by T. K. Thorne
I want to protest that it’s his fault I’m down and can’t move, but I don’t have breath for that either. With one arm, he snatches me up and moves us around the tower beside the door. Another ping follows us.
Setting me down, he scans the museum roof. “Get the door open and get in!”
I try to turn the knob. “I can’t. It’s stuck!”
A flash of light illuminates him. The sky opens and we are instantly drenched.
Another ping and a small puff of pulverized stone-dust rises near my head. I push as hard as I can against the stubborn door.
“Damn!” Tracey says, keeping his body between the museum and me.
An understatement.
I scrabble for the Glock in my purse, which I always wear with the strap across my chest. Too easy for a purse-snatcher to grab it off the shoulder.
“Did you see the shooter?” I shout over the wind.
“No, but the only place high enough to get a line on us in that direction is the roof of the TV station behind the museum.”
Did he see a flash or is he taking a guess? We are looking directly down at the museum roof and there aren’t many places there for a gunman to hide. He’s right. Gotta be the woods or the TV station roof.
“Go beyond the door,” Tracey orders.
I do. That puts a lot of thick stone between me and the shooter, provided we are right about where he is. But we’re trapped up here. There’s a grated walkway to another tower that houses the elevator, but I’m sure that’s locked too, and the walkway would expose us.
Tracey slams his shoulder into the wooden door. It’s solid wood.
On the second shove, the door flies inward with a sharp crack, wood splintered around the stuck latch.
Tracey shoves me inside, and I nearly fall down the stairs from the momentum of his push. Grabbing the railing, I straighten and turn. Tracey’s back is to me. He takes a position with one foot forward, his gun braced against the wall, exposing only a tiny area, enough to look down his sights.
I grab his shoulder and pull. It’s like pulling on Vulcan. Nothing moves.
“Lohan,” I yell in his ear. “Get back. He’s got to have a scope!”
It seems to take forever for him to acknowledge me before he steps away. Another bullet takes a piece out of the edge of the doorframe, right where his head had been.
We face each other in the narrow confines at the top of the stairwell, both dripping water, the guns in our hands pointing at the floor. I check out the busted door. A normal man, even one as big as Tracey, could not have done that. I peer down the curving stairwell. “Do you think he’s going to wait until we exit at the bottom?”
“Likely. And he would have position on us.”
“I think we better call in the troops,” I say.
He is still staring at me. “Yeah, we should.”
My heart still thundering, I replace my gun in my purse, exchanging it for my cell phone.
“Now explain to me again why you were up in Vulcan’s statue after midnight,” a scowling Lieutenant Faraday says, her arms crossed over her chest. She had come out to the scene, along with the cadre of patrol units and investigators called out whenever a police officer fires a weapon or is fired upon. No bodies were found, so things were not as messy as they could have been, but Faraday ordered us to the Admin building for a more private chewing out, despite the fact that it was 1 a.m.
There’s not much room in her office, but Tracey and I stand, facing her desk. Behind it, she is also standing, glaring at us.
“It was my fault,” Tracey says. “It’s a place I go sometimes when I want to be alone. I have a cousin who works there. We needed privacy to talk about a case.”
She snorts, obviously not believing a word. “Which case?”
“Dr. Benjamin Crompton.”
“The accidental UAB death?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
Her scowl deepens, something I hadn’t thought possible. “Then what’s to talk about?”
Tracey meets her glare calmly, and I’m happy to let him do the explaining. I wonder if she is going to kick me out of Homicide back to Burglary to get rid of me or if this is the last straw for the police department, and I will be waiting on tables somewhere.
“I was wrong about it being accidental,” he says. “Rose had it right from the beginning.”
Faraday gives me a look I can’t read. “What did she have right, exactly?”
“That it was murder.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Is that so? And what made you realize she was right?”
He takes a breath. “The only witness was killed tonight in Vestavia.”
Laurie was the suspect, not a witness. But I’m not about to correct him. Nothing makes any sense.
“Coincidence?” Faraday asks.
“Not likely. It was a professional job.”
“Hmm.” She sits in her chair, swivels to her desk and picks up a report. “I hate it when I have to do paperwork. I hate it even more when two of my people get shot at.”
“It wasn’t exactly fun for us,” Tracey says.
We’re all silent for a few moments, and I’m hoping maybe we are going to escape with just the chewing out.
“You seem to attract bullets, Detective Brighton,” Faraday says dryly without looking at me.
I don’t know what to say to that, and I don’t respond.
“But the real question is why someone was shooting at you.”
On that point, I totally agree with her.
She tilts her head, which makes her look like an eagle considering its prey. “Any ideas?”
“Not yet,” Tracey says. “We’re working on it.”
“Well, get busy. And get out of my office.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
It’s 2 a.m. by the time Tracey drops me off at Alice’s. There’s a lot more I want to ask him about House of Stone, but I’m exhausted and shaky. All I want is a hot shower and bed, but from the car window I can see Alice, in full disguise, of course, sitting in a porch chair waiting for me. The porch light glows a warm yellow that is supposed to lessen its attraction to mosquitos.
