Blood and Fire

by McKenna, Shannon

  “Not for me, it isn’t,” Lily said.

  He looked up. Lily’s eyes were glowing. “This way, I know I’m not crazy,” she said. “And you all know I’m not lying, too. That’s worth a whole lot to me, Bruno. You can’t imagine how much.”

  He swallowed, bumping over the knot of old grief. “I was already convinced,” he told her.

  Her smile made his heart skip. “I know you were,” she said. “Thank you. But even so, proof is nice to have. It makes me feel, I don’t know. Less like it’s all my fault somehow.”

  “I never thought that,” he insisted.

  Their hands caught, twined. Clung. Wonder unfurled inside him.

  Rachel’s curly head suddenly ducked under his arm and popped up between them. She held up her plastic necklace. “You lost your locket? You could have my locket if you want,” she offered.

  The lump in Bruno’s throat swelled so big, he was speechless. Something about Rachel’s big, worried eyes behind her glasses in her innocent bit of a face, it just turned his screws that last brutal turn.

  He grabbed the little girl, hugged her, and hid his hot face in her cloud of dark hair, struggling with all his strength not to totally lose it.

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” he said thickly. “You keep your locket. It looks better on you than it would on me. Turn around. I’ll put it back on you.” He clasped the trinket around Rachel’s neck, dropped a kiss on top of her fuzzy head, and tried not to think about that last, tight hug before Mamma shoved him up onto the steps of the bus.

  Zia Rosa was all fogged up, too. She gazed at the little girl and mopped beneath the lenses of her glasses, then seized a napkin from the holder and noisily blew her nose. “Dolcettina mia, che carina,” she burbled. “Goddamn Tony. He shoulda told me. He shoulda trusted me more. But he couldn’t. He didn’t trust nobody.”

  “It’s not your fault, Zia,” Kev said.

  “It just ain’t right. I know what I woulda done with them stinkin’ stronzi. I’d have done like my papà used to say. Your bisnonno .”

  Bruno glanced in Rachel’s direction. “Whatever bisnonno used to say, you censor it big-time, Zia,” he warned. Bisnonno had been a pretty hardcore kind of dude, if family legend was to be believed.

  But Zia was off and running. She switched languages, thank God, letting out a torrent of picturesque and uniquely nasty Calabrese dialect. Bruno and Kev, the only ones would could understand it, glanced at each other and tried not to smile.

  First shadow of a smile that he’d seen Kev crack since he got here. Maybe the worst was over. Good old Zia, always providing the comic relief. Hell on wheels didn’t begin to describe her.

  When Zia wound down, red in the face, Lily poked his arm. “Translation, please,” she said.

  Bruno groaned. “No way.” He gestured at Rachel. “It’s foul.”

  “So paraphrase,” she urged. “Give me the gist of it.”div> Val laughed and put his hand behind Rachel’s shoulders. “Come, Rachel,” he said gently. “Into the playroom with you.”

  When Val had herded the little girl safely out of the kitchen, Bruno concentrated to remember the sequence. “OK, so it started out with graphic descriptions of the various sexual aberrations of all the guys who came after me in the diner, most specifically their unhealthy fondness for barnyard animals. Then we moved on to these guys’ kinky long-dead ancestors, and this bit about the unspeakably obscene things they did in the woods with Santa Anna and San Girolamo—don’t ask me to explain, because I don’t get it, either. And fountains of blood, teeth flying, dismembered corpses of vanquished enemies, yada, yada, and then the part about pissing on their disassembled bones until the day of the second ascension of Cristo Santo. And then—”

  He stopped, his mouth hanging open. Everyone staring at him while that drumroll crescendoed again. His hairs prickled. He had to consciously remember to breathe.

  “Zia,” he said, as soon as he could control his voice. “That bit about pissing on the bones. Is that really something Bisnonno used to say? Or did you add that part in yourself?”

  “Ah, nah, Papà always said that when someone got in his face,” Zia assured him. “He was un uomo cazzoso. Everything bugged him.”

  Bruno looked at Kev. Kev was starting to smile. And nod.

  “Did Tony ever say it?” Bruno persisted.

