A wash of pleasure rippled through me. It was wonderful. Also, nauseating.
“Wrong decision,” I said to Jeremy.
Eleanor let go of his hand and advanced on me, angry. She mouthed, No, then Terric and Now.
Crap. I had no idea how long I’d been gone. I didn’t want Terric to find me here, killing his boyfriend. He had said Victor wanted us right away. He must be looking for me by now.
Plus, I was bleeding.
“So,” I said, “this was fun. You trying to kill me. But if you ever get in my way again, you’ll be dead. I promise you that, mate.”
I turned, started walking, and threw his gun in a trash can. “Do tell your bosses what I said.”
“Fuck you.”
I lashed out with magic and slapped his heart. Hard.
Heard him groan, then retch. Served the bastard right. I hoped he was having a seizure.
I pushed through the doors, then stuck one hand over my arm to stop the bleeding. It wasn’t as bad as I expected. I think Death magic had cauterized it.
I took a little more care watching the people around me and finally headed outside again.
Just in case there were more gunmen watching me, I paused outside the front of the store and pulled the statue out of the bag I’d somehow kept ahold of, trying to look casual. There was a lot of blood drying on my hand.
No gunmen I could see. I scanned for signs of Dessa. If she was following me, she had gotten good at staying out of my line of sight.
Eleanor touched the back of my hand and pointed at the car. She hadn’t seen any other gunmen either.
I lit a cigarette and crossed the parking lot. Eleanor stayed at a distance from me. She was still angry about me almost killing those men. I didn’t know what to do about that.
I ducked into Terric’s car. Chucked the UGGs in the backseat, then twisted and carefully propped the statue in the seat for Eleanor. “I’m sorry,” I said to her.
She sat next to the statue and shook her head, her eyes sad. She didn’t like it when I lost control.
“Then don’t smoke in my car,” Terric said.
“You made me wear those things.” I turned back around and rolled down the window so I could exhale smoke. “You have to deal with the terrible, terrible trauma they caused me.”
“For God’s sake, Shame. UGG trauma?”
“Look at my hands. They’re shaking.” I held my hand out and rocked it slowly back and forth.
“You have blood on your hand.”
“And on your sweater. Sorry about that.”
“What happened? Are you bleeding?”
“Just a nick. My arm. Besides, aren’t we late?”
“What. Happened.”
“I ran into Jeremy.”
“And?”
“We had a discussion.”
“About?”
“He’s part of the Black Crane, Terric, what do you think we talked about?”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Yes. I do. And you could know it too if you ran his record.”
“I don’t run records on my boyfriends.”
“I think he was counting on that.”
“What about your arm?”
“He shot me.”
“What the hell?”
“Bad aim, though, I think it grazed.” I rolled up the sleeve to look. Okay, so not just a graze. A thumb-sized angry red hole marked my upper biceps. When I twisted my arm to look at the back of it, I discovered the exit wound was twice as large.
“Crap,” I said.
“Put out the cigarette.”
I sighed. Threw it out the window. “Happy?”
“Thrilled.” He pulled a lever to open the trunk, got out of the car, rummaged around back there, then got in the car, slamming the door shut behind him.
He had a red first aid bag.
“I don’t want you healing me,” I said.
“I’m not. I’m going to clean and bandage that so you stop bleeding on my interior.”
He set about doing so with the efficiency of an emergency room doctor. It hurt. I didn’t tell him, because I figured he already knew.
“What did you do to him?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Quieter: “What did he do to you?”
“Threatened me. Shot me. Tased me. You know, the usual.”
“Tased you too?” He glanced up.
“Black Crane, Terric. Drugs and magic. He’s the drugs, you’re the magic. He wanted to make that clear to me.”
“He said that? Exactly that?”
“He did not say exactly that. He did say he wanted me out of his territory and away from you.”
“Shame—”
“Forget it,” I said. “He might be someone you care about, but one: he shot me and two: he’s using you. For himself, and for the Black Crane. So he and I have decided to agree to disagree.”
“Which means what? You’re both going to kill each other?”
I waited until he’d stuck a thick cotton pad on both wounds, then wrapped my arm in gauze he pulled tight. Didn’t answer him. Because yeah, that was pretty much what we’d agreed upon.
“Have you seen Dessa?” I said to change the subject. “Or Davy?”
“No,” he finally said, dropping the conversation. I hadn’t expected that. Maybe he was having second thoughts about the man. He threw everything back into the bag and tossed it in the backseat. Then he started the car.
“Davy hasn’t reported in to anyone,” he said as he navigated out of the parking lot.
That was odd. Davy had said there was at least one Hound on each of us Soul Complements. I should have seen someone following us, and thought it would be him.
“Did she say anything when she dropped me on your doorstep?” I asked.
“Dessa?” He shook his head. “Just that she’d found you wasted and wandering and was leaving you at my door. Said you were my problem now.”
“Now?”
“That was my reaction,” he said. “Eli said she knows where he or his Soul Complement is?”
“Yep.”
“Doesn’t line up with her story.”
“I know.”
“If you had to put money on it, who’s lying?” he asked.
I thought about that for a second or two. Eli I had some history with. Dessa I’d barely met, but I was more inclined to trust her over Eli. “Could be both. Dessa knows more than she’s telling us. Or Eli might think she knows something her brother knew before Eli killed him.”
“Someone needs to teach him rule one of negotiation: don’t kill the people who can give you the information you need,” Terric said.
“He said he kills whoever they tell him to kill.”
“And you believe that?”
“I believe that’s one of the reasons he does it. I also believe he’s enjoying it. Joshua was a Closer. Eli’s had a vendetta against Closers ever since Victor Closed him and took all his memories and ability to use magic away years ago.”
“So you think he’s going to hit Closers?”
“I’d say it’s on his list. Don’t know if it falls in with the plans of the people who have him captured.”
“If people have him captured,” Terric added.
Yeah, I’d thought of that too. I lit another cigarette, got three drags off it. Then dug around in his very clean glove compartment, looking for sunglasses.
Even though there were heavy clouds today and it was only half past seven in the morning, the light was too damn bright for me. Apparently Tasers and poison were hard on my delicate constitution.
Terric pressed a button on the ceiling and a pocket opened.
“Thanks.” I pulled the sunglasses out of the pocket and put them on. Didn’t care if I looked ridiculous, just as long as my eyes were covered.
I hunkered down in the seat. I missed my coat.
“If you’re cold, I have a coat in the back.”
“Does it match the boots?”