by Мишель Роуэн
They could hear a humming sound.
Quinn listened. "The highway must be over there."
"We can hitch a ride." Janie looked at her cell phone again. "I can't believe there's still no service. I seriously need to go with another service provider."
Quinn walked around the circumference of the tree. "Sure is ugly."
"It fights evil."
"So it says. I wonder how it works."
A scorpion moved toward the park bench to the far right of the tree. They were the scariest bugs he'd ever seen, and they seemed to be everywhere in the state. He turned to look at Janie instead of at the ugly tree behind him. She made for a much better view.
He forced a smile. "So, now what?"
She just stared at him, her eyes growing wider by the second.
"Janie?"
"Quinn," she said quietly. "Walk toward me right now. Don't turn around."
"What?"
He felt something brush against his leg, and he looked down.
It was black and thin, and hard as a rock, and twining around his ankle. It looked like a branch from the tree. Another branch did the same to his other ankle.
He looked over his shoulder and his heart thudded against his rib cage. TheAsesino delMonstro had leaned over in his direction, all of its sharp branches now pointing at him. The thinner branches had grown and escaped from the fenced-in area to touch him.
Monster killer.
He tried to yank away from it. "I can't move," he said, looking up to meet Janie's wide-eyed gaze. She had her gun out. The branch tightened at his ankle.
Another branch wound around his chest as if it was an anaconda, the sharp tip of it raising to eye level. It seemed to be assessing him. The branch around his chest felt dry and brittle but still strong enough to snap him in half if it chose to.
"Quinn!" Janie shouted.
Then the branch reared back and thrust at his shoulder, piercing his flesh. He yelled out in pain.
He was going to die. The tree was going to tear him apart.
Janie shot once, and the branch around his chest dropped to the ground. Another shot and his right leg was free. A third and his left was free. He scrambled away from the tree as fast as he could, holding a hand to his wounded shoulder.
The tree seemed to hiss and growl at them, and Janie felt a tingling magic sweep through the air. It hurt like hell. And then the tree was still and as dead as it looked when they first arrived.
There was a bench to their left, and Janie helped Quinn over to it. She felt as shocked as Quinn looked.
"I told you to move." Janie's words were sharp and curt. "When I tell you to do something, you should do it."
"Noted."
She pulled his black T-shirt down and away from his shoulder and inspected the wound. She let out a long exhale. "It's just a scratch."
"Sure as hell doesn't feel like just a scratch."
"You're damn lucky. It must have only been checking you out."
He snorted. "To find out how much of a monster I was. Well, it sensed it, didn't it? That I'm a vampire?
The tree was programmed right. You should have let it do what it had to do and kill me."
She slapped him. He looked at her with shock and held a hand up to his face. "What the hell was that for?"
Her face felt flushed, and she knew her eyes must look glossy from the tears she was holding back.
"Don't talk about yourself like that. You don't deserve to die that way."
"Of course I do. I'm a monster, Janie."
"You're a vampire. That's true. But you're not a monster. I've seen lots of vamps—and a hell of a lot of humans too—that deserved death more than you do." Every word she said was the truth. He didn't deserve to die. Not from the tree, and not from her boss's orders. "Why do you have to be so stubborn?"
"How can you say that after what happened last night?"
She turned away. "I wanted that to happen. I told you to bite me."
He shook his head. "The tree knew—"
"The stupid tree doesn't know anything. Not a damn thing. The way it loomed behind you, all of those sharp wooden branches." She swallowed hard.
He tried to smile. "Thought you'd be rid of me once and for all?"
That earned him another slap.
"Ow." He frowned. "I think I've had enough violence for one—"
Then, without allowing herself to think twice about it, she grabbed his face and kissed him hard on the mouth. He seemed stunned by this unexpected action before he grabbed her and pulled her against him,
raking his fingers along her back. She traced her tongue along his lips and then kissed his face, his cheeks, his forehead, his chin, before focusing on his mouth again.
After a minute, they parted, and she shot up to her feet and paced back and forth. Her cheeks felt even hotter than before.
"Goddammit!" she yelled. "I so don't need this right now!"
He just looked up at her. "Janie—"
"No." She held a finger up to stop him. "Don't say anything. Not a word."
He pressed his lips together.
"I don't like you," she said. "Just for the record."
"Understood."
"You're in the way of what I want. And if you knew what I'm supposed to do…dammit ." She stopped talking.
He finally got to his feet. "Janie—"
"You're a vampire," she cut him off. "Not exactly a good thing for me, considering the business I'm in.
And that isn't even taking into consideration my current assignment."
"Got it."
She pressed her hands against her burning face. "I mean, Lenny writes poetry for me.Poetry . It's bad poetry, sure, but he means it. He likes me. I wish I could like him back the way he wants me to, but I can't. And now this? You're a pain in the ass, Quinn. I don't care what you were like when I was a kid, or what I thought of you then. Times have changed."
"Of course they have."
She let out a long, shuddery sigh. "I have to find Angela."
He nodded. "You're a good sister."
