“Hah.” Risa was not amused. “All female, but that’s old ground, no reason to re-plow that furrow, unless you’ve a need?” She was really riding this whole unlimited pleasure with an immortal courtesan thing into the ground. I sighed and dipped my head in what I hoped was submission. “Okay, all kidding aside, Suma is our last, best rope still attached to the main fleet. She’s also a female, just like all the others. Wally thinks that this is not accident. Cut through the list, find the lesson. Remember how we used to think just follow the money? Well, Delphine just torched that idea. We were stupid to apply human traits to immortals. We got soft. Ring is too fucking good at killing the low-level vermin who pick off tourists from Ontario-- the newbie vamps who get careless and hungry and come out a minute too soon. He pops them, cool as a breeze.”
I interjected. “Again, old ground. What of it?”
Risa went on. “No kidding, it’s old. But, if we look at this list as two groups, well, that’s a different idea entirely. How about this for a schism? Some have, some don’t. And there is only one who has everything, the control, and the whip that will cow even the most aggressive immortal. We’ve been barraged with females over the last two years, three if you disregard those two warlocks who were operating in Palm Beach. Does that sound random to you? No. I don’t believe in random, not now, not at this level of deception.” She broke for a long drink of water, and gently closed her laptop. “Which brings us, or, more directly, you, Ring, back to Suma, and soon. Because, if we’re starting to ask questions about who belongs to which side in this ugly little power struggle, the humans on the list will be the first to die. And I do not want to be the one to tell Boon her sister is dead at the hand of the devil.”
“Not me, too sad.” Wally distilled it quickly. Honestly.
I knew we were missing something, but it was probably someone instead. “I’m calling Suma for dinner. Tonight. I think it’s time to mention some specific names around her, shake her up. See if she blinks.”
My phone rang on my way to pick Suma up at the Center. “Hullo Ring, it’s Blue” she began without preface. “They were here, the two women smoking, drinking like fish, guilty of being sort of European, but still watching. No Brandi, but the girls got a good look at them. Come by when you can, and the cocktail waitress can describe both of them to you, including the mystery woman.”
“Got anything general?” I had to know.
“Late thirties. Black hair, pretty. Asian. That’s all I’ve got for now. Gotta run, come by later.” She clicked off without knowing that she had given me too much. The weight of her call sank in me like a dying fish. As I fought the logic, the idea of dinner with Suma became as unappealing as telling her family the truth.
“We’ll eat on the water.” I held Suma’s arm as we were led by a suitably demure hostess to the abandoned deck of a discreet chop house on the Intracoastal. A Chicago theme was meant to lend gangster muscularity to the interior, but it ended up being wistful and a bit sad, clashing against the dark, briny water. Suma’s heels thumped across the weathered deck as we were led to the furthest table, a lone pool of light cast by a rustic hurricane lamp. It was ruggedly beautiful, and the potential scene of a crime. I felt sicker with each tread.
Our server appeared, a white-shirted specter with a tired smile. “I’m Jenna, welcome. You’re all lonely out here. Is it romantic?” she asked, hopeful that it might mean a lover’s gratuity. Her hair was falling from her bun, indicating another long shift on her feet dealing with a mercurial public. I made a mental note that, no matter what happened, I was leaving her a hundred bucks.
Suma smiled, pleased to be included in our mythical couple. “Very. Thank you.”
“We’d like a bottle of Pinot, any kind of bread, and surf and turf for two.” I took the lead, hoping for as much privacy as possible. We’d need it. Jenna appreciated my brevity and left, disappearing into the darkness with the alacrity of a woman on a mission.
Gentle changes in the wind made the lamp sputter and dance. Suma looked regal, her hair nearly blue with the night clinging to her at the edge of the glow. She was awash in her infatuation, and her innocence of my intent. My anger gathered, like the shadows around us. I reached out and took her hand, desire for closeness and control overcoming my combat principles.
Pounding steps announced our wine and bread, while the wind brought a heavy aroma of tobacco. A waiter, wine bucket in one hand, clumped to the table, where he inelegantly deposited the basket of a sliced brown loaf before moving on to the wine service.
