by Cory Barclay
He found that hard to believe.
Damn, Steve thought. It’s getting harder and harder to trust people. He glanced over at Annabel, on instinct. She was staring at him, much like Richmond was.
Steve didn’t like being the center of attention—that’s why he opted to do the background stuff: music business, songwriting, that sort of thing. He was a pretty passive dude. But having four eyes boring into him stripped his soul. He was scared. His hands started trembling.
Get me out of here!
“One last question, Mister Remington,” Richmond said. He put his notebook back into his pocket. “Do you think Shannon Barton killed that homeless man on purpose?”
Steve shook his head without skipping a beat. “Absolutely not. Why would she?”
Richmond nodded his head. “Fair enough. You two are free to go. But don’t think about leaving the State anytime soon. Stay close by . . .”
Steve and Annabel got up to leave. As they reached the door, Richmond said, “Oh, could you send in my next interviewee? She’s the hot brunette in the lobby.”
“Sure thing, chief,” Steve said, then they walked out the door.
When they reached the lobby, Scarlet Amos was pacing, biting her bottom lip. Her eyes were red-rimmed—she didn’t look like the same powerful dominatrix Steve had first met. She seemed broken. Steve forced down his base urges at seeing her. He was supposed to be scared of her!
She looked up and her eyes brightened a bit at seeing familiar faces. She asked, “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“Long story, Scarlet,” Steve said. He gently grabbed her by the elbows and leaned into her ear. “Detective Richmond wants to see you, but before he does . . .”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Yes, it was me,” Scarlet said, nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly for Steve’s taste.
He and Annabel were flabbergasted. They hadn’t expected Scarlet’s response, at all. They expected a runaround—for Dale’s theory to be as spot-off as he had been about the cherub, Michelangelo.
“Wait, what?” Steve said, wondering if he’d heard the succubus correctly.
Scarlet shrugged her slender shoulders. Steve wanted to caress them.
No! he told his brain, shoving down his lurid thoughts.
“I ‘brainwashed’ Shannon Barton, if that’s what you want to call it,” Scarlet repeated.
Scarlet was standing outside the front door of the police department’s Northern Division, smoking a long Virginia Slim with one of those plastic filters that made the cigarette even longer and more fancy.
Steve started backing away from her, frightened.
Scarlet’s red lips curved upward. “Are you scared of me, Steve Remington?”
Steve nodded. For good measure, so did Annabel.
Then Steve’s foggy brain had a moment of lucidity and he remembered what he’d recently learned at Henry’s office.
“But . . . I wasn’t your target—I mean Shannon’s target. With her car.” He sighed, trying to get his words in the right order. “You know what I mean.”
Scarlet chuckled, a relentlessly beautiful sound to Steve’s ears—and to anyone else within earshot. A couple passing men in blue shot their gaze in her direction as they made their way into the precinct. She smiled back at them and gave them the ol’ enticing-finger-waggle wave.
One of the cops stopped short of the door and beelined in their direction. “Is this man bothering you, ma’am?” he asked, pointing at Steve, his eyes glazed over.
Scarlet narrowed her eyes on Steve, who was shaking his head profusely, trying to make her say the right thing.
“Nah,” she said at last, after an agonizing moment. “He’s fine. But you are too, big boy. What say you meet me back—”
“Scarlet,” Steve said, snapping her back to attention.
The succubus blew the cop a kiss and sent him on his way, through the front door of the building. The officer walked off like he was in a daze. Before he stepped in through the door, he looked over his shoulder one last time at her, received a wink, smiled stupidly, then marched in like he’d just gotten laid.
“No,” Scarlet said, facing Steve and jumping back to her previous conversation. Her face had lost all that light loveliness, was steeled for a serious discussion. “You were not my target. Nor Shannon’s target.”
“And Annabel?” Steve asked.
Scarlet shook her head. “Neither of you were meant to be harmed during that ‘accident.’ In fact . . . quite the opposite . . .”
