Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (9 page)

We passed a wailing ambulance. I wondered if not staying had been a mistake. Then a brown Lambert County cop car hurtled past, siren screaming, lights flaring in the dark, and I knew: they'd have blamed Harry for the trouble. Lamaze-breathing though pursed lips, I could taste blood on the back on my tongue like a bad penny. Was it mine, or his? Was my body rejecting the essence of UnDeath that burned like a bowl of bad chili in my gut? I didn't want to swallow, but didn't want to spit blood in the back seat of my Buick either. Nauseous and dizzy, I could have been spitting up on an EMS guy. Harry took a wet corner at an insane speed and the car planed.

“Harry!” I cried.

“Such a fuss you make,” he said over the noise of the heater. “Keep pressure on the abdominal wound.”

“Are you hurrying for me, or to distance yourself from the scene of the crime?” I shouted.

“Right, that was offside!” He glanced over his shoulder with an injured scowl.

“I'll be nicer when I'm not bleeding from the front and back in agony from every jolt!” I said, acerbic through clenched teeth.

“Keep calm and carry on,” he sang.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” I asked, mostly to keep my mind off the pain. “Or where I was? I thought you were resting.”

“I woke from a distasteful dream before I could sink to full rest. I found you missing, and you didn't answer my texts. You may, on an average day, ignore one or two out of sheer stubbornness,
but eventually you surrender to me. Unless, that is, you are up to something nefarious.”

He said it as though I had some habit of disreputable activities. Before I could open my mouth to retort, he said, “After my third attempt I traced your GPS and hoped that this fortuitous cloud cover would hold.”

I laughed despite the agony ripping through my midsection. I had no idea how to trace someone's GPS, but it didn't surprise me that he did. Most immortals his age were technophobes, change was not in their vocabulary. While Harry's fashion sense might be stuck in the roaring 1920s (change enough for a four hundred and thirty-five-year-old man) he bought each new gizmo. Thank the Dark Lady above that Harry was a techno-geek.

I was tired, unbelievably tired. It was going to be okay, now that Harry had me. I wanted to descend into the blessed, liquid-black trench of sleep and wallow there, breathless and without the burden of thought, for a solid year.

“Don't!” Harry's voice was a whip-crack. “Stay with me.”

“Necromimesis,” I slurred. “Really takes it outta ya.”

“Insanity,” he chided. I wasn't sure if he meant my talk or my spell. “You do realize that your pseudo-death has severed your half of the Bond?”

“So dizzy…” (“Don't you die yet, Marnie…”)

“I asked you to remain awake, DaySitter.” The authority in his husky command prickled my scalp, needling as it crawled down my spine. It was no longer Harry and me chatting. His voice dialed down to obey your master as his physical possession of my body pushed, claimed and curled like the slow spiraling pull of an icy whirlpool gripping low in my belly.

Deceptively calm, he repeated, “I asked you to remain awake and you shall. Awake and alert. You were going to tell me what happened, from the beginning?”

The voice was so polite, so pleasant, his English accent gone perfectly crisp as it always did when he was upset. Harry at his most dangerous, dripping honey from his tongue while he lulled you into submission. There was no high quite like being the focus of a revenant's audiomancy.

“Danika Sherlock phoned me,” I reported. “She said she knew who had killed Chapel's vic, and she was in danger. I was going to protect her, even before she blackmailed me. I should have known it was a trick. Ninth caliber, my ass.” I smirked, my head spinning. “Hey, you know who has a ninth caliber ass? Mark fuckin’ Batten, that's who.”

Harry huffed impatiently. “Twaddle,” he muttered. “Do be serious. You didn't sense that Ms. Sherlock meant you harm?”

“I sensed she was upset, but I had to go. She was going to expose Mark.”

Harry muttered, “He seems perfectly capable of getting his own tackle out for all and sundry.”

“Besides, fighting made-up heebie-jeebies is a two-woman job. I should be great at it, since I'm a shark. Maybe I gobble up crime. With my Great White teeth.” I gnashed them to demonstrate. “Chomp, chomp, chomp!”

“This is getting us nowhere, I see.”

“I should have called him, and not that other him.” My pulse beat like a drum under my palm in that slippery-hot wound. “But we were scared together, like a big chicken stew.”

“Other him? Odd's splutter, do try to make some sense, woman.”

“Anyone would be upset about a ninth caliber telekinetic,” I said defensively, closing my eyes so the roof of the car would stop spinning.