"Damn right I am. And when we get that Eye, none of this means anything. You hear me? It means nothing ."
He kept nodding and stood up from the bench.
If she kept talking, would she forget that all she wanted to do was kiss him again? When she kissed him, nothing else seemed to matter.
"So I think we better go," she said. "Like I said before, as soon as we get the Eye, then it's every man or woman to his- or herself—"
He kissed her again, and she tried to decide if she should slap him again, but then she just sighed shakily against his lips and kissed him back, holding him as tightly to her as it was possible to do while still fully clothed.
And it was true. For a moment, nothing else mattered.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" Something tugged at her shirt. "Could you take our picture?"
Quinn broke off the kiss with a loud groan of annoyance, and Janie looked down. A little girl, about six years old, looked up at her with a smile. The girl held out a pink disposable camera to her. Janie looked behind the little girl at two adults who were examining the now benign tree.
She forced a smile. "Of course."
Quinn let go of her, and she noted that his eyes held a mixture of desire and regret. Regret that they'd been interrupted, or regret that they'd kissed in the first place?
The little girl pushed her camera into her hand and skipped over to her parents and the tree. They followed, but Quinn froze in place before he got any closer.
Janie noted his stricken look. "Wait here."
She squeezed his hand before she went over and got the family to pose in place, taking their picture in front of the thing that had nearly torn Quinn into pieces.
Quinn stared at the monster-killer tree while he waited for Janie and renewed what had happened in his mind over and over.
She'd kissedhim , right? Or had he just imagined that?
He eyed the tree warily.
Some tourist attraction.
"Well, that's not a very nice way to spend such a beautiful day," the mother said. "We'd be happy to give you a ride back into the city."
"We would really appreciate that." Janie smiled and glanced at Quinn. "Isn't that nice of them?"
"Terrific."
The family took some more pictures and a bit of video, and then everyone crawled into their rented trailer home. Their couple's names were Bob and Sue-Ellen. The little girl was Sabrina.
Sabrina sat next to Quinn, staring up at him in a way that made him very uncomfortable.
"You were kissing her," she said.
"Hmm? What did you say?"
"You were kissing her," she said again. "I drew a picture."
She showed him a notebook that had two people kissing. Well, it looked more like two blobs with eyes.
One was green and one was blue. Quinn wondered which one he was supposed to be.
"Nice," he said.
"I draw all the time. Not much else to do. No TV in here. I get really bored."
"Drawing is a good use of your time." He looked at Janie. She was sitting in the front of the trailer,
talking to Bob and Sue-Ellen. He had a funny feeling she was trying to avoid him. Maybe he should ask for a copy of Sabrina's drawing, since it would probably be his only reminder that their kiss ever happened in the first place.
No, this was good. Get to the city. Then rent a car or, better yet, get the map and run far away from
Janie.
No, not run away. He wasn't trying to escape her. He wasn't afraid of her. She had no power over him.
None. Zero.
"See?" Sabrina said, flipping through her drawings. "I drew a mountain. And a bear. That's a cactus—"
"It's a red cactus," Quinn noted.
"It was during a sunset." She looked at him like he was stupid before her attention went back to her sketch pad. "Here's my mom and dad. That's a bird."
Before she turned the page, Quinn stopped her, trying to get a better look at the bird she'd drawn. It looked awfully familiar.
"Janie!" he called.
Her shoulders tensed and she slowly looked over her shoulder with a frozen smile on her face. "Yes?"
"Do you have the map handy?"
"The… the map?" She blinked.
"Yeah, the one that's hiding in your purse. I need to see it."
She made her way to the back of the trailer. "I think I'll hold on to it if you don't mind."
"Look." He pointed at the drawing.
She nodded. "That's a very good picture. You're very talented, Sadie."
"My name'sSabrina , lady."
Quinn sighed. "Look closer."
She peered down at the sketch before her eyebrows went up. Then she scrabbled through her bag,
pulling out the map.
"It's just like the bird symbol," she said. "Almost exactly. Sabrina, sweetie, why did you draw that?"
She shrugged. "I like birds."
"But why did you draw this one in particular? Did it come to you in a vision? Like magic? You can tell us. We believe in that sort of thing. Where is it? Can you lead us to it? Close your eyes and try to remember. It's very, very important."
"Mommy!" Sabrina called. "These people are weird!"
"Be polite, Sabrina," her mother said.
Janie crouched down in front of her. "Now, if you don't tell us, Sabrina, a lot of people are going to get hurt. Puppies and kittens are going to die and it will be all your fault. Do you understand me?"
"Janie—" Quinn murmured. "I don't think that's necessary."
She frowned. "I don't know how to reason with kids."
Sabrina rolled her eyes. She reached underneath a pile of books and magazines and grabbed one of the sameArizona tourism brochures that Quinn had picked up earlier. "I thought it was pretty, so I put my paper over it and traced it."
Quinn looked down at the cover of the brochure.
"Shit," he breathed, then looked up the little girl sheepishly. "I mean,shoot ."
Between the two of them, they couldn't figure out what even a little girl knew. It wasn't his proudest moment.
