Blood Debt (Judah Black Novels Book 2) (20 page)

Mara looked down at her phone again and then jumped up. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?” Chanter asked, adjusting Leo.

“Nothing. Just…It’s getting late and I’ve got an anatomy paper due tomorrow. I haven’t even started it yet.” She looked up, searching my face. “Judah, I’ve really got to go. Can you tell Ed…Tell him for me, will you?” She offered me a sheepish smile.

Chanter looked up. “Do you need a lift? I know where Valentino keeps the keys.”

“No,” she offered, flashing a smile. “It’s only a couple of blocks. I can walk it. It’ll give me a chance to clear my head.” Mara waved her goodbyes and then rushed to the end of the driveway, turning to go up the block and walk the mile or so to her apartment on the edge of town.

Once she was gone, Chanter said, “She’s come a long way since you took her under your wing, Judah.”

“Yeah,” I said, allowing a little pride to beam through. “Guess she has. You know, I was thinking of trying to get her an internship at the precinct next semester. She’s got real talent. I think she can go places.”

Another howl echoed through the air and Chanter raised his chin before standing. He offered Leo to me. “The boy needs a change,” he said. “And you look like hell, Judah Black. Why don’t you take him in out of the cool air and get a little shut-eye? I’ll stay here with the elf.”

I glanced back at Creven. “You sure? Seems like he’s going to be a tough customer and Nina wouldn’t like it if I left you alone with him, Chanter.”

“I don’t need a nursemaid,” Chanter growled and pointed back toward the house. “Go. I can handle one unruly elf.”

“Promise I’ll be on me best behavior,” said Creven and he drew a finger across his chest. “Cross me heart. I owe you that much for saving me.”

As tired as I was, I wasn’t about to get into a shouting match with Chanter or Creven. I tucked Leo into my arms and carried him inside. After a quick change, I put him down in his crib, turned on the mobile and settled into the armchair Valentino and Nina had moved into there. Once, Leo had shared his room with his Uncle Elias and the cot had taken up the whole room. Now, they’d rearranged and the room felt even more cramped. There’s nothing more soothing than the sleep sounds of a toddler, though, and I soon found myself dozing off.

My dreams were dark, angry and full of disembodied voices. Long, strange shadows called out to me in my sleep, grasping at my hands and feet as I ran through darkness. I thrashed, trying to free myself but, when the shadows let me go, I fell into a hungry, black abyss.

I hit the floor in the nursery, scrambling against the strap of a diaper bag, gripping it as if to strangle it. I let it go and tried to push myself up on the hardwood floor, but my palms were too sweaty and I slipped, falling flat on my face. All the air went out of my lungs as I went down, knocking my chin against the floor. At least there was nowhere further down to go but the floor. I lay there for a minute, trying to process the dream, the air thick, cool and silent except for the sleep coos of Leo Garcia in the crib above.

Eventually, I hauled myself up off the floor to check on him, leveraging my weight on the chair. As soon as I reached out to touch his face, he woke up and started crying. I picked him up, but it was clear he didn’t want me, as he started screaming for his mom.

Once Leo launched into a series of blood-curdling screams and wolfish howls, I heard the tell-tale sound of the front door slamming and the
thunk-thunk
of Chanter’s cane against the floor. He came in and paused when he saw me. “What’s the matter with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” When I didn’t answer, he held out his hands. “Here. Give him to me.” I handed Leo to Chanter and, as if he were magic, Leo immediately calmed.

While he bounced the kid up and down, I sank back into the rocking chair. “I had the strangest dream,” I said, holding my head in my hands. “I was surrounded by darkness, choking on it.”

“Calm yourself, Judah. There is nothing in a dream that can hurt you.”

“That’s just the thing,” I said wiping my hands over my face. “Even though I knew that, I couldn’t get myself to wake up.”

Chanter pursed his lips.

“It’s just a dream,” I said, shaking the cobwebs from my head.

“It is never
just
a dream. Dreams are the mind’s way of making sense of things, working out problems as we sleep. Sleep is the one time all the barriers come down for the human mind, allowing it to think creatively.”

“What problem does that solve?”

Chanter shrugged.

I touched my palms to my forehead, wiping away some sweat.
Dammit, I’m too rusty for something this big.

