Mercury Retrograde (5 page)

Cal's eyes narrowed. He could feel his fingers crawling into the guy's mouth, choking him. His throat bulged and swelled, like he'd swallowed a brick.

For the first time in his life, Cal felt powerful. It sang in him, like a soaring song at a concert with a ton of bass, swelling his chest and quickening his pulse. He felt . . .

“Gahhh!”

A column of water hit him, shoving the hapless nurse away. Cal flopped on the pavement, spying a ­couple of security guards wrestling with a fire hose. The hose writhed and seethed uncontrollably in their grip, shooting at the helicopter blades and flinging water in a torrential arc across the pavement. One of the helicopter rotors was hit—­it began to thump, unbalanced. The stream knocked the man in black from the helicopter off his feet and tangled him around the landing gear. The helicopter was pushed back six feet, scraping on its skids, wobbling.

Now was his chance. Cal scrambled to his feet and ran. Disoriented, he sprinted away from the helicopter, stumbling through the asphalt parking lot. To the south of the helipad, the dark parking lot stretched, half-­full of cars. He crouched as he ran, trying to find cover. Shouts echoed behind him, and flashlight beams bounced into the darkness.

Cal ducked and rolled beneath a van. He held his breath as feet pounded past him. His fingers flexed on the ground. He stared down at them. They were no longer silver—­just flesh-­colored and bleeding from a torn-­out IV on his right arm. The blood was red, which was encouraging.

He crawled beneath the next car, through an oil puddle and antifreeze. It sounded like the voices were receding. They'd gone toward the road, where blue and red cop car flashers were approaching.

Shit.

He kept crawling on his elbows and forearms on the pavement, determined to get as far away from the cops as he could. He whimpered as the large tires of a van pulled up beside him.
More cops!

Maybe. Maybe not. He could make out a bit of green paint at the edges of the mud flaps. He inched over to the van and peered up. The side of the van was marked
S
PECIALTY LINENS AND UNIFORMS
.

He could hear the driver through the open window, sitting in the driver's seat and talking on his cell phone: “ . . . yeah, I'll be a bit. Holdup on the road, but I should be at the nursing home soon . . .”

Cal scrambled out from under the car he was using for cover and wormed around to the back of the van, careful to stay out of the driver's line of sight in the side mirrors. He reached up, a prayer on his lips, hoping to hell that the back latch of the van was unlocked . . .

Yes!
He opened the door and slipped inside. He shut the door firmly behind him and collapsed in a heap on the metal floor, heart pounding.

It smelled like piss. He wrinkled his nose and looked over his shoulder. It was dark, too dark to see. But he could reach out and feel the wheels and frames of linen carts around him. On hands and knees, he crawled as far as he could to the front of the van, wedging himself between a cart and the wall. He winced as the truck lurched forward, praying that the cops wouldn't have their shit together enough to start a checkpoint to search for him.

The engine of the van ground forward, and he felt it pick up speed. His heart lifted, and he could very nearly imagine freedom coming closer as the tires crossed the pavement and bounced over three speed bumps that rattled carts and clothes hangers around him. The truck made two right-­hand turns, then accelerated into the night.

Cal took a deep breath, scraping his throat. He put his head on his arms and fought the urge to sob in relief and terror. His body screamed in pain, and he had no idea what to do. The cops might take him away somewhere awful if he let them. He had nowhere to go.

A dribble of fluid escaped his nose, and he knocked it away with his knuckle. He didn't want to know if it was snot or mercury.

He had to get it together. Somehow.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he spied something glowing on the wall, like letters. He pushed the cart hiding him aside and crawled to it. The word
FIRE
was wrapped in Day-­Glo letters around a fire extinguisher on an alcove in the wall between the cart area and the walled-­off driver in the front. Cal groped around the fire extinguisher and came up with a flashlight. The batteries were half-­dead, but it worked if he whacked it hard enough.

He swept it around the interior of the van. Four large linen carts of dirty laundry took up the majority of the floor space, and there were some garbage bags with biohazard stickers slung against the walls. A rack against the right side held plastic dry-­cleaning bags. Cal shined the light on scraps of paper taped to the necks. Some were going to a nursing home, others to a restaurant. Feeling the draft on his bare ass, Cal ripped open the plastic to find something to wear.

