by Nora Roberts
“Oh yeah. Fox,” she said. “Fox. Fox. Fox.” Letting her voice rise a bit on each repetition.
“Okay. Okay.”
When he rose, Quinn put her fingers between her lips and whistled.
“Control your girl.”
“Can’t.” Cal only grinned. “I like ’em wild.”
Shaking his head, Fox lifted a guitar from its stand, held a brief conference with the band as he slung the strap over his shoulder.
Cybil leaned over to Layla. “Why are guitar players so sexy?”
“I think it’s the hands.”
His certainly seemed to know what they were doing as he turned, tapped out the time, then led with a complex riff.
“Show-off,” Gage muttered, and made Cybil laugh.
He went with “Lay Down Sally,” an obvious crowd pleaser. Layla had to admit it had a tingle working in her when he leaned into the mike and added vocals.
He looked the part, didn’t he? she thought. Faded jeans over narrow hips, feet planted in run-down work boots, shaggy hair around a handsome face. And when those tiger eyes, full of fun, latched on hers, the tingle went right up to the top of the scale.
Cybil scooted over until her lips were a half inch from Layla’s ear. “He’s really good.”
“Yeah, damn it. I think I’m in trouble.”
“Right this minute? I wish I was.” With another laugh, she leaned back while the song ended, and the bar erupted with applause.
Fox was already shaking his head, taking off the strap.
“Come on,” Cybil called out. “Encore.”
He kept shaking his head as he came back to the table. “I do more than one in a row, they have to pry the guitar out of my greedy hands.”
“Why aren’t you a rock star instead of a lawyer?” Layla asked him.
“Rock starring’s too much work.” The music pumped out again as he leaned close to her. “I resisted the more obvious Clapton. How many guys have hit you with ‘Layla’ over the years?”
“Pretty much all of them.”
“That’s what I figured. I’ve got this individualist streak. Never go for the obvious.”
Oh yeah, she thought when he grinned at her. She was definitely in trouble.
Ten
THE RAIN HUNG AROUND, IRRITATINGLY, INTO the kind of gloomy, windswept morning where sleeping in was mandatory. Or would’ve been, Fox thought as he shut his apartment door behind him, if a guy didn’t have demon research on his Sunday morning schedule.
Despite the damp, he opted to walk the handful of blocks to Layla’s. Like juggling, walking was thinking time. Apparently the other residents of the Hollow didn’t share his view or had nothing much to think about. Cars crammed nose to ass at the curb outside Ma’s Pantry and Coffee Talk, windshields running, bumpers dripping. And inside, he mused, people would be tucking into the breakfast special, getting their coffee topped off, complaining about the windy rain.
From across the street, he eyeballed the new door on the bookstore and thought, Nice job, Dad. As Layla had done, he studied the Going Out of Business sign on the gift shop. Nothing to be done about that. Another business would move in. Jim Hawkins would find another tenant who’d slap fresh paint on the walls and fill the place with whatevers. A Grand Opening sign would go up; customers would wander in to check it all out. Through the transition, people would still be eating the breakfast special, sleeping in on a rainy Sunday morning, or nagging their kids to get dressed for church.
But things would change. This time, when the Seven came around, they’d be more than ready for the Big Evil Bastard. They’d do more than mop up the blood, put out the fires, lock up the deranged until the madness passed.
They had to do more.
Meanwhile, they’d do the work, look for answers. They’d had fun the night before, he mused. Hanging out, letting music and conversation wash away a long, hard day. Progress had been made during that day. He could feel all of them taking a step toward something.
So while he might not be sleeping in or tucking into the breakfast special at Ma’s, he’d spend the day with friends, and the woman he wanted for his lover, working toward making sure others in the Hollow could keep right on doing the everyday, even during the week of July seventh, every seventh year.
He made the turn at the Square, hands in the kangaroo pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, head ducked down in the rain.
He glanced up idly as he heard the squeal of brakes on wet pavement. Fox recognized Block Kholer’s truck, and thought, Shit, even before Block slammed out of it.
“You little son of a bitch.”