“I’m Finn; I hope you enjoy your wine. Shall I pour?” He was thrifty with his words and uncomfortable as a server. The bottle had been opened before coming to the table, which even I knew to be an offense to any oenophile. He held the glasses in his left hand, standing at the edge of the light and waiting my instructions.
“I’ll pour, thank you. Finn, do you have a light in case we smoke?” I asked, taking the wine stems from him.
Before Suma could protest my sudden addiction, Finn produced a cheap lighter. “Keep it, sir. I’ll check on you in a moment. Jenna isn’t feeling well, so she went home. I’ll take good care of you.” He handed me the lighter and pulled his hand back as if burned.
I’ll bet you will. “Some more butter, too, Finn? This bread is excellent.” I smeared the last pat on a slice as he turned to the main area. “Oh, Finn? Could you bring me another knife, too?” I examined the blade with a critical frown.
“Certainly, sir. Is that one dirty?” He leaned into the light.
My arm shot forward, stabbing him dead center mass. He fell over the railing into the water, dissolving into a sinking rabble of blue bubbles that seemed far too cheery for their purpose. His shirt floated, empty save for a ring of ash around the collar, and then drifted out of sight. In sixty seconds, there was no evidence he had ever existed.
Suma sat speechless as I critiqued the knife again. “It is now.”
We had an unusually awkward moment in the car, dead waiter notwithstanding, but then I asked her “Do you smoke? Ever?”
She shook her head vehemently. “I know it’s the dirty secret of the health profession, but no. Never. I’m a runner. But what does that have to do with you killing our waiter? I mean, even if he was an immortal?”
“The breeze. And his walk. And his hand. Together, I knew who he was and where he had been before he appeared at our table.” I was driving carefully. Suma was precious cargo now. The situation had changed.
“His hand? What? His walk? I don’t get it.” It was my fault for being curt.
“Jenna, the waitress? She walked across the deck, made normal noise. But Finn? He walked like he was in someone else’s’ shoes. Which he was, in a way. Blue called and said that two women we’ve been looking for, immortals, in all likelihood, were at her place. Smoking foreign cigarettes. Like the kind that made Finn smell like a dumpster fire. And his hand, the second finger had an extra knuckle, but just for a second. It was a problem area in his disguise, you see. He was a shape shifter and a woman. And he has been moving about for the past months dressed up like you.” I told her with relief in every word. I felt lighter, like I could finally breathe deeply.
“So you thought I was an immortal?” Suma knew that was a death sentence around me, and it settled on her, slow and heavy.
I reached out and took her hand again. “Not just any immortal. One who was passing secrets to the Baron, or Elizabeth, or maybe whoever the highest bidder was on a day in their brushfire war for control of hell. Or New Orleans, if you believe Delphine.”
Suma sat stunned. “I love my family. I--all this death--I’m a healer, Ring, not some spy who delivers people to those monsters.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. Finn even knew you spoke French with an accent, so he or she has been watching you for some time. Closely,” I added. She was even more violated by that simple fact.
“God in heaven. I feel like I’ve just cheated death.” She slumped in her seat, adrenaline rush over.<
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“He may be in heaven, but we’re here. And we’re going to do the dirty work.” I drove on, knowing that Finn had not come from a void. He had come with Elizabeth, and that meant that she would be meeting her pet for drinks. Soon.
“Did you notice anyone else who came in with them? Anyone on the edges, a bodyguard, maybe?” I was quizzing Blue about Elizabeth’s trips to the Corral. She paused, thinking. I could hear a floor buffer in the background, meaning she was at the club early. It wasn’t quite nine in the morning, an uncivilized hour to be holed up in a garish nudie bar, even if it was your primary source of income.
“I hire a lot of one-and-done girls, they’ll work a shift and I don’t see them again. There have been three who stood out, only because they were really fresh faced, model pretty . . . they seemed cut from a different cloth, you know? They all applied in the morning before we opened, sober, clean, friendly. It was hard to say no to them. I gave ‘em a shot, all three vanished. Two of them were hired the day before Elizabeth showed. How’s that for coincidence?” The floor buffer whined to a stop. The silence in the phone was jarring.
“I’ll be right over. I have a present for you. Something you just can’t do without.” Blue chuckled low and told me to keep my shirt on. I would, but only because it was part of my plan, and I don’t do nudity without proper enticement. I’m cheap, but not free.
