Oh, for chrissake. I need a nuclear reactor and what do I get? A dead battery.
“When’s he coming?” I asked.
“Soon,” Asha replied.
I shifted on my feet, which badly wanted a hot bath and a massage. “Can you get any more specific than that?”
“Only a year. Perhaps two at the most.”
That is it! “I haven’t even got a day! Now, you listen to me. I’m already pissed that I allowed you to talk me out of taking down that reaver when he was vulnerable and carrying around five of his buddies in his head. I’m still seriously considering dragging your ass back to the cemetery so we can nail that murderer, because two wrongs do not make a right, and frankly, I’ve done nothing right since I hopped the plane for this country. Though I should, I’m not going to ask you to pull Zarsa off Vayl. I can take care of him myself. But I am going to stand here, right in your face, and call you a fucking pussy!”
Oh boy, did that bring the blood to his face. Apparently the mahghul hadn’t drained Asha of all his emotions. I raced on, so enraged by his lack of action and my own bottomless well of shit that I didn’t give a crap how he reacted to what I said. “Your job is to protect people from others who abuse their powers and you are failing miserably!”
He started to speak, but I held up my hand. “Don’t even try to make excuses. I don’t give a damn what the mahghul did to you. The Council of Five didn’t send someone to replace you after that battle, did they?”
He shