[M__M 03] Misery Loves Company (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The sylphs had shot in the window at The Lair, just like they’d done at the dry cleaner’s. Thousands of glass shards reflected the light from the bar’s overhead lamp, glittering like dangerous diamonds over the patio and its upturned furniture.

My hands sweat as I crossed the street, listening to the sounds of a struggle inside that I couldn’t yet see. Annoyed, I rubbed them on my jeans. I needed them dry to hold Misery.

Needed to hold Misery so I could drive the knife’s blade into Assym’s scrawny chest.

He’d gone after Lucen because of me, and me only. I was certain of it. And that made this my responsibility. I didn’t know whether he’d done it because of what I’d done to his thug yesterday, or because I was working for the Gryphons. Frankly, I didn’t care that much, but it would be nice to know whether this would have gone down if I’d stayed away from the Gryphons like Lucen had asked.

Actually, no. It wouldn’t be nice to know that. It would make me feel worse if that was the case.

Bracing myself for a fight, I withdrew Misery and started down the steps to The Lair. Glass crunched under my feet, and a stillness settled over me. I was so ready to kill.

“Jess, get away!”

Lucen’s voice rattled my calm, but instead of taking his suggestion—he ought to know better—I jumped down the last steps and peeked through the broken window.

I winced.

Devon had disappeared, but Lucen and Gi, a satyr I barely knew, were locked in fights with three sylphs. Lucen’s lovely face was bruised and bloody, but he seemed to be holding his own despite them being outnumbered. It was hard to tell much more though. They were all amped up on magic and moving so fast that without my own charms working, I mostly saw blurs.

A Lucen-colored blur slammed a sylph into the wall, then slammed the sylph’s head against it one more time for good measure. When he let go, the sylph slumped to the floor, but he wouldn’t be down for long. They healed too quickly.

I scanned the room for other blades like mine, but I didn’t see any. I didn’t see Lucen’s gun either, but I was sure it was there in the rubble. If I could only find it before the sylphs did.

“Jess, I said go!” Lucen wasn’t even looking my way. He’d abandoned the downed sylph and was trying to pull one of the other two off Gi. I could tell them apart only from the color streaks they left behind—Gi dark, Lucen light, and the sylphs creepily white.

To hell with going. It was time to even the odds in there. I might not have the preds’ speed or strength, but I had magical steel.

I got as far as the door when I was yanked on from behind. Unlike the last time sylphs had grabbed me, I was expecting trouble and my reflexes were sharp. I turned the sylph’s momentum on him, twisting and jabbing with my elbows before he got a firm grip. With my right arm mostly free, I slashed at him with my knife. All it would take was a nick, and I got him way better than that.

The sylph screamed, releasing me and clutching his arm. Blood oozed from the wound, seeping between his fingers. Anticipating backup, I spun around.

Assym cocked a gun at me.

Genuine panic bloomed inside my gut, and I fought to control it. My own fear I could feed on for strength, but panic would overwhelm me. Anyway, Assym might well have decided to kill me, but he wouldn’t yet. If that was all he’d wanted, he could have shot me in the back as I entered The Lair.

My lips were dry and tasted like blood when I wet them. “Where’s your favorite knife? Too scared to get closer when I’m armed?”

Oh yeah. I could spew bravado, but we both knew it was a load of crap.

I cringed as something crashed in the bar behind me.

“I’m done playing games.” Assym cast a withering glance at his bleeding sylph. If I had to guess, he was annoyed the thug had ruined his entrance. “I want to know how you did what you did to my associate yesterday.”

I backed into the door but didn’t dare open it. So it was information Assym wanted. Alas, he could shoot me and still ask questions. “Why don’t you ask your associate? Oh, wait. You can’t. Your other fearless associates killed him. Seems like your anger is misdirected.”

Assym’s face hardened. “They said they had to kill him because…” His jaw quivered. It was as if he was in such disbelief that he couldn’t get the words out.

“Because?”

“It’s not possible, so tell me what you did.” He raised the gun, which had formerly been pointed at my chest, to head level. Not being human himself, perhaps he failed to realize that a shot to either location could kill me.

Someone was shouting down the street. Tires squealed, followed by gunfire and an explosion. Was the fighting getting closer? Were more satyrs on the way? Where had Devon gone? And how about some Gryphons?

