Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Part 11

Lailah glanced up and c.o.c.ked one heavy black brow. Alex bit back a snarl. If they were going to play the judgment game, he had a few choice words for people who shot first and asked questions later.

Even if she had saved his life? And Liz's?

He glared into his drink, and Lailah returned to washing Antja's throat. Antja bore it in silence, but her eyes glistened and her hands clenched white-knuckled on the bedspread that draped her shoulders. In spite of the pain, she seemed calm. Shock, he wondered, or had she done things like this before?

Without enough distraction, Alex felt the bruises throbbing down his back. His palms were stiff with drying scabs and the scratch on his gla.s.ses flashed white over his right eye whenever he turned his head.

He hadn't been in a fight since his first year in the States, when high school bullies had targeted him for his accent and gla.s.ses and precocious erudition. That had only lasted until summer, when he grew six inches in as many painful weeks. He'd despised the helplessness of being bullied then, and it didn't taste any better now. He took another shot of Chartreuse, and nearly regretted it when he heard Liz retching in the bathroom. Let that be delayed reaction, he prayed, and not some fast-moving infection.

She emerged a moment later, splotchy and miserable but steadier. Lailah uncoiled from her crouch and intercepted her; Alex stiffened, but she only took Liz's hand and inspected it.

"Well," Liz said, her voice straining with forced lightness, "will I turn into a zombie?"

Alex winced. It might be a joke, but it didn't stop the images crowding behind his eyes.

Lailah's mouth twisted sideways, a crooked smile. "It doesn't quite work that way." Her voice was low and husky, a hint of accent in her vowels that he couldn't pin down. "But this will turn septic if you don't treat it."

Alex pushed himself away from the bar. "You need medical attention." His own tone made him even angrier. He'd never gone in for jealousy or posturing, but something about Lailah-or her gun- roused atavistic territorial instincts in his amygdala. Liz's mouth tightened, and he wished he had a bucket to drown his lizard brain.

"She needs antibiotics," Lailah said. "Which I have." She rummaged in the first aid kit and produced a brown plastic prescription bottle. "Are you allergic to penicillin?"

When Liz shook her head she tossed her the rattling bottle.

"Are you always prepared for zombies?" Liz asked.

Alex tried not to glare, but suspected he failed. "Could we not use the zed-word, please?"

"Do you have a better one?"

Maenad. He bit back the reply. Somehow it seemed worse. He remembered the painting at Rainer's gallery; the woman's tangled hair and wild gla.s.sy eyes were too close a match, her b.l.o.o.d.y lips and hands. Worry about blood poisoning instead, he told himself, the disgusting state of the human mouth. Liz sat down again and Alex poured hydrogen peroxide onto her hand. It fizzed and bubbled in the bites and she hissed. He flinched at the sound.

"Why should we trust you?" Alex asked Lailah. "You've been stalking us all week."

"And you're lucky I was." She stepped away from Antja and leaned against the wall, a dark stain against creamy wallpaper. She was around Antja's height, but broader through the shoulders and hips, with a square face and scarred, sinewy hands. Her hair clung to her face, drying in frizzing waves. "I didn't imagine you'd get yourself in quite so much trouble so fast."

Alex's chest swelled with an angry response, but he forced himself to deflate. Telling off a trigger-happy stalker might not be the most prudent choice. He helped Liz with ointment and bandages instead. The swelling was already worse.

"You're sure you don't want to go to the hospital?" A reasonable tone, he hoped, for a more than reasonable suggestion.

But her mouth flattened again. "I'm fine."

It was one of the worst lies he'd ever heard. But a hospital would demand explanations and police reports, or clever prevarication. He wasn't sure he had any cleverness left.

He had stubbornness, at least. "Who were those people? And what the h.e.l.l happened to them? No, wait." He raised a hand before Lailah spoke. "Who are you-then who were they?"

"You're a jackal, aren't you?" Antja whispered. Her voice was an ugly rasp. "I thought you didn't get involved."

Lailah rounded on her, all her earlier solicitude vanishing in one snorted laugh. "We've been involved since we cleaned up your boyfriend's mess. Messes, if you count all the maniacs I've been sc.r.a.ping off the streets."

Antja's chin lifted and a muscle worked in her jaw. That was a fascinating line of inquiry, but Alex didn't let himself get distracted. "What does any of this have to do with Liz or me?"

Lailah's black eyes turned to him, narrow and measuring. "That depends on how fast you get out. My job is to clean up messes, not babysit tourists. And not to give you answers that will only get you into more trouble."

Liz leaned forward, shrugging off Alex's warning hand. "What happened to those people at the cemetery?"

"That's what happens when you take too much mania. One of the things that happens."

Liz stiffened. Her good hand curled against the chair. "Will it happen to Blake?"

