Vicki Pettersson - Cheat the Grave

Yes, but would they move to help me against Mackie? Because none but Vanessa had done so during the tunnel fight. I frowned, mentally canvassing the scene at the border. I couldn’t be sure, I’d been too giddy with laughter to notice, but I didn’t think I’d seen her there. And if I noted her absence, along with her violent opposition of Kimber, Warren had too. A fist-sized worry unclenched in my belly, one I hadn’t even known was there, as I realized one person in the troop remembered me.

I silently thanked Vanessa.

“You could still head that way, you know,” Carlos said, jerking his head in the opposite direction of the city. He was right. With Olivia’s money I could change my mortal identity a dozen times a year, alter my locations at whim, and still never make a dent in anything but the interest.

But Suzanne’s words on the night of Mackie’s first attack swung my way like a pendulum marking the moments. No gossip or naysayer-and certainly no asshole-is going to keep me from love. The next moment brought Tripp’s voice back to life, words so recently spoken I could almost feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.

Everyone’s got a right to their own damned reasons.

I glanced down and tentatively rubbed my printed fingertips over Carlos’s. “There’s no freedom in flight, Carlos.”

His smile took a long time to spread over his face, but when it did, it lit up the night. “And now you’ve discovered what all rogues eventually do. It is why at some point we settle somewhere, and battle for the right to remain where we choose.”

Which settled that . Tomorrow I’d head back into Vegas, risking Warren’s wrath, the Tulpa’s suspicions, and Mackie’s blade, all because what I really wanted, my reason, was as valid as anyone else’s. I wanted to get the aureole, enter Midheaven, and take back what was mine. More than anything? I still wanted Hunter.

“You still offering your full resources to protect me from Mackie’s blade?” I asked, tilting my head.

“I’m here, verdad ?” And the shrug was back, as was the gleam in his eye. What a fatalist. What a dreamer.

“You should get some sleep.”

I nodded, then stood, and waited for Carlos to accompany me back into the cell. When he only held out his hand for my lantern, I realized he was standing guard.

“And while you’re sleeping,” he went on, graciously ignoring my sudden tears, “send up a prayer that we find a way to get past your former troop leader. He’s pretty pissed.”

“I’ll take care of Warren.”

“Really? So again, you’re going to take on Warren, the Tulpa, and Sleepy Mac?”

“All in a day’s work.”

“You must be some sort of superhero.”

In response, I stepped forward and kissed both his cheeks, scented the slim vein of tequila coming off his breath, then briefly pressed to my lips to his. If I weren’t in love with another man, and if Carlos didn’t know that, we might have deepened the kiss into something more. I pulled back and saw that knowledge in his eyes too.

“No, chilango, ” I said, cupping his cheeks. “But despite all odds, I’m alive, and that’s enough.”

But it wasn’t all.

So with my failures piling aboveground like a funeral pyre of mistakes, I headed off in search of Io instead of rest. I had an idea which might just set a torch to that pyre, but what the hell…

One way or another, life as I knew it was about to go up in flames.

“You sure you want to do this?” Io asked when I told her what I wanted. She remained ambivalent at my answering nod, those wide eyes searching, but ultimately shrugged, agreeing to put me under with the same drugs Carlos had previously used to send me to Midheaven. As long as she stayed nearby to pull me back out again, I assured her I’d take care of the rest.

She placed a condition on the favor, though, claiming she wanted to work on my body again since female anatomy had become more or less a novelty to her since joining the cell. Remembering Hunter’s final, desperate kiss, I relented, telling myself her curiosity was professional, not unlike a doctor keeping up on her skills, yet I was still nervous about her fondling my organs…not to mention a little skeeved now that I knew that’s what she was doing.

“Interesting,” she muttered after placing my pancreas back into its natural resting spot. Swallowing hard against the rise of bile in my throat, I rolled my eyes. Really, was there anything this woman wouldn’t touch? “But what’s that doing there?”

“What?” I asked, lifting my head, but she shifted her body to block my view.

“Let’s see if we can’t work it out…”

She rolled her fingers atop, along, and then into my lower abdomen, and I winced as she pulled and stretched in little striated motions, as if plucking harp strings. The motion caused me to alternately tense and relax, and while Buttersnap was lying passed out in her regular position at my right side, one particularly odd movement had me letting out a nauseated groan, causing the giant hound to lift her head and growl-almost like I was an agent of Light.

“Shush, you beast,” Io said, shooing the dog with one hand.

“Ugh,” I said, as she found the center harp string again. “Stop it!”

“No? You want it to stay?” Io asked, though she wasn’t addressing me as much as she was my stomach. “Well, never mind then.”

She then began administering a more traditional massage, the magic of her fingers making fast friends with my fatigue. “Ready?” she asked, and I managed a nod. There was a needle’s pinch at my upper arm, and suddenly I floated, like oil atop water.

“I’ll be right here,” Io whispered from some far-off place. My fingers curled around the object that was as much a part of Midheaven as I was, clutching it to my chest like it was a life preserver. In some ways, I knew, it was.

My soft, velvet thoughts veered sharply then, a roller coaster downslope that plunged my veins into fire. My ears took on a frantic buzz, like I’d stuck my head in a hive as I dropped farther…and then suddenly I was sailing upright, walking on my own two legs through a heavy fog, like a spongy night in London or some other place that wasn’t arid with desert heat. The haze was disconcerting, and I waved a hand before my face to push it away, still “walking” until lights appeared in front of me. The liquid boil of my blood evened out, and my footsteps took on the scratchy reverberation I remembered from my last two mental visits in Midheaven. Once I spotted the outline of a pagoda lantern, the haze dissipated and static electricity whipped around me, the fabric of the world being unzipped.

“Home sweet home,” I muttered, each syllable skipping like a stone, my mouth lined in copper.

The saloon was exactly as I remembered. The long, polished bar stretched before me like a lazy feline, the staircase leading to the elemental rooms to the left, and the board with the myriad Most Wanted posters still staring eerily at me from the far right. Closer to the wall of pagoda lanterns, where I was standing, Sleepy Mac’s piano sat in dust-covered silence, waiting for its owner’s return.

As before, the entire room was devoid of color. Instead a sepia-toned coating washed out everything-the glossy bar, the mirrors reflecting back my hard gaze, the dozen poker tables eating up the room’s middle. The sole exception to this ashen uniformity was a bright, glossy red door with a scrolled gold handle, rimmed in a fierce glow. It was the only thing holding back the heat siphoned from the sun’s core on the other side.

Not that it helped much. Even in my dream I began to sweat. The bartender, Bill, was nowhere to be seen, but a single glass of elegantly cut crystal sat brimming with golden liquid on the otherwise empty bar. Even knowing how the liquid slowed actions and thoughts and time, catching it as if in molasses, I still couldn’t help licking my lips.