"Rachel!" Jenks cried, and I realized he was with me. His hands were warm and clean, not sticky like mine - and after struggling with the door to the truck, he reached inside the window to unlatch it. I let my grip on Peter loosen as it opened. My leg, twisted behind me, felt kind of cold, and I looked at, going woozy. There was a dark, wet stain on my jeans, and my brand-new running shoe now had a red stripe. Maybe my leg was hurt more than I thought?
"Get Peter out," I whispered. "Ow. Ow, hey!" I exclaimed when Jenks dragged me across the seat and away from Peter. His arms went around me in a cradle, and with me getting Peter's blood all over him, he carried me to a clear space on the cold pavement.
"Up," I whispered, cold and light-headed. "Don't lay me down. Don't hit the button before you get him out. You hear me, Jenks. Get him out!"
He nodded, and I asked, "Where's the truck driver?" remembering not to call him Nick.
"Some lady in a lab coat is looking at him."
Fumbling, I pulled my half of the inertia-dampening charm from around my neck. I slipped it to Jenks, and he replaced it with the remote to ignite the NOS. Palming it, I watched him nudge the amulet through the nearby road grate, destroying half the evidence that we were committing insurance fraud. David would have kittens.
"Wait until I get back before hitting that, will you?" he muttered, his eyes darting to my closed grip. Not waiting for an answer, he loped to the truck shouting for two men in the crowd to help him, and a woman descended upon me.
"Get off!" I exclaimed, pushing, and the narrow-faced woman in a purple lab coat fell away. How had she gotten there so fast? The coming ambulance wasn't even a noise yet.
"I'm Dr. Lynch," she said tightly, frowning at the blood I'd left on her lab coat. "Just what I need. You look like you're a worse PITA patient than me."
"PITA?" I asked, slapping at her when she took my shoulders and tried to lay me down.
She pulled back, frowning. "Pain in the ass," she explained. "I need to take your blood pressure and pulse supine, but after that you can sit up until you pass out, for all I care."
I tried to see around her to Jenks, but he was inside the truck with Peter. "Deal," I said.
Her eyes went to my leg, wet from the calf down. "Think you can put pressure on that?"
I nodded, starting to feel sick. This was going to hurt. Holding my breath against the wash of pain, I let her take my shoulders and ease me down. Knee bent, I clamped my hand to the part of my leg that hurt the most, making it hurt more. While she took her God-given sweet time, I listened to the sounds of panic and stared at the darkening sky framed by the bridge's cables, holding my ribs and trying not to look like they hurt lest she wanted to poke them too. I thought of my pain amulet, praying it had eased Peter when nothing else had. I deserved to hurt.
She muttered at me to hold still when I turned my head to look at the passing traffic. A black convertible was parked just inside the closed northbound lane. Hers?
I jerked at the ugly ripping sound and the sudden draft on my leg. "Hey!" I shouted, putting my hurt palms against the pavement and levering myself up. I held my breath as my sight grayed at the pain, then got mad when I realized she had cut my jeans up the seam to my knee. "Damn it, those were fifty bucks!" I exclaimed, and she gave me a cold look.
"I thought that would get you up," she said, moving my bloody hand back to my leg and taking my blood pressure and pulse a second time.
I could tell she was a high-blood living vampire despite her trying to hide it in the old way, and I felt safe with her. Her blood lust would be carefully in check while she worked on me. That's the way living vamps were. Children and the injured were sacred.
Still mad about my jeans, I took a shallow breath, staring at the chaos lit by the orangey yellow glare of the setting sun. "Let's see it," she said, and I released my hold on my leg.
Worried, I peered down. It didn't look bad from a bleeding-to-death standpoint - just a slight oozing and what looked like a huge bruise in the making - but it hurt like hell. Saying nothing, Dr. Lynch opened her tackle box and broke the seal on a small bottle. "Relax, it's water," she said when I stiffened as she went to pour it on me.
She had to hold my leg still with an iron grip as she poked and prodded, cleaning it while muttering about torn arterioles and them being a bitch to stop bleeding but that I'd survive. My three-year-old tetanus shot seemed to satisfy her, but my stomach was in knots when she finally decided I had been tortured enough and slipped a stretchy white pressure bandage over it.
Someone was directing traffic to keep the rubberneckers moving and the bridge open. Two cars of Weres had stopped to "help," worrying me. I wanted them to see the statue rolling around on the floor of the front seat, but having them this close was a double-edged sword.
Slowly I tucked the remote to blow the NOS under my good leg and out of sight. The wind through the straits pushed my hair out of my eyes, and as I looked at the faces pressed against the windows as they passed, I started to laugh, hurting my ribs. "I'm okay," I said when the woman gave me a sharp look. "I'm not going into shock. I'm alive."
"And it looks like you're going to stay that way," she said, taking both my hands and setting them so they hung past the shelf of my lap. "Aren't you the lucky one?"
She poured more water on my hands to get the grit off, then set them palm up on my lap to make a wet spot. Disgusted, I watched her pluck a second packet from her tackle box and rip it open. The scent of antiseptic rose, whipped away from the wind. Again I jumped and ow'ed as she brushed the grit and glass from my hands, earning another "wimp" look from her.
