“I was not sure when they were leaving,” I said. “Was someone with them?”
At least he didn’t seem suspicious. “Yes, señorita,” he said. “There was another woman with them, very short, she had long blond hair.” He sighed. The hair had been beautiful, and the woman underneath it, too, seemed like.
“Of course,” I said, as if that was what I’d expected. “Our car is still here. They must have gone in her car.”
“Sí,” he said. “They all got into a big car. Someone else was driving.”
“I’m surprised I didn’t hear them. I must have fallen asleep.”
The boy looked uneasy. “I could not hear them, either, señorita. I don’t know how they were so quiet. If I hadn’t woken up a little bit, I would never have known they’d walked through the lobby.”
“You were very tired,” I said with a smile. A silence spell of some kind, I guessed. And it was lucky that the boy had kept his wakefulness a secret. I gave him a few coins and I went back to my room. He was asleep again when I came through with all my bags five minutes later.
Before I started the car, I looked around. There were a few streetlights, not many, but I could see the packed dirt of the road, and there was one track that seemed to override all the others in the dust. There was only one way in and one way out of El Soledad, so I had a fifty-fifty chance of going in the right direction.
When I was at the intersection where I could turn left or right on that main road, I closed my eyes and took a guess, based on the very faint prickling of the magic. For once, my little talent might come in handy.
I went south because it felt right . . . and prickly.
The Tourer’s headlights cut a sharp path through the scrubby desert. There was one low hill in the long valley where the town lay, and it was between me and a long straight. For now, if there was a car ahead of me, the driver couldn’t see my headlights. I needed them to get up all the speed I could muster.
The last time I’d been in a vehicle at night, my whole crew had been killed or mortally wounded, leaving only me behind. And here I was, tracking through the night again, after my cargo had been taken hostage . . . again. I’d never imagined being in the rescue business. People hired me so they wouldn’t have to be rescued.
From now on that would be the case.
I was clear in my mind about that.
And since I was being clear, I wasn’t going to trouble myself with second-guessing. I was on the right road. Going the right way. I knew it.
I could drive without lights if I went slow and steady, and I decided to do that soon. If I figured correctly, the people who’d stolen Paulina and Eli had at the most an hour’s head start, maybe much less.
They might get out of town and stop to get some sleep, not counting on me. Maybe they believed I was asleep in my room. Maybe they were laughing about the stupid gunnie who’d left her clients to be snatched. Jackhammer was on the seat beside me, and I reached over to touch it. It was fully loaded. So was the other Winchester, and the Krag. And my Colts, slung around my waist. I was ready.
My chances were not outstanding. They might drive like bats out of hell until I was hopelessly behind. But their car weighed more, loaded down with people, and it might not be as good a car. Couldn’t know.
After I rounded the one low hill, I’d be visible.
Halfway to the other side, I switched off my lights. Time to run dark. The road would be straight from now on. I couldn’t help but wince a bit about the damage the Tourer would take.
When I’d been part of Tarken’s crew, I’d never made the big plan. I’d never weighted profit against loss. Not my job. But it stood to reason Paulina would rather be rescued and have occasion to buy a new car, than remain captive.
Far ahead I saw the headlights of another car.
I was pretty damn happy.
If they stopped, I’d have a chance to surprise them. Right now they were moving, but not real fast. I tried to creep up on them gradual.
It was like the answer to a prayer when the headlights stopped moving.
I wondered why they’d pulled over, but I drove faster than before. As long as they held still, I could catch up with them.
Then I thought of the sound this car must be making in the silence of the night, now that the other one had shut off.
I gently braked to a halt and turned off the engine. I leaped out, Jackhammer slung to my back, Marcial’s Winchester in my right hand. I ran. It’s hard to run quiet, not falling, even with the help of the moonlight. When I got closer, I stopped, listening. I heard voices, raised in dispute. Holding the leather bag tight under my arm to prevent clanking, I moved forward, real quick and light.
The headlights of the other car were illuminating a big drama. A woman was yelling at the top of her lungs. “Our father will crucify you for this! You will die a traitor’s death!” Yep, Paulina, all right. She was at the center of the light, her hands held in front of her, ready to cast spells. She was not wearing her vest. She was alone. Maybe they’d already killed Eli. My heart pounded so much I thought it would punch out of my chest. I was seeing, hearing, thinking, more clearly than I ever had in my life. Rifles were no good tonight. I lay them down and pulled both Colts.
I got as close as I could, dodging the light, concealing myself. When I was close enough, I could see Paulina was doing a good job of keeping the three—shit, three—kidnappers busy. Eli was down on the ground, bleeding at the shoulder. A grigori, a little blond woman—the beauty seen by the desk clerk—was standing over him with her hands at the ready, looking down every few seconds, but dividing her attention by taking quick glances at Paulina, who didn’t have her grigori vest. Neither did Eli. What had they done with the vests?