“Get some sleep,” Tracey says.
“That’s my plan.”
I climb the concrete stairs to the porch.
“What are you doing up?” I ask Alice, trying to keep the weariness from my voice.
“I knew something was wrong,” she says.
“Can we talk about it in the morning?”
“You’ll be getting ready for work in the morning.”
I plop into the chair across from her. Alice leans forward and pours hot water from a white porcelain teapot into the cup of leaves on the small table between us. I look at it doubtfully.
“Don’t worry, it’s chamomile. Will help you sleep.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the kind of leaves,” I say, watching a curl of steam rise from the cup. If she’d been sitting out here any length of time, the water would have gone cold. “How did you know when to expect me?”
“I’ve told you I have a bit of premonition ability. Nothing like yours. It’s a gift that bounces around in our House. That’s how I knew you were coming that first day when you knocked on my door.” Her forehead tightens, revealing wrinkles between her eyes that rarely show. “That’s why I took the rose-stone out of hiding to polish it and how that young man who broke in found it and stole it.”
She’s talking about the man I shot in an alley. When he realized he was being chased, he had tossed away the rose-stone pendant, and I found it the next day.
“When I first picked the rose-stone up,” I say, “it sent out some kind of vibration that alerted every member of every House in the city.”
She nods. “I told you that was how I knew you were in Birmingham.”
“You did, b
ut what you didn’t tell me was that it would only react like that for someone who was of a particular ‘line’ of House of Rose.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“From a member of House of Stone.” I don’t tell her it’s Tracey. That’s his secret. I’m full of secrets, expanding like a ball of tightly wound wool with each added strand.
“I see,” she says, leaning back. “They are finally coming out of hiding.”
“Not ‘they,’ just one. What did he mean by ‘a particular line’?”
“He meant someone with the potential to be the Y Tair, but my dear, please bear in mind that there is nothing to prove that the Y Tair ever really existed. She could be a conglomeration of stories. Myths and stories have a way of working into a culture so deeply, people believe them as truths. But,” she adds, “I handled the rose-stone many times, and it never sung out for me. Your mother gave it to me to keep for you.”
“What about my sister?”
“You were the eldest. That’s tradition.”
“When I first touched it,” I say slowly, feeling my way with logic, “you felt the ‘vibrations’ or whatever happened, and now we know House of Stone felt it. That means House of Iron did too.”
“I’m sure they did. That is why I decided to put ‘Plan Death’ in play as soon as I could.”
“I’m not sure I understand the advantage of that.”
“If those warlocks thought I was alive and protecting you, they would surely snuff me out. Then you would be alone.”
“No offense, and I’m really glad you aren’t ‘snuffed out,’ but just how are you ‘protecting’ me?”
“This is what worries me constantly, trying to figure out how to do that. Hiding you with a foster family gave you a chance to at least become an adult.” She shakes her head. “And then you go and become a policewoman, which is dangerous in and of itself. Although, I suppose they taught you how to defend yourself, and you do carry a weapon, so it has a plus side.”
I don’t even try to respond to that.
“Your tea should be ready. I put the honey in the water while it was boiling.” She keeps honey and sugar cubes on the table, but knows I prefer the honey.
I pick up the beautiful china cup. It triggers the memory of my first meeting with Alice. Stupefied that this small, elderly woman with a British accent had claimed to be my only living relative, I’d scalded my tongue with the first swallow. This tea tastes different from the usual mint. I can’t decide if I like it or not.
“What happened tonight?” she asks. “I noticed your detective car was here earlier, but not you.”
“Someone shot at me and my partner.”
Her eyes widen and travel quickly over my body. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine and he is too.”
“House of Iron.” It’s not a question.
“Not everything is related to that. You know I’m working a homicide, and a second person was killed tonight. I guess it’s last night now.” I can feel my lids drooping over my burning eyes.
“But why would they try to kill you?”
I shrug. “Because they don’t want the case solved.”
“Can’t you just drop it?”
I see Laurie’s body sprawled on her apartment carpet. She had worked hard to get into medical school. She wanted to be a researcher to find a cure for diseases that devastated lives. If she wasn’t the person who killed Benjamin Crompton, who was? And who is next on the target list?
“No, I can’t. And even if I could, I won’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The looks given to Tracey and me in the office the next day are speculative. News and rumor travel faster than a speeding bullet in the PD. What were we doing up on Vulcan in the middle of the night together? It was probably a more interesting topic of conversation than why somebody shot at us.
“Hey Tracey! You a member of the Mile-High Club now?” Finkman calls out to general laughter.
Tracey ignores him, but my cheeks and earlobes are aflame. Sexual innuendos are part of being a woman in a man’s workplace, but I’m sure I don’t have it anywhere near as bad as the first women to break the blue barrier. The least I can do is hold my head up.
