I tried to turn toward him, to take what I wanted, and his arm tightened around me like a steel band. Holding me in place.
I was about to give him hell for it, when his thumb and forefinger suddenly found my nipple and squeezed. I let out a yelp, but it was more in surprise than pain. A delicious tingle—no, more than a tingle, a lightning bolt of desire—shot through me, all the way down to my hoo-ha, as Yiayia would have put it. I wasn’t thinking of her in that moment at all, but I didn’t have a word myself. Not one that I ever used.
My whole body tightened, every single muscle, including those cradling his more than obvious erection. It was his turn for that lightning strike of desire, and I felt him jump against me.
“Tori,” he said against my hair.
A series of rapid-fire knocks came at my door.
I tried to ignore them.
“Tori!” a voice came through the door. “Tori, are you up? I heard from my brothers. Richie wants to meet.”
Damn and double damn. I could feel the sizzling heat starting to cool, and I wanted it back.
“Now?” I asked, voice sounding a little strangled.
“Twenty minutes,” she said. “I just woke and saw the message.”
“Public place?” I asked, shooting Apollo an apologetic look over my shoulder, which he kissed.
“Mama’s Dim Sum and Donuts,” she said back.
“Damn,” I said, this time out loud. I got up, and Apollo reluctantly let me go. I grabbed a robe from the back of my bedroom door, hastily put it on and tightened the belt as I opened the door just wide enough to see Jessica on the other side. I knew for a fact that Apollo wasn’t decent, and I didn’t look back to see if he’d thrown the covers over himself. “Show me,” I said.
She held out her phone, and I pressed the button to light up the screen, which had gone dark.
Richie here, the text said, don’t know how long I have before… No time. Listen, meet me at the Mama’s Dim Sum and Donuts on Freemont at 7 am. Come alone. But…if my eyes go dark or if you see Ian, run.
It was time-stamped 4:58 a.m.
“What do you think?” she asked, barely giving me time to read it once through.
I checked the clock on her phone. “I think we’d better get going. If we leave now, we can just make it.”
“Do you think it’s a trap?”
“It could be. No matter what, you’re not going in alone. You said Ian is the leader?”
“He always was when…when they were in their right minds.”
I chewed on that. The message sounded as though Richie—the real Richie—might have come through, but the message could have been framed to give that very impression, to draw Jessica out. And even if the real Richie had popped to the surface temporarily, there was no telling how long he’d remain in control. That much was clear from his warning, which was what led me to think there was a chance this was the real deal.
Gah, no time to analyze. Not if we wanted to get there in time. I had no idea if he’d wait.
“Get dressed,” I said. “Two minutes or I leave without you.”
It was an empty threat. If Richie didn’t see his sister, there was a good chance he wouldn’t show at all, but it would get her moving.
I shut the door practically in her face, ran to my bedside table, grabbed my cell off the charger and tossed it down next to Apollo. “Do me a favor while I dress?” I didn’t wait for him to agree. “Call Neith and…Nick. Tell them about Mama’s. Tell them twenty minutes and to hold back. You heard everything, right?” He nodded. “So you know why. If Richie shows, maybe we can get him to give up his brother…if we don’t spook him. If we do spook him or something else goes wrong, maybe we can follow him back to Ian. But if it’s a trap…”
“You’ll need backup. Go.”
There was no time to be picky. I put on the first two things I got my hands on. Since all I owned for bottoms were black and about all I owned for tops were solid tees or tanks that could go under blazers or jogging suits, it wasn’t a problem. I finished off with my solid black running shoes and turned for the door, only to find Apollo right behind me, dressed in the same clothes he’d been in yesterday, minus the suit jacket.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
“But the calls—”
“I’ll make them from the car.”
I had no idea why I hadn’t thought of that, unless my blood still hadn’t made it back to my brain from other parts of my body he’d been stimulating before Jessica crashed the party.
“Great, uh, thanks.”
“You’re, uh, welcome.”
I stuck my tongue out at him—in the most mature way possible—and yanked the door open.
Jessica was waiting for us in the hallway, and together we all raced for the car.
“He said to come alone,” she protested on the way.
“You left your car near the police station yesterday. You need a ride. There’s no time to hail a cab and go separately. Anyway, I wouldn’t trust your brothers not to waylay a cab. I’ll drop you off a block away, if you’d like, but we don’t have time to argue about this.”
We hit my car, and Jessica grabbed the shotgun seat. Apollo didn’t even protest, but got into the back. “I’ll duck down as soon as we’re anywhere close,” he said. “If he sees Tori, you can mention a friend gave you a ride.”
“But—”
“Take it,” I said, “it’s the best you’re going to get.”
I didn’t exactly speed—not in the way that would get me pulled over—but I didn’t exactly come to a full and complete stop at every sign. Apollo made the first call, and I heard him repeat the name of the place. “It’s an L.A. thing,” he said, by which I knew he was talking to Neith. Nick would already have known about La La Land’s strange tradition by which Chinese restaurants were able to catch the breakfast crowds as well as lunch and dinner.