Paulina had a lot of fight left in her. She’d gotten a tactical position, her back against a tree. Trust Paulina to find the only tree of any girth in the miles around. The other grigoris held back as though they feared her, and rightly so. One of the men, the white-haired one, was already injured, bleeding from one leg. The younger man was listing to one side, since one of his legs was clearly the worse for Paulina’s attack. But the two men were standing far apart. They weren’t dumb.
Paulina was pitching a fit. Her voice was loud and her words were furious. But her body told me she’d had a beating, magical or with fists. She needed the tree for support, not just to keep her back guarded. I didn’t know how long she could keep it up.
A lot of things happened very close together. I saw Eli’s hand move, and I knew he was waking up from whatever had happened to him. While Paulina was keeping their attention, I moved behind the men. I was finally in her line of sight, and I stood up. Our eyes met. She saw me. She nodded.
Then Paulina carried out her own plan. Didn’t matter what mine might have been.
“Thanks be to God!” she yelled, pointing where I wasn’t. When one of the men wheeled to look, she killed him. He died, screaming. The other guy was smarter; he didn’t waste any time watching the spectacular death of his buddy, or turning to see what was behind him. He unleashed some big magic, and Paulina hit the ground like her strings had been cut. But then I shot him with a Colt, and the grigori hit the ground himself.
The blonde wheeled to fight me, and Eli’s hand seized her ankle, making her stagger. I shot her. She’d already launched a spell at me, but thanks to Eli, I dodged most of it. It spun me around by the left shoulder as though I’d been shot, too. So I was on the ground with everyone else.
After a minute or two, I got no idea how many, I was able to move. I got to my knees, then to my feet. My shoulder was numb, but I was otherwise okay. I staggered over to the blonde. She wasn’t quite dead. I shot her in the head. I would have left her whatever minutes she had remaining, but with grigoris you could never be sure what they could pull off in their last moments.
Eli looked at me, and he made a move of his hand that I th
ought meant he was going to be fine. I was glad to accept that just now.
Very slowly I worked my way around the scene to check on everybody else. The two male grigoris were dead, for sure.
Paulina . . . if she was alive, it wasn’t very. There might have been a very weak heartbeat, already stuttering. I went back to Eli, my best bet, and sat beside him. Then it seemed like lying down would be better.
I didn’t ever pass out. But I wasn’t all there. The headlights of the kidnappers’ car cut off after a while when the battery was drained. I could see the stars, a million of them.
After a long, drifting space of time, I felt a hand holding mine.
“Lizbeth?” Eli whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I knew you’d come.”
“Yeah.”
“Paulina alive?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The others dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
“Welcome.” Then we were silent. Until I thought to ask, “Where is your vest?”
“I think they burned it. We’ll look. Later.”
“You remember talking about the shadows, the last time you used that death magic?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“That the one at the top was the sun, the people in between the sun and the ground were the schemers, and we were the people on the ground.”
“Yeah, pretentious.”
“I don’t know what that word means. But I don’t believe I’m in anyone’s shadow. That’s all.”
There was another silence.
“Looking at the stars?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Nice.”
“Uh-huh.”
It was a long, long night. I would have liked to sleep. But I don’t believe I did, at all. There were some things I should tell Eli, but maybe Paulina was alive, and I still hated her. But with great respect. I couldn’t seem to make myself get up and move. Couldn’t do any of the things that needed doing. The feeling was coming back in my shoulder, though it was still impossible to lift my hand. It was the weariness of this trip, the worry of every decision I’d made, the . . . everything.
“Maybe I’m dying,” I said.
“At least we have company,” Eli answered.
I didn’t understand. “We do?”
“Each other,” he said.
“That’s good.” And it was. “Tell me,” I said. “Why do people keep trying to kill us?”
“Because not everyone wants the tsar to live,” Eli said.
It simply hadn’t occurred to me that not everyone in the HRE was as enthusiastic about Alexei I as Eli and Paulina.
I tried to figure this out, since Eli had fallen silent. “But Alexei’s wife might have a boy,” I said. “Even if he passes away in the meantime.”
“It might be a girl,” Eli said, sounding as tired as if he’d been up for a week. “The tsarina . . . is not popular. She wasn’t brought up in the Russian way, or even the English way. She doesn’t have a sense of duty. She’s always on holiday. Doesn’t take her position seriously.”
“So who’s the other contender?” That must be where this conversation was going.
“Alexei’s uncle, Grand Duke Alexander.”
This was really complicated, compared with our presidential race. Texoma elected a new head official every four years, and there were at least four parties, so it was a brawl, but an open brawl. “Is this Alexander married?” I asked.
I could see I’d struck gold.
“Yes,” said Eli. “To an inappropriate woman, Sophia Feodorovna.”
“Not a royal.” That was the most inappropriate thing I could imagine.
“Correct. The grand duke’s wife in Russia was a countess, and she was killed by the revolutionaries. His new wife is a common woman, a woman with whom he had three sons while they were unwed. Obviously, they were together for years before his true wife died. When Grand Duke Alexander escaped from the revolutionaries, this woman came with him. Alexander has a son by his first wife, and three by this Sophia.”
