Giving Him Hell: A Saturn's Daughter Novel (Saturn's Daughters Book 3) (8 page)

“Eminent domain in the Zone. Fancy new medical clinic by a company called Medical Sciences Inc. Ring any bells?”

“A filthy rich sheik just awarded the university with a few fortunes for saving his son’s life. Medical Sciences is a spin-off. Don’t know more than that. Eminent domain?” She whistled.

“Exactly. Keep me posted on anything you find, and I’ll do the same.”

“Start riots and I’ll be on top of the story. Fires, death, action,” she prompted.

“I’m trying to
prevent
those,” I reminded her. “Sometimes, the news ought to warn people before the fact.”

“Doesn’t sell papers. Will do what I can.”

She rang off. Cynicism bites.

I decided I could make these calls just as easily from my front room with my cat on my lap to keep my tension levels below electric wire proportions. Doing my best not to look toward the dark back of the lobby, I locked up and crossed the street. The fog was finally lifting.

My cell rang before I made it up the stairs. “Wassup?” I asked wearily and unprofessionally, recognizing Max’s ringtone.

“Happy birthday, Tina,” he said in the same weary tone. “The gas lines erupted two streets from Hell’s Mansion.”

Rich people going without heat didn’t roll my wheels as much as poor ones. I chose to smile that he remembered my birthday instead of fretting over what I couldn’t control. I unlocked my locks and welcomed Milo’s cry of greeting.

“Can you get solar panels?” I asked frivolously. “And what do you know about Acme condemning the Zone with eminent domain?”

“They can’t do that, can they?” he asked, diverted from his own predicament. “I mean, I’m all for it. The place should have been condemned ten years ago. Andre will walk away with a lot more than he put into the place. But Acme can’t do a thing. The state has to condemn the property for a public purpose, like a highway.”

“Or a medical research clinic?” I wasn’t going into the argument about people giving up their homes and lives, yadda yadda. We’d had it before. Max had grown up rich and privileged. His family probably owned half a dozen houses. They had country clubs, private schools, and ivy league colleges for networking.

Those of us in the Zone were lucky to have one hovel apiece. We hung on to our jobs by our knuckles. We used the street for playground, community, and education. Taking away our neighborhood would take away more than just our homes and livelihood—it robbed us of the village we needed for support.

“Nonprofit research, for the public good, maybe,” Max said dubiously. “But Acme’s never been a nonprofit.”

“We have a Graham Young down here declaring he’s building a tribute to medical science on our land. MSI just got a grant for a bundle of money from the university. You really, really do not want normal people down here. And if they condemn our homes, I’m sending everyone in the Zone up to Hell’s Mansion to live with you.”

“So the place can blow up faster. Good thinking, Justy. I don’t understand why you defend that disaster zone.”

Sitting on my window seat in the front bay window with Milo on my lap, I watched Tim carrying a box of stone gnomes up to my office door and leave it on my step. If I was really lucky, Graham Young with his smug arrogance was freezing his butt off in that box. And Max wanted to know why I defended the Zone.

“You’d have to live here to understand. And if Granny blows up her mansion, you might just end up living with us and find out. Should we call in a priest to exorcise her?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” he agreed wearily, giving up the Zone argument. “A posse of them maybe.”

I knew I should be worried and horrified. Except, after living through the time with Max in hell’s outer dimensions and gas attacks that left my friends comatose, I couldn’t get too riled by exploding grannies. I was still striving for normal. “Can I watch?”

“Sure. Bring the Mormon tabernacle choir and we’ll have the film at ten.”

I giggled. On a day like this, I giggled. That was my old Max talking, the man I missed, who’d once ridden a Harley, fixed car engines, and made crazy mad love to me.

“Benedictine nuns,” I suggested. “They’re closer.”

“I’ll give you a date,” he agreed. “Thanks, Justy. And I’ll look into the eminent domain thing. Christmas at the mansion doesn’t offer better entertainment.”

I heard a boom in the distance. Max cursed, letting me know he was still alive.

“I’ll get back to you—if I don’t blow up,” he promised.

I suspected people would pay more attention if pricey Ruxton blew up than if the Zone did, but we didn’t need attention. We needed supernatural help. I was learning that came with a steep price—and it looked like I was the one to pay it.

