Guns For Angels

by Viviana MacKade

  He smiled, and she understood how silly she’d been the night before. Some things just weren’t right. Ann didn’t want to feel that thirst for blood as much as he didn’t want to feel vulnerable and tired.

  “Okay,” she nodded, blowing out a long breath. “Okay. Do you need help here?”

  He eased back in his chair. “No.”

  “Can I go for a while?”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “No, no, I just need to relax a little.”

  Mark gave a go-ahead wave with his hand and went back to his observing job.

  The avenue filled up with people ready to celebrate the night, flocks of young girls with handkerchief dresses and packs of boys never too far away. Tourists with ugly sunburns and hunched workers at the end of their shift walked together.

  Blondie is still going back to Mary’s, Mark thought. It opened a variety of possibilities but Mark only thought of one: something important waited there. Sure, maybe he just waited for them with a mojito in one hand and a silenced gun in the other, but he didn’t believe it.

  First off, one man against him? It was insulting. Second, the bastard might have a silenced gun but Mark sure didn’t, and the good people of Miami would react to gunshots. There would be a mess, and they didn’t want that. Mary’s and Mouse’s murders were easily hidden; Ann’s would be, but they wouldn’t want to push it to open fire in the city.

  He heard long releases of breath from Ann, shifted his weight on the other side of the chair.

  She was probably doing some hippy meditation to calm down.

  Eyes on the window, dude. Leave the girl alone, he scolded himself as a shadow moved behind the curtains, back and forth.

  After one hour, the man left Mary’s and drove away. Mark scribbled a number on a piece of paper; he could do a lot with a face and a car’s license plate.

  He stood, lifting and turning the chair, careful not to upset her concentration or whatever she was doing in perfect silence. And froze.

  Ann lay on the soft carpet, or at least the back of her head and her arms were. From her hips, her legs bent backward over and beyond her head, her tiptoes touching the ground.

  He rubbed a hand on his mouth. So she wasn’t just small, she was small and twisted like a cat.

  Lord Almighty. Her backside… damn it, it was all there to be looked at, drooled at, to run his mouth over. Without even start thinking about how deep in her he would be if he– “God please help me,” he mouthed as she unfolded from that mouth-watering pose.

  She unrolled, sprawled neatly on the floor, palms down with a beatific look shining on her face. When she opened her eyes, she smiled.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he growled, hoping the towel behaved for him and concealed his shameful state of wanting.

  “After all the time we spent in the car, I needed to stretch my back.” She sat, folded her legs. “The Plow Position’s very good for reducing stress, too. It calms the brain.”

  So does sex, Mark wanted to point out.

  “Never heard of Yoga?” she asked, standing.

  “Sure. Big fan.”

  “Really? You don’t say! You look so stiff.” She shrugged. “I guess I was wrong. Hey, we can do it together sometime.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. I’m gonna go out for a while,” he said, more than ready to get away from temptation.

  Sadly, her reaction stopped him. Her face paled, a visible pulse hammered on her neck. “What if they find out we’re here?” she asked.

  It looked like Yoga didn’t have long lasting effects, Mark thought. Sex did.

  “They already know. Maybe not in this hotel, but they definitely know we’re in Miami.”

  “Oh.” She lowered her lashes. “And we wait until they attack again? It doesn’t really sound like a smart plan.”

  “They’ll not take the risk. It’s one thing breaking into your apartment. A hotel in Surfside, with double glazed windows, full of security cameras and people is a different story. You should be safe.”

  “I should be safe? I bet I’m safer with you. I’ll come,” she stated grabbing her t-shirt.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so.”

  As Mark turned around to get dressed, she hooked a finger at the upper edge of his white towel. He grasped the loose knot where the two ends of the towel fastened on his hip just in time. “What the hell?”

  “You see, that’s not an explanation.”

