Skin Deep (5 page)

A voice called my name, the sound hollow and tinny, as if the speaker yelled at me from the other end of a dank and darkened tunnel.

I summoned the energy to crack open my eyes.

Twin images blurred then merged slowly to form Anjelo's face hovering inches above mine. Concern contorted his brow, spoiling the softness of his gentle baby face. His furiously gelled blond spikes gave me comfort.

Thank Ailuros he'd come. I was as grateful as a girl could be, what with being shot and losing so much blood and all. Anjelo's face blurred again, then cleared up. My relief that he'd come was somewhat tempered by the knowledge that Lily, Anjelo's over-possessive girlfriend, would have a thing
or two to say about him helping me in such a nefarious situation. Maybe, just maybe, Lily wouldn't need to know about it.

I sighed, glancing at Anjelo. The stark worry on his face amplified my own fear before my mind raced off on another tangent. Odd time to register it, but I found his tweed peak cap, now scrunched between his fingers, a total contrast to his character—far too Mr. Watson. I would’ve said it aloud, given the chance.

I squinted at him as his mouth moved. Sounds blended into an unintelligible bleating, as he stood there shaking a finger at me. Imagine that: an I-told-you-so while I sat on the floor, blood pouring from my wound, in the throes of icy agony. Had I known I'd get a telling-off, I may have called someone else to help. Or preferred to die in peace.

A sobering thought; I had nobody besides an eager Skinwalker teen to help me put my pieces back together when I fell apart. Still, the images came, and my body grew colder for them.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Anjelo's voice broke through my morbid self-pity. His eyes darted over my body, searching for the wound. He crouched beside me and grabbed my arm, not as gently as one should handle a newly shot person.

A sharp hiss escaped my thinned lips, both shoulder and honor suffering equal levels of agony. I bent over, away from the wall, so he could better gauge the damage.

He leaned forward. "How deep?" Funny how I gathered from the wary set of his shoulders that he wasn't offering to fish out the bullet. Wuss.

"To the bone," I replied.

"Has it started?"

He meant the healing. I nodded, feeling my head swim.

If the bullet had lodged too deep, any healing would be halted until we removed the offending metal. Thank Ailuros, he didn't need to perform that type of extraction tonight. He wouldn't have, anyway, given what a sissy he was. I grunted.

"What have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Wasn't my fault." Hard to bristle with indignation while I lay sprawled and bleeding at the feet of my scolder. I'd be wasting my breath. We'd argue again later, as I was way too tired to make the effort now.

"When is it ever? Always said one day you'll get yourself hurt. And wasn't I right?" He waved his hands at both my torn body and shredded clothes, sighing as if
he
were the one shot and bleeding out pints.

Oh, the drama.

Somewhere deep inside me, a warmth grew as I faced his care and concern for my well-being. He hated my Wraith-hunting. Perhaps it was my freakish ability to track the creatures that put him on edge, or the fact he was ill equipped to help me in any way. He was the foreseer of my doom—or damage, in this case.

Anjelo shook his head. "You might as well tell me what happened."

Had I just heard resignation in his voice? And, he placed his hands on his hips for Ailuros's sake.

"Thanks." I grunted. "Um, there's a body in the garden. We need to get it out of here."

"What? You killed someone and left the body where any idiot could find it? Sloppy, Kailin, real sloppy." Good thing space in the closet was minimal or he'd be pacing.

I let him have his say. It required far too much energy to put him in his place. We usually avoided discussing my Wraith-hunting activities. Anjelo also disapproved of the risks I took to save "mere" Humans. Typical Walker macho bullshit.

Besides, the dead body had nothing to do with my wraith-hunting. When he ceased his nagging, I continued, "Someone dumped a body in the garden as I was returning from...well, as I was coming here. They saw me, took a few shots, hit me in the shoulder. I made it into the building just in time. I think the sirens scared them away."

He rounded the shelf and looked out the tiny window, which overlooked the back of the building. The window had a good view of the garden from where he stood, but the question was whether he could see the body at all.

"We have to get the body out of there," I said, trying to keep from going hysterical. "Those sirens may not mean the police are on their way here. But we can't take any chances."

"Why would we need to get the body?" He looked back at me for a brief moment, his eyes an equal blend of suspicion and accusation.

"He's a Walker," I said a little too loudly, my hackles rising in defense. I couldn't help it. I hated ill-based accusations of any kind. Anjelo's eyes grew large—I had his attention now. "We can't have the coroner examining the body of a Walker. Too many reasons why it would be a very,
very
bad idea."

He turned back to the window without a response. Anjelo with nothing to say was akin to a waterfall without the water. He kept his eyes on the garden below, and his body suddenly stiffened.

The scream of an ambulance provided cold confirmation. We'd lost our chance to get the body away from prying eyes. He'd taken too long to get to me. And I'd passed out when I should’ve been doing something better with my time.

Anjelo returned to me when the scene outside no longer held any interest. He looked at the puddle
, cooled and congealed, behind me. "You've lost a lot of blood." His face darkened with fear, but of the self-preserving kind which told me exactly what he was thinking. What would Iain say when he finds out? But, then again, how would he find out? I lived my own life; I hoped he’d remember that.

"Really? What makes you say that?" I couldn't help it. I'd lost my blood, not my sense of humor.

"Stop being a smart-mouth. How do you feel?" He sat beside me and tipped me forward with gentle, quivering hands. This time he ripped the shirt off my back to get a better look. "At least it's stopped bleeding."

"And the bullet?" I'd tracked it as it made its way through my flesh, and could now feel the pressure of its presence somewhere near the epidermal layer. It stung like the blazes. Being a Skinwalker had its advantages, but this kind of pain I could so do without. I didn't complain though, glad to be alive and still thankful for Ailuros's mercy.