Nine

The accumulating stacks of gnome boxes had nearly blocked my office door by lunch time. I clung to the hope that meant Tim and company had wrapped each one in lots of padding and that I hadn’t petrified an army. It was only just sinking in that Sarah had killed a man in my office, a man presumably looking for
me
—while carrying a gun. An army of Nazi gnomes with guns didn’t relieve my nervous anxiety.

I spent the rest of my morning hiding in my room, responding to a few cursory birthday messages on Facebook. Because I’m cautious and always plan ahead, I also started a search for affordable housing. So far, I hadn’t found any homes available for nothing upfront and next to nothing a month.

About the time my stomach finally realized it hadn’t been fed, my door rattled, and Schwartz shouted, “You have to come out sometime, Tina. Ernesto said his new cook is testing pot roast on the lunch crowd.”

“I don’t eat pot roast, Schwartz.” But I was tired of my own company. I offered Milo a ride in my tote, and he accepted. That probably meant trouble, but what else was new?

I was still wearing my lawyer clothes, so I was at least respectable. I was a walking target any way I looked at it. If someone else wanted to rub me out, I might as well look decent for the morgue.

I opened the door and handed the heavy tote to Schwartz. He looked startled, exchanged glares with my cat, then shouldered the burden.

“There’s some kind of new soup, too,” he said. “Crowds are picking up with these tourists, so they’re expanding the menu.”

Why tourists? Why now? What idiot was advertising the Zone as a safe place to visit? Maybe I should be looking into that instead of exploding wreaths.

I really ought to take Schwartz to bed and forget my problems for a few hours. I wasn’t sure if I was saving myself or saving Schwartz for a better opportunity. The inclination just wasn’t there.

“Soup is good,” I agreed. “Any more impending riots I should be aware of?”

“After the garden gnome incident, the place cleared out. Want to explain that sometime?” With old-fashioned etiquette, he opened the downstairs door for me.

“Why do you think I can explain anything any better than Andre? The Zone doesn’t like being attacked. End of story.” So, I lie. Professional hazard.

“You think the Zone is some kind of sentient being that plans these things?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t think anything. I just like to stay the hell out of the way. Although if you want to believe in the power of prayer or the power of a group mind, you could be onto something. We wished them gone, and poof, the Nazis disappeared.”

“Stone gnomes are strange souvenirs to leave behind,” he said grumpily. “It’s gonna be tough to explain to the precinct when the missing persons reports are filed, although the lot that went missing from Acme eventually showed up. Maybe you’re on to something.”

Outside, we met with no snow, no fog, just the usual blue glimmer of the buildings below, faintly visible in the gray day. I’d approve, except I was now seeing an eerie red glow around the manhole covers and through cracks in the street. Really, maybe we
ought
to be scouting new locations.

“Group mind,” Schwartz snorted, slowly following my earlier suggestion. “If all the brains around here were put in one pot, it might make one whole. New theory needed.”

“Provide your own, Schwartz. My head has retired for the day. I would simply like some hot soup with some of those yummy oat rolls Jimmy made last week and no one shooting at me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

No snow and no steaming gutters distracted me as we walked down the hill. It was almost a normal, crisp December day. We lacked Christmas lights, but who needed them when the sewers blazed red? Wonder what it would take to get a little green around here?

Given our environmental disaster problem, going green was a joke.

Loud music poured from Chesty’s even before we opened the door. It’s hard keeping the music pumping when the Zone messed with electronics, but apparently we’d expended enough bad energy today and the good vibes flowed, even though it was only afternoon. I was already feeling cheerier and humming to the beat when we entered.

“
Surprise!”

The music kicked into a painful birthday rock song. Balloons dropped and the crowd shouted and screamed “
Happy birthday!”

I almost fell on my face. I grabbed my chest, certain my ticker had stopped ticking.

Andre swung me off the floor and planted a smooth, rich one smack on my mouth. Before I could start drooling, he slid me down his front, allowing full access to the whole package before he gestured for a glass of champagne.

I detest champagne, but I was too totally stunned to notice the taste. And I couldn’t say for certain if that was due to Andre’s kiss or the surprise party. I tingled in places that hadn’t tingled for a long time, my eyes moistened, and a strange emotion ballooned in my chest that I thought might be joy. I wasn’t sure because it had been so long since I’d known true exhilaration. The sensation was more dizzying than the champagne.