More people had stopped, and Nick's truck's paint job was showing where the metal had crumpled. Jenks was inside with Peter. They were trying to get him out. Weres had gathered at the outskirts, some in jeeps, some in high-end cars, and some in little street racers. I felt the remote under my leg, wanting to use it and finish this run. I wanted to go home.
Nick. "Where's the guy who hit us?" I said, scanning the faces and not seeing him.
"He's fine apart from a damaged knee," she said as she finished and I pulled my hands close to inspect the little crescent moons from my nails cutting my palms. "It might need surgery at some point, but he'll live." Her deeply brown eyes flicked to my dental-floss stitches. "Your gnomon is with him," she finished, and I blinked. Gnomon? What in hell was that?
"She's keeping him occupied until the I.S. gets here to take his statement," she added, and my eyes widened. The woman meant Ivy. She thought I was Ivy's scion, and gnomon was the flipside of the relationship. It made sense - a gnomon was the thingy on a sundial that casts a shadow. I was about to tell her Ivy wasn't my gnomon, then didn't. I didn't care what she thought.
"The I.S.?" I said with a sigh, starting to worry now that it looked like I was going to survive. Motions quick, she fixed a big bandage over each palm. I hadn't forgotten about the I.S., but if Nick's truck wasn't burning before they arrived, it was going to be a lot harder to get rid of that defunct statue.
Her attention followed mine to the truck, her shoulders stiffening when Jenks and two men pulled Peter's broken body out. I expected her to get angry they were moving him, surprised that she was messing with the living and not him, obviously the worse off - until she leaned close with her little penlight and flashed it in my eyes, saying, "You cried for Peter. No one ever cries for us."
I pulled out of her grip, shocked. "You know..."
She moved, and I panicked. With vampire quickness she was atop me, knees to either side of my thighs, pinning me against the barrier. Her one hand was behind my neck holding me unmoving, the other held that light as if it was a dagger pointed at my eye. She was inches away, her closeness going unnoticed or considered okay by way of her official-looking lab coat.
"I'm here because DeLavine told me to come. He wanted to make sure you survived."
I took a breath, then another. She was so close, I could see the soft imperfections in her cheek and neck where she had been professionally stitched. I didn't move, wishing I wasn't so damn interesting to the undead. What in hell was their problem?
"I'd tell him to leave you alone," she said, her breath lost in the wind, "because I think you'd kill him if he tried to hunt you, but it would make him interested, not simply - concerned."
"Thanks," I said, heart pounding. God help me, I would never understand vampires.
Slowly she lowered the penlight and got off. "Good reflexes. No head trauma. Your lungs sound clear. Don't let them cart you off to Emergency. You don't need it, and it will only jack up your insurance," she said, switching from scary-ass vampire to professional health provider in seconds. "I'm done here. You want a pain amulet?"
I shook my head, guilt for being alive cascading through me when Jenks and two men set Peter gently on the ground apart from everyone. Jenks crouched to close his eyes and the other two men backed away, frightened and respectful. The woman's face blanked. "I wasn't here, okay?" she said. "You bandaged your own damn leg. I don't want to be subpoenaed. I wasn't here."
"You got it."
And she was gone, the purple lab coat flapping about her calves as she lost herself in the crush of growing turmoil surrounding the single spot of stillness that was Peter, alone on the pavement, broken and bloody.
Feeling the adrenaline crash, I met Jenks's gaze. He sank to the pavement beside me so he could see Peter from the corner of his eye. Respect for the dead. He handed me my shoulder bag and I put it on my lap, hiding the remote to blow the NOS. "Push it," he said.
There were sirens in the distance. They weren't approaching quickly, but that would change when they reached the bridge and the closed northbound lanes. Behind Jenks was Nick's truck, a twisted chunk of metal with wheels and no hood. It was hard to believe I had survived it.
The Weres were starting to edge in, clearly wanting to swipe the statue. No one was within that golden circle of twenty feet or between the truck and the questionable safety of the temporary railing and a possible fall. Jenks leaned closer, and with him protecting my face with his body, I clenched my eyes shut and pushed the button.
Nothing happened.
I opened one eye and looked at Jenks. His expression was horrified, and I pushed the button again.
"Let me try," he said, snatching it away and pushing it himself. The little bit of plastic made a happy clickity-click sound, but there was no big ba-da-boom after it.
"Jenks!" I exclaimed barely above a whisper. "Did you fix this too?"
"It's not my fault!" he said, green eyes wide. "I rigged it myself. The NOS should have blown. Damn friggen moss-wipe remote. I should have had Jax do it. I can't solder with that stupid-ass iron Nick had. I must have fused the fairy fucking thing."
"Jenks!" I admonished, thinking that was the worst thing I'd ever heard him say. Starting to get one of those "Oh crap" feelings, I looked at the Weres. As soon as official people started poking around in there, that statue would be gone and my life with it when they realized it was a fake. "Can you fix it?" I asked, my stomach knotting.
"Five minutes with an iron I don't have in a private space that doesn't exist on a bridge six hundred feet above the water surrounded by two hundred good Samaritans who don't know crap. Sure. You bet. Hell, maybe it's just the battery."
