Karma (Karma Series)

by Donna Augustine

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When I didn't wake until three in the afternoon I wondered if I'd perhaps taken too many of those pills. After my night, I'd wanted nothing more than to pass out into oblivion.

  My muscles ached as I pushed myself up out of the bed. I cringed when I thought about what had happened last night. I'd felt like a cat in heat but it seemed to be gone, now. I'd be having a talk with Cupid just as soon as I ran into him—across a long hallway where I could keep a good twenty feet distance between us. But when I did, he'd be getting a mouthful as long as he didn't try and approach me or get too close. A nasty letter might be better.

  I didn't want to think about last night and I knew instinctively there couldn't be a repeat. I didn’t want one. I couldn’t believe I’d been so consumed by him and then all he’d worried about was me hanging around. I dragged myself from the bed in one of his spare rooms when I would’ve rather hidden under the covers all day.

  My hand on the doorknob, I hesitated and leaned an ear in. It sounded quiet and it was pretty late. He must have left, not that it mattered or anything. I opened the door and stepped out just like I would have if he'd been home.

  I walked into the kitchen and started making coffee when I noticed movement on the deck. Fate, with his feet kicked up on the railing was reading the paper in the afternoon sun. I'd felt a lot braver when I'd thought I was alone. I'd faced down pissed off juries, been one on one with murderers, and that had been easier than walking out there on that deck. But I wasn't a wimp. Never had been and I wasn't going to be cowed by him.

  His head turned; he nodded a silent hello and resumed reading. I grabbed some coffee and went out onto the deck like it was just another normal day in Weirdoville.

  Except for the whole blood ritual last night and the fact that even now I could see the universe swirling its power through the glass doors.

  Oh, forget it. My life was a train wreck. Who was I kidding? Hooking up with some guy was probably the most normal thing I've done in the last couple weeks. I should probably be embracing it.

  I balanced my cup and then kicked the door shut with my toe on the edge. Grabbed the seat that wasn't so far away to make it obvious I was trying to keep a distance, but not too close either. Seat choices can get very sticky in these circumstances. I decided to avoid eye contact. If I didn't make eye contact, it would be hard for him to read the awkwardness, embarrassment, rejection and slew of other negative emotions I felt this morning.

  I kicked up my feet on the railing and settled part of the paper in front of me as I sipped my coffee.

  And then spat it out all over myself as I looked down at the beach and remembered the other important thing that happened last night. Everyone I saw was changed in some way.

  They ran the entire gamut. Some of them glowed brilliantly, some had a slight pleasant shimmer. Then there were the duller people who looked like they were in the shade, even under the bright afternoon sun. Some of them looked just dull. Occasionally, they had the same cracks running along their skin like I'd seen on Maxwell. Then, thankfully, some people looked normal. I tried to focus on them.

  “I guess you forgot that part of the evening?” Fate asked, his eyebrow slightly raised.

  I ignored the insinuation. It didn’t matter; I wasn’t a desperado. Actually, when I thought about it, if it hadn’t been for Cupid, I probably wouldn’t have even done anything. I’d bet it wouldn’t have been very good either. I’d given Fate too much credit. He probably wasn’t even that good without the added Cupid effect.

  The packaging was nice and I’d been hopped up on Cupid curses.

  “Why did you sleep in the guest room last night?” He was looking down at his paper when he asked.

  “You take up too much of the bed and I wanted to spread out for one night.”

  I turned back to the people strolling along the beach.

  The shadows, the pockets of the universal forces, they were everywhere, kicking up sand in someone's face, to catching a child's kite up into the wind.

  “You can't stare like that in public, not around our kind. It's a dead giveaway.”

  “I told you I'd be careful and I will be.”

  “You'd better be,” he said and laid down his paper, clearly in some sort of snit.

  “Where's Lars?” He deserved that, even if I had decided I didn’t care that much.

  “He left.” His tone let me know I’d hit a bull’s-eye.

  “What is your problem? Did you sleep poorly?” I'd always functioned best when I was working offense, why stop now?

  “I've just been waiting for you to get your ass out of bed is all.” He got out of his seat and headed inside. “Be ready in an hour. We’ve got an appointment.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  An hour later and I was hanging on to the last drop of civility I had. Fate was on edge for no reason I could fathom. It’s not like I’d been the one making sure I was going to get rid of him.

  Then there was the enhanced karma exposure. I felt a little like a ping pong ball, with alternating waves of good and bad karmic energy coming at me from every different direction, and he was of no help.

  He yanked me into the stairwell of the office building, where we had appointment number two with Maxwell.

  “Pull it together.”

  “Don't you think I want to?” Ever since we'd left the house, I'd been bombarded by the energy of the people we'd come in contact with. I felt like I was on contact overload, my nerves rubbed raw by what they were putting out. And the why was even worse. When I got too close, I could sense exactly why their auras looked like they did. I was proud I was holding it together at all.

  “You can't act like a freak when we walk into that office.”