  “Of course. Tony was cazzoso, too. Don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Bruno said. “I do remember. And how.”

  Kev’s face split into a huge grin. Bruno’s, too. He shook with laughter. At least, he hoped it was laughter. Better not to check. But he covered his face, just in case. His shoulders were shaking.

  “What?” Lily grabbed his shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Kev said. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine.”

  “Then what’s going on? Why is he falling apart?” Lily yelled.

  Bruno lifted his face, wiped his eyes. “I’m not. I just figured out where to dig, that’s all.”

  22

  “What part of ‘no’ do you not understand, Hobart?” King said into the phone, staring down at Zoe

  s inert form on the infirmary bed. The machines hooked up to her beeped and hummed in the quiet room.

  “But . . . how do you expect . . .” Hobart’s voice trailed off. He was intelligent enough to hear death in his creator’s voice, but he continued to whine. “But you saw what these people can do! It’s just Melanie and me! We need reinforcements if we’re going to mount an attack on—”

  “I don’t have reinforcements to send you,” King cut in, staring at the data generated by the machines attached to Zoe. Her body was healing, but she’d indulged in two more doses of Melimitrex to make it to the rendezvous point. Zoe’s tendency for self-indulgence should be no surprise to him at this point, but still. It was a wonder she wasn’t dead from an overdose. She might be brain damaged. Time would tell.

  The trauma had taken its toll. She had lost a startling amount of weight, and her face was gaunt and sunken. Broken capillaries marred her eyelids, d veins on her temples stood out, snakelike and discolored. King shuddered with distaste. Hobart was still babbling. King forced himself to listen. He had to close this tedious conversation.

  “. . . now, considering their resources! We’re going to need at least eight to ten operatives to mount an attack on—”

  “Who said anything about mounting an attack?” King said.

  Hobart was lost. Incredible, that this specimen had escaped the cull. He wondered what criteria he had been using when he chose not to discard Hobart. Certainly creative thinking had not been on the forefront of his mind. Some other gift must make up for the lack, but it was not in evidence today. King would look into his specs before he eliminated him, to make sure. Housecleaning was in order.

  “So far, we’ve attacked them frontally,” he explained as if to a child. “The results have not been good. Alone or together, they’ve bested every direct assault we’ve leveled at them. What does this suggest?”

  “That we have to increase the—”

  “No,” King said sharply. “No more frontal attacks. They have the McClouds behind them, and Tamara Steele, and Val Janos, just to start. Have you done any research on these people? Have you any idea of their backgrounds? What they are capable of?”

  “Ah . . . yes, but Melanie and I—”

  “Perhaps you and Melanie have not been paying attention. We cannot afford to engage an army. We’re exposed, overextended. We have to control them. It’s clear that he has bonded with Parr. He’ll do anything to protect her now. Look at this.” King tapped the keyboard, selected a portion of the video the satellite photo had taken.

  It showed Bruno Ranieri basically dragging Lily Parr up a cliff by her wrist. Pulling her up onto a ledge. He crouched with her there, leaning in to cup her face. They spoke for a few moments. Then he kissed her, very passionately. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “So?” King prompted. “Hobart? Did you
learn anything?”

  “But . . . but—”

  “You and Melanie take Parr. And we control Ranieri with her.”

  “But Parr is in that Steele woman’s fortress,” Hobart whined. “The defense system is beyond state of the art. How can we possibly—”

  “You and Melanie will go to Cray’s Cove and set up base,” King said. “Brute force is not working. Let us default to intelligence and guile. You two will listen, watch, and use the creativity and unconventional thought processing inculcated in you since babyhood. And we will see if any of that seeding ever took root, hmmm? I, for one, am curious.”

  “Um. Yes, sir.” Hobart’s voice was subdued.

  “Watch that place like a cat watches a mouse hole,” King said, giving in to the urge to micromanage. “Document every vehicle that comes and goes. Listen and watch. The device in Rosa Ranieri’s purse needs constant monitoring. Sooner or later, they’ll get careless, and you two will jump into action. You’d better hope it’s sooner.”

