Lore vs. The Summoning (24 page)

I didn't but it wouldn't help her story if I refuted it. "I get your point," I replied with a half smile. "Anything else you can think of that can help me?"

"Just that you need to watch that Fire witch. There's a rumor that she's into some bad, bad stuff." Talise hesitated as if she were considering whether or not to say something else. Then she came right out with it, "She might be the one you're looking for."

I allowed a nod. "At this point every single person I meet is a suspect. Even you."

Talise snorted loudly, "I would never have told a Water witch to try to drown you with a fire hydrant. That's just plain tacky."

"People do tacky, stupid things when they're desperate." I glanced out the window in an effort to figure out how far we'd gone. "So, any chance you can drop me at the T or in front of a cabbie?"

Her eyebrows lifted high on her eerily blue forehead. "You're going to ride the T in that?"

"Sure." My lips spread into a grin. "Maybe I'll get a few phone numbers."

"We'll drop you off a few blocks from the club," she offered.

"Thanks." I didn't hide my relief. "That will save me some effort."

"It's the least I can do for what you did."

I got that worried feeling in the pit of my stomach that came when I knew I shouldn't have done something. But there was nothing to be done about it now. So I nodded mutely and then impatiently waited to be let out.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I didn't understand why I was doing it. But I did it anyway. It was a parallel for whatever relationship we had.

Oscar answered Morrígan's phone. He made a rapid excuse for "her holiness". It was some half garbled concoction that was halfway between "she's busy" and "she has more important things to do than speak with you". And then he promptly hung up on me without taking my message. I'd definitely pissed her off. It shouldn't bother me, but it did.

Then she called me back.

I'd been merging onto the freeway to head back to the brownstone for a change of clothing when my phone rang. The distraction of the surprisingly busy interstate had me answering without checking the read out for the caller ID.
 

"Hello?"

Her contralto voice was piped directly into my ear in all its irritated husky glory. "You rang."

I couldn't remember the line I'd rehearsed now that she'd fouled me up with a call back. "I was calling to tell you that I'm in the car, my car, not with the Water witch, and that I'm going home...alone."

"And you are telling me this..."

Damn. Good question, even though, as usual, Morrígan hadn't worded it like one. I replied with the truth. "I thought you'd be curious to know."

"You thought I would be curious," she echoed coolly.

I pushed a loud breath of air out of my mouth. Okay. Maybe I'd read her all wrong.
 

"All right. So you're not curious." My embarrassment at being so very wrong made me get snippy. "I'm sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing. You should tell Oscar not to hang up on me next time because I could have just given him the message and saved us all the fucking trouble."

She inhaled through her nose quickly enough that I heard it over the phone. "He was reacting to my mood. It is, to say the least, not good."

I didn't know what I was supposed to say to that so I opted for the easy answer: none.

"This was all you meant to tell me."

The almost hesitant way she said it made me think she was hoping I had more to add. But I didn't. What had been said was awkward enough. "Yes."

"Then perhaps you would like to know the chant Megan was speaking in the tank was a prayer for protection against water. I wish you a good evening." And then she hung up on me.

I stared at the car in front of me in confusion. What the hell? Had I been so wrong? That jealous lover act she'd been putting on wasn't real?
 

Oh, why did I care?

My thoughts were a tumult that made it difficult to concentrate on the road. It might have been why I hadn't noticed the black SUV with tinted windows careening toward me. I narrowly avoided a sideswipe with it by gunning the engine.

The SUV pulled in behind me only to weave around to the other side for another go at my side mirror. That wasn't a one-time drunken fluke. These people had actually tried to
hit
me!
 

I crazily signaled before shooting over into the far lane (seriously, what kind of idiot stops to signal in a high speed chase). It had been a bad move because my pursuers merely edged over to force me toward the cement wall lining the right hand side of the interstate. I let out a startled yelp as my passenger mirror was nearly nicked off by a mile marker sign.
 

High-speed car duels weren't my thing. I was strictly a gun and hands-on kind of gal. I had to find a way out of this.