“Tell her that unless there’s clear and present danger, she’s not to interfere. Just watch and follow. Richie’s going to lead us to Ian one way or another.” He conveyed that and moved along.
Highland Avenue to Hollywood Boulevard was the quickest route, and this early in the morning the Walk of Fame wouldn’t be plagued with tourists and street performers dressed up like Spider Man, Iron Man, the president, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Depp and any performer with a style recognizable enough that random strangers would pay to have their pictures taken with them, every bit as excited as if they were seeing the real thing. I took the route, miraculously missing most of the lights.
Next up was Nick. From what I could hear from Apollo’s side of things, it sounded like he’d had to leave a message.
“Damn,” I said. I really was going to have to expand my vocabulary.
Apollo ducked down as I turned onto Hollywood and I sketched out a rough plan as we took it several blocks and then turned onto Cahuenga.
“I’m going to pull into the plaza before the one with the dim sum place. Apollo and Jessica, you get out there. I’ll drive on to Mama’s and walk in as a customer. Let me get there first,” I said to Jessica. “Apollo, you’re much too well-known. You’d kick up a fuss that might scare Richie away. Stay out of sight, but somewhere you can get a good view of the place.” Luckily, being the god of the sun and all, Apollo could easily blind opponents to the sight of himself and manipulate light and shade. I wasn’t worried about him. Neith…she was the loose cannon, but being the goddess of strategy, I had to hope she’d understand the need for restraint.
“Got it,” they both said.
“And take this,” I added to Jessica, grabbing the spare pepper spray out of my glove compartment and handing it to her. She’d need it more than I would.
She looked nervous as all hells, but she took the spray and got out of the car. Apollo had to motion her to move on when she would have stood watching after me. I
hoped she was up to this. I hoped we weren’t sending her into a trap.
I pulled out onto the street and into the parking lot for the next plaza over. The dim sum and donuts place was the only shop open this early in the orange-pink, mission-style strip mall. It looked like any other Chinese take-out place, with pictures of food and lists of specials plastering five-eighths of the front window, making it difficult to see in. It probably made it equally difficult to see out unless you were sitting in just the right place, which, having chosen the time and location, Richie could arrange. I didn’t like it. But then, no one had asked me.
Before I got out of the car, I reached into my glove compartment again, this time for the directional microphone I had there from my last job—trying to determine whether a businessman had been giving away company secrets. (As it turned out he and the rival company exec had been far more interested in hot monkey love.)
The door jangled as I walked in. The smell of soy sauce and powdered sugar was an odd combination. Not that the two things went together into one dish, but the very walls seemed permeated with the smell of each. Only one of the four plastic tables in the place was occupied—by a guy in shades, a baseball hat and a deep blue hoodie nursing a hot beverage. My precog sent a jolt through me as he looked up, and I let my gaze slide over him and to the menu above the counter. It was Richie Roland all right. No doubt about it.
The lady behind the counter smiled, pushed her glasses up her nose with the tip of one finger, and asked if she could help me. I ordered three of the plain cake donuts and their largest coffee, since I hadn’t gotten the chance to down any caffeine this morning, and I couldn’t say how long I had before withdrawal symptoms set in.
Jessica walked in before my order was up. I knew it from the jangle on the door, but I didn’t turn, pretending absolute disinterest in my surroundings.
“Richie!” she said. In her hushed excitement, it could be heard throughout the small restaurant.
Richie shot a glance at the counter, but I was busy checking the texts on my phone while I waited for my order to come up.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him try to hush her with the universal hand sign for keep it quiet—palms down, fingers splayed.
The nice lady with the sliding glasses returned a second later with a steaming cup of coffee I could nearly bathe in and small paper bag full of donuts. I tried not to notice the grease already staining the bottom. It didn’t matter. One of those donuts was definitely for me. Plain cake was the missionary position of donuts, the vanilla of ice cream cones. And yet my absolute favorite.
I moved off down the counter to doctor my coffee, which sadly took me farther away from Richie’s table, where Jessica was now sitting. When I finished, I chose a table on the other side of the room, as a normal customer might do and put my back to the glass front wall so that I could keep an eye on them.
I used the donut bag and my coffee to cover the directional mic as I pulled it out of my pocket and hooked it into my phone. Then I pressed Record. I made a big show, though, of unwinding the cords to my earbuds and putting them into my ears. See, I can’t hear you.
Richie glanced over at me again nervously, before finally removing his sunglasses and setting them up on top of his baseball cap.
“Let’s get out of here,” I heard him say.
“And go where, Richie?” she asked. “You’re a wanted man. Did you…” She swallowed hard enough that the microphone picked it up before lowering her voice to a whisper. “Did you and Ian really kill Mom and Dad?”
Precog kicked in my gut like a bad bean burrito at the same time Jessica’s chair made a horrible screech across the floor. My gaze jerked toward them, as would anyone’s at such a sound. Jessica was turned away from me, but I saw what had set her back. Richie’s hand clenched his cup so hard he’d popped the top off and splashed coffee over the rim. It was spreading across the table like blood. And his face, what was visible of it beneath the cap, was twisted.
“Richie?” Jessica asked tentatively, fear quivering her voice.
