Jackson got out of the car and walked to James’s side. James rolled down his window.
“Is something wrong, officer?” He grinned.
Jackson rolled his eyes. “Are you all right?”
“Just a little banged up. Caleb can set me straight.”
“I’ve never met anyone who can set you straight,” he said, not quite under his breath. James only laughed again and opened the car door.
“I’ve got to take care of Turner.” Jackson jerked his head back to his own car. “Can you go with him?” The question was directed at me.
“Sure.” I understood why when James tried to exit the car. His twisted ankle couldn’t support his weight, and he leaned heavily against his door. “Don’t be a macho idiot,” I said, getting out quickly. “Let me help you.”
“I never turn down assistance from a beautiful woman.” James let me drape his arm around my shoulders. Fortunately, I’d neutralized Turner recently enough that I didn’t ground James’s powers too. I wasn’t sure my system could take any more energy.
It was slow going. With every step, I felt the power try to spin out of control and let itself loose, but I held on to it the same way I’d once kept a mental grip on a bottle or a box. The memory of the mugger’s burned hand was all too clear in my head, and I would never forgive myself if I hurt James.
We got a few funny looks as I helped him through the front door of Featherweight’s, but—thank God—Caleb was working the bar. He gave me a nod as I helped James into the back, and I assumed he’d be following soon. Behind the bar was a stockroom, much better organized than Simon’s, with a few folding chairs. James collapsed into the closest one. He’d put on a good show in front of his son, but it was obvious how much pain he was in.
“Are you all right?”
“Be fine.” He gave me a smile that lacked all his usual flair. I looked behind us, anxious for Caleb to arrive, the rush of power in my blood only increasing my concern. Fortunately, Caleb walked in moments later, apologizing for the delay and walking straight for James. He must have been able to tell. I excused myself, saying I needed to use the bathroom.
It was a good thing the ladies’ room was unoccupied. I was moments away from hyperventilating and passing out. I locked myself in and put my hands on the white porcelain sink, trying to control my breathing while the urge to run coursed through my body. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to flee. Danger.
It’s not real, I said to myself, and I let the power go.
The metal fixtures sparked as if it they’d been struck by lightning. I watched in horror as a blue-white bolt of electricity traveled down the side of the pedestal sink to the floor, singeing it. A black starburst pattern radiated out on the tile floor from the point of contact.
I hissed an expletive and got down on my hands and knees, rubbing at the mark with a wad of paper towels. It didn’t come off.
“Shit shit shit,” I said softly, but there was no help for it. Someone banged on the door, telling me to hurry up. I flushed the toilet for show and washed my hands, opening the door to let an extremely annoyed woman take my place. I mumbled an apology and went to rejoin James.
“One day I’m going to stop patching you gentlemen up, and then where will you be,” Caleb was saying as I walked in. He was standing over James with his face stern.
“I’m sure Vivian would give me a ride to the emergency room.”
“You mean after kicking your ass? Does she even know about this?”
“Of course!” James looked appropriately sheepish. “She knows we’re...having a meeting about some things.”
Caleb rolled his eyes. “Be still.” He put his hands on James’s shoulders, and after a moment, James shuddered and blew out a sharp breath.
“Better?” Caleb asked.
James rotated his ankle and his wrist in turn, giving them both appraising looks. “Good as new. Thank you.”
They both looked up and noticed me as I approached.
“There you are,” James said. “I was afraid we’d lost you.”
“I’m okay. Just a little shaken up.” Hell, it was the truth.
“You weren’t hurt, were you?” Caleb asked. “I can fix you up—”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “Not even a scratch.” I wasn’t sure if he could tell how overloaded with panic I’d been, but I didn’t want to answer any questions about it if he could.
“If you’re sure.” He frowned. “I’d better go downstairs and patch up Jackson, then.”
“If he lets you.”
“He will.” Caleb disappeared into the hallway.
“Are you really all right?” I asked James.
“Sure. Caleb knows what he’s doing.”
“Did you really not tell your wife what you were doing tonight?”
“She worries. It’s easier on both of us if she doesn’t wait up pacing the floor.”
“It looks like she’s right to worry.”
“No harm, no foul. Right?” He smiled his charming smile again, but it had lost some of its animation.
“I suppose.”
Our conversation was cut off by the arrival of Caleb and Jackson. Jackson’s injured arm was swinging freely again, and I was glad he’d allowed Caleb to fix it.
“Where’s Turner?” I asked him.
“We’re holding him for questioning.” He turned to Caleb. “Is Seb coming?”
“Patrolling. He said you should call him if it’s urgent.”
“This can wait. I’ll fill him in tomorrow.” Jackson took the baggie of pills out of his pocket. “Seen anything like this before?”
Caleb took the baggie, fingering the pills through the plastic. After a moment, he shook his head.
“You think your partner could ID them?”
Caleb shook the bag until all the pills were collected in one corner. “With this much material, I’m sure he could at least try. I’ll ask him.”
“As long as he doesn’t test them on himself,” Jackson said.
“He’s a chemist,” Caleb said. “Sneaking into the NMR facility after hours is about as adventurous as he’s going to get.”
