Bait & Switch (Driftwood Mystery Book 1)

by A. L. Tyler

  I threw my head back. He was wrong, and when I got the damn bullet out, he was going to see how wrong he was. I had an inferno in there.

  The bullet was trapped between my thumb and forefinger. The sound of its magic, an alarm I could not silence, was drowning out my own and throbbing in my ears. It wasn’t more than a centimeter under my skin, but it felt like I was skewered through on a metal rod.

  “Keep telling yourself that I won't pull the trigger,” he whispered. “We spent time together. I know you. I know your history. We're friends. I'm not going to shoot you. They teach you that at the academy, don’t they? To humanize yourself in the eyes of your attacker?”

  I kept my teeth clenched in a savage grin. I was forcing myself to breathe and heaving gasps. When I pulled the bullet out and closed my fingers around it, the sound lessened but didn't go away. If I was going to survive this, there was only one way it was going to happen.

  I had designed those bullets. I had no idea if five hundred years of stolen magic could stop a bullet, but as we’d said when developing them, more testing was never a bad thing.

  It was the only plan I had left.

  I could hear footsteps coming down the alley, slow and steady. Kane’s allies. Hunters.

  Kane pointed the gun at my head. He whispered softly in my ear. “Tell me I'm not going to pull the trigger.”

  He pulled away, staring down at me and waiting. He wanted me to die in denial. To cry, or beg, or fight.

  I looked him straight in the eye and embraced the swell of anxiety that ran through me, forcing it out into a resonating shell around me. “Fuck you.”

  The shot rang out.

  Chapter 38

  THE FORCE OF IT HIT my head like a sledgehammer. I felt it pierce my skin, and hot blood dribbled down side of my face.

  My senses reeled.

  I felt it when Kane dropped me on the wet ground, and that was how I knew I wasn’t dead.

  His voice sounded like a far-off echo. “Well, boys, we’d better get on with it.”

  He was talking about murder like it was a house chore.

  That was when the pain ripped through me. It was like molten hot lava forcing itself through my ribs, and I knew this was it.

  The big one.

  The one I wouldn’t survive, because anyone who had enough magic to stop a magic-stripping bullet wasn’t natural. Magic had a way of ensuring the evanescence of such abominations.

  I couldn’t feel the pain of the bullet wounds under the pain of the fire inside me. I couldn’t hear the people yelling in front of me over the sound of the pounding rhythm in my ears.

  Tears poured down my face. I was sure I was about to split open from the top down, but if I was going, I was taking these monsters with me.

  I reached up and felt the bullet, an odd pebble in my hair where it had lodged in my skull. The blood on my fingers didn’t look real, but the air around me was shimmering with the heat coming off of me.

  They aimed more guns at me. I couldn’t hear the shots over the pounding as it became ever more throbbing and alarming in nature. I had to direct it. Control it.

  The bullets were flattening themselves on my shell. I smiled, and Kane turned to run. He was digging in his pocket for something. Pure panic was written across his face.

  I couldn’t even feel my feet as I started to walk. It was like I was floating on air.

  They might have been the guys that had attacked me at the bar when I first met Nick. Maybe not. I didn’t care.

  A ball of liquid lead dressed in orange fire flew from my open hand and straight at the nearest shooter, swallowing him. He dropped before he could even scream. I sent the next guy screaming toward the night stars as I kept walking and felt the thud when he landed behind me.

  One of the morons tried to hit me with the butt of his spent gun and it melted before it even made contact. The flames shot down his arm, dancing like an army of angry butterflies as he dropped and rolled.

  I kept my eyes on Kane, who was picking up speed even as I felt my own steam starting to wane.

  No, I thought. No!

  He wasn’t getting away. He couldn’t.

  Thirty feet away, and my feet were starting to drag the ground again. Kane stopped and turned back, dripping sweat as he slammed a new clip into his gun.

  POP. POP. POP.

  The first two shots rebounded off my shield. They last one kissed my cheek.

  POP. POP.

  I felt them hit my arm. My leg.

  I started to panic.

  All it took was a thought. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t command the music. Like Kane had said, it came from within.

  I sailed across the distance between us on a zephyr of angry revenge and landed just shy of grabbing his neck as he turned to run.

  I wrapped my flaming palms around his ankle instead.

  The world went dark and cold around me, and as the volume of the music turned down, it was replaced with the sound of his screams.

  MY LUNGS FILLED WITH air, but not through any effort of my own. When I felt cold hands on my chest and my ribs crushed down toward my heart, my eyes shot open in shock and pain.

  I sucked in a painful breath, staring up at Nick’s worried face.

  “Gods,” he hissed, wiping a hand over his brow. “Gods...”

  He fumbled with his pocket and poured a vial of something into my mouth, holding my jaw shut when I started to cough it back out.

  “Swallow.” The desperation in his eyes made me comply.

  I was vaguely aware of someone picking at my hair. I shrieked in anguish as a jolt of pain coursed through me. The bullet was pulled from my skull.

  Nick held my shoulders to keep me on the ground. I could feel hot blood pouring out of the wound.

