An Easy Death (Gunnie Rose #1)

by Charlaine Harris

  The seat under the tree was empty. The soda bottle sat on the table beside it. It was empty, too. Our bags were gone.

  I waited a moment, hoping something would miraculously change. Eli would emerge from the men’s room with all our bags, having been worried they would be stolen while he was inside. Eli would stroll in with everything over his arm, having walked down to a café. Eli would pop up from the middle of the ground or fall from a tree.

  None of those things happened. Oh, dammit. If I hadn’t been so tired, I would have kicked something. Instead I put a lid on my rage and pushed open the back door of the garage. I had to talk to Señora and Señor Espinoza. I hadn’t liked the wife much, and I wasn’t disposed to like both of them any more now.

  I tried to arrange my face in an expression they might think was sweet. I may not have managed that.

  The Espinozas were playing a game of checkers on a table in the main room of the gas station. Señora Espinoza was slovenly and surly, and her husband looked cast from the same mold. They pretended not to see me. I glanced through the big window overlooking the two pumps. There were no customers. I’d gotten the impression that business was poor. That’s why I’d figured they wouldn’t object to letting the car and Eli sit around in the tiny rear courtyard.

  “My brother has gone,” I said as mildly as I could manage. Of course they knew that already. Señora Espinoza made a good stab at looking amazed.

  “He told us he had remembered where to find the cousin you are seeking,” Señor Espinoza said, his awful, droopy mustache wiggling with every word.

  I thought about that, staring at the man all the while.

  Señor Espinoza began to look uneasy. “He left your little bags with us,” he said. “With another token of his appreciation.” Señora Espinoza pointed helpfully to the little area behind the señor’s chair, and I saw our personal luggage—a knapsack in my case, a sort of valise in Eli’s. Nothing else. I snatched up the bags and looped the straps across my body, thinking all the while.

  The guns were gone. Eli had presumably taken that bag with him . . . unless the Espinozas had stolen it. At least I had the Colt and the knife. Oh, and Eli’s protective rock.

  I put my hand in my pocket. I was mulling over how much attention the señora’s screams would draw before I was sure I’d gotten the truth out of her husband. I was not as fancy an interrogator as the late Paulina, but I could get the truth out of a slouch like Espinoza.

  The garage owner seemed to understand where my thoughts were going.

  “Your brother seemed in his right mind, and he is your elder, so we didn’t question him,” Señor Espinoza said, trying to sound righteously angry.

  “My brother is not in his right mind,” I snapped. “Which way did he go? Did you see him speak to anyone?”

  “He came in here and said—in English, which we understand a little . . .”

  His wife nodded frantically. Maybe she had caught a glimpse of the knife. I must have drawn it by accident.

  “He said that he had had an alert? That he must follow, and he would return for you.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  The couple looked at each other. Señora Espinoza said, “That was less than an hour ago.” Her husband nodded.

  I just about believed them, if only because Eli could have mopped the floor with the two of them in less time than it took to light a match. I didn’t know how the Espinozas could have stopped Eli from leaving, or why they’d even imagine doing that, but I was angry with them anyway. If I hadn’t come in all worried, they would have let me sit out on that patio waiting, and waiting, before they told me what had happened.

  “Which way?” I asked, my voice angry enough to make them cringe.

  Señora Espinoza pointed right. She didn’t think about it, so that meant she was telling the truth . . . at least, I thought so.

  “You will see me again,” I told them. “If anything has happened to my brother. You will see me again and you will not be happy about that.” I was hissing by the time I finished.

  I spun on my heel and walked out of the open door and into the glaring sun. I didn’t look back, but I was willing to bet the Espinozas were staring after me, and I hoped they were scared out of their wits. Just not scared enough to talk to the police.

  Fucking Eli. I walked in the direction he’d chosen, trying to think how I’d track him. In a city. He’d taken our canteens, the ones that still held water. Of course. I stopped at a pump to rent a cup from a tiny kid, and drank. I washed my face while I was there.

