by E. A. Copen
“And here is where we must part ways.” Marcus gestured forward. “Looks like you’ve got a ride back to Paint Rock already arranged.”
I stepped out of the elevator and listened as the doors slid closed behind me. The parking garage felt even colder and darker than before. I rubbed my arms and listened to the sound of cars passing along on the freeway nearby. The gentle buzz of the lights overhead was the only sound.
Sal had a daughter, a little girl I couldn’t even tell him about. My life now hung in the balance based on whether I could figure out how to cure a little girl that the foremost medical minds in the country couldn’t help. Even if I could save her, I had to get her away from Zoe somehow if I wanted to keep her from being poked and prodded all her life.
Before I could deal with any of that, I had to face Sal, my boyfriend and—if I was lucky enough not to have ruined everything—still my best friend.
“Sal—”
“If you’re going to say anything at all about Zoe, let me stop you right there.” His tone was flat, without any hint of malice, although I read irritation in his posture. “I don’t know the story—can’t say as I care—and I don’t need to know whatever it is you’re doing for Marcus, or what those two have to do with each other. Based on what you’ve told me, the Zoe I knew is dead. She’s probably been dead a long time. I’m not pissed she’s alive. I’m only pissed she’s still managing to fuck things up for me after I buried her.”
I stepped forward. “What did she mess up for you this time?”
Sal flicked his cigarette off to the side and shrugged. “I figured you were pissed off I didn’t show at Tindall’s thing, and I know I haven’t been around a lot because of stuff I’m doing for the club. I promised you Tex-Mex, but with whatever Marcus has you doing, can I assume that’s off the menu now?”
“I’m sorry, Sal.” I rubbed my aching head. “God, if I could just get a day off to get the rest of my life straightened out.”
“That’s how we all feel.” He nodded. “You want me to take you back to Tindall’s to pick up Hunter?” He turned and winced as he watched a car roll down the narrow ramp toward the exit. “Bet Hunter’s pissed at me now, too. I promised him I’d be there.”
“Let me call ahead. I don’t want to show up unannounced, especially after what just happened. Tindall was pretty shaken up by the escort.” I fished out my phone.
“About that, Judah—”
I held up a finger. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Tindall’s phone rang twice before he picked up. “Judah? Fuck, woman, that had better be you.”
“I’m fine,” I answered. “How’s Hunter?”
Tindall muttered a prayer of thanks and added, “Oh, he’s passed out in the spare bedroom, oblivious to the world. Barbra went in to tuck him in. I honestly wasn’t expecting to hear back from you tonight, but I’m glad I did.”
“You want me to come pick him up?”
There was a short pause on the other end. “You know, I can drop him off early in the morning. I hate to wake the kid. I know Barbra was looking forward to having someone besides me to make breakfast for. That is, if you don’t mind. Been a long time since we had a kid in the house. I think…I think it’s good for her.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Shortly after moving to Paint Rock, I had learned that Tindall and his wife had a daughter who had gone missing in the chaos of the Revelation. He didn’t talk much about his personal life with me, but I knew the lack of closure was a strain on his marriage. She’d never wanted to talk about it, and he’d turned to drinking until a few years ago.
“I trust you, Tindall. Just make sure it’s early. He’s got to get ready for school.”
“You take care, Black. I’ll see you in the morning, all right?”
Tindall and I said our goodbyes, and I hung up. “Tindall’s going to keep him overnight, so it looks like my evening is suddenly free except for all the work I’ve got to do.”
“Let me take you out now,” Sal offered. “It’s still early enough we can slide in somewhere before last call.”
I wanted to go with him. Nothing sounded better than throwing a few beers back with Sal, especially after what I’d just seen. But I also had a mountain of work in front of me. I needed to hit the research, see what I could find. Maybe someone out there had gone through something like what was happening to Mia.
“Judah,” he said, folding his arms, his tone was almost exactly like the one my mother used to use when she wanted my attention.
“What?”