  “You know, I've had just about enough of you today. No one's asking you for hand holding through this process, but if you could tone down the attitude that would go a long way.”

  “This is who I am. Did you think last night was going to change anything?”

  I was doing my best to forget last night and he just kept bringing it back up. What was his issue!

  “Actually, I think it might have done the impossible and made you worse. Trust me, I will not be looking for a repeat.”

  Cupid better stay clear of me for the rest of the time I was here. He was lucky I didn't barge in and start breaking arrows the way I was feeling right now.

  “You go in there, pick up on whatever you can and then get out before he starts picking up on how weird you're acting.”

  “Not a problem.” I waved my hand toward the stairwell door. Quicker we got on with this the better. When he didn't budge for a second I tapped a nonexistent watch on my wrist and said, “Time’s a-ticking.” It was the last official sendoff of my southern manners, but it got him moving. It wasn't a huge loss. My manners were never really worthy of the south, anyway.

  We headed to the office and it turned out I didn't even need to sit down. I walked into the office, said I needed to use the rest room and walked right out. I was in a cold sweat by time I made it out to the parking lot and it still didn't feel far enough from the impact Maxwell's karma had.

  I sat in the boiling hot car and didn't care. I hadn't even had enough time to grab the keys off of him before I ran out of there and I didn't want to risk coming into contact with anyone else the way I was feeling.

  I heard Fate get in the car just as I was getting the bile in my stomach under control.

  “What did you get?”

  “Too much. Way too much. He's evil to the core.” I wiped my forehead as I started to breathe a little easier.

  “Details.”

  “Embezzlement, beats his wife, contemplating killing his partner...need I go on?”

  He leaned forward in silence as he started up the car. I looked at Fate and it didn’t make any sense.

  “You don't get anything off of him?” I asked.

  “No. I can't see his future.”

  The AC came blasting on and I angled a c
ar vent to shoot straight in my face while I pondered what he didn't say. “You went through the same ritual as I did, right?”

  “Yes.”

  There hadn't been a single person I'd come within fifty feet of that I hadn't picked up something from.

  He's Fate. How could he not have picked up on his future? And then it hit.

  “He has no future. He’s going to die soon.”

  Fate nodded.

  “So Suit is going to get to him.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don't know what he wants from him, but it's not because he's a wonderful individual. That's for certain. He's killing him because he's bad. But why would Suit care?”

  “Either Maxwell has done something that would mess up his goal, or... Could he be looking to recruit him? The way Harold recruits? However he became one of us, maybe he can make others like us. But why would it be so hard to kill him?”

  We sat there in the parking lot, AC blowing in my face as I bounced my head against the seat headrest.

  We sat in silence for a while, just thinking, then he finally spoke.

  “I think I know. He’s trying to do it under the radar.”

  “How?”

  “Certain types of deaths don't register as quickly and take longer to process.”

  I instantly knew the type he meant. “Like mine. Sudden, traumatic and mass casualty.”

  “Yes. It would buy him just enough time to get in there. We should stay local, because whatever Suit is planning is going to happen soon.”

  “I agree.”

  ***

  I'd seen movies where the couple approaches the front desk at a hotel and then do the silent debate as they gaze into each other's eyes. A private communication happens as they both acknowledge their desire for one another. A soft smile, a loving look, maybe a handhold right before they declare themselves by asking for one room.

  This wasn't one of those moments.

  “We'd like one—”

  “Two—”

  “No, just—”

  “We'll be right back.” I grabbed his arm and dragged him to the other side of the lobby to pound this out in private.

  “I'm on full blast so to speak on the karma front so there is no need for the coziness of one bedroom. I want separate rooms.” I crossed my arms, jutted a foot out and concentrated on beaming the message through his stubborn brain on every level that I was unmovable on this topic.

  “But you won't pick up on Bad Guy. The only way I can is from the residual traces of the part he played in your past life. One room.”

  “Suit will show up for Maxwell, so no, two rooms.”

  He countered my foot jut with a forward leaning hover. Phew, if he thought that was going to work, he had no idea who I was. He'd reached a place in my psyche no man had ever gone before. The place where I'd cut off my nose—not once but repeatedly—just to spite him, and not regret it at all. Even as I was sucking air through two holes where I used to have nostrils.

  “I'm not going to stand here arguing over something this stupid. I get that you feel awkward after the other night but we work together and you'll have to get past it.”

  “I'm awkward? What about how miserable you are? Think maybe I need a break? Even if it's while I sleep? This has nothing to do with being uncomfortable.”

  “Liar.”

  “I am not a liar. Don't call me that.”

  “Then don't lie.”

  “I'm sorry your humongous ego can't handle the rejection,” I said in a tone that made it clear was anything of the sort. “But, I'm going to have to insist on having my own room. That's final.”

  “Last chance.” He spoke softly as he closed the small distance between us and his hand reached up and cupped my cheek. Oh no, he was switching tactics. I didn't like this one little bit, but it wouldn’t work. All I had to do was remember his words right after we’d had sex. He’d still been inside of me, hadn’t even rolled off, before he started worrying about entanglements.