  I spared a moment to be grateful I had the car sale money on me; at least I could get back home if Eli was dead. If I couldn’t track him down, this would be the second job in a row where some of my clients had died. Except this time it would be all of them.

  I had to stop thinking of any future. This was now, this was all there was. So far I’d walked in a straight line south from the garage. The farther I went into town, the more congested the streets became. There were cars and horses and burros and bicycles and people on foot, many people. And the grid plan of the newer neighborhoods collapsed into the random jumble of older areas. Though the same broad avenue continued, it passed through squares full of businesses, with stalls set up close to the traffic.

  The cross streets narrowed into alleys that meandered in a confusing way. Glancing down them, I could see trash and homeless people crouched in corners they’d cleared.

  I didn’t see a single man or woman in uniform. No police.

  There were street markets everywhere, stalls selling anything you might want, and little storefronts with shutters that would close at night. There were men playing music. Vendors shouted at me to look at whatever they had to sell. I paused, hoping I didn’t look as lost as I felt.

  Eli could have turned off into any of the cross streets. He could have wandered into any of the alleys. He could be winding through the maze of homes that were not more than huts. I could see them, a block or two away from this busy avenue. He’d been gone over an hour by now. His long legs could cover a lot of ground in an hour.

  I was due for some luck. And I had it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I spotted a familiar dark-green bag, mine. It was on the ground at the feet of a hat seller who had a small stall at a corner. The hat seller, a handsome, middle-aged woman, sported a tattoo on her forearm. From this distance it looked familiar.

  With no other clue, I had to approach her. I waited until no one else was near before I said, “Señora, I am looking for the man who left this bag with you. Did he tell you I would come?”

  She looked me up and down, and I couldn’t tell how she felt about what she saw. “So what did he look like, this man?” she asked.

  “He is tall and has a flat face, with long hair. And many tattoos, including one that looks much like yours.”

  “The magician did tell me a young woman would be coming for the bag, but I did not think it would be one such as you.”

  I had no idea what that meant. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said, wondering if she’d be more agreeable if I drew out my knife. “But I need to find him, real quick. And I need to take this bag with me.”

  “It is a heavy thing for a woman to carry,” the hat seller commented in a snooty way.

  Again I didn’t know what that meant, exactly. Time to be direct. I got money out of my skirt pocket and handed it to her. “Thanks for keeping the bag,” I said. “Where did he go?”

  “He started off in that direction,” she said, pointing to the southwest. “He went in the little alley there.”

  I nodded, picked up the bag, and strode off. The bag did feel heavier than usual. Maybe it was just the weight of her disapproval. I took a few steps before I thought, If anything’s unusual, I’d better have a look. Grigoris.

  It wasn’t easy finding a spot I could be private enough to have a rumm
age, but I arrived at a stretch of empty alley. I squatted and unzipped the bag. Resting on top of my guns was a piece of pottery, part of a broken jar. I was sure it was the one Eli had had in his hand when he was sitting in the courtyard.

  I was blank when I looked at it. Then I smelled the magic. Eli had laid a spell on the piece.

  I could only figure that Señora Snooty would have gotten an unpleasant surprise if she’d opened the bag and tried to touch the contents. And that made me smile, for the first time in a long, long stretch.

  I touched the pottery, and a pleasant warmth met my fingers. It knew me.

  I looked up and met the eyes of a man who’d unzipped, about to take a whizz against the wall a yard away. He grinned in a very nasty way. He jerked with his fingers, telling me to hand him the bag. I shook my head. My hand closed around the knife in my pocket. I hesitated because he might yell, and I didn’t want to bring down the barrio folks before I’d even found my missing employer.

  Mr. Whizzer’s fingers jerked again, and when I didn’t move, he caressed his dick with them. What a choice: give up my worldly goods or get raped. I threw the piece of pottery at him without a single thought, and he let go of his dick long enough to catch it. He had quick reflexes; worse luck for him. His head jerked back on his neck in a very odd way, and his knees crumpled, and then he was facedown on the filthy surface of the alley, his whole body all twisted, and he was dead. No blood. No noise.