This wasn't good. I sat and stewed while Jenks took out the battery and shocked himself on his tongue. While he swore and danced from the mild zing, I pulled my knees to my chest to get up, wincing at the dull throb in my leg. Ivy and Nick were still beside the flat panel of the Mack truck, Nick looking nothing like himself under his legal disguise charm. The wind coming up through the grating they stood on sent her hair flying. She gestured with a small movement, and I gave her a lost look. Her lips pressed together and she rounded on Nick.
Nick's head was down, and it stayed that way as she put her hands on her hips and shot unheard questions at him. Blood soaked one of his pant legs and he looked pale. That he was hurt would make it easier to get him to the hospital where the vampire doctor waited, ready to pronounce him dead of a complication, mix up the paperwork, and shuffle him both out the back door and out of my life forever. Peter would be moved to the vamp wing underground until his body repaired itself. Everything was perfect. But the damn truck wasn't exploding.
"What are our options?" I asked Jenks, taking the remote and dropping it into my bag.
"It might be the switch on the tanks," he said. "If Jax was here - "
"He's not."
Jenks took my elbow when I swayed. "Can you blow it with your ley line magic?"
"You mean like with me lighting candles?" Hiking up my shoulder bag, I shook my head. "Can't tap a line over water. And I don't have a familiar to connect through to a land line." My mind jumped to Rex. Maybe I ought to remedy that. This is getting old.
"Nick might."
A shiver went through me, remembering when I channeled Trent's ability to tap a line last year to make a protection circle. I had hurt him. I didn't care if I hurt Nick right now - I just wanted to finish this run - but the question might be academic; I didn't know if Nick had a familiar. "Let's go ask," I said, lurching into motion.
My chest hurt, and as I gripped it with my arms, I forced a slow breath into me and tried to pull myself upright. It wasn't worth the effort to look unhurt, so I gave up, hunching over and breathing shallowly. The wind sluicing through the straits had a chill in it, and the setting sun was lost behind the clouds. It was going to get cold very quickly. Relegating Jax to cat-sitting duties at the motel had been a good idea.
Ivy heard my footsteps on the grating and turned with a frown she reserved only for me, a mix of anger and worry. She was ticked. Big surprise there.
"Rachel," Nick breathed, holding out his hands as if I would take them. I stopped, and his hands fell.
"I wouldn't touch a strange man like that," I said, reminding him that he was still under a disguise. "Especially one that just hit me."
His eyes flicked to my dental-floss stitches, and my face warmed. He saw me stiffen, then forced his face smooth. Though he looked nothing like himself, I could tell it was him. Not only was there his voice, but I could see Nick in little mannerisms that only an ex-lover might notice: the twitch of a muscle, the curve of a finger - the glint of annoyance in his eye.
"My God," he said again, softer. "That was the hardest thing I've ever done. Are you okay? Are you sure you're not hurt?"
Hardest thing he'd ever done? I thought bitterly, the entire right side of my body sticky with Peter's blood. All he had done was hit me with a truck. I had held Peter while he died, knowing it was wrong but the only thing that would be right.
"The remote doesn't work, Nick," I said shortly, watching for his tells. "You know anything about that?"
Eyes wide in an emotion I couldn't read, he looked at my bag, telling me he'd seen me put the remote in it. "What do you mean, it doesn't work? It's got to work!"
He reached for it, and I grunted when Jenks yanked me back. My sneakers fumbled for purchase on the metal mesh. In a blink Ivy was between us. The nearby people were getting nervous - thinking we were going to take justice into our own hands - and the Weres watched, evaluating whether this was a scam or a real accident. Peter's body was lying on the pavement, looking like Nick. Someone had covered him with a coat, and a part of me hunched into itself and cried.
"Don't touch me," I all but hissed, hurting but ready to slug Nick. "You did this, didn't you? You think you're going to get that empty artifact and sell it to them. You'll be in hiding, so they'll come after me when they find out it's not real. It's not going to happen. I won't let you. This is my life you're screwing over, not just yours."
Nick shook his head. "That's not it. You've got to believe me, Ray-ray."
Shaking from adrenaline, I turned sideways. I didn't like having my back to the truck with the empty focus in it. Ivy had been watching it - along with Nick - but there were too many Weres lurking as accident witnesses for my liking. "Have a good life, Nick," I said. "Don't include me in it." Ivy and Jenks flanked me, and we walked away. What was I going to do?
"I hope you're happy as Ivy's shadow," he said loudly, his voice full of a vitriolic hatred that he'd probably been denying since Ivy first asked me to be her scion.
I turned, my bandaged hand atop my neck hiding my stitches. "We aren't...I'm not - " He had just blown our cover. Son of a bitch...
Three official-looking cars pulled up using the unopened northbound lane, their rear-window lights flashing amber and blue: two FIB, one I.S. The truck wasn't burning yet. Shit on crap, could it get any worse?
Looking like himself even with the disguise, Nick slumped against the panel of the white Mack truck and held his bleeding knee. His mocking gaze flicked to the cars behind us, their doors slamming shut and loud orders being given to secure the vehicle and get the rubberneckers moving. Three officers headed for us.
"You're rat piss," Jenks said suddenly to Nick. "No, you're the guy who puts rat piss on his breakfast cereal. We save your worthless human ass, and this is how you thank her? If you come back, I'll kill you myself. You're a foul pile of fairy crap that won't grow stones."