I didn’t wait long, considering. On the second day, with Wally and Risa watching through cameras in the Corral’s office, a hopeful applicant walked in, paying me no attention and walking straight towards Blue, who sat at the bar, eating takeout and assembling the liquor order. My earpiece buzzed is that her in a small, tinny voice. I nodded once and bent back to my task as a young woman shook Blue’s hand confidently before taking a seat. She was dressed in jeans and a white shirt, her honey-blonde hair pulled back from a face with high cheekbones, naturally beautiful and abuzz with confidence. She reminded me of a European version of Wally, although she seemed a bit less likely to point a gun at someone in traffic. Call it a hunch. After a few moments of quiet conversation, punctuated by mutual laughs, she stood, shook Blue’s hand again, and walked past me without even acknowledging my presence, just as I had hoped. I continued mopping, even, long strokes, back and forth. Blue wasn’t paying me, but I wanted her gift of free labor to be worth her while. Any task worth doing is worth doing well, especially if it’s for the owner of a club crowded with nude women. I know who butters my bread.
Blue brandished a paper application at me. “Meet my newest employee, Petra. Lovely girl. I told her that she could start tonight, but, because my net is down for repair, I can’t check references until Monday. She was kind enough to give me three. Fancy a peek?” She was triumphant and deserving of an award. She really knew how to think on her feet. I took the application as her office door opened and the girls came spilling out to join in our exposition.
“Well, looky, looky. A name we know and two we don’t. Christmas is early.” I handed the sheet to Risa, who held it up for Wally to see. Stacia. Karolina. Elizabeth. Three of the most beautiful names I’d ever seen put to paper.
“We must search these names this afternoon and be back here, ready, tonight. Flats, not heels. I think we are fighting.” Wally relished a good brawl ,but only in proper footwear.
Restless and nervous, we hovered in each other’s way throughout the afternoon, even to the point that Gyro went outside to seek a quiet place to nap. Our only diversion was a delivery from Jim, a heavy envelope brought by courier that could only be the results of his search for weapons to fit the girls’ hands. For now, they could wait, because Wally stalked out into the living room clad only in her underwear. She was either confused or pissed, emotions which have an interchangeable role for her.
“After we handle that woman tonight, what about the Baron? Have we made plans for him, or his staff? What if they are human, after all? Are we putting them in the way of harm?” She had a point. We were waging a war on two continents. With immortals, there was no after, there was only an end. Humans, who might be innocent? It was a new consideration for us and a moral issue that we had not encountered.
Risa shook her head. “Cazimir is a ghost. His staff, unknown, beyond glimpses of Ilsa and . . . Sandor, is it? I think that’s the name he used once. We don’t really even know how many people are in his home. Short of visiting, which is insanity until this is over, I don’t know how to help them. I’m open to suggestions. I don’t want innocents to die, not after all the murder that has gone unchecked for so long.” Her humanitarian side was well developed, and she took the ethical breach of murder seriously. “Let’s consider the red flags here. Cazimir Byk, keeper of forest bulls, tinkerer, and possibly Satan. Am I on track so far?”
“His last name does mean bull or something like that” Wally explained. “It could be taken as he is the master of bulls, the master of the horned beasts of the forest. Or maybe this man is the horned beast in the forest, but I have a problem with that.”
I agreed. And I was dubious about something so obvious in a tapestry of half-truths, lies, and partial answers. “We’re thinking only in modern terms if we assume that Satan is some horned beast. The notion of an evil being goes far back before the Church arrived.” I pointed at Risa. “No eye rolling, I know what I’m saying. You’re not the only historian, and I’m at least as versed in Catholicism as you are, Wally, and I don’t ogle the priest, either.” They both looked slightly abashed, but only a bit. “This character, Satan--who can say if he has horns? Or is real? This isn’t some cartoonish creation from the minds of puritanical apologists who were busy making women into crones to subvert their power in the early Church.”
“I hate admitting you’re right. And a feminist, apparently.” Risa patted my arm patronizingly as Wally clapped. My depths are underappreciated, even by the loves of my life. “The Baron likes giant cows that live in the depths of a European forest. So what? It doesn’t mean he’s some evil warlord, does it? We know Delphine wants Elizabeth gone. We know that they think of their positions as fluid. Why not women? Why not one of them, trying to play on us, on Ring, and get us off balance, confused. But lethal to whomever they choose to direct us towards, by lies. False trails.”
