Rachel Caine - Devil's Bargain

Standing with her, shuffling his feet uncomfortably and looking desperately as if he wanted to be anywhere else on earth, was Manny Glickman.

“Manny?” Jazz got up so fast she felt her throbbing head swim. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, raised his muddy green eyes to hers for a bare second, and then looked down. “I, um, was just—on my way to—”

“Manny,” Lucia said slowly, and got up, too. She took a couple of steps in his direction, and stopped when he backed up a little in alarm. He liked her well enough, Jazz knew, but Manny didn’t like anything coming at him that quickly. “Sorry. Listen, maybe you can help. You know something about security.”

“Pretty much everything,” he agreed, without any arrogance. “Why?”

“Jazz needs secure accommodations.”

Manny looked up sharply, and fastened a laser stare on Lucia. “What’s going on?”

Careful, Jazz thought, wishing she was telepathic. If she was going to be so god-awful special, she ought to at least have some particular power beyond getting thumped on and kind of enjoying it.

“Jazz has somebody after her,” Lucia said. “I don’t think she’ll be safe in her home as it is right now.”

Manny’s stare transferred to Jazz. “After you?”

She sighed. “Yeah.” Any second now, there would be a cloud of dust and an end to her relationship with Manny Glickman. Danger was something Manny just didn’t do. Not that he’d ever been Adventure Man, but his turn under the ground had stripped away whatever bravery he’d once pretended to own. Not that she blamed him. She knew she wouldn’t have survived it at all. “Never mind, Manny, don’t worry about it. You go on and—”

“You can stay with me,” he said. A simple, declarative statement. No shifting, no stuttering, no nervous flutters. He was rock still, his eyes steady and his face set. “There’s no place safer in this city than mine.”

Oh, God, Jazz thought, and a wave of hilarity cascaded over her. She saw Lucia bite her lip, eyes wide. Manny Glickman as a roommate….

“I won’t let you down,” he said, and suddenly all of the funny stuff fell away, and she was looking not at the screwed-up Manny she’d known for years, but at an entirely different person. Somebody who might have been able to pass the FBI’s stringent tests and personality profiles and background checks. Somebody who had strength and dignity and courage.

Somebody who’d always been there, underneath all of the panic and worry and tics.

“I won’t,” he repeated, and took a step toward her. “Jazz, let me do this. I want to help you.”

She had no idea why he was offering. “Manny, look, you don’t understand. People may be trying to hurt me. Kill me. This isn’t a game.”

He swallowed hard. She saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down convulsively, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He was trembling a little, but only a little, and he jammed hands into the pockets of his tan raincoat to hide it. “Fine,” he said. “Just, you know, leave it outside. Don’t bring it in.”

Lucia stepped smoothly into the silence. “You set the time and method for us to move her,” she said. “Just let us know.”

“Hey!” Jazz said. “Don’t I get—”

“No,” Lucia answered without looking at her. “It’s Manny’s call, not yours. Let’s face it, Jazz, you gave up the right to make the decisions when you decided to run off to L.A. and get a contract put out on your life. So from now on, you go nowhere without me. You live in Manny’s house. And you do not get a vote.”

Jazz’s temper—never far from the surface—flared into bubbling lava. “I’m not living like a prisoner!”

The window behind her exploded in a shower of bright, sharp-edged glass, and she felt a rush of wind that blew her hair forward violently. Lucia was heading toward her, but she was already diving for the carpet, squirming to get under the desk, twisting on her side to see if anybody else had been hit.

Manny was still standing, staring uncomprehendingly at the shattered window and the clanking, wind-tossed blinds. Pansy screamed something unintelligible at him and tackled him; they tumbled together, off balance, back out into the reception area between the offices. Lucia hadn’t gone for cover. She’d hit the carpet, rolled gracefully, and fetched up against the far wall under the windows. By the time she made the last rotation, she had her gun out and in both hands. She shook hair out of her face, panting, and stared at Jazz. “You all right?” she shouted. Jazz made an okay gesture with one hand as she yanked open her desk drawer with the other and felt around in the depths. She found a cold metal box and pulled it out to thump on the carpet next to her head, then punched in the combination with trembling fingers. The lock snapped open.

She took the Sig Sauer and scrambled to join Lucia at the window. They sat there together, backs to the wall, guns ready, and exchanged a look.

“Now,” Lucia said, and rolled right, over the broken glass, coming up on one knee and aiming out the open window. Jazz angled to cover her own side. There was a second’s tight silence as they searched for targets.

“Clear,” Lucia announced.

“Yeah, here, too.”

“If he’s any good, he’s already gone,” Lucia said. “Snipers don’t hang around waiting for a second chance. They take the shot and go without seeing how it came out. If it doesn’t work, they come back for another try.”

Jazz nodded jerkily and narrowed her eyes against the glare, still looking. The morning looked bland and bright. Traffic crawled along outside without incident. Nobody seemed to have noticed a thing, so far, though there was a nice glittering spray of glass on the sidewalk below.

“Get out,” Lucia said, still maintaining a rigid focus outside the window, gun at the ready. “Stay low.”

There wasn’t any reason to argue about it. Jazz did a combat-crawl across the floor, keeping close to the wall, and when she was far enough, rose to a crouch and moved fast out into the darker area beyond. Manny and Pansy peered at her from the cover of Pansy’s desk.

“Over here!” Pansy whispered, and gestured her urgently on. “Get down!”

“There’s no reason to keep your voice down, they’re not stalking the halls with Uzis,” Jazz said in a normal tone, and straightened up. “Also, there’s no way they can see in here from any of the windows. We’re fine.”

“Thanks, we’ll just—stay here,” Pansy said. “I called nine-one-one.”

“Good idea.” Jazz realized her heart was still pounding, and she was breathing too fast, and reached up to run her hand through her hair. Something bit in a sharp hot line on her finger, and she bent over and shook her head. A rain of glass fragments came out and bounced on the carpet. “You both okay? No holes in you?”

“Fine,” Pansy said. Manny wasn’t speaking, evidently. “Jazz? I’m thinking I might, you know, take a personal day.”

Jazz nodded calmly, ejected the clip from the Sig Sauer and checked it before slamming it back in and ratcheting the slide to put one in the chamber. “You know,” she said, “I personally think that sounds like an excellent idea. But wait for the police.”

“Don’t worry,” Manny said. Like Jazz, he sounded extremely calm. Unnaturally calm. “I’m not moving until there’s three-hundred-sixty degrees of Kevlar.”

She had no doubt that was true. She expected the next time she saw Manny, he’d look like the Michelin Man, only in black body armor. “Pansy. You didn’t see Borden when you came in this morning?”

“No, was he here?”

“Yes.” No need to go into details. “I’m going to check the rest of the offices.”