He’d told the boys his name was Georgio. That he was just here to settle the account.
Bullshit.
Because it wasn’t about them being pissants. It was about the woman, the boogeyman, the strega Bane had heard so much about. The Ravengers passed stories about her like they passed joints. And threaded through every story was the same theory: Konstantine and the woman were linked. Maybe she was the devil. Maybe he’d sold his soul for all the power and money he has. Whatever the reason, where you found one, you found the other. And Alice wanted to know if there was something to all those stories.
“Bane—” Micah began.
“Shhh. I told you, not a word.”
“But—”
She shoved the head of the bat into his stomach. “Shut it.”
Silence.
Alice squinted harder, trying to keep the woman and Konstantine in clear view.
As soon as Konstantine’s hand was on her shoulder, they disappeared.
One minute they were at the edge of the streetlight. The next, nada. The grass was bare.
No Konstantine. No mysterious woman in black. No blonde. Even the cat was gone. And it didn’t matter what direction Alice searched, there was nothing to be found.
And it wasn’t like there wasn’t enough light. The burning building made it as bright as day. People from the adjacent houses were trailing out into the night to see what had happened.
A fire truck wailed in the distance, coming closer, drawn to the blown-out building like moths to a flame. And a burning building was all they’d find.
Not the woman who could disappear in the dark and be anywhere she wanted with a simple thought. Woman. Strega. Devil.
“Badass,” she whispered with a sigh.
She wished she could do shit like that. Some people had all the luck.
39
Piper was stretched long on her sofa, a blanket thrown over her legs. Lou sat on the floor beside her, staring at her as if this intense gaze would wake her up.
The Russian Blue wandered from room to room, meowing indignantly to anyone who’d listen. She was obviously displeased with the surroundings and the sudden displacement.
It looked like she was searching for Dani.
Dani.
Lou opened and closed her fists.
“I should go.”
“They’ll be expecting that,” Konstantine said. He stood in Piper’s kitchen, searching the cabinets for a mug. He found one to the left of the stove and filled it with fresh coffee. He placed this on the table for Lou. “She wants you to come unprepared.”
Hold on, Lou thought. Hold on, Dani.
“Drink this.” He put the mug in her hand.
“I thought this was for her,” Lou said.
“Do you often pour beverages down the throats of unconscious women?” His lips quirked with a smile. “How strange Americans are.”
“What if this is a coma?” Lou placed the untouched coffee on the table. “What if she’s going to die from this?”
“Her heart rate and breathing are fine. She might have a concussion and an ugly black eye. But I don’t think she will die from a punch in the face.”
She didn’t need to say the obvious. They’d probably hit Dani too. Knocking her unconscious would make sure they could get her out of the building without a fight.
If they’d left Piper conscious, she could’ve called Lou, alerted the authorities. Or possibly she could’ve gotten a plate number or vehicle description.
But why leave Piper alive at all?
A knock came at the door and Konstantine rose to answer it. Melandra and King entered the apartment.
“Me first,” Melandra said, seeing Piper on the sofa. She elbowed her way past King.
“What is that?” Lou nodded toward the syringe in King’s hand.
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” He slipped the capped syringe back into his pocket.
“Adrenaline,” Konstantine wagered. “By the look of it.”
King shrugged, as if to say maybe.
Mel knelt in front of the girl and uncapped a small tube. She waved it under Piper’s nose.
Piper’s eyes fluttered, lazily. She groaned.
“Hey, baby. Welcome back.” Mel touched Piper’s cheek and cooed. “Ouch. Look at your face. I’m going to get some ice for that. Lou, open that window and get some air in here.”
Lou opened the window as instructed.
Piper blinked, sitting up. She groaned, placing one hand over her eye and hissing. “Oh god. I’m going to puke.”
Konstantine produced a trash can. White plastic with blue birds painted on the side. Given the tissues inside, Lou suspected it came from the adjacent bathroom.
Piper locked eyes with Lou, holding the trash can but not using it.
“Would you rather have this?” She offered Piper the coffee, but she shook her head.
“I’m really dizzy. What happened?”
“What do you remember?” King asked.
Piper looked at her couch as if she’d never seen it. “I…I don’t know. I paid for my classes. For the fall. I have a biology lab on Friday. It’s three hours long.”
“After that,” King pressed on.
Piper searched Lou’s face as if the answers were written there. Then, when those features told her nothing, she looked from Konstantine to King.
Mel reappeared with a towel-wrapped ice pack and held it against Piper’s face. “That’s going to hurt tomorrow.”
“It hurts now,” Piper mumbled through her fat lip.
Meow.
Piper twitched at the sound, seeing Octavia wander into the living room, tail flicking.
“Hey, Tavi,” she said.
Then her face pinched.
“Wait. What is she doing here?” Piper’s face screwed up with concentration again. “I took out the cat litter.”
The ice fell from her hands. “Dani! Where’s Dani?”
“Diana took her,” Lou said plainly. There was no way to blunt this truth. “And I’m assuming she’s the reason your face looks the way it does.”
