Fletcher.
"The geezer was tough. The detective here isn't that strong, are you, Caine?" Number Three said.
"The elemental's on her way," Number Two cut in. "Shouldn't be too much longer.
Ten minutes, tops. Just keep hitting him. No reason not to soften him up for her. It'll make his skin peel off easier."
They all shared a good chuckle at that. The laughter faded away, and more slap-slap-slaps rang out, steady and insistent. Someone enjoyed being the muscle. I blew out a soft breath and readied myself.
"Speaking of the elemental, go downstairs and check on Phil and Jimmy, will ya? I don't want those two slacking off and her seeing it."
Number Two talking again, although I had no idea if he was addressing One or Three.
Didn't much matter. They'd all be dead in another minute. Two, tops.
I crept closer to the bedroom, my back skimming the wall, until I was just next to the doorjamb. Footsteps whispered on the carpet, headed in my direction. I waited, gathering my strength. A shadow fell over me, and a man stepped into the hallway.
I rammed my knife into his chest.
The man screamed and stumbled back. I used his own momentum to shove him deeper into the bedroom. My eyes flicked over the area, taking in everything in a second's time. Donovan Caine handcuffed to a chair. Two men dressed in suits standing over him. One guy holding a gun by his side.
The guy I'd stabbed hit an end table, knocked over a lamp, and did a header onto the carpet. Dead on arrival.
I hurled my other knife at the man with the gun. He jerked to one side, and the blade caught him in the shoulder instead of in the throat. He raised his weapon and fired. I threw myself forward and onto the floor, the rough carpet burning my knees and stomach through my jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt. The shot went over my head and shattered a lamp. Glass rained down on me, nicking my hands.
But I was already moving. I rolled over and came up onto my hands and knees. My foot lashed out, and my sharp kick caught the third guy in the knee. He yelped and bent forward, putting himself between me and his friend. I plucked a knife from my boot and cut his throat with it. Blood spattered in my eyes and onto my face, but I ignored the uncomfortable, wet, stinging sensation and grabbed hold of the dying man.
One guy left.
He raised his gun and fired three more times. But his friend was in the way, and the bullets slammed into his back instead of my chest. I pulled myself up and shoved the dead guy at the last man. The body flopped against his wounded arm, and the gun slipped from his hand.
I threw myself at the last guy, but he saw me coming. His fists slammed into my chest.
Hard, solid blows. I jerked back, my foot caught on something, and I fell to the carpet.
He leaped on top of me, wrapping his hands around my throat. I tried to break his grip, but he was stronger. My hands scrabbled on the floor, looking for one of my knives, his gun, anything I could hurt him with.
A leg moved in my peripheral vision, and a foot slammed into the guy's head. The man grunted, and his grip loosened. I shoved him back and rolled out from under him, my eyes flicking over the bloody carpet. There. I grabbed the base of one of the broken lamps. The curved glass had shattered, leaving a sharp, serrated edge about five inches long. Perfect.
The guy clamped a hand on my shoulder and yanked me up, determined to finish choking me. I spun around and slashed his throat.
The glass dug into his flesh, instead of slicing deep and clean the way my knife would have. The edges caught and snagged on his stubbled skin. Nothing easy and painless about it. The man shrieked an ear-splitting sound of keening pain. He tried to jerk away, move away. I thought of Fletcher and followed him. I pulled the glass out, taking chunks of flesh with it, then shoved it right back in. Hard. What had been a trickle of blood increased to a crimson torrent, spattering down my torso and onto my T-shirt, jacket, and jeans.
The man's hand clamped down on my shoulder like a vise, making me wince. Blood and mucus bubbled out of his trembling lips. We stood there. Me driving the glass in deeper and deeper, his hand tightening that much more with every millimeter. His eyes glazed, and after about thirty seconds, his grip slackened. I shoved him away, and he joined his two dead buddies on the floor.
My eyes went to Donovan Caine. To my surprise, he had his leg up, ready to kick out with his foot again. The detective stared at me, then the men on the floor. He lowered his boot.
"Sorry about the mess," I said.