He succeeded in finding a grey shirt with the name
CLAYTON
embroidered on the chest pocket, a pair of black pants, and a brand new Carhartt jacket. He figured that would be slightly less obvious than the parcel of pastel-­colored scrubs that were due for the nursing home. He had no idea who Clayton was. Maybe a mechanic, maybe a security guard. Could be a professional bowler. But Cal was eager to get out of his drafty calico gown and into something that approximated street clothing. The best he could do for shoes was a pair of flip-­flops that looked like they were worn by jail inmates.

As Cal changed, he glanced down at his arms. They were still bleeding from where he'd ripped out the IV lines. He tried to staunch the blood as best he could with a nicely folded stack of hotel towels. At least, he told himself, the blood was red.

For now.

What was happening to him? His hands shook as he raked them through his hair. If Stroud were alive, he could have asked the stringy old alchemist. But he didn't know anyone else with that kind of mojo. A hospital wasn't going to solve his problem. They'd poke him and prod him and slice him up to put under a microscope. But he was sure that they'd just turn him over to the Man in Black he'd seen with the helicopter.

After a half hour, the van slowed, as if coming to a stop sign or stoplight. Cal crept to the back door, cracked it a hair, and peered out.

“Damn,” he breathed. “All roads lead to Rome. Or some such bullshit.”

The van was idling at the one red stoplight in Temperance, on the main street. From his vantage point, Cal could see the hardware store, the gas station, and the post office standing across from each other, all buttoned up for the night. But Cal knew better. There was one place that would be open this late, where he might be able to rustle up a proper ride.

Cal sidled out the back of the delivery van and dropped to the pavement. His feet hit the broken concrete with a jarring that he felt in the back of his teeth, nearly losing the plastic flip-­flop on his right foot. In a belch of sooty exhaust, the uniform truck chugged away.

Cal straightened up painfully and walked across the street to the Compostela, his flip-­flops smacking on the pavement behind him.

In its earlier incarnation, when Temperance was founded, the Compostela had been a church. It still retained some of that Gothic charm during the day: peaked windows, stained glass, its stately façade. At night, it was just damn forbidding. The stained glass was lit from within, giving the appearance of strange fires burning behind red and yellow glass.

It was a busy night for the Compostela. At least a dozen beat-­up old cars and trucks were ranged along the street and the nearby alley. Cal tried the doors of all of them. Two car doors opened, but he struck out on finding any keys in the dash, under the floor mats, or behind the visors.

Damn. But he came up with about ten dollars in change and half a donut. He pocketed the change and greedily devoured the donut.

He skulked to the front door of the bar, head lowered. His pulse pounded in his throat. Maybe he could get in on a card game and get lucky, maybe lift a wallet or steal some scratch from a table. Maybe he'd run into someone he knew who would be able to hide him or help him. Maybe.

Cal pushed through the doors into the dimness of the bar. Church pews had been converted into booths arranged along the walls, with tables in the middle. Cards fluttered and pool cues clicked against ivory. Cal shuffled to the back of the bar, the former apse, now occupied by a long bar hewn from a single massive tree. He squirmed up on a stool at the corner and scanned the crowd.

At this hour, the bar was full of gamblers, drunks, and the forever dissolute. A man with an obvious tan mark around his left ring finger, but no ring, sobbed into his hat down the bar. Some younger men took turns drinking from a pitcher of beer, dribbling alcohol on the floor. A ­couple of the card games weren't going well, and two players had just folded at a table with a volley of swearing and threats.

Sweat prickling on his forehead, Cal watched. He rubbed at his brow with his sleeve. It was dark enough that he couldn't tell if it was sweat or metal. Maybe no one else could tell, either. He dipped his fingers into a bowl of peanuts and ate them all in one gulp, licking the salt from his fingers.

The bartender appeared before him, a tall, thin, blond guy with a glass. The glass was full of water. Cal snatched it and drained it greedily.

“You're not looking good, man.” The bartender's gaze seemed to dismantle him, piece by piece.

