“For…theft?” the detective asked.
“Well, that and murder, but that’s a little beyond my purview. Largely I’m here to recover the artifacts…and see justice done, of course.”
Nick arrived in the doorway then. Again, I didn’t think the little kick to the gut had anything to do with my precog. But it didn’t matter. I was with Apollo now and Nick… I didn’t know if he’d moved on yet. I didn’t want to think about it.
He took one look at his partner, one look around the room and froze on Neith.
Or rather, her gaze snagged his and wasn’t letting go. I knew how powerful it could be; like a tractor beam. I looked from him to Neith, prepared to be amused, but found myself startled instead. Neith looked…transfixed. As though she’d suddenly been struck by something. If it was one of Eros’s arrows I was going to find him and tear his little bow to kindling. Not that I had any claim on Nick anymore; I knew that even if I couldn’t internalize it. But, well, now was not the time for Neith/Athena to finally make a love connection. Not in the midst of what was looking to be a serial killer case with the chaos god all up in the mix.
“I didn’t do it, man,” Viktor chimed in right then, breaking the tension. “I didn’t know they were killers or I’d never have let them in. Anyway, I didn’t really. I just opened the door and they did the rest.”
His outburst should have broken the tension, but it looked like it took a monumental effort for Nick to turn his gaze that way.
“Why don’t we talk about it outside,” he said, gesturing for emphasis, “so that my partner can check out the rest of the place.” When no one moved instantly, he made it an order. “All of you, out here.”
He was looking at me now in a way that promised trouble. At a guess, he wasn’t happy that I’d been a step ahead of the police on where the boys had been. It smacked of not sharing information, as I’d promised to do. But I had no idea what I would find when I arrived, and since then I’d been a little busy.
“How did you end up here?” I asked Nick quietly as I passed him on my way out into the yard.
He glared at me as though I was the one who should be answering questions, but he relented enough to say, “We activated the Lojack system on the car the Roland brothers made off with. It pinged close by, and since this was one of the addresses their sister provided, we came looking for them.”
“Well, they were here,” Neith said, drawing his attention. She still stood puffed up, an inch or two taller, I thought, as she’d been with Detective Reyes. Her eyes were so incredibly intense they were almost mesmerizing. “They knocked out Mr. Ramone here, raided his beer, and then, it appears, took off. We missed them.”
Despite catching on her gaze, Nick’s professional face was in place. His poker face. I couldn’t read anything—not whether he saw her as witness, suspect, ally or potential pick-up. Not that he thought in those terms, but… Gah, not my business.
“Mr. Ramone,” he said, switching his focus to Viktor, “is that true? What did they want? I doubt it was just beer. They could have found that anywhere.”
Viktor looked scared at that. He’d been so intent on the fact that he’d unwillingly harbored fugitives, I didn’t think he’d even considered the rest. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Wait…you said their car is still in the area. If they took off…” He ran to the garage that looked like a later addition to the bungalow and glanced quickly through the small windows in the electric doors. Whatever he saw had him dropping his forehead to the doors and sagging against them.
“What is it?” Nick asked.
“My El Camino!”
“El Camino?” I asked, probably not as quietly as I intended. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“It’s a classic. It’s worth…it doesn’t matter what it’s worth. It’s mine, and it’s all original, and if they do anything to that car…”
“What else did they take?” Nick asked.
“What else?” Viktor turned on him. “Isn’t that enough?” But then he seemed to think about it and instantly patted himself down. “My wallet. They have my wallet. My money and all my cards. But…why would they need any of that? They’re rich.”
“Not if their assets are frozen,” Nick said. He grabbed his phone and rang through to someone, maybe back at the station. “Janice? We need an APB out on a—tell me everything about the car,” he ordered Viktor. He relayed what was said. “A ’64 metallic blue El Camino with white side panels and detailing, license plate LBZ 32A. Stolen. Perpetrators considered armed and dangerous. Approach with caution. Yeah, thanks.” He hung up.
“Wait right here,” he said to Viktor. “As soon as the place is cleared, we’re going to need you to do a walk through, find out if anything else is missing.”
Viktor only nodded.
“You,” he said to me, “we need to talk.”
“And me,” Neith said, stepping up beside me.
Nick looked from me to Neith. “Tori?” he asked.
“Oh, let her come. She’s got something to show you and…I don’t think you’re going to like it. I was actually about to call you when Detective Reyes came busting in. New partner? How’s she working out?”
Nick…Armani…had no trouble working with women, I knew. Not only had I fought alongside him, but his last partner, Detective Helen Lau, had been about as badass as they came and had left the force only to become an honest-to-gods dragon rider. Dragon, as in flying, scaly, fire-breathing beasts—well, some of them anyway.
“We’re not talking about Detective Reyes.”
“Oh, right, because, well, murder.” Matricide. Patricide. Scrambled brains.
I pulled Nick off toward the gate. It wasn’t very far from the house, but it was far enough that probably Viktor couldn’t overhear or oversee, and it put us between him and escape…not that I thought that was likely. “Show him,” I told Neith.
