The Blood In the Beginning (32 page)

She didn't wait for a response. ‘We're going out tonight, sort of an early double birthday celebration.'

‘When's yours?'

‘I'm June twenty-third and he's the —'

‘Twenty-ninth,' I said without thinking.

‘Amazing, isn't it.'

I was about to say, one in twelve people had the same sun sign, but didn't. ‘Where's he taking you?'

‘Poseidon!'

‘Wow.' I couldn't believe Tom wanted to go there. He wasn't the clubbing type, or at least, he wasn't when we were dating. But then, when we were together, it was sex, study, sex, class, sex, food, repeat. I don't think we ever went out. Maybe he'd been holding back on the nightlife, for my benefit. Working as a bouncer took a bit of the glamour out of clubbing; he knew I wasn't into it. Still, Tom's idea of a ‘best date ever' was a home cooked dinner, NetCinema and me.
At least that's what he'd said.
I conjured a smile out of thin air. ‘I hope you have fun. You deserve it.' That wasn't a lie. Zoe'd worked her butt off in class and for all her perky sparkle, there was potential there. ‘Do you have a lift?'

‘Tom's picking me up. We can —'

‘I'm walking, thanks.' I gripped her shoulder. ‘Good training, Zoe, and thanks for doing the interview. A new student perspective will add appeal.' I closed my locker and headed for the door. ‘See you next class. Schedule's on the desk.'

She gave me a hug and left.

I hung around until Rourke came out of the toilets. ‘You okay?'
Because you don't look it.
Rourke's skin was pale and sweaty.

‘Stomach bug. I'll be fine.'

‘So what happened with the perp? We get a line on the copycat? DA make a deal?'

I knew by his face the answer wasn't good.

‘He walked.'

My hands went up. ‘No way! It was broad daylight. Witnesses. I've the bruises!'

‘Seems he wasn't read his rights.'

‘Wrong!' I shouted.

‘Calm down, Ava.' Rourke didn't look happy about the situation either. ‘Some hot-shot lawyer got him off on false arrest. No priors. We couldn't hold him.'

‘This is bullshit.' I looked around for something to kick.

‘I agree. But nothing we can do now.'

I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘We have to catch these guys, before anyone else is killed.'

‘Just keep doing what you're doing. We're getting close.'

‘Right. I'm walking home.'

Rourke pulled out his phone. I didn't hang around to watch, but I knew he was sending my tail after me, on foot. I hoped our perp would take the bait.

* * *

I had a lot to chew on, what with the emotionally bi-polar day. Maybe the late afternoon walk home, with droning traffic and rhythmic pace, would calm me down.
I can't believe those guys got away.
I waited for the pedestrian light to turn from green to green. The city didn't cater for the colour blind.
Was it too hard to consider almost a tenth of the people in the world?
I crossed with a horde of office workers, and set out toward home. After six blocks, the sun was low on the horizon and I was halfway there. I'd processed my way to the fact that I could breathe underwater. I hadn't even gotten to the Teern part.

It wasn't lost on me that Daniel Bane, a Shen Mar according to Rossi, was wooing me. It was so strange. When I was near him, I trusted him completely, but the longer I was out of his space, the more I wanted to speculate. Trouble was, nothing really stuck. I pressed my hands to my temples trying to force logic back into my brain. I rolled my shoulders and spun around.
What was that?
I listened for a moment. Nothing.

The setting sun cast long-fingered shadows. Traffic turned bumper-to-bumper. Hello, rush hour, which should be renamed crawl hour. If I cut across a few alleyways, I'd be in my kitchen, cooking up organic pad Thai in no time. The thought lit me up, so I stopped at the Asian grocery store and stocked up, grabbing rice noodles, tofu, bok choy, fish sauce, bean sprouts, chilli, garlic and a small portion of organic, free-range chicken. Damn, it was expensive, but non-organic wasn't safe and non-free-range was horrid. I left the store, toting my bag full of gym gear and food. I strode down the streets, acting as if I didn't have a care in the world. But I did have one. A big one.

Along with the scent of gas and fumes and garbage and cat piss, and some incredibly awesome bakery breads from the next street over, came the hint of predation. I was being followed. The face of the copycat came to mind and I shuddered before drawing in another breath, slowly filtering out the scents.