“The Prince of Lies may be the Princess of Lies, right?” I was open to it. After seeing what Sandrine could do, I was ready to believe anything.
Risa disagreed, I could tell before she spoke. “Let’s stop thinking about an immortal as having gender. Think about their disguise as camouflage adapted to their situation. Ring, you’re our muscle. The killer, the final step. What appeals to you?”
“You mean other than Delphine’s tits?” I ducked Wally’s punch, but Risa clipped me on the shoulder. I had it coming. “Okay, seriously. Anyone could look at us and see what I crave. I’m living a life anyone would be jealous of. I have the physical, the mental, emotional satisfaction, too. Leisure time, income. I have it easy, except for the whole immortals-trying-to-kill-me thing. But aren’t you making the same assumption that we made about Satan, just applying it to me? That, because I’m an incredibly desirable, virile male, all I would want is physical pleasure in the form of beautiful women? Who is being predictable now?” I raised a brow at Risa.
Sighing, she got up from the table. “I’m not suggesting that immortals are always that subtle. Not at all. Let me ask you, what did you find intriguing about your flirtation with Suma? Or better still; tell us what made you so enthusiastic about engaging in play with Delphine? Other than her tits, of course.” Wally snickered at my discomfiture, but I considered the question.
“The thrill? With Suma, the forbidden nature of it, maybe, because of Boon and Pan? Maybe the same reasons for Delphine. Like a sexual chess match where I knew I was badly outplayed before I sat down at the table, but I thought that there was more to it than just, I don’t know, withstanding her onslaught, her experience? So that we would win?” There was more to this than I could articulate. I could feel it.
&
nbsp; “What about us?” Wally asked. “Did thinking about us make it dangerous?”
Saying yes meant that I had considered far more than just their ire at my connection with Delphine or how I would react to Elizabeth or any other women connected with Cazimir. The truth was I had, and my face told of it.
Honesty first, I decided. “Of course I had. I couldn’t deny that line of thinking. I mean, what if I didn’t come home as the same man? Would we still have a home? I didn’t want to admit my own weakness. Not fear, just uncertainty. I didn’t know if I could be changed beyond recognition, and, if that happened and neither of you were there, would you be left behind? How could we turn back the clock?”
Wally was standing next to me now. I could feel her possessiveness like a firm grasp on my arm. “I do not think you understand how much we already have changed, Ring. We are closer, yes? So, how could you be pulled away from us if we are holding on that much tighter? I do not think that we need to worry about this Elizabeth or Delphine or even the Baron in his lonely outpost. I think that they need to start worrying about us.”
Risa nodded, forcefully. “We’ve already taken the fight to them, and, now, we will meet Elizabeth. If she is not the end, then we find Karolina or Stacia. Maybe we visit the forest one day. But don’t worry about losing us because we aren’t worried about losing you, okay?”
It was just the right tonic for me. I knew we were on solid ground and that my risks were physical, not emotional. At heart, I am a soldier, and we always fight better knowing we can go home. It was time to go to the Corral. It was time to close the circle. We would leave with Elizabeth, or she would be leaving in a torrent of blue motes. The choice would be hers.
This time, my knife stays close. I was going into friendly ground, and I meant to be armed, in position, and ready. All on my own terms. Delphine taught me a valuable lesson about beautiful distractions. I would not repeat the mistake, no matter what manner of flesh drifted across my line of sight. We were collectively ensconced in the Corral before the post work throng began to fill every spare seat. And, occupy every girl. Petra emerged from the back, attired in a tuxedo vest that barely covered her small, high breasts. A thong hugged her bottom and displayed her legs for maximum effect. If she was trying to make money, she would need a dump truck to carry it away, but her purpose lay elsewhere. For an acting job, it wasn’t bad, I decided, as I watched her navigate the sexual minefield of handsy mechanics, attorneys and other nameless men who reached for her with each pass. Her attention was split between her surroundings and the door, which meant that we were in the right place at the right time.
The Forest Bull (The Fearless) Page 21