Mercenary Read online

  “I have an anti-venom.” I headed for the opening. “Besides, it’s so drunk now I doubt it could hit me if it tried.”

  We wove through the piles of garbage, Peasblossom hiding under my hair, on the lookout for the tsuchinoko. The odor grew worse and worse. Peasblossom relocated to the pouch, pulling the zipper almost closed. Even the respirator wasn’t keeping the stench out now, and I gagged. Just when I was about to turn around, something caught my eye.

  Something pale and hard lay on the floor ahead, sticking out from around yet another corner of refuse. I turned the corner and froze.

  Bones. A pile of them, up to my knees. The ones on the bottom looked old, but there were some on the top that still held the red stain of blood. My stomach bottomed out as I noticed something else.

  A hoof.

  Chapter 10

  “We need to get these bones to Vincent. He has access to the DNA databases we need.”

  Peasblossom shifted uneasily where she sat on the dash in front of the glowing digital clock. “I don’t like having all those bones in the trunk. You want a haunted rental car? ‘Cause this is how you get a haunted rental car.”

  A growing sense of dread filled my stomach as I stared out the windshield at a road that offered a string of broken streetlights and shadows as thick as tar. I’d put the hoof I’d found in an evidence bag and tucked it into my pouch, but it hadn’t felt right to leave the rest of the bones behind, so I’d put the rest in a bag and loaded it into the trunk. “We had to take them. Even if they aren’t evidence, those victims deserve a proper burial.”

  “Are you sure this is Roger’s safe house?” Peasblossom frowned at the GPS and tapped the screen. “Seems like he’d have chosen a safer area.”

  “Check to make sure I entered the address right.” I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.

  I cleared my throat and pulled into the dilapidated parking area outside a squat white building with dark windows. My tires crunched over a surface that was more gravel than asphalt, and I tried not to think about the rusty nails and broken glass that might be mixed with the loose stones.

  “I wish you hadn’t sent Scath with Roger,” Peasblossom fretted.

  “We’ll be fine. It’s just an old building. At least there probably won’t be any tsuchinokos here, right?”

  “I say we go home and come back in the morning.”

  I paused, giving Peasblossom a firm look. “We have to find out who put that binding spell on Roger, and the longer we wait, the higher the chance the damage will be permanent. Do witches drag their feet when someone needs help?”

  Peasblossom pressed her lips together. “No.”

  “Are pixies afraid of the dark?”

  Her spine stiffened, and she jutted her sharp pink chin out at me. “I should say not!”

  “Is there something scarier in that building than us?” I demanded.

  “No!” Peasblossom shouted.

  I threw open the car door. “Then let’s go.”

  Peasblossom gripped my head, threading her thin arms through my hair to hold on. “Of course, if there was something scarier, we wouldn’t see it until it was too late.”

  “Helping or hurting?” I put my hand on Peasblossom and pressed the energy I’d gathered into her. “Take this healing spell, just in case. If it will make you feel better.” Images of the burned out area of the warehouse danced in my mind’s eye, and after a split second’s hesitation, I gave her more, increasing the strength of the healing spell. Best be prepared for burns.

  She shivered and snapped her wings against the warm night air. “I don’t like this. Make a note that I don’t like this.”

  “Make sure you hold the healing as long as you can,” I warned. “Don’t use it before we can get away, there could always be something worse. Wait for the worst.”

  I forced myself to stop talking as I crept up to the door of the small building. Talking might make me feel better, but if there was someone—or something—inside, then it was probably best to keep quiet.

  The door opened easily enough. My night vision was excellent, but I called the same light spell I’d used at Acme just the same. As the glow of the spinning balls of light struck the walls and floor around me, my heart fell.

  “More fire,” Peasblossom noted.

  That was putting it mildly. The floor was black, as were all four walls and a good portion of the ceiling. There wasn’t so much as a stick of furniture in the place, nothing had survived the blaze. And yet the building was still standing, the roof hadn’t caved in. Whoever had been in charge of cleansing the place, their control had been impressive.

