Deceptions: A Collection (21 page)

“Jerk.” I looked at TJ and asked, “Why do I always end up surrounded by jerks?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. There was that one kid from the Banner unit. He was nice.”

“Oh.” A smile curved my lips. “Yeah. Justin. I liked Justin.”

TJ snickered. “A girl would have to be dead not to like Justin.”

Sighing, I muttered, “I ain’t dead.”

Justin had moved on to more profitable, more pleasurable pastures. The kind where he could kill many, many things without getting in trouble for it, and get paid lots and lots of money.

“Josie. My friend needs water. I forget what a lightweight she is.”

Balefully, I glared at TJ. “You’re the one who ordered the damn beer for me,” I pointed out.

“You’re the one who drank it.”

We grinned at each other for a minute. Then my water appeared and she went back to studying the picture. “He’s a nice looking kid,” she murmured as I guzzled my water. “If he’d been around, I would have heard.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I haven’t heard.”

“Shit.” I finished off the water and then pinched my nose. “What were you talking about, trouble with the kids?”

She shrugged. “Just odd shit. I can’t pin it. But they disappear. Not the drift-on sort of shit. When they drift on, I hear where they go. This…it’s like they just…aren’t there.”

“Okay.” I reached for the picture and put it back in my pocket. As I stood up, I pulled a bill from my pocket.

TJ glared at me. “I ain’t needing that.”

“I didn’t say you did.” I left it on the table as I circled around the table. I’d like to hug her, but I knew she’d hurt me if I did. Instead, I rested a hand on her shoulder.

She covered my hand with hers. “Don’t stay gone so long next time, Kit.”

“I won’t.”

As I headed to the door, she said my name. I paused.

The two men at the bar pushed around me and I glared at them as they crashed into me.

TJ curled her lip in their direction and muttered something and then ignored them, focusing on me. “Maybe next time you can plan to crash for the night,” she said. “I’ll get you wasted and you really
can
dance on the bar.”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “I did that
one
time.”

“And it was a fun time…”

Snorting, I headed on out the door. The pins and needles of her containment spell tore into my flesh, no less severe in its intensity on the exit. It was designed to drive people
away
. Odd, really. She ran a fucking
bar
. She should be drawing people in.

But she never lacked for business.

And nobody fucked with her.

Ever.

The spell spat us out in a rush and I stumbled out, groaning as the final slash of it dug into my skin.

A big hand caught me. “Easy, girl.”

I glanced up at Goliath. “How do you ever get used to that?”

“Hey…it’s keyed into me. Besides, a person can get used to most anything.” He grinned at me. “You know that better than anybody, don’t you?”

I might have answered that, but I heard a grunt from behind and Goliath’s massive hand jerked me out of the way just before Damon could crash into me. “Sheeet,” he muttered. “That cat ain’t got no grace to him.”

I snickered.

Damon just glared at us. But the look on his face was a little…off.

Nice. Magic unsettled him.

A quick look at my car told me it was still in one piece. “You going to be on the clock a while still?”

Goliath shrugged. “Done in thirty. But if you’re going to be around, I can hang.”

I smiled at him.

A dull flush rose on his cheeks. “Just don’t be such a stranger.”

“I won’t.” With a sigh, I turned around and studied the streets. They hadn’t changed, yet oddly enough, nothing was the same. People came and went like eddies in the sand around here. I hadn’t ever made an impact and that had been the entire point. I didn’t
want
to make an impact, didn’t want anybody to remember me, to think about me. Just another one of TJ’s strays.

“If you’re looking for news on a kid, try looking for Keeli,” Goliath rumbled.

I slanted a look up at him.

He shrugged. “Keeli…” He paused, glancing at the building at his back and then at me. “She doesn’t like TJ. TJ doesn’t like her. But the little witch hears things.”

“And where can I find Keeli?”

He curled his lip. “Getting high.” He waved his hand, gesturing down the street. “She likes Torque cut with coke—you can find her hiding in whatever hole-in-the-wall she can find. But you better be careful. She’s just as likely to talk to you as she is to stab you.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine why TJ doesn’t like her. She sounds charming.”

Goliath chuckled. He glanced at my car and then at me. “I’ll watch your ride. Can’t watch you if you’re off crawling the streets, but maybe that toy soldier has some use.”

I scowled and glanced behind me, realizing I’d mostly forgotten about Damon. At least for a few minutes.

He stood there, glowering, with his arms crossed over his chest.

Goliath opened the chest and I reached for my weapons. “I guess we’ll find out.”

I wasn’t really looking forward to it, though. I’d managed to make it here because I’d made a study of not being
seen
. Not by using that cloak of invisibility, but just by not drawing attention to myself. I was pretty damn certain this guy wouldn’t know how to blend if he had to.

Two hours.

No luck.

And it was getting dark.

As we cut back up the street, I had to admit that Keeli, whoever she was, just didn’t want to be found.

Okay.

Maybe we’d try to come back—

“Hey.”

I heard the low, wasted rasp of a voice and looked down the alley.

Damon caught my arm.

I stopped and glanced at him. I wasn’t an idiot.

Popping my wrist, I turned to the sound of the voice and waited.

A shadow moved. “Hear you’re looking for Keeli.”

“You’ve got good ears.”
Or you’ve just been in the area for the past few hours
, I thought sourly.

