Death's Hand, A Dark Urban Fantasy

by Reine, SM

  Suppressing the wild and ridiculous urge to challenge James to a duel, Anthony held up a folder. “I think I found the registration forms.”

  She gave it a quick scan. “That’s it. Great.” Elise immediately turned her attention back to the computer. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” he said, and then he took a deep breath. “Maybe you’d like to hang out tonight. There’s this band performing at the Knitting Factory. I know you listen to Black Death, and this band is supposed to be a lot like their early work.”

  “Yeah? What time?”

  “Doors open at eight… but we could get dinner, if you like. Before the show.”

  Elise’s eyes narrowed. “Are you asking me on a date?”

  He gave her his attempt at a suave smile. “Yes?”

  The time until she responded dragged on. It couldn’t have been longer than a moment or two, but the sudden racing of Anthony’s heart made it feel like hours, and Elise’s expression was unreadable.

  She didn’t smile at his suggestion, but she didn’t laugh at him, either, which had to be a good sign.

  “Yeah,” Elise said. “That sounds good.”

  Relief washed through his body. The next second, it was replaced with nervousness. “Cool,” Anthony said, jamming his fists in his pockets. “Cool. Since I’m just in the duplex next to yours, we could go together. That way, only one of us has to drive. With the price of gas and parking and stuff.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “Gas is a huge concern from here to downtown.”

  Anthony shrugged sheepishly. “Well… you know.”

  “I have things to do tonight, so I don’t have time for dinner, but I can meet you for the concert. I’ll get myself there. Thanks.”

  “Then it’s a date,” he said.

  Elise nodded, turned back to her laptop, and started typing again. Why did he feel even more nervous now that he had asked her out?

  The door between the rooms opened, and the coven emerged. James exited first, accompanied by a leggy strawberry-blonde at his side. “We’ll need more information on Lucinde before we decide to do a cleansing,” the woman said. “I don’t feel comfortable performing a ritual unless we’ve ruled out a health problem.”

  “Your concerns are reasonable. What do you suggest?”

  “Lucinde has had extended hospital stays, so her medical records should be there,” Stephanie said. “I could look at them.”

  James cast a glance at Elise. “We should discuss this somewhere quieter. Come upstairs.”

  Ann trailed behind the last of the coven. Her ratty brown hair was pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, tangled into one giant knot between her shoulders. She hauled a heavy backpack over her shoulder and wandered over, waving at Elise.

  “Hi guys,” she snuffled, digging through her pockets and coming up with a packet of tissues.

  He gave a weak wave. Through Betty’s chronic inability to dislike people, she had managed to collect some bizarre friends over the years—Elise included—but Ann might have been the weirdest. She was an undergraduate at the university where Betty worked on her thesis. They met at the library while researching obscure blood diseases, which led to Ann joining the coven, and now she was Betty’s latest pet project.

  “Weird stuff, huh?” Ann asked Elise.

  She didn’t look up. “Yes.”

  “What do you think about this whole thing with Marisa’s daughter?”

  “I don’t think much about it at all.”

  “Just seems too bad, you know?” Ann stepped closer to allow Morrighan to pass, and Elise rolled her chair a few inches back. “Poor kid. Still going to the gym tonight?”

  Anthony stole a look at Elise. She had finally given her attention to Ann. He had no idea what her expression meant, but if Elise ever looked at him like that, he would have run in the opposite direction. “Yes.”

  “Guess I’ll see you there. Bye!” She lurched out of the studio. The heavy backpack on her shoulder gave her a lopsided walk.

  A squealing golden blur struck Anthony in the side, and he staggered.

  “You came!” Betty exclaimed, squeezing her cousin tight. Anthony made a gurgling noise.

  Elise’s cold look dissolved, leaving one of amusement in its wake. “Did you leave any espresso at the Starbucks you violated?”