A man had died this morning. Fascists had threatened us with condemnation. But the Zone partied. I got that. But to go to all this trouble for
me
 . . .

I’d never had a birthday party. I caught a balloon and hugged it and batted back tears. “I love you guys,” I muttered, leaning back against Andre and letting him hold me while I appreciated the truly admirable chaos.

Chesty’s walls were decorated with naked mural figures that, like the Zone’s statues, had developed a life of their own. They were rocking hard, pumping their fists and gyrating the way they’d never done before. Ernesto’s pole dancers wore their finest feathers and cheered to the stupid birthday song as they writhed. Cora was twisting and swaying with Bill, while her boss tossed one of the waitresses in some fancy swing move. Sarah, with her Godiva hair rippling, was shyly sitting at the bar and listening to Ernesto.

Milo leaped out of the tote and went in search of mice in the kitchen.

All was right in my world for this one moment. This was why we needed the Zone. I might wonder about Max in his lonely haunted mansion, but this was my world, my people, not his. I wiped a tear from my eye, handed my champagne and balloon to Schwartz, and rocked into the crowd, with Andre hot on my tail.

***

“Unless somebody can produce no-see-um magic to disguise our existence, I vote we talk to the environmental agencies and whoever else is prying around,” I proposed over a bowl of scrumptious kale soup. My empty stomach had finally demanded feeding while the party partied on. Given Ernesto’s tightwad tendencies, this wasn’t exactly a private celebration. Some of the hard hats had taken up stools at the bar, and a scattering of tourists had stared for a while before joining us on the dance floor.

Schwartz, being the only mundane among the Zone crowd, snorted skeptically at my premise. “The feds only have to walk down the street and watch the snow melt to figure we’re hot. Expect evacuation shortly.”

He meant
hot
, as in radioactive. I didn’t think that was our problem, but telling him my paranoid theory about sitting over hell—possibly with Gloria smoldering beneath our feet—wasn’t conducive to a rational discussion. If word got out, we’d have every freakin’ religious idjit in the state marching through Chesty’s.

Glancing at the dancing naked people murals, I almost giggled at the image of sour-faced fanatics cruising through, falling all over each other in shock.

“We could keep the bums warm this winter by letting them put up tents over the steaming manholes,” I said brightly.

“Not if the EPA bulldozes us,” Andre retaliated, swiping my beer.

“All right, let’s just find out who’s doing what and why and go from there,” I suggested, giving up on optimism. “Make Acme gather a town meeting and include the feds. Let’s lay it all on the table instead of speculating. I’ll try studying up on eminent domain law.”

Andre’s expressive eyebrows rose. “No hiding in shadows anymore, huh?” he asked enigmatically.

Damn right, but I wasn’t letting him draw me out. Tim kind of shrank up in fear at the thought of newcomers, but Schwartz looked interested. He was all about law and order, and my proposal was far more sane than what I actually intended to do.

After I revitalized with food, I let Andre claim a slow dance. I didn’t know who’d planned this gig, but Andre had been the one to see Themis’s message. He had to have been the one who’d passed the word about my birthday.

I was feeling extremely friendly toward Andre for a change.

Extremely friendly. His hands were on my ass, and we swayed pretty damned well together. He kissed behind my ear, and I felt electricity shoot up and down my spine. Maybe I would fire Andre as my client, and my twenty-seventh birthday would break my long dry spell.

I was humming along with the song and the memory of all the nice things Andre had done for me. Yeah, he could be a mysterious bastard who liked to have his own way, but he
understood
me in ways no one else ever would.

“What did you mean, that Sarah could damn us all to hell?” he whispered in my ear.

“That’s a mood breaker,” I growled back.

“Communication makes or breaks a relationship. I read that in Cosmo,” he said solemnly.

I wanted to smack him, but his arms felt too good. I rested my head on his shoulder and rotated my hips against his so he’d know what he wasn’t getting later. “Saturn’s daughter, remember?” I’d once tried explaining some of my weirdness to Andre. “It’s all theory. I don’t know anything. But you did notice her hair, didn’t you? She kills her abusive husband, and she gets big boobs. She kills a goon, and she gets good hair.”