The bird symbol on the map to the Eye represented aPhoenix . And it was used on the City ofPhoenix sign outside of City Hall.
Which is where, a half hour later, they had Bob and Sue-Ellen drop them off.
Janie consulted the map again, then looked around, shaking her head and sighing with frustration.
"According to this, our next stop is a desert ridge. But how can that be in the middle of a city?"
"I've learned my lesson," he said. "Sometimes it's a good idea to ask for directions."
Quinn grabbed her hand and pulled her toward a cab idling at the side of the road. The driver was out getting a hot dog from a street vendor.
"Can you help us?" Quinn asked him. "This is going to sound crazy, but we're looking to visit a desert ridge. We're told it's around here somewhere. Does that sound at all familiar to you?"
The cabbie took a bite of his hot dog, chewed slowly, swallowed, wiped the side of his mouth with a napkin, and then nodded.
"Sure, get in."
They got in the back of the cab and waited impatiently for the driver to finish his meal.
With every passing moment Janie felt more frustrated with their search. Time was running out, and they seemed to be getting no closer to finding the Eye.
Her chest hurt just thinking about it, and she let out a shaky sigh and looked out of the window at the driver, who was now eating his second hot dog. "My sister is going to die."
Quinn touched her shoulder, turning her around to face him. He was frowning. "What do you mean your sister is going todie ?"
She bit her bottom lip. "I told you that my boss knows where she is. If I don't bring the Eye to him, he's going to kill her. He'll make me watch, and then he's going to kill me, too. He mentioned something about evisceration."
Her throat felt thick. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't.
Quinn didn't say anything for a moment. "That's not going to happen."
She shook her head. "We're never going to find it. Maybe it was just a wild goose chase Malcolm's had us on. Maybe he's had the real map all of this time and he's playing us for fools."
"We're going to find it. And even if worst-case scenario, we don't, nothing is going to happen to your sister. Or you, for that matter. We'll go to Vegas and find her and protect her."
"You don't know my Boss."
"I don't give a shit about your Boss."
She snorted quietly at that. "Brave words for somebody who's never even met him before."
"Call Lenny. See if they've made any progress yet."
"They're probably not even in Vegas yet. They're in a Mustang, not ateleporter ."
"Call him anyhow."
She looked down at the cell phone and laughed, just this side of hysterical. "Well, I probably have service now, but the battery's dead." She shook her head. "Nothing is going right today. Nothing."
"We're here," the cabbie said as they came to a stop.
"Here where?" Quinn asked.
"You wanted to go to desert ridge, right? That's where we are. That'll be ten bucks."
Quinn paid him and they exited the taxi, looking blankly at where they'd been dropped off.
Desert Ridge Marketplace. Which happened to be a huge outdoor shopping mall, complete with a multiscreen movie theater flanked by tall, groomed palm trees.
Chapter 14
A half hour later, Janie and Quinn had searched Desert Ridge Marketplace and had come up with zero clues about where the Eye might be. They stopped very briefly at an outdoor cafe, where Janie choked down a sandwich since she hadn't eaten all day.
Quinn hadn't ordered anything at all. He simply sat there waiting patiently for Janie to eat.
"Let's go." She slapped enough money on the table to cover the meal and a generous tip, and walked away
from the restaurant, the food sitting heavily in her stomach.
If she was the praying type, she would pray that Barkley and Lenny found Angela. Her throat felt tight.
Why hadn't she tried to contact Janie in the past five years she'd been missing? What was wrong with her? Didn't she think her sister had been worried about her?
Maybe she knew Janie was a coldheartedMerc who was no better than a hired killer.
She glanced over her shoulder at Quinn. Was that howhe saw her?
Her boss snapped his twig-like fingers and she came running. She always thought it was out of fear, but maybe she was just as evil as he was.
However, she did have nicer skin. And when it came to fashion, there really was no comparison at all.
"Janie…" Quinn said from behind her. She stopped walking and turned to look at him.
"What?"
He was frowning. "That's strange."
"What is?"
"I thought the Eye would be hidden somewhere. Maybe buried like the stone in Malcolm's backyard."
"And you think it isn't?"
He pointed behind her. "Take a look at that."
She turned. The building next to the Marketplace was thePhoenixNativeArt Museum . The structure, she noted, had a rectangular shape similar to the last drawing on the map.
But so did a lot of other buildings. Like, all of them.
She shrugged. "So?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "X does mark the spot."
On the side of the building, a shape was designed using colorful red and orange tiles that shone under the bright sun. It was in the shape of a large, unmistakable X.
"Huh."
"Yeah."
She shook her head, hardly believing what she was seeing. "If I ever meet the person who drew that map, I think I'm going to beat them senseless."
"I will hold them down for you."
She turned to look at him. "Do you really think it might be in there?"
"Only one way to find out."
They stared at each other. This was it. Were they supposed to race for it now? Fight for it? All bets were off? Whoever got the Eye first was the winner?
He voiced her thoughts. "Let's just find it and take it from there."