  “I only had two triple fraps this morning,” she said, and then she gave Anthony another squeeze. Betty was not a small girl—she was equal to Anthony in both height and weight, and he had to struggle to breathe.

  “Why does Ann know we’re going to the gym tonight?” Elise asked.

  Betty released Anthony. “Ooh. I invited her to come along. That’s okay, right?”

  “The gym is a public place.”

  “Yeah, but I invited her to come, you know, work out with us,” she said. “She looks like she could use some exercise, and I know she’s got to be lonely going to college so far from her parents, so please tell me you were nice to her.”

  Elise chose not to respond, turning back to the computer instead. “She was... polite,” Anthony said. Betty rolled her eyes.

  “Elise! Did you have to scare her?”

  “I said she was polite,” Anthony protested feebly.

  “Yeah, but I know my roommate better than that. Look, if it’s a problem, you can skip the gym tonight and I’ll just hang out with Ann. Okay?”

  “I don’t mind,” Elise said, although it sounded like she did mind very, very much. “I have to take these papers back to my office before we can work out. I’m going to go.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I should change clothes anyway. I’m not exactly exercise-appropriate right now.” Betty pointed at her breasts, which were very prominently displayed in what was probably a continuing attempt to get James to look at them. “Ready, cuz?”

  “Sure,” Anthony said reluctantly. “Let’s go.”

  “Cool,” Betty said. “See you later, Elise!” She dragged him away by the elbow. “Come on, I want time to shower, too.”

  Anthony sighed. “I don’t see why you want to shower before you go get sweaty.”

  “One day I’ll explain the concept of ‘looking sexy for hot guys at the gym’ to you,” she said, ruffling his hair affectionately. “I heard you making plans with my foxy best friend. What are you guys doing tonight?”

  “What? Nothing,” Anthony said, reaching in to unlock Betty’s door.

  She shot Anthony a sly look. “Don’t give me that. I heard you flirting with Elise.”

  His cheeks heated. Oh God. Now Betty was never going to let him forget it. “I was helping her find some papers, and we talked a little. That’s all. We were talking.”

  “Shopping amongst the cougars, huh? I thought I’d raised you better than that.”

  “You’re sick, Betty.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  She was staring at him, and Anthony had to say something. He thought of the gashes on Elise’s arms, and her long legs, and James confronting Elise about her injuries. He thought of her smile and the New Oasis, and secretive high priests with exorcists on-call. But he only shrugged.

  “Just the usual stuff,” Anthony said, even though he didn’t think that was true.

  V

  A half an hour later, Elise hadn’t left for the office. She was still staring at the same cell on the spreadsheet with her fingers poised over the number pad.

  Anthony had asked her on a date. It was… well, weird. Elise had only dated one guy before—another kopis, back when she was eighteen. He turned out to be a total waste of oxygen, but Elise’s life had been too dangerous to share with anyone anyway. A normal guy like Anthony wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  Things had changed since then, but she still hadn’t been on a date in years. Sex was nothing but a distant memory. Elise wasn’t sure if she was excited, confused, terrified, or all of the above.

  James wandered back inside the entryway, Stephanie at his side. “Thank you for your help,” h
e said.

  “It’s for Lucinde,” the doctor said firmly, twisting a key off a ring also occupied by the remote to her Lexus. Her fingers lingered on his when she passed it over. “I saw Lucinde with her mother not long after she was born. She was almost a month premature, but still the most beautiful baby. I don’t like thinking of that baby in trouble.”

  James smiled. “I’ll return this to you tonight.”

  “I look forward to seeing you.” She strode out of the room, three-inch heels ringing out against the wooden floor. Stephanie smelled like she bathed in Victoria’s Secret perfume, and the scent mingled poorly with the odor of incense.

  “The doctor has a great bedside manner,” Elise remarked.

  “We’re going to retrieve Lucinde’s hospital records tonight. Stephanie wants to be certain that there isn’t some other problem we need to address before taking care of the metaphysical end of things, but she can’t walk out with Lucinde’s records for no reason.”

