Blue Diablo

Soul of Discretion

“I don’t know,” he said in frustration. “No, I didn’t take one look at you and imagine doing you on my desk yesterday. But I don’t have a type either. Right now you look fine and you smell great.” He spoke the last word on a growl.

My heart pounded. Much as I wanted to give over, I couldn’t. Part of me felt it was one thing to leave Chance wondering whether I had and quite another to do it. I also couldn’t lay down with Jesse without knowing for sure he wanted me back. Me, not an echo of my own lust—that seemed too close to masturbation. Not that I object to such, but if I’m going to do that, I might as well get on with it and not catch some poor cop in the backlash.

“It’s not a good idea,” I repeated. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

Saldana dropped his head into his hands and his voice came out muffled. “Second bedroom on the right. I think I’ll take a shower.”

My knees trembled as I retreated. Any more of him and I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions; too bad, because I didn’t really want to be. Deep down I’d love it if he took me on the floor like an animal. If nothing else, this proved he intended only my introduction around here, though. He truly meant to be my mentor before I distracted him. I sighed over that as I shut the door behind me.

Fey and winsome, the room matched the rest of the apartment. I coveted the bed with its strange carvings and the matching side table that sported claws on its legs. After stripping to my camisole, I crawled beneath the covers. The things Twila had said worked on me, though, and I found it hard to sleep.

When I finally did, I dreamed of great rushing things made of wind.

I woke early to the first fingers of light stealing across the floor. Nobody had disturbed me that I could recall, and either Twila’s wards held, or nothing came looking for me during the night. For the first time I began to feel anxious about Chance. I’d always assumed I was the eye of the storm and that trouble followed because of me, but what if—

Well, I refused to entertain the possibilities when I was two hours away and couldn’t see if he was all right.

Saldana sat at the small bistro-style table in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee. He looked even rougher than I felt.

“You’ll want another shower before we go see your ex,” I mumbled. It’s hard knowing what to say the morning after you didn’t sleep with the guy who probably would’ve been a glorious, mind-blowing mistake. “Then I need to get back.”

“I’m not sure all the showers in the world will help,” he said dryly. “But noted.”

I made myself some toast. Apparently Twila’s hospitality only ran so far, as the cupboard offered a box of tea, instant coffee, cornflakes, and some stale bread. It wasn’t bad slathered with jam.

When he emerged with his tawny hair slicked back, I decided I could do with some freshening up too. I didn’t want to meet someone new looking like I’d been pulled backward through a hedge. By the time we were ready to go, the ornate wall clock in the living room read quarter to eleven.

“Some day off, huh?” I muttered.

He grinned as we made our way downstairs. The sun shone bright for a November morning, and in daylight the area looked even seedier but not actively dangerous. Jesse read my look and said, “Twila is more dangerous than anything you’d find on these streets. Half the community owes her one way or another, so it would take some steel balls to try anything on her home ground.”

“Good to know. Maybe some of her scary will rub off.”

After deactivating the alarm on the Forester, he opened my door for me. “You’re fine the way you are, Corine.”

“If you say so.” I got in, none too sure of that.

We drove across San Antonio to a neighborhood just off the freeway. Nothing stood out—all the houses were built along the same styles. The only differences came in lawn ornaments or siding choices. Jesse parked the SUV before a pale gold house whose front yard boasted an impressive collection of bearded gnomes in various poses.

Despite the warmth of the sun, a chill crawled down my back the closer we came to the house. It was the middle of a workday, true, so perhaps that explained the unearthly stillness, but there should be birds at least. I heard nothing but silence.

Saldana cut me a sharp look as he rapped on the front door. “Maris should be here. She does palm and tarot readings from home.”

“Is she legit?”

“Yes.” He sounded distracted. “She’s a gifted witch. I’ve seen her work spells that nobody’s managed since they wrote the grimoires. If anyone knows the range on that sending, she does.”

Nobody answered.