One of Steve’s eyes squinted smaller than the other. “What does that mean.”
With a glum expression, Scarlet said, “Now that Mother’s dead, I suppose I can open Pandora’s box.”
Steve waited.
“I was trying to protect you, Steve Remington. And your little friend”—she nudged her chin toward Annabel—“from harm.”
“Trying to . . . protect us?” Steve was—big surprise—confused.
Scarlet nodded. “It was my mother’s idea. She was your protector, remember? Well, I was her instrument—her means—of protection. And Shannon was my instrument. It all goes down the line, Steve, just like any other power structure.”
“What in God’s good name are you talking about?”
Scarlet took a drag of her skinny cigarette, which made her look like a beautiful version of Cruella de Vil. “Before your father died, Mom promised him she would look after you and protect you. She was your father’s lover, if you remember.”
“I do.”
“Well, that was her motivation. She was fulfilling a promise to your father, when she took you in and taught you about your Searing powers and such.”
Steve scratched his head. Thoughts swam in his head, but they were starting to come together, to make sense. “January was trying to protect me from the Myth Hunters.”
Scarlet nodded. She had an expectant look on her face, like she was waiting for Steve to catch on.
Steve tilted his head, then the look of shock came over him. His mouth fell open and he said, “From . . .”
“You’re almost there,” Scarlet teased.
“Tumbleweed and Pancho?”
Scarlet snapped her fingers. “There it is.”
“You mean the homeless guy bumming cigarettes from me was trying to kill me?”
Scarlet nodded easily, as if Steve’s death meant nothing to her one way or the other. She said, “And Annabel . . . and anyone else you might have Seared onto this world.”
“Why? And why couldn’t you, oh, I dunno, warn me?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Steve.” Scarlet took one final drag from her cigarette before smooshing out the cherry on the bottom of her stiletto heel. “We didn’t warn you because we were looking for their master. Believe me, Tumbleweed and Pancho were not the masterminds behind your imminent assassination.”
“Then who was?”
Scarlet shook her head, putting her hand to her forehead. She literally did a forehead slap in front of Steve—that’s how dumb he made her feel.
It turned Steve on.
It took all his willpower to keep his lust in check. He actually repeated the AA Serenity Prayer in his mind to keep from lunging at her red lips. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . . the courage to change the things I can . . . and the wisdom to know the difference . . . God, grant me the—
“We never found out who they were answering to, you moron. Once you Seared Tumbleweed onto this plane, Mother knew she had to act—your lives had become exponentially more perilous. He had gained your trust—simply by getting a cigarette from you. You probably had no idea.”
“Of course, I had no fucking idea,” Steve said. “I’m sorry if I didn’t expect a homeless guy sleeping in my alley to be a mythological hitman!”
Scarlet smirked. “We knew it was only a matter of time before he acted, so we had to scrap our plans to follow the money—to get to his leader. That’s when I approached Shannon.”
>
“Why?” Annabel asked out of the blue, from behind Steve.
Steve spun around and faced her, an expression on his face that said he’d forgotten she was even standing there.
“Excuse me?” Scarlet asked the girl.
“Why Shannon? How was she part of your plan?”
Scarlet said, “She was a perfect scapegoat. She was in mourning from losing her husband in the military. Before you start pointing your righteous fingers, know that she came to us. Not the other way around. She came to Mother wanting to forget her past—to drown her memory of her dead husband.”
She was a “client” of January’s . . .
“And January could do that?” Steve asked. “Make people forget, I mean.”
“She had a tincture that induced amnesia, yes,” Scarlet said. “But it was so powerful it wouldn’t go away . . .” Scarlet stopped her sentence abruptly. Her bottom lip began to quiver. She couldn’t finish.
But Steve understood where she was going.
“It wouldn’t go away until your mother died,” he said.
Scarlet nodded, sniffling. “When Mother died, so did the enchantment over Shannon.”