The bastard, whoever it was, slammed into the side of my beautiful Mini Cooper. I screamed in surprised outrage, knowing my gleaming British racing green paint was definitely scraped. At least they'd narrowly missed my side mirror with the custom union jack cover.
 

The crazed driver righted themselves long enough to go around someone ahead of them. Minutes later I fought to avoid the SUV once again. I knew if I didn't come up with a way to either disable them or get myself away I'd earn more than a paint scrape. I loved my car. How dare they fuck with me? And on I-90!

A potential answer hit me. I hit the clutch, slammed the thing into sixth gear, and revved the engine, ignoring the spiking tachometer. It was enough of a boost that the SUV fell behind. They didn't have enough power to keep up with me. I was guessing there was probably more than one person in the vehicle and that they were probably far larger than I was.

I weaved in and out of traffic, hoping that I could lose my pursuer within it. It occurred to me that I should be afraid of cops perhaps more than the guys behind me. Cops could toss me in jail and there'd be nothing I could do about it. I'd worry about that later if I had to.

Too quickly the assholes in the SUV built speed until they were nearing my fender. I'd only just passed the ninety mark on my gigantic speedometer. Bravely, or stupidly, I pushed it further and pulled into the far left lane where there was a long stretch of bystander-free road for a half mile. The SUV pulled in just behind me to do a splendid job of tailing me even after I'd past one hundred miles an hour.

Sweat poured down my face as we entered the tunnel under the Prudential Center. I wasn't sure I could pull this off without killing someone, probably myself. My fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the muscles hurt.

At the absolute last minute I twisted the wheel and shot over into the far right lane to take exit twenty-two off the interstate. The SUV tried to get over but was stopped by the barrier of a utility van. There was much squealing of tires, horn honking and perhaps some metal on metal. I'd been too busy slamming my foot down on the brake and clutch pedals while furiously downshifting to know if they'd hit anyone.

As soon as I was able, I sped out over Huntington and took the first left I could find. If the SUV managed to get off the interstate I wanted to at the very least be out of sight. I drove down the next largest street for a mile until I found an open roadside parking space. With a quick turn of the steering wheel I coasted in and immediately turned the car off.

My heart slammed into the wall of my chest as I gasped for breath. This was getting out of hand. I didn't mind fighting these bastards in their own buildings and in Underground locations, but out in the middle of the city...in cars...where innocent people could get caught in the crossfire...that was hard on me.
 

But it was clear now that someone was trying to kill me. It shouldn't surprise me considering I'd dispatched six of their guys to the afterlife, freed their captive women and poked my nose where they probably thought it didn't belong. But it did surprise me. I'd gotten along fine until now by keeping a low profile.
 

It was difficult for the big bad guys to look at me, a puny female, and consider her a formidable opponent. I suspected that was part of the reason why the reports of the Black Death's appearance were so greatly varied. No one wanted to believe that a five foot six plump woman had killed the mighty Marco. How long would I last now that they were closing in on my identity?

This was ridiculous. Some asshole had taken my apartment from me, ruined the majority of my stuff, scraped the hell out of my precious car and had tried to kill me multiple times. I was going to figure out who was behind this and stop them if it killed me. But not before I killed them first.

I was smelly, groggy and light-headed when the pounding on the lobby doors woke me. But I wasn't too dazed to forget my pistol. It was nestled beside my thigh as I crept forward to see who'd dared wake me.

Out the glass I saw a guy squinting in sunlight with his hand over his eye as he tried to peer in. He had a large box in his hands that was too thick to be pizza but too wide to be a gun. What would a delivery guy be doing here at the brownstone?

I unlocked the inner doors and considered leaving the outer doors locked for security purposes when I realized the glass between us wasn't going to keep me safe from anything important. In any case he was smart enough to stand back. Now that I was a good deal closer I could tell he wasn't a guy at all, he was little more than a kid with a driver's license. There was a slightly fearful look to him as if he'd been warned about me. Then again, it might be because he'd spotted the gun in my hand.

