Fury’s Kiss (7 page)

“Don’t shoot me,” my assailant gasped. I might have felt some sympathy for him if he hadn’t just tried to kill me.

I’d never handled a gun before and didn’t know what to do with it or how to make sure I didn’t shoot myself, much less him, so I set it on the TV stand behind me. Then I hit the power button on the television and turned the volume up loud. Hopefully, anyone in a neighboring room would think our struggle had all been part of the program.

I grabbed the guy under the arms and dragged him a few steps toward the bathroom, but his feet found purchase on the floor and he twisted in my grip to throw his arms around me in a bear hug. He slammed me into the wall, knocking down a generic watercolor landscape, so I head-butted him and shoved him off of me. The blow was plenty hard enough to daze him, and I gave him a push that sent him sprawling backward into the cheap fake-wood nightstand. Predictably, it collapsed.

Between the broken furniture and the blood everywhere, there was no way the guy was going to see his deposit again.

I hauled him to his feet a second time and backhanded him so he wouldn’t get any more bright ideas, then dragged him into the bathroom. I kicked the door shut behind me and flipped the switch to turn on the fan, then turned the cold water on full blast and shoved his head under the faucet. I didn’t know if it would do anything for the effects of pepper spray or not, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. And even if it did nothing to help the guy, I was getting a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing him gasp and gurgle under the frigid stream.

After he was in better control of his breathing and the orange smears around his eyes had been washed off, I let him up. I flipped the toilet lid down and sat him on it, then faced him with my back to the door so it was clear he’d have to go through me if he wanted to get out.

“So you don’t know anything about what happened at Spyder’s last night, huh? Lie to me again and I’ll make you wish you were dead.” I didn’t really plan to torture the slob, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Who
are
you?” he panted. I almost said ‘your worst nightmare’ in my best Batman voice, but stopped myself just in time.

“Never mind who I am. You just
shot
at me. What the fuck?”

“What the fuck yourself. My buddy picked you up at a bar and wound up dead. That’s some black widow shit.”

So he’d known who I was all along. I’d have to work on my disguises.

“Your buddy deserved it,” I said. “He tried to rape me.”

“I saw you last night,” he sneered at me. “Don’t pretend you didn’t want it. You know what they say—you can’t rape the willing.”

I smacked him. Hard.

My hair slithered under my ball cap in answer to my agitation, and the man’s eyes widened. It was terrifying enough when my hair was loose and doing its thing, but confined under the cap, it must have looked like something had burrowed into my skull and now wanted out. Wetness dripped down my cheeks and I reached up to swipe at the moisture under my eyes. When I looked down at my fingertips, they were red.

My breath caught in my throat and I hesitated. Nora’s prediction was coming true—I was crying blood. But what could I do about it? I was in too deep to leave now.

I pulled the hat off and dropped it on the floor, then pulled out the elastic confining my hair in a tight ballerina’s bun. Pleased with their freedom, the strands danced in a corona around my head and shoulders.

“You can’t rape the willing, huh?” I turned my attention back to Miller’s buddy. “You’re on dangerous ground. Now—who are you and what do you know about me? And why did you shoot at me?”

He looked at me, mouth working like a fish out of water.

“What, did you not understand the first time I backhanded you?” I demanded. “Answers, now!”

I raised my hand threateningly, but he just stammered, snappy comebacks forgotten in his terror. I grabbed a water glass off a paper coaster next to the sink and filled it from the tap, then shoved the glass at him.

“Here. Drink.” I was pleased with my ability to strike fear into his heart, but I wasn’t going to find out anything if the trigger-happy fool couldn’t get a word out.

He drank.

“Now talk,” I ordered.

He coughed a few more times, but managed to speak. “I didn’t think nothin’ of it when Clint didn’t come back to the bar last night,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Just figured he picked you up and got lucky, went home with you. First I knew something happened to him was when I saw the paper this morning.”

