Killing Time (12 page)

I hesitated.

His voice roughened. “Please be here when I get back.”

Unable to lie to him again, I whispered, “Safe roads.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head. Then he swore and let the door shut behind him.

Time to get back to reality, I thought sternly.

Ditching the hotel robe, I pulled on my bike leathers, their not-so-clean condition reminding me they needed replacing. Soon.

Stuffing all the little bottles I found in the bathrooms into my backpack—no way was I leaving the heavenly smelling booty behind—I jerked open the suite’s outer door, only to freeze in the hallway, debating with myself. Swearing, I turned on my heel and went back inside long enough to get Koda’s iPod thingie, then left the room without a backward glance.

Using the last of my cash, I caught a cab to Lake Highlands. You’d never know by looking at the tidy, tree-lined streets that this part of Dallas was renowned for drugs and prostitution. But I’d done a thorough job scoping out the city’s filthy underbelly when I tracked the vampires here and knew exactly where to find what I needed to get my plan back underway.

After unobtrusively observing the action to see which dealers had the highest traffic—which meant the most cash—I shaded my form and trailed a jittery human male down the street, taking careful note of the deceptively quiet neighborhood. My senses told me that numerous pairs of hostile eyes marked the passage of every creature on the street—well, every
visible
creature. As long as I remained silent, I could strip naked and dance a jig and none would be the wiser.

My own pathetic attempt at humor having done nothing for my sour mood, I studied the guy I was following. My mark’s clothes were worn and bore old stains, like he couldn’t be bothered to clean up or change. Ever. The twitchy way he walked and swung his arms was odd and arrhythmic, like he moved to a chaotic beat only he could hear. His scent was wrong, too—not just the unwashed stench, but an underlying chemical odor that undoubtedly had something to do with his spastic gait.

At first glance, Twitchy was no different from the handful of young males leaning on a car at the corner, watching him with reptilian eyes as he lurched by. But the thugs allowing this one safe passage through their territory—just as a similar group had done four blocks earlier—told me the guy was connected. As did his surreptitious security—two males preceding him by half a block and the other two trailing him by an equal distance. All of which meant the heavy-looking backpack he carried and kept shifting from shoulder to shoulder held something valuable.

I smiled coldly. Oh yeah. I’d picked the right guy.

Eating jelly beans to manage the drain on my energy, I resolutely blocked the frisson of wonder that Koda had bought a pound-bag for me without my knowing and put it in my backpack. Shoving away the treacherously warm, fuzzy feelings, I focused on the here and now. Even supernatural assassins can get killed if they’re stupid, if they hesitate, or if they allow distractions. And my illogical, perplexing and—yes—growing feelings for Koda were enormous distractions.

Damned if I’d let some punk Round Ear take me out. That’d be humiliating.

I leaned into the shadow of a huge billboard next to the motel where Twitchy had led me and where he now stood in the parking lot, indecisive and bopping more frantically. An otherwise reputable economy inn, it had the misfortune of residing in Dallas’s highest crime area, just off LBJ Freeway.

Idly watching the telltale gang traffic going in and out of a room on the back side, I chewed another handful of candy, waiting impatiently for Twitchy to work up his nerve and knock on the door he kept staring at. Finally he did. His timid first attempt didn’t yield any results, so he repeated the effort hard enough for me to wince—when he came off his high, his hand was going to hurt. A long minute passed before an enormous, muscle-bound human stepped out. Scowling at my anxious guide in his dirty clothes, the guard tossed a burning cigarette to the ground and gestured Twitchy into the room.

Which was the cue I’d been waiting for.

It was a simple matter for me to cross the lot and sift through the window air conditioner. Not my favorite entry point, since passing the bits and pieces of
me
over the unit’s freezing coils left an uncomfortable chill that would be hard to dislodge. But the thing’s open design made for an easy transition and I was in a hurry.

I’ve expended more energy changing clothes than it took to knock unconscious the humans in that room—Twitchy, two hulking guards and a well-dressed man. Leaving the males where they fell and knowing another person like my jittery mark could show up at any minute, I unshaded so I could snag Twitchy’s backpack and dump its content onto the bed.

“Yessss,” I hissed, grinning to see I’d been right about his carrying cash. A gratifying amount.