  Mark breathed hard a couple of times to calm down. “It’s safer for you to stay in. Outside you’d be too exposed, and I need to focus on finding this guy,” he spelled out carefully. “Steer clear of the windows and if something happens, try to get out and scream.”

  She hugged herself, looking even smaller, but nodded. “Okay.”

  “Just like that?”

  She shrugged. “I needed a reason, you gave it to me. Where are you going, anyway?”

  Mark walked to the bathroom leaving the door ajar. “I need to talk with someone. He’s CIA. Ex CIA. I have the car plate of our blond friend, if something’s going on John might have had wind of it.

  Only her voice arrived at him as he quickly got dressed. “Do you trust him more than your team?”

  “I don’t trust him. At all.”

  “And you go to him?”

  “I know what to expect from him and I don’t ask him for help.” He went into the bedroom, took the car keys. “I don’t know who the leaker is, if there’s one. I don’t know what to expect.”

  He was already at the front door when she scampered to him. “Mark? Will you be careful?”

  Would she care if he weren’t the one keeping her alive? Would it be so bad believing her concern was genuine?

  He smiled, brushed the back of her arm with his full hand. Just a small stretch of his fingers and he would reach the warm skin of her side, achingly close to her breast. He liked the way she shivered under his touch, but he loved her words. “Come back to me, Mark.”

  She stood on her tiptoes, and pressed her lips to his. “Go, now. The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back.”

  * * * * *

  Miami was a forgiving city, especially on a hot July night. Warm breeze moved muggy air, mixing energetic techno music and smell of Spanish food.

  Ten minutes away from any A/C and any living thing would be soaked in sweat, so nobody cared, not even the doorman of the most elegant bar in Miami, the one John Smith liked the most.

  John. Mark spotted his chubby back from the entrance. They’d known, disliked and used each other for years, with no regrets or care. After all this time, Mark still wondered if John Smith was his real name. He doubted it, and didn’t give a damn. But because they’d fought under the same stars and stripes, Mark had saved John’s ass during his last assignment. Time to return the favor.

  Mark cut his way through shiny crystals and soft talk. God, he hated places like this.

  His idea of relaxing involved an ice-cold beer, his butt on a champagne beach and no bullets flying around. He’d grown up with it, not far from where he was now – the heat, the damp air and the sand rubbing his skin under his shorts, and had thrown it away for a life of duty.

  Soft blues accompanied Mark’s steps to the creamy marble counter. He sat on the high chair at the bar beside John, ordered a shot of Patron.

  “Nice song,” he said after the bartender left him to take care of other customers.

  John didn’t turn his head, but his posture tensed. He leaned forward, running a plump finger over the stem of his Margarita glass, where condensation dripped. “Sure is.”

  Mark stared in front of him. “Do you sing?”

  “Not as much as I used to. Not in tune with contemporary music, I’m afraid.” A faint smile curled the side of John’s mouth. “Nowadays, it’s more a humming, and only when I feel like it.”

  “It could be very unhealthy to stop doing something you love.” Mark aimed his eyes at the man. “It might piss t
he audience off.”

  “You think?”

  Mark took a sip, and the tequila ran hot and sweet in his throat. “I know.”

  John smiled without humor. “I guess I can do it for an old friend, just this once.”

  “Wise man.”

  “I’ll need a couple of days to get in shape. Exercise the voice and stuff.”

  “Do that. I hear Bayfront Park has good acoustics. It’s called an amphitheater, or something like that. It’s nice.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  Mark finished off the drink, dropped a roll of money on the counter. The small piece of paper tucked in between bills was invisible. “Margarita’s on me. You have a nice evening.”

  He didn’t need to see John pushing the bills in his pocket.

  When Mark drove back, every light shone in his room – their room. The ball of legs and hair curled up on the bed jumped to sit as he walked in, drowsy eyes pulled a smile on his lips.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “It was more like napping. Last time I slept, it didn’t go very well.”