“Let me know what you find out.”
“Always.” Caleb pocketed the pills and turned to James. “Now go home before I call your wife and tell her where you’ve been.”
* * *
I woke up the next morning to the smell of bacon, eggs and pancakes. For a split second, I was back at my uncle’s B&B, and I’d slept through breakfast. I woke up with a start and was halfway out of bed before it registered that I hadn’t overslept, I didn’t need to serve breakfast to the guests anymore. Lionel was dead, and that life was gone. The grief was raw all over again, as though I’d just gotten the call from Shane.
Male voices came from Jackson’s kitchen. I took my time getting dressed, listening and trying to recognize them, but only Jackson’s was familiar.
When I went out, there was a man with wings cooking bacon at Jackson’s stove.
“You must be Mina,” he said, and held out his hand. “Sebastian.”
“Uh, hi.” I shook his hand. No tingles. Either guardians were immune, or I was still tapped out.
I’d heard my uncle talk about guardians. The protectors of cities, upholders of justice. I’d thought they were just stories until I’d found out there was one living in Biloxi. But I still wasn’t used to seeing them in the flesh.
Sebastian had untidy black hair and Asian features and hands the size of salad plates. He was taller than Jackson, and broader. I’d seen a professional football player up close once, at a Mardi Gras parade, and Sebastian looked as if he could’ve taken him down. And that was before you got to the wings. Coal black and the span of an SUV, they trailed behind him like a weird cloak, long black flight feathers
dragging the fancy tile floor of Jackson’s pricey gourmet kitchen.
He transferred the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate and held it out to me. “Breakfast?”
“I’ll...just have some yogurt.” I snagged a single-serve yogurt from the fridge and sat at the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. There was a pile of scrambled eggs big enough to feed a dozen people in the center of the breakfast bar. Sebastian sat in front of them and started shoveling them down.
“So you’re the neutralizer,” he said in between bites.
“Um, yeah.”
He grunted. “Thanks for helping out with Turner.”
“No problem.”
“Looks like Turner bought the pills off some guy in Cordova Park,” Jackson said, coming in from the dining room. “Oh.” He noticed me. “Good morning.”
“Morning. How’s your dad?”
“Doing fine. Thanks.”
“I’m glad.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
Sebastian had stopped eating to watch our exchange. He shook his head and went back to his eggs.
Jackson cleared his throat. “Anyway, now we’ve at least got an idea of where to find a dealer.”
“Let’s pick him up,” Sebastian said. “Maybe he can tell us where our two missing converters are.”
“Two?” I knew about Bridget’s brother. “Who’s the other one?”
“Greg.” Sebastian shoved a whole piece of bacon into his mouth at once. “The guy Jackson sent flying across my bar.”
“He’s missing?”
“I don’t know about missing,” Jackson said quickly. “He’s probably drinking himself into a stupor somewhere.”
“It’s been almost a week. That’s a long time, even for him.” Sebastian finished the bacon and downed half a cup of steaming black coffee in a single gulp. “Until I know what’s going on, he’s missing. Two missing converters and a bunch of mystery pills. Work it out, Herring.”
“I’m trying.” Jackson’s mouth quirked up.
Sebastian finished the eggs and brought his plate to the sink. “Probably better if you don’t leave town until we sort this out. Just in case.”
“Yeah,” Jackson said. His mouth was hidden behind his coffee cup, and I couldn’t read his expression. “No problem.” Jackson walked him to the door.
“Won’t people notice...you know,” I said when he’d gone.
“What, the wings? Nah, he can hide them. Some kind of mind trick.”
“Oh. So...what was that about?”
“Seb thinks someone’s selling drugs specifically to shadowminds. We’re trying to figure out who’s involved.”
“And that’s your job?”
He shrugged. “It has to be somebody’s.”
“Sounds pretty dangerous.” I finally opened my yogurt. It was nonfat strawberry. I glanced up at him and saw he hadn’t missed what I was implying.
“You shouldn’t be involved,” he said.
“Why? Because I’m a woman?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What then?” I took a bite of yogurt. “I think I did fine last night. What if I hadn’t grounded him? It could’ve been worse.”
Jackson scrubbed his hair with so much ferocity he came out looking like a drummer for a goth band. “I just...Look, you’re right. Of course. You can take care of yourself. I have to—go meet with a client. I guess I’ll see you later.”
He left. It wasn’t until half an hour later I noticed he hadn’t taken his briefcase.
* * *
Jackson was gone all day. I hadn’t quite worked out why he’d lied to me, but I was betting he’d gone off looking for another rogue converter. He probably didn’t want me coming along and “endangering myself.” He should’ve been more worried about my shift at the speakeasy. I was afraid I was going to be crushed.
There was barely room to turn around out there, and every few minutes, the lock snicked open and another group tumbled in. Some of them were clearly coming from elsewhere, already drunk. People were adding to the graffiti on the ceiling, telekinetically levitating permanent markers and paint pens. Somebody had a pretty good skull and crossbones going over the door to the bathrooms. The only open space was a circle under the cast-iron chandelier where the wax dripped from the candles.