Wordlessly I circled around to the garage and peered through the side window. Amid shadows thrown by piled junk, a car sat waiting to be driven. He came up beside me with a question in his eyes.

I shrugged. “Well, if she’s gone, someone must have picked her up.”

“Is it too Han Solo of me to say I have a bad feeling about this?” I loved the way he dropped his Gs, the Texas twang of his voice.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Do you know where she kept the spare key?”

In my experience, most people hide them somewhere stupid, like taped to the top of the mailbox, under the welcome mat, or inside a fake rock in the flowerbed.

In answer Jesse went straight to a lawn gnome and upended it. “She never changes a thing.” His tone held a melancholy fondness. “Let’s take a look then.”

“Is this questionable legal ground for you, officer?”

“We have a key,” he said, which didn’t quite answer me, but I let it go.

As soon as we pushed open the door, the place let out a little gasp, like air settling back from an imbalance. The faint breeze carried the scent of rotten eggs. I didn’t want to go farther, but I wouldn’t let Jesse out of my sight either so I stayed close on his heels.

We found Maris in the bedroom.

“Jesus,” Saldana said while I fought to keep my toast down. “It looks like wild dogs got at her.”

I couldn’t look away from the horror etched into her pallid face or the bloodstained carpet beneath her. The room smelled sickly sweet, faintly of copper and decay. He was right, though. Bits of her flesh were missing, as though something had fed.

“Somebody set a lower demon on her, something hungry and stupid.” I could tell he didn’t want to believe that by the way he hesitated, so I went on. “These people aren’t messing around. They really don’t want us to find out what happened to Yi Min-chin.”

Saldana froze. “You think we’re the reason Maris died?”

“What else could it be? They knew she had something important to say to us, so they made sure she couldn’t speak. Somebody at Twilight sold her out.”

Jesse shook his head, seeming not to want to believe it. “We’re a close-knit community. Nobody would—” He clipped the words, finishing with, “We can’t stand here talking. Every second, we contaminate the scene a little more. I have to call this in.”

“Is this going to look bad for you?” Seemed to me it would, finding an ex dismembered on her bedroom floor.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Saldana ran a hand through his hair and escorted me back to the Forester, where he got on his cell phone.

I wanted to get the hell out of there. If past precedents held true, the San Antonio PD would ask a shitload of awkward questions and then run my prints. If the scars permitted a match, well, that never worked out well. They might even charge me with something if they thought they could get away with it and never mind the truth.

Anxiety clawed at me from the inside out, and by the time he hung up, I was a bundle of nerves. “Can I go? I don’t know anything, and I really can’t be involved in this.”

It didn’t matter that we were a good two miles from a bus stop. I’d walked in worse weather and worse shoes for that matter.

“Trust me.” Jesse brushed the hair away from my face. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Like I hadn’t heard that before.

Cop promises meant more, I guess, because he was true to his word. He let me sit in the SUV while he dealt with the PD. I didn’t hear what they said but they made notes and cut him loose.

By the time we hit the highway, I could breathe again. “Is there anything I need to know? Do we need to synchronize our watches or something?”

He looked pale and tense. I’d never lost anyone but my mom, so I could only imagine how he must be feeling. The woman we found lifeless on her bedroom floor... he had once held her in his arms, kissed her blue-tinged mouth, and stroked her hair. He knew the sound of her laughter and her warmth, but she would never be anything but an echo now, coming from six feet down.

“I told them you didn’t go in and that I stayed only long enough to see there was a problem, then phoned it in. It made things easier.”

“Did you mention the key?”

“The door was unlocked.” He spared a glance from the road to impress the importance of that on me.

Interesting. So he wasn’t above lying to keep his ass out of the fire. “Noted. Why did we drop by?”

“To get your palm read.” At my look he shrugged. “First thing I thought of. They didn’t care why. They just wanted to get in there and start checking things out.”

“They’re not going to find anything. You know that as well as I do.”

His brooding expression said he knew that all too well.