  Mark couldn’t help it. He reached out and brushed her hair away from her face. “I’m going to take a shower. Try to sleep.”

  He left her, and took his time showering off the sweat. With a little luck, she would be out by the time he went to bed – their bed. He didn’t need a reminder of why he thought about her a little too much.

  But a man should never rely on luck. Her eyelashes fluttered open when he lay at her side and clasped his hands behind his head, so he wouldn’t accidentally touch her. “You okay?”

  She stretched a leg, slowly, testing, until the top of her foot touched his calf. “Yes,” she said, squeezing his need a little more.

  Minutes ticked away. Her lids grew heavier, the motion of her lashes slower, her voice drunk on sleep. “Wanna learn.”

  “What?” he whispered.

  “Kick asses.”

  He chuckled, and she answered with a smile that was nothing more than a bright shadow on her lips.

  “Y’know how. Teach me. Please.”

  “Okay. Sleep now.”

  In the fragmented darkness, he witnessed every stage of her surrender; her breathing relaxed, her body snuggled in the mattress. Sure she was fast asleep, Mark gently rolled her to the other side and wrapped an arm around her waist.

  “Shhh, it’s me,” he whispered in her ear when her body stiffened in alarm.

  What she did after was worse than everything he’d ever experienced. She nestled in his embrace and laid a hand over his. A happy sigh followed, crashing into his head and heart.

  He fell asleep pretending that bed and the woman in his arms were his whole world.

  Chapter 10

  The happy, early morning sun didn’t lighten the boredom on Mark’s face. “What in hell was that?”

  In the small arena they’d carved up in the room, Ann blew a lock of hair from her face. “A punch.” She’d just fired up her best shot.

  “A punch. Right.” He scratched his chin. “Let’s say a man as big as I am comes your way with trouble. You punch him?”

  “What else can I do?”

  He poked a finger to her forehead. “Use your head. What’s your instinct telling you?”

  “To run,” she said apologetically.

  “That’s right. You don’t fight to win, you fight to live. It means you do what you need to get free and fly. Fast.

  Come here and turn around.”

  He placed her in front of him, caged her wrist in his hands. His body was a hot rock behind her back.

  “The more you’re tense, the more strength he’ll use on you. Relax,” he ordered. “Work very hard to relax. Good. When you feel he’s loosening up, come back through under his arm. Try.”

  She sneaked backward at his side, under the arch of his arm. His wrist twisted, and she was free. He made her go through it many times, increasing the strength of his hold, quickening her response.

  “It’s just that?” she asked after a good hour, hands on her hips. “No secret moves, lethal hits?”

  “No.” He leaned against the window, crossed his arms on his chest. “Ever been in a fight, a real one?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’d be scared. If you’re scared, you’re adrenalized. In that state, your brain allows you only simple movements. Rule number one’s efficiency: easy actions that reach the target quickly and in the most damaging way. When you’re free, run.”

  She sat on the blue bedspread, brushed away non-existent crumbles. “I’m used to thinking in terms of respecting people and here I am, learning eagerly how to do the most possible damage in the most economical way.”

  “It’s the survival instinct, Ann,” he said with no regret. “It’s stronger than everything else; it has to be.”

  He picked up his gun holster, fastened it at his belt and sat to check his gun. His size made him look like a giant sitting at a doll’s table. “You lectured me about accepting feelings. You have to learn how to embrace anger, use it, instead of being blinded or hurt by it.”

  With a glance in her direction, he stood and set his t-shirt over the gun to conceal it. “Ready?”

  * * * * *

  Mary would not be waiting at her place this time around.

  Ann knew it in her mind, but her heart expected to see her sister coming down the newly painted stairs, hurried and happy, and crushing her into a choking hug. “My baby,” she always whispered in her ears. “My baby sister.” She looked twenty and careless in those moments of freedom, before the elegant executive took over – her eyes a little harder, her smile a little stagy.

  Ann had never completely understood the reasons.