Grabbing a pillow and pulling off its case, I shoved the bills into it before doing a quick perusal of the room’s standard motel-issue desk. In addition to money, there were stacks of flat, rectangular pieces of plastic and paper whose symbols I couldn’t decipher. Some cards had raised markings on them while others had a person’s picture, which was odd, because none of the photos looked like the men in the room. There was also a stack of thin, dark blue books with shiny gold markings and an eagle holding arrows in one clawed foot and what looked like a tree branch in the other. The books’ covers were identical, although each had a different person’s photo on the inside. I glanced at the four males again—nope, none of them matched.

It was an uninteresting mystery, so I took only the cash, unhappily having to leave some behind after I’d filled the pillowcase and my backpack. As I was turning away, a scattered pile of photos on the bedside table caught my eye. Knowing I didn’t have time to waste, I nonetheless crossed the small room and looked at the images on top. Sudden fury burned through my veins, painting a red haze on the frightened faces staring back at me. Each picture showed a different individual. But collectively, the stack featured only females—all young with olive skin and almond-shaped eyes. And all bound, in varying postures of subjugation, debasement and pain.

Baring my teeth and snarling, my gaze tracked from the pictures to the four unconscious men. The bastards were filthy slavers.

With a tight rein on my rage, determined not to give in to the building frenzy, I put the heavy pillowcase on the floor at my feet and set my loaded backpack next to it. When I straightened—slowly, exerting immense self-control—I held my black daggers.

While it went against my instincts to kill in the absence of a direct threat, I felt sure I could make an exception in this case.

Turned out, I was right.

In the cab ride over, I’d spotted a deserted office building a few blocks away from Twitchy’s motel and it was there that I headed next. The seven-foot chain-link fence topped with concertina wire did nothing to slow me and I cleared it with ease. I would have thought it would be a deterrent to humans, but the torn-up walls inside the structure showed that vandals had gotten in and stolen countless yards of wiring. I’d learned that the metal inside the thin wires was called “copper” and that criminals took it to sell for chemicals like the kind Twitchy must’ve been using.

I shrugged internally. Nothing humans did made much sense to me.

Needing to rest after having stayed shaded so long, I was, nonetheless, too restless to doze off. It felt like my mind was humming, my muscles tense and ready for a fight. No matter how I might try to justify it, there was no way to adequately dress up
stealing
with pretty justifications or my genuine need for cash and transportation.

My brain spun in circles for a while before my eyelids eventually grew heavy and my thoughts quieted. Tilting my head back against the wall behind me, I closed my eyes and—at long last—drifted off.

After catnapping in the three-story building until midnight, I jogged a mile across sleeping neighborhoods to a motorcycle dealership. I couldn’t quite keep the delighted grin off my face as I sifted into the building—I’d really missed my Ninja and couldn’t wait to replace it. Nothing compared to the thrill of flying along on that jet-black bike.

I firmly told myself that Koda’s kiss, his touch, what I felt when I was with him…none of that counted. Then, just as firmly, I insisted I believe the lie. That I failed miserably erased my grin.

The motorcycle showroom was dark except for pools of light that dramatically spotlit a collection of gleaming bikes, all built for speed. My avid gaze was drawn to a gorgeous black-on-black machine with chrome accents—a twin to the one I’d lost in the fire. After destroying the security cameras, I unshaded and ate a handful of jelly beans, chewing happily and crossing to the motorcycle I wanted. Running my fingertips across its sleek gas tank, I grinned again with renewed pleasure and plucked the display card off its seat.

For survival reasons, I’d quickly learned the significance of money in the human’s world. So even though I couldn’t read, I understood the card’s “$14,799” and carefully counted out the correct amount of cash before stacking it next to the bike’s front tire. This emptied the pillowcase and depleted my backpack’s stash by half, but I wasn’t concerned. Another thing I’d learned was that criminals were everywhere—I could always get more money.

On my way to the row of offices along the showroom’s back wall, I came across an alcove with racks of clothing. Humming to myself, I selected mesh bike gloves, a zip-up leather jacket with built-in protective crash armor, stretchy pants, a sleeveless T-shirt with a sparkly silver skull on it and a sweet streamlined helmet with an ultra-dark visor. Like my chosen bike, everything was black. My matching boots were fine, but I’d need to stop somewhere for undies and socks.