  I freaked out and tried to touch it, to hold it in, because I was sure it was my blood and brains pouring out of that hole in my head. I yelled incoherently. Nick held me steady. He stared into my eyes.

  “It’s a potion. They’re pouring it on to fix you up. Stay still. You’re going to be fine.”

  Was he lying? I wanted to believe him. My hands gripped his arms with white knuckles as some bait intern worked on my skull and made a passing comment that I was lucky to have been shot.

  If the bullets hadn’t taken the edge off of the mana burn, the episode could have been my last.

  I stared straight into Nick’s eyes. He stared into mine. I stayed as still as comfort allowed, but my ribs were agony before the healing potion pushed them back into position and the fractures knit back into place. Ethereal light created by magic lit the alley and I could hear the spells drifting closer and farther. People were walking around us, trying to figure out how many attackers there had been.

  There wasn’t much left of them.

  Nick’s eyes only left mine for a moment as he glanced at the man working on my head. “Done?”

  He helped me sit up and wrapped his coat around me. My clothes were rags and ashes. Smears of blood marked the places where I’d been hit on my arm and leg, but the bullets were gone. The holes were gone. The healing potion was taking its time healing the twisted burns that covered me.

  My flesh looked like melted candle wax.

  The intern poured a cocktail of new potions into a mug someone brought from the bar and pushed it at me.

  He gave Nick a long look, as though asking permission, before looking at me. “You’re the luckiest person I’ve ever met. You should be dead now.”

  Many times over. He wasn’t that much older than me. He looked like a kid.

  I chugged the potions and sat in the alley, Nick by my side, as my nerves slowly regrew themselves. Some pencil pusher came up to us to officially document the incident and I told him to come back tomorrow.

  When I could feel my legs again, Nick told off one guy who tried to stop us as we made our way back to his car.

  When we were both inside, we sat in silence. Nick started the car and we drove.

  He didn’t ask where I wanted
to go. We went back to his apartment, and I didn’t fight him on it. There were hunters around, I felt like shit, and it would do for that night.

  He hung his keys by the door. I went straight for the shower and left his ash-covered jacket on the floor in the hall. When I was clean, I filled the tub and purged everything I could reach.

  And every time I thought I was empty, it filled me up again.

  I had killed Kane. I had killed the others, too, and I would never know their names. Did they have families? Children?

  I looked at my palms. Even now, I could feel the power worming inside of me like a massive serpent. I was only a shell now. The thing that the monster within would shatter on its way out.

  I had stolen this magic to make things right in the world. Now I had betrayed myself. My weapon had turned against me.

  Killer. I had killed with magic. I wasn’t one for religion, but those who followed the ways of the Rite believed such acts were irredeemable, whatever the circumstances. No afterlife for those who used the gift in such perverse ways. For what I had done, they condemned me to the Nothing.

  What had I become?

  A knock came at the door.

  “Yeah?” I called.

  Nick cracked the door so we could speak, but he didn’t look or come in.

  “You saved a lot of lives back there. Thank you.”

  I rolled a ball of ice made from bath water between my palms. “You’re welcome.” I didn’t know what else to say. Then I whispered, “I killed them.”

  “If they put that bullet in your skull, they tried to kill you first. Don’t go blaming yourself for things that had to be done.”

  It didn’t help. I had crossed the invisible threshold and I could never go back.

  “I told you not to die.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did,” Nick said flatly.

  I nodded. It made me even more unsettled that when it had happened, I hadn’t seen anything. Nothing. Nothing, until the feeling of air forcing itself into my lungs and Nick cracking my ribs as he performed CPR. The Bleak didn’t require the use of life saving measures for field agents. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

  “You’re getting treatment.”

  I nodded to myself again. “I’ll get treatment.”

  He didn’t respond right away. He was probably surprised that I hadn’t fought him. “Good.”

  “You’re getting rid of those cuffs.”

  “No.”

  “Nick.” I sighed, dropping the ice into the water.

  He sighed. “Fine.”

  I heard him walk away.

  I stayed in the bath for a long time, thinking about Kane and how he’d named our imaginary children. I questioned whether I could have taken them alive. I thought about how I should have been dead then.

  I thought about my father, and where he was right now, and the timeless horror of that place. I had to get him out.

  In the end, I supposed that it all came down to how I got him out. Doing so without ending up back on the Bleak’s list would be a miracle. Doing so at all would be a miracle, though.

  When I got out of the tub my mind was buzzing. I found my bag back in Nick’s guest room and slipped on some clothes before wandering silently out to the living room.

  Nick was sitting on the couch in the dark. He had changed into a pair of sweatpants and a tee-shirt. His son’s toy sword lay across his lap, and he stared out at the stars through the windows.

  I stopped where I was in the kitchen, ready to turn and go. He knew I was there—vampires were master predators. They always knew.

  Nick raised a hand to summon me. “Sit.”

  I crossed my arms as I came over. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  “You’re not.” He gestured to the spot on the opposite side of the couch. “Sit.”

  I sat. I looked out the windows at his amazing view of the city lights spreading out to the foothills and the mountains, mirrored by the stars above. I wasn’t sure what we were doing.