“OK, so you saw the paper and then I showed up. That doesn’t explain why you jumped right to shooting at me.”

“I saw it was you through the peephole, so I shoved the newspaper under the bed so you wouldn’t know I knew, and grabbed my gun. I recognized you from last night and figured you musta had something to do with Clint.”

“And you didn’t think you should ask a few questions before you started shooting?”

“Lady, you killed my buddy, then showed up looking for me. What the hell kind of questions was I gonna ask you? I figured I’d let you in, see what you wanted, and make a citizen’s arrest or something.”

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, sure that’s what he’d intended. “You’re a real hero. What are you doing holed up in a motel room with a gun?”

“I do construction for DeVille. They got us working on that new hospital they’re putting up outside of town.” He took a messy gulp of water and spilled half of it down his front. “Even if I hadn’t recognized you right off,” he added, “I’d have known your story was fake when you said you had the room next door. This is where the company puts us up while we’re on the job. The whole place is full of DeVille guys.”

I made a note to work on my reconnaissance skills. “So what’s the gun for if you’re here doing construction?”

“Protection. Can’t be too careful when you’re on the road between jobs.”

Liar,
Alecto hissed. There was no way anyone in their right mind would have shot at me for asking a few questions. Any normal person would have just let me leave and then called the cops. Aside from that, he didn’t seem to be too broken up over the death of his buddy.

“You’re lying,” I said. “Try again.”

He licked his lips and his eyes darted sideways toward the sink, telegraphing his next movement. I reached for him, but he shattered the glass he held before I could react. Shards flew in all directions, but he managed to keep a solid grip on a nice, sharp chunk. He lunged at me and stabbed at my face while blood ran between his fingers and down his wrist.

Before he could jam the glass into my eye, I snapped my hand out and grabbed him by the wrist mid-thrust. I squeezed hard so he would drop the glass, but before I knew what was happening, I felt small bones shatter under my grip. I dropped his wrist like it was on fire and recoiled, horrified.

But there was no time to get squeamish about accidentally maiming the man. He’d begun to scream and I grabbed him by the throat, desperate to keep him quiet.

Let us kill him and be gone from here before the CSI happens,
Alecto said.
We clearly had some work to do on her understanding of the twenty-first century.

The CSI happens after we leave,
I told her.
That’s the problem.

Kill him,
she urged again.

I shook my head as I looked around at the mess of blood and glass. Talk about a one-track mind. But, God, what was I going to do now?

On one hand, it made sense to kill the guy, deal with the scene as best I could, and leave. After all, he’d tried to kill me, and he was the only real link between me and Clinton Miller. Getting rid of him would make me feel a hell of a lot safer. Besides, who was to say he didn’t deserve whatever I did to him?

On the other hand…I’d never been a believer in the death penalty. And I was pretty sure the line between good guys and bad guys was drawn clearly on the side of not killing people. I could legitimately tell myself the first death I’d caused had been self-defense, but this time?

If I killed this guy, it would be a conscious decision to take a human life.

Kill,
Alecto whispered again.

Her voice was persistent, persuasive. But this wasn’t like the night before, when I hadn’t realized what was happening. My actions were my own, no matter how much she whispered in my ear. Whatever I did to this guy, I couldn’t blame it on her.

I looked at my blood-smeared reflection in the mirror over the sink, then down at the man I held at arm’s length, and made a choice.

Whoever Tara Walker had been before last night, things were different now. I was a Fury and my instincts screamed at me to kill.

I pulled the man close and breathed in.

Chapter 5

A few seconds later, I stood over an unconscious but still breathing body with my hair in a tangled, matted mess around my head. Unsatisfied, Alecto had retreated, though I could still sense her coiled up in the back of my mind.

Kill him,
she hissed at me.
He deserves death.

No,
I thought at her firmly.
There’s more to you—to us—than instinct. I can feel it.
The bloodlust that sang to me when I looked at the man was seductive, but it was wrong. Killing people was wrong.