I’m going to kill her.
Piper stood on wobbly legs. She fell forward and Lou caught her by the arms.
“Is she, oh god is she—” Piper began.
“They took her. Presumably alive.”
Piper seized her wrist. “Please, go. Now. You have to go get her.”
Lou stepped back, ready to do just that.
Piper’s hold tightened. “No, wait. Diana said something.” Her face screwed up in concentration again. “She said…she said she’d be waiting for you.”
“Of course she is.” King was leaning into the kitchen island, jaw working. Lou saw and understood his fury.
“This is my fault,” Piper said. “If I’d said yes to going into hiding, if I—”
King shook his head. “It’s too late for that now.”
“Robert.” Melandra scowled at him. “Self-righteousness never helped anybody.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Piper held on to her like she was flotsam in a large and raging sea. With Konstantine’s help, they got her back onto the sofa, but she wouldn’t let go.
“It’s not your fault,” Lou said.
“Whose is it? Yours? You said you’d protect her.”
“Blame won’t help either.” Melandra adjusted the towel and repositioned the ice pack on Piper’s face. “We stick together. That’s what we do.”
Piper’s gaze was fixed on Lou. “Get her back, Louie.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Please. I’ll forgive you for choosing that psychopath over me if you just get Dani back.”
She finally released her, and Lou stepped back into the shadow-soaked corner of the room.
Konstantine caught her wrist before she could slip. “I won’t ask to go. I know I will only distract you and slow you down, but she will be ready for you. She might have the building rigged to blow. Or she might place a sniper on an adjacent roof. Yo
u have to be ready for anything.”
“I don’t think she would blow up two buildings in one night.”
“That is not a bet I would take,” Konstantine whispered, his face drawn. “Be careful.”
“Keep them safe,” Lou said. “For all we know she planted explosives here before taking Dani.”
Konstantine’s lips quirked. “I’ve already checked.”
“Post guards outside to watch the streets.”
Konstantine’s smile deepened.
“You already did that, too.”
Then the smile was gone. “I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about you. It’s you she wants, really.”
“How can you know that?” Lou asked. It seemed to her that Dani was the target.
Konstantine sighed. “Because a woman like Diana, I can understand.”
40
Once Piper’s apartment bled away, Lou found herself in the hidden armory beneath her kitchen island. The smell of sawdust tickled her nose as she took stock of its shelves. She decided on a shoulder holster with twin Berettas and a hip holster with twin Brownings. She pulled Kevlar sleeves up onto her arms and fixed a bulletproof vest snug across her chest.
Not that that helped much last time, she thought. Being shot in Julia Street station had made her very aware of a vest’s limitations.
Pulling on the jacket, her shoulder ached. A throbbing stab shot up her neck into the base of her skull. She considered taking a Vicodin, but immediately decided against it. She wanted her mind sharp for this fight.
Lou took a breath and pulled the string, extinguishing the overhead light.
The darkness pressed in against her as she exhaled, slowly, the sound of her breath filling her ears.
Then she was outside. The wind was cutting across her cheek and pulled tears from her eyes. When she blinked, she saw the city skyline. She gazed out over the lights, trying to place the view. She didn’t recognize it.
“I knew you’d come,” a voice drawled. At the edge of the darkness, a form shifted, stepping into the light. “Do you know where we are?”
“No,” she admitted.
Diana inched forward, light cutting across her cheek, showing only the right side of her face. “We’re on the Plaza building. Funny that your headquarters should be in New Orleans and yet you don’t know this building. Is New Orleans really your headquarters?”
Lou said nothing. She was trying to find Dani. Her compass said she was here, that she was close, but Lou couldn’t see her.
“Where is she?”
“It’s dark up here, right?” Diana laughed. “I made it that way just in case Blair is right. I want to see what you can really do.”
Lou searched the top of the building, but the dark was absolute. She saw no shapes, no shifting bodies. Only that bare sliver of concrete lit by the single lamp.
“Blair said that I’d be giving you the advantage,” Diana whispered conspiratorially. “Because she believes you can move through the dark like it’s a doorway. And I thought Spencer was the one with the imagination.”
Diana snorted at her own joke.
“But you can’t see in the dark, can you?”
Diana stepped back into the darkness, disappearing.
Lou froze on the spot, closing her eyes. There was no point in leaving them open if this was the game Diana wanted to play.
She searched the dark with her compass.
Dani, Dani, Dani, Daniella Allendale.
She felt the air shift on her right, knew the attack was coming on that side, but it would be too slow. Lou was already releasing her hold on the darkness and sinking through.
The night disappeared for a moment, like passing behind a brick wall, a blessed reprieve, and then broke open again.
Diana laughed. “Oh, you’re good.”
Heat swelled on Lou’s back and she turned at the last second, seeing the glint of a blade before the darkness swelled again.
This time icy fire sliced through her upper arm, drawing blood.
Another slash crossed her Kevlar sleeves. She took this opportunity to rotate her wrist and seize the hand holding it.
