God's Eye (25 page)

Allistair rang the bell again and they waited while a jogger ran past on the street behind them. Katharine turned to see if the person was going to be nosy, but her ears had white wires headed into them and it was clear that her mind was elsewhere.

Without speaking, Katharine and Allistair nodded their heads at each other a few times in telltale gestures, making the decision to go around back and check the place out.

The way Katharine figured it, they’d either look through a window and see that Mary Wayne had already left for Panama and early retirement, or else the woman would meet them at the back door with a loaded pistol and kill them. Given the way her life was going, the third option was … well, Katharine didn’t want to consider that, so she followed Allistair, trying to be sneaky in high heels and wishing she’d just worn the same comfy pants she’d had on yesterday.

The backyard was even prettier than the front. Guarded by bushes that the two of them slipped through, it housed a swing and a tea table, a small fountain, and, in the back corner, a hot tub. Making the most of the L.A. weather, bright blooms climbed the fence that separated Mary’s backyard from whoever lived on the other side. It seemed the best neighbors were the ones you never saw.

The back door was as guarded as the front, which Katharine thought was a good idea given the ease with which she had gotten back here. And she wasn’t even sneaky.

Allistair was way ahead of her, and he didn’t bother knocking at the back door, just gave it a tug. Katharine was close enough behind to see his surprise as the door swung wide. When the inner door gave easily too, they both became suspicious and a bit more cautious.

Now that she thought about it, Katharine had no desire to meet Mary Wayne on the bullet end of a gun, and she called out the woman’s name as they entered.

There was no answer, but by that point Katharine really hadn’t expected one.

Cautiously, they stepped in, entering a wide kitchen, the deep brown rock countertops glistening with the look of money that Mary Wayne shouldn’t have. The tile sparkled, and the window in one long wall opened into the living area. All of it was spotless.

Katharine called again, holding back as Allistair slowly made his way into the larger room, the frown marring his perfect features indicating more confusion than anything else. Katharine knew her face mirrored his, and as she opened her lungs to shout again, she nearly gagged on the smell.

As if it had rolled in like fog, the smell enveloped her. Rank and overripe, it crawled into her senses and held on, refusing to let go. Katharine pulled her sleeve down over her hand, tucking her nose and mouth into the crook of her elbow as if that might stop the odor.

It didn’t come close.

Allistair was standing in the middle of the living area in front of the couch. His back was straight and his face uncovered. Looking at him through eyes that threatened to water, Katharine took a few moments, absorbing what she saw.

He put his hand up, palm facing her as though to ward her off. “Katharine, don’t look at this.”

But it was too late.

She could see around him. Not all of it, but clearly enough to know what the smell was coming from.

Slim feet in cute, sensible shoes lay one on, one off the couch, as though the legs had been flung there. A hand, in a shade of gray that was distinctly un-human, hung near the leather dust ruffle, rings still sparkling, one fingertip just brushing the plush carpeting.

The hair was brown and curly. It had once been neat and freshly set, but now it was messy. It was mostly the hair and the rings that told Katharine she was looking at Mary Wayne.

Just not all of her.

Still, it took a minute to understand what she was seeing. The woman’s throat was missing; internal organs that Katharine couldn’t identify were exposed to the air and rotting in plain sight where her belly had been laid open in great gashes. Katharine stepped around Allistair, disobeying even as he repeated that she should leave. She could see that some of Mary’s bones showed where her chest had been ripped. It looked as though the body were made of loosely held-together limbs. The arm with the hand that still bore the rings was hanging by a sinew.

Her senses overtaking her, Katharine at last turned around. Gulping, she fought for breath, but there wasn’t any to be had. All the air was tainted with the cloying smell of decay.

Stumbling toward the kitchen and trying to make her way out the open back door, Katharine grabbed at countertops and chairs as she passed, trying to keep a grasp on which direction was up and, most importantly, which way was out. When she was finally sitting on the back steps, on the beautiful walkway that led down to the red-brick deck and the built-in barbeque, her brain began to process what it really hadn’t been able to just a minute earlier.