Cal peered over the rim at him. “I'm not good,” he confessed. “I'm pretty fucked up.” He wobbled on his barstool.

The bartender nodded. “Are you looking to leave town?”

“I think . . .” Cal began, but his attention was arrested by a commotion at the front door.

The door opened, and a group of women filed in. They definitely weren't locals—­they were dressed neck to toe in motorcycle leathers dusted in a grey, ashy grime that didn't correspond to any dirt that Cal knew around here.

Still, they were hot. In an Amazon, don't-­fuck-­with-­me-­I'll-­cut-­your-­balls-­off sort of way. They were tall and short, different bodies and skin, but all of 'em looked totally badass. Cal couldn't decide if he had the beginnings of a hard-­on or if he should just cross his legs. He decided to cross his legs.

The bartender stiffened. Cal watched him reach beneath the bar. From his vantage point, Cal spied a shotgun behind a stack of bar mop towels.

“Who are they?” Cal asked.

The bartender didn't take his eyes away. “Trouble.”

Awesome. Cal slugged down the rest of his water and planned his escape.

But the women were fascinating to watch. Whispers followed them as they clomped in on their grubby boots, heading to empty tables in the back.

“Hey, sweetheart . . .” one of the patrons in a booth slurred and spread his legs suggestively. “You ride?”

The woman in the lead, a striking brunette, fixed him with a withering gaze. He shrank back, as if he'd been burned. His companions chortled.

“Talk about resting bitch face.”

One of his braver companions reached out for the woman as she passed, making a ham-­handed grope for her ass.

The bartender swore under his breath.

The blond woman behind the brunette caught a finger on the offending hand and bent it back at an unnatural angle. He yelped.

“Back off.”

The women filed in a line to the back of the bar. They seemed to take up a lot more space than they should, shadows curling around them and amplifying something weirdly slithery and loose in their posture.

Two of the women seated themselves at the empty spots at the poker tables, gesturing for cards with fingerless gloves. They plunked down cash that looked real enough. The dealers shrugged and dealt them in. Stranger money was just as good as local money.

The tall brunette, the one who seemed to be the leader, walked up to the bar beside Cal.

“Some beers, please,” she asked the bartender.

She gazed into his eyes. There was something odd about how she did it, unblinking.

“None of that in here. No magic tricks, or you're out.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You're perceptive.”

“It's my job. If you're in here, you play fair. And that goes for your girls.”

“All right.”

The bartender wiped his hands with a towel stacked beside the shotgun. He nodded and reached for glasses.

She turned to Cal, and he looked away. But he felt those kohl-­smudged green eyes on him, taking inventory. He hadn't felt that kind of gravity in anyone's gaze since . . . since Stroud.

He glanced down at his hands on the bar. Silvery liquid mingled with the condensation from his glass on the lacquered top of the bar. He put his hands in his lap, smearing the liquid on the bar top away with his elbows. Furtively, he glanced back, and knew that she saw. Her eyes dilated, and she gestured to his hands with her chin.

“Did you do that to yourself?” Her voice was soft, kindly.

The question took him off guard. He stammered. “I. Uh. Not really. I don't . . .”

She reached out for him. Her hands were covered in ink. He ducked and flinched. But she reached out to cup his face in her hands, the way a mother would hold a child.

Her green eyes glowed at him. “I can help you.”

His lip quivered. He wanted someone to say that, and to mean it. Her hands were cold but soothing, like a cool washcloth on his face. It felt hypnotic. He felt soft and buzzy, the way one felt with a fresh shower, a full belly, and clean sheets.

A hand slapped down on the bar behind her, attached to a six-­foot, flannel-­covered man.

“Hey, those broads with you are cheating at the poker table . . .”

She released Cal and turned in one swift movement, planting an elbow in the man's gut. As he doubled over, her riding boot snapped up and cracked him in the head. The guy slid to the floor of the bar.

Cal shrank back against the bar. All around him, the fight was on. The women had surrounded one of the poker tables and flipped it, spewing cards and glassware onto the floor. Some guy was getting his ass handed to him by a blonde with a pool cue.