She yanked them forward, but it wasn’t Diana. It was the leather-clad sister, Blair.
Her eyes were hidden behind night vision goggles, the mechanical eyes comically large and insectile.
Blair yanked herself out of Lou’s grip and sidestepped into the dark.
Something slammed into her bulletproof vest, making her pivot her body. Fabric ripped. She reached out to grab the attacker but her hand swiped air.
Another cold flash of a blade sliced across the top of her thigh. An icy, electric file preceded the warm welling of blood. She felt it gush up between the flesh and fabric, soaking her pants.
Diana laughed.
The laugh was too far away for her to be the one who’d cut her. There were at least three of them up here.
A foot slammed into Lou’s torso, knocking the air from her. She went down to one knee.
“I’m disappointed in you,” Diana said, her voice disembodied and echoing. “I thought you’d understand how important my work is. You were supposed to understand. You were supposed to get it.”
Her shoulder was engulfed in pain. Lou struggled to draw a breath.
“And what’s worse, I tried to expose you, yet somehow, every story I leaked, every picture I showed, just disappeared. Why?”
Lou managed to get to her feet again, but red crowded her vision.
“Why do you get to keep your name, your secrecy, but I can’t have mine? Isn’t the work I’m doing important too?”
“Yes,” Lou said, thinking of the little boy who’d held so tight to her neck.
“Then how could you? Not one of them, King or those wannabe sleuths or my sister, or Spencer. None of them understand what our work means to us. No one but you. How could you?”
Diana stepped into the light, pushing her own night vision goggles up onto her head.
And she wasn’t alone. She held Dani close to her chest, pinning her with one arm. But Dani’s eyes were closed, her expression slack.
She’s dead, Lou thought, fear ripping through her. “You killed her.”
“No,” Diana said, rolling her eyes. “She’s just very, very sleepy. I didn’t want her flailing around on the roof, you know? It wasn’t safe.”
She snorted, laughing at her joke. But it was cut short by an explosion of anger contorting her features.
“You let her expose me.” Diana yanked on a fistful of Dani’s hair. No reaction. “You did this.”
Lou didn’t bother to explain that she hadn’t given the order. She didn’t control her people—and now she realized, with fear banging at the base of her throat, they were her people—like Diana did.
Her leg was going numb. She was starting to wonder if the cut in the thigh might’ve gotten her femoral artery.
Diana’s face fell. The anger folded into something saccharin. A parody of emotion. “I’m so disappointed, Lou. I was starting to think we could be really great, you and me.”
Diana doesn’t feel anything. Anger, maybe, she realized. Frustration.
But she had none of the fear clogging Lou’s mind. She had no one she was ready to take a bullet for.
Diana seemed to read her mind and didn’t like it. Her face screwed up with fresh irritation. “Let’s find out if you can really do what my sister says. This building is forty-five stories high, five hundred and thirty feet tall. It’s dark on this side of it. Look. Go ahead, look down the side. I won’t push.”
Lou didn’t.
“I’m not going to push you. I’m the trustworthy one here.”
Lou glanced over the side.
It was dark, but not completely. Lights from the city reflected off the many windows and ricocheted into the night.
“See, I didn’t push you. Yet.” She snorted, her delight returning. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”
Lou shifted forward, wanting to put a hand on Dani—ju
st a hand would be enough to get her off this roof and away from this dangerous game Diana wanted to play.
But Diana yanked her back, shoving a gun into Dani’s forehead. “You’re not faster than a bullet, are you?”
“No,” Lou said. When in truth, she thought, Sometimes.
But she saw Piper’s crestfallen face flash in her mind, and sometimes didn’t feel good enough.
Diana trained the pistol on her instead. “Here’s your choice. One: I put a bullet in her head and then one in yours. Or two: I push her off the building and you jump off after her.”
“You want to kill her.”
“Hell yes.” Diana laughed, high and hysterical. “Without a doubt. The only question I have is what to do about you. Do I toss her over, or shoot her, and then we fight it out on this roof? I already have two people with guns on you, by the way. Or would you like to go over the edge with her and save me the trouble?”
Lou saw a red dot scurry over her leg, abdomen, and chest. The fact she could no longer see it meant it must be higher. Probably trained at her head.
Diana’s widening grin certainly suggested so. “No bulletproof vests for a face, huh? Shame.”
Lou’s vision darkened at the corners again, another pulsing threat of unconsciousness.
I’m running out of time.
“What’ll it be, Louie Thorne?”
Lou had never tried to shift while falling. She wasn’t sure she could do it.
She wasn’t even sure that the darkness could be collected and used in such a way. Where would it spit her out? Above another pavement?
If they died, if both she and Dani splattered on the concrete below, at least Piper would understand that she’d tried.
I tried to save her, she thought.
Because Lou knew she’d rather die trying to save Dani’s life than look Piper in the eyes knowing she’d failed her so completely.
“I’ll go over with her,” she said.
Diana laughed like Lou had made the best joke in the world. She threw back her head and gave all of herself to it. “Will you?”
Devil’s Luck Page 24