"Um," he stuttered in a cracking youthful voice. "Are you Miss Denham?"

My teeth immediately set. Aiden had sent this punk to me. "Why?"

"I have a delivery for a Miss Denham. Is that you?" He gave me a skeptical look as if to say he didn't think I was her. I wondered what Aiden had told him.

Unwilling to admit that I was this Miss Denham I asked, "What kind of delivery?"

"Are you her?"

He was frustrated but I was pissed. My irritation trumped everything today. "Look, kid, I'm not going to answer anything you ask until you tell me why you're here."

"Geez!" He tugged up the box as if he'd tried to throw his hands up angrily. "Fine! It's a bunch of stupid clothes! Have a fucking cow!" The kid's face went sheet white. "Omigod, I mean...oh shit, don't shoot me, lady!"

My lips lifted into a grin. "Tell whoever sent you that I don't want 'a bunch of stupid clothes'."

His head shook fearfully. "You're scary, but he's scarier. Shit, please don't tell him I called them stupid clothes."

I'd never thought Aiden was particularly scary before, well, except that one time when he'd looked like he'd wanted to tear out the Alpha's throat. But he hadn't looked at this kid that way, had he? Hmm, that was something to consider another time. "I won't so long as you take them away from here."

"He said you'd refuse them," the kid grumbled. "And that I was supposed to tell you that you need these to finish the job you agreed to."

"I didn't agree..."

He interrupted me before I could get the rest of it out, "He also said you'd say you hadn't agreed to any job. I'm supposed to tell you that I'll be standing out here singing country as loud as I can until you take them."

"Country?" The bridge of my nose crinkled in disgust. "Did he say country or did you come up with that?"

"He said country."

"That rat bastard." I snarled a few more choice words. Somehow Aiden knew I despised country music with a passion. "Fine, bring the stupid things inside and then get the hell out of here."

I stepped out of the way to let him stumble in. He looked around for someplace to set his big box, ultimately setting it on a table on the edge of the lobby. Unfortunately the box hadn't been all he'd brought. There were several high-end department store bags, smaller boxes that might have been for shoes, and a thick black garment bag. My irritation grew with each item that passed through the glass doors.

"That's it," the kid announced with an uneasy look leveled at me.

I made a gesture toward the door so he knew he could leave without my shooting him. He didn't wait for verification before rushing out. I heard the tires on his beat-up Nissan peel out of the parking lot a minute later.

My fingers went to my mouth so that I could gnaw on my nails. I was damn curious what Aiden had sent me. But I wanted to be able to tell him I hadn't bothered looking at anything and I didn't want to have to lie.
 

I forced myself to walk by the packages to the leather couch. There was no way I was going to be able to go back to sleep now that I'd been so rudely awakened. After several minutes of staring at the rug I got up to load the gifts into my Mini. The plan was to get a hotel room so that I could shower and perhaps catch a bit of shuteye on a comfortable bed that didn't smell strange. Then I was going to deposit the whole slew of boxes and bags on Aiden's front porch.
 

I was conscious of every car, truck and utility vehicle on the road during the trip downtown but thankfully none were more aggressive than a typical Masshole driver. At the Hilton's counter I waited to see what room rate they could give me before breaking into the sob story about how I was with the symphony and how my apartment was flooded in a freak accident. They shaved fifty dollars off the price and supposedly upgraded it to a nicer room.
 

It wasn't a bad room, but suite it was not and I wasn't sure it was worth the hundred and fifty dollars they were charging me. I dropped my purse on the floor beside the lushly appointed king-sized bed and immediately tossed off the tank top and pants I'd worn "to bed".
 
A half hour later I was squeaky clean, blow-dried and crawling beneath the sheets of the king-sized bed.

Nothing interrupted my snooze this time. It was a little unfortunate because I didn't wake until nearly one in the morning. With only a handful of days until the sabbath I needed my nights free to track down the culprit before they unleashed unholy havoc on our city.