“I know that look. You’re about to turn me down to pull an all-nighter on your next big case.”
I sighed. “I have to work, Sal.”
“Nobody on their deathbed ever wishes they’d spent more time working for assholes like Marcus Kelley.”
That made me smile despite myself. Sal climbed onto his bike, pulled his goggles down, and then took the helmet hanging from the handlebars and held it out to me.
“You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you, Sal?”
“I’m going to make you relax and enjoy something if it’s the last thing I do. Now, get on the damn bike.”
I took the helmet from him, securing it via a strap under my chin. Sal slid the leather vest off that he wore over his jacket and then held the jacket out to me. I frowned, studying all the patches he wore on the vest, and wondered what they meant. Sal’s membership in the Tomahawk Kings was the one thing that still made me hesitate about getting closer to him. I didn’t know much about motorcycles and knew even less about his so-called motorcycle club. What I did know was that they were involved in something shady, especially the way Marcus had spoken of them to Tindall. The last thing I needed was to create a misunderstanding between him and I. I couldn’t endorse that life, not as an officer of the law.
“Take it,” he insisted. “If your arms go numb with cold, you’ll let go and throw the balance off. Then we’ll wreck, and we’ll both regret it.”
“You sure your club buddies would be okay with you riding around with a fed?”
He tossed the jacket to me. I caught it on instinct. “Let’s iron that part out when we get to where we’re going, okay? If you don’t like how that talk goes, I’ll call you a cab. And if anybody talks shit about it, I’ll straighten it out. Deal?”
I put the jacket on and climbed up behind Sal.
I’d only been on a few motorcycles in my life but never owned or driven one. Alex owned one for a short time, but he was no mechanic, and the damn thing was always breaking down, so we didn’t ride together much. I did know the basics of how to ride thanks to him.
I wrapped my arms around Sal and leaned in. “Deal.”
He kicked up the kickstand, revved up the engine once, and we moved down the ramp and out into the street in silence.
The side streets sped by, the hospital windows lit up with orange and yellow glows. Shadows moved behind the false security of thin glass and plastic blinds. Street lights flickered above, illuminating the cracked car windshields and the flashing red lights of engaged security systems. The streets were painfully quiet, aside from the roar of us winding our way down the middle of the street. The whole city felt fragile and explosive.
We hit a red light and eased to a stop behind a short line of other cars. Sal turned his head and raised his voice over the sound of the engine. “You good with me opening her up a little more?”
I wanted to say no. We’d barely hit thirty-five, and already, the rush of moving so fast without the familiar barrier of a car made my heart pound. The safety of a car was an illusion; I’d seen enough wrecks to know how true that was. Still, I wasn’t comfortable enough without it to risk highway speeds. But I—the federal agent, slayer of ice giants, wendigos, sorcerers, and demons—wasn’t going to admit out loud that I was afraid of a little wind. I nodded against him. “Sure.”
We pulled away from the red light and sped up an empty on-ramp and onto the highway, flirting with speeds I wouldn’t have
dared on the crowded freeway. Sal made it look easy, dodging into the tiny spaces between semi-trucks and cars without breaking a sweat. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sweating. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t showing off. The wind burned my cheeks and made my fingers numb. My eyes watered until I squeezed them shut and hugged Sal tighter, enjoying the body heat he gave off.
The bike slowed as he leaned into a turn. I cracked open an eye. We’d left the glow of the city behind and hit the two-lane highway headed west. There, on the right, just off the highway, was a dirty-looking little roadhouse. There was no business name on the sign, just a dusty old bit of wood in the shape of an arrow that read BEER and POOL in hand-painted letters. We turned into the dirt parking lot, where seven other bikes and Chanter’s truck were parked. What was Chanter’s truck doing there?
Sal eased on the brake, circled the bike, and backed it into an empty space between two others. I unwrapped my stiff arms from around him as soon as the bike slowed but stayed where I was, even once the kickstand was down and he’d killed the engine.
“Is this your clubhouse?” I asked, frowning at the sad, sorry-looking front of the building.