  “I guess it’s the pressure,” Mary used to say when confronted. “Sometimes I’m trapped in my golden palace.”

  “Then change,” Ann would push. “Sell off and come with me in New York. We have few clubs up there, you know? You can buy a share in one.”

  Then those words, always the same. “There’s nowhere else I can go.”

  There were millions of places, but Ann firmly believed in self-determination. She would not talk her sister into leaving a life she clearly wanted just because she missed her. Would Mary still be alive if she had pushed harder?

  Well aware of reality, Ann stared at her sister’s door with stubborn, hollow expectancy as Mark played with the lock. His big hands were at odds with the paper clip he was using to pick it.

  “Any chance you have the key?” he asked her, bent over the knob.

  “No, sorry.”

  “I’ve never been good at this,” he muttered, staring at the door handle with so much rage Ann though it would melt.

  “Why don’t you knock it down? It would be faster.”

  “I’d rather not leave a trail of broken doors behind us.”

  Finally, the door clicked open.

  No, Mary was definitely not there. Her sister wasn’t a cleaning freak, but she was close enough. She loved having everything tidied up, in its own place. A cleaner came three times a week to make sure the house was scrubbed down to the last, forgotten corner. Mary always said that the world had enough dirt and chaos as it was; she wanted her house to be an oasis.

  That oasis had been trashed by a sandstorm with golden hair. Ann knew he had butchered the couch cushions and scattered their fluffy guts on the floor; he had hit the pink desert rose plant so it lay down in a pool of brown soil.

  Ann’s sneakers crushed shards of glass – Mary’s crystal vases. Empty cupboards looked like dead, open-mouthed animals

  “Why did he do this?” she murmured.

  “He wants something,” Mark mumbled, moving steadily around the house, rapacious and cold, scanning every corner.

  “Obviously. But did he have to make such a mess?” she asked, kicking some crumble of what was left of the beautiful floor mirror. “Are you telling me that he couldn’t look around without destroying this place?”
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  The high pitch of her voice wasn’t lost on Mark. He stared at her with frigid eyes that burned her, talked with a voice so forbidding she had to listen. “Not the right time to lose it, Ann.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. You can help me search for a clue, or sit in a corner and cry as I work. Decide fast, we’ve got no time for crap.”

  Ann didn’t need to think long. Anger she’d come to know, real and breathing, clawed at her skin to be let lose, but this time she was prepared. She pushed oxygen into her lungs and chanted Mark’s words – embrace the dark, accept it, don’t let it blind you. It was a tool, like Mark’s gun or a car, and she would use it. Her head snapped up. “What are we looking for?”

  “We still have no idea why they killed her. At this point, anything’s good.”

  Ann closed the door to her heart and opened the one to the bedroom, where expensive clothes lay scattered everywhere. She remembered some of them, like the satin blue dress they’d bought together; now it was a crumpled ball on the floor.

  She delved in the bathroom, in the disrupted cabinets drawers with shaking hands and a mute soul.

  “Anything over there?” Mark hollered from the kitchen.

  “Nothing. Or rather, everything’s in here.”

  She joined Mark without a second glance at the pictures dumped on the floor as if they meant nothing. “Maybe they found what they wanted.”

  “They didn’t.”

  “How can you tell? They were here before us.”

  “Because you’re alive. It’s been a while since they tried to shut you up.”

  “You call two days a while?”

  “Those people don’t spend a day at the beach if they want you out of the game.” He shook his head. “They probably found out there’s something they need, and they think you know what and where it is.”

  “But I don’t, I swear.”

  “You don’t wanna beat the drums with that piece of information, angel.”

  He crouched down, flipping through the pages of Mary’s torn calendar. “It’s the only thing that’s keeping them from killing you. That, and me.”

  She hid her shaky hands in her pockets. “Well, it’s good news, right? They won’t try again until I lead them to it.”

  “Such good news. How about we go out and celebrate?”