Among the eclectic mix of molecules, I caught the scent of the sea. Not a crazy occurrence, when the wind was onshore, but it wasn't today. I kept breathing it in, refining and teasing out the notes that formed the score of the aroma. Yeah, smells were like songs. Really. In this one, there was brine, fresh and brackish water, kelp, fish — a lot of fish — and the sweet hint of emotions. Strong ones. Joy, or maybe enthusiasm. Lust? Whoever was out there enjoyed tracking me.
If it's my tail, gotta say they love their work.
They were good at it too. I couldn't spot them, save by the scent. I listened harder.

The world amplified around me in the most dizzying way. It wasn't noisy or overwhelming; more riveting, like listening to a symphony and being able to distinguish every sound wave from tuba to piccolo, bass drum to cornet. Rephrasing that, it wasn't as melodic as a symphony. I heard car horns, road rage, toilets flushing, couples fighting, trash tipping, drug deals going down, but also old ladies selling flowers to lovely young men and dogs chasing Frisbees in the nearby park.
Who knew dogs sounded so damn happy?
After a few minutes of nothing, in terms of the stalker-type person, I gave up. Probably my LAPD tail, anyway.

The sun melted away, replaced by the glare of streetlights. I walked toward a big glass window, the storefront of the local 7-Eleven. The building was plastered with posters, ads and flashing lights, but the doors were clean, reflective as a mirror in this light. When a man exited, the door swung my way and in its reflection I saw someone climbing the fence behind me. I turned down a side street and leapt over a row of garbage bins. Hopefully, my tail was snapping photos about now, gaining enough evidence for a positive ID, and an arrest if he slipped away again.

The stalker walked right on by, long bare legs and all.
Holy shit!
She was a woman, a foot taller than me, and not wearing a hell of a lot.
Salila!
My dive buddy. Rossi's something-or-other. She was dressed in cutoff jeans and a neon, road worker's vest. Where the hell did she find that? More to the point, what was she doing following me? I set down my gym bag and, on a wave of adrenaline, I sprang.

It took her completely by surprise, which startled me even more. I landed on her back, slammed my arm under her throat and squeezed the chokehold, hard. The next thing I knew, she threw me over her shoulder and I was flat on the ground, staring up at the smog covered evening sky and yellow streetlights.

‘You want to tumble with me, skinny fish?' Her pointy canine teeth were showing very clearly.

I answered by springing to my feet, taking a deep stance and cutting loose a roundhouse kick aimed at her smartass mouth.

She was in the air before I had a chance to connect, somersaulting high over my head. Salila landed behind me and slammed me back to the ground. ‘Tag. You're it.' She cackled witchy laughter. ‘Is that what you still say, or have I been gone too long?'

I didn't dignify her with an answer. Actually, I didn't have the breath to choke one out. I was all kinds of winded, and all kinds of pissed off. ‘You bitch. You're on my turf now.'

‘That'll matter?' She dove on me before the words were out.

Apparently not. We scrapped in the alley, knocking over garbage cans and smashing into walls. I threw her into a window, shattering it. She shook it off and pounded me into the pavement with her nearest weapon. I think it was a trashcan lid. My ears were ringing after that. Dogs barked. People yelled, ‘Shut up out there!' and threatened to call the police. That got my attention. I could see Rourke's face now.
Hey, detective. Meet Salila. She's not human, and oh yeah, neither am I. You don't mind if we bash the crap out of each other, do you? Family quarrel.
That would go real smooth … not. This had to stop! Was the tail capturing us on film?

The man with the camera? He's taking a nap.

Great.
I made the sign of a ‘T' with both hands and shouted, ‘Time out!'

She clocked me with an uppercut. It sent me flying into a pile of junk. Damn, it hurt. It took me a while to pull myself upright. ‘What the hell, Salila? I said time out.' I did the ‘T' sign with my hands again. It was universal, right?

Maybe not. She was coming at me, a pipe in her hand.

‘Salila, stop! The cops will come.'

Like I care?

‘You will, I promise. They'll lock us both up and then what? I hear you don't fare too well on land, without a regular dose of blood.'

I'll have you to drink on, sweetcakes.
She kept coming.