“Who is a ninth caliber telekinetic?”

“No one, not nobody for real.” I tried to sit up but it hurt like hell. “No people.”

Harry sucked his teeth. “Lord and Lady, your grammar is absolutely appalling.”

(“Please hurry, Miss Baranuik, I need you.”) “Don't I always do the right thing, Harry? I mean, to make up for doing all the wrong things?”

“I do believe you are going into shock.”

“I can't let him get fired. It's what he loves best. It would kill him. He'd never forgive me.”

He lifted his face, scenting the air in the car. “Peripheral perfusion. What's this about getting sacked?”

“She kept stabbing me over and over and over and--” My voice disappeared in a breathy, tremulous whimper. Tears stung my eyes. “I felt my pain and her pain every time she touched me. Hurt so much.”

(“You and me. We finish it. Together.”)

“I know.” He was anxiously lighting a cigarette with his monogrammed onyx lighter. “I thought…”

He'd been close enough to sense the result of the spell. “About that.” What else to say? “I'm sorry, Harry. I stuck my neck out, and this happened. I don't learn. I'll never leave the house again.”

“What made you think it was wise to fanny about with a bloody necromimesis spell?” He sounded angry, but I couldn't feel him empathically. It was as if some higher power had hit the pause button on my Talent. Where usually my Cold Company's emotions shadowed mine like a 1940s pulp fiction private dick in trench coat and fedora, now my feelings stood alone under the streetlight, exposed and vulnerable. Harry was right, my half of our Bond was hinky.

“I was sure it would work.” I tried to focus my vision on the back of the seat but my eyes wanted to cross and waver. “The chances of it failing…”

“Oh yes,” he sputtered. “Absolutely tiddly. Do you know how much power is required to call down the appearance of death, without calling death itself? How you managed not to cock it up is beyond me.”

“Maybe you underestimate me, Harry.”

He sucked the cigarette and flicked the butt out the window. “I hardly think so. You should not have retreated in such a drastic manner. Shooting her would have been self defense, love.”

“I forgot to bring in my gun,” I said, but realized that was his point. It wasn't my habit to whip the damn thing out at the first sign of danger. I never owned a gun before the Jeremiah fiasco. I don't like guns. Well, to be fair, I liked the gun Harry bought me more than others, because it was called a “mouse gun” and I thought that sounded cute. The Beretta Cougar mini normally lived in my bedside table drawer, which I had begun to call “the mouse house”, beside a nylon innerpants holster and Mr. Buzz, my purple vibrator.

“I left my card and Agent Chapel's together on the floor beside that impressive pool of blood you spilled in the motel room.” He swallowed hard, suppressing a shudder.

“Easy there, big fella.”

“Hush, you,” he chided, embarrassed. “The police will call Agent Chapel, who will know I was there. He will put it together. Not to worry.”

No worries? What would Chapel think happened in that room? That Harry ate Mark's fiancée, probably. And that I helped him. And that maybe we had Kristin Davis, age twelve, as an appetizer.

“I shouldn't be involved,” I moaned. “I'm retired.”

Harry barked a curt laugh, and I did too, mine ending in a surprised squeak as pain ripped through my middle, squeezing tears from my eyes.

“Guess it's a bit late for that, now.” I tried to bring the tough Marnie back, but she'd officially left the building. “Can we pretty please not mention the blackmail or the gun-fail to Batten?”

“We can do whatever you like,” Harry said, eyes on the road. It was full dark as we approached Thornton. The headlights tunneled through dusk, slicing the fallen twilight. “Just stay with me, my only love. Stay with me.”

I stared up at the fabric lining the roof of the Buick, tracked each long streak of light as the car passed under streetlights and the neon of bars and the glow of tacky fluorescents from store windows. When we veered to a sharp stop at an angle in front of the hospital, artificial light flooded the interior of the car. Harry vaulted out. Nothing I could do but lay there, bleeding and waiting. Seconds later a gurney clattered to the side of the car and Harry held the rear passenger side door open for the attendants. He spoke in confidential tones to them. They probably didn't have enough attention on him to recognize the preternatural strength radiating off of him, marking him distinctly as immortal.

But I felt it, as he wrapped a cool hand around mine, jogging beside the gurney as it crashed into the ER. I felt it.