Chapter Fifteen
The corner of Donovan Caine's mouth lifted up into a faint smile-or grimace. Hard to tell since red welts and shallow cuts dotted his features like lumpy, ugly freckles.
The beginnings of a shiner rimmed his right eye, and a bruise had already darkened his left cheekbone. I'd saved Caine from being beaten as bad as Finn, but the detective had still taken several good licks.
"You're the one who's a mess," Donovan Caine said.
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Blood coated my face like some sort of mud mask Jo-Jo might use at her salon. More blood covered my jacket and T-shirt, blackening the fabric, and drips and drops painted my jeans and boots in gobby, Jackson Pollock patterns. Distinct fingertip bruises ringed my throat, a macabre necklace of purple jewels. I probably had a matching set on my shoulder from the guy's death grip. When you added the blood and bruises together, I looked like I was dressed up for Halloween-as a murder victim.
Not exactly the face I wanted to present to the detective, but I'd looked worse. Much worse. But tonight, something about the blood made me feel old. Tired. Used up.
Just once, it might be nice to go out at night and not have to incinerate my clothes when I got home. Just once.
I dropped my eyes from the mirror. "Job hazard."
Caine couldn't go anywhere, since he was still strapped down. I walked behind him.
The detective's hands were cuffed, with the chain threaded through the back of the chair. Silverstone handcuffs. Looked like Caine never went anywhere without a set.
Kinky.
"Key?"
Caine jerked his head. "On the dresser."
I retrieved the metal key and bent down behind the detective. His rigid muscles coiled, and he drew in a sharp breath. He smelled faintly of soap, and I could feel the strength of his body, even though he was shackled to the chair. Caine probably thought this was just a ruse. That I was going to slit his throat instead of freeing him.
I might have considered it, if I hadn't already offered to work with the detective. My word still meant something to me, too.
The handcuffs clinked open, and Donovan Caine got to his feet. He turned to face me and massaged his wrists, rubbing the feeling back into his hands. His gaze skimmed over the mess of blood, bodies, and broken furniture. He spotted the discarded gun, half-hidden under the remains of one of the crystal lamps, near his feet.
"You have a decision to make," I said in a quiet voice. "You can pick up that gun.
Turn it on me. Try to avenge your partner's death."
I didn't add he'd die where he stood when my knife ripped through his heart. Caine had seen what I was capable of. Witnessed my skills firsthand. I just hoped it was enough to temper his dogged determination to make me pay for Cliff Ingles's death.
"Or?" The detective kept rubbing his wrists, but his hazel eyes never left the weapon at his feet.
"Or we can call a truce, and you can come with me. Work with me to get to the bottom of this. They want you dead now, too. They want us all dead." Donovan Caine stared at the gun. A second ticked by. Five more. Ten. Fifteen. Thirty.
He flexed his fingers, an Old West sheriff about to draw down on the mangy, good-for-nothin' gunfighter threatening his town, his peace of mind, his way of life. I tensed, ready to strike.
The detective lifted his eyes to mine. His gaze was the color of smoky topaz, or perhaps a fine whiskey, oscillating from pure gold to burnished brown and back again. Emotions flickered in the amber depths, one after another, like lightning bugs winking on and off. Disgust. Anger. Mistrust. Suspicion. Curiosity.
"Why did you come here?" he asked. "You could have let them kill me." I shrugged again. "Like I said before, I need you. Need to know what you know about Gordon Giles. I believe I heard something about files and a flash drive?"
Caine rubbed a hand through his black hair. "Yeah. They seem to be missing. My friends here were under the assumption I had them."
"But you don't?"
He didn't respond. Caine knew how to keep his face blank too.
I moved around the room, picking up my knives and slipping them back into their various slots. I also rifled through the dead guys' pockets, digging out their wallets, cell phones, and jewelry. Nobody was wearing a chain with the triangular tooth rune on it, but one of the men had the shape tattooed on the back of his left wrist. I spotted it when I took off his watch.
I frowned. That damn symbol again. I was getting real tired of seeing it without knowing who the fuck it belonged to.
