Forsaken (16 page)

The Beatles had it right: happiness
is
a warm gun. But without the metaphorical heroin undertones.

Chapter 14

I hardly had the Geo in park when I opened the door and my feet hit the pavement. It hadn’t been twenty-four hours. Fuck, it was still daylight out, midafternoon if I had to guess. I wasn’t there for my cure. I was there for my answers. That bitch had fucked around in my head and let the darkness in. She saw what I knew about Cyrus, the big fat secret. There was no way she didn’t see more. There was no way she didn’t know exactly what was happening to me, to Tatum.

The bell dinged as I shoved through the door. The nameless grandson leaned behind the counter looking at a Mini-Trucker magazine. He looked up at me and I flipped him off as I passed him by. Ripping the stupid curtains down from their flimsy rod, I flew into the back room with a fire in my eye and a rage in my gut, which felt as though it’d eat me from the inside out if I didn’t set it free.

“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t be in here. It’s not your time.” The once-old woman said, her two brown eyes wrinkling at the corners as she glared at me.

I grabbed the magically middle-aged woman by the yolk of her dress. “What you said before, what Cyrus made you admit. You see things; what do you see?” She laughed. “What do you see about me?” I grunted into her face.

“You think you can barrel in my shop and make me talk. Ha! I’ve had scarier shit than you in my face before,
la perra
. I’m not telling you shit.” Her expression set on stubborn.

I didn’t know whether or not her refusal was due to my attitude or hers. “You know something. Tell me!” I screamed, only inches from her nose. The last I’d seen her, she was quite willing to help me. Perhaps her finding a fountain of youth changed her attitude. It also could’ve been my approach.

“No,” she sneered.

“What you’re keeping from me could change everything. You know something.” I saw something pass over her. “You know something about my dreams.” I didn’t bother asking. I knew I was right; I just needed clarification.

“I don’t know anything.” She was lying, I felt it like a poker in my gut.

“Liar!” I shook her with both my fists clenched tight to the fabric of her dress. “People died! You can help. You can help me make sense of this shit. You can help me stop that thing from coming for me. I know you can!”

“I helped you enough girl. I gave you your protection and you’re too early to finish the job. Come back tonight.” She swatted at my fists which refused to release her clothing.

“You gave me shit! You gave me smoke up my ass and an open door to anything and everything looking for a soul to steal. You lied to me for your own gain. You used me more than once for something you didn’t have the balls to do yourself. You owe me, bitch! You owe me my life back!”

“I owe you a quick death.” Her lip curled into a sneer, and I knew damn good and well she meant what she said.

I released one sweaty hand and whipped it under my shirt. The warm steel at home in my hand, I pressed it to her cheek before she even knew I’d moved. “Quick? You think this has been quick? I’ve been dying one second at a time every day since the moment I met Azelie d’Entremonte.” Her steely eyes glared at the gun pressed to her face. “I took a life I loved. There is no torture in this world that can compare. Now, I need to know why she’s haunting my dreams and why she’s got this tagalong demon with her.”

“You think
I
know?” she rebutted defiantly.

“I think you know everything. I think you also know I’m fucking serious. I slit the throat of my best friend just last week. Trust me when I tell you blowing a hole in your ancient head won’t even turn the turds in my gut.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Her focus shifted to my eyes, which, I was sure, were the picture of sanity.

“I’m Dylan Hart. I’m fucking nuts. I’m the bitch holding the gun. Nice to meet you.” I shoved the metal into her skin.

“You won’t do shit.” She pinched her lips together.

“Hey, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Lupe’s grandson burst in the room.

“Negotiating.”

“Get this girl away from me,” she demanded.

I heard him make a move behind me. I didn’t know what he was doing and I didn’t care. I was done reasoning, I was done bullshitting, and I sure as hell was done with East L.A. “Touch me and I won’t think twice about pulling this Goddamned trigger.”

“You don’t have the balls,” she sneered.