  “Bring it on, big guy, we'll see who folds on this.”

  His hand moved lower and right before he hit my pressure point, I realized what he was doing but it was too late. I passed out thinking about what a huge jerk I’d slept with.

  ***

  I woke up in the bed of the hotel room. I could hear him in the bathroom, doing whatever it was he did.

  “You knocked me out?” I knew he had, but I found it so appalling I needed to hear confirmation from his lips.

  “Had to,” he yelled out over the sound of running water.

  “I can't believe you did that.” No shock in my voice now, just verbal condemnation.

  He walked out of the bathroom, towel slung around his hips. His torso covered in tattoos.

  “People don't do that. Not normal ones anyway. Only psychos and criminals.” When he looked at me, I nodded as if to confirm that he fell in one of those columns, perhaps both.

  “First off, why do you assume I would have been human?”

  In spite of myself, I gaped. “What else would you be?”

  “So closed minded.”

  So many things clicked with that statement. Even for someone that hadn't ever taken a human shape, he was still too rough around the edges. Murphy, Luck, and most of the others in the office hadn't either, but somehow he'd always been different.

  He walked over to the closet where things looked like they'd already been hung and pulled out a shirt and pants.

  “Seriously, what are you?”

  “I'll tell you right before you retire.” He pushed some hangers around. “I picked up some things for you as well.”

  The gesture of him picking clothes out for me seemed oddly personal. It's strange how sometimes those things were more intimate than anything else.

  “That thing you did in the lobby? You will not do that again.”

  “You're human morality is becoming so tedious.”

  “Even if I was never human, isn't that what I am anyway? Karma? Good, bad, right and wrong?”

  He leaned over, two hands on the bed, bringing himself eye level with me. “What I did wasn't wrong, it was necessary.” The muscles in his arms tensed as he pushed himself back up.

  “How is that?”

  “You were digging in for a fight. I wanted to take a shower. Necessary.”

  “And what I want?” It was such an arrogant statement and I was more than ready to take up that fight...until he dropped his towel.

  “What are you doing!” I turned my head quickly. “Go in the bathroom!”

  “We’ve slept together. What's the difference?”

  And we weren’t going to again. I didn't argue, just grabbed an outfit from the closet and went to take a shower, hoping he'd be dressed when I got out.

  ***

  “I hate airport food. Couldn’t we have at least eaten at one of the restaurants? I never thought I would say this, but I think I miss our office caterer.” We were sitting in Terminal A at Orlando Airport and I was debating which part of this was worse—the food or having to wait for a plane we weren't even taking. “The bread’s soggy. Can't they figure out a way for the bread to not get soggy?”

  “They?”

  “Yes. The powers that be that control airport food. Everything else gets a little push in one direction or another. Did the universe really decide to draw the line here?” I waved my soggy bread at him.

  “I told you to wait.”

  “I'm hungry. You ate, remember?” He’d had a fine little feast while I’d hid in the shower until my fingers pruned.

  “Next time, don't take an hour long shower.”

  “Next time, don't be an animal. How about that? You couldn’t even save me a tiny bite?”

  “I ordered you something.”

  “And then ate it!”

  “It was getting cold because you wouldn’t leave the bathroom.” Elbows on the table, he leaned forward, daring me to disagree.

  I rolled my eyes and then looked at the flight board. The plane should be
taking off in forty-five minutes, but I still wasn't sure Maxwell was even going to show. Fate had been doing some normal human type digging and found out he had travel plans this afternoon.

  I’d been more impressed before I’d found out that his detective work had really been flirting with Maxwell’s secretary while I was sleeping. Then I was just annoyed. I wondered if he had plans on having sex with her too, and then asking if any of her plans had changed.

  “Are you watching for him?” he asked from across the table.

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this soggy mess is bad enough without having to look at cracked open faces oozing pus.”

  “That bad?” His face scrunched up as he asked.

  “Yes. And your face doesn’t make it any better. Why, what do you see?”

  “The people look the same, but they have trails in front and behind them. Sometimes the trails are very strong and some are translucent.”

  I'd just taken a rather large bite when he nudged me. “There.”

  I turned to see Maxwell walking through the airport on the way to the terminal. He looked worse than ever and I had a hard time swallowing back the bite of half chewed food. I forced it down with a swig from my water bottle.

  “You couldn't have given me one more minute?” I stood and tossed my sandwich in the trash. So much for food.

  “He can't get on that plane,” Fate said as I sat back down. “If we lose track of Maxwell, we might never find Suit again.”

  “Are we on our own?” I looked upward.

  “Are you asking me or are you trying to talk to the universe again?”

  “I’ll settle for anyone that will answer me.”

  Fate put his hands out as he lifted an ear upward. “Yeah, I’d say it’s just us.”

  “How do you know he can't get on that plane?”

  He was already standing and motioning for me to get up as well. “We don't have time to discuss it right now. Just keep him off the plane. The attendant looks like she’s about to call for boarding.”