  “We, ah, have a time issue?” Hobart asked.

  King’s jaw ached from clenching. The man had delivered the transcript of that conversation in Tam Steele’s house the night before and had not made these connections himself. “Tony Ranieri’s letter would inconvenience the Ranieri family,” he explained. “The one that Rosa Ranieri holds. In her purse, we discovered. Which you held, Hobart. In your hands, in the baby supplies store. Entertain, hmm?”

  “But, sir, I had no idea—”

  “Silence,” he snapped. “Don’t waste my time. Bruno Ranieri will focus his attack on his Ranieri cousins now, since he knows no other place to attack. If he leans on Michael, then I do have a problem. So yes, there is a time issue, Hobart. As you so euphemistically put it.”

  “But . . . then shouldn’t we—”

  “Silence,” he snapped again. “You and Melanie take Parr. Bring her to me. No bodies, no noise, no police. And if you manage that small task, then maybe, just maybe, you will save your skins. We will see.”

  Hobart’s shame and despair filled the silence. King decided to relent, just a little. Fear and shame were powerful motivators, but he was throwing a tantrum. Demoralizing the few functioning agents left to him was counterproductive. “Hobart,” he said. “Wait. Don’t hang up.”

  He pulled up Hobart’s command codes out of his memory and judiciously chose a Level Five motivator sequence. It was a phrase of ancient epic poetry, written in medieval Georgian. It was designed to reinforce mood, stimulating endorphins. A fizzy rush to get a jump-start on the task at hand. More a lollipop than anything else.

  Not that Hobart deserved a treat, but King was a practical man.

  He recited the phrase, gave Hobart a moment to collect himself. “Now off with you,” he said. “Get to it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hobart’s voice was almost tearful.

  King broke the connection and stared down at Zoe’s wasted form, wondering if there was any point at all in rehabilitating her. He would never have considered such a thing before, after a failure of such proportions. She was played out. It might be dangerous to recycle her at this point. But he had just lost eight operatives, some in their prime, others entering their prime. It was no simple matter to assemble more, with his stable out in the world, busily engaged in various profitable enterprises. He didn’t keep them around idle, kicking their heels.

  He had to learn the lesson hidden in this terrible blow. It was his assumption of natural superiority that had brought him to this. He’d underestimated Bruno Ranieri. It was intriguing.

  He turned away from Zoe’s humming, blipping machines and pulled up the recorded satellite image of yesterday morning’s debacle at the cabin, running the film forward until he got to the part he wanted.

  Bruno Ranieri staring up at the sky. Giving him the finger.

  Neil stared at the image for a long time, running it back and replaying the short sequence over and over. He wanted to hear the younger man’s voice to analyze his speech patterns. Get inside his head. He dug his phone out and punched in Hobart’s code again.

  “Yes, sir?” Hobart sounded anxious.

  “Reggie rigged passive surveillance at Ranieri’s diner,” King said. “Did you recover the footage of Parr and Ranieri’s conversation?”

  “Of course I did,” Hobart said. “I’ll send it immediately.”

  King hung up, swinging back to look at Ranieri’s expressive face, his defiance. Admirable, really. Ranieri was shaping up to be a worthy foe. Not that King had felt any need for a foe, but there the man was.

  He stared at the image for a minute or so, until a soft, musical ping from the speaker showed that the audio of the Parr/Ranieri diner conversation of three days ago had arrived. He was eager to listen to it, but he clng d “replay” once again, as if compelled.

  He watched the younger man thrust his hand up again, middle finger extended. So small and ineffectual, yet so vital.

  “Fight all you want,” King said to the screen. “You’re mine.”

  Lily shivered in the frigid garage. The only light was what spilled out of the door to the house. Bruno and the McCloud men were loading the SUV that Kev McCloud had rented at Sea-Tac Airport on his return from New Zealand. The men worked with a hard, grim focus that made her feel like extraneous fluff. Not strictly their fault, but it still sucked.

  “I have a right to be there,” she said again. “I can take turns with the shovel. I can use the geothermal thing. I can keep watch. I can pull the trigger of a gun. You saw me do it. Or, ah, heard me, at least.”

