Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (7 page)

Then, because my brain hates me, I wondered how many times Mark and Danika had made love in Room 4. Did he turn on the charm for her, award her those rare Mark Batten smiles that carved unexpected, deep-secret laugh lines in the corners of his eyes and hit you below the belt? The ones he shared one night with everyone on his team but me? Did he buy her flowers? Did he know what her favorites were? My favorites were tulips, followed closely by peonies, the rose's voluptuous cousin; I was pretty sure he didn't know that, and probably he didn't care.

I never got flowers from Batten. I got frantic, panting animal sex (baby, oh baby, don't stop, oh fuck yes) followed by a jaw-clenched silence, as though it had been all my fault, even though he (soon baby, oh God) was the one who had… I grit my teeth. If only I could safely jam a fork up behind my eye and dig around until all my memories of Buffalo and Kill-Notch were destroyed.

Wearily, I took off my knit cap and whipped it into the back seat. I tightened my ponytail. Yep, back to basics. I was sick of spitting out stray hairs and didn't care what I looked like. When you're putting yourself between a telekinetic and a person whose life you don't honestly want to save, looks no longer matter; the coroner isn't going to stall your Y-incision to rate your style.

I paused for a moment to take notes, something I am admittedly obsessive about. In the glove box, next to my gun, under a pair of chocolate brown leather gloves, was a pale aquamarine Moleskine notebook and half a dozen No. 2 pencils. I had switched from pens because Batten once told me (on one of our boring Prost stake-outs) you could use a sharp No. 2 pencil as a weapon in a pinch, if you jammed it up into someone's soft under-jaw area. He had a word for that, but I didn't remember it. My word for it was owies.

I took note of the psychic impressions I'd gotten from Sherlock over the phone: distrust, suspicion, fury, disgust, fear. I jotted them down with my makeshift weapon, indicating time, date and circumstance, then threw the notebook and pencil on the dash.

It was amazing how effortlessly the empathic impressions came from Danika; even from the parking space I could feel her anxiety thrumming through the frigid air. I'd love to say it was because I was badass (the Great White Shark bites off more than she can chew), but the truth was I didn't care about her feelings. I wasn't sure I cared about her life either, but then why was I here? Oh yeah. If saving her life wasn't the capital-R Right thing to do, saving Batten's and Chapel's careers was. One day, my stupid morals are going to get me killed.

Balancing the cardboard tray of coffees, I hip-bumped the door closed on the Buick, pondered locking it. If the rogue DaySitter showed up in broad daylight with his revenant companion huddled in his trunk, they weren't going to steal my shitty car and go for a joyride, were they? I almost hoped they would. The Buick's brakes were touchy. Maybe they'd careen off a cliff.

My cell phone again encouraged me to put on the Ritz from the back pocket of my jeans. I turned it to vibrate so I could ignore Harry. He should have been resting anyway.

I knocked on the door to Room 4 and waited, letting her see I was alone and I'd come bearing hot coffee. I shouldn't have another; this would be my fourth? Fifth! It was barely 1:45. Caffeine poisoning anyone? Waiting gave me cramps, and the anxiety of not knowing if I was about to have a yelling-shouting-screaming match about Jerkface and his meandering dick made me wish I'd used the bathroom at Claire's. I was pretty sure one hefty scowl out of Sherlock and I'd pee my pants. Wonder woman, I am not.

Finally she opened the door, and if the backdraft of wind from that action didn't blow her strawberry tresses in a perfect whirl from her shoulders… it was a honeyed Hollywood moment. I felt like we were being filmed. Consummate TV star, she was made-up perfectly but underdressed; black track pants showed under a brown terry cloth bathrobe. No jewelry. Her eyes were red. Had she been crying? Blackmailing a rival wouldn't make me weepy, just saying. Her hand shook midair as she motioned for me to come in.

“Coffee, gosh that smells good,” she said. Relief radiated off her in waves. She was glad I was here. Jittery. The Blue Sense prickled back to life in response, sending an uncomfortable zing of electricity up my spine. I suddenly wanted my Moleskine and No. 2 to capture it.

She stepped back to let me in, gave a sob-hiccup-hysterical giggle. “Look, I'm sorry. I've been such a bitch. I've been out of my mind. You don't know how much I wanted you to come.”

But I did know; usually my empathic powers worked better on remnants of emotions, traces left by the recently dead, but the room was so filled with emotion that it choked me. It felt like she'd been waiting for this a lot longer than an hour, like the culmination of something huge. I told myself: panic amplifies emotions. I wouldn't be familiar with that; the dead don't panic.

