Blood Call

by Lilith Saintcrow

  They were both professionals, and ready to go in a short while. He gave Hassan all the spare ammunition for the Sig, but kept the shotgun and rifle rounds as well as the clips for his own gun. “Be careful,” he cautioned one final time. “Be very careful, all right?”

  Hassan snorted. “Bloody fairy tales, and he wants us to be careful. Come on, Willie, let’s go somewhere quiet. You can rub my feet.”

  Willie muttered something that didn’t sound like a compliment, and Josiah waited, peering out through the curtain on the front window, until their taillights vanished up the hill, into the darkness that suddenly seemed very close. He pushed his hands in his pockets and braced his shoulder against the wall, looking back at the inside of the cabin.

  Anna hadn’t moved, still huddled like a kid on the hard wooden chair. Her eyes were very dark, and she stared at him through flickering mellow candlelight. She looked lost, and a little forlorn. He wanted to pull her up and hold her, stroke her hair and reassure both of them.

  He didn’t quite trust himself yet.

  “How much of the file did you read?” His tone surprised him, brusque and businesslike.

  Her shoulders hunched, candlelight picking up gold highlights in her beautiful hair. “The first two. The…interviews. I went through the photos. There were some charts, but I didn’t—”

  “What did Eric tell you? Anything? Anything at all?”

  She shook her head, tangled hair sliding over her shoulders. “Just to hold the files. That he was onto something big, a corruption case. He had informants, he said. He wanted me to hold the files because he thought his house might be burgled. Tossed, he called it. I went to ask him about the safe-deposit box key and…” The words husked to a stop, and she dropped her chin, her hair falling forward.

  And you found him dead.

  “I found him,” she finished, haltingly. “He…”

  “A corruption case.” Fingers and toes, and blood transfusions. I’m missing a piece or six or seven; none of it makes any goddamn sense. “Did he say anything to you about a ring, or about any of his contacts? Anything at all?”

  Her mouth was so soft; she bit at her lower lip before replying. “No. Nothing. He didn’t tell me a lot about his stories, they were confidential.”

  Yeah. Right. What you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you, right? Except in my case. He swallowed bitterness, forced himself to think. “How was Eric acting, lately? Preoccupied? Did he seem afraid?”

  “No more than usual.” Her gaze met his, those wide expressive eyes windows all the way through her, and he knew she was lying. Her face couldn’t hide it, not from him.

  Josiah stared at her, his hands physically itching with the urge to touch her, yank her up out of the chair, and sink his fingers into her hair, bring her mouth up to his. “Tell me.” Delivered softly, but it was still a command.

  Was she pale, or was it the uncertain light? “He had his will drawn up. I know because I went with him to the lawyer’s office to sign some papers. He had me as his beneficiary.” Her eyes shone wetly, and her arms tightened, pulling her knees in harder. As if she could curl up tightly enough to close all this madness out. “He just seemed a little distracted, that’s all. But you know Eric.”

  Seemingly distracted but shrewd, that was Eric Caldwell. Josiah nodded. “A lot of his papers seem to be in a kind of code. You know anything about that?”

  “Oh, yeah. We made it up when we were kids. He liked ciphers.”

  “Can you decode it?”

  She nodded, loosening up a bit on her knees. The bruise on her cheek mocked him, just like the sudden hopefulness in those wide, pretty eyes. She was looking to him to make it better, to do what Eric had always done and step in, take care of everything. For a moment, a great weariness settled over him, one he accepted even as it dragged down his shoulders and aching legs.

  He’d been smoothing things over and taking care of things and fixing problems for a long time now. Too late to stop.

  Besides, he wanted to fix her problems. He wanted her shoulders to come down and the shadows under her eyes to go away. Once she relaxed, she could show him how to do it.

  How to feel human again. He wanted more of whatever effortless magic she’d worked before to soften the wasteland inside him.

  First things first, though. “All right. Tomorrow you’re going to start decoding it for me, after we do a couple things.”