  My shoulders slumped. “You know, I think a small part of me thought we might find Jeff here.”

  “You think Barbara and Ian wouldn’t have thought of that in the first place?” Peasblossom asked.

  I shrugged. “I know, it doesn’t make sense. Still, I had hope. I mean, what if Jeff is in hiding. What if he’s hiding from Ian? He could be waiting for Roger to come back here.”

  “You think he might be hiding from Ian?”

  “I’ve only met Ian twice, and I don’t trust him. I’d imagine Jeff has met him more than that. Even if he’s human, I’m sure his powers of observation—”

  “You think Jeff might not be human?” Peasblossom asked. “Why?”

  I snorted. “Look how many Otherworlders are in Roger’s life. Would it really surprise you to find out Jeff was Other?”

  “I think Barbara is Other,” Peasblossom muttered. “She’s cold.”

  I used Vincent’s forensic spell, but as I’d expected, I didn’t find anything. The rectangular room was nothing but brick and ash. Whoever had gotten rid of the evidence to be found here had done a professional job.

  The night wind stirred my hair when I opened the door. “Barbara is—”

  I froze as I exited the building and found myself face to face with a man in black. A mask covered his head down to his neck, leaving only the eyes bared to the night. He stared at me from irises that were twin pools of flame.

  Shock shot down my spine like a bolt of electricity, but he grabbed me before I could move. One hand closed around my right bicep and the other clamped down on my left shoulder.

  The whoosh of flames blasted against my ears. His hands were on fire, and so was my shirt. Panic surged through me, and I let the adrenaline push my magic up through my body and out my mouth.

  I screamed, power woven into the sound, targeting the fire wielder. Immediately he released me, jerking away with his hands clamped over his ears, his eyes of flame squeezing shut. I lurched toward my car, already tearing my shirt off to escape the flames singeing my hair. My shoulder and biceps were wet patches of agony, but I didn’t have time to tend the injuries now. Survive first, then heal.

  I scrambled to a halt ten feet from my car. My jaw dropped as a behemoth of a man grabbed the bumper of the Ford Focus with one hand and the lip of my trunk with the other. I backed away as he ripped the trunk open, struggling to think through the shock at seeing a stone giant in the middle of Cleveland, and the growing pain of the burns on my arm and shoulder.

  Gravel crunched behind me, and a flood of ice water rushed into my veins as I realized two things simultaneously. One, the fire wielder had recovered from my sonic attack. And two, I’d never turn around fast enough to stop him.

  I was only halfway turned when a blur shot out of nowhere and careened into the fire wielder reaching for me with hands of flame. The breath left my attacker on a grunt as he and the newcomer crashed to the ground, rolling in the carpet of pebbles and broken glass.

  I didn’t have time to get a good look at my savior. I called my magic again and threw a hand toward the stone giant, spreading my fingers outward as I spilled power onto the ground beneath him. “Glacio!”

  It was too dark for me to properly read the giant’s expression, and he didn’t make a sound as his feet slid out from under him. He fell in slow motion, his twelve-foot form hitting the ice with a bone-j
arring crack. One arm slid away from his body, and thick grey fingers grasped a particularly large piece of broken asphalt.

  “Shade, look out!” Peasblossom screamed.

  I was too slow. The giant hurled the rock, the stony projectile’s aim aided by his affinity for stone, the kinship between him and the gravel within the asphalt. It struck my burned shoulder, and the world went white with pain.

  I think I screamed when I fell, but I couldn’t be sure. Agony washed away the world, swallowing the pain of impact when I hit the ground and my head bounced off the debris-littered lot. Ice cracked with a sharp rustle like crinkling tin foil. In some small part of my brain a voice wailed that the stone giant had smashed the ice and was lumbering closer.

  A sound broke the night, somewhere between a growl and a shout. I rolled my head to the side, blinking to clear away the haze of pain. The giant scooped up what I assumed was the body of the fire wielder then lumbered away from the empty lot, heading for the thick shadows between the brick building and the houses beyond. There was a large bag tucked under his other arm, and I recognized it as the bag I’d put the rest of the bones from the Acme building in.