Now, as Block strode forward, ham-sized hands fisted, size fourteen Wolverines slapping the pavement, Fox thought: Shit.
“You’re going to want to step back, Block, and calm down.” They’d known each other since high school, so Fox’s hopes of Block doing either were slim. As tempers went, Block’s was fairly mild—but once Block worked up a head of steam, somebody was going to get pounded.
Since he sincerely didn’t want it to be him, Fox tuned in and managed to evade the first swing.
“Cut it out, Block. I’m Shelley’s lawyer, that’s reality. If I wasn’t, somebody else would be.”
“I heard that’s not all you are.” He swung again, missed again when Fox ducked. “How long you been doing my wife, you cocksucker?”
“I’ve never been with Shelley that way. You know me, goddamn it. If you got that tune from Napper, consider who was whistling it.”
“I got kicked out of my own goddamn house.” Block’s blue eyes were bright with rage in a wide face stained red with more. “I gotta go into Ma’s to get a decent breakfast because of you.”
“I wasn’t the one with my hand down my sister-in-law’s shirt.” Talk was his business, Fox reminded himself. Talk him down. So he kept his voice cool and even as he danced back from another punch. “Don’t hang this on me, Block, and don’t do something now you’re going to have to pay for.”
“You’re going to fucking pay.”
Fox was fast, but Block hadn’t lost all the skill he’d owned on the football field back in his day. He didn’t punch Fox as much as mow him down. Fox hit the ivy-covered slope of a lawn—and the rocks underneath the drenched ivy—and slid painfully down to the sidewalk with the enraged former defensive tackle on top of him.
Block outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, and most of that was muscle. Pinned, he couldn’t avoid the short-armed, bare-knuckled punch to the face, or the punishing rabbit jabs in his kidneys. Through the vicious pain, the blurred vision, he could see a kind of madness on Block’s face that had panic snaking in.
And the thoughts sparking out were every bit as mad and murderous.
Fox did the only thing left to him. He fought dirty. He clawed, going for those mad eyes. At Block’s howl, he rammed his fist into the exposed throat. Block gagged, choked, and Fox had room to maneuver, to jam his knee between Block’s legs. He got in a few punches, aiming for the face and throat.
Run. That single thought bloomed like blood in Fox’s mind. But when he tried to roll, crawl, fight his way clear and gain his feet, Block slammed Fox’s head against the sidewalk. He felt something inside him break as the steel-toed boot kicked viciously at his side. Then he fought for air as meaty hands closed around his throat.
Die here.
He didn’t know if it was Block’s thoughts or his own circling in his screaming head. But he knew he was slipping away. His burning lungs couldn’t draw air, and his vision was dimmed and doubled. He struggled to push what he had into this man he knew, a man who loved the Red-skins and NASCAR, who was always good for a bad, dirty joke and was a genius with engines. A man stupid enough to cheat on his wife with her sister.
But he couldn’t find it. He couldn’t find himself or the man who was killing him on the sidewalk a few steps from the Town Square on a rainy Sunday morning.
Then all he could see was red, like a field of blood. All he could see was his own death.
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The pressure on his throat released, and the horrible weight on his chest lifted. As he rolled, retching, he thought he heard shouting. But his ears rang like Klaxons, and he spat blood.
“Fox! Fox! O’Dell!”
A face swam in front of his. Fox lay across the sidewalk, the rain blessedly cool on his battered face. He saw a blurred triple image of Chief of Police Wayne Hawbaker.
“Better not move,” Wayne told him. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
Not dead, Fox thought, though the red still swam at the edges of his vision. “No, wait.” It croaked out of him, but he managed to sit up. “No ambulance.”
“You’re hurt pretty bad.”
He knew his one eye was swollen shut, but he managed to focus the other on Wayne. “I’ll be okay. Where the fuck is Block?”
“Cuffed and locked in the back of my car. Christ, Fox, I had to damn near knock him cold to get him off you. What the hell was going on here?”
Fox wiped blood from his mouth. “Ask Napper.”
“What does he have to do with it?”