There was a pause in the conversation as Steve made a realization about the recent timeline of events. January had died, and almost immediately after, Shannon wanted to see Steve at Henry’s, to show him the pictures of Tumbleweed—and, unknowingly, Pancho. Once the Druid died, those memories must have come flooding back . . . memories of her husband, of the crash . . . everything.
Seeing the cogs were still turning in Steve’s mind, Annabel asked, “And what was your role in all this, exactly? Concerning Shannon, I mean.”
“It was my decision to do a little memory-replacement, if you will.”
Steve and Annabel glanced at each other.
“Since Shannon wanted to drown the memories of her dead hubby, Mother warned her she would stay sad . . . those memories would be lost forever, and so would any happy memories she would have of her boy-toy.”
“So, you seduced her,” Steve said.
Scarlet shrugged innocently. “I guess so.”
“No,” Steve said firmly, thrusting his finger toward her. For the first time, it was Scarlet’s turn to look a bit shocked. “You made her fall in lust with you and your mother locked in those thoughts . . . you manipulated the poor girl to act on your behalf!”
“Fall in . . . lust?” Scarlet repeated.
Steve waved her off, thinking about Dale’s choice of words when he’d come up with this, admittedly not so preposterous, idea. “Never mind,” he said. “Don’t backtrack. You did a heartless thing to that girl, toying with her mind like that—”
“To save your life! Asshole!” Scarlet shouted.
Steve was still fuming, so Annabel put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. She said, “And what happens now?”
“I suppose you two look over your shoulders for the rest of your lives,” Scarlet said, “while I go inside to talk to Detective Richmond about my mother, maybe give him a handy, and get him off my back.” She started strutting toward the front door.
At hearing they’d have to be on the lookout for assassins for the rest of their lives, Steve turned to Annabel with a worried look. “You still have the Conveyor . . .” he said in little more than a whisper.
That stopped Scarlet in her tracks. She spun around. “You found the correct Conveyor? What was it?”
“None of your business,” Steve spat.
The succubus pointed to Annabel. “And what the hell is she still doing here, you idiot?”
Steve stammered. “W-We didn’t know we were so close to getting whacked, until running into you!”
Scarlet put her hands on her hips and studied the couple with piercing eyes. Then she smiled. “Uh-oh. You two have fallen for each other. Oh, this is just poetic!”
“T-That’s not true!” Annabel said, her voice making her sound like a prepubescent teen denying to her mother she had a crush on a boy in her third period Biology class.
Scarlet walked over to them and put a hand on Steve’s arm. It made Steve’s whole body tingle, and it made Annabel uncomfortable and slightly aroused, too. “At some point, Steve Remington, you’re going to have to decide what’s more important: your love for the girl, or her safety. You can’t have it both ways.”
Steve was afraid of hearing that. It was something he’d been fighting against ever since he’d first kissed Annabel. And now Scarlet had said the words, out loud, put them out into the universe . . . it kicked him right in the nuts.
He was going to have to make up his mind—if it was even his decision to make:
Pursue love and music with Annabel, here on Earth, with the Myth Hunters seeking to kill them . . . or let her go, back to her world, with her parents, where she belonged . . .
The right thing to do was obvious. But that didn’t make it any easier.
Scarlet could see the pain in Steve’s face, and for the first time her voice became soft, almost hurt, like she was talking to a dying puppy. “When the time comes, I think you’ll know what you have to do, Steve Remington. This fucked-up world is no place for an innocent Mythic like Annabel.”
“And what are you doing here, Scarlet?” Steve asked in a voice just as low. “What’s keeping you on this crazy planet?”
Scarlet grinned her seductive smile and raised her arms to the air, beholding the world around her. “Unlike most people of my kind, Mister Remington, I revel in the chaos. Terrus is the perfect place for someone like me.”
Steve frowned.
“Now excuse me while I go fuck Detective Richmond and tell his wife about it.”
