Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows) (25 page)

Wet popping sounds had punctuated the melody by the time she parked her ass on the barstool bench next to the counter. Tian watched the serenity in Avery's face with an envious twinge as he shuffled his DNA around, displaying the casual grace reserved for cracking a couple of joints. Thick tufts of calico fur emerged from his torso, sprouting along his obliques and spreading over his entire body in exotic designs and shifting lines of motion. She could see the bones in his feet breaking and elongating, using the extra marrow from his shortening femurs as Avery resettled into canine form. The whistling faltered as his face shifted beyond the scope of human capacity. Thirty seconds later she was leaning against the counter, face to face with a gigantic Cu Sithe Hound.

"You ready?"

Avery gave a disdainful snort from dog form and started towards the garage. He let himself in and made a be-line for the Jag before plopping down.

"No fucking way," Tian told him. "You know you're never gonna fit in that thing and I'm not driving around San Francisco with your ass in my face."

Avery shot her a tongue filled doggie grin as she pulled the keys to the restored '70 Barracuda off the hook next to the door. She went over and opened up the passenger side of the vehicle. Avery continued to wait next to the Jag.

Stubborn prick.

Tian gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. "I didn't have sex with Sio," she said. "Now get in the car."

The Cu Sithe chuffed, sneezed once, and trotted over to the vehicle. Tian kicked the passenger side shut after him and walked around to slide into the driver's seat. "I'd forgotten how much I enjoy these moments where you're incapable of comment," she said. Avery leaned in and ran his tongue up the side of her face.

"Get the hell off me." She shoved him back into his seat. The smug bastard plunked his mammoth dome down on the side of the open window and prepared to hang his head out for the ride. Tian pulled out onto the street. She took a shortcut through the Castro before turning left towards the Mission. They managed to get there with minimal irritation, getting stuck once behind a city bus, and narrowly avoiding a collision with a couple of irate cyclists. At 26th street they circled the block to find parking for almost an hour as she cursed the fact that there weren't more glamoured parking spots around the city.

Eventually they found a parallel space on a side street. Avery was up and out, squeezing through the window before she'd shut off the car. He took off, barreling through clustered pedestrians and dodging the gauntlet of debris littering the sidewalk. Tian took her time getting out and locking up before trudging down the road in search of the 26th Street Animal Clinic.

Virgil's place was the ground floor of a squat brick structure covered in colorful murals. The bay windows in front had sky blue decals running across the bottom border that boasted the same lettering as the animal shaped wooden sign that hung above the front entrance. The fire engine red trim matched the twin hydrants on either side of the door.

The bells on the inside of the entrance jingled cheerfully as she walked in. She found Avery sitting in the corner of the waiting room looking like he'd tried and failed to butter up the tattooed receptionist behind the recycled material desk. The woman stared out from under a mound of bright yellow hair and eyed Tian with blatant irritation.

"Can I help you?" the girl asked. The look on her face said that being helpful was the last thing she had any interest in doing. Tian eyed her back and the woman's animosity built on the brightly colored surface of her skin.

"I'm here to see Virgil."

"You don't have a pet."

Tian sighed. Why was it that things like this were never as easy as they should be? She gestured toward Avery, who sat radiating amusement in the corner and dwarfing the four foot fish tank next to him. "I'm with him."

"The doctor is in with a patient," the receptionist lied, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms across an ample bosom. "Since it's not an emergency you're going to have to make an appointment and come back next month."

Tian pulled a 1911 out of its holster and screwed on the custom silencer. She pointed it at the corner of the room and pulled the trigger, clipping Avery in the shoulder where he watched the exchange. He blinked, glanced at the cut, then back at her with a low growl.

"You earned that," she told Avery as he licked the wound, "and it's barely a scratch so quit being a pussy." Tian turned back to the receptionist. "There you go, he's bleeding, happy?"

Tian leaned over the desk and dropped the muzzle of the silencer onto the empty schedule box for the date on the calendar. "It would be a good idea for you to call in and tell Virgil his eight o'clock is here."