“He’d be the one who got Block worked up, making him think I’d been screwing around with Shelley.” Fox wheezed in another breath that felt like broken glass inside his throat. “Never mind, doesn’t matter. No law against lying to an idiot, is there?”
Wayne said nothing for a moment. “I’ll call down to the firehouse, get the paramedics here to look you over at least.”
“I don’t need them.” As helpless anger, helpless pain churned inside him, Fox braced a bleeding hand on the sidewalk. “I don’t want them.”
“I’ll be taking Block in. I’ll need you to come in when you’re able, file formal assault charges.”
Fox nodded. Attempted murder was closer to the mark, but assault would do.
“Let me help you into the front of the car. I’ll take you where you want to go.”
“Just go on. I can get where I’m going.”
Wayne dragged a hand through his wet, graying hair. “Chrissakes, Fox, you want me to leave you on the sidewalk, bleeding?”
Once again, Fox focused his good eye. “You know me, Chief. I heal quick.”
Acknowledgment and worry clouded Wayne’s eyes. “Let me see you get to your feet. I’m not driving off until I know you can stand and walk.”
He managed it, every inch of him screaming. Three broken ribs, Fox thought. He could already feel them trying to heal, and the pain was hideous. “Lock him up. I’ll be in when I can.”
He limped off, didn’t stop until he heard Hawbaker drive away. Then he turned, and stared at the grinning boy standing across the street.
“I’ll heal, you fucker, and when the time comes, I’ll do a lot worse to you.”
The demon in a child’s form laughed. Then it opened its mouth, wide as a cave, and swallowed itself.
By the time Fox made it to the rental house, one of his ribs had healed, and the second was working on it. His loosened teeth were solid again; the most minor of the scrapes and cuts had closed.
Should’ve gone home to finish this up, he realized. But the beating and the agony of the healing left him exhausted and fuzzy-headed. The women would just have to deal with it, he told himself. They’d probably have to deal with worse before it was over.
“We’re up here!” Quinn called down at the sound of the door opening, closing again. “Be down in a minute. Coffee’s on the stove, Coke’s in the fridge, depending on who you are.”
The bruising on his windpipe was still too severe. He didn’t have it in him to call back, so he made his way painfully to the kitchen.
He started to reach for the refrigerator, frowned at his broken wrist. “Come on, you bastard, finish it up.” While the bones knit, he used his left hand to get out a Coke, then fought bitterly with the tab of the can.
“We’re getting a late start. I guess we were— Oh my God.” Layla rushed forward. “Fox! God. Quinn, Cybil, Cal! Get down here. Fox is hurt!”
She tried to get an arm around him, take his weight. “Just open this, will you? Open the stupid can.”
“Sit down. You need to sit down. Your face. Your poor face. Here, sit down here.”
“Just open the goddamn can.” He snapped it out, but she only pulled out a chair. The fact that she could ease him down on it with little effort told him he was still in bad shape.
She opened the can, started to cup his hands around it. Her voice was thin, but steady when she spoke. “Your wrist is broken.”
“Not for long.”
He took his first long, desperate sip as Cal ran in. One look had Cal cursing. “Layla, get some water, some towels to clean him up some.” He crouched, put a hand on Fox’s thigh. “How bad?”
“Worst in a long time.”
“Napper?”
“Indirectly.”
“Quinn,” Cal said with his eyes still on Fox. “Call Gage. If he isn’t on his way, tell him to get here.”
“I’m getting ice.” She dragged the ice bin out of the freezer. “Cybil.”
“I’ll call.” But first she bent over, laid her lips gently on Fox’s bloody cheek. “We’ll take care of you, baby.”
Layla brought a basin and cloth. “It hurts. Can we give him anything for the pain?”
“You have to go through it, even use it. It helps if the three of us are together.” Cal’s eyes never left Fox’s face. “Give me something.”
“Ribs, left side. He got three, one’s finished, one’s working.”
“Okay.”
“They should go.” He hissed on a fresh flood of pain. “Tell them to go.”
“We’re not going anywhere.” Gently, efficiently, Layla began to stroke the cold damp cloth over Fox’s face.