  “She’s a better candidate for it than we are.”

  “She also has a meeting with the board tonight. In any case, it’s against hospital policy for her to access the records of someone who isn’t her patient. It’s more convenient if we take them.”

  “That’s called stealing, James,” Elise said. “She could get a slap on the wrist for taking them. We’ll get arrested.”

  James pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “We have the key to the records room, which is usually unattended at night, so we won’t get caught if we’re quick about it. You don’t have to come.”

  She gathered the papers on the desk. “This is a bad idea.”

  “Fine, then I’ll—”

  “I’m not going to let you do it alone. I’ll come along.” Elise hugged the folder to her chest, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “Look... you know I don’t care about stealing, but we can’t take long. I have plans.”

  “Plans?”

  “Yeah. I’m about to go to the gym, and then I have a date.”

  James took a few seconds to respond.

  “A date. I’m glad to hear it.”

  Elise’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not mad?”

  “Why would I be mad?”

  “You hated my last boyfriend.”

  “You were eighteen and he was an asshole. You should have fun.” He checked his watch. “When do you want to go over to the hospital? I was thinking seven.”

  “That’s fine.”

  James left to clean up the altar in the other room. “If he’s so certain dating Anthony is okay, then why aren’t I?” Elise asked the empty entryway. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t respond.

  She stopped by the bank to deposit David Nicholas’s check before going to the gym. It made her feel warm to look on his signature and recall his expression as he slashed it underneath that large number, and Elise couldn’t wait to turn those warm feelings into her half of rent for the month.

  "This check is bad," the teller announced.

  "What?" Elise had been drifting in a daydream of being able to pay off her credit card, but this announcement brought her back to reality as quickly as a blow from a hammer.

  "This check is bad," he repeated slowly, one word at a time. "There's a twelve dollar fine for attempting to cash a bad check. If you go down to the office of the--"

  "How the hell is it bad?"

  He typed at his terminal, looking bored. "This account number belongs to our bank, but it's been closed for a year. No money. Bad check. Twelve dollar fine. Understand?”

  Elise made two mental notes: Firstly, that she should use a credit union instead of a bank apparently staffed by pure evil, and secondly, that David Nicholas was going to die.

  He shredded the check as Elise watched.

  “Have a nice day,” said the teller with a big smile.

  The thing Betty loved the most about the gym was the fitness. The sweaty, occasionally shirtless, fitness. She could have watched men lifting weights for days without laying so much as a finger on a rowing machine.

  With Elise as her personal trainer, though, she wasn’t allowed time to sit around and enjoy the scenery—she was too busy loading barbells and racking weights and insisting that Betty try one more rep. When Betty did occasionally talk her into getting on the exercise bikes for a long, slow pedal behind one of the nicer specimens on the treadmills, Elise seemed to think having time to ogle meant she wasn’t pushing herself hard enough.

  Betty hoped that inviting someone new along would mean getting a break. She was wrong.

  “Let’s get in the power rack,” Elise said without even looking at Ann, who showed up wearing dirt-stained sweatpants, a baggy t-shirt, and a terrified expression.

  “What about Ann? Shouldn’t she go first?” Betty asked hopefully, keeping a man with arms as thick as her waist in the corner of her vision. It looked like he was about to do squats on the Smith machine, and she had the perfect view of him from behind.

  Elise gave her a sharp look. “I’ve already got the barbell loaded for you.”

  Betty rolled her eyes at Ann.

  The plus of lifting weights was that it didn’t take long, even if it left Betty feeling like jelly. She collapsed on a weight bench after her third rep, watching as Elise effortlessly changed the weights for her own use. She didn’t look like a body builder, but the amount of weight she could shift was incredible. Men would stop what they were doing to watch her. Betty wouldn’t have minded—if the attention had been on her rather than Elise.