Mary Wayne was dead.

Mary Wayne was torn apart. Throat ripped open, body torn limb from limb, the pieces barely held together.

Mary Wayne had been shredded by long razors, several long razors set about two inches apart.

Katharine tried to breathe, but she couldn’t. Her own arms hurt again and she wondered how long ago Mary Wayne had died. They hadn’t just missed her by minutes–Mary had been dead a while. And Katharine was now certain she was crazy, just as certain as she was that Mary Wayne had been killed by the beast that had visited her. By whatever was writing on the mirror.

She didn’t know when she finally began to focus on her surroundings. But she saw that Allistair sat beside her, his jacket and his arms draped around her shoulders. She didn’t remember either of those things getting put there.

After her vision focused, a sound broke through into her thoughts, the wailing of a siren practically in her ear. The medics were coming across the backyard, but they didn’t go inside. Allistair directed them to her, and Katharine became confused. They needed to get Mary Wayne.

In the background of her jumbled thoughts she heard Allistair’s voice saying she was in shock and probably needed fluid.

Time passed, but she wasn’t sure how much. She sat on the back step with the medic on one side of her and Allistair on the other. She answered questions about her medical history, though her words sounded slurred and mixed up even to her. After a while she was given a shot but couldn’t even be bothered to ask what it was. Surely Allistair would have stopped them if she shouldn’t have it.

Eventually, she was asked to stand, and she heard Allistair saying he’d stay with her that night and watch her. She simply felt too disconnected to protest.

She stood at his side, a blanket around her shoulders and her mouth shut, while the police asked him questions and he answered for both of them. Eventually, it began to grow dark and Allistair herded her toward the car, taking the keys from her as he folded her into the passenger seat.

Later, it felt as if she had woken up, although she didn’t remember falling asleep, and she was at her front door with Allistair. He wanted to come in, but she wouldn’t let him. Her thoughts were too confusing to make that kind of decision. And there was something in the words he said, something that had made her wary. He had known a lot about Mary Wayne. He had told the police all kinds of things she hadn’t known herself.

He thought Mary Wayne had died a while ago. And Katharine wondered how he could have known so much. Allistair had spoken to the police for a long time, or at least her drug-muddled brain seemed to think it had been a while. He’d told them all kinds of things she didn’t want to process.

He had shrugged when the cops asked about knives. But he’d seen Mary’s arms, hadn’t he? He should have connected it to the cuts on Katharine’s arms. But he didn’t. In fact, he told the police he thought Mary had fallen in with a bad crowd. Like a teenager gone a little wild.

How could he have missed something so obvious? Was he covering for someone? Himself? Or did he think he had to cover for her? She tried not to tax her tired brain too much when she knew she’d think more clearly in the morning.

She crawled into her bed, disturbed by how the covers rattled, and her thoughts skittered away and evaporated, like water on a hot pan. After several efforts to straighten her brain, she realized the covers rattled because her hand was shaking.

She should call Allistair back. He would come take care of her. He would know what to do.

But instead she slid down and pulled the comforter up around her neck, happy for the void that was coming on. With one deep breath her thoughts slipped away from her and she fell asleep.

•  •  •

Allistair stared at Zachary.

They stood beyond the veil, looking down at Katharine as she slumbered on in her drug-induced darkness. This time she didn’t see him–didn’t see either of them.

Zachary had gotten pissed. Allistair had made a move. He had stolen some of Katharine’s precious time. While Allistair was proud of the move, Zachary had been bound to fight back. It was against the grain to let the other get ahead. In a war like this, getting the edge meant everything, and losing it meant retaliation.

But Zachary didn’t make a move. He simply sat, as Allistair did, watching the woman they fought for. Waiting for a chance to get ahead.