Nick's face went ugly. "I stole a statue," he said. "She killed someone and twisted a demon curse to hide that she still has it. I'd say I'm better than a foul, demon-marked witch."
I sputtered, pulse pounding as I felt myself go light-headed. Damn him!
Ivy leapt at Nick. Jenks yanked her back, using her shifting momentum to swing himself into Nick. Hands made into fists, Jenks punched him solidly on his jaw.
I took a gasping breath, and the I.S. guys turned their walk into a run. Angry, but with a modicum of restraint compared to Jenks, I got in Nick's face. "You sorry-assed bastard!" I shouted, spitting hair out of my mouth. "You ran into us!"
I wanted to say more, but Nick pushed himself at me. Jenks was still holding him, and all three of us went down. Instinct kept my hands before my face, and the bandages on my palms were the only thing that saved my skin. Pain shot through my ribs and hands as I hit the grating. The cold metal pressed into my leg where my jeans were torn.
"Get off her!" Ivy snarled. She yanked Nick up and away, and suddenly I could breathe again I looked up in time to see him spin into Jenks. Like a choreographed dance, Jenks cocked his fist and this time connected right under his jaw. Nick's eyes rolled up and he crumpled.
"Damn, that felt good," the pixy said, shaking his hand as a thick I.S. officer grabbed his shoulders. "You know how long I've wanted to do that?" he said, letting the men drag him off. "Being big is good."
Shaking so hard I felt I might fall apart, I got up, bobbing my head at the FIB officer's unheard questions and obediently going where he directed me, but I lost it when a hand closed on my arm.
"Rachel, no!" Ivy shouted, and I turned my spin-and-kick into a spin-and-hair-toss. Adrenaline cleared my thoughts, and I took a painfully deep breath. The man released me, knowing I had almost landed one on him. His mustache bunched and his eyebrows were high, questioning, as he looked at me with new eyes.
"He killed him!" I shouted for the benefit of the watching Weres and starting to cry like a distraught girlfriend. "He killed him! He's dead!"
The sad reality was the tears leaking from me weren't that hard to dredge up. How could Nick say that to me even in anger? A foul, demon-marked witch. He had called me a foul demon-marked witch. My sense of betrayal rose higher, cementing my anger.
Jenks wiggled out of the grip of the two men holding him, and as they shouted and tried to catch him, he darted for my bag on the pavement. Grinning, he tucked my phone and my wallet inside before shaking everything down. I wasn't sure, but I think the remote went through the grating, and I breathed easier.
An I.S. officer grabbed him, cuffing him before shoving him back into our little group. The man shuffled through my bag before returning it to me. I thought it better to let the stone-faced guy have his way than bring up my rights.
"Thanks," I muttered to Jenks, feeling my ribs ache as I looped the strap over my shoulder. I looked at Nick's wrecked truck as we passed. The artifact was still there, thanks to an excited FIB guy in a brown suit keeping everyone back.
"My pleasure," he said, limping.
"I meant for hitting him."
"So did I."
The I.S. officer at my elbow frowned, but when he saw the covered body, he seemed to ease. Jenks had punched Nick, not done anything permanent. Like killing him. "Ma'am," the officer said. "I'd ask you to stay away from the other party until we get this sorted out."
Party. Yeah, this was one big joke. "Yes, sir," I said, then stiffened when he slipped one of those plastic-coated charmed-silver wraps on my wrist and tightened it with a slick motion.
Damn it all to hell. "Hey!" I protested, feeling abused as Jenks and Ivy exchanged tired looks. "I'm fine! I'm not going to hurt anyone. I can't even do ley line magic." Not on this bridge anyway. The officer shook his head, and I felt trapped, the weight of Kisten's bracelet caught between my skin and the restraint. "Can I sit with...with my boyfriend?" I managed a warble in my voice, and the beefy man put a comforting hand on my shoulder.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, his voice softening. "They're taking him to the hospital to pronounce him. You can ride with him if you want. I'm sorry. He looked like a nice guy."
Plan A for getting the wacko witch off the accident scene. Right out of the handbook. "Thank you," I said, wiping my eyes.
"You were the driver, ma'am?" he asked as we walked, and when I nodded, he added, "May I see your license?"
Aw, shit. "Yes, sir," I said, fumbling in my bag for it. In five minutes the Cincinnati branch of the I.S. would be telling him all about me. We halted at the back of a black I.S. blazer, the tailgate down to show an open kennel. There was a dog out here? Behind me, I heard Ivy and Jenks telling the officers with them that they were my roommates. Oh God. Ivy's Brimstone. I probably smelled like an addict. Accident. Points. What if they took my license?
The officer before me squinted to see my license in the fading light, smiling when he looked up. "I'll have this right back to you, Ms. Morgan. Then you can go with your boyfriend and get yourself looked at." Eyebrows high, he glanced at my bandaged hands and ripped jeans before nodding to Jenks and Ivy and trotting away to leave us with two officers.
"Thank you," I said to no one. Exhausted, I leaned against the truck. Jenks had been cuffed to the truck, and the two FIB guys moved a short distance, close enough to intervene if necessary but clearly waiting for more I.S. personnel to handle our interrogation. Holding my elbows with my scraped hands, I watched my life swirl down the crapper.