Fuck, I’d take Tom about now if he could supply a solution.

I had to get a grip.

“What incentive, exactly, do I have to tell you anything if you’re going to shoot me when I’m done?” It was a dumb question, and I could predict Assym’s answer, but I had to buy time. Just in case someone at street level could help. Just in case Lucen could break free of the fighting in the bar.

Assym cocked his head from side to side. “It depends on your answer. You are so very interesting to me, satyr’s pet. I need to know what you did. I want to know if I can prevent you from doing it again. Because if I can, well, we still have a future together.”

“You don’t believe what I did is possible, yet you think you can neutralize my ability? I can’t decide if you’re merely an idiot or simply incredibly arrogant. Then again, you’re a sylph. They go together.”

Assym’s gaze darted toward the bar window for a second at the sound of more banging, but he was too fast for me to make a move. He smiled, daring me to attempt it. “I will shoot you if I have to. I’ll take you one shot at a time to motivate you to talk.”

That had been the answer I was anticipating. “I’ve never found that sort of drill-sergeant-like pain-as-motivator crap effective. Yell at me, hurt me—it only pisses me off and makes me more stubborn.”

“Should we see about that?”

I cast about for a retort that would lengthen this conversation, but none came to mind. Trust all my ideas to run out too soon.

Fuck you,
my body seemed to say to my brain.
Now is definitely the time to panic.
The surge of fear shot through me so hard, so cold, that I had no choice but to move. The energy hit it provided me demanded it.

I dove for Assym, my ears buzzing with more gunfire. It sounded like he’d fired before I moved, but I felt nothing. Not until we hit the ground together, that was.

Broken glass and concrete slammed into my palms and dug into my skin. I fell on top of Assym, who was screaming in rage. My knees landed on top of his legs, and I rolled off him, hissing to control the shrieking pain in my hands.

Misery had slipped from my grip when the ground and I collided, and I lunged for the knife. My fingers screeched in protest and trembled with adrenaline. Then I was pushing myself to my feet. Remembering Assym’s gun. Adjusting my hold on Misery.

I had to finish the sylph before he finished me.

But there was blood everywhere. Assym was already coated in it, all streaming from the single bullet hole near his shoulder.

I scrambled up, found the gun and kicked it away from him. Assym wasn’t knocked out, but he thrashed and moaned, seemingly senseless. The sylph I’d cut earlier flew up the steps, clutching his arm without a backward glance for his Dom. So much for loyalty.

“Lucen?” I reached for the gun, realizing as I said his name that it couldn’t have been Lucen who shot Assym. The angle was wrong.

“Want to take a second guess, girlie?”

I tripped over an overturned chair as I looked up. Mace-head was staring down at me, a half-crazed grin on his face.

The fury was scary enough without that expression. Dressed in his usual black leather and with his gun hanging lazily from his hand, he reminded me of a comic book villain—the batshit-insane kind who thrived on violence.

“You?” I struggled for something coherent to say. Mace-head continued to grin, most pleased with himself. It certainly didn’t seem like he intended to attack me next. It made no sense. “Why?”

Sirens wailed on the street above, drowning out whatever the fury had started to say. Four Gryphons on bikes, plus a cop car and an ambulance whizzed by.

Mace-head scratched his neck with his free hand, watching them go. He seemed completely unconcerned about the war breaking out in his neighborhood.

But of course, he wasn’t concerned. The furies had tried to cause fighting here before, and he’d been an integral part of it. But how? Why? I had a million questions all of a sudden. So many I couldn’t even process them. They dangled before me like threads, and I needed to weave them together to get my answer. A very complex and exciting answer—I could feel it.

I tried, but with everything going on around me, I couldn’t concentrate.

At the sound of metal scraping the concrete, I spun around. Assym was climbing to his feet. His eyes were glazed with pain, but his face declared murder as he gawked at the fury. “You son of a—”

“Nuh-uh, Mister Assym.” Mace-head waved his gun at the sylph. “Let’s keep this polite, right? Beat it before I shoot you again. Next time I aim for your pretty face. Got it?”

Assym’s jaw worked, but nothing came out. “This… You’ll pay for this.” He limped up the steps and disappeared from view.