NINE

The sheriff of Lambert County had once been a Denver detective working homicide, and it showed in the shrewd tilt of his gaze. He moved like a blank-faced panther across the hospital room, sinuous and agile, oddly predatory for one of the good guys. If I hadn't checked his pupils for a primal hint of flash I'd have thought him a lycanthrope in human form, but he was one hundred percent man; werekin can't hide the gleam of lycanthropy.

The cop had perfect posture, loose at the joints, a confident bearing that warned other males his body was well-tuned, a trained weapon he knew how to use. I assumed he did a lot of martial arts in whatever spare time a small town sheriff might be afforded. He was young for his office, thirty-five at most, a true red-head, pale skinned with a smattering of freckles, narrow chin on a boy-next-door face, with swampy green eyes that were an interesting blend of sympathetic and skeptical: skeptithetic. If he smiled, I suspected he'd be handsome, though I was pretty sure I wasn't on his Smile-At list just yet. Probably, he thought I was a troublemaker. Maybe he was right. I sipped ice water through a bendy straw and watched him pull up a stool beside the cranked-up hospital bed.

“Marnie Baranuik,” he began, rolling one shoulder. A shoulder holster creaked under the whisper of his heavy nylon jacket. The zipper was open in case he had to shoot me. Verrrry comforting. “I'm Sheriff Hood. Do you know why I'm here?”

“I'm assuming someone called you about my stabbing,” I said between sips. “Did you happen to see two miserable-looking FBI agents out in the hallway? One nerdy beanpole with classic male pattern baldness, the other with big shoulders and a real jerk face?”

He looked at me thoughtfully for a beat before shaking his head.

“No, ma'am, I didn't. And yes, I'm here about the incident at the Ten Springs Motor Inn.”

“Incident?” I asked, hearing blame.

“Rodney, the night clerk at the Inn, told me it was a homicide. Bit of a miscommunication.” A brief apologetic smile flickered across his mouth. I was right: Hubba hubba ooh-lala. “I've since learned that you have a pulse.”

He scooted the rubber-footed stool closer and propped his boots on the low rungs, letting his knees fall slightly apart. One of those knees started bouncing. He sucked on something minty, which clicked against the inside of his teeth, and I thought, nicotine fit. I've seen my share of them. The left cuff of his pants didn't sit exactly right: ankle holster for a back up gun. I've seen my share of those, too.

“You work for Gold-Drake & Cross out of Portland,” he began. “How come you're living in my corner of Colorado?”

“I quit. I didn't want to work with a bunch of weirdoes who actually believe in the supernatural.” Who, plain ole Mundane Me? I tried my winning-est smile. “I'm just a regular gal.”

Hood gave me his cop face, shuttered. The knee-bouncing stilled. “In 2006, you wrote your dissertation on the comparison of black plague and crypt plague in Venice, 1630–1631, the rise of Yersinia sanguinaria at the lazarettos, and true and false accusations of vampirism. In 2008 you did a series of training seminars for the FBI and various state law enforcement agencies on preternatural crime prevention and revenant mental health crisis management.” His lips hinted at a smile again. “Revenant?”

My shoulders crept up a notch. “It's the term they prefer.”

“You mean vampires,” he clarified. “What sort of doctorate do you hold, exactly?”

I gave my best scowl. “Don't profile me, sheriff. It's rude, and I'm sure your mother raised you better.”

“She did,” he said pleasantly, like he had all the time in the world to play games with me. I certainly wasn't going anywhere, connected to tubes and beeping machinery, and unable to stand up on my own.

“I know damn well what I wrote my dissertation on. How much of my life did you research?”

“Got a hefty file. Looks like I'm in for a night of heavy reading. How about you save me some time, tell me what's not in there?”

“You're not going to write anything down?” I asked. “For your incident report?”

“You haven't really told me anything yet.” The smile reappeared and I was rewarded this time with a hint of straight white teeth. My brain melted like butter left on a hot stovetop.

“Well, I will. I intend to. Tell you, I mean. Every thing of the truth.” What the hell am I even talking about? “You're going to want this on paper.”

“Maybe so,” he mused, scratching the back of his neck. “Since you're about to tell me ‘every thing of the truth’.”

He fished around for a notebook in his pocket that looked like it had never been used, clicked a brand new pen. Not a lot of serious crime in Lambert County.

I shifted in the pillows propping me slightly upright, and tried not to think of staples clawing flesh together and sutures keeping skin in a taut line. Post-surgery painkillers kept the pain at a safe distance, but I could almost hear it pacing like an impatient Attila the Hun considering the distant walls of Constantinople.