Rubberneckers passed with an infuriating slowness, faces pressed against the windows as they struggled to see in the deepening dusk. My new jeans were ripped almost to the knee. The truck refused to burn. A fourth Were pack wearing military dress uniforms had joined the three already here, all of them edging the limits of the FIB and I.S. officers keeping them back. Had I forgotten anything? Oh yeah. I had helped kill someone, and it was going to turn around and bite me on the ass. I didn't want to go to jail. Unlike Takata, I looked awful in orange.
"Damn it," Ivy said, licking a thumb and trying to rub out the new scrape on her leather pants. "These were my favorite pair."
My gaze went to the truck. The knot in my stomach grew tighter. Leaning, I reclined against the Blazer's tailgate and silently fumed as I categorized the arriving Inderlanders into their jobs, pulled in from their scattered locations.
The willowy blond witch was probably their extraction specialist, not only comforting information from distraught victims but from testosterone-laden bucks who wouldn't talk to anyone unless it might get her into bed with them. Then there was the guy too fat to do real street work but who had a mustache, so he had to be important. He'd be good at keeping angry people apart and would tell me he could get me a deal if I was willing to spill. The dog team was at the Mack truck since he was the one who had crossed the yellow line, but I was sure he'd get to the pickup soon, then probably make a little visit over here.
I looked for, and finally found, the officer who was slightly off and took his job too seriously to be safe. This was the guy that no one trusted and even fewer liked, usually a witch or Were, too young to be a fat man with a mustache but too gun-happy to be a data guy. He was walking around the broken pickup, hiking up his belt with his weapon and looking at the girders as if they might hold a sniper ready to take us all out. And don't forget the I.S. detective, I thought. I didn't see him or her, but since someone had died, one would show up soon.
FIB officers were everywhere, taking their measurements and pictures. Seeing them in control of the site kind of threw me, but remembering the intensive data the Cincinnati FIB had shared with me during a murder investigation, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.
Ivy slumped against the side of the I.S. vehicle, arms crossed and thoroughly ticked. She stared at the ambulance Nick was in as if she could kill him by her gaze alone. Me? I was more worried about how we were going to get that truck burning. I was getting the feeling it wasn't going to happen. A heavy wrecker was inching its way into place, rollers moving with a sedate laziness. Apparently they wanted to get it off the bridge before the news crews showed up.
Slipping out of his cuffs, Jenks levered himself to sit beside me on the tailgate, a pained grunt coming from him. "You okay?" I asked, though clearly he wasn't.
"Bruise," he said, eyes fixed to Nick's blue truck. With an obnoxious beeping, the wrecker backed up to it.
"Here," I said, pulling my bag around and starting to rummage. "I've got an amulet. Ivy never takes any of my amulets, and I'm not used to you being big enough to use them."
"Why aren't you using it?" he said, stretching his shoulder with a pained look.
"I have no right to," I said, my throat closing when I glanced at Peter. I was glad he wasn't trying to convince me otherwise, and I hardly felt the prick of the finger stick for the blood to invoke it. Ivy shifted, telling me she had noticed the fresh blood despite the wind, but she was the last vamp I had anything to be worried about. Usually.
"Thanks," he said as he draped it over his head in obvious relief. "I wonder if there's any way you can make tiny amulets? I'm going to miss these."
"It's worth a try," I said, thinking that unless that truck spontaneously combusted from Ivy's glare, I'd have about a week to find out. Once the Weres realized the artifact was fake, they'd be knocking on my door. Assuming I didn't land in jail. I felt as if we were three kids standing outside the principal's office. Not that I had any experience in that area. Much.
Nick's truck went atop the wrecker in a horrendous noise of whining winches and complaining hydraulic machinery. The garage guy moved slowly, his dirty blue overalls and cap pulled down low, pressing levers and buttons seemingly at random. The overzealous I.S. guy was telling him to hustle and get his vehicle out of the way before the first news van arrived.
The driver walked with a limp, almost unnoticed amid the FIB and I.S. uniforms, and I thought it rude they made the old man move faster than he comfortably could.
Someone had moved one of the massive construction lights to illuminate the area, and as the distant generators rumbled to life a quarter mile away, a soft glow swelled into a harsh glare, washing out the gray of the fading sunset. Slowly the background rumble became unnoticed. Mind whirling for an idea, I dropped the spent finger stick in my shoulder bag and sighed.
I froze, fingers brushing the familiar objects in my bag. Something was missing besides the remote. Shocked, I stared into the dark fabric bag, tilting it so the growing light would illuminate what it could. The sight of my things scattered on the grating when Nick knocked me down passed through my mind. "It's gone," I said, feeling unreal. I looked up, meeting first Jenks's and then Ivy's wondering gaze as she pulled herself away from the vehicle.
"The wolf statue is gone!" I said, trying to decide if I should laugh or curse that I had been right in not trusting Nick. "The bastard took it. He knocked me down and took it!" I had been right to leave the totem shoved between Jenks's silk underwear and his dozen toothbrushes. Damn it, I'd have been happy to have been wrong this one time.
"Piss on my daises..." Jenks said. "That's why he picked a fight."
Ivy's bewildered face cleared in understanding. At least she thought she understood. "Excuse me," she said, pushing herself away from the I.S. vehicle.