She pulled out her phone again, pulled up the pictures and handed it to Nick. He took it, slid a finger over it every once and a while to scroll through or used two fingers to enlarge a section for better viewing. He didn’t turn green, but neither did he look ready to break for lunch.
“I’ll need copies,” he said. “And details. Case files, if you have them.”
“I’m not law enforcement,” she told him, going through the whole museum thing again, “but I’ll give you what I have. Maybe we can work together.”
“And me,” I said, echoing her. “I’d like copies and…whatever.”
“I told you to stay out of this,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“What about Nick? And Detective Reyes? It’s not dangerous for them? No, thank you. I have a client and a case, and you don’t have the authority to remove me.”
Neith tore her gaze away from Nick and took a step toward me until we were chest to chest. All I could think was that Hermes would have paid money to see it. Hell, Hermes probably would have snapped his fingers to make it a cage match. Or, more likely, bikini wrestling or something equally ridiculous.
“Do you want to test that theory?” she asked.
“What, you’re going to beat me down to protect me? That makes a helluva lot of sense. And here I thought you were the mistress of strategy.”
“If by maiming I protect you from death…”
“It’s not your job to protect me.”
We weren’t just chest to chest now. We were breathing each other’s air. And there wasn’t enough for the two of us.
“Ladies,” Nick said, voice tinged with amusement I kind of hated him for at that moment. “There will be no maiming.”
When neither of us moved, he stepped up to us, shoved his hands between us and pried us apart like he was the jaws of life.
I went only because it was pretty silly not to. Also, a uniformed officer jogged toward us, squinting into the bright sunshine after being inside the darker
house. “Place is clear. Shower is still wet, like it was used recently, so there might be some trace there. Also, we found the packaging for prepaid phones.” He shot a glance toward Viktor. “Detective Reyes says I can escort him in to tell her what might be missing.”
“Then by all means,” Nick said, nodding toward the house. “I’ll be right behind you.”
He waited for the officer to escort Viktor and for them to disappear through the doorway.
“You will wait and give statements,” he said to us. Us…as if Neith and I had a common bond.
“Of course,” I said.
Neith didn’t say a word, but apparently Nick took it as agreement, because he also vanished into the house.
She stared after him.
“No,” I said. “Just no.”
Her head swiveled back toward me, eyes blazing.
“You dare?” she asked.
I’d thought Neith/Athena/Minerva and whoever else she might have been was supposed to be a virgin goddess. Chaste. Untouchable. Beyond such things as human entanglements. But if the way she looked at Nick was any indication…
“He’s been through enough,” I told her.
“You have history.” It was a statement, and she made it as though it tasted bitter on her tongue.
“We do. Not so long ago, he had third-degree burns over a good part of his body from taking on a fire-breathing monster. He’s tough and he’s dedicated and he won’t stop. If you can’t protect him, you need to just let him go.”
“Like you did?” she asked, voice quietly deadly.
I stared back, not answering. That wasn’t what I’d done. At least, it wasn’t the whole story. But the truth was complicated.
“I am not you,” she said, each word clipped, bitten off, heavy with what should have been meaning but came out as menace.
Wow, did I know how to make friends or what?
There was a choking sound from inside the house, and when I looked up, Viktor was stumbling out, gagging. The officer with him was dragging him off the path to the gate, away from any potential evidence. I looked away while he emptied his stomach of the pizza he’d eaten, which didn’t look or smell as good coming up as I was sure it had going down.
When I glanced back around, Neith was gone and Nick and Detective Reyes were striding back out, the former holding a clear plastic evidence bag full of what looked like a dead mouse, but which on closer inspection was a clump of wet hair and other detritus probably pulled from the shower drain. I wondered if that was what had sent Viktor reeling. She sealed the bag while I watched and Nick called for a team of crime scene techs.
When he ended the call, he stared me down. “Where’s the other woman? Neith.” The way he pronounced it, it rhymed with Beth.
“Gone,” I said. “Don’t worry, she left Detective Reyes with her card, and I don’t think you’ve seen the last of her.” As much as I wanted it to be so.
“Well, then, for now, you can tell me everything.”
The Set coin burned a hole in my pocket where I’d put it after I’d removed it from Viktor’s forehead. It was on the tip of my tongue to say something, but I bit it back. Neith hadn’t ratted me out about the coin when she’d shown him the crime scene photos on her phone, but it was probably only a matter of time. And then I’d be in deep trouble for withholding evidence. If it came to that, I’d turn it over. But not until I absolutely had to…and not before I was sure any enchantment it held had been broken. Until then, it was safer with me. Anyway, it seemed too small and too pitted to be good for prints and the police had no means of tracing the magic.
I, on the other hand, just might.
I gave my statement and then headed straight back to the office. Jesus could scan the coin and start an online search, and while I waited for that to come back, I could check in with Yiayia to see what dirt she had on Neith and show the disk to Apollo to see what he had to say. I wondered who he’d been in ancient Egypt. My first thought was Ra, who was known for being the sun god, but I thought Ra was more on the level of Zeus. Whoever Apollo had been, no doubt he’d known Set and what he was capable of. He might be able to shed some light.
