Blood of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 2)

by Shannon Mayer

  Simon slid around and got between Noah and the car. Noah glanced at me. I shrugged. He wanted to come with me, he was going to have to prove that he could keep himself alive. I surely wasn’t going to do it for him.

  “Nix, I am coming with you,” Simon growled, but his eyes never left Noah.

  “Who were you on the phone with?” I asked, taking note that the sirens were suddenly audible. Running out of time, we were running out of time.

  He shook his head. “An old buddy, he had a job for me and I turned it down. I turned it down so I could stay and help you.”

  I narrowed my eyes and stared hard at him. He wasn’t lying. But was he telling the whole truth? That I couldn’t quite dig.

  “Noah, give him the keys. I have something else I want you to do. If you really want to help.” If he wanted to help, I’d give him a job. One that involved finding that family bible. Call me curious, but I suspected there was more to it than just being able to decipher the glyphs on the coded papers.

  Noah shook his head. “I’ll follow and we can have this discussion down the road.”

  He handed the keys to Simon and strode away to a motorbike parked off to the side of the lot. I slid into the backseat of the car.

  My shoulder ached with a deep throbbing pain, and I was going to have to bandage it back up if the warmth spreading down my upper arm was any indication. What a clusterfuck.

  “Here. I got you a coffee.” Simon offered me a Styrofoam take-away cup. I took the offering and drank down a swig. “Boss.”

  I grimaced at the bitter taste, wishing he’d put a little cream or sugar in, but I’d take it. I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t trust him, but I had precious little backup and I was beginning to realize I was not the killer I’d been before. Stronger, faster, meaner, but I was also diving into the deep end with the monsters. Before, I’d always taken them on one at a time, not en masse.

  He slammed his door shut as he took his seat. I took another drag of the coffee. “Let’s go. Head north. Noah will follow.”

  “You going to try and ditch me again?” Simon smiled at me and I frowned right back.

  “You keep lying to me and I’ll do more than ditch you,” I said.

  “I don’t know how I can convince you I’m telling the truth.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “My buddy, well, hardly a buddy, but he thinks he has a job I would want. I turned him down. I’m here with you one hundred percent, Nix.” His words were sincere and those brown eyes of his were wide as a puppy dog’s. Maybe a bit too wide. Damn, he was good if I struggled to tell truth from lies.

  “Who are you trying to convince, me or you? We both know that for the right amount you’d turn on me in an instant.” I shifted in my seat.

  “Then why—”

  “Because I know where you stand. I don’t like where you stand. But I get it.” I stared at him, our eyes locked. “I will never trust you, Simon. Capiche?”

  He gave me a smile and a wink. “Now, that is a challenge I will accept. By the end of this, you will trust me.” He blew me a kiss. That there was the Simon I’d dealt with before, and something about the ridiculousness of his actions eased my mind. I rolled my eyes and leaned back as he started the engine and got us back onto the highway. Even with the caffeine hitting me, I began to relax, my body slipping into a languor that often came after the adrenaline faded.

  “You really going to let Noah come with us?” Simon asked.

  “Depends.” I shifted so I could slide my coat and shirt off. My bite wound remarkably had not lost any stitches, though they were stretched in a few places and blood had leaked through. I spoke while I cleaned the wound and packed a thick chunk of gauze over it from my bag.

  “He has information. Maybe he can help, maybe he can’t. At the very least, I know he isn’t working for Romano.” I flicked my eyes at him.

  “I’m not working for Romano. I promise you that,” Simon said. He paused, then went on. “How is it that you seem to know when I’m lying?”

  I snorted and pulled my clothes back on. “A gift of the trade, I guess.” I didn’t want to try and explain to him that I knew, like a gut instinct, when people were lying to me. At least, when I was willing to look for it. I’d never looked at Justin and questioned him once we were a couple. I wanted too badly to escape my past that I let my guard down and all the lies that had been there, waiting for me to take note of them, had slipped by me. I pressed the heel of one hand against my eyes one at a time. A fool, I’d been a fool in love and I’d paid the ultimate price by losing both Justin and Bear.