The shadow crept closer. Light reflected off a man’s face before he eased back into the shadow.

“I can tell you where to find her…but it will cost you.”

Wow. What a surprise, that.

Fishing a bill out of my pocket, I knelt down on the ground and found a rock. I wrapped the bill around it and tossed it into the alley. “There.”

Silence stretched out. “That’ll do, kid. But…trust me. You don’t want me shouting this news. You’re looking for news on the Alpha’s boy, right?”

Damon tensed at my back.

“What do you know?” I asked, staring into the alley.

I could see him.

Dirty face. Young. Grimy.

He smiled at me.

“I know all sorts of things, girl,” he murmured.

My skin crawled, but if he knew something…

I slid Damon another look. His eyes were glowing. His hand gripped my arm. But when I stepped forward, he was right there by me.

They went for him first.

Through the roar of blood in my ears, I heard Damon swearing. That was kind of funny. There were four of them and he was cussing them out?

But then one of them howled… A death scream. One that made the skin on my nape crawl as I slashed through the air with my blade.

She was made like a rapier, but heavier. I could hack away for hours if I had to, and the fool in front of me was bleeding from more cuts than even I could count; he was either too weak or too underfed to heal them well. He made another lunge at me and I drove the blade through his heart, twisting it and jerking upward. Skin smoked as it met the silver and I watched as the life in his eyes faded.

Jerking my blade free, I turned, braced for another attack.

All I saw was Damon. Walking toward me with blood dripping off him, falling in fat drops from his fingers.

“Show off,” I muttered.

A flash of white appeared in his face. I almost thought he was smiling.

But that faint smile was gone in another second as shadows came rushing at us from all around.

I found myself shoved to the ground.

There was a rumbling sound—something I couldn’t identify.

And another sound—one I could.

The ground was shaking, I thought. As I pushed up onto my elbows, I saw a giant shape rushing into the alley.

Goliath.

Hell was about to break loose.

Then a cat roared and I heard somebody scream. Maybe it already had.

As the fighting raged over my head, I rolled to the side and flexed my wrist. My blade was gone. I managed to get my back to the wall of the busted, broken building behind me, using it for support and shadow as I surveyed the mess in front of me.

Five, six, seven—yeah. Seven scraggly wolves fighting Goliath and Damon. The wolves had shifted. Damon and Goliath hadn’t. Two wolves were trying to take Goliath down and he casually caught one, ripped its head off. My gut went a little queasy at the sight.

The second one didn’t fare much better.

Damon wasn’t quite so casual.

Quick, brutal.

But for every one they took down, several more came crawling out of the shadows.

What the hell—?

Panting for breath, I flexed my wrist and called my blade.

Off to the side, I heard a snarl.

The wolf came for me just as I turned to face it.

I never even got my blade up.

I came to at the bright flare of light.

It wasn’t the light that woke me.

It was the pain.

Ripping through my side and eating its way through my veins. I choked back the scream as TJ leaned over me. “Damn, girl. You did it again, didn’t you?”

I glared at her. Or tried to. The tears in my eyes were pretty much blinding me.

“Get the fuck
back
.”

Well. One thing was clear. I wasn’t dying, because if I was, no way would I be hearing that voice. Even if I was going straight to hell, I’d be deluding myself with angel song to the very end. So if I was hearing the demonic Damon that must mean the wolf bite on my side wasn’t fatal.

His face appeared in my line of sight and I closed my eyes.

“Stupid little fool!” His voice cut through the pained shrieking in my head. But the hands on my side were gentle. “Shit…shit, shit, this is bad—”

“Chill out, cat. She ain’t going to change her skin. She can’t—”

TJ, there. I knew that voice, too. Focus. Stay focused on the voices. Focus. Concentrate…the chills hit me in the next moment. Oh, great. First the chills—

“Come on, Kit. Breathe…”

Goliath.

I tried to open my eyes and focus on his face. “You were supposed to be the weapon,” I panted out.

I thought I saw a pained look on his face. But it was hard to say as I groaned. The spasms starting ripping me through me.

This was going to be fun…

Three hours later, I finally stopped puking up my guts.

That was when I knew I was done.

It was another two before TJ decided to
let
me leave.

Damon was furious.

As Goliath eased me into the passenger seat, Damon was already behind the steering wheel, staring straight ahead with a flinty look in his eyes.

“Sorry things didn’t work out with Keeli,” Goliath said quietly, crouching down by the door and staring at me.

I grimaced. “It’s okay. If you can just…well. Ask around.”

He nodded, but there was a troubled look on his face. “She…I don’t know, but I don’t think she’s here. She would have shown up. Keeli likes trouble, and this…this was trouble. Don’t think it was about you, though. Those wolves, they been gunning for the cats and TJ and me a long time. They saw the Alpha’s boy there, figured they’d take a shot, I bet. One of them had been in the bar earlier. Left before you all did. Guess they decided to have some fun with him. Then I show up…” He shrugged and sighed. “You just got caught in the crossfire.”

“All that for nothing, then.”

“Sorry, Kit.”

I shook my head. “‘S’okay.” In the end, it was. Not like a wolf bite was going to do me in. A bad one might make me dog sick while my body dealt with the poison, but that was it.

“We’re going,” Damon snapped, revving the engine.