"Almost to the surface. Should be out soon." He pressed the area around the bullet, still gentle and cautious. "I can see the point."

"Can you get it out?" I looked at him over my shoulder.

His face paled, as if he'd been drained of the good red stuff himself.

"The wound will close up faster if you get it out now. Then I'd be able to move around, at least." Watching him fight his inner war should’ve been more amusing. "Come on. What good are you as a Walker if you can't deal with a tiny bit of blood?"

"Blood I can handle. Digging bullets out of girls...not so much." He rubbed his forehead.

"You'll have to learn sometime. Better get on with it."

"How? With what?" He raised his eyebrows and shoulders in unison—stalling tactics.

With my foot, I nudged a small black case, the size of a cigar box, toward him. He bent and opened it. The sound he uttered was far too similar to choking. Why did my only savior have to be such a wimp?

"Come on then."

"Where did you get...? Never mind. Forget I asked." He shrugged, resigned to his lot. "Which one?" He eyed the row of gleaming, surgical steel operating tools in the box.

"The one that looks like a tweezer. Slide it around the bullet. It has grooves, so as long as you keep a good grip, it should come out easily."

"Will it hurt?"

"Not really. Nothing I can't handle. Everything hurts so it won't be much different." I wasn't about to tell him it would damn near kill me.

"Okay, here goes." He held the instrument before him as if it were a spitting viper, shooting little tremors through his fingers, but he steadied his hand and I leaned over.

"It's going to gush. You'll need this." I ripped the rest of my shirt off, rolled it up and handed it to him. It left me in only a sports bra, but the time for modesty had long since fled.

He touched the tip of the tweezer to the edge of the wound, and I dug my fingers into my arms. The movement of the cool metal against my flesh sent waves of blazing agony through my shoulder. I'd have to hold on until it was over. I breathed through the next shift of those iron teeth and then relaxed, feeling nothing while he pressed the teeth around the edge of the bullet.

"Right. Here goes. You ready?"

I dared not speak, managing a quick nod.

He tugged at the bullet and it shot out, slipping from his grip. Blood surged like water from a burst dam. White-hot pain exploded in my arm, worse than when Anjelo had first introduced the tweezer into the wound. My throat clenched and I dry-heaved, almost passing out in hot misery.

He held the shirt against the wound. Thankfully, he couldn't see my reaction, or his hands wouldn't have been so steady and sure.

"Don't press it. You need to let all the blood leak out."

"I attended all those same mandatory Walker Physiology and First Aid classes you did. I do remember the lessons." His tone swam with annoyance, and I wasn't surprised when he added a tiny bit of pressure on the wound.

"Anjelo."

At the hiss of his name, he grunted and lessened the pressure, then lightly swabbed until the blood subsided from a flow to a trickle, then to a slight ooze. I tamped down my frustration.

"Thought you said it wouldn't hurt so much." I heard the smile in his voice.

"I lied."

He snorted.

I panted through each wave of pain. "Like I was gonna tell you it would be worse than being shot in the first place. You'd have run back home before I finished the sentence."

He remained silent, but failed to smother an angry breath. He swabbed the gory hole in my back and bandaged it over. All done, he bent to pick up the bullet, which had rolled along the floor and come to rest near my knee. He twirled it between his fingers, now unfazed by the blood and bits of dark red goop still stuck to its warped body.

"We'll have to find somewhere to hide it," he said. He was right. It was evidence.

"I know the best place for it." I smiled. I couldn't wait to get home and flush this particular piece of evidence down the toilet.

***

Logan Westin leaned against a filing cabinet. It was safer. He knew, if he sat in that comfy-looking armchair, he'd fall asleep as soon as the police chief started talking. Not a good impression to make, so he preferred standing.

Murdoch was headed in—Logan could see through the office glass the chief’s well-endowed stomach leading the way as he maneuvered his massive frame through the warren of desks. Chief Murdoch was a force to be reckoned with. He also happened to work for Omega, feeding information to the paranormal information network, which policed the non-Human community.

The door opened and Murdoch's physical presence engulfed the glassed-in office. "Westin, you look haggard. Understand you're straight off a mission?"

Logan nodded, his glance skittering to his new supervising partner Jess, who sat silently in the twin to the armchair Logan refused to enjoy. Sleep deprivation only seemed to affect mere mortals like Logan and his team—never the enigmatic Jess. Plus, she minded her own business, guided him through most of his cases, and left him alone most of the time. That's what he liked about his new partner.

Logan blinked as Murdoch drew him out of his silent introspection.

"Sorry to do this, Westin, but we needed the
special
, special ops on this one." He didn't look the least bit sorry as he sat heavily into his chair, although worry weaved his dense eyebrows together into a fat, hairy caterpillar.

"What do you have?" The webs of fatigue, which had enveloped him minutes ago, retreated, ripped apart by Logan's innate curiosity. Curiosity and determination. He was Omega's
youngest agent, a fire-mage who'd gotten there only because he'd been so busy trying to make up for his past, he'd forgotten to have a life, to enjoy his youth before it passed him by.

He'd turned
nineteen three months ago, and spent it like any other day—working. His birthday seemed like a long time ago, but back then, he had no supervising officer to reprimand him for insufficient R & R. That was before Jess walked into Omega—quiet, officious, seemingly intent on sorting Logan's act out.

"A John Doe—found in downtown Chicago." Murdoch tossed a few stills to Logan. "These were just uploaded from the scene. The techs are still there. What do you make of it?"

Logan scanned the pictures and passed them to Jess. She spent all of five seconds looking through the half-dozen images before dropping them on Murdoch's desk.