  The McCloud guys exchanged looks that clearly indicated how grateful they all were that dealing with her was not their problem.

  Bruno looked at his watch. Ten P.M. Full dark. The plan was to ease out, no headlights, hoping to give the satellite eye the slip, driving with an infrared scope for a few miles before turning the headlights on and becoming another anonymous moving light on the highway. Then, back up to the cabin to Tony’s famous pissing tree sometime before dawn. Two to dig. Three to guard. The best plan they had come up with.

  Assuming they didn’t drive into an ambush.

  Lily hated it. Or more specifically, she hated the fact that the plan did not include her.

  Bruno let out a savage sigh. “No,” he said.

  Anger boiled up inside her. “Hey. This is not your problem, Ranieri. It’s our problem. What gives you the authority to say no to me?”

  Kev, Davy, Connor, and Sean McCloud did the crazy-chick male-sign-language thing. By silent accord, they slunk away into the shadows.

  Bruno’s mouth was tight. “It’s simple,” he said. “Is it your car? No. Kev rented it. The thing seats five. The McClouds and me. You think I’m leaving behind one of them to bring you? Ain’t gonna happen, Lily. You’re not invited to this party. Tough shit. Get over it.”

  She struggled not to cry out of sheer frustration. “I want to be there when you find that thing,” she said. “I need it.”

  “We might not find anything at all.” Bruno hoisted some new, shiny shovels, price tags still attached, and tossed them into the back. A bag full of leather gloves flew in after them. “I’ll tell you what you need. Stay safe. Take naps. Soak in a tub. Drink lots of fluids.”

  “Who gives a shit about naps and fluids? So far, I’ve only participated in the problem! I want to be in on the solution, too. You can’t tell me no!”

  “Can’t I?” He loomed over her, his lips pressed flat. “I’ve got an extra ten inches and a hundred pounds on you. It doesn’t give me authority, but it gives me an edge. I’ll use it. No problem.”

  “You’re doing it again,” she said. “That macho bullshit power tripping. You bastard. How dare you.”

  He shrugged, unrepentant. “The one thing I’ve managed to do for you so far is get you to a place where you can rest. So you can goddamn well appreciate this small accomplishment of mine, OK? We have to dig up those bones, and those bastards are going to be watching. It will take hours, plenty of time for t
hem to mbilize. And do you want me to fight like that again? Looking over my shoulder with my heart in my throat? It’s dangerous for me, too, you realize that?”

  She bit her lip. She was compounding her uselessness by acting stupid and unhinged. Lovely way to cement a budding relationship and endear herself to his extended family. No way a gun-toting, shovel-wielding six foot four behemoth should stay behind to make room for Lily Parr, who was totally losing her shit.

  She was such a practical person. She didn’t even know herself like this. Hands ice cold and shaking. Legs like jelly. So scared that he would drive away and never come back. She didn’t want to be left in the world as it was. That enormous dead silence that would be the universe without Bruno in it. She’d go looking for the bad guys herself. She’d advertise for them. Put up a Web site. Come get me. Hurry, please.

  Bruno looked pissed, as if she were trying to manipulate him with her tears. She wasn’t, but the whiny, soggy bitch effect was the same.

  Bruno gestured toward the stuff heaped on the floor. Geothermal sensors. An armory, packed in black plastic cases too heavy for her to lift. “Which of this equipment do you feel comfortable using? You plan on taking turns with the shovel, with your strained tendons?”

  “OK, I get it. Don’t beat a dead horse.” She mopped her nose. “What happened to your trademark charm?”

  “It was a cheap trick,” he informed her. “Some evolutionary thing related to primitive mating behavior. I’m in survival mode now, so kiss the charm good-bye. This is the real Bruno. Hello, nice to meet you.”

  “Oh, great,” she muttered. “That’s just peachy.”

  “Time to go,” Kev McCloud called out.

  The four men materialized and finished loading the equipment into the cargo space. They slid into their places in the SUV without looking her in the face. Lily crossed her arms over her chest. “Those bastards,” she said. “Trying to get you out of a tight spot.”