‘You think?' I shifted my weight to my back leg and brought my fists up to guard my face. ‘Ever heard of solitary confinement?'

That checked her pace.
Solitary what
?

‘Just like it sounds. You, all by yourself in a sunny, east-facing cell. You may be strong, Salila, but you can't chew through iron bars, can you?'

‘Maybe.' Her brow wrinkled. She showed me her canines. ‘What do you think?'

Her voice, spoken aloud, was beautiful. Lilting. Beguiling. But when she used her thoughts only, I saw into her deeper side, a flash of memory perhaps. It looked like a cell, cold bars, a jailer. Then a whole lot of blood and gore. Behind it all was the booming voice of Teern, and holy massacre, was he pissed off. Her approach was tentative now. I sidestepped around, keeping distance between us. ‘He doesn't know you're here, does he?'

I do what I like.

‘I see that.' I swallowed my fear and stepped up to the Mar woman. ‘You might want to have a rethink.'

She gave me a mischievous grin and tossed the pipe. ‘I have. You can take me to your home.'

‘What? Why?'

So I can see how you live. After all, if you're going to be involved with my brother, I have a right to know.

Brother?
My brow crunched at that. ‘I'm not involved with anyone at the moment.'

Don't tell him that. He'll go into one of his century-long broods.

‘Who the hell's your brother?'

Don't be dense, please. I couldn't stand it if you were an imbecile.

‘Rossi's your brother?'

Technically no, but we rose from the same bed.

You what?
I shot the question straight to her mind.

Oh good, darling. I was afraid you couldn't hear well, let alone speak. We can't expect too much though, being half-blood, can we? Still, this is a relief.
She took my arm. ‘Show me your place, there's a lass.'
Let's see how the human side lives.

What could I do? I jerked my arm back, but couldn't resist the urge to reach up and pull a few splinters of glass from her cheek. ‘You didn't kill him, the police officer that was following me?'

‘Of course not. Like Rossi, I'm just here to observe.'

I rubbed my bruised head. ‘Sure you are.' If the stalker did show up, Salila could have him for dinner. I surrendered, picked up my gym bag and led her home.

* * *

‘What do you mean, he's busy?'

‘It's an emergency ward. It tends —'

‘Page him again. Please.'

The nurse hung up on me.

‘Bastard!' Okay, I knew there was ‘doctor' in front of Rossi's name, but after an hour of Salila poking through my things and name-dropping people who — judging by their titles — lived centuries ago, while stalking Mrs Beal's cat, and threatening to eat my entire building, I needed backup, quick. I let Snick out and tapped redial. It wasn't the architecture making her lick her chops. ‘I need Dr Miguel Rossi, please.'

‘He's in the ER, as I explained.'

Great. They recognised my voice now.

‘I have your number, Ms Sykes. Dr Rossi, or his nurse practitioner, will return the call ASAP.' The attendants on the ER nursing station were getting frostier every time I rang. Where was the compassion? ‘If you have a serious problem, of an
emergency
nature, please contact your regular healthcare professional, or come down to the hospital, or perhaps choose a different one.'

‘Fine.' I hung up. Sweat beaded my brow and my heart pumped hard. Poor dude on the other end of the line. He probably had enough going on without dealing with what would have sounded like a crazed girlfriend.

Miguel likes a challenge.
Salila was digging in my closet, trying on clothes. She'd found a G-string that fit, but my bras were a joke. ‘Is this right?' She was talking at the mirror as she tried to strap on my lucky sky-blue bra.

I pulled it out of her hand. ‘You're what's known as a C cup. In other words, stacked. I'm not. You can't expect everything of mine to fit you.'

Don't know how you stand clothes at all.
She opened another drawer and pulled out my spare, newly washed and folded black gi.
Oh, what's this for?

I ripped it out of her hands. ‘You can't wear this.'

She started pulling on the drawstring pants.
Why not?

‘Because I said no!' I tried to stop her but she pushed me into the closet.
Great. Now we're going to fight again, and trash my apartment?

If you want.
She smiled, stepping into my gi pants.

Both our heads turned around at the knock on the door. My eyes went wide. ‘Rossi?' But no. He didn't have a keycard for the front.