The girl picked up the phone. The dark polish on her nails was chipped where she'd been gnawing on it. Before she got anyone on the line, the door to the exam room swung open and a sawed off shotgun was leveled at Tian's face. The receptionist shot Tian a dirty glare, leaning into Virgil as if he'd run to her rescue.

"Nice to see you too, Healer," Tian said, fisting what was left of the barrel and guiding it away from her nose. "I think Avery is in need of a couple of stitches."

She let go and the muzzle dropped. Virgil looked at them with clinical detachment.

"Did he need stitches before or after you walked through that door?"

Tian shrugged and re-holstered her weapon. The woman behind the desk became more petulant by the second. "Not that it's relevant, but he had it coming...We need to talk, V."

The Mayan raised an eyebrow and gestured toward the empty exam room with the shotgun. "After you."

Virgil shut them in and flipped the lock. He set his firearm on top of a brightly painted row of cabinets that matched the outside trim. The rest of the room was a yellow orange color that came off as playful or inviting. It was hard to imagine that Virgil had picked the colors himself.

"Did you have to shoot him in my lobby?"

"I told you. He had it coming," Tian said. She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall opposite the window.

"I believe that."

Avery interrupted him with a sarcastic snort.

"It doesn't change the fact that my receptionist's already been glamored within an inch of her life. I'm going to have to get a new one. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good help these days?"

It was Tian's turn to snort. She stared at the door to the waiting room. "Exactly how short is the skirt she's got on behind that desk?"

Virgil laughed. "I make them all wear pants."

"Kids must be devastated."

Virgil shook his head as he rummaged through one of the cabinets. "That's not my problem." He turned toward Avery and patted the exam table. "You planning to stay a dog or do you want to shift back before I fix you?"

Avery shot Tian another dirty doggie glare before climbing up on the table. A series of wet cracks and loud grinding sounds began to emanate from his furry body. The hair rippled around his skin, as if it were detached, before disappearing through gaping pores in chunks and tufts. There was a short lived moment of heavy panting that usually preceded a pile of vomit on the rug and then the whistling started up again. Before he got to the first chorus he was done.

Avery coughed and sat up on the table. "Always way easier to come out of it," he said, shaking himself and sitting nude with his thick legs dangling over the side of the table. His light brown curls were in matted disarray all over the crown of his skull. He grinned and rolled his shoulders, one of which was now beginning to scab. "I told you we should have sent Sio."

"Who's Sio?" Virgil asked inspecting the scab.

"Sio wouldn't have had to shoot my ass in order to get the receptionist to let us in," Avery persisted.

"Who's Sio?"

"I didn't have to shoot you, Avery. Like I said before, you earned that shit."

"Look." Virgil ripped the scab off of Avery's deltoid. "As much as I enjoy being ignored in my own place of business I want an answer. Did the Cell of Swift Retribution get another playmate? And if so, what does that have to do with me?"

"Tian did," Avery said with an obnoxious grin. "She kidnapped him." His smile widened until she could practically see his molars.

Tian focused on Virgil. "Sio is one of the reasons we're here. How are you with bindings?"

"Depends on what kind," the healer said. He blew a breath into Avery's open wound. Avery's face tightened as the wound began to knit together.

"What if I said they're Sidhe."

Both males stared at her.

"That's..." Virgil shook his head trying for an answer and failing. "That's on you. I don't even know what something of that magnitude would look like."

"How extensive are you talking about, Tian?" Avery asked. Concern stripped the jovial overlay from his tone.

"I don't know."

"You do realize you're gonna have to check, right?"

"What's the other reason?" Virgil asked, breaking into the increasingly personal conversation.

"We need you to fix someone else," Tian said. The change of subject was a relief.

"Is Ceyla okay?"

"Ceyla's fine," Avery said.

"Who then?" Virgil folded his arms and leaned back against the side of the exam table. Tian shrugged.
What the hell.

"The other guy I kidnapped."

"She's been busy," Avery added with wary good humor. He tested his freshly healed shoulder.

"I don't do human," Virgil said.

