When I finally believe I can speak without screaming, I sit on the couch next to her and ask, “Sweetie, did the man who took you ask you to do that?”
She nods again. “He told me to swap people and then I could go back to my Aunt Melody again.”
My breath hitches out of me at the name.
I know an Aunt Melody with a child's crayon drawings taped up on her office walls, one who would be in a prime position for John to discover and covet and take.
The morgue. He took the morgue director's niece.
I get to my feet with a quick glance at Nate and Hazel, both of whom appear to be as angry and frustrated with the whole situation as I am. I could just go back to the bathroom, take my shower, style my hair and wind down until I'm not a bundle of frayed angry nerves anymore. It would do me good, I'll bet.
But I can't. Not really. Not until I know where we stand.
“Are you going to be all right?” I ask, almost as an afterthought.
Nate speaks before Sierra can answer. “I've got her, peaches.”
Sufficiently satisfied, I grab a trio of pens from the side table, twist my hair up and jam a pair of ballpoints through the bun. Then I huff out my breath, pulling off the pen cap of the last pen with my teeth.
So much for my sabbatical. I've got a villain to defeat.
23.
It takes a while for my powers to return, which leaves us all waiting in a mournful silence. A quick shower and a hasty sweeping of my hair into a still-damp updo later, I duck into my bedroom to change into a black silk wiggle dress and a pair of black slingbacks. I suppose there are more sensible clothes to wear to a fight to the death, but I certainly won't find them in my closet.
Quite frankly, this is as professional as I get.
Instead of dwelling on Troy's demise, I focus on writing down everything I know about John Camden and his plans, whatever they might be in the long run, and what they appear to be in the now, while behind me a slow flurry of activity simmers. I zone out with such desperate fixation that I even manage to ignore the SLB disposal unit as they remove Troy's body and disinfect the living room so well you'd never guess someone just died there.
Before long I'm drawn out of my numb reverie by the enticing scent of Chinese food.
By the time I emerge from my concentrated daze, most of the Chinese food is long gone. Everyone else sits around the kitchen table, holding court over a small cluttered village of soy-stained cardboard containers and plastic tubs slick with leftover broth. Sierra pokes her sleepy way through a plate of chicken and broccoli, surprisingly eating more of the broccoli than the chicken. Nate digs through the quart of lobster lo mein in his hand, while Hazel occasionally pops a forkful of plain white rice into her mouth.
Hazel pitches me a lukewarm egg roll that I catch in one-handed.
“What did I miss?” I ask, right before taking a healthy bite of the egg roll. “Other than everyone ordering dinner during an emergency.”
Nate shrugs. “A man's gotta eat, peaches,” he says. “Little girls do, too.”
I glance over at Sierra, who chews a mouthful of broccoli as she pokes at the rest of her meal with a plastic fork. It strikes me that I never even asked if she was hungry, what she subsisted on in that little room in Morris's lair. Did he order her Chinese food or bring in burgers and fries? Or did he even care enough to supply her with something to eat?
Nate clears his throat, and I jerk my gaze away from Sierra before she notices. He gets to his feet to move closer to me, his hand digging for something in the pocket of his jeans, and I narrow my eyes suspiciously as he approaches.
“Got you a little something,” Nate says, his voice low. “Requested it from the SLB team while you were washing me right out of your hair, so to speak.”
He slips me a small round plastic cylinder, so warm and lightweight in my palm I barely register it's there. I nearly give it a surreptitious glance to identify what he could possibly have given me, but his grip tightens around my wrist, a silent warning. “Now, don't go saying I never gave you nothing for Christmas,” he murmurs. “That's a good five Christmases right there, and more besides, so you better not be expecting any flatscreen TVs or anything from me.”
It takes me a moment to realize what he must have handed me. My wide eyes lock onto the syringe inside the cylinder. Immortal blood is potent and diligent, a precious commodity. The price of immortal blood is high. A few drops will cure your cancer or fix your bones.
Immortals can't simply dispense blood like walking kegs of magical healing juice. They have just as much bodily autonomy as the next jerk off the street, but preserving that right means regulating their use of that blood in return. I've never met an immortal who argued against the laws the SLB helped establish to keep them safe, to prevent them from being used as lab rats.