"Ivy, wait," I said, wishing I'd told her what I had done, though it wasn't as if I could shout that Nick had a fake. I pushed from the tailgate. Pain shot through me, reminding me I had just been hit by a truck. "Ivy!" I shouted, and an I.S. guy headed after her.
"Won't take but a moment!" she called over her shoulder. She stormed across the closed lanes, uniforms coming from all over to head her off. I moved to follow, immediately finding my elbow in the grip of one of the mustache guys. Images of court dates and jail cells kept me still as the first man to touch Ivy went down when she stiff-armed him in the jaw.
A call went up, and I watched with a sinking sensation, remembering when she and Jenks had taken out an entire floor of FIB officers. But it was I.S. runners this time. "Maybe we should have told her," I said, and Jenks smirked, rubbing his wrist where his cuffs had been.
"She needs to blow off some steam," he said, then whispered, "Holy crap. Look."
His green eyes were brilliant in the mercury light hammering down on us, and my jaw dropped when I followed his gaze to the wrecker. The brighter light made obvious what the shadows had hid before. The garage guy's hands were spotlessly clean, and the dark stain on the knee of his blue overalls was too wet to be oil.
"Nick," I breathed, not knowing how he got his hair that dirty white so fast. He was still wearing my disguise amulet, but with the overalls and cap, he was unrecognizable.
Jenks stood beside me, whispering, "What in Tink's garden of sin is he doing?"
I shook my head, seeing the Weres watching him too. Double damn, I think they knew it was him. "He thinks he has the focus," I said. "He's trying to get the original too."
"Leaving us holding the bag?" Jenks finished in disgust. "What a slug's ass. If he doesn't go to the hospital and die on paper, then we have a dead vamp to explain and will be brought up on insurance fraud. Rache, I'm too pretty to go to jail!"
Face cold, I turned to Jenks, my stomach in knots. "We have to stop him."
He nodded, and I cupped my hands to my mouth. "Ivy!" I shouted. "The wrecker!"
It wasn't the smartest thing to do, but it got results. Ivy took one look and realized it was Nick. Crying out, she slugged the last I.S. agent and took off running, only to be brought down by a lucky snag by a previously felled officer. She sprawled, cuffs on her in two seconds flat.
Jenks flowed into motion, distracting the surrounding FIB officers. Thinking this was going to look great on my r��sum��, I sidestepped them and ran for the wrecker. People were shouting, and someone had probably pulled a weapon as I heard, "Stop, or I'll use force!"
Force my ass, I thought. If they shot me, I'd sue their bright little badges from here to the Turn. I didn't have anything stronger than a pain amulet. I'd been searched, and they knew it.
It was right about then that Nick realized I was coming for him. Clearly frightened, he jerked the door open. A cry went up when his engine revved, loud over the generators. There was a piercing whistle, and the leader of the unknown military faction waved his hand above his head as if in direction. Horns started to blow when three street racers stopped in traffic and Weres got out. Grim-faced, they closed in. They weren't happy. Neither was I.
"Stop him!" came a bark of a demand, and I picked up my pace. I was going to get to Nick first, or whoever beat me to him was going to get my foot in their gut. He had hurt and betrayed me, leaving me to clean up his mess and take his fall. Twice. Not this time.
My gaze was fixed fervently on the truck as it lurched, almost stalling, but a flash of pixy dust jerked me to a stop. "Jax?" I exclaimed, shocked.
"Ms. Morgan," the adolescent pixy said, hovering before my nose with an amulet as big as he was, his eyes bright and his wings red in excitement. "Nick wanted me to tell you he's sorry and he loves you. He really does."
"Jax!" I said, blinking as even the sparkles from his dust faded. My eyes went to the truck. The wheels were smoking as Nick tried to get the heavy vehicle moving. With a lurch, the wheels caught. My face went cold as I realized it was headed right for me. I watched him fight the huge wheel, arms stiff and fear in his eyes, struggling to turn it.
"Rachel, get out of the way!" Ivy screamed over the rumble of the engine.
I froze as the wheels turned, missing me, the tires taking the weight compressing dangerously. Jenks crashed into me, knocking me farther out of the way. Stifling a gasp, I hit the pavement for the third time in the last hour. The truck roared past in a frightening noise and a breeze of diesel fumes. A crack followed by a boom shook my insides, the sound rolling over my back like a wave. Jenks held my head down and a second boom followed the first.
What in hell was that? Heart pounding, I pushed Jenks off me and lifted my head. The wrecker was careening out of control, the tires blown out. Someone had shot out his tires?
I scrambled up when the wrecker with Nick's truck swerved wildly to avoid the scattering news crews. Tires squealing and gears grinding, the brakes burned as he locked them. Momentum kept the vehicle moving - careening into the temporary railing.
"Nick!" I screamed when the wrecker crashed through it like toast. With a shocking silence, it was gone.
Heart in my throat, I hobbled to the edge, too hurt to stand upright. Jenks was behind me, and he yanked me back when I reached the crumbling edge. The wind gusted up from the distant water, blowing my hair out of my eyes. I looked down, dizzy.
Hand to my stomach, I started to hyperventilate. My sight grew gray, and I pushed Jenks's hand off me. "I'm okay," I mumbled, but there wasn't anything to see. Six hundred feet makes even a wrecker small.