  “My dad—”

  “Shh,” Nick didn’t move a muscle. “Now you’re intruding.”

  “Nick...” I didn’t know how much longer we could avoid the conversation. As much as he wanted me to be someone who operated within the bounds of the law, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Not if it was the Bleak’s law.

  Not even if it was my law. The stolen magic had turned me into a loose cannon.

  Nick stood. He planted himself firmly in front of me, his son’s sword in one hand. “Victory, Driftwood. Stop thinking about anything else for right now and feel the victory.”

  He moved, and I thought he was going to hand me the sword.

  “Oh, no, I really couldn’t—”

  And instead he handed me a picture he’d had folded in his palm. I opened it and saw Quinn Gregory smiling back at me.

  “Sometimes, even if it’s just for a moment, you’ve got to forget everything that’s wrong in the world. Just take a moment. Remember those few things that are right, because they’re the ones that will keep you going. That girl has a future because of you. You cared, and you risked your life to save hers. Never forget that. Whatever else happens in this life, you made a difference for her. Just one moment. Feel the victory.”

  He swung the sword in his hand as he walked to the windows. Out of his well-protected work coat and without all of the weapons and potions he usually carried, he looked so relaxed. The stars framed the space around him. His son’s sword still gave off a sad little melody; hints of minor magical fixes performed over the years.

  I would have to speak to him about an embellishment that made it speak to his loving memories instead of his mourning, but not right now.

  I sat back on the couch. It took some time to clear my head, but eventually I was able to put to rest the murders and my undying soul. I put the injustice of the Bleak on a shelf, and I turned my back on the fear I had felt earlier that day.

  I would never be able to put down the memory of my father and the promise I held to, but just for that night, I tried to hold it quiet in my heart.

  Sitting on the couch, lit only by starlight, I stared at the picture of Quinn Gregory and hoped that all her worst days were behind her.

  Epilogue

  BEECH STARED AT ME over the rims of his cheap reading glasses. Ten full minutes of explaining why I’d been randomly leaving work without notice for a week before disappearing entirely, and he’d yet to say a word. He had a bone to pick with me after I’d assisted Marge with the HR visit he’d levied against her. I had just turned down my old job working for the Bleak, and I was probably about to be fired from this one, too.

  “Janet, I’m very sorry to hear about your aunt’s medical problems...” He rose and walked to his office door. “But I can’t just excuse the fact that you didn’t follow procedure in requesting and documenting the time off...” He shut the door. “And you know I don’t really give a fuck, because you’re always here on time and these things happen. But after I gave Marge hell for the same, I don’t want to be accused of favoritism. Is your aunt okay?”

  I cracked a weak smile as Beech returned to his desk. “She’s fine. Thank you for asking.”

  Beech shook his head. His eyes wandered over the papers strewn on his desk. “And listen, about Marge—”

  “She’s a good employee,” I said quickly. “I mean, she’s actually a terrible employee, but she’s a fantastic tech. I actually think she should go back to school and retrain as an investigator. And she really is making an effort to become a better employee—”

  “I know,” Beech growled. He didn’t like being cut off. “I agree with your assessment. Thank you for talking to her, because God knows everything I say goes in one ear and out the other.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. And, you’re welcome, I guess.”

  “Anything else, Drifter?”

  I shook my head.

  Beech stood to open the door again. He upped the volume of his voice. “Then don’t let it happen ag
ain. I’ll consider what you said, but I may be required to file this with HR.”

  I tried to look appropriately disciplined as I walked back to the evidence room.

  I sighed as I lowered myself into my chair.

  My first day back after a weeks’ absence, and the calm was nice for once. Even if it was in a room that was a depressing homage to all things broken, I was glad to have space to plan my life again.

  Somehow, it felt like starting over. Even here, where humanity hid its darkest hours from the public eye, I felt like maybe there was a shred of hope that I could make things better for someone.

  In the aftermath of the scene at the bar, I’d had some trouble coming to grips with the fact that I had ended Kane’s life. Nick had all sorts of justifications about how he deserved it and I had grabbed him out of a primal need to purge the magic more efficiently. In my heart, I knew: I had grabbed him because I didn’t want him to get away.

  Because he had looked in my eyes and shot me. Because he had done virtually the same to Travis Gregory, forever stealing something irreplaceable from his daughter and wife. Because he had thrown away Joe and Farrow’s lives like they meant nothing. Because they had found Robert’s body in a dumpster a few blocks away, his throat slashed ear to ear. And all for money.

  I felt guilty for killing him. I wasn’t sorry that I had done it.

  I’d never felt that way about anyone before.

  Despite all of Nick’s assurances that Robert’s final words to me had been the senseless ramblings of a kindly old man, I couldn’t let him go, and I didn’t know why. Maybe because my father and I had lived by the beach, and sandcastles had been my thing for several years. Maybe because my father’s eyes were green.

  Nick told me that Robert was mildly telepathic, and his ability sometimes interacted disastrously with his malfunctioning memory. There were no flower beds behind Farrow’s house, but when I was alone with my thoughts late at night, I became obsessed with the box he had spoken of.