I sink into my chair.
Tracey gets up and comes back with two cups of hot coffee.
“You look like a truck hit you,” he says helpfully.
“It did.” I keep my voice low. “You were the truck.”
“Sorry about that.”
“No need to apologize; it probably saved my life.”
“Ditto to you for pulling me away from having a piece of my face chipped off. Don’t know what I was thinking. Have you had breakfast?”
“Are you kidding? I just got to bed a couple of hours ago.”
He stands. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got lots to talk about.”
I’m lost in my thoughts when Tracey pulls up at a 24-hour diner I know only too well.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, seeing my expression.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you just bit into a horseradish. Are you sick?”
“No, it’s this place. It has a lot of memories.”
Putting the car in park, he turns to me, not commenting, just waiting.
“Paul and I used to come here during our shift,” I admit, “and it’s where I met Becca. She was a waitress here.”
“Wanna go somewhere else?”
“No, it’s fine.” I open my door before he can say anything more.
We take the booth in the corner where the police eat. I always thought of it as “belonging” to Paul and me, but apparently in the daytime the detectives claim it too. Tracey orders the grand slam breakfast. I’m not a big breakfast person, although I make up for it at other meals. We order.
“Coffee?” the waitress asks.
“Hot tea for me,” I say.
“Coffee,” Tracey says, “high octane, black.”
Paul always drank milk. Maybe he had an ulcer. I thought that old “remedy” had long ago been debunked, but Paul had been stubborn enough to ignore what he didn’t want to hear. Or maybe he just liked milk.
We don’t try to talk until the hot drinks arrive. Tracey doesn’t even wait for his to cool.
“Does being Stone include a burn-proof tongue?” I ask.
He grins. “Never thought about it. Maybe.”
“Just what does it include?”
He shrugs. “Muscle density mostly.”
“Does it only work when you have a path to stone?”
“First, it’s not any stone, it’s limestone.”
I nod. “Limestone. That’s made from coral, right?”
“Yeah, basically calcium deposits.”
“Bones are calcium. Could you draw on that?”
He takes another swig. “A little morbid, aren’t we?”
“The living-green is carbon. Carbon exists in every living thing on earth and that includes people,” I say. “I’ve thought a lot about this, about how easy it would be to kill everyone in this room, for instance, by drawing on the carbon in their bodies.”
Tracey’s gray eyes widen. “We’re taught as soon as our ability manifests to only draw from the earth. It’s a reflex.”
“But if—?” I’m flashing back to the Ordeal, to darkness and desperation. I would have sucked the carbon out of Theophalus Blackwell without hesitation. But it wouldn’t have worked, as all members of the Houses are immune to other House magic. The thing that did work was my instinctive combining of iron magic with the living-green. But what would happen to a “normal” person who suddenly lost the calcium in his bones and blood? Surely he would die . . . or want to. And isn’t iron involved in how the blood transports oxygen in the body? All three of the Houses are deadly. If that was ever di
scovered—I shudder. The need to keep their—our—secrets sinks in deeper, along with the thought that maybe my ruminations on extinct horrors wasn’t just wild conjecture, and I would be doing the world a favor to let witches and warlocks die out.
“Never mind,” I say.
Breakfast arrives. Tracey attacks a stack of pancakes with knife and fork.
“You’re big, but you don’t look like that green guy in the comics.”
He hesitates and looks up over my shoulder. The waitress has returned to see if we want anything else.
“We’re good,” Tracey says around a mouthful.
I load two packs of sugar, a scoop of butter, and some milk into my bowl of oatmeal.
When she leaves, he answers my question. “It’s a little more complicated than that. When we hit puberty, we start putting on muscle. It’s denser and heavier than a normal’s.”
A normal’s. He says the word casually, but the message is clear. We are not “normals.”
“Doesn’t your doctor notice?” I ask.
He grins. “We try to stay off scales, but sometimes we get put on diets. There are also a couple of doctors in the House and that helps.”
“It suddenly occurs to me why you almost drowned in the Gulf.”
He spears a knot of scrambled eggs. “Water affects our ability to call on stone for energy to feed the muscles, but the muscles don’t disappear. So, you’re right, I sink like a rock. Which, as I said, makes me an idiot for jumping overboard. Thankfully, I had a little more buoyancy in the salt water. That just kept me up for a while, and then you had to pull me up.”
I remember how hard that was to do. I thought it was because I was exhausted myself.
“What about you?” Tracey asks. “I always heard Rose folks were healers. That right?”
I give a quick snort of laughter. “I can’t heal a splinter.”
“Unfortunate. That would be handy.”
“Yes, it would be nice. My Aunt Alice was very skillful. I have the power for it, but I’m sort of a nuclear option to an antibiotic. However,” I add, swallowing a mouthful of overly sweet oatmeal, “I have other talents.”