The grandson squeaked his Nike Cortez’s across the concrete floor. Clutching Lupe with one hand, I turned my body toward the man in the undershirt. He’d gotten the long machete I remembered glinting in candlelight before it lopped the head off Zephyrinus. Without one thought, let alone a second, I aimed and pulled the trigger. Blood spat from his bare leg. He screamed and fell to the ground. Holding his injured limb, he pulled his body full fetal, rocking back and forth with each wail.

Pressing the hot barrel against her skin again, I set my face to bitch. “Now, are you ready to answer my questions? Or do I need to prove myself again?” She stayed quiet, staring me down. With a crooked brow, I pointed the gun back at the wailing man and pulled the trigger. He squawked but it didn’t last. I’d missed; I wasn’t looking so it was no surprise. It was a show. I only had so many bullets. That would be the last show of the day.

“Your friend, the lovely blonde girl, she haunts you because of what you did to her,” she declared finally.

“What’s this thing with her?”

“It followed her up from Hell.” My gut sank into my ass.

“Clarify.” I pushed the metal into her slightly less-leathery skin.

“You spat the words of a witch when you slit her throat.
You
sent her to Hell. Now she’s brought it back with her. She’s brought it to you.”

“Because of you, it found me. They’re all going to find me because of you and your fucking open door.” My finger twitched over the trigger, seriously contemplating ridding the world of one more lying cunt.

“Do you not see what you’ve done?” Panic filled her voice.

“What
I’ve
done? Why is everything a fucking secret? If I’ve done this to myself, then why in the fuck won’t anyone tell me why this is happening?”

“Get that thing away from me and we’ll talk.” Her terrified eyes slid over the shiny metal and back to me.

I eyed the gun and looked back into her eyes. “I want everything.” She nodded and the barrel squished her skin around her eye.

I took the gun away from her skin but didn’t stop aiming it at her. Her grandson whined on the floor behind me. The thought crossed my mind to shoot him again and put him out of his misery.

“You angered a very old, very powerful priestess. She embodied your soul and used you to slay your friend. Your murder, your sin, your penance for spilling her blood. That wasn’t enough, so when your friend’s soul left her body,
you
sent her to Hell. As her murderer, you will be connected to her forever. As her mother gave her life, you took it from her. It is not your love that keeps her by your side. It is what you took from her.”

My arm shook and lowered the gun, unable to hold it up and keep my composure any longer. “No,” I breathed. “No.” I shook my head and sniffed back tears. “You’re lying.”

“No. This is not my information; it’s yours. I only found it hidden inside that head of yours. You have all the knowledge. You choose to keep it hidden.”

“Why is this thing coming for me now?” She looked away from me. “You let it in,” I accused. “You did it.”

“Ha! No. It was you. Making enemies wherever you go.” One hand flung in the air toward me, an exaggerated expression only a mother could replicate.

“Who now?” I whined and swung the gun haphazardly with my own exaggerated expressions.

“Well,” she guffawed, “I just, humph.” She fussed with her apron and pulled out a cigar.

“What?” I pulled the gun back up to aim at her. “
What
?” I said through my teeth.

She lit her cigar and took a few puffs. “You know, you did whatever you did; I didn’t force your hand.” She brushed imaginary shit off her lap. I took a step closer to her and tilted my head, waiting for her to spit out whatever she was scared to tell me. She huffed. “You just can’t do anything without pissing someone off.”

It clicked. Finally, I got it. Everything made sense. Honestly, I was a tad disappointed in myself for taking so long to figure it out. “You fucking bitch!” I growled and dug the barrel into her skin again. “You sent me on a mission for the head of your own kin and in turn pissed off the very people you killed him over. It was a fucking kamikaze mission. You knew. You knew what they were and you didn’t bat a fucking eye sending my naïve ass across the state to fetch your castoff.
They
did this, didn’t they?” I shoved my tattooed arm in her face. “It was them.” I shoved the gun against her head, pushing her head backward, and held my finger precariously over the trigger.