“Diabla’s place,” Sal said. “But yeah, I guess you’d call it that.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Diabla?”
“Nickname. Nobody knows her real name., just that she’s a scary lady who keeps us all in line.”
“Why’d you bring me here?”
He motioned with his head for me to get off the bike. I did only because it was awkward to talk sitting behind him. Sal lifted his goggles over his head and let them dangle in his fingers. “I know it’s hard for you, but let’s quit dancing around it. This is my life. You want me, I come as is, club and all. If we’re doing this for real, and I’d like to, then I want you to know what you’re signing up for.”
“I’m a federal agent, Sal. I can’t get involved with anything illegal.”
He climbed off the bike and put his hands on my shoulders. “Nobody’s asking you to. But you got to leave the cop talk outside. That’s the price if you want to keep going forward with me.”
I crossed my arms and looked away, knowing I should have just told him to call me a cab. I should have known better than to hope things would work out between us, that I’d have one good thing outside my job. We were barely ankle deep in whatever it was we had, and it was already too complicated.
But love is a funny thing. It overrides every other sense and supersedes rationality. As much as I wanted to walk away and save my skin before things went sour, I couldn’t make myself not fall for him. Doomed as we were, I didn’t want to go through life wondering what might have happened if I hadn’t walked away.
“One beer,” I said, looking back at him. “And then you take me home.”
He gave me that stupid grin of his, and I fought the flutter in my chest as he leaned down to plant a light kiss on my lips. “Deal.”
Chapter Four
Roadhouses, bars, and biker hangouts all have a particular atmosphere. Dim lights, stained wooden floors, neon, and wood panel walls made up the inside of this place. The smell of sweat, leather, and cheap beer hung heavy in the air against the distinctive sound of pool balls striking one another in the far corner. Something country played on the old jukebox.
The place could have passed as any old roadhouse. It wasn’t. I felt it the moment I walked through the door, as if I’d stepped through a thick, velvety curtain of magick. Of course, I didn’t notice the symbols etched into the doorposts until I’d already stepped through. Had I not already been well versed in the ways and practices of the occult, I might not have noticed them at all. They weren’t the kind you see every day. These were part of a protective spell used only in very specific, very powerful circles of voodoo. Had I been a casual passerby, stopping in hopes of a quick drink on my way through, I would have felt uneasy enough to make my visit short.
Behind the bar stood a top-heavy black woman cleaning a shot glass. One patron sat at the bar, a light brown-skinned fellow in a white suit and pristine white shoes. A single red rose stuck up out of the lapel of his suit. With the flick of two long fingers, he willed a bottle of whiskey off the bar and tipped it so it would refill his glass. He watched me with interest as I followed Sal through the place.
The two pool players stopped what they were doing to have a look, too. One of them was a heavyset woman in black platform heels and fishnets, while the other was a flabby, white-haired grandpa type with a beard that reached down to his stomach. As I watched, a third arm came out from under the beard to scratch his chin.
A few of the bikers I’d met at Aisling sat around talking. Bran looked up from where he was sitting with the scrawny red-haired guy whose name I’d never learned. Bran was the opposite of the short, stuffy Asian stereotype. Tall enough to look down at Sal and almost always smiling, Bran reminded me more of a very large, very cuddly teddy bear. I still wouldn’t have wanted to make an enemy of him, especially if I frequented dark alleys. He carried a katana around and I’d seen him use it. As soon as he saw us, he motioned for us to come over. I was about to go and greet him when another familiar voice cut through above the music.
“About time you showed, girl.”
I turned directly into Chanter’s embrace and froze. It was strange enough to be hugged unexpectedly. For Chanter to be the one doing the hugging was extremely out of character for him. The reason became clearer when he leaned in and growled next to my ear, “Tread lightly here tonight.” He moved back and smiled as if he hadn’t just spoken a warning.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he and Sal were both members of the Tomahawk Kings. The two of them were closer than thunder and lightning in a rainstorm. But it was a shock to me just the same.
