[Marnie Baranuik 02.5] Cold Company (6 page)

The killer had no interest in Harry’s chummy meddling, and the slight tightening of his hand on the gun was enough to tell Harry he was not going to waste time chatting. Just before he fired, Harry’s pale hand slammed the air in front of him, clutching chest-high at an invisible prize. The killer froze, eyes widening as Paula peered up fearfully from her knees to see what was happening.

Harry’s attack was not what I expected – the cobra-strike of a revenant that defied vision, too quick for the eye. Instead, it was a sudden, crisp, military salute. Wes followed suit.

The killer’s eyes went big, but his right hand, compelled by the grip of Harry’s mind control, returned the salute, gun still clutched tightly. The muzzle held steady at his own temple, though his arm shook with the effort to point it anywhere else.

Harry dropped his hand and looked at me, Wes, and finally at Paula, and said, “What shall we do with him?”

“Eighty-six that wannabe tough guy,” was Wesley’s answer, and he aimed his vamped-out laser beams at the killer with a nape-prickling hiss. “Hacking on women? Thinking you’re a monster?” He thumped his chest. “Meet a real monster. Please test me, you sick fuck.”

“He still has both secrets to tell and justice to face,” Harry murmured, a tentative rebuke, and I could tell his mind was not made up. He glanced back up at the killer, who remained still but trying to be anything but. “What did I just say about not liking my control tested? You are in a singularly ill position to make me wroth, you knavish blackguard.”

Sweeping forward, he moved like the hand of Death, the dark curtain of his jacket catching the air. Far more dangerous than Wesley could ever be, Harry’s word would be the deciding one. They were both undead, but Harry had four hundred years of preternatural clout with which to quell my brother's impetuousness.

“In the end, and in all fairness, lad,” Harry said, “the choice is not ours to make.” Harry’s platinum gaze tipped to Paula, who shook her head, not understanding. The killer tried to respond, but all that came out of him was a choking gasp.

“What say you, child?” Harry asked.

I felt Wesley’s surge of frustration. Stalking around to the killer’s back, tilted hat casting his face into further shadow, Wes sucked the saliva off his extended fangs noisily.

Now I heard the police: shuffling in the trees, standard issue boots, the quiet rustle of guns leaving holsters. We were no longer alone. I coughed hard at Wes to remind him not to do anything stupid in front of witnesses, and he shot me a look that I couldn't read, even with the Blue Sense flaring and surging. Fucking complicated revenant angst.

I shook my head at him frantically; whatever it was, just no.

This close to the black heart of a serial killer, Wes’s UnNature was betraying him. Harry’s fangs had extended, and bloodlust churned high in his veins, but the older revenant maintained his cool.

I watched Paula struggle with her decision. Having the control thrust into her hands, she fought the urge to light the fuse of her vengeance. The Blue Sense supplied her warring emotions in a sloshing, frenetic maelstrom, and I didn’t think I could have come to the same conclusion as she did, even knowing that the police were only steps away from making their arrest.

Held captive by the revenant’s powers and at his victim’s mercy, the killer gurgled. Paula barely breathed, “We need him alive.”

Several things happened all at once, and my feet were in motion before I could think. Wesley growled and launched bodily at the killer. Harry switched his control effortlessly from holding the killer in check to backhanding my brother hard enough to send him tumbling backwards, sweeping him out of the air like a badminton player swatting a birdie.

I heard confused shouting as I dove at Paula, covering her with my body as the killer regained control of his gun, giving Harry a precious second to bear down again with his will. I craned to look up at them over my shoulder. The gun dipped, wavered, and returned to the killer's temple. For a moment, the influx of emotions and sensations all around me threatened to overwhelm my wits, and my vision tilted.

Under the repetitious shouting of the police, who quickly took control of the situation, Harry allowed the killer to release the gun. With all the noise and commotion, I must have only imagined I could hear Paula’s sob of relief. Her nightmare was over when his body hit the ground underneath two officers, who made quick work of cuffing him and hauling him to the nearest squad car. The realization that she could begin to heal filled her, and me, with hope. The adrenaline surge was abating, and her hands shook badly as she reached for me almost blindly, needing the comfort of touch.

She frowned up at me. “Who?” she started, but that wasn’t the question she really wanted to ask, and shook her head, turning to look over at Harry and Wes, who were being vigorously questioned by Constable Percy. “How?”

I paused, putting on my gloves, clenching and unclenching my chilly hands. Where to begin? This woman was going to be battling a lot of confusion in the coming days; should I be adding to it? Before I could think of something to say, the ambulance arrived, and the knot in my belly began to relax.