  Damn.

  I might have passed out. It was so dark it was hard to tell the difference between greyed vision and unconsciousness. Slowly, I became aware of a hand stroking my face, and I whimpered, fighting to breathe through the melted agony of my shoulder and biceps.

  “I knew you would lead me to greater battles.”

  I recognized the voice. Suddenly I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat.

  Asher.

  The goblin leaned over me, the night’s half moon bleaching the color from his yellow skin and turning the blood smeared over his face into black paint. He knelt beside me, one hand brushing the hair away from my face, the other hovering above the slick mess of burned flesh and bits of broken asphalt that was my shoulder.

  My lips moved, but I didn’t have the breath for a spell. It was hard enough to stay conscious, or hold onto a coherent thought through the pain. I could feel my magic writhing inside me, but I didn’t have the concentration to grab it. Fear born of pure instinct pushed tears down my cheeks as Asher gazed down at me with excitement in his gleaming red eyes.

  “Describe the pain,” he whispered.

  He brushed a finger over the edge of my wound, and I screamed. His breath caught, his eyes widening.

  “Stop that!” Peasblossom shouted.

  Asher blinked and jerked back as Peasblossom dove into the air an inch away from his face. Her metal cocktail sword stirred the goblin’s eyelashes as she held it ready to put his eye out in one smooth thrust.

  “Look at your hands,” Peasblossom demanded. “Filthy. You’re going to give her an infection.”

  It wasn’t until Peasblossom pointed it out that the smell hit me. The unmistakable odor of perforated intestines. Asher was covered in more than just blood, from his hands up to his elbows. As if he’d been digging into the fire wielder’s body, scooping out—

  I turned my head in time to avoid vomiting on my burned shoulder, but the direction I chose meant I splashed Asher’s knees where he knelt next to me. The goblin didn’t react, and he didn’t move out of the way. Instead, he pulled his orange T-shirt over his head, using a small patch of clean cotton on the back to wipe off his hands.

  “You need to clean that wound before you can heal.” He glanced at the pixie. “You have healing, I trust?”

  Peasblossom glared at him. “Of course I do.”

  Asher nodded. “Then I’ll clean the wound, and you can heal her.”

  Peasblossom scowled. “No. She needs proper medical care. We’ll call someone qualified.”

  Asher reached forward and plucked my cell phone out of the side pocket of my pouch and slipped it between his body and the waistband of his bloody jeans. “You can call for help after you let me clean the wound.”

  My stomach turned, and my throat constricted as the urge to vomit a second time teased the back of my mouth.

  “I can clean it,” Peasblossom snapped. “You’re covered in blood and guts, you’d do more harm than good.”

  Asher shook his head slowly, a gleam in his red eyes turning my stomach. “Your healing will take care of any infection. I’ll wear gloves if you have them.” He looked at me and shifted restlessly in anticipation. “I want to clean the wound.”

  I didn’t have the strength to fight him. Between the pain of the burns and the blood loss, I was feeling dizzy and weaker by the second. If I didn’t agree now, I’d be unconscious soon.

  I did not want to be unconscious with the goblin.

  Peasblossom growled, but didn’t argue. I closed my eyes and fought to breathe without throwing up again, concentrating on the metallic rustle of the pouch’s zipper, the clinking sounds as Peasblossom rummaged for the supplies she needed. Now that I knew it was there, I couldn’t get past the smell that covered Asher. Blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids.

  The sharp scent of alcohol stung my nose as Peasblossom upended what must have been an entire bottle of hand sanitizer on the goblin’s hands. It wouldn’t do much good, no amount of sanitizer was meant to be a replacement for washing your hands. But at least it chased back some of the smell of intestinal fluid.

  “Do people often try to kill you?” Asher whispered.

  Something prodded my wound, and I choked back a scream, clamping my lips shut. I didn’t know if he was using tweezers or his fingers, but whatever bit of debris he’d just taken out of my shoulder felt like the Rock of Gibraltar.