  “We’re not leaving right now?” Her eyebrows came up, the very picture of surprise, just as she always used to look when a design program behaved in an unexpected way or a driver cut her off in traffic.

  “Not yet. If Eric’s contact comes back, I want a word or two with him. Nobody else knows we’re here.” He rolled his shoulders back, dispelling tension and settling himself into work mode again. “I suspect moving and tiring ourselves out won’t do any good. Not if what I saw tonight was any indication.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  A thin gray morning crept in with cotton-wool fog, the entire world hushed and eerie. Josiah drove, and when they broke out of the fog on the interstate and thin winter sunlight blazed over the road, Anna actually gasped, the relief was that intense.

  Her back ached. So did her ribs, and her ankle, and her knee. Sleeping fully clothed on a couch might be okay for a teenager but wasn’t so hot for a battered thirty-year-old. She’d managed broken, fitful rest, and her feet were swollen since they’d been in the boots all night.

  Waking up from an almost-nightmare to the rattling buzz of Josiah’s cell phone sitting on the table hadn’t done much for her blood pressure. As a matter of strict fact, it had scared the living blue bejesus out of her.

  The few cryptic exchanges he’d muttered into the phone hadn’t helped, either.

  “You okay?” Josiah didn’t look away from the road. It was the first real conversational gambit since this morning’s short, brisk commands—get your shoes, here’s some coffee, let’s go, hurry up.

  That was just fine with her. Sticking her head in the sand and being extremely quiet sounded like a great option. She’d already had the stupid too-big boots on, too, which felt like a faint victory.

  “Fine.” Her own voice sounded brittle, barely audible over the humming of tires on pavement. When she moved her purse shifted, and a copy of the files made a slight rustling sound.

  He gave her a single glance, probably gauging her truthfulness. “We’re going on a meet.” He returned his gaze to the road. “A clandestine meeting. There are rules to this sort of thing, and you will obey them. Got it?”

  My, haven’t you become a little Napoleon all of a sudden. Yesterday she might have said it. Today she only nodded, looking at the dashboard and how it fit over the glove box. The curve, she decided, was wrong. She could draw a better one.

  She flat-out ached to draw again. Even just to doodle on the copies of Eric’s notes would feel heavenly, but Josiah had the only pen.

  Apparently just nodding was the right thing to do, because he continued, as calmly as if he was discussing the day’s weather. “I wanted to keep you out of this part of it. After today, the information that I’m involved with you is going to be out there, and what’s out there can be sold. Always.” He took a deep breath, maybe for effect. Today his eyes were dark green, helped by a black sweater and a dark coat; he wore jeans and boots like she did.

  I bet his boots fit, though. She suppressed an irritated sigh. Nodded again, a movement he was sure to catch out of the corner of his eye.

  “After today, you could be considered an agent by anyone working in the gray.” He hit his turn signal, changed lanes smoothly. “Someone looking to get a certain type of information from me might try to use you.”

  Her heart was taking this surprisingly well. Not pounding. Her hands were steady. I’m actually doing all right. I think. She looked out the window, at the paintbrush green of fir trees marching along the side of the road. They were just about to come over the hill and into the suburbs from the north. Her head ached, and
she wanted more coffee. And her drawing pad, and a whole handful of pencils as if she was in grade school again.

  That would be nice. Along with a bubble bath and some very cold Chablis. The ribbon of gunmetal gray road unreeled under the car, filling up the interior with the sound of travel and two people not-speaking.

  Finally, Jo cleared his throat. “You just stick with me and you’ll be fine. All right?”

  She managed a shrug, which sent an interesting cascade of pain down her side and into her back. “You’ve done all right this far.”

  He seemed to find this funny. At least, Josiah smiled, and it was a new expression, one she’d never seen on him before. Bitter, resigned, and full of cynical black humor, he grinned at the road the way an old wolf would at a wounded deer flopping in the snow. “Well, you’re still alive. That’s something.”