They're allowed the occasional lapse, though. When I say “occasional,” I don't mean every few months or so. Most immortals go for centuries without donating to another person. As far as I know, Nate's never shared his blood with anyone.
“I thought you were only allowed one,” I whisper.
His expression is light and yet inscrutable. I feel as though I'm trying to watch a play behind his eyes, but the curtains are firmly shut. “I asked if I could use it on Troy,” he says. “They declined. Said the little bastard had a DNR.”
I smile wryly. For normal people, a DNR requests no resuscitation in a medical emergency. For heroes, it means no raising us from the dead, no matter what the circumstances of our untimely demise. As much as I wish they would have allowed Nate to donate his blood to Troy, we both understand why he would choose death over a quickie resurrection.
“They let me have it anyway, though,” Nate says. He keeps his voice low, and I wonder if he genuinely thinks Hazel might want her own vial of immortal blood. I doubted it. Hazel would probably donate it to a children's cancer ward or something. “That lady in charge checked with the powers that be in the precognition department, and the next thing I know they're jabbing a needle in my arm and telling me it's mine to do as I see fit.”
“I can't take this,” I say, trying to push it back into his hand but failing as he deftly escapes me. “Nate, this is too much.”
“No, it ain't. It's just enough.”
“Just enough for what?”
He grimaces, a quick flash of guilt shadowing his eyes before it clears away like a thinned fog in a stiff breeze. “Aw, hell, Vera, you know exactly what it's for. You just ain't all that keen on saying it out loud.”
“Apparently neither are you,” I tease.
We look at each other then, clear and steady, and we both smile as one.
I sigh, though, as I slip the cylinder in the only safe place I have to stash anything in a dress this tight, tucking it into my cleavage without shame. “I don't think it'll come to that,” I say. It's more of a hope than a thought, really. I've already died once today. Twice just might be pushing my luck.
Nate's smile is wry and a bit sad, and he reaches out to cup my cheek. His thumb skims a quick blink-and-you-miss-it path over my lips, and the pad comes away reddened with Cherry Jubilee lipstick rather than the hint of his blood that stained them only a few short hours ago. “It already has come to that, hasn't it?” he says. “If he ain't above killing Morris Kemp, I doubt he'll stop at little old you.”
I hesitate to point out that it'll be awfully difficult for me to inject myself with his blood if I'm dead, but I imagine it's labeled nice and neat, a blatant warning to anyone who finds my bloated corpse this time around.
If found, poke with this.
I giggle in spite of myself, saucy and wicked.
“So what next?” Hazel murmurs. She stares in curiosity at me as she absently stirs her rice around the plate.
“I take Sierra back to her aunt.” The little girl perks up at that, and I flash her a comforting smile. “After that … we'll see.”
“So you're going in without a plan, then?”
I can't help but laugh at Nate's question. “Is there any other way?” Summoning up my steadily growing courage, I clear my throat and call over his shoulder. “Sierra, you want to go home?”
Sierra's eyes widen, the fork falling out of her hand, and her smile brightens the room like the sun coming out after a hurricane. “Really?”
I nod, and she practically bolts from the chair so fast it nearly tumbles to the floor.
Her hand tucks into mine, tugging at me as she tries to lead me towards the front door I don't need to use. I shoot Nate a concerned look. I could ask him to come with me, I suppose, but this whole mess has already done enough damage to his life. I'd hate to think just how much more complicated things could become. With everything snowballing into more and more disastrous territory with every passing hour, the more people I involve, the more sloppy things will become for me and mine in the long run. “You staying here?”
Nate spots my train of thought the same way he always used to. “Don't you worry,” he says. “I'll hold down the fort but good on this end.”
Behind him, Hazel finishes off her white rice, surreptitiously giving us a concerned glance.
It makes me feel better than I should, that Nate's staying behind. But it does leave me without backup, an unsettling thought which spawns an irritating idea.
Tightening my grip on Sierra's small hand, I ask, “You ready to go?”
She beams up at me and pulls at my arm again, drawing me towards the only exit she knows.
Before I can question the relative intelligence of recruiting the closest thing I have to an ally in this whole affair, I teleport to my brother's apartment.