I sighed. “After that, I’m not going back to sleep.”

“Well, then,” said Chanter, putting a sleeping Leo back in his crib. “We’d best find something to do, you and I. How are you at poker?”

I groaned and pulled myself out of the chair. “I’ll go put the coffee on,” I offered and went out into the kitchen in search of caffeine and playing cards.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

We played cards until dawn. As the first rays of sunlight hit the kitchen floor, Ed burst through the door, half dressed and looking green, his hair all disheveled. He bolted for the bathroom where he threw up loudly. Half a beat later, Valentino came into the kitchen in his sweatpants holding two rabbits by the ears. He tossed the rabbits into the sink with a loud thud and muttered, “Damn pussy.”

“Valentino,” Chanter said in a warning tone.

“What? He was playing with a cat, Chanter. A fucking
cat
.”

I tried to contain myself. “You didn’t…hurt it, did you?”

Valentino turned around, a look of utter disgust on his face. “I’m a werewolf,
gringa
, not a fucking monster. No, I just scared it off and made it clear I expected him to contribute.” He held up the smaller of the two rabbits and beamed. “Ed got this one.”

He was still holding the rabbit up when Daphne stormed in. She toppled two chairs coming across the kitchen after Valentino to growl in his face. He shoved her away. She continued growling and backing toward the bathroom. The two didn’t exchange any words, but the meaning was clear enough. She didn’t approve of how hard Valentino had pushed her brother. Ed had grown a spine over the last few months, but he was still as meek and gentle as ever. Killing game didn’t come naturally to him like it did to Valentino.

Chanter sighed and collected the cards from the table. “Valentino, people are not made of clay. They can’t be molded to fit whatever vision you have of who they should be.”

Valentino didn’t respond. Instead, he turned around, took up a knife and got busy skinning their kill. My stomach was already turning from my dream earlier and the copious amount of coffee I’d had to drink to stay awake. The sounds of rabbit skinning didn’t help. I stood, collected myself and went outside to check on Creven.

Overnight, Chanter and I took turns changing bandages, adding fluids and checking vitals. He’d been more or less steady all night and, once we got him back to sleep, he showed no signs of waking. At least he was getting some color back. There were no signs of the black veins, either.

I opened up the shed and found Creven sitting up in bed. He waved at me and offered, “Top o’ the mornin’. What’s a fella got to do around here to get a cup of tea?”

“Tea?” I asked raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you think you should stick to clear fluids and a steady, easy diet?”

He shrugged and then immediately hissed with pain. “I missed tea time yesterday. Why not?”

“I’ll see what Sal says when he gets here,” I said, coming over to check his stitches. “He’s in charge.”

“Sal? Is that the big, pretty one with the long hair?”

“That’s him. Lie back down.”

I pushed him and he went without much of a fight. The wound was still holding pretty good and looked like it was healing well. I was surprised most of the redness around the wound had faded to a light pink. When all was said and done, he’d have some nice, new scars. But then, when we stripped him the first time, we found scars aplenty already.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“You mean am I ready to do that again?” He grinned. “Jaysus, I hope not.”

“You held your own pretty well.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, as you Americans say.”

I pulled one of the lawn chairs into the shed and sat down next to Creven. “So, what kind of magick do you do specifically? And how’d you come to work for Kim Kelley in the first place?”

He frowned at me and put his skinny arms behind his head. “Tea. Then interrogation. It’s only polite.”

I looked him over. Even if he wasn’t healed yet, I didn’t see what damage a little tea would do. If Sal didn’t want him to have anything to drink, he should have said so.

“Fine,” I said, standing. “But after the tea, you’ll tell me everything I want to know. I know you know more about this case than you’re letting on.”

Creven drew his lips into a straight line. “Depends on how much
you
know, of course. I might not know anything useful, after all.”

“What do you know about the missing fae at Aisling?” I watched his face for any signs of recognition and found none. His expression went blank. Damn. And I thought Chanter had a good poker face.

“I take my tea with a drop of honey and heavy on the milk. Make sure it’s real milk, too. None of that soy shite you Americans like.”

My eyes twitched as I walked out of the shed. Whether that was because I hadn’t slept more than an hour or because the elf was on the verge of driving me crazy, I couldn’t tell.