  We were quiet for a few minutes before the inevitable question broke the silence. “Any idea why that abnormal came after you like that?” Simon asked.

  I let out a sigh and took another sip of the coffee. The caffeine didn’t seem to be working its way through my sluggish veins as I’d hoped. I yawned. “I can take a few guesses based on what he said.”

  “And they are?”

  “Someone has put an open bounty on my head and he wanted the reward,” I said with another yawn. “Most likely Romano. Maybe with an offer of protection to go along with some money.” But Romano didn’t have that much of an in with the abnormals. He’d been too busy controlling them. So even as I spoke the words, I knew they were wrong. They didn’t quite fit.

  Simon blew out a snort. “Well, that is going to gum things up like sticky shit in ass hair.”

  I choked on my coffee. “That is not an image I needed.”

  “Just trying to make you smile,” he said.

  “Why?” The question popped out of me before I could catch it.

  He shrugged. “Maybe I’m trying to get you to let your guard down so I can smash you over the head and drag you to your father for the money after all.”

  His words were joking, the tone light, but there was truth in them, too. As much as I didn’t trust him, and he didn’t really trust me, he was out for money. I was out for blood. That would not mix well in the end.

  “Where do you want to pull over?” He motioned with a tip of his head to indicate Noah on his bike behind us.

  “Another few miles,” I said, then changed the subject. “I don’t think Romano has enough pull to convince abnormals to come after me.”

  Simon nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking that. But Mancini and the Collective do. And you’ve pissed in their swimming pool now too, more than once, if I recall.”

  Mancini was head of the Collective and an abnormal with powers beyond anything anyone else had. The rumors that swirled around him varied from him being a demi-god to being a demon to being a conman with the most amazing sleight of hand. Depending on who you asked. For all I knew, he was some unknown abnormal. Not an impossible thing.

  Simon’s voice dipped, the cadence of his words lulling me, hitting triggers deep in my psyche.

  “Phoenix, tell me everything you know about Mancini.” He gave me a look as if he knew how I would answer. “Tell me what you remember of him.” Each of his words resonated through my head and I found my eyelids fluttering. Zee had done this to me before, put me into a light hypnosis that allowed me to access memories.

  Part of me was pissed that Simon would do this without asking, the other didn’t care because I knew what he wanted. If there was anything in my memories that could help us, we needed them.

  “I’ve only ever seen him at a distance.” I let my eyes close to half-mast and pressed my fist against my mouth. “He’s middle aged, solidly built, six feet tall, at best. Gray hair, though it looks premature. Nothing about him stands out except his eyes.” I fell into the pattern I had with Zee when he asked me to recall things, the words sliding out of me with an ease that otherwise didn’t happen.

  The memory flowed around me and I could feel the solid marble under my feet in the hotel lobby, the rush of air as people hurried around me, the click of heels, the low murmur of voices as they discussed the day, the bing of elevators opening, and Mancini standing in front of one of them, waiting. He held so still, it w
as like watching a predator at ease on its home turf, as if he were waiting to launch at someone.

  “There is an energy around him and it both draws and repels people. The women are drawn to him like moths to a flame, and for some of the men like Romano, it’s the same. The desire to be close to him and bathe in his power. But those who are repelled give him plenty of room as if just his touch could kill them.” My words were soft, slurring at the edges.

  Mancini looked my way and I held my ground, our eyes meeting across the distance. His eyes were wrong, there was no other term I had for them. The irises bobbed and weaved like drunken fighters trying to get the upper hand on each other.

  I arched an eyebrow, my body relaxing into a stance that would have me ready for him to throw something at me. Magic, a punch, whatever it was, I was as ready as I could be.

  Stupid, I knew that now. But I’d been young and full of myself and so sure of my abilities that I could not see when I was outmatched. I suspected it was why I hadn’t lost a fight up to that point.