She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Aye.”

“Fuck! Fuck!” I stomped in a circle and wanted desperately to kill something. “You opened the door to my soul and they stepped right in.” She held a finger up to rebut and I rephrased. “Oh, sorry, you flipped on a fucking floodlight. They sent this thing after me because of what you made me do, and you fucking helped them do it!” I felt my cheeks flush with fear and rage and every other emotion that had bottled up and squatted deep down inside me for years.

“I didn’t know. How could I?”

“That’s why you were so eager to help me. You felt guilty. You could have told me. You could have warned me. I stood right here yesterday and you lied to me. You sent me on some mission for dirt.” I remembered what the dirt had done to the beastie.

“It will help you. You have to wait. It’s not time.” Her brows creased, her eyes nearly pleading.

“Oh, it’s time all right. Time for you to get your shit; we’re leaving.” I thought it was a good idea to add kidnapping to my rap sheet.

“You’re not taking her anywhere,” the grandson said from the floor.

“You really going to question me?” I pointed the gun at him. He was expendable. I didn’t need him for anything.

“You’re going to help me fix this.” I wiggled the gun at Lupe. “All of it. First, Tatum is with that…thing. It said it devours her. I can’t let that be. I did it. I couldn’t stop it and I have to fix it now. If Azelie was powerful, I fucking know you’re the damned Martha Stewart of magical bullshit. Figure it out. Then, get this mother-fucking thing from Hell off my ass. You owe me, and you damn well know it.”

My chest rose and fell with my heavy breaths. Lupe contemplated what I asked of her; she shook her head a few times and licked her lips. Looking at both of her eyes told me she had the power I needed to make it all better, even if it was borrowed from a hundred-year-old lion dude.

“Get a bag,” she said finally.

“
Abuela
, no,” the grandson begged.

“Shut it.” She pinched her fingers together like a duckbill. “You look at me. When the policía come, you tell them a man tried to take money and shot you. You’ll heal.” She flicked her hand at him, shooing his pain away.

She pointed strong fingers at what she needed and I packed as quickly as I could. Candles, books, charms, dried things I didn’t ask about. She directed; I followed. She very well could have been instructing me to collect items needed to send me straight to Hades permanently. My choices were limited as far as magical assistance was concerned. There wasn’t an eight-hundred number for it or anything.

“I’ll have to call Cyrus to bring his SUV. I can’t fit your chair in my hatchback.” I cringed when I realized I really had never put his number in my mom’s phone.

She waved an unconcerned hand my way. Pinching her smoldering cigar between her lips, she flung the blanket covering her legs off. One at a time, she lifted her feet from the stirrups and placed them on the floor, the left obviously heavier than the right. Standing, it became apparent what had kept her bound to the motorized chair. Her left leg was a wooden replica of her right. I’d never seen a wooden leg before in my life, so of course I stared.

She looked down at her own legs. “I thank the d’Entremontes every day for this log.” She knocked on her leg. “I do owe you. You took the life of my long enemy, something I could never do. There is a fighter in you that I admire. I’ve been on this Earth long enough to grow tired of civilities. I have no time or need for it. You do for me, I do for you.” She nodded. “Now, I do for you.”

It was the best I’d get from her, I was sure. I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw that damn wooden leg, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Unless I was willing to allow the soul I sent to Hell to fester there for eternity and subsequently forfeit my own to the same fate. Not fucking likely.

“Let’s go then.” I scurried toward the once-curtain-covered opening.

“One more thing we need. Privacy. Security from prying eyes and curious ears.”

Shit
. I thought hard about where in the hell we could go to escape the hullabaloo of the city. “I have a place. Come on.”

She hobbled and clanked along behind me. Modern medicine could have provided her with a more manageable limb, but she chose to clomp around on a wooden stump. Maybe it had been a nod to the eye patch.