They’d definitely won in the kid sweepstakes. This Alexander must not be any spring chicken. His older brother, Tsar Nicholas II, had died a couple of years ago after a bout of pneumonia; Nicholas’s wife, Alexandra, had preceded him in death. So I figured Grand Duke Alexander would probably be in his sixties at least. Four sons!
“Are the sons healthy?”
“The oldest son, Vasily, fruit of the first marriage, is now in his thirties. And married to a Russian duchess. And he has several children, including a boy. His illegitimate brothers have very strong reasons to want Vasily in power. They are not good men.”
“So that’s why all this has happened. Because some people don’t want Alexei’s son, if he has one, to be ruler if Alexei dies.”
“Yes. That’s why all this has happened.”
“If we get through this, you have to tell me why Oleg’s blood is so necessary,” I said.
I fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
While I slept, night lightened into dawn. Dawn into day. The glare of the sun was another kind of attack. I had to move or my skin would blister, or I’d die of thirst. My hand was free. I turned my head as much as I could. Eli was crawling over to Paulina.
It was time to live. I rolled to one side. If that sounds easy, it wasn’t. I rested for a minute, panting, then rolled to my stomach. That was easier. I pushed with my hands and pulled my knees up under me, and that was another step. I gathered up some strength. I pushed again. Well, now I was on my knees only. Halfway standing. I groaned with the pain of movement, which shamed me. I forced my way to my feet. The landscape lurched. I took a couple of steps sideways, but I managed to stay upright, only through fear of having to get up again. I put one foot in front of another.
I made it to the tree where Paulina lay. Eli was sitting by her.
I wanted to sit down by him, but I wasn’t sure I’d get up if I did.
I put my hand on his head to let him know I was there. He was staring at her.
“Well?” I got tired of waiting.
“She’s dead.”
“She gave us the chance we needed,” I said, because it was the best thing I could say about Paulina. “I don’t know if you were really awake for that.”
He didn’t say anything.
“We got to leave,” I said, trying to sound gentle.
“How? Their car battery died.”
“How do you think I got here? The car is a little ways away. I’ll go get it,” I said. “I’ll drive it close.”
“What about all the bodies?”
We don’t have to do anything with the bodies. They’ll be picked bare in two days. “All you care about is Paulina’s, right? We can cover her with rocks.” On second thought I added, “Maybe.”
“I’ll be better in a minute,” he said.
I had no answer to that, so I made myself think of where I’d left the car. Once I did that, I could actually see it. I whined to myself. It looked so far. But I had to bring it over, no way around that. At least I didn’t have to carry anything.
When I reached the Tourer—it was the only thing not worse for wear—I let myself drink as much as I wanted. I felt a lot more human after that. The driver’s seat felt good after a night sprawled on the ground. I wasn’t real sure I was driving like I ought to, but there was no one to collide with. I made it to the right place and parked the Tourer by the dead car. Well, the car of the dead kidnappers. I almost smiled.
When I got out, I found what was left of the two vests. Eli’s was ripped, like they’d pulled it off of him, but it was still intact, all the pockets shut. The hem at the back was scorched, because his vest had been by the fire they’d built to burn Paulina’s. Her vest was almost completely destroyed
. I dragged Eli’s over to him.
Eli had put three rocks on top of Paulina. He was struggling to place a fourth one. He was moving very slowly and his hands were trembling. I groaned inside myself when I estimated how long this was going to take.
“Eli, I don’t think Paulina would care about being covered up,” I said. “She understood the reality of . . .”
“Death,” Eli said. He struggled with another rock. “The dead should be covered, to honor them. Paulina was a great wizard.” He had that stubborn set to his mouth.
“Okay,” I said, trying to sound like I thought that was reasonable. Trying not to sound like I was as tired as he was, just about.
“I’ll finish it,” Eli said, and then couldn’t pick up another rock.
That meant I had to finish it.
I tried not to be angry. (What difference did it make? People were always so worried about what happened to the bodies. Why?) I handed Eli a canteen, bared my teeth at him, and set to work. I was real slow, simply because I couldn’t go any faster. He was very glad to be reunited with his vest, scorched or not. He was able to help some, after he’d had a big drink.
We got it done.
I couldn’t do anything with the kidnappers’ dead car. At least it was slightly off the road, and anyone rounding the curve had a chance to see it. If I couldn’t hide the car, there didn’t seem to be much point in hiding the grigoris’ bodies, assuming I had the strength.
I didn’t.
Besides, I’d left bodies strewn between Segundo Mexia and here, all along the road to Ciudad Juárez.
I helped Eli stand. He made his way to the passenger door without a word. I thought of saying something more to him, but I didn’t know what it would be. His face looked bare and bleak. He was hard hit, his body and his spirit.
I started driving. I didn’t know what Russians said on sad occasions, and I didn’t care. We had to get away from this spot. We were overdue for more bad luck. I wanted to get out of the area before it caught up with us. After I’d driven for an hour, my brain kicked in. One of us had to think, and it wouldn’t be Eli, at least for a while more.
An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose #1) Page 18