A shrug. A flicker of her eyes. "I don't know."

"That's not good enough!" Her voice cracked on the last word. A tremor shook her jaw.

"It's all I have. He's been pretty d.a.m.ned lucky so far."

Antja stood, the blanket sliding off her shoulders. She hadn't fastened all the b.u.t.tons of her borrowed shirt, and it gaped over the soft curve of her stomach. "I should go." Her voice was painful to hear.

"Just like that?" Lailah said. "If anyone owes an explanation, it's you. Don't you want to tell them about your boyfriend's business, and all the ways it's coming round to bite you?"

"Leave Rainer out of this."

Lailah pushed away from the wall with a laugh, her posture intent and predatory. "It's a little late for that."

Alex was inclined to agree. But Antja had helped them, and without the rea.s.surance of a gun. He rose, pulling his shoulders straight.

"I think everyone's day has been bad enough without an inquisition."

Antja reached for her coat, not quite hiding a flinch as she slipped it on. "I agree." Her hand brushed Alex's arm in pa.s.sing. "Thank you. For the shirt."

Lailah scowled at the door as it swung shut. "You've picked dangerous company to keep," she said when the latch clicked. "Keep going and you'll become one of the messes I have to mop up."

"All we want to do is help our friend," Liz said.

Lailah's frown softened as she studied them. Pity, Alex decided, was worse than threats. "Go home. That's all you can do-go home while you still can." And she followed Antja out the door.

Alex shot the deadbolt behind her and fastened the chain. The locks offered little comfort.

10.

Touch

BY THE TIME the cab stopped in front of Antja's building, the icy rain was a welcome relief from the blasting heater and the chatter she couldn't reply to. Her throat burned inside and out, limbs stiffening with adrenaline aftermath-she wasn't sure if she shook from nerves or anger or grief or all three. As soon as she was inside, she promised herself, safe in her own condo, then she could collapse. Scream and shake to her heart's content.

She pulled her filthy coat closer as she hurried down the sidewalk. The sky was the color of tarnished pewter and the rain promised to become sleet. It stung her face and dripped cold through her hair, warming by the time it trickled under her collar. She drew glances as she neared the lobby. She knew what she looked like: tangled hair and torn stockings; a swollen lip; a man's shirt. At least the doorman would have something to gossip about.

A tattered curtain of water poured off the awning; she gasped as she stepped through it, and regretted the breath as soon as her throat expanded. When she wiped her eyes, she saw a man leaning against the sheltered wall.

"Excuse me, Miss-"

Drowning out his question, a too-familiar voice filled her head.

Don't let him touch you .

A perfectly ordinary man, dark-haired and well dressed, the sort she pa.s.sed a dozen times on the street every day. Black-gloved hands left his pockets, reaching as if to catch her attention. Not leather, those gloves-rubber. Rubber shimmering with moisture. The smell of honey wafted through the air.

Seconds pa.s.sed between the warning and his touch, but she was too slow and befuddled to react. His hands closed on hers, wrapped around her wrist. Cool, but warmer than her own winterchilled flesh.

"What-" She jerked away, but he held on. Warmth seeped through her skin, and a sharp, stinging taste filled her mouth, pungent as raw garlic. She shuddered and might have fallen, but the man caught her elbow and held her up.

"Miss?" She read the word on his lips, but the sound drowned in her rushing pulse. "Are you all right?"

I did warn you.

Poison. Her knees buckled, but the man didn't let go. His hand burned on her bare skin. Heat flooded her, surging in time with her heart. She recognized that liquid fire, like a summer sky in her veins. Mania. Morpheus.

She hadn't taken it in years, not since Berlin. Lovely languid warmth, clarity of senses, an intoxicating amplification of her own magic. But it wasn't worth the visions and nightmares that came after. Something was wrong, though. This was too fast, too strong.

Augmented. Not just the drug, but sorcery with it. The fire would scorch her from the inside out, turn her brain to cinders. And the a.s.sa.s.sin would hold her as she died, his dark eyes wide with concern.

The world sharpened. Rain fell like steel shot against the pavement. Tires shrieked loud as baboons, and her pulse roared in her ears. Colors deepened, shone like sunlit cathedral gla.s.s. The wind whipped razors through her flesh, while inside she burned.

The stained gla.s.s world shattered and fell away.

Not the a.s.sa.s.sin before her now but Rainer, his hands in hers, her name on his lips. She wanted to cry, to fall into his arms and let him make everything all right again. But darkness stood behind him, his angel wrought of leather and bone, enfolding him in winding-shroud wings and the stench of tombs.