I had hoped that grounding Tucker for James would keep my own powers in check, but the effects seemed to have worn off. I wore my gloves, but after a couple of hours I’d still picked up a charge from a dozen tiny contacts. I almost wished Paulie would come in wanting another ground, but he was nowhere to be found. At one table, someone lit a floating shot glass full of vodka on fire, and the tumbledown drunk crowd surrounding him burst out into applause.
“Should we stop that, do you think?” A small part of me hoped he’d say yes, like Simon had suggested.
Malik glanced up from slicing a kiwi into rounds. “Nah. Not unless they catch the table on fire. Here.” He tossed me a bottle of gin. “Mix a martini for table six.”
I barely caught it in time. “Right.” I was getting better at this. I’d just added the olive when the door jingled and a twenty-something man with dark hair and uneven teeth came in. He looked around nervously and walked straight for Malik.
“What can I get you?” Malik asked the man.
“Hey, yeah,” he said, and leaned in a little more. “I’m looking for Conner.”
“Haven’t seen him. Who’s asking? I can let him know when he turns up.”
“You mean he hasn’t been here?”
Malik shook his head.
“I just figured...nobody’s seen him for a while...” The man looked around. “Look, maybe you can, you know...help me out.” He was sweating, and his pale skin was gray and pasty.
Malik cocked an eyebrow. “Help you out...with what?” To me the guy looked as though he needed a doctor.
“Never mind,” said the man, leaning back. “I guess not.” He ordered a vodka on the rocks and one of those energy drinks that are supposed to be like supercharged coffee and took them both to a table in the side room. I started working on a margarita—where was the blender? In pieces under the bar, of course, wonderful—then someone in the side room screamed.
Silence spread through the crowd in a wave. It reached the flaming vodka table last. Low, urgent voices came from the far side of the bar, and then someone yelled, “Help! Somebody help!”
I didn’t think. I vaulted over the bar on one hand and pushed through the crowd.
It was the guy who’d come looking for Conner. His vodka glass had been knocked over, dripping ice and alcohol onto the floor, and he was slumped sideways in his chair. At first I thought he’d just passed out, but then his legs twitched, jerked, and the crowd skittered back and gasped. His head snapped back and forth, and I saw foam gathered in his mouth.
“Shit—somebody call 911!” I lunged forward and grabbed him before he could hit the floor. He probably weighed twice as much as I did, and I staggered.
“EMTs can’t get down here!” somebody yelled. “We gotta get him upstairs!”
But I looked down and knew it was too late. His jaw had gone slack, and his eyes were open and staring. He was gone.
* * *
Apparently James and Jackson weren’t just the supernatural police. They were the coroners too. Malik called James from his cell phone and the two of them showed up half an hour later with a body bag.
I was convinced it was a drug overdose. I explained the guy’s behavior to Jackson, how he’d been looking for Conner, how he’d seemed shaky. Jackson went through his clothes and found his wallet and his cell phone but nothing else. If he’d had any pills on him, he’d taken them. The two of them wrapped up the body and levitated it
through the back of the bar, going through some passageway I didn’t want to know about, no doubt.
“How will they explain this?” I asked. “Are they just going to dump him at a hospital or something?” Wondering what would happen next was easier than thinking about what I’d just seen.
“My fiancé’s a doctor,” Malik said. “She has contacts at St. Anne’s. She’ll handle it.”
The bar cleared out after they’d gone. There was nothing left to gawk at, and no one felt much like partying. They left an unholy mess, though, and Malik and I were there until midnight picking up glasses and wiping up spills. It gave him plenty of time to harass me about their gig and the fact that he still hadn’t found a keyboardist.
“The owner wants us to cover ‘Hallelujah.’ What are we supposed to do about that, Tanner?”
“He’ll get over it.” I carried a handful of pint glasses into the back. This wasn’t my problem. I didn’t want it to be.
“Want me to drive you home?” he asked when we were done.
Normally I would have said no, but not tonight. “Yeah. Thanks.”
He dropped me off at the front door of Jackson’s high-rise and waited in the loading zone until I got inside. I waved to the doorman—after almost a week, he’d finally stopped giving me suspicious looks.
Jackson still wasn’t back when I got to the condo. I decided I didn’t want to know where he was. It was probably better if I didn’t. The guy’s face, the way his jaw had gone slack—every time I closed my eyes, I could see it.
I took a shower hoping it would help me sleep, but when I was done I felt more awake than I had before. The way the guy’s legs had twitched, the way the foam in his mouth made his breath wheeze and hiss. I shook my head hard and fast, but the images wouldn’t blow away. I heard Jackson come in, saw the lights in the living room go on and back off again. When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of twitching bodies and woke up before my alarm. Jackson was already gone.
It was Friday, the day they were going to tear down the Center. It was also Avery’s last day in the city, and I’d promised her I’d watch the demolition with her. I got there early and stood on the sidewalk across the street from the demolition site. It was wrapped with orange plastic netting, emblazoned with signs reading Hard Hat Area and Keep Out. The parking lot behind the building had already been smashed with jackhammers, and earthmoving equipment sat ready. A small crane with a wrecking ball was moving into position.
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