Paula ignored the medics who started collecting around her. “Was there really a dump site picked out?” she asked me.

“In cases like this, there usually is. The good news is: you won’t be seeing it.”

“Thank you.”

I smiled at her. “Once the cops are done asking you a million questions, go someplace warm, and take care of yourself. I hear Negril is nice.”

***

I was shaking Freddy Fryfogle’s hand and waving goodbye to some very tasty-looking officers whose names I didn't manage to catch when a dark-haired woman in a crisp black suit approached like a dive-bombing falcon.

“Marnie Baranuik,” she said, not a question. “Detective Sergeant Malashock, pleasure to meet you.”

“A pleasure?” Yeah, riiiiiight. “You must be new.”

She didn't blink, but I got a whiff of amusement through the Blue Sense. “Am I holding you up?”

“I’m heading home to my espresso machine and have the senior dead guy feed me brownies until my jaws hurt,” I said, “but my flight’s not until ten. Is there something more I can do for you?”

“I feel obliged to offer you an apology,” she said. “I should have warned you that the subject matter of this investigation was especially troubling.”

I tried not to smirk. My life is a whirlwind of monster hunting, demon sock-puppetry, old lady crotch-punches, and flaming zombie goop. One more grim, bizarre case shouldn’t add too many new nightmares. “Don’t sweat it, ma’am. Par for the course.”

“It’s very fortunate that things worked out the way they did.”

I stuffed my gloved hands in my pockets and made an affirmative noise, avoiding the sudden searchlight quality of her gaze. Malashock worked at reading my face, perhaps wishing she could read my mind.

“Can’t interrogate a corpse,” I agreed, keeping my shrug casual, “though frankly I would have preferred to see his skull go kablooey.” To emphasize this, I showed her a vigorous hand-explosion and made wet splurching noises. I thought she appreciated the visual.

Neither of us needed to point out that if Harry or Wes had so much as tweaked the killer's nose, they could be staked. Canadian law might be more lenient about revenant participation in legal investigations, but they were just as hard-edged as their American counterparts when it came to revenant-on-human violence, warranted or not.

We took a moment to watch Paula nodding at the hottest of the EMS guys as he checked her vitals. I considered faking a turned ankle, and Wes made an unhappy noise behind me. The telepathic weenie was cock-blocking me after the day I'd had? Some nerve from a guy whose sex life involved bunny slippers.

“Now that this is all over, is she going to be all right?” Malashock asked.

I thought that “all over” was a stretch; for Paula McKnight, it might never be, and I wouldn't lay long odds on “all right,” but she was a tough cookie. As a cop, Malashock knew that much already. She was looking for mystical answers where I had none.

“Sorry,” I said, showing her my gloved hands, “I’m not that kind of psychic.”

“Well, I do appreciate you offering your help, today,” she said, and the Blue Sense awoke to report her sincerity.

“I didn’t do much,” I said with a sigh, attempting modesty; probably I should have left out the self-satisfied knuckle-cracking.

“If there’s anything I can do for you in the future…”

“Hold on,” I said, digging out my pink Moleskine notebook and a golf pencil. “Are you saying you owe me one?”

“Uh…” She looked wary as I scribbled an IOU in my book. “Sure?”

“Hot diggity-doggity-doo,” I said, handing her the pencil. “Sign here, please.”

Malashock studied my face to decide whether or not I was serious before signing reluctantly. “As I was saying,” she said, no longer as sure of herself, “a real pleasure.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, waving the notebook at her as she left. Harry slid up behind me, a cold press at my back.

“Let us be off, dearheart.” His battleship grey eyes sparkled. In them, there was no hint of the violence that had caused his near-fatal salute. There was also no remorse, though I certainly hadn’t expected to find much. While Harry was concerned about the possibility of his soul’s redemption, his interest in total innocence waxed and waned. I had no doubt that he’d already rationalized his behavior and had moved on. Wesley might want to discuss it later, but Lord Dreppenstedt would feel no such need.

Harry offered me his right arm, a familiar, gallant gesture that soothed my nerves. “If you’re quite finished, here?”

I slid my Moleskine back in the pocket of my jeans and watched Malashock’s sedan pull away. “Nope. I’m pretty sure I’m not,” I said, “which I why I got this nifty IOU. Pretty crafty, huh?”