Nick had been in it. God help me.
"Easy, Rache," Jenks said, easing me back and making me sit.
"Nick," I mumbled, forcing my eyes wide as the cold pavement met my rear. I wasn't going to pass out. Damn it, I wasn't! I looked at the edge, the roadway cracked to show the metal embedded in it, threatening to give way where the truck's weight had hit it hard. Shiny shoes clustered around me, belonging to the officers peering down. At the edges of the excited crowd were the Weres. They were dressed in suits, leather, and military uniforms, but the look on their faces was the same. Disbelief and shock. It was gone.
The crackle of a radio intruded, coming from the I.S. officer swearing softly as he peered over the edge. "This is Ralph," he said, thumbing the button. "We have two trucks off the bridge and a body in the water. Smile everyone. We're going to make the evening news."
I missed what was said back, lost in the hiss of bad reception and the thundering of my heart as I tried to fit it into my head. He had gone over the bridge. Nick had gone off the bridge.
"Yup," the man said. "Confirm a commercial vehicle towing a pickup truck off the bridge and a body in the water. Better get the boat out here. Anybody got Marshal's number?"
He listened to the response, then clipped it to his belt. Hands on his hips, he stared down. Soft swear words dropped from him like the gray smoke from his cigarette, mixing with the faint scent of incense. Ralph was a living vamp, the first local I'd seen apart from the one who had bandaged my leg. I wondered whose neck he didn't bite to get stuck with a job up here, so far from the bustle of the city they thrived on.
I pulled my head up. "Will he be all right?" I asked, and Ralph glanced at me, surprised.
"Lady," he said, noticing me, "he died of a heart attack before he hit the water. And if that didn't get him, he died on impact. At this height, it's like hitting a brick wall."
I blinked, trying to take that in. A brick wall. It would be the second brick wall Nick hit today. My focus blurred, the sight of Jax and that amulet filling my memory. What if...
"The body?" I insisted, and he turned, impatient. "When can they retrieve the body?"
"They'll never find it," he said. "The current will take it, moving it out into Lake Huron faster than green corn through a tourist. He's gone. The only way he would have survived was if he was dead already. Damn, I'm glad I'm not the one who has to talk to the next of kin. I bet he's got three kids and a wife."
I hunched over, the reality of what had happened sinking in. God bless it, I was twice the fool. Nick hadn't died going over the edge. This had been a scam right from when I told him he couldn't have the statue - and I had walked right into it.
"His name was Nick," I whispered, and the I.S. officer spun from the drop, surprise on his age-lined face. Ivy and Jenks stiffened. I was blowing our cover, but we were going to be questioned before too long, and I wanted our stories to be the same. "Nick Sparagmos," I added, thinking fast. "He was helping us with a piece of art I was contracted to recover. I'm an independent runner out of Cincinnati and this was a run." The truth is good.
"He wasn't supposed to be here," I continued as Ivy's tension pulled her shoulders tight. "But when that guy hit us and killed Peter..." I took a breath, the heartache real. "Peter was only supposed to make sure it got to the right people okay. He wasn't supposed to get hurt. The people we recovered it from...I think the accident was their attempt to get it back before we handed it over. Nick came out with the wrecker to make sure they didn't get it. The artifact was still on the truck. He was going to get it out of here, but someone shot the tires out. Oh God, he went right over the edge." And a little lie mixed in with the truth keeps me showering alone.
Jenks put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze to tell me he understood. Peter had been killed in the pickup truck in an accident to satisfy the insurance company. Nick had died when he went over the edge to satisfy the Weres. That Nick was the driver of the Mack truck as well wouldn't even be considered, the driver's absence explained as a hit and run. If anyone got curious and found out the truck belonged to DeLavine, he'd be the one slapped with the illegal early termination lawsuit from the insurance company, not me.
It sounded good to me. I was going to stick with it.
I could almost feel the worry ease out of Jenks, but Ivy was still a knot of tension, not knowing that Nick had gotten away with absolutely nothing.
The I.S. officer who had taken my license ambled up to the man before me. "Hi, Ralph. You got out here quick." He turned to me, camaraderie in the witch's eyes as he handed me my license back. "Ms. Morgan, what are you doing this far out of the Hollows?"
"Cincinnati?" Ralph looked at me in surprise. "You mean Rachel Morgan?" His gaze went to Ivy. "You're Piscary's girl. What are you doing this far north?"
"Getting my partner's boyfriend killed," she said, and the man took her ugly look as dark humor. Officer Ralph already had his cuff key out and was getting them off her, frowning when he realized Jenks wasn't in his. I held up my wrist with my little black strap, and he snipped it off with a special pair of clippers on his key chain. I wanted one of those.
"Where are you staying?" Ralph asked as Ivy rubbed her freed wrists. "I'm going to want to talk to you before you go home."
Ivy explained while I stared at the water. Nick wasn't dead, and the shock of seeing him go over the edge was evolving into a nasty feeling of satisfaction. I had beat him. I had beat Nick at his own game. Knees shaking, I stumbled away. Ivy hurriedly finished up with Ralph, and with her on one side and Jenks on the other, I started to chuckle. I didn't know how we were going to get to the room. Three of us wouldn't fit in Kisten's Corvette very well.