  “Which ones are repelled by Mancini?” Simon asked softly, his voice that perfect tone that Zee used on me so he didn’t break the recollection. The tone that held me in the memory and helped me find every last detail that could be useful.

  “His closest men, those I think that have seen him kill. Those that have seen whatever he is under the expensive suits he wears. My father is drawn to him, unafraid, and that bothers Mancini.” My eyes snapped open and I drew a lung-clearing breath. “You’ve done that before.”

  “What?” Simon’s eyes were all innocence which did nothing for my irritation. And the realization that there was something in my coffee that had lulled me into that state of relaxation. I sat up, rolled down the side window and threw the coffee out. “You drugged me?”

  “Not exactly. I just wanted you a bit on the slower side.” He grinned, but he was nervous. I plowed on even though my limbs were sluggish.

  I tried a different tactic. “You know how not to break up a recall. You know how to help it along and send someone deeper.” I struggled to get to Dinah or Eleanor. My fingers barely twitched. Did Simon know how close I was to being totally unable to defend myself? Fuck, fuck! Noah was close, but he would do nothing until we pulled over. There was no way for me to signal him even.

  “Ah, well, that’s an abnormal trick. Your Hider used it on you, I’m guessing, or you wouldn’t have slid into it so easily,” he said.

  I wanted to reach over and grab him, but I tamed that need knowing it would show him just how dulled my reflexes were. Besides, he was right about one part of that. Zee had used that lulling trick on me more than once. And he’d warned me that in doing so, it opened me to being more suggestive, and if any other abnormal realized it, they could use it against me.

  “Let’s do a recap, shall we?” Simon tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Romano is probably sending one of his guardians after you at some point.”

  I nodded, which by then, was about all I could do.

  “By the looks of it, Mancini and/or the Collective have put an open bounty on your head that every abnormal in the country is aware of. And you aren’t worried at all about either of these things, which if you don’t mind me saying so, is stupid. You need to be smarter, Nix.”

  I nodded again, a small smile slipping over my slowly numbing lips. “I wouldn’t say I’m not worried, Simon. I’d say that I don’t care.” It took everything I had to lean forward so I could rest my arms on the back of his seat with my mouth near his ear. “When you have lost everything that makes you whole, what is left? Your life? That is nothing. Your soul? I’m not sure I had one to begin with.” I let out a slow breath and he shivered. “No, I’m not worried.”

  “Cocky,” he said. “That will get you killed, and me, too. I won’t let that happen. I like living. And I like money. In fact, the two together are amazing.”

  “Then go your own way.” I blew a breath along the back of his neck, knowing already his answer. Simon wanted my body, and I was not above using that for my own help. “Go and find your money elsewhere.”

  He pulled the car over suddenly, jerking the steering wheel to the side and I slid back, slumping against the seat. Adrenaline pounded through me, slowing whatever it was he’d put in my coffee. I managed to pull Dinah free from her holster and tip her muzzle at him.

  “Tell me I can shoot him,” she said. “I never liked him anyway.”

  Simon twisted in his seat, his eyes narrowed. “You want to go there with me? You want to see if you can take me on? That’s not how friends behave.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You fucking drugged me, Simon. You are not my friend. Though I’m holding back shooting you just so I can find out what the fuck changed.”

  His jaw ticked, but otherwise he didn’t move. “Mancini wants you.”

  I blinked, adrenaline fading and my body sliding deeper into the no man’s land of unconsciousness. Shit. “We already covered that.”

  He shook his head. “He contacted me, Nix. He asked me to bring you in for an enormous amount of money. It’s good that he wants you alive. And I’d rather see you alive with him, than dead because of some random abnormal who attacks you when you aren’t looking.”

  I sat there and waited because the drug had fully kicked in. I pulled Dinah’s trigger as I slumped to the side. Simon yelled, Abe started barking and Dinah and Eleanor screamed at me to wake up.

  I could do nothing but lay there and hope to hell I could wake up before Simon got me anywhere near a plane or other transport. That maybe Noah would manage to help, that he would be the friend he claimed he was. This was what I got for trusting anyone at all, drugged and taken off to meet a man who made my father look like a pussycat.