Annabel’s eyebrows were slanted. “You’re terrible, Madam Scarlet.”
“What did Gary Richmond ever do to you?” Steve asked.
Scarlet’s grin grew wider. “I’m an agent of chaos, my soon-departed friends.”
She turned and sashayed away, back toward the front door. Through the glass, Steve could see Detective Richmond making his way down a hallway, in a fluster, probably wondering where the hell his next interviewee was. He looked tired of smelling Arnie’s couch farts.
“W-Wait, before you go,” Steve called out when Scarlet had her hand on the door handle. She stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Can you help us, at least a little? What are the Myth Hunters’ motives? Why do they want me and Annabel dead?”
Scarlet glanced over her shoulder. “If I knew that, Steve Remington, I’d tell you. Unfortunately, I don’t. I’d say to ask your dad, but he’s dead. I guess you’ll have to wait and find out once they have you . . .”
Then she opened the door and vanished into the building.
Steve sighed. He turned to Annabel, who looked like a deer in the headlights. He didn’t want to say goodbye to her, not yet . . . but how many more chances would he have? What if he kept this thing going until it was too late?
It was almost too much to bear, thinking of her getting hurt.
“Bel . . .” he groaned.
“Not yet,” Annabel said. She scooted closer to him, went into the cradle of his arms, and rested her head against his shoulder. “Not yet . . .”
“But you heard what Scarlet said. They could come—”
DUN. DUN. DUN.
“Smoke on the Water” started playing.
It was Dale.
“Jesus,” Steve said as he answered the phone. “I was just wondering where the hell you’ve been all day. Man, have I got some shit to tell—”
“If you ever want to see your friend alive again, you’ll come back to where this all began . . .”
“D-Dale?!” Steve blurted out stupidly. His blood pressure immediately skyrocketed. The voice on the other end was gargled, deep, and raspy, like it was being run through one of those machines kidnappers use while they demand a ransom from a terrified family for the return of their teenage daughter.
Except in this case, big old Dale “Fats” Thornton was the teenage daughter.
“W-Who the hell is this?!” Steve’s voice was frantic.
“You have two hours to get here.
And bring the girl, Mister Remington.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Come back to where it all began.”
That’s what the rapey, machinelike voice had said before clicking off the phone.
Steve’s face was as pale as snow when he took the phone away from his ear.
“This doesn’t sound good,” Annabel said, a pleading look in her eyes.
“Dale’s in trouble, Bel.”
“Not Mister Fats!”
Steve nodded. “The man on the other line wants us to go ‘where this all began’ . . .”
“The cemetery,” Annabel said.
Steve sighed. Of course. The cemetery where Steve first met Annabel, where he’d inadvertently Seared her onto this plane. Where his father was buried, too.
Steve looked behind him and took a seat on a bench next to the front door of the police building. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands, massaging his temples. Speaking into his palms, in a muffled voice, he said, “We have two hours to get there.”
“Or what?”
“I’m assuming they kill Dale.”
“And do we know who ‘they’ are?”
Steve shrugged and looked up at Annabel. “The Myth Hunters, I’m guessing. This whole time I thought I was being smart by staying close to you. I figured they wouldn’t be able to get to us if you were by my side . . . if we never separated. But I never thought I’d put Dale’s life in danger. Those bastards!”
Annabel’s eyes were getting watery. She sat next to Steve on the bench. “Poor Mister Fats. What do we do?”
Steve said, “We need a plan. We can’t just go there unprepared. Any ideas?”
Annabel scratched her head, then leaned back on the bench. She said, “They want to meet us at the cemetery?”
Steve nodded.
“Then yes . . . I do have an idea. But it’s a reckless one, and you’re not going to like it.”
THEY DROVE DOWN I-5 North, no music playing. Just silence. They both needed to think, and even though Steve usually worked better with music in the background, he was too anxious and afraid that classic rock would muddle his thoughts.