I land with Sierra in the cluttered hallway of an eternally trendy loft apartment complex I haven't visited in years. If the scattered contents of the hall are any indication, Graham's home hasn't changed much. It's still a cheerful enclave for starry-eyed young artists splitting precious rent control and the sort of married Lord and Cape graduates who dress their kindergartner in festive autumn knits before walking them to their first day of school at the Superkids Fly High Day School around the block. Lord only knows how Graham ever landed a spot in the building, or why a confirmed bachelor and unapologetic jock would have even kept it.
But stay he did, and here I am now, giving the door a sharp rap.
I figure I'll be waiting a while. Expecting Graham to be out somewhere bursting with beer and draped half-asleep over a Hooters waitress isn't much of a stretch given his track record.
Sierra tugs on my hand. “This isn't my house,” she says quietly.
“I know,” I said, giving her my friendliest smile. “I need to pick something up first.”
She bites her bottom lip and nods, but she ducks behind my legs just the same, hiding herself from view.
The door to Graham's apartment cracks open, revealing a pair of very familiar serious brown eyes about three feet lower than I'm used to encountering them.
“Hi,” a sweet male voice says.
For a brief moment, I wonder if I've teleported into the right building.
“Uh, hi,” I reply, lacking a firm enough grasp on the English language right now for a more involved response.
The crack widens, and the boy standing behind it studies me with grave curiosity as he nibbles absently at the skin around one neatly trimmed fingernail. I wish I could imagine my temperamental brother offering to babysit someone else's adorable moppet, but Graham's always been more likely to pawn off a small child in his care on the first person to cross his path who appears to be remotely responsible.
Or so I thought
, I can't help but realize. Somewhere between the tight dark curls and the defined cheekbones still shaded with baby fat, this doesn't exactly appear to be some stranger's child he can just throw in someone else's lap.
“You're in a picture with my daddy,” the boy states.
“Oh, that one,” I say. There aren't a great many genuine photos of Graham and me together, save a single team portrait of the Brigade for which the photographer must have been slipped an obscene wad of cash to arrange us next to one another. As for any photos you might have seen of us partying together in Entertainment Weekly or the pages of Star, let's just say my mom and her need for good public relations are both far too glad for the existence of Photoshop.
I take a deep breath to steady myself for the uncomfortable conversation I can already see coming and ask, “Is your daddy home?”
The little boy chews on his bottom lip as he leans back to peer around the door. After a moment of silent communication, he focuses back on me and declares, “He wants me to say no.”
Huh. I like the kid already.
“That's not surprising,” I stage-whisper, bending closer to him to share, “He doesn't like me,” as though it's some fantastic secret.
“He doesn't like a lot of people.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Does he like you?”
“I'm working on it,” he solemnly informs me.
Graham appears behind him with a long-suffering sigh, resting his enormous hands on the kid's shoulders and making the little boy look even smaller than he already does, a round-faced munchkin cautiously peering out of toddlerhood. “You're a terrible bodyguard,” Graham says to the boy. He refuses to look my way. “Go eat your oatmeal.”
The boy frowns up at him. “It tastes like cement.”
“Oh, yeah? Have you eaten cement?”
“Yes.”
Graham makes a face. From the unsurprised look in his eyes, if that particular declaration is true it wouldn't be the first strange thing he's ingested. “Great, I know what to feed you for lunch now. Go on.”
He steers the kid back toward the kitchen and keeps a sharp eye on his progress, presumably to make sure he doesn't wander off to watch television instead or eat something else he definitely shouldn't. The moment it's clear the boy's out of listening range, Graham's usual demeanor returns, standoffish and a bit tense, but with a surprise side order of resignation. “I didn't invite you here, Vera.”
I shrug. “It's a free hallway.”
Sierra sniffles behind me, and Graham's eyes lower until he spots the little girl peeking out from her hiding spot. “Sierra?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You know her?”
“Yeah, she goes to the day school,” he says. How he knows that particular fact isn't something he needs to expound on considering who answered the door.
Graham shoots me a calculating look, then holds the door open a bit wider. “We've got coloring books,” he offers.