“Oh, yes,” Harry said with a hint of a teasing smile, “How clever is my wonder-wench, and how perfectly proud I am of her divinipotence, if you will pardon my whildom words.”

“Uh huh. I might not understand all that gobbledygook, but I hear the sarcasm, smartass, and I’m choosing to ignore it.”

“Certainly, you do not expect me to chase the mare’s nest of your intellect whilst standing ankle-deep in the snow, angel?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out whether that was an insult or not. “I’m Googling ‘mare’s nest’ when I get home, revenant,” I warned.

Harry’s smile was slow, smug, and playful. “When your vocabulary is augmented, you may consider me suitably chastised.”

“Uh huh. That being said, we better grab the other dead guy and get the fuck out while we can.”

Harry did not hide this eye roll. “Eloquently put, my spirited sparrow.”

A fierce new wind off the canal and a growling sky conspired to make our escape from Niagara miserable. My brother’s palpable relief, and Harry’s hand in mine, attempted to warm our departure, but the cold had settled in to stay. Paula’s freedom, if not her happiness, was certain. My own – from the work I did, the company I committed to keeping, and the visions I am subjected to – would never be, and for a moment, as I stood by Harry’s rental car in the frigid darkness, I felt it as cold and bitter as the stale coffee that had spent all day in the frigid car.

When I came back to Niagara several months later, the season had changed, but the bitterness had only deepened.

(Stay tuned for
Last Impressions,
Book Three of the
Marnie Baranuik Files.
And keep reading for a Bonus Excerpt from
Touched,
Book One of the
Marnie Baranuik Files.)

BONUS EXCERPT FROM 
TOUCHED
 BY A.J. AALTO

ONE

I didn't have enough eyes for this job, counting the two in my skull and the thirteen eyes of newt in a jar of alcohol on the corner of my housemate's antique ebony desk; when you track killers the way I had, vision and clarity take on layers like you wouldn't believe. I say “had” because I retired from my position as a consulting forensic psychic for the FBI six weeks ago, after my first and only case.

My name's Marnie Baranuik, and most of the time I'm OK with being a one-fail wonder. The case had gone wrong in every possible way, and blame-the-psychic is a convenient fallback position. While I'm the first to admit my failings, proudly in some cases, I like to think it wasn't entirely my fault.

My reasons for retiring at the tender age of twenty-seven haven't gone anywhere: they're the choking miasma of other people's sins, and they're out there, waiting to show me their worst, strangers forever rubbing me with their prickly, often-horrifying inner selves. Sadly, the reasons for my breakdown haven't gone anywhere either. This morning, two of them sat across from me in my home office, a forty-five minute drive outside the city of Ten Springs, Colorado. One of them was politely ignoring the goggling newt eyeballs and drinking my espresso. The other was glaring at me expectantly while the relentless tick of hail pelting the window filled an increasingly awkward silence.

To borrow a cliché, Supervisory Special Agent Gary Chapel—the Polite One—was the silver lining on the black cloud that was his subordinate, Special Agent Mark Batten. Long-jawed with a receding hairline of short sandy curls, Chapel wore beige in varying shades that complemented both his hazel eyes and the tortoise shell frames of his glasses. He'd always been patient with me, unobtrusive and 
gentle, his all-forgiving gaze and agreeable nature veiling a past in behavioural science studying the most abhorrent criminal minds in the nation's prison system. How anyone could be so pleasant, knowing what Chapel knew, was beyond me. They didn't make chairs to fit his lanky frame; he sat tall in my office chair as comfortably as possible, reminding me of a Great Dane secure in his alpha-status, quietly confident. There was no fight in his eyes: there was no need.

From the way Agent Batten gripped his espresso cup, dwarfing it in the palm of his left hand to keep his dominant hand free, I could easily imagine his former life as a vampire hunter. He was all hard lines, an immovable wall. Ninety percent inanimate object but carrying the underlying threat of action along the tension of his forearms. Shady from black military buzz cut, to cinnamon tan, to delphinium-blue eyes framed strikingly by dark, thick lashes. Those eyes were by far his best feature; it sure as hell wasn't his personality. His black-on-black wardrobe made a lousy attempt to disguise the brain-melting body that lurked beneath waiting to fry the self-control of innocent women. He peered at me over the rims of Oakley sunglasses with a gaze I'd classify as both cunning and wary. Unlike his boss, there was plenty of fight in “Kill-Notch” Batten, a lifeguard with a hangover presiding over an airless pool of disapproval and suspicion. Without any outward effort, Batten managed to dial my mood from uncomfortable to downright hostile.