"I don't want you to do him. I want you to fix him."

"No."

"Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath?" Avery asked.

Virgil hit them both with an unfriendly glare. "I'm a vet."

She'd been afraid of that. "Look," Tian said, "If it was just a matter of some stitches and a couple of liters of blood I would have fixed him myself. We had a run-in with the Slaugh and wound up in their Nemed when it came back to life. The experience junked his brain, so I need your help and I'm not leaving till I get it."

She paused. "Quit looking at me like that. It's been a rough month."

Virgil recovered first; his voice cracked. "Dulce Madre. I can't fix that, Tian. Something like that requires way more energy than I have to give. It has to come from somewhere."

"We share, you can pull from me."

"You can pull from any of us or all of us if you need," Avery said, staring at her as if she were a stranger.

"This isn't your everyday run of the mill human." Virgil had done his best to make it a statement, but his eyes pleaded with her to confirm the veracity of the question.

Tian shrugged. "He's about as human as it gets."

"The whole caring, sharing thing is new for you, female. Contrary to your purpose. It's kind of freaking me out." Virgil looked at her with mixed pride and resentment.

"Yeah, I'm fucking Gandhi. Now, are you coming or are we doing this the hard way? Maybe the big guy gets to carry you to the car?"

"The 'big guy' isn't wearing any pants."

"I never said that you wouldn't be bare assed when we hauled you out."

She and Virgil stood, locked in standoff while Avery sat on the sidelines waiting for the verdict and trying to keep a straight face. After about a minute of silence, Virgil raised his hands and laced his fingers behind his head, stretching to reinforce the width of his torso.

"You win, Pequena Muerte. Where'd you park?"

****

Virgil sat in the car wondering what in Tir Na Nog had possessed him to agree to go anywhere with Eamon's Crew. Fucking neutrality, that's what. It was stupid of him; he simply hadn't expected either of them to be so compelling. Now here he was, after twenty minutes worth of brain braiding his receptionist, sitting in the passenger side of an immaculately restored royal blue 1970 Barracuda, deeply aware that no one knew who he was with or where he was going.

He watched Tian in the rearview as she motored them through the crush of gridlocked urban traffic. He tried to avoid staring at her openly. It wasn't that he was attracted to her, he wasn't, but her presence was captivating, reassuring in a way that was at odds with everything he'd ever heard or known of her. Whatever her intangible qualities were, they had made it impossible for him to tell her to fuck off, which he'd fully intended to do.

If he was being honest with himself, Virgil could admit that his day to day life had become monotonous. He wondered if agreeing to go with the card carrying members of Swift Retribution was his own version of a quarter millennia crisis. He should have bought a Porsche or banged the receptionist.

He looked out the window in an attempt to gauge where they were, but the car was moving too fast for him to piece together the muddled collage of shapes before they became a garage. Tian slammed the stick shift into park and hit the e-brake. The car spun out, screeching to a stop with the stench of burning rubber hanging heavy in the air. She looked at him expectantly as he returned her stare with numb detachment. Tian nodded to the now unlocked passenger door.

"Get out."

Avery chuckled from the back and smacked him hard on the shoulder. "I'd take her up on that while she's still all nurturing and shit."

Nurturing... Right.

The garage was larger than Virgil had anticipated, given the size of the glamour, but he had to admit the idea of using wards to self-perpetuate the illusion was a stroke of genius. The ward in this room was by far the biggest, most intricate he'd ever seen.

"Who did this for you?" Virgil asked.

Tian started walking. "I tinker. Are you coming?"

Damn.

"Yeah, I'm coming, but from what you said the human'll keep so relax. I'm not your hostage."

Tian turned and grinned. There was a dangerous edge to her amusement that made him uneasy.

"What, you want a cappuccino or something?" Avery asked, scooting past him and tossing back a convivial smile.

After a few hundred years Virgil had come to expect certain things from most of the breed, especially the killers, and this group didn't fit the stereotype. They were clever and it was hard not to notice the ghostly efficiency with which Eamon's Crew went about their business.