  Ann watched her do barbell rows with a dumbstruck look. Betty patted her shoulder. “You get used to it.”

  “I just want to walk on the treadmill,” Ann said.

  Betty laughed. “Okay. Let’s sneak off while she’s all grunting and distracted.”

  They watched the news and walked slowly, debating politics in Iran and the state of the economy. After awhile, Elise joined them, looking annoyed but making no comment. She didn’t join in their conversation, either. Betty could have smacked her. Elise was notorious for being unfriendly, but life was always a hell of a lot easier when she didn’t act like a bitch to Betty’s other friends.

  She tolerated Elise’s behavior on the treadmill, and on the elliptical trainers (which Ann decided she was done with after about five minutes), but Betty finally got tired of the silent treatment on the stationary bikes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Betty finally asked.

  It seemed to take Elise a moment to realize that someone speaking to her. “What?”

  “What’s wrong? You’re being really quiet.”

  “It’s not a big deal.” Elise’s curly ponytail bounced as she pedaled. She sounded barely winded, her skin shining with sweat and the curls around her forehead clinging to her skin.

  Betty blew air out from between her lips. “It’s never a big deal with Elise,” she said in a loud stage-whisper to Ann. Then, to Elise, she added, “Come on, I can get my cousin to talk, and you’re hardly a tougher shell to crack.”

  “The military could hire you for interrogations,” Ann agreed.

  “Oh, shucks.”

  Elise shot a glance at her. “I’m having normal money problems. James and I have been arguing, too.”

  “Oh no, the honeymoon is over,” Betty said, dabbing at her neck with a towel. “I’ve never seen the two of you argue.”

  “That’s because we don’t.”

  “So why this time?”

  She was silent for several long seconds, her face impassive with thought. “He wants me to do something. I don’t want to get involved, and I don’t think he should be, either.”

  “What does he want you to do?” Betty asked.

  Elise shrugged. “It’s not important.”

  Betty watched Elise as she thought. Her friend was hard to read sometimes, but Betty played poker, and she was good at picking up on tells. Elise was lying. “Does this have to do with last night?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Are you sure you’re not fi
ghting because you have a hot date and he’s jealous?”

  “No,” Elise said. “Why would he be jealous? That’s stupid.”

  Betty flashed Ann a knowing look.

  “James sounds nosy. I’m glad I don’t have to answer to anybody,” Ann said.

  “What about your parents?” Elise asked, increasing the tension on her bike again. Betty leaned over to peer at Elise’s screen, noting the little green pixels marched in a determined, near-vertical line up the readout. Showoff. “You’re only nineteen. Don’t you live with them?”

  “No. I mean, not exactly. I live in a house they own, but they don’t live with me. They’re in Egypt.”

  Betty’s mouth dropped open. “Egypt? That’s really cool. What are they doing there?”

  Ann pedaled harder. “Resting.”

  “Like, retired? Awesome. One of these days, when I’m a famous research scientist, I’m going to go to cool places like that. I’ve never been out of the country,” Betty said. “Well, except for that one cruise down to Mexico, but that’s an experience best unmentioned.”

  Elise took a swig of water from her bottle. “Everywhere is pretty much the same after awhile. These days, you can go to some places in Europe and not even realize you’ve left the states.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Betty said. “You’ve been everywhere at least twice.”

  “You like traveling, Elise?” Ann asked.

  She shrugged. “It loses its excitement after a few years.”

  “It doesn’t hurt you’ve always had a hot dancing witch to come home to.” Betty waggled her eyebrows. “Am I right?”

  Elise ignored her. “Five minutes and we’re done.”

  “So Elise, why have you traveled so much?” Ann pressed. “I mean, why would you put yourself through something you obviously weren’t enjoying?”

  Betty had the sudden urge to strangle Ann. If there was one thing Elise liked less than being friendly and nice, it was invasive questions. Dagger-like looks and stony silence for the remainder of the gym trip was not her idea of a fun afternoon.