  The darkness slid over me, and just like that, I was at the mercy of an abnormal working for Mancini.

  The second I woke up, I was going to kill Simon.

  Chapter Four

  After the chaos in the car, I floated along in the darkness of forced unconsciousness for some time. I dipped in and out of being awake. I think at some point, Simon force fed me more of the bitter drug to keep me under. Warmth lay against my one side, which told me Abe was still with me and he growled every time Simon came close.

  Noah made a brief appearance.

  “She’s good and drugged?”

  “Yeah. You working for Mancini?”

  “No,” Noah said.

  “Then why are you letting me take her?”

  I had the same question and I fought to stay awake to hear the answer, but the dark of my mind sucked me under before I heard Noah’s explanation.

  Then there was a sensation of losing gravity and I knew we were in the air, in a plane, headed for Mancini, which would likely mean New York.

  When I finally began to rouse, the drug worn off, hours had fled. Hours lost that could have been used in getting to Seattle and the code breaker, Talia. I was awake, but I didn’t open my eyes, nor did I let my breathing change from the deep slow pulls that indicated unconsciousness.

  “How much longer will she sleep?” a voice I didn’t know asked.

  “She’ll be awake soon,” Simon answered. “Keep a close eye on her.”

  I took stock of my body. Throbbing shoulder, same wounds as before, and a solid pair of handcuffs that kept my hands tight behind my back. Abe’s face was tucked close to mine, and mesh was wrapped over his snout. A muzzle then. He whined softly and I opened one eye a crack. From the paneling and the flooring, the struts on the seats strapping them down, we were still on a plane.

  That was good and bad.

  The two men’s voices were a few feet away. “Dinah.” I whispered her name.

  No answer. If Dinah couldn’t hear me, then the two guns were likely locked away. Worming my backside, I slid my cuffed hands over my ass and pulled my legs through the loop. Thank God for limber muscles. I slid my fingers into the edge of Abe’s muzzle and slid it off.

  “Check her,” Simon said, “we’re
going to land in a few minutes.”

  I closed my eyes and lay still. Waited until the footsteps brought the man close enough. “Fass!” I gave Abe the command to attack.

  Abe shot forward, snarling as he clamped onto the forearm of Simon’s man.

  I jumped to my feet and came up hard with both fists together under the man’s jaw, knocking him out before he could so much as squeak. His eyes rolled back, and he fell sideways, slamming hard into a row of seating. I spun looking for Simon.

  The cabin was empty except for me, Abe, and the now-downed nameless thug.

  “Abe, aus.” I dropped a hand to the top of his head and he let go of the man’s arm. I bent and frisked him, finding a key to the cuffs in his front jeans pocket. I dug in with my fingers, and he groaned, lifting his hips in my direction. I grimaced and yanked the keys free. I was tempted to hit him again. I settled for taking the cuffs off, then slid one onto his arm, locking the other cuff around one of the seat struts.

  He had no other weapons on him and a quick search of the cabin showed me nothing I could use as a weapon either. My bag was there, but it only had a couple of magical items that Simon had insisted on for the Hollywood job.

  Nothing that would blow a door off its hinges and get me into the cockpit.

  That left me nowhere to explore but the door to the cockpit itself. “Simon, I know you’re in there, and I know you have Dinah and Eleanor.” I stood to the side of the door, just in case he decided to try to kill me with a couple of well-placed shots. The door was thick, so maybe it couldn’t be shot through, but one could never be too careful when it came to killing people. “And when this plane lands, I’m going to strangle you with my bare hands.”

  “Ah, I wish you wouldn’t do that. You’ll only set them off again, and I’ll be honest, they both have quite the way with . . . words.” Simon’s voice was rather clear for being on the other side of the thick door. “And yes, I do have Dinah and Eleanor. They aren’t happy with me.”

  “Fucking straight, you slimy shit.” Dinah barked loud enough that I could hear her through the door, as well. If nothing else, the two guns were loyal.