“Here, honey.” Quinn held the ice bag to Fox’s swollen eye.
“I got him on his cell.” Cybil hurried back in. “He was already in town. He’ll be here any second.” She stopped, and despite her horror at Fox’s condition, watched in fascination as the raw bruises on his throat began to fade.
“He messed me up inside,” Fox managed. “Can’t focus, can’t find it, but something’s bleeding. Concussion. Can’t think clear through it.”
Cal kept his gaze steady on Fox’s face. “Focus on that first, the concussion. You have to push the rest of it back.”
“Trying.”
“Let me.” Layla shoved the bloodied cloths at Cybil before kneeling at Fox’s feet. “I can see if you let me in. But I need you to let me. Let me see the pain, Fox, so I can help you focus on it, heal it. We’re connected. I can help.”
“You can’t help if you freak. Remember that.” He closed his eyes, and opened for her. “Just the head. I can handle the rest once I clear that.”
He felt her shock, her horror, then her compassion. That was warm, soft. She guided him to where he needed to go just as she’d guided him to the chair.
And there, the pain was fierce and full, a monster with jagged teeth and stiletto claws. They bit, and mauled. They tore. For an instant he shied from it, started to struggle back. But she nudged him on.
A hand gripped his sweaty fist, and he knew it was Gage.
So he opened to himself, to them, rode on the pain, on the hot, bucking back of it, as he knew he must. When it ebbed enough for him to speak again, perspiration soaked him.
“Ease back now,” he said to Layla. “Ease back. It’s a little too much, a little too fast.”
He kept riding the pain. Bones, muscles, organs. And clung unashamed to Gage’s hand, to Cal’s. When the worst had passed, and he could take his first easy breath, he stopped. His own nature would do the rest.
“Okay. It’s okay.”
“You don’t look okay.”
He looked at Cybil, saw there were tears running down her cheeks. “The rest is just surface. It’ll take care of itself.”
When she nodded, turned away, he looked down at Layla. Her eyes were swimming, but to his relief, no tears fell. “Thanks.”
“Who did this t
o you?”
“That’s the question.” His voice raw, Gage straightened, then walked to the stove for coffee. “The second being, and when are we going to go kick the shit out of him?”
“I’d like to help with that.” Cybil got a mug for Gage herself, then laid a hand over his, squeezed hard.
“It was Block,” Fox told them as Quinn brought fresh water to clean the healing cuts and scrapes on his face.
“Block Kholer?” Gage tore his gaze from his hand, still warm from Cybil’s though she now stood two feet away. “What the hell for?”
“Napper convinced him I’d screwed his wife.”
Cal shook his head. “Block might be stupid enough to believe that asshole, which makes him monumentally stupid. And if he did, I could see him looking for some pushy-shovey, maybe even taking a swing at you. But, bro, he damn near killed you. That’s just not . . .”
Fox managed a small, slow sip of the Coke when he saw Cal understood. “It was there. The little fucker. Across the street. I had my attention on Block, since I sensed he wanted to pound me to pulp, so I missed it. I saw it in Block’s face though, in his eyes. The infection. If Wayne Hawbaker hadn’t come by, he wouldn’t have damn near killed me. I’d be dead.”
“It’s stronger.” Quinn gripped Cal’s shoulder. “It’s gotten stronger.”
“We had to figure it would. Everything’s accelerated this time. You said Wayne came by. What did he do?”
“I was out of it at first. When I got it together, he had Block cuffed, locked in the car. He said he had to just about knock him cold to get him there. He was fine—Wayne—he was fine. Himself. Concerned, a little pissed, a lot confused. It didn’t affect him.”
“Maybe it couldn’t.” Layla pushed to her feet. She took the bloodied water to dump because if her hands were in the sink, no one could see them shake. “I think if it could have, it would have. You said Block meant to kill you. It wouldn’t want the police, wouldn’t want anyone to stop that from happening.”
“One at a time.” Composed again, Cybil pursed her lips. “Not good news, but not all bad.” She brushed at Fox’s wet, tangled hair. “Your eye’s healing. You’re almost back to full handsome again.”