“I…” He breathed. Heavily. Like a pervert making a late night call. “Just…give me…second.”
“Richie, what’s going on?” Jessica asked. “Is this what you warned me about? Should I run?”
She was half out of her seat already, and I itched to run over with napkins, pretending concern over the spill. My precog was kicking and screaming like a cornered alleycat, wanting me to DO SOMETHING, but I was afraid my sudden appearance would set him off.
More coffee spilled as Richie’s hand spasmed. Jessica was fully standing now, ready to run. I was prepared to jump between them with the gorgon glare or a really powerful uppercut. But then he took one more breath, unclenching his hand slowly as he released the breath. Very slowly. As though it took a monumental effort.
“I don’t have much time,” he said, eyes conveying a scary level of intensity. “He’s fighting me, and he’s…strong. I’m going to need to… Listen, Jessica, it’s not us. I want you to know that. I mean it is, but it isn’t, okay? Tell the police…tell them…tranquilizers, rubber bullets, something. I don’t want to die. I don’t want you to think Ian and I could…”
“What about Ian?” she asked, trying for answers before she lost him entirely. It was a brave but dangerous thing. “Where is he? If you turn yourselves in there won’t be a need for any kind of bullets. You can tell the police everything. Richie, I’m worried.”
His face went through another contortion, and I watched him fight it.
“What I know, he knows,” Richie said through gritted teeth. “Remember that. And, stay away. If I contact you again… Just…”
He jerked, and suddenly he was up out of his seat with the edge of the table in hand, upending it along with the remains of the coffee, which tipped and splashed at Jessica. She screamed and knocked her chair over in her haste to escape. I’d been coiled to attack, and now threw myself across the room, but not in time to pull her away before the fallen chair tripped her up and the table came crashing down on top of them both. Her legs would have been crushed if she’d still been sitting, but as it was, the table caught on the legs of the chair, holding it off of her.
“Richie!” I yelled, trying to get his attention so I could hit him with the gorgon glare before he could do any more damage, but he was no longer answering to that name…or to the siren song of sanity. Not based on the crazed look in his eyes as he turned for the woman behind the counter.
I jumped between them, suddenly right up in his face. I yelled “Freeze!” as he lifted a fist to smash in my face.
For a second I thought it was going to work. He froze, fist half cocked. Then all of the sudden a muscle ticked in his jaw and I had only that much warning before the fist was flying. I leapt back, smashing my spine up against the counter, but the fist only struck me a glancing blow.
But the other one, the one I wasn’t watching, smashed into my ribs, cracking at least one. Jessica had never mentioned her brother being a prize fighter. I staggered to the side, and he roared, coming after me.
Now that I had his full attention, I yelled to Jessica and the counter-lady to run, but I couldn’t spare the attention to see that they did.
Richie charged me like he was some kind of rhino, but I used the counter behind me to grab on to as I kicked out with both my feet, catching him in the soft part of his stomach. He doubled over and staggered back, but not far. Not far enough.
I pushed myself off the counter, not wanting to be trapped against it with no way out. They no sooner had room than my wings were out, bursting from my back and waking muscles that protested their disuse. I didn’t remember calling them, but maybe they had minds of their own, like my crazy curls that refused to be tamed.
Richie stared, his eyes widened, momentarily awed…and then it passed as quickly as it came. He roared and came for me, and I flew at him, catching his blows on my forearms,
which went painfully numb on contact, like they were all-over funny-bones. As soon as I knocked his punches away, I threw the heel of one hand straight for his nose, pulling the punch at the last second. I didn’t want to drive the tiny bit of bone there up into his brain. I just wanted to make him see stars…and bloody him a bit.
His head bounced back at the contact, and I heard the crunch of bone. I was afraid for a second I’d gone too far, didn’t know my own strength, but then he was up, glaring at me through watery, hate-filled eyes slitted with pain. “This isn’t over, bitch. Whatever you are,” he hissed, “we’re coming for you.”
I let him stagger for the door, hoping Apollo had gotten Jessica to safety, along with the woman from the shop and whoever had been working in the back. I prayed Neith was in place to follow him as planned.
It was then that I realized I had his blood on my hands. Literally. It had gushed out of his nose, and I’d caught some of it. It was the fresh red of roses, and before I fully realized what I meant to do, I had it raised to my lips. My tongue came through them to lap at the blood, and it was like I sat back and watched myself, horrified and not all at the same time.
The same instinct had gripped me when I’d battled Hecate, my transformation bringing with it the squicky new skill of being able to track blood back to the person from whom it had come, like calling to like. Who needed Ichnaea or hellhounds when I had the bad guy’s bloody nose?
My stomach roiled at the thought and I gagged, nearly sick. I forced myself to swallow it down. The blood was the only chance we had of tracking the brothers if Neith lost Richie, and self-disgust seemed a small price to pay to catch a killer. I could think of worse things. Cats licked their own bungholes; puppies ate poo; and monkeys picked lice off each other and ate them. I was downright sanitary in comparison.
Apollo came up as I got myself over it and headed for the door. “You okay?” he asked.
Blood Hunt Page 13