Although they would have liked to have gone for each other’s throats, they couldn’t. They were evenly matched; there was no clear victor to tear out the other’s entrails as had been done to Mary Wayne.

So they stared, each knowing what the other knew. Each knowing that they could make no moves now. But neither would be the first to step away. Neither would leave Katharine alone with the other if it wasn’t a necessity of the charade.

They could have gone on like that forever.

But Katharine heard her phone ring and began to stir.

Allistair shivered and began backing out of Katharine’s space. She had been seeing more than he expected. Let her find Zachary there.

Maybe his opponent didn’t know about the drugs that would still be in her system. Didn’t realize that the change in her consciousness would let her see through the veil, see them as they were. Two beasts, one black and deep as oil, the other silver and liquid-skinned.

So Allistair fled the scene, pissed again when he felt Zachary fade out just a split second after he had. That meant Zachary knew about the drugs, and that meant he had been following them earlier today and Allistair hadn’t known.

He cursed his stupidity and wished for a solid wall to hit.

The need to hit something only depressed him more. It meant he’d been spending too much time in human form already. And there was nothing to be done for it.

He let the anger rip through his brain and swore one more time, knowing full well the power of the words he said. He only took a brief moment to contemplate the ripples his anger sent out into the world. The job at Light & Geryon was both blessing and curse. He was able to be close to Katharine, but on days like these when she wasn’t in, he was still expected to show up as Allistair. And he had only a small window of time to make the change.

He cursed again.

•  •  •

Katharine held the phone to her ear, trying to look casual. “No, I really can’t right now, but thank you.” Though it didn’t really address what Margot had said, it would get the point across.

There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line as the librarian gathered a protest. “You need to meet with me. It’s about the messages.”

“Later then. That would be great.” Katharine faked a smile, even though she could practically hear Margot simmering .

“No!”

Katharine’s head jerked back a little. She hadn’t expected that from a research librarian. Unfortunately, the move caused Allistair to look up from his work, his frown asking, “Is everything all right?”

Katharine gave him a benign and reassuring smile as Margot’s words filtered in.

“Look, I translated the last message, only I’m too late. Were you even okay when we talked this morning?”

“When we talked? When did we talk?” Katharine didn’t pay attention to what she’d said and immediately worried what Allistair would think. But that concern was quickly yanked from her thoughts as Margot spoke again.

“This morning, early.”

“No, I was asleep.”

Margot sounded like she was beginning to put a few pieces together, but Katharine wasn’t. “That’s what you sounded like, almost like you never really woke up for the whole conversation.”

There was a pause, then Margot continued. “You said something about the messages you’ve been getting, and it matches what I found.”

Katharine put a hand to her head, no longer trying to cover for anything. A cold river snaked through her. What had she said? The drugs they had shot into her had worn off when she woke up this morning, but apparently she had talked to Margot while she was still affected. And she had no memory of it.

Margot’s voice pulled her back to reality, or what passed for reality these days. “Where do you want to meet?”

“My place?”

She gave Margot a quick set of directions, then grabbed her jacket and headed out the door, barely saying good-bye to Allistair and Lisa.

Margot awaited her in the lobby of the building. Katharine spotted her just as the guard was starting to tell her she had a visitor.

All she needed was a wave of her hand, and Margot was up on her knock-off designer heels and following. The flat expression on the librarian’s face wasn’t a comfort.

Just as the elevator doors closed, Margot turned and began asking what felt like a thousand questions. “What were you saying on the phone this morning? It sounded like you had seen something. Did you–”

Katharine cut her off. “I live here. Please be quiet until we get to my condo.”

Not that there was anyone else in the elevator, but Katharine was good and ready to add paranoia to her list of complaints for when she finally caved and checked herself in to the psych ward.

After she shut and bolted her unit door behind them, she shed her jacket and threw it across the arm of the couch, a place she was certain it had never been before. Margot gently laid her own coat on top of Katharine’s as Katharine began firing her own questions. “What did I say this morning?”