Again it struck me as odd that no one was here for her—too odd, in fact. If anyone was in mortal danger, Batten would be there, especially the love of his life. Even if they'd had a knock-down drag-out break-up fight. Of course he'd be here. What was I thinking? If he knew, he'd slay dragons to be here. Kill-Notch Batten was a dyed-in-the-wool uberdouche, but he was damn good at his job.

She shut the door behind me with a solid click. The motel room was pristine; no smell of Mark's weak cologne lingering under old third-hand smoke, no shirt slung across the bed or folded on the dresser; I felt nothing of him here, or her, for that matter. The bed hadn't been touched.

No jewelry. No engagement ring.

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

SEVEN

Something cold and sharp sank into my back. The coffee tray tilted and went spilling from my hand, lashing the cheap beige Berber carpeting with a bloodbath of hot caffeine. I opened my mouth to demand what the fuck?; what came out was a terrified mewl. I was on my knees before I knew what was happening. I gave over to instinct, rolled onto my back to face her just in time to see her rush me, her beautiful face screwed into a tight grimace of hatred. She had a knife.

I threw my gloved hands up, palms out in front of my neck, angling my body away from her. She slashed through calf skin, slicing into the meat of my right hand. The gun, need the gun. I tried to whip to the side, hit the rusted bed frame. The gun. Her arm was coming down again. All I could see was the tart-bright blade edge arching through grimy motel air. I blocked with crossed forearms, she snarled her frustration. Kicking out to keep her at a distance, I shoved my right hand under me for the gun. She closed in fast, ignoring my efforts, pinning my hand under my weight, straddling my hips. The knife came up again, and my gun hand floundered, empty. Where is it whereisitwhereisit? Instead, with my other hand, I grabbed the sea salt baggy from my pocket, gouged into it with all my fingers in one big squeeze, and flung it at her eyes.

She shrieked, swiping her face with the back of her hand. I bucked to throw her off, but her thighs were unyielding. Taking a chance, I aimed a left-handed punch at her throat, but it glanced, and that's when the knife shot through my guard; it hit me in the gut and sank in deep.

I grunted, felt hot bile sting the back of my throat. Bitchratfuck! The next few seconds were a blur of rage and steel, tears and the thin roping splatter of blood. Then everything went black.

When I opened my eyes it could have been minutes later or hours; I had no concept. Shaking uncontrollably, I inched my fingers around my hip for the Beretta. It wasn't there. I rolled just my eyeballs around. It wasn't anywhere. Oh God, I finally remembered, it's in the car.

The motel room had been redecorated by a frenzied tantrum. Motel. Not hotel. I thought with sinking dread. Chapel said hotel. He meant Denver. The flat-screen lay disemboweled, ripped right off its bolted stand. A disheveled, hollow-eyed version of Danika sat splay-legged on the floor by the door beside an overturned table, staring at what she'd done to me. She didn't look particularly upset about it. The knife was held loosely. I could have kicked it out of her hand but I was in no condition to fight off a second wave if she got going again. Chapel's not coming. Batten's not coming. No one knows I'm here.

No gun, no weapon, bleeding out fast, I had few options; I crammed my right hand into my jacket pocket and pinched the sachet there. Without making too much noise or obvious motion, I rubbed my glove off against the carpet and spilled the sachet one-handed under the shadow of the bed frame. I dug my fingernail into the plastic baggy of clary sage. With the sage stuck to my bloody fingertip, I drew a hurried pentagram under the bed, dipping back into the powdered herb to trace it a second time.

She noticed that my eyes were open.

“The first time I saw you,” she said dully, “was in the hospital. Buffalo.” She was staring at the knife; I could feel that her adrenalin had fled, leaving her numb. “I figured since you were Mark's coworker, and you were injured, I should come to New York to make sure you were ok. I brought you yellow roses. Do you remember? Yellow roses. For friendship.”

I couldn't have forgotten that day if I tried. She'd walked in looking like the embodiment of Venus, all curves and feminine fluttering, and told me in a voice butter-soft and shortbread-sweet that she was going to be Batten's wife in June, and that she hoped I was feeling better in time to come to their engagement party. In that moment, I could honestly say I'd never felt worse. Prost's .22s hadn't hurt nearly as much.

“The minute I walked in the hospital room, I knew he'd been on you,” she told me, her accent mysteriously gone flat. “It wasn't in your face. You were a great little actress. Did you know about me? I didn't get any impression about that. I just knew you'd had him. And more than once. I guess once wasn't enough for you.”