Caine saw me staring and crouched down to get a better look. He took care not to get within arm's or knife's reach of me. Smart man.
"Is that a rune?" he asked.
"Yeah. One I've been seeing a lot of lately." I pulled my cell phone out of my back jean pocket, used it to snap a picture of the rune, then stuffed the device into my jeans once more.
Caine didn't say anything else, but he grabbed the guy's wrist, held it up to the light, and stared at the crude symbol, committing it to memory.
I straightened. "All right, detective. Time to decide. Are you in? Or out?" He glanced up. "What happens if I'm out?"
"You go your way, and I'll go mine. I'll look for your fellow boys in blue to fish your body out of the Aneirin River in a couple of days."
He shook his head. "That won't happen."
"Really?" I asked. "I was watching the house. I noticed you arguing with someone on the phone right before these guys showed up. I'm willing to bet it was someone on the force. Care to tell me who you were talking to?"
Caine's eyes dropped to the floor, and I spotted another cell phone swimming in a puddle of blood. Must be his.
"Stephenson," he muttered. "I was talking to Wayne Stephenson, my captain." The overweight giant who'd given the press conference. The one who'd kept a muzzle on Caine the whole time. I made a mental note to get Finn to start digging into the police captain. If the Air elemental had paid him off, maybe she'd left a trail back to herself.
"And what did Stephenson want? To make sure you were home before he sent the dogs in?"
"He wanted to talk to me about the Giles case," Caine said. "That's all. It doesn't prove anything." "No," I said. "It doesn't prove anything. But it's a pretty damning coincidence."
Silence. Donovan Caine stared at me. Emotions continued to flash in his eyes. Faster now. Like lightning striking the earth again and again on a hot summer night.
Although he didn't look at it, I knew the detective was still thinking about the gun lying just a few tempting feet away. About how he could take care of one of his problems right here, right now. I hoped he'd realize how stupid that would be. Or I'd be wearing even more blood in another minute. Two, tops.
But some of my reasoning must have resonated with him. The detective exhaled. He let go of the dead man's wrist and got to his feet.
"I'm in," he said. "But"
He shook his head. "But not without serious reservations and some rules. This truce you're offering only goes so far. I won't cover up anything you've done. Not one damn thing. I won't kill for you, and I won't let you hurt any innocent people." I laughed. The harsh sound smacked against the bedroom walls like the kiss of death.
"Innocent people? Like the gentlemen who came to see you tonight? The ones who were going to hold you down while their boss tortured you? I don't think you have to worry about stumbling over many innocent people on this case, detective."
"Maybe not. But that's how it's going to be."
I'd expected nothing less from him, and I could live with those terms. It was Caine's personal vendetta against me, that hot, seething, unreasonable rage, that could be his undoing. "Say the rest of it. You know you want to."
"The second this is over, I'm coming for you. Getting justice for Cliff Ingles, my partner, no matter what I have to do, even if that means killing you. Do you understand me?"
Caine's harsh, angry promise blazed like a bonfire in his eyes. His mouth was a flat line in his face, his hands bunched into fists, his whole body tight and tense. I'd pushed him as far as I could.
"Understood." I said. "Now, grab whatever gear you can get your hands on in three minutes. Clothes, money, whatever. We need to move. Now."
He stared at me. I met his hard gaze with one of my own. The detective nodded, and I knew he'd stick to his word. We were on the same side-for now.
"We need to leave because the Air elemental's on her way?" Caine skirted around me, still keeping out of arm's reach, and headed toward the closet. He didn't completely turn his back to me.
"Yeah. So hurry up."
Donovan Caine pulled a duffel bag out of the closet. He hooked his finger under a jagged strip of carpet inside the small space, rolled it up, then moved a loose floorboard underneath. He stuffed a couple of bricks of cash into the bag, along with two guns and several boxes of ammunition. Perhaps the detective wasn't the paragon of virtue I'd thought. Or perhaps he just realized the value of being prepared for anything in this city. Either way, my respect for him grew a little more. Despite his outdated ideals about justice, the detective was smart. A trait I'd always admired.