The coin might even kick up a prophecy or two that could help us catch our killers. One could hope.
Chapter Five
I hadn’t had anything since the latte and croissant that morning. It was amazing how much of a hunger two crime scenes and a little hand-to-hand combat could work up.
Apollo’d had to go into the management office he owned since his partner Circe—yes, that Circe, who’d long ago turned Odysseus’s men into uncultured swine—had been murdered in the case where we first met. He’d mentioned being due in around lunchtime. It was significantly after that now. He might be up for a late lunch. Or an early dinner. My precog couldn’t tell me a thing, but then, that was why man had made cell phones.
I wondered if there’d ever been a deity responsible for the gift of gab. If so, he or she had blessed L.A. inordinately.
Apollo’s secretary answered, twice as perky as Jesus. She put me on hold as she checked in to see if the big man would speak with me and sounded three times as cheerful when she discovered I was worthy. Apollo came on the line a second later.
“Good news,” he said without taking a breath after “hello”. “I’ve just signed Thalia Day. I’m meeting her on set later to sign the papers. We have to celebrate.”
“Thalia?” I asked, like we were on a first name basis. “As in Silent Solace, Tilting at Windmills, and, like, every single Clairol commercial ever?”
“The same. I’ll tell you a secret.” He dropped his voice, though I had no idea who he expected to overhear. “She’s one of mine.”
“Yours?”
“The muse of comedy and frivolity, though she’s pretty damn good at drama as well.”
“Why didn’t she come to you sooner?”
“She was worried about nepotism. And also, she loved her agent, but he’s retiring, and so…”
“Great! Something to celebrate. How about you order in and I swing by for a late lunch? I need your help.”
He let out a breath. “I didn’t even ask about your client. Cheating husband? Stalker? Search for a long lost heir?”
“Murder,” I said, ready to kick myself for the little thrill I had in throwing that into his mix.
It wasn’t that I was glad of the killings. It was that all the rest were so insignificant after all we’d been through. Since Apollo and I had gotten back from stopping yet another apocalypse, the small stuff just wasn’t cutting it with me. Panacea and Asclepius were changing lives, making and distributing the drug that had brought the world back from the brink of zombification. They were mass producing miracle cures, and what was I doing with my life?
I couldn’t save the world every day. I knew that. I didn’t even want to. The stress was too great. What if I was out that day with the flu or Apollo was filming or our sometimes-helper Hermes was in a snit… Still, I’d discovered I wanted to make a difference.
“Murder?” he asked before I could continue along my mental track.
“I’ll tell you all about it when I get there. Actually, I have a bit of show and tell.”
“What kind of food do you want?”
“Surprise me,” I said.
“Salads?”
I blew him a raspberry. A wet one. He knew better.
He laughed, and it made me tingle straight through the phone.
“How about Thai?”
“Now you’re talking.”
I hung up. He knew what I liked, and with L.A. traffic, there was no telling how long it would take me to get to him.
As it turned out, avoiding the freeways meant I was able to make it just inside a half hour. Apollo’s perky receptionist greeted me. She looked sent from central casting to play the part—stylish black and gray tweed ski
rt, black silk top, dark hair with thick bangs, librarian-esque glasses and a smile that could have booked her tooth-whitening commercials. And maybe had. She did look vaguely familiar.
She showed me back and I tried not to be jealous of how well she could walk in her four-inch heels or the fact that her calves could have been carved out of stone. My boots had heels—the nice chunky kind. I could wear stilettos—would probably be forced to for Apollo’s red carpet shindig—but the world had better watch out. I was just as likely to step on a foot or fall into someone as I was to make it without mishap. Oh, who was I kidding. The odds were not ever in my favor.
Apollo rose to greet me when receptionist-lady—I really should learn her name—showed me in. He put hands to my shoulders and gave me a kiss to each cheek.
I pulled back in shock and fixed him with a look that said if that was the best he had, I’d take my order to go.
“Sorry,” he said with a laugh. “I get in the zone. It’s office brain as opposed to, well, Tori brain.”
He pulled me in again and this time the kiss curled my toes and stopped my breath. When I remembered the need for oxygen, I tried to take it in discretely but ended up sounding something like a vacuum hose that had suddenly cleared an obstruction.
I looked over at his desk like we might continue things there, but it was covered in papers.
Our link kicked in, and his eyes flashed. “Nothing important,” he said. “I can have Victoria sort them later.”
Ah, Victoria. I’d have to remember.
“Lunch will get cold,” I said.
“Do you think I care?”
“Besides, there’s that great big picture window behind your desk.”
He walked over to it and grabbed a remote from a drawer. Pressing a button brought a curtain across the window, blotting out the view while still allowing some light through. Things suddenly took on a cozy intimacy.
My stomach chose that moment to growl and the emptiness I’d been too busy to feel hit me all at once. “I, uh, might need sustenance first. I don’t think that croissant is going to get me much further.”
Blood Hunt Page 6