Solomon's Seal Page 2
The gun popped holes in the Hummer’s grille; I hit the end of the mag, last casing flinging out and disappearing onto the road, just as the SUV sped up with the same jackass hanging out the window, firing at me again.
I dropped down, cast the gun into the passenger seat, and changed hands: left on the steering wheel, right withdrawing my second gun. It was seconds before the rifle was out—intimidating, yes, but impractical—and the guy slipped back in to reload.
Once more I rose, wind tearing and roaring around me as my vehicle flew backwards on the road. Just as I aimed, the Jeep hit a bump. My bullet went wide and I fought to regain control. Wind stole my breath and my chest ached, heart thudded hard, and I was developing a headache. Just another day on the job.
Money. You’re doing this for money. Em deserves nice things.
Money. A good motivator.
Irritation prickled under my skin but I raised the gun again, letting the world around me fade as I focused on the tires. I moved the barrel to the right just slightly, narrowed my eyes, and squeezed the trigger.
I popped off half a dozen rounds in rapid succession; one hit the tire and the Hummer swerved wide. The SUV hung back to avoid a collision, both vehicles slowing.
The Jeep jerked suddenly, careening to the left. I cursed under my breath, dropped to sit again, and gathered my bearings. Checked the rearview; still nothing but mountains, boulders, and desert. No helicopter.
I glanced back at the road to see the SUV approaching, speeding past the Hummer, gunning for me.
Well. I’d pissed someone off.
I fought to keep control of the Jeep but couldn’t push up the speed any further while driving backwards. The SUV’s windows were dark-tinted but I could easily imagine someone in there on the phone with Martin, who no doubt cursed my name and said to get me off the road.
Any sane woman would call it quits, cut her losses. But my daughter was in private school and that doesn’t come cheap—I wanted what I came for.
The mercenaries—sorry, as Martin would call them, “armed escorts”—approached and slammed into my Jeep. I abandoned my gun for a moment, grabbed the wheel with both hands, and struggled to keep on the road. The SUV slowed, then sped to gather momentum and slammed me again. I jerked forward. Held on.
Shit. Shit shit.
I don’t enjoy being on the defensive.
The moment they backed off a bit, I grabbed the stick and swerved, spun in a hard left off the road; not expecting that, the SUV flew past me.
Me and Martin, then.
Once again I pushed the Jeep forward, straight for the Hummer that jostled along, the bare rim sparking on the road. I glided easily next to it, then swung to the left, slamming into the other vehicle, but the Hummer kept on the road. If I got it in the ditch, threatened everyone a whole lot, maybe—
I blinked and caught the SUV ahead, gleaming in the sun, a second before it collided with me.
It hit the front corner of the Jeep and the wheel spun out of my control. I braked, swerved, narrowly missed the Hummer. My shades were knocked off and the world went by in a whirl of bright blue, burnt orange, and yellow, then jerked to a halt when I struck a boulder about half the size of my vehicle. The airbag inflated, struck me in the chest. Metal crunched and screeched in a way that was almost physically painful to hear.
Son of a bitch.
The music cut out, engine died. Might be fixable, might not be. Irritation and anger wove around me, clutching me in a death grip—I was not giving up. Not so easily. I pushed down the deflating airbag, grabbed my loaded gun. The driver’s door was pinned against the rock, so I hauled myself out the back and readied to aim.
Bullets clipped the side of my Jeep; I ducked down and hoped they were just trying to scare me because cars don’t actually stop those things.
A vehicle door opened. I waited, tensed, gun in my grip. Loose hair fell over my eyes and the bright yellow sun beat down. My heart thudded hard but I breathed, slow and sure, calming my body down from its adrenaline high.
“I’m not giving you a ride back,” Martin called.
“Not even if I promise to be good?” I returned.
More car doors—they were on the move, perhaps shifting into the SUV. Shit. I glanced under my vehicle and glimpsed feet shuffling.