"Tink's daisies," Jenks whispered to Ivy behind my back. "She's lost it."
"I'm fine," I said, cursing myself and laughing. "He's fine. The crazy bastard is fine."
Jenks exchanged a sorrowful glance at Ivy. "Rache," he said softly. "You heard the man. I read the place mat about how many people they lost building the bridge. He wouldn't survive hitting the water. And even if he did, he'd be unconscious and drown. Nick is gone."
We passed the news crews, and I took a shallow breath, finding comfort in that my ribs hurt. I was alive, and I was going to stay that way. "Nick knew that too," I admitted in the dimmer light. "And yeah, he's gone, but he's not dead."
Jenks took a breath to protest, and I interrupted.
"Jax was here," I said, and Jenks pulled us all to a stop in the middle of the closed northbound lane. People swirled around us, but we were forgotten.
"Jax!" Jenks exclaimed, yanked into silence by Ivy.
"Shut up," she snarled.
"He had an inertia-dampening amulet," I said, and Jenks's face went from hope to a heartbreaking look of understanding. "Jax was here to fly it down to the water before the tow truck hit."
"And the NOS," I continued as Jenks paled. "It never exploded. He used the charges to blow the tires, knowing the truck was heavy enough to go through the temporary railing."
Ivy's face was empty, but her eyes were starting to go black with anger.
Shaking my head, I looked away before she scared me. "I'll give Marshal a call, but I bet he's missing some equipment. I never looked to see what Nick had in that truck locker he's got. He's swimming out of here, and I bet Jax is with him."
A pained sound came from Jenks, and I wished I could have said it wasn't true. Feeling his pain, I met his eyes. They showed a deep betrayal he would never talk about. Jenks had taught Jax all he could in the last few days with the idea that the pixy would take his place. And Jax had taken that and used it to burn us. With Nick.
"I'm sorry, Jenks," I said, but he turned away, shoulders hunched and looking old.
Ivy tried to tuck a strand of too-short hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry too, Jenks, but we have a big problem. As soon as Nick gets himself safely settled as a nonentity, he's going to sell that thing and all hell is going to break loose between the vamps and the Weres."
Something in me hardened, and the last of my feelings for Nick died. I smiled at Ivy without showing my teeth, hiking my bag farther up my bruised shoulder. "He won't sell it."
"And why not?" she asked, snarky.
"Because he doesn't have the real one." I looked for Kisten's Corvette, finding it standing by a pylon. Maybe we could splurge and move to the Holiday Inn tonight. I could use a hot tub. "I didn't move the curse to the wolf statue," I added, remembering I was in the middle of a thought. "I moved it to the totem Jenks was going to give Matalina."
Ivy stared at us, reading in Jenks's lack of response that she was the only one who hadn't known. He was staring at nothing, pain still etched in his posture that his son had just buried in the dirt everything he cared about. "When were you going to tell me?" she accused, blush coloring her cheeks. She looked good when she was mad, and I smiled. A real one this time.
"What," I said, "and risk spending the next two days trying to convince you to change your plan?" She huffed, and I touched her arm. "I tried to tell you," I said. "But you stormed off like you were an avenging angel."
Ivy eyed my fingers on her arm, and I pulled them away, hesitating a bare instant.
"Nick's an ass," I said. "But he's smart. If I had told you, you would have acted differently and he would have known."
"But you told Jenks," she said.
"It's hiding in his jockey shorts!" I said in exasperation, not wanting to talk about it anymore. "God, Ivy. I'm not going to mess with Jenks's underwear unless he knows about it."
Ivy pouted. The six-foot sexy vampire in scraped black leather crossed her arms before her and pouted. "I'm probably going to have to do more community service for hitting all those I.S. officers," she grumbled. "Thanks a hell of a lot."
I slumped, hearing forgiveness in her words. "At least he didn't get it," I offered, and Ivy threw a hand in the air and tried to look disgusted, but I could tell she was relieved.
Jenks found a thin smile, his gaze going to Kisten's Corvette. "Can I drive?" he asked.
Lips pressed, Ivy frowned. "We're not going to all fit in that. Maybe we can bum a ride from Ralph. Give me a moment, okay?"
"We can fit," Jenks said. "I'll move the seat back and Rachel can sit on my lap."
Ivy went one way and Jenks went the other. My protest froze when I found a point of stillness in the swirling mess of reporters, officers, and watchers. My lips parted. It was Brett, standing on a cement barrier so he could look over the crowd. He was watching me, and when our eyes met, he touched the brim of his cap in salute. There was a rip in it where the emblem had been removed, and with a significant motion he took it off and let it fall. Turning away, he started to walk for the Mackinaw City end of the bridge. And he was gone.
I realized he thought I had done it, and went cold. He thought I'd blown out the tires of the wrecker and killed Nick for trying to do a double run on me. Damn. I didn't know if that kind of reputation would save my life or get me killed.
"Rache?" Jenks returned from pushing the passenger's seat back as far as it would go. "What is it?"
I put a hand to my cold face and met his worried eyes. "Nothing." Determined to figure it out later, I sent my thoughts instead to the bath I was going to take. I had beaten Nick at his own game. The question was, would I survive it?