  “No,” Peasblossom answered, her voice higher with worry. “Because they know what’s coming for them if they do.”

  “Mother Hazel?” Asher guessed.

  “Me,” Peasblossom growled.

  Asher didn’t laugh. I didn’t know if he knew better than to laugh at a pixie, or if he believed her.

  He cleaned the wound with a slow reverence that could have been an attempt to hurt me as little as possible, or a desire to make digging around inside my flesh last as long as he could. I said a small prayer of thanks that despite my lack of healing potions—thanks, Flint—I did have magically aided burn cream. It wouldn’t heal the skin, but it would cool it down and keep the burn from getting worse, and it would help with some of the pain. Perhaps enough to keep me from passing out.

  I couldn’t help but remember his words in the sparring ring.

  “I want to pet your heart.”

  Tears flowed down my cheeks, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. The pain had flooded my body, so it wasn’t just my shoulder and biceps that hurt. I closed my eyes, bobbing on a sea of agony, trying not to think about the goblin and whether he would keep his word.

  I must have passed out, at least temporarily. The next thing I was aware of was Peasblossom landing on the side of my head and pressing her small hand to my sweat-slicked temple. A pulse of blessed cool energy washed over me, sinking beneath my skin and pooling in the twin pits of fire that were my injuries.

  The healing spell I’d given her was stronger than the one I usually used. The magic could heal the injuries from a second degree burn to a bad first degree burn. The wound from the rock closed, and I shouldn’t have to worry about infection. The down side of the stronger healing was exhaustion. If Asher attacked me, or if the stone giant came back with new friends…

  The worst of the pain drained away, leaving only the throbbing burn in the two areas where the fire wielder had grabbed me. My eyelids drooped, and linking two thoughts together became more challenging. I blinked and looked down to see my left shoulder and right biceps were bound in bright white gauze. The slick, oily sensation when I moved told me the goblin had been liberal in his application of the healing ointment.

  “All better,” Asher said softly.

  I forced myself to meet the goblin’s crimson gaze. Anticipation danced in his eyes, as if he expected me to lean in for a kiss. Or a bite. I swallowed hard and forced myself to sit up. I couldn’t lie
here anymore, not with him sitting too close, staring down at me. It hurt to sit up, and the heat pulsing from my body made my head swim until I thought I’d throw up again.

  “Phone,” I rasped.

  Asher stared at me a moment longer, then slowly lifted my cell phone from the waistband of his jeans. He put the skin-warmed plastic in my palm, but didn’t move away.

  I found Vincent’s phone number and called, trying to listen to the ring over the roar of my own pulse in my ears. I had to stay conscious. Just a little longer.

  The wizard picked up on the third ring. Judging by the wariness in his tone, he’d recognized my number. I gave him brownie points for answering anyway.

  “Hello, Ms. Renard. What can I do for you?”

  “I need help.” My words were slurred, my voice thick with the need to sleep. I avoided Asher’s eyes, staring at the ground instead. “I have something I need you to identify.”

  “You sound awful. What’s happened?”

  “I’d like to show you when you get here.”

  A pause. “You are not alone.”

  “No.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  Again, I didn’t look at Asher. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know.”

  Asher leaned in, putting his lips so close to my ear when he spoke that he stirred the hairs at the back of my neck. “I’m not going to hurt you tonight.”

  My throat closed, and I gripped the phone harder.

  “Who was that?” Vincent demanded sharply. “Where are you?”

  I looked around, blinking and trying to focus long enough to spot a street sign. I didn’t see any. Goddess, what was the address of the safe house again? I couldn’t remember.

  Asher slid his cheek against mine until he could speak into the phone. “We’re outside near St. Thomas’ church on Ryder Avenue.”

  At some point, Asher had started drawing a claw back and forth over the burn on his own chest, stirring the ruined flesh with each stroke. The pleasure of the pain thickened his voice into something far too intimate.