“How about you give me the knife and I’ll give you a finder’s fee from my client,” I said. “It’ll pay far more than whatever museum hired you.”
“It’s not about the money, Liv. When are you going to get that?”
Easy for him to say—he didn’t have to worry about paying bills or taking care of a little one. “I’m going to get it, even if I have to steal it from whomever you give it to.”
“I’ll recommend they tighten security, then.” Car doors began to slam—I had one more shot to get it.
I rose, gun pointed right on Martin’s smiling face. His hair was my natural color of strawberry blond, though clipped close to his head, and he wore dark shades I envied because I had to squint against the sun with mine lost.
He held the plain stone knife I’d been after, ancient Navajo and used by Locust to cut the horns from monsters. Whether it did that or not, I didn’t know, but my private client wanted it nonetheless.
Martin managed to hold it both reverently and teasingly.
I tightened my finger on the trigger, part of me very much wanting to put a bullet in the forehead of that very smug face.
Then one of his “escorts” stepped around him and lobbed a concussion grenade at me.
Fuck! I spun and ran, kicking up dirt, bolting as far from the Jeep as I could. A moment later the explosion rang in my ears and metal flew as the Jeep burst apart. I ducked, covered my head, waiting as debris rained.
When I stood again, my Jeep was torn to hell and the other vehicles were gone. I fished the cell phone from the padded pocket in my belt, cursing under my breath a number of words that would have upset my daughter.
I did hate my brother sometimes.
2
Invitation
I missed the parent-teacher meeting.
It was after eleven EST at night before I walked up the front steps to my house. We lived in a bungalow, and I could have rented a larger one—or nicer one—if I’d gone for a place with less property. But the house sat on a corner lot with tall fences around it, keeping out any view of neighbors with junk in their yards, and with room for Emaleth to play plus a big oak tree for her to climb. Granted, I was the one who did most of the climbing, but I figured she’d grow into it.
A light burned faintly toward the back of the house. Pru must have stayed up. At least there was no tapping of little feet as I closed the door—Em was asleep still.
Good thing, too, as I wasn’t in the right headspace to face the poor kid.
I shucked off my desert combat boots in the corner, slipped off my backpack, holster, and custom belt to hang on the rack, and then padded down the creaky old hall on sore feet. I made a right into the dark kitchen, skipped the light and went for the refrigerator. My socked feet stepped down on something wet and I sighed.
Fucking fridge.
I blindly jerked several squares from the paper towel roll over the sink and tossed them where I’d been standing. The first few times, I thought the cat had peed out there just after we moved, upset with the change of scenery, but it didn’t smell like cat piss. Then I figured out the shitty old fridge was leaking dirty water and the floor sat at such an angle that it all snaked to puddle in the middle of the kitchen.
Landlord had been insisting for two years now that nothing was wrong with it, and unless the fridge stopped working, he wasn’t obligated to give me a new one. And for two years I’d been resisting the urge to flash my guns in his face.
I grabbed a glass of water, ibuprofen, and a cold pack, skirted where the paper towels soaked up the mess, and then made it the rest of the way to the living room before collapsing on the end of the couch.
Prudence Cortez—my best friend, r
oomie, and occasional babysitter—sat on the overstuffed chair-and-a-half, legs curled under her with a brown chenille blanket over her lap and a book in hand. She glanced up and smiled; her dark eyes were half-lidded and sleepy. I knew she didn’t sleep a lot when I was gone, since I was usually doing something that could lead to a gruesome end, so I didn’t bitch about her sleeping in and not getting my munchkin to school on time. For all I knew, Em stole her alarm clock, and Pru had enough going on—she could sleep in whenever she needed to without me caring.
Didn’t change the fact that I silently cursed myself for not being there in the first place.
“It’s Martin’s fault,” I said immediately as I pressed the cold pack to my elbow. It had seemed okay an hour ago, but then the swelling came back and I was hoping some ice would quiet the ache again.
She shook her head and set her book on the end table. “So you’ve said.”