“Funny, isn’t he?” Mace-head said. “Like there’ll be anything left of him once the Gryphons clean up here.”

“You’re not worried about that yourself?”

“Nah. Gryphons aren’t really my concern. You, on the other hand, you are my concern. So take this.”

I flinched as he reached into his pocket and tossed something at me.

It was a charm container. “What is this?”

“A little thing to speed your healing along, is all. You look a might beat-up, and the night is young. This could get uglier before the dawn. Take care, girlie.”

“Wait!” My world spun—literally and metaphorically—as I lunged for the steps. “What the hell are you doing? What kind of game is this?”

Mace-head holstered his gun, leaning back on his heels. “I’m saving you, or I did. And it’s a good game, girlie. It’s a very good game, indeed. ’Til we meet again, try not to get dead. And oh, you might want to hang by your satyr boyfriend there. Sounds like the fun’s breaking up inside, and he might be useful.”

Then he turned around and left. Mouth open, I let him go. He’d given me as much of a crazy nonanswer as I should have expected, so I couldn’t complain. As much as I wanted to shake him until it rattled loose the truth, or at least something sensible, I knew it would be pointless. Besides, I had Lucen in the bar and had to make sure he was okay.

I clopped down the steps toward him, but my brain couldn’t let go of Mace-head’s words. Nor his actions. When I considered it a second time, his response, insane as it sounded, wasn’t actually crazy. I didn’t believe that for a second. Something big was going on, and him shooting Assym for me was part of it.

He wanted me alive. The furies had
always
wanted me alive.

But why? After what I’d done to them with regards to Victor, I should have been at the top of their hit list. Instead, when three of them had harassed and threatened me a couple weeks ago, Mace-head had chased them off. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time. It had been weird, but I’d had plenty of other issues to keep me from dwelling on it.

I couldn’t not dwell on it any longer. None of these incidents were random.

“Jess!”

The Lair’s door crashed open, and Lucen emerged, bloodied and in a ripped shirt, but alive. I threw my arms around him and silently cried in pain when he did the same to me. My adrenaline was wearing off, and with it came awareness of how damaged I was.

With some trepidation, I stuck the pain-relief charm around my neck, trusting that if Mace-head had wanted to hurt me, he could have done it some better way. Hell, he could have shot me. For some reason, he wasn’t a threat.

“What happened with Assym?” Lucen had retrieved his own gun, and he stuck it awkwardly in his waistband. “I could sense you out here, little siren, but I couldn’t get to you.”

I wiped the trickle of blood off his lip. “I’m fine. Weird story. I’ll tell you about it later. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

I followed him inside, mourning the damage to The Lair, which was extensive. The place looked more like it had hosted a train wreck than a bar fight, but a large part of that was probably due to the broken window.

Among the overturned tables and chairs, and general disaster of broken glasses and bottles, the important thing here was clear—Lucen and Gi had subdued the sylphs. Two of them slumped unconscious against a booth, while the third glowered at us. Gi or Lucen had stuffed a dishrag in his mouth while Gi finishing tying the three of them together.

Thanks to the broken bottles, the smell of alcohol hovered in the air, so strong a lightweight might get drunk off it. Stepping around a pool of Absolut vodka, I turned on the tap at the sink and began rinsing the blood off my hands and removing the glass and pebbles from my skin. Even with the charm on, the water stung.

Lucen had gotten on the phone, but I wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Shutting off the tap, I closed my eyes. I needed time to think everything through. The threads knotted and unknotted, but I couldn’t see the final pattern they would produce.

I just knew there was one.

It was almost dawn before the threads formed a picture for me, but even then, it was incomplete. I needed other threads. Fortunately, I knew where to find them, but I would have to wait a few more hours.

Overnight, the fighting in Shadowtown had spread. The sylphs had collectively lost their minds. That was my opinion.

Officially, the story emerged that they were acting on Assym’s orders and a good bit of their own paranoia. As soon as we had descended on the dry cleaner’s, Silas had alerted his Dom. We already knew he wasn’t the only sylph who would be in trouble before the night was over, but the number of sylphs he’d sold his illegal containers to was higher than anyone could have guessed. This racket was big—the number of addict victims was over a dozen and growing. So was the number of guilty sylphs, many of whom were on Assym’s council. They’d decided they weren’t going down without a fight.