I opened and closed my fists, remembering the surge of strength that had come when I’d sucked the air out of the man slumped on the toilet. I’d taken enough energy from him to knock him out cold, and it hummed pleasantly through my muscles as I cocked my head and listened for noise in the adjoining rooms. After a few careful minutes of intense, active listening, I relaxed and concluded no one was coming to investigate.

I stepped over to my unconscious attacker, careful to avoid the glass littering the linoleum floor, and picked him up. My muscles tensed with the strain of carrying a full-grown man like a child, but the energy I’d sucked from him sustained me until I could set him down in the tub, out of my way. I checked the wound on my arm and saw it had stopped bleeding already, mostly healed by the energy I’d stolen, so I untied the strip of T-shirt wrapped around it and stuffed it in my pocket.

Then I grabbed a washcloth to use as a gag and studied the man’s destroyed wrist. It was a mess, but he would survive. Mindful of the bones I’d crushed, I decided not to make things worse by tying his wrists together. The last thing I needed was his screams of pain echoing through the motel when he woke up.

I walked over to the mirror and grabbed a towel from the rack on the wall. After blinking the protective covering over my eyes out of the way, I wet the towel in the sink and used it to wipe the blood off my face and neck, following bloody trails from the corners of my eyes to my jaw line while I thought about what to do next. Obviously, the man in the bathtub was hiding something. It made no sense that he’d gone after me with the glass instead of just answering my questions when it became clear I had the upper hand. I drummed my fingers against the cool porcelain of the sink, thinking. I’d have to interrogate him when he woke up, but in the meantime, I would search the room for clues.

I finished wiping my face and neck, then cleaned off my arm and blotted the blood from my T-shirt as best as I could. I didn’t bother with my jeans—the dark denim masked the stain well enough—and I walked into the other room to begin my search, leaving the bathroom door open so I’d hear the guy when he woke up. I wrinkled my nose at the cut-onion, peppery smell in the room and opened a window to let in some fresh air. I was nervous at the thought that my hostage might wake up and make enough noise to attract attention, but I had no choice. I had no idea how long he would take to revive, and I was stuck in the motel room with him until he did.

After a few minutes, the air was noticeably clearer and the headache that had been building between my eyes lessened. I moved quickly as I searched the room, pulling out dresser drawers and looking under the bed. The newspaper he’d mentioned was there, but nothing else. I moved on to clothing, feeling pockets, the lining of his coat, and even the toes of his work boots, though I was loath to stick my hand inside. Nothing turned up and I felt ridiculous going through the motions of my futile search, like I was playing at cops and robbers, but I fished around under the mattress anyway. I even looked between the pages of the New Testament I found in the wreckage of the nightstand. But still, nothing. The more I searched, the more stupid I felt.

What had I expected? This wasn’t a Jason Bourne movie. Maybe the guy really was what he claimed to be—a redneck asshole who was a little too into his right to bear arms. I crossed my arms in frustration as I stood in the middle of the room and looked around.

My gaze fell on the framed print that had been knocked off the wall in the scuffle and I picked it up to hang it back on the wall. It was a futile gesture, but it felt good to restore some order to the room. I turned it over to locate the hangers on the back of the frame, then froze.

There was a slim manila envelope taped to the back.

I tore it off the frame’s cardboard backing and let the print fall forgotten to the floor. I flipped the envelope over, but there was no label and nothing written on it anywhere. I lifted the flap and slid out the contents.

Huh. I raised my eyebrows. High definition surveillance photos, shot against the familiar backdrop of Hawthorne. But there didn’t seem to be anything worth photographing in them. I could make out the form of a woman, shot from a distance, but the photos had been taken in public places and didn’t depict anything suspicious or blackmail-worthy. Aside from that, the focus was so fuzzy you couldn’t even tell who she was. Whoever had taken the pictures was obviously not a professional.