I’d already called and filled her in when I didn’t think I’d make the meeting with Em’s teacher, but I still felt defensive about it. “This is the second time he’s done this.”
“Third if you count the time he had customs waiting at the airport for you.”
Right. I forgot about that. “Fratricide isn’t illegal, is it?”
“You’d be convicted before opening arguments.”
It was true. He was the altruist, the good guy, the one who hadn’t been disinherited. Archaeology doctorate, top of his game. I was the ex-debutante party-girl, now single mother with no education, who stole supernatural artifacts for private clients. No question who won the Favorite Talbot Kid Award. “Did you get a line on who he gave the knife to?”
Pru yawned and brushed curls of black hair from her face, then stretched her arms over her head. “Not yet. Short list should be narrowed down by morning. You’re really going after it?”
“I need the money. We need a new fridge plus Em’s tuition doesn’t pay itself.”
“She’s six. She doesn’t need a private school.”
We’d already had this conversation approximately seventy thousand times. “I totaled the Jeep, but that and the plane tickets were the only expenses. Grant will give me fifteen grand for the knife.”
“Probably,” she said. “That was fifteen grand for the first shot—if you draw attention to him stealing it back...”
“Yeah, yeah. But Grant likes me. I think.” Truthfully, I’d never actually met Iluka Grant; he was some dealer in Australia I worked with sometimes, someone who hired out help if clients requested something found stateside. He’d hired me a few times now, so I was guessing he liked me well enough. “And if I make a fuss about losing my deposit on the rental, I’ll be able to squeeze out more.”
She shook her head. No sense arguing with me.
“How are you?” My question was weighted and I studied her, not trying to disguise it.
Pru knew it, too. “Fine. I skipped my nap yesterday.”
“You know, if you have a bad day, and I’m not here—”
“I know, I know—”
“—the munchkin doesn’t need to go to school.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I got her to class, skipped the therapy pool, came home and took a nap, and got her from school again.”
I bit my tongue. The last thing I would ever do was treat her like an invalid but I did worry about her pushing herself for Em’s sake when I wasn’t around to help. It required trust, I knew, but I could be a little mother hen-ish sometimes.
And that the Pulse four years ago managed to activate relics and powers and supernatural creatures of old but didn’t do fuck all to bring about a cure for real world things such as multiple sclerosis pissed me off to no end. What’s the point of living in a supernatural world when it didn’t cure the lesions on her spinal cord and brain?
Prudence changed the subject, of course. “There’s a package for you on the kitchen counter.”
Huh. “Bomb?”
“Hasn’t exploded yet, and why do you always ask that? Has anyone ever actually sent you a bomb?”
They hadn’t but as daughter of a rich guy, my childhood had its share of worst case scenario discussions, usually kidnapping but occasionally miscellaneous topics like bombs. Apparently it traumatized my psyche. “Give it time.”
“Delivery boy said it was for Olivia Talbot and that’s it. You also received two phone calls. Richard Moss?”
I groaned and held my eyes shut for several seconds. “Tell him we’re lesbians.”
“I’m not doing that anymore.”
Ugh, just ’cause it scared off a guy she liked one time. “Tell him...I died. From...a mail bomb.”
“He was very polite.”
Of course he was polite—that’s how he finagled my phone number from someone in the first place. I looked at Pru and cocked a brow.
“Where’d you meet him?”
Uh... “A couple of months ago...remember that Inca necklace?”
“That you were trying to steal from the museum?” Pru’s voice turned sharp with disapproval.
She was not happy about that job—museum thefts were frowned upon, in her opinion. I’d deemed it too difficult after I was arrested just casing the joint—my brother’s work, of course, when he was visiting with the curator and saw me there—but Prudence still made her displeasure known. “Yeah, that one. I ran into him before I was surrounded by a dozen terribly handsome uniformed men with handcuffs. Just a patron. Took me twenty minutes to lose him and the bathroom trick didn’t work.”
“Persistent.”
