“Thanks.” Not for making Bruno come but for . . . oh, hell, he knew what for.
We sat and watched as Kevin was loaded onto a stretcher. They seemed to know what they were doing. They already had a couple of IVs hooked up to him and were rushing him toward the helicopter, Warren running beside him. He was a werewolf. Bad as it was, with the right medical attention he could probably heal it. Of course he’d be outed at any regular hospital. Which would mean a life sentence in the state facility.
Another medical type was kneeling next to Emma. At a murmured word from Kevin Warren left his son and hurried to where she lay. Warren took her in his arms, holding her close, tears streaming down his face. At first she didn’t react at all. Then her arms moved, snaking around his neck.
“Are you okay?” Creede was looking at me oddly. Had he been talking to me the whole time? Maybe. Probably.
“Hell, no.” I sounded weak, damn it. I forced a little more energy into the next line: “But I will be.” A thought occurred to me. There was something terribly important that needed to be done right now. “John, I need you to do something.”
“What?”
“Eirene had a disk to summon the demon. She dropped it in our fight. Can you use your magic to find it? We need to recover it, get it to the priests. I don’t trust these other guys not to take it, maybe even use it.”
He started to swear. “I’m on it.” He folded his knife, putting it back into his pocket, and rose. “Approximately where should I start?”
I pointed in the general direction of where I’d seen it fall. I watched his face still, taking on an expression of calm concentration. Power washed across my other senses in a surprisingly gentle wave. Then again, he wasn’t trying to do anything, just sense the latent magical energy contained in the disk. I watched for a few minutes as he paced back and forth.
I was still watching when I felt Bruno approach.
He stopped a couple of feet away, squatting down so that we’d be eye-to-eye if I looked at him. He waited for me to look. Willed me to do it. And while I didn’t want to, in the end I gave in.
“Are you all right?”
Stupid question. Did I look all right? But it’s what you say. Hell, it’s what Creede had said just a minute ago. So why did hearing it from Bruno make me angry? Because I was angry. So very angry.
“I will be.”
“Celie . . .” Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. I just didn’t. I couldn’t talk to him right now. I was too hurt, too raw from everything that had happened, from everything I’d done. Maybe if he’d rushed over and taken me in his arms like they do in those stupid, romantic movies. But he hadn’t. He’d gone to Irene’s body. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to notice, but I did.
I knew Bruno loved me. Loves me. But he loved her, too. It was plain in the anger and hurt in his face as he’d looked back at her and then at me. And I wasn’t ready to deal with that.
“Don’t, Bruno. Please. Just . . . don’t.”
I don’t know if he would’ve listened if Creede’s voice hadn’t interrupted us. “I’m not finding it. DeLuca, get your ass over here.”
Bruno rose to his feet in a smooth movement. He didn’t say anything, but the look he gave me promised that we’d be having a long conversation soon. Maybe we would; then again, maybe not.
I didn’t watch them any longer. Turning away, I saw Warren holding Emma, an echo of the pietà. I hoped she’d be all right. Hoped it was all worth it. Because the cost had been so hideously high. Eirene needed to die, I truly believed that. But those men . . . and I didn’t even want to think about Kevin and what would happen at any hospital they might take him to. Even if they saved his life, he’d be put in the state asylum. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
I knew why Kevin and Warren did what they’d done. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. What a frickin’ mess. There were bound to be legal repercussions; I doubted even Kevin’s “company” could sweep this much crap under the rug. If they didn’t, I was so screwed.
In the distance I could hear the chopper coming back. A little bit of dust stirred and I shivered, more from memory than cold. Although, come to think on it, it was a little chilly.
One of the medics finally made it over to me. He squatted down a little ways from me, much as Bruno had done. “How you doin’?” he asked in a voice that was pure Jersey. It was even worse than Bruno’s cousin Little Joey, which was saying something.
It made me smile, for no reason at all.
“You with me? Having trouble focusing?” The medic flicked a penlight in my eyes. It hurt and I found myself hissing.
He saw the fangs and jerked back his hands. “Sorry.”
“S’all right.”
“You’re Graves, then. My name’s Gaetano. We were told you’ve got vampire healing?” He made it a question.
“Yeah. But I do better when I’ve eaten and it’s been a while. I need to eat more when I push myself, too.”
“You had a pretty tough time here. You having any bloodlust?” He sounded so calm about it. Matter-of-fact, as if he dealt with that sort of thing all the time. How bizarre.
“Not yet.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “I’d like to keep it that way. Let’s get you out of here so you can get something to eat.” He rose, extending his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. With his help, I was able to walk to the helicopter.
27
I sat on the front porch of my grandmother’s . . . no, wait, my house, watching the sun set. As always, Gran was in the old metal rocker. I’d brought out one of her kitchen chairs. We were drinking margaritas strong enough to knock a mule on its ass. I’d never known my gran to drink. But she hadn’t needed directions to make the drinks. We’d agreed to get together and celebrate the sale of the house going through
She’d been oddly quiet for nearly an hour now. Well, maybe not so oddly. She loves this house. She and Gramps had moved here right after they got married. But it wasn’t as if she were moving out. I wouldn’t do that to her and I’d told her so.
“I spoke to your mother this morning.” Gran took a long pull of her drink. She sounded odd. Sad. Of course she’d been like that a lot lately, as the realization sank in that Mom’s case was pretty much hopeless.
“She told me she’s taking the plea bargain. She doesn’t want me spending any more of my money on her defense.”
I stared at her. I know my jaw was hanging open. I shut it and stammered a little, trying to wrap my head around the implications of what she’d just said. “B-but . . . if you knew that, why did you sell? We could’ve canceled it.”
She shook her head and then patted my hand like she had when I’d first asked her about dating—that little pat that said, There’s so much you don’t understand, sweetie. “You need a place to live, Celie. A solid place of your own where you can settle in and feel safe. This house isn’t anything fancy, but you can hear the ocean in the mornings and its always been a safe place for you. Right now you need that.”
Really, I couldn’t do this to her. I couldn’t. “But Gran—”
She talked over the top of me. “This old place was getting to be too much for me anyway. I can’t hardly keep up with the yard work and you just can’t find kids willing to mow or pick weeds like you used to. Used to be kids wanted to earn money. Now they just spend their parents’.” She shook her head and took another drink.
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think. She was leaving? Was she sick? “I was talking to some of the other church ladies and there’s a real nice senior apartment complex over on Sherman Road. It’s got a shuttle to church every Sunday and once a week to the grocery stores and the mall. It’s right on the bus line, too, so I still can get out and about if I want to. And no, I’m not sick.”