Because I’d taught myself the most basic of math skills, I was able to painstakingly count out the cash for each item—five hundred for the jacket, one-seventy for the helmet, eighty for the gloves, forty for the T-shirt and two-fifty for the pants. Putting the individual stacks on the showroom’s desk, I ripped off the price tags and put each on top of the corresponding money, determined that the salespeople make the connection. My honor would never allow me to leave the showroom without paying.

Quickly changing into the new clothes, I shoved the old ones into the empty pillowcase and dropped it next to my bike. A short trip to the largest office turned up the pegboard with its tidy, unintelligible-to-me labels and corresponding keys. I filled my jacket pockets with every key I could find before heading back to the Ninja. Putting on the helmet, I flipped up the visor and slipped on the gloves. Settling onto the bike’s narrow seat, I shrugged into my backpack and set the bag of dirty clothes in front of me. The third key I tried started the engine, so I emptied my pockets of all the others, carefully laying them on the floor beside the stacked money. A final look around the showroom had me hesitate—there was one thing more I wanted to do before I left Dallas.

Leaving the bike to idle, I went back to the offices and found a large envelope in a stack of supplies. Folding it, I shoved it and a pen into an inside pocket of my jacket. Hoping the amount was right, I put a ten dollar bill in their place before retracing my steps. Climbing back onto my gorgeous new bike, I flipped the visor down and released the kickstand. Holding the brakes tight, I revved the engine and laughed out loud as the back tire spun so fast, it made a black mark on the white tile floor and filled the showroom with smoke and the smell of hot rubber.

Clamping my knees to the bike’s sides and thrilling to the engine’s snarling roar, I released the brakes and shot forward as if released from a cannon. Shading myself—but, purposely, not the bike—I roared through the plate-glass window and out into the night, howling with laughter as the burglar alarm began to shriek. Gunning the engine and burning rubber in the parking lot, I amused myself imagining the police’s astonishment upon viewing the outside security cameras’ tapes—it would look like the motorcycle was possessed and took off on its own.

Still chortling, I glanced at the gas gauge and was pleased that there was enough gas for my short-term needs. Kicking up the bike’s speed another notch, I streaked off into the night, putting distance between the dealership and me.

I aimlessly meandered around Dallas for an hour, habitual caution making me blur my trail to ensure I couldn’t be tracked from the dealership. There was at least one lord I felt sure wanted me either captured or killed as punishment for having escaped—which he opted for depended entirely upon how pissed he was when and if I was caught. Besides, I still didn’t know who’d set my former hidey-hole on fire or made the weh yetar shapeshifter look so like the little blonde girl from my memories.

I’d taken every precaution. I
knew
I hadn’t screwed up. But there was no arguing with chilling fact. Somehow, someone who knew far too much about my history had found me. Which meant it was a damn good thing I was leaving Dallas.

Before picking up I-75 and heading north, I was thrilled to find a twenty-four-hour mega store, where I bought gas, jelly beans, undies, socks and a few necessities. That late in the evening, there weren’t many shoppers, so I was able to get in and out quickly.

I made one last stop at a biker bar near downtown where I exchanged eleven license plates in record time before finally selecting one for my motorcycle and tossing its shredded paper tag in a dumpster. If any of the bikers noticed his plate had been changed, it would take him a long while to untangle the mixed up mess I’d left behind. There was no way to connect me to any of it.

Grinning to myself, I raced several blocks before flipping on my headlight and taking the entrance ramp to 75 North. Dallas to Chicago was a long damn ride on a bike, but if I paced myself, I’d be fine. With my visor down and the helmet covering my head, I could drop my camouflage and just enjoy speeding along on my nimble motorcycle, zipping in and out between slower moving cars and—when I left the worst of the traffic behind and the open highway stretched—racing the wind.

About a hundred miles later, I was thinking that maybe a Ninja—built for speed, not comfort—wasn’t the best choice for the haul north. Two hundred miles after that, my butt was aching, my hands had fallen asleep on the grips and my grin had changed to a scowl. Going long distance on a motorcycle was about endurance and patience. I was woefully low on both.