He turned to greet Sal with a pat on the back. “You should have told us to expect her. You know how Istaqua feels about surprises.”
“Is he here?” Sal asked, and his eyes darted back and forth.
Chanter shrugged and gave me a wary glance. “He is here, but he took a fifth and two hang-arounds into the back. If your visit is brief and uneventful, I expect you’ll miss him tonight.”
A hand came down on my upper back with just enough force to knock me forward a half-step. Bran had patted me on the back. “It’s good you didn’t die, Ms. BSI.”
I offered him a smile. “It’s just Judah tonight.”
“I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I am Yuri Branaslav.”
He extended a meaty hand, and I took it. His grip almost broke my fingers. “That’s the most Russian name I’ve ever heard, Bran.”
“My mother and stepfather had a sad sense of humor. I am, unfortunately, more Japanese than Russian as far as genetics go. It has made life interesting.”
“Bran moonlights as a prison guard when he’s not busy being an outlaw,” Sal said.
“Not much difference between the two jobs sometimes.” He roared with laughter and patted me on the shoulder before wandering back to the table he’d come from.
Chanter motioned to the bar with his head, and the three of us went to take a seat, Sal in the middle. Without so much as a word, the bartender pulled down two shot glasses and filled them with whiskey, pushing one toward Sal and the other to Chanter. They both downed their drinks, and then turned their glasses over, sliding them back across the bar.
“Say what you want to say, girl,” Chanter mumbled. “I don’t have the time to mince words anymore.”
I shrugged. “Guess I’m just surprised you’d be a part of this.”
Chanter smiled. “I can do a lot to surprise you if I put my mind to it. I don’t ride anymore, but the Kings still have room for a dying old man and his truck, it seems.”
Sal stared down at the bar.
Chanter grunted and turned on his stool to face me, placing his wrinkled hands on his thighs. “This group fills a need. There’s a no-man's-land between where the law leaves off and where the evil picks up. Too many good peop
le get hurt with no recourse. The people here, they need the Kings. I hope you understand that.”
“I still don’t know how to feel about it.” I rubbed my temples. “And I’ve got enough on my plate right now that this barely rates.”
“Work?”
I nodded.
Chanter grunted. “I heard they were doing an escort tonight out to the hospital. I don’t know what’s happening, but if we can help, don’t hesitate to ask.”
I shook my head and wished the bartender would come back around. Something to drink would help calm my nerves. “I’m sworn to secrecy under threat of violence.”
Sal clenched his jaw and flexed his hand.
Chanter watched his face with a wrinkled forehead. “Life’s full of hard choices, isn’t it? We all have to do things we don’t like. Usually, we come out better for it in the end.” He stood. “Well, I’ve said my piece. It’s time for this old man to go have a smoke.” Chanter squeezed Sal’s shoulder on his way toward the door.
Sal and I sat in silence for a long minute before I said, “So, you promised me a drink.”
He reached behind the bar and felt around for a glass, much to the displeasure of the bartender. She came waddling down from the other side of the bar and smacked him on the wrist. “Young man, nobody gets behind this bar when I’m here but me.” She wagged a finger at him.
“I wasn’t! I was just looking for another glass!”
She ignored him and turned to me. For the first time, I noticed that her eyes were unfocused, cloudy and white. “What’ll you have, honey?”
“Scotch, neat.”
“Only way we serve it around here.” She went to the shelf, feeling along the shelves beneath the bottles.
It seemed an odd fit, a blind bartender, but I’d seen stranger. The way she’d poured for Chanter and Sal, I never would have guessed. Considering where I was, and the wards in the doorway, I thought maybe she didn’t need eyes to see.
She poured my drink and put it down in front of me, but when I reached for it, she put her hand over the glass. “Members, friends, and family drink for free at my bar. Everyone else gets three-dollar shots and throws two to the house for expenses. Course, if you think you don’t owe me for the drink, you at least owe me an introduction.”