  “Thanks, Eli,” I said. I retrieved the cursed object from the dead man’s hand and held it in my hand, not certain whether to keep it or not. Could it be used twice? Or was it spent, like a bomb that had already gone off? But I couldn’t crouch there thinking, I needed to haul ass. Being found next to a dead man would not be a good thing. I remembered the gallows in Ciudad Azul, and I moved quicker than I’d thought I could.

  As I walked, I felt the pottery grow warm in my hand.

  Maybe if it recognized me, it would recognize Eli, too.

  I had no idea how to make that happen, but it was as good an idea as any other. Take me to him, I told the broken thing, by way of encouragement. You can do it. And I started walking. I wondered if it would help to close my eyes, but I figured I’d just walk into a wall.

  I started to turn left, just to see what would happen . . . feel what would happen. Wrongness happened. Like when I’d been driving the car after the kidnappers.

  Okay, straight ahead, then.

  Soon I was deep in the maze of alleys. My mother had shown me a picture of a labyrinth once, and this was the closest I’d ever come to seeing one.

  None of these passages were straight for very long, and huts did not sit square to the line of walking surface, which was packed dirt and garbage. Every so often I’d happen upon a larger open place, a sort of square, where there’d be a water pump or a burn barrel. Even though these people surely lived close to the bone and used everything until it gave out, a lot of people meant a lot of trash. The cleaner areas were those around the burn barrels. The barrels stunk, but not as bad as the litter in the pathways. I was real glad I had boots on. The hem of the skirt was getting dusty, and worse.

  I could feel my lips pull back in a snarl. I like to be clean. But I realized I had more serious troubles than my creeping, crawling feeling of filthiness. I was being followed.

  The knife was out of my pocket and back in my hand. I’d kept the bag of guns unzipped so I could dip into it if I needed, and it seemed that was a good precaution.

  Might be kids, intent on robbing me, or simply dogging the footsteps of a stranger who might be doing something interesting. Might be yet another man looking to take whatever he could get from me, like the one who’d died earlier. Might be someone who had ambushed Eli.

  Might be Eli.

  I turned a corner and took a few steps. Then I flattened myself against a windowless wall. I was surprised my shadow was a little girl, but I grabbed her anyway. She was silent, even with the knife to her throat, so she was no typical kid; though she sure smelled like the kids in this neighborhood.

  “Talk,” I said in Spanish. She glared at me. “Where is the grigori?” I asked her.

  The girl did flinch when I said that. She knew what I was talking about. “Why did you take him?” I said, hoping to jar something loose from her tight little mouth.

  “Sergei has him,” she said. “He will kill him if you harm me.”

  “I will kill you if you don’t take me to him.” I didn’t enjoy threatening a child. I didn’t want to kill her. I gave her the fiercest glare I could summon, because if she believed I’d do it, we’d both get out of this unharmed.

  Lucky for both of us, she understood I was desperate. “I will take you,” she said, all kinds of angry, and scared underneath it. “Witch!”

  I laughed. “Soy un pistolera profesional,” I told her, right in her face. I am a professional shooter.

  This girl didn’t quite believe in witches, but she’d seen someone get shot. She gave a short nod, to indicate she believed me.

  “Walk ahead. Don’t scream, don’t run, don’t warn anyone.”

  Since she was leery of shooting, I dropped the knife back into its sheaf in my pocket and reached into the bag to draw the other Colt. She flinched. “Go,” I said.

  At first the girl kept glancing back over her shoulder. Scared I’d shoot her in the back, I guess. She got some ginger back in her after a few minutes of not dying. She tensed as if she was going to dart ahead. I couldn’t have that. I was holding a gun and a piece of a jar, and carrying a heavy bag. I wouldn’t catch her if she ran.

