition Petrov had left the girl’s body in after he was done torturing her for information about Lou—information Dani didn’t have.

  In the hospital, small and broken, Dani hadn’t seemed like a formidable investigative reporter capab
le of destroying Lou’s anonymity. She’d seemed like a young woman who’d walked through hell and back, but there had still been steel in her eyes. That more than anything had convinced Lou not to silence her.

  “It’s worse when she stays over at my place,” Piper said, scratching the back of her head. Lou could see the pillow lines cutting across her exposed cheek. “I think she wakes up and doesn’t know where she is. But when we sleep at her place, it happens too. She says it happens less when we’re together though.”

  Explains why you sleep together most nights, she thought. She wasn’t about to mention how many times she’d appeared in Piper’s room in the dead of night just to check on her and in doing so had found Dani asleep in her bed.

  Piper continued, the circles dark under her eyes. “I guess I should’ve realized staying in a hotel might trigger it. New place. New smells, or whatever.”

  Lou rotated her aching shoulder again. “Some wounds take longer than others to heal.”

  Unfortunately.

  They heard the shower crank on in the bathroom, but it didn’t mask the soft crying.

  “She’d probably prefer it if we just turned off the lights. I think she’s embarrassed,” Piper said, and leaned across the bed to flick the switch.

  Lou sat in the darkness for two heartbeats. Then she rose from the bed and crossed to the bathroom door and pushed it open.

  “Lou—” Piper began.

  But Lou had already shut the door behind her. Her compass wasn’t always for travel after all. Sometimes it told her where she needed to be, even when she had no need to slip at all.

  The bathroom was already half full of steam. The mirror was fogged over and a thin mist was forming on the sink and toilet.

  The curtain waved slightly from the force of the stream.

  “It’s me,” Lou said, one hand on the curtain.

  “I’m okay,” Dani said, her voice thick.

  Lou pulled back the curtain anyway.

  Dani was sitting in the tub, fully clothed, her back taking the full force of the stream. The water was scalding her skin, turning it red.

  Lou crouched down on the floor beside her, the edge of the tub between them.