Blood rattled in the back of my throat and I coughed, letting my head slump to the side. If this was going to work, she had to stay distracted. There was no way I'd fool a clairvoyant if she felt the magic beforehand.

“I could practically see his hands on you. Exploring your hips. Grabbing your tits. Pulling through your hair while he fucked you. He always did like petite athletic blondes. That's his type.” She spat it like it tasted rotten. “Are you a natural blonde, Marnie?”

I am, but no way was I stupid enough to answer her. With no superfluous movement, I tapped out a paper sliver of ghostly winter birch bark, silently acknowledged the appearance of death on it. The pouch held a tiny bit of ground blessed thistle and angelica root that I clumsily fingered out, while nudging a polished shard of tumbled black onyx, murky as the embrace of the grave, into the north position on the pentagram. Danika's breathing was becoming ragged, phlegm-thick with emotion. The light outside had faded again, and the room was dim. With the weather uncertain, I couldn't guess the time. She didn't turn on a light, just sat on the floor in the shadows.

“What did he see when he was down there? Do you shave it?” she went on, low and husky like she was running out of batteries. “I know where he's been, Marnie. Mark loves going down. Doesn't he? Yeah. Mark Batten could eat a peach for an hour.”

Dizzy, frantic that she might have hit an artery, wondering how much blood I'd lost while unconscious, how much I was still losing and how fast, the last thing I wanted to think about was oral sex.

“I could have seen the act,” she enunciated crisply, and I felt another blast of her homicidal disgust. “Could have seen it all, but I couldn't face it. Being there at the foot of your hospital bed, seeing you stare up at me with those big blue doe-eyes, I had to actually block it out.”

A warm pool of blood had settled in my cheek and I let it drool out down the side of my face. I had no time for making a proper
circle or polite invitations. The need to protect myself was ringing alarm bells in my ears. I stared blankly at the underside of the bed frame and began in my head:

Dread Aradia, Mother mine/mistress of the night divine/Thy servant's blood adorn Thy shrine/and thus I charge our darkest sign.

A rush of goosebumps spread across my scalp as the magic in me stirred. A lumbering giant throwing off the dust of months of hibernation. A heathen's adamant call under a desolate sky pricked with distant stars.

“Don't you die yet, Marnie,” she warned me, and I knew my color was fading as I willed each sign of life to dial down. My left foot was twitching, but I seemed to have no motor control below my hips to stop it. Had she hit my spine?

“The last time my power blessed me with a vision and that's what I have to remember? To cling to? Watching him screw some scrawny little whore?” She pressed her palms into her forehead, scrubbing as though she could scour her brain clean of the image. “I've been faking it since then. I'm a great little actress too, Marnie. The truth is it's gone, except for flickers I can't control. I'm psi-blind. Caused by the shock of your betrayal.”

My betrayal? Not his, mine. Well then, it was unanimous: all my fault. It's super that everyone could agree on that. Hopefully my scarlet letter would arrive in the mail in time for my funeral.

She had something new in her hand. I didn't know where it came from but it glinted in my peripheral. Oh God. Scissors.

Hear my summons, mighty Crone/cold and darkness dost Thou own/Rule the night, command the sky/cold and dark upon me lie…

“Don't you die on me yet, bitch!” she shrieked, moving forward on all fours too fast. I forced myself not to flinch and pressed my bleeding palm down to cover the sage pentagram on the carpet. The blood hit the center of the spell's sacred circle, mixed with the sea salt still clinging to my palm and flared hot like a blast of sour frost, tart and blistering and terribly vigorous.

All too readily, death magic answered my call.

She grabbed my chin and pulled it to face her, held the scissors above her head as though she planned to drive them down into my skull.

“A misunderstanding! Danielle, please—,” I whispered.

“That's not my name!” she frothed, and instead punched me hard with her clenched scissor-hand in the face again and again until she tired of it. The silver streak of the scissors flashed at me up close, lashed across my vision, held in her knuckles. Terror stole my voice. My head swam and my sight blurred. She left me staring under the TV stand, where tangled snaking cords connected to a dust-coated power bar. The urge to draw on that power instead of the cold touch of death, to use the electricity there to zap Danika Sherlock with a world-class heart attack, tugged me fiercely, fleetingly. I knew the consequences of using witchcraft to do harm. Thrice-fold it came back. But if I was already dying, would it really matter?