  I caught hold of the girl’s shoulder, and I squeezed her little bones. I meant business. She whined, but she’d earned the pain. Though she called me a few names, she kept her voice low. Good enough.

  The girl tried to lead me astray, but I knew when she was turning in the wrong direction. Finally she gave up. The piece of pottery kept warm.

  In five minutes we came to the right place. It was a little better than the shanties around it; it had been made all from one material, and there were chickens in a pen. I noticed hex signs hanging all around the pickets. The owner wanted to make sure no one stole the chickens. The girl shoved open the door and practically leaped inside. She shrieked, “¡Otro extraño!” Another stranger! Then she spoke in a torrent of Spanish so quick I couldn’t understand her meaning.

  But I was right behind her and found I was walking into a situation I also didn’t understand.

  Eli was sitting in a wooden chair facing the door. His hands were held up in a way that could mean he feared getting shot, or that he was about to hit someone with some magic.

  To the right of the door, facing Eli, was the man who might be my uncle, Sergei Karkarov.

  When I’d tracked down my father and shot him, I’d been surprised at how fair he was. I’d even said, “Oleg Karkarov?” Just to be sure.

  I still remember the expression on Oleg’s face when he turned and got a look at me. Because our faces were similar, the nose, the set of our eyes. I’d seen all that before I’d shot him dead.

  Sergei was another kettle of fish. He was shorter than his brother, and his hair was a rusty brown. He was a lot less good looking, too. He held a gun in his hand, an ancient revolver, and he spared me only one quick glance. Sergei saw Eli as a bigger threat.

  I thought of what had happened to the man in the alley. Maybe Sergei was right.

  “Who are you?” Sergei asked me in accented English. “I saw you shoot—”

  “I’m your niece,” I said very quickly in Spanish. If Eli hadn’t already figured it out, I might buy a little time.

  “No!” Sergei replied in Spanish, pretending to be shocked. “My brother had another bastard?”

  The word didn’t shock me. I’d been called that by other children often enough. I took one large step and stood between Eli and him.

  “It
’s okay, Gunnie,” Eli said from behind me, oozing calm. “You can stand behind me. This man and I are just talking.”

  I felt a puff of disappointment at not getting to kill another Karkarov, but I did as he’d suggested. I was careful not to turn my back on Sergei. The hut had one room and basic furniture: a little table, two small beds, a camp stove. “What happened?” I asked Eli once I was behind him.

  “While you were gone, I picked up his scent,” Eli said.

  “And you didn’t wait for me,” I said, trying to sound calm, like Eli. Now that I’d found him alive, I really wanted to hit him in the head.

  “I thought the track would get too faint,” he said. “I knew you’d follow me.”

  “I saw my gun bag.” Completely by chance.

  “I asked the señora to keep it visible.”

  Or maybe not. “What are we doing here, Eli?”

  “This man is Sergei Karkarov. He has told me he is the half brother of Oleg, and son of Grigori Rasputin by a different mother. I’m trying to determine if the girl is his niece or his daughter, and if Oleg had any other children. The firstborn has the strongest blood. Other blood is useful but not quite as effective.”

  The girl’s eyes were going back and forth. I had no idea if she could speak any English or not. I thought it was real strange that the bastards of the same man, but with separate moms, would find each other and live together. If Oleg and Sergei had had the same mother, the whole situation made more sense. But nothing about this was exactly up my alley.

  “Did you ask her?”

  “Until now, I hadn’t seen her.”

  “Yet she’d seen you. She was following me.”

  “Interesting.” Eli sounded cold and confident. Good.

  “¿Cuál es su nombre?” I asked my uncle. What is her name?

  “Su nombre es Felicia,” he said.

  “¿Es la hija de Oleg?” Is she Oleg’s daughter?

  And I was glad that, since I was behind Eli, my grigori couldn’t see my expression when Sergei said in Spanish, “Why? Are you going to shoot her like you shot him?”