Keepers & Killers (The Alchemy Series) (12 page)

He opened the car door and trumped my
what
,
with his
in
. I was silently impressed with the amount of anger he was able to infuse into
in
. Yes, quite impressive.

Neither of us said anything on the way back to the casino. Nothing on the way upstairs either. When we walked into his penthouse, Dodd was there with Ben
, but one look at us and they left without saying a word.

I heard the door shut and I counted off in my head, one Mississippi, two Mississippi…

"What the hell did you just do?"

I relayed
a short account of what had occurred, seeing no reason to lie about it at this point and threw the senator's note on the table, for him to look at or not. Just when I thought he was going to be fairly calm, he blew.

"What the hell do you think you were doing!"

And there it was. He started pacing the room. Cormac has two types of paces: one type was the 'let me release some anger,' the other was 'I might kill someone.' They looked similar to the novice, but I'd started to determine the difference by the speed and heaviness of his step. We were definitely teetering into the latter variety.

"I was handling things," I replied, perhaps too calmly because my attitude seemed to be aggravating him more by the second. I
'd never seen a third upgraded version of his pacing and I was slightly curious. Would he start to float in between steps or something equally as interesting?

"You think this is a joke?"

"Of course not."

"Did you just roll your eyes at me?"

"You have to admit, that was a dumb question."

Uh oh. He stopped pacing. I hadn
't factored in him not having a third speed. He stood deathly still, all energy focused on me intently. Too intently.

"Do you want to die? Is that your deal?"

"No, that's a stupid thing to even say."

"Then why would you go there with no plan, no backup and no idea how to even kill him?"

"When did I become so important? You shut down the portal; you don't need me anymore anyway."

"I just don
't get you. There are billions of people on this Earth, all dying to be special. You are, and I watch you run from it every day. If that wasn't bad enough, now you practically throw away your life like it's nothing."

I thought I was ready for a fight, even itching for one, but now I just wanted to leave. "You know nothing about me and I don
't have to sit here and listen to your bull!" Slamming the door behind me, I left his penthouse. I should have realized then that he'd let the fight go too easily, but I wasn't thinking that clearly.

His men followed me all the way to the garage but I didn
't care. They could follow me to Hell if they wanted, as long as they stayed out of my way.

The minute I stepped into the garage a rage I didn
't even think I was capable of consumed me. My trailer was gone.

I swung on the two goons that had followed me. "Where. Is. My. Trailer?" If I could have blown steam through my nose, I would
've.

The two of them just shook their heads
, looking baffled. I broke into a run, heading right back to the only person that would've messed with my stuff. It took me less than a minute to barge back into his penthouse, and only that long because the elevator could only climb so fast.

He was sitting on the couch
, reclined and waiting.

"Where is my trailer?"

"It's in a safe location."

"Where?!"

"I'm not ready to divulge that information."

My whole body was shaking with rage as I stood over him where he sat. "You better tell me where it is."

"Or what?"

I lunged for him, prepared to inflict as much bodily harm as necessary to find out where my trailer was being hidden. My fists swung and connected but my glory was short lived as I found myself on my back with Cormac lying full on top of me
, pressing me into the couch.

"I want my trailer back," I demanded
, as if I still had leverage.

"I tried to do this the nice way. I tried to be partners. Unfortunately, you have issues working as a team and seem to need some incentive." He
settled in a little closer and I started to wonder what incentive he meant. "So, your trailer will be held in an undisclosed location until I feel comfortable about your participation level."

"This is complete bullshit."

"Yes, that is exactly how I felt this morning when I was trying to track you all over town, to find that you had gone to find the senator."

"This is unacceptable and I won
't tolerate it."

"Really
? What do you plan on doing?"

Well, this was humiliating. I couldn
't even get him to let me off the couch. What kind of brilliant threat did I pose? Lacking any adult response, I turned my head and refused to speak.

Then he shocked me. He kissed my cheek, ruffled my hair and stood
, telling me he had ordered me a turkey club for lunch.

"You need serious meds. I really think you might be bipolar."

He paused at the door where I thought he was going to argue with me some more. "I had your clothes and things moved back as well. Hope you don
't mind." Then he smiled, because I obviously did, and the bastard strolled from the room.

Chapter Eight

"We need to get a wolf," Buzz said.

"I told you, they won
't cooperate," Cormac said.

"No, I mean a real wolf."

Cormac, Dodd, Ben, Dr. Sabrina, Kever and I all stared at him as we stood around the book in Cormac's penthouse.

"It
's magically spelled somehow, but maybe if we used a real wolf, took his paw and used that to open it, it just might work."

It was either completely ridiculous or the most brilliant thing Buzz had ever said.

"But I thought they aren't really wolves? Aren't they just weird, mutating aliens?" I looked around, waiting for anyone other than Cormac to answer what I thought was a simple question.

Of course, Cormac was the one that did answer. "They are and they aren
't. We've done some tissue sampling from them. We don't know how, but there is some sort of DNA link there." He turned toward Buzz. "Okay, big guy, you're up. Find us a wolf." We all stared at Buzz; I assumed everyone was thinking the same thing I was, why hadn't someone else in the room with a slightly higher IQ thought of it?