  My ears are still ringing from last night. I’m getting uncomfortably used to the sound of gunshots. She folded her hands primly in her lap. There was still a smudge of fading cadmium blue across one knuckle; now she would in all likelihood never finish that painting. She would never be able to give Tasha her birthday present—the sketchbook of her friend in thirty-six attitudes. Or give Robbie and Tor their wedding present, the two raku bowls, one glazed silver and the other black, both fitting together to make a whole. She’d fired piece after piece, trying to get that right, and been down to oranges and coffee before payday last month. “I can’t complain.”

  Really, what good would complaining do? She’d veered out of real life and into some sort of black nightmare comedy. Maybe, if she just went along with it, someone upstairs would look down and notice a huge mistake had been made, and she would wake up in her own bed again. The first thing she’d do would be to call Eric, just to hear his voicemail message.

  You’ve reached Eric Caldwell. Leave a message, willya?

  The thought sent an unbearable, lancing pain through her chest and she breathed in sharply, wondering how a heart could go on beating when something like this happened. The feeling was strangely familiar—after the accident, both Mom and Dad gone, the same hurt.

  Except now, there was no chance to lean into Eric’s shoulder again, holding his hand as the caskets lowered, their parents sliding side by side into eternity. Nobody to fight with, or mourn with, nobody who remembered the pickle sandwiches or the Great Baseball Incident of Eric’s eighth-grade year, nobody who remembered Mom’s singing voice or Eric’s perfect SAT scores.

  Nobody except Anna, and she was a very thin straw to hang so much on.

  It’s up to me now. Everything is.

  Josiah reached over, tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. She didn’t have anything to tie it back with, and there was, he said, no time to dye it today. Besides, in the picture on her driver’s license it was much shorter, and pulled back as well. “I’m sorry it has to be like this.”

  Does it? Does it have to be like this?

  She swallowed. “Me, too.” Silence stretched out, thin and tensile; his hand returned to the steering wheel. “Josiah?”

  “What?”

  “I want whoever killed Eric dead.” I am actually having a little trouble with how much I want that. The burning inside her chest didn’t alter at all. Emotional heartburn. Too much grief salad.

  His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “There’s no profit in revenge, Anna.”

  For a smart man, you are surprisingly dense. “It’s not profit, for God’s sake. They killed…” It stuck in her dry throat. “They killed my brother. I want them—”

  “Can’t promise anything.” His jaw had gone tight, too.

  Her jaw clenched, threatening to crack. “Then teach me how to do what you do.”

  He didn’t say anything. The miles slipped away beneath the car’s underbelly, and whatever breakfast she’d managed to eat—funny, she couldn’t even remember it now—turned into a hard, cold lump inside her stomach.

  “I will,” she repeated, “learn how to do what you do. I’ll do it myself. That way you won’t be burdened with me, either. You just teach me, and I won’t be your problem anymore.”

  “You’re not my problem.” Calm and reasonable as ever. “I can’t teach you how to kill. You either can, or you can’t. You can’t.”

  Oh, really? For whoever cut Eric’s throat, I’ll sure as hell learn. “You don’t know that.”

  “I’d say I’m the resident expert in this car. You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, so please just stop.”

  Fine. “He was my brother. He’s all I have.” She shut her mouth, tightly, sealing her lips together.

  He was all she’d ever had. Friends, even parents, were temporary. She’d learned that when she was twelve. A brother was safety, was certainty. That night at the dinner table, both of them staring at their plates, and Eric raising his head finally. I won’t let them take you away, Annie. I promise.

  She should have promised him, too.

  Josiah loosened one hand on the steering wheel and apparently changed his mind, clenching it tighter than before. His eyes had lightened two deadly shades, but that could have been the sunshine. That betraying little movement of his jaw was like a flag, the only sign of frustration he would show. Otherwise, he seemed only absorbed in driving.