As soon as I got to the porch, an old engine groaned and Chanter’s truck, which Sal had borrowed the night before, complained loudly as Sal pulled it into the driveway. All thoughts I had about tea vanished and I rushed to the passenger side of the truck as fast as my feet would carry me. Hunter was curled up there, an old flannel shirt thrown over him like a blanket.

“How did it go?” I asked Sal as he got out of the truck, shirtless and shoeless. He came and put an arm around me, leading me a little way away from the truck to talk. “What happened?” I asked, a little panic creeping into my voice.

“Nothing. Hunter’s just sleeping. Gives us a minute to talk about next steps,” said Sal, putting his hands on his hips. “The kid’s been through some shit, Judah. No two ways about it. He’s going to have to start dealing with it. You, too.”

“Me?” I frowned at Sal. “What do you mean?”

He wiped a hand over his face. “Alex.” I shook my head and turned away. Sal grabbed my arm and didn’t let me. “I’m serious,” he added.

“Hunter never knew Alex. He was gone before Hunter was ever born. He’s not picking fights with kids at school because of his father.”

“I think I know a thing or two about absent fathers, Judah.”

I jerked my arm away from Sal. “He isn’t absent. He’s dead. I watched him die.”

“That’s what I mean. Alex may have passed on but you’re both still haunted by his ghost. Same as I feel about Zoe. The difference is, I’ve dealt with that shit. You two can’t just ignore it and pretend like he didn’t exist.”

“What do you want me to do? Drive all the way across the country and stand over a granite headstone and tell him to have a good cry?”

Sal shook his head slowly. “No. But the boy needs to know where he came from to know where he’s going. You should talk to him about Alex. It would do you both good, I think.”

“I don’t think a dead man is what’s keeping my son and I apart.”

Sal was quiet for a minute, glancing back at the truck. “A dead child tore apart my marriage, Judah. Sent Zoe straight into LeDuc’s arms because I didn’t know how to put her back together again. There’s nothing in the world like death to drive a wedge between two people who love each other. It makes a valley into a void. Meet the kid halfway across.” He nodded, as if that were the end of it, and walked toward the front door.

“And if he doesn’t want to talk?” I called after him. “What then?”

Sal didn’t pause until he reached the front door. Then, he turned tired eyes on me and said, “Then you talk. I’m tired, Judah. I’ll swing by your place later. We’ll talk then.” He pulled the door open and went inside.

I stood out on the steps for another minute before going to the truck and pulling open the passenger side door. Hunter’s eyes fluttered open. He yawned and pushed the shirt covering him aside.

“Hey, kiddo,” I said. “Go on inside and see if a little caffeine doesn’t perk you up. I’ll drop you off at school.”

He blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Uh…sure.”

Hunter pulled himself out of the truck and shambled on inside with me on his heels. Nina was at the kitchen table, sipping some coffee. Leo pushed some cereal around on his tray while he sat in his booster seat at the table. Hunter went straight for the coffee pot while Nina eyed him.

“Juba,” Leo exclaimed and offered me a high-five.

“Hey, champ.” I gave him a high five. “You got any tea, Nina?”

“Top shelf about halfway back,” she answered.

“Great. How about honey?”

Her answer was a deep frown. “Since when do you drink tea?”

“It’s for the elf. He’s awake. Be a doll and let Chanter know, would you? I’ve got to drop Hunter off at school and get to work in…” I checked the clock on the stove. “Shit, less than an hour.”

“Language!”

“Sorry. Forgot.”

I pulled down the tea, tossed a baggie in a plastic sippy cup I found, gave it some hot water and a splash of milk before screwing the top on and rushing back out the door. I almost tripped coming down the walkway. In less than an hour, I had to present myself to a new partner, one of my superiors. It was bad enough I hadn’t slept more than a few minutes. There was no way I was going to show up in yesterday’s clothes. I needed to run home and change. Hunter could change, too, and we’d be out the door. Since my car was still sitting at the gates of the Kelley estate, I’d need to borrow a vehicle and…

My thoughts trailed off as I came to the shed doors and didn’t see Creven sitting there. With a curse, I dropped the sippy cup and proceeded to search the shed only to come up empty. When I searched the cot, the only thing I found were discarded bloody dressings and a crudely drawn face on a sheet of paper with pointy ears, the tongue sticking out.