Now was so not the time to go to the bat side. I concentrated, beating down that part of my nature by pure force of will.
Alex gave a hiss of displeasure. “You can sense magic, right?” she asked me.
“Yeah.”
“You feel any booby traps?”
“Nothing,” I said. “But I didn’t feel the spell on the door either.”
“Wow, that’s real helpful.” She edged around the door, moving carefully so as to have the best possible cover while still getting a look inside.
I couldn’t see anything but her back, but I was okay with that. If there was something worth seeing, she’d tell me.
Sure enough, she began swearing. Turning to me, eyes blazing, she said, “Go back to the car. Use the radio to call for backup and an ambulance.”
13
Of course I didn’t retreat straightaway. Instead, I leaned around Alex to get a look at what was inside—and immediately wished I hadn’t. Slugger lay naked in the center of the room, his hands pinned to the wooden floor by my knives. The blood had attracted rats, and while he wasn’t dead, he was a mess.
I threw up off the edge of the loading dock, then ran to the car to call for help as Alex went into the warehouse and started giving what first aid she could.
Slugger had been a thug and a potential rapist. He’d left me on the beach to burn. As I sat in Alex’s car, shivering and nauseated, I told myself he’d made his bed. It didn’t help. It had been obvious from my quick glance that Slugger had been there for hours before anyone had bothered to call Alex. The casual brutality of it was chilling. I thought of the man in the hologram—the one in charge. Presumably he was the one who had arranged to have this done.
“You okay?” I started—I hadn’t heard Alex approach. Not good. I must be a little bit shocky. I’d need to take care of that.
“Not really,” I admitted.
“Too much like what happened to you?”
“Yeah.” I hated to admit it, but it was the truth. As if from a distance I heard the slam of the ambulance doors.
“Do I need to take you back to the hospital?”
“No. I want to go home.” I wanted a hot bath. I felt like I’d never be clean again. I needed to brush my teeth. More important, even though food was the last thing I wanted, I needed to eat something. It must be close to lunchtime.
Oh, shit.
“What time is it?” I turned to Alex, a little panicked.
“Eleven fifty-three, why?”
“I have to call Bruno.”
She didn’t ask why, just retrieved the cell phone from her pocket and passed it to me. My fingers were shaking so badly that it took me three tries to dial the number.
He picked up on the first ring. “Celia, is that you?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t say much more than that. All of a sudden my throat was tight. I wanted to be sick again, wanted to cry.
“Are you okay?” I could tell from his voice that he knew I wasn’t.
I searched my brain for what to tell him, but my mind couldn’t seem to focus. Finally I said, “You don’t need to look for my knives anymore.”
“Celie…” Alex grabbed the phone from my hand, so I didn’t hear the rest of what he said.
“Bruno, it’s Alex. Celia needs to go home now and get some rest. She probably shouldn’t be alone either, she’s a little shocky. I’ve got a crime scene to process. If I send her home with somebody, can you meet her there? If not, I’m sending her back to the hospital.”
“Where are you? I can come get her.”
“No, she needs to get away from here. The sooner the better. Can you meet her at her place in a half hour?”
“Yeah, I’m keyed into the security.”
“Good.”
I didn’t exactly sleep through the ride home, but I wasn’t alert enough to pay much attention to it. The cop, a guy I’d never met before and whose name I didn’t remember, was very nice, taking me through the drive-through at PharMart to buy nutrition shakes on the way to my place, and then waiting to make sure that Bruno had arrived and I wasn’t alone before leaving.
Bruno met me at the front door. He took one look at me, swept me up in his arms, and carried me off to bed. He tucked me in like you would a child, and went to run a hot bath. Only when I was in the tub and, finally, finally beginning to feel warm, did he ask what happened. I told him.
“Oh, fuck. Do you need me to call Gwen?”
“No. I’ll be okay. It was just—”
“Too much like what happened to you.” Gee, everybody was getting that. Of course it hadn’t exactly been subtle.
I nodded.
“Fine. You finish your bath. I’ll make you some tomato soup.” He left, pulling the door shut behind him.
I rinsed off and climbed out of the tub. Patting myself dry, I padded naked over to the full-length mirror. This was my first chance to look at all of myself since the day I’d been stretched out on the beach.
I looked … odd. My skin was fine, except for that weird lack-of-tattoo thing on my leg. I had little stubby lashes coming in, maybe an eighth of an inch long, but my eyebrows were still just stubble. The combination made me look like some sort of exotic lizard, especially with my new hairstyle.
I brushed my teeth, then got dressed, choosing loose, gray sweats and one of Bruno’s ratty Bayview T-shirts. I didn’t bother with shoes or socks, preferring to go barefoot. I went to the living room, settling onto the couch as Bruno brought me a bowl of soup. I had to clear a space among the flowers on the coffee table to set down the bowl. There were flowers everywhere. Huge arrangements, small arrangements, plants, and every conceivable color and type of flower. The scent was thick enough to walk on.
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“Name it.” He smiled.
“I hate to ask, but I’m going to be taking in Minnie the Mouser. Is there any chance you can do an aversion spell? I don’t want her to get sick from gnawing on any of this.” I gestured at the greenery.
“No problem.”
He was as good as his word, working the spell as I slurped my soup. When I’d finished eating, I went to bed. He climbed in beside me, not saying a word, and held me till I fell into a dreamless sleep.
I woke at four in the afternoon, feeling much better. I padded out into the living room to find Bruno sitting on the couch, working on his laptop.
“Don’t you have a meeting on campus this evening?” I asked.
“This is more important.”
I was more important than the job he loved—that was so good to hear. His work meant as much to him as mine did to me. “I’m fine. Really,” I assured him.
“Uh-huh.” His sarcasm was evident.
“Sweetheart, you can go. I’ll be fine. I promise I’m not going to do anything but lie around, maybe look through the mug shots Alex sent me.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.” It was a simple statement of fact and his tone of voice didn’t invite argument.
I argued anyway. “Bruno, you just got this job and you’ve already spent days having people cover your classes. You can’t afford to piss them off. I’ll be fine.”
He glared at me, his jaw set in a stubborn line. I knew that look, knew exactly what it meant.
I sighed. He wasn’t going to bend on this. I knew it. It was annoying, but only a little bit. I really wasn’t doing that well right now. But I also knew that he needed to be at that meeting. Getting started on the wrong foot could really hurt him when it came to campus politics. “All right, how about a compromise? Why don’t you call Emma, see if she can come. Then you can go to your meeting and I’ll have somebody to watch over me.”