“Understatement. He’s pushy, about six-four, wicked hot, and thinks me dating him is a foregone conclusion. You know how that normally turns out.”
“Either you sleep with him or you punch him.”
I nodded. “Sometimes both. I don’t need this right now. Also, his name is Dick Moss. Dick Moss.”
“He said it was Richard—”
Clearly she wasn’t listening to me. The ice pack crackled against my elbow as I leaned forward for emphasis. “Dick. Moss. It sounds like a venereal disease.”
“You shouldn’t judge someone by their name.”
“Can I judge him for leaving flowers on my car? Twice?”
Her mouth opened. Closed. She frowned. “That’s...”
“Something someone with the middle name ‘McStalkerpants’ would do. I’m done with his type, I told you. Then he tells me he’s at the museum for a ‘story’ because he’s in the newspaper business—uh, no, he owns the newspaper business. Well, blogging, but still.”
“You mean—”
“Yeah. That Moss.” No date in eight months, no sex in ten, and the first guy who seriously gets sniffing around me is set to inherit The Stargazer—tabloid extraordinaire with an online presence that specialized in making unsubstantiated rumors believed—and is incapable of understanding the word ‘no’? Former celebutante karma, apparently.
Pru raised her hands. “You win. He must be avoided. Should I see about changing the number?”
I waved her off. “He probably didn’t get the memo that I’m broke now, or doesn’t realize what girls who did the pageant circuit grow up to be. I’ll scare some sense into him.”
“I leave it to you, then.” She rose in her pink pajamas, left the blanket on the arm of the chair, and gathered her book. “See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll take Em to school,” I called.
She mumbled something that I missed and disappeared down the dark hall to the bedrooms.
Though I spared a glance at the phone on the end table, I shuddered at the thought of messages waiting and instead leaned back on the couch to stare at the popcorn ceiling. The water-damaged popcorn ceiling. Landlord repaired the roof leak last spring but didn’t do anything about the damage inside. “Put a coat of paint on it,” he said, like a) it was my problem to fix in the first place, and b) my concern was cosmetic only.
The idea of holding him at gunpoint was getting more and more appealing.
Gooseflesh sprea
d down my arm from the cold pack. I ached from head to toe and needed to take some painkillers, but the mere thought of moving had me exhausted. After digging my canteen and GPS from the destroyed Jeep that morning, I’d walked four miles to something vaguely resembling civilization, failed to track The Wonderful and Amazingly Good Dr. Martin Talbot down, then fought for hours just to get a car to take me into Phoenix. My feet were blistered, I had scrapes and bruises just about everywhere, and I was giving serious consideration to sleeping on the damn couch.
So I stared at the ceiling some more. I needed to finish this job and then quickly find another.
And there would be more—there were always more. For every person like me trying to cash in on what the Pulse brought, there were millions of people who denied anything happened at all. Like with anything else, there were the deniers, the believers, the haters, the stay-the-hell-out-of-its-way-ers, and the hunters who had a treasure trove of things to find. The important thing was to get a line on items—before do-gooders like my brother did—and sell to the highest bidder.
I’d never understand how there could be deniers. I remembered, still, the moment the Pulse happened—it was around seven-thirty in the evening, I was reading to a two-year-old Em after tucking her into bed in our shitty little apartment, and I felt it. Felt the rush of hot then cold swell in the air, the pinprick of electrical charge, the sparking colors flashing briefly in the air, the pressure that made my ears pop. I didn’t know what it was then, tried to push it from my mind, but my gut knew it was something.
Something that, ultimately, had bought me a way out of my life back then, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.
At last I reached over, cracked open the pill bottle, and swallowed three. I’d checked in with my client on the way home; Grant wasn’t pleased, but he knew I wouldn’t give up so didn’t fire me. I’d get Em to school in the morning, see if Pru got any info on who Martin gave the knife to, and hit the job hard again by noon. It had been a few months since I’d broken into anyone’s place; I was curious to know how rusty my skills were.