:He is ours: said the angel, and its eyes were full of stars. :He has always been ours. You can never touch the oaths he has sworn us, or replace us in his heart. He is Chosen, and he can never choose you: As she watched, Rainer's forget-me-not eyes ran black. Ink spread under his skin, filling every vein. In the darkness that was his eyes, pinp.r.i.c.ks of light began to burn. Wings the color of decay unfurled from his shoulders. He was the angel and the angel was him, and they spoke with the same shuddering voice.

:I'm sorry. Nothing you do can change this: His wings unfolded and carried him away, ripping his hands from hers and leaving her in darkness.

But not alone. Alain stood beside her now, pale and translucent as milk and cobwebs. His eyes were black pits, all light extinguished, and when he spoke his gravelly voice was wet and drowned.

"Everything you've done is for nothing. You can't save him, any more than I could save Blake. I held on-I held on tight, but it was no use. They consume us like moths, without even meaning it. But it's all right-stay with me. Wait with me, and we'll watch it all burn."

But she was falling away from his outstretched hand, into a redlined darkness that went down forever.

Antja Michaela!

A snap, a wrench, and the world was back. She stood on the sidewalk, untouched by wind or rain, and watched herself slump in a stranger's arms. Raindrops glittered in midair, frozen along with time.

The dark man stood beside her, a frown carving his beautiful face. "I warned you. Now look what's happened."

"You could have warned me earlier." It didn't hurt to speak here, outside of time and flesh. All her aches and bruises were far away, only dying echoes of pain.

"I could have. I could have blinded him, let him stand in the rain long after you were safe inside and you never would have known."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Do you know how many times I've saved you and your beloved? Do you know how many of the Brotherhood's a.s.sa.s.sins I led astray after you first called me? How many other random perils I've shielded you from?"

Her mouth opened and closed silently. "You don't," he went on, his voice gentling, "because our arrangement was never about keeping score. It was about your safety, for as long as you wanted it, in exchange for a few eventual favors."

"I don't like your favors," she whispered, hugging herself though she felt no chill.

"No one ever does, after the deal is struck. But you like your life, and your beloved's life. I didn't warn you earlier because I don't want you to take me for granted. And I don't want you to remain blind to problems that are within your power to solve."

"It doesn't look like I'll be solving this one." She stared at herself-mouth open, eyes rolled back, spine arching as if about to fall. She looked awful. Her collar gaped to show the swelling, handshaped bruises around her throat, the scratches the maniac's nails had carved. Her cheeks were pale and splotchy, the skin around her eyes fragile as tissue under smeared makeup. So much, she thought wryly, for leaving a good-looking corpse.

"In a few seconds, the spell that's soaked through your skin will reach your brain, and rupture. Not unlike an aneurysm. You'll die quickly and in pain. When your corpse reaches the morgue-don't worry, I think you'll have a bruised, Ophelian sort of beauty about you-the doctors will discover a very high concentration of mania in your blood. And the police will want to know where it came from."

"And they'll go to Rainer." She swallowed. "All this to cause trouble for him?"

He took her hand and squeezed it softly. "Forgive me, my dear, but this is hardly much effort as murders go. One death, quickly accomplished. I'm sure the spell was a tricky bit of work, but that's practically its own reward to a good magician."

"Who-"

She stopped even as the dark man tilted his head chidingly. "I think you can deduce that."

And she could. It was clever: not only might the police trace the mania back to Rainer, but any serious investigation into their finances would stir up even more trouble. And though the police couldn't catch Rainer, his absence would mean that control of mania would fall into the hands of his sometime business partner.

And a bit of revenge for a wasted gla.s.s of scotch thrown in for good measure.

She let out a long breath. Outside of her dying body, she could appreciate it. Admiration would fade when the pain of her death set in, she was sure.

"Oh no," the man said. "You're not going to die. That would be breaking our agreement, and I could never have that on my conscience. Look closely."

She followed his pointing hand. If she concentrated she could see the magic moving through her body-not the quiet sparkle of her own craft, but the shining gold of Stephen's spell. It pumped through her blood with the mania, traveling to her heart and lungs before it reached her brain. It was already in her chest-it wouldn't take long from there.

She knew what she had to do. Easy now to step forward and plunge ephemeral fingers into her own flesh, and pluck out the spell.

It shimmered in her hand like a golden pearl, filled her head with the scent of brandy and smoke and Stephen's cologne. She tilted her palm and it fell to the rain-drenched sidewalk. It crunched like a pearl, too, as she brought her boot heel down.

The devil's smile warmed her through, and she hated herself for it. "That's my girl." He leaned down to kiss her brow. "Now take care of this poor dupe."

With that she was back in her wet, bruised flesh, crumpling slowly backward, the taste of garlic and chemicals in her mouth and mania surging through her veins. She caught herself, straightened in the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin's grip. The smile that stretched her face felt terrible; he flinched from it.

"Miss?" Still following the script, but now his motivation was gone. "Are you all right?"