We watched as Buzz left the room
, full of excitement over his idea, and Dodd sidled up next to me.

"What
's up with you two?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing. You won't even look at him."

"I took her trailer," Cormac said
, having come up behind us.

Dodd didn
't speak, just made an 'oh' shape with his mouth and looked up at the ceiling.

I crossed my arms, refraining from clawing at Cormac
's face.

"What happened?" Ben asked as he walked over and stood next to us.

I was still pissed off and having everyone here know he took my trailer made it all the worse. It was humiliating having my trailer stolen.

"Cormac stole her trailer," Dodd said in a hushed tone.

"Dodd, I'm not deaf. What is the point of whispering to Ben if I'm standing closer to him than you are?"

"Hey, I was just trying to be sensitive. Don
't yell at me. I'm not the one that stole your trailer."

"I didn
't steal her trailer. I simply took it for a while."

"Boss, why
'd you steal her trailer?" Ben asked.

"I took her trailer because she needs to learn to work with others."

Dodd simply shook his head, disagreeing without words.

"Why do you think he took it then?" Ben asked.

"I can't disclose, but it wasn't the nicest way to go about getting it."

"Do you have something to say?" Cormac questioned Dodd.

"Nope, not saying another word." Dodd turned back to me, "Any word on Hammond?"

"No. I think he
's lying under a mountain of rubble right now," I told Dodd. I wasn't sure how I felt about it either. I'd never known him and wasn't sure if I would've wanted to, but it might have been nice to have had the opportunity. It didn't matter now anyway. Even if he was alive, he would only be another target for the senator.

I looked around the room and realized every single person in
there had a target on their back because of me. And there wasn't a single thing I could do about it.

"What about the portals? Are they all shut down?" I asked, directing my question at Dodd.

"Yep, everything. He's breaking the contract tonight," Dodd said, motioning toward Cormac, who now stood across the room.

"I don
't get it. Is it magic or science? As soon as I think I've got my brain around how something works, I'm stumped by something else."

"Magic or science…sometimes I
'm not sure there is a difference. Maybe magic is simply something that hasn't been scientifically explained yet."

I looked at
the man I viewed as a carefree gigolo most of the time and I realized, like most people, there was a lot more under the top layer than he showed.

"I think I like the idea of magic. It
's romantic somehow. I'm not sure I want everything to have an explanation."

"You are such a
girl
." And just as quick as that, the gigolo façade was firmly back in place. "I wouldn't worry about it if that's what you want, because unless that book on the table has thousands of years of our history, you aren't getting too many explanations."

I looked back at the book with the one inch thick binder. Nah, not likely. I wasn
't going to complain though. Right now any information was better than what we had. If we could just open the damn thing. The most anyone had been able to do was move it; opening it had proved impossible.

Cormac was standing over it right now answering his phone while he stared at it. I could see the lust for knowledge in his eyes.

"You going to forgive him?" Dodd asked.

"I don
't know."

"He almost died for you the other night."

"I'm sure he knew he'd be fine."

"No, I don
't think he did. Snipers have taken out more of us than all other things combined. We can only take on so much damage before we shut down. We aren't invincible."

"I know that."

"So when you pranced into the senator's office, you knew what could have happened?"

"I had my reasons."

"Yeah, reasons. You are one fucked up chick."

Before I could reply, I was distracted by Buzz walking into the living room with the ugliest
, rattiest dog I'd ever seen. It looked like he had just come from a crazy groomer that didn't know how to handle an electric razor. If the hair wasn't matted, it was bald.

"What is that?" Kever asked.

"This is Abby," Buzz replied, holding onto the wolf's leash. It was the canine equivalent of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. "I got her from Sue over at the Vegas Zoo. She's very docile but they don't like to let her run in the yard because of her hair disorder. She gets sunburned."

I was thinking it was more along the lines of they were embarrassed
of her - I'd want a refund if I had paid to see this wolf.

"Ugh, she smells!" Ben chimed in. "Are you going to give her a bath?"

Abby was also quite intelligent, if not as docile as Buzz claimed, because at the mention of that word she raised her lip and growled at Ben.

"Let her off the leash," Cormac said. I wasn
't sure if that was a great idea or not, but Buzz did it without hesitation. Cormac made a clicking noise and Abby trotted right over to him, tongue practically hitting the floor, and gave him the sloppiest lick I'd ever seen.  Even the God damn dog? Was there no female immune to him? No wonder his ego was out of control.

"You
're a smart girl, aren't you?" Cormac spoke to the raggedy looking wolf and darned if she didn't yelp back in reply.

Even for a small wolf, she was a decent sized animal. When Cormac
tapped the table, she jumped up and put her two front paws on it. He took one of her paws in his hand, which she licked again, and moved it toward the book.

"Wait," I yelled, stopping him. "Is that going to hurt her?"

"I'm only going to brush her near it. I'm not going to hold her paw there."

I cringed but nodded. I watched as he took her paw and glanced the book with it. Nothing. No yelps of pain, Abby was completely unfazed. Next, he took her paw and lifted the front cover. Again, all was fine.