  She returned to staring out the window. They crested the hill, and the pine trees began to give way to strip malls and small housing developments. “It doesn’t make any difference.” She didn’t recognize her own voice. “I’ll learn, whether you want me to or not.”

  It was the first time she ever felt like she’d actually won an argument with him. The feeling of triumph was amazingly short-lived. Anna settled herself down to watch, to pay attention, and to figure out everything she could about this horrific new world she found herself in.

  * * *

  “Keep your hands loose. Don’t make any sudden moves. And for God’s sake, keep your mouth shut.” Josiah unbuckled his seat belt. “You hear me? You don’t say a single word, you don’t nod, you don’t shake your head, you don’t make a sound. Got it?”

  They had cut through the suburbs and ended up on the edge of the west side of the city, across from the parking lot of a shabby, tired-looking apartment building. A few children far too young to be outside alone played in the parking lot, bright, tinny voices and inadequate coats. Thin winter sunshine picked out broken glass on cracked pavement. Half the cars in the lot were up on blocks, and other frowning apartment buildings closed off the street on either side.

  “Not a word,” she promised. God, those kids don’t have coats. What are they doing out here? It’s too cold. Who on earth could Josiah be meeting here? It looked the least likely place in the world for an assassin to hang out.

  Of course, that was probably for the best, she decided.

  “Give me the copy.” He was all business now.

  She dug the manila folder out of her purse. “Who are we going to meet?”

  “Better if you don’t know. But his name’s Vanczny. He’s Polish but he works for the local Mob. Which is why it’s so goddamn important that you keep your mouth sewn up.” His tone was level, chill. “I’m not joking.”

  I heard you the first time. “And so far you’ve been such a barrel of laughs. I get it, Josiah. I’m not stupid.”

  “Stupid and quiet might help you live a little longer. Smart people who get mouthy get weeded out quick.” He reached for the door latch, his watch’s face turned to the inside of his wrist for some reason. “Stay there. I’ll come around and get you out.”

  What a time for you to get all chivalrous. He’d always insisted on holding the door for her. Before.

  I liked him, Tasha had said, once. Easy on the eyes and quick to pay for drinks. What happened?

  Creative differences, Anna had replied, lightly, through the rock in her throat. Tasha had merely given her a funny look, sweeping her dreads back with one lean ebony hand, and that was that.

  Anna nodded. He got out of the car, studied the a
partment building for a moment, then came around the front and opened her door, reaching down to take her hand. His fingers were warm. He didn’t look at her, just kept looking at the apartment building’s leaning frame. “I don’t like this,” he muttered. “Van usually likes to meet in restaurants.”

  She hoped the no-talking rule didn’t apply yet. “Why?”

  “More exits. Plus, he’s a fat fuck, and he loves to eat.” He glanced down at her, his eyes gone opaque. Unreadable. “No more talking.”

  Anna opened her mouth, thought about it, closed it. Nodded.

  “Good girl.” He looked different, and she took advantage of the walk across the parking lot to study his face in small, furtive sips. He was no longer the quiet, calm Josiah she knew, the man with a slow smile and utter confidence over a sweetness she never would have suspected if she hadn’t seen it.

  This Josiah was a blank wall, nothing betraying any emotion. Even his walk was different, more of a prowling stride, matching his pace to hers but also somehow always managing to stay a step ahead. She knew he was wearing a gun under his coat; she’d seen him strap it on this morning. The firearm and the expression on his face combined to make him a stranger.

  Was this face a façade, or was the one he’d always shown her before the false one? Were both of them true?

  How much did she really know about him, anyway? He’d never given much in the way of personal information, always more interested in what she had to say, and she’d fallen for it. What woman wouldn’t like a man who listened to everything, who asked questions that showed he was listening, and occasionally turned up with little gifts—nothing too expensive, but nothing too cheap—that seemed designed to show how much attention he paid to her offhand comments? A bracelet she’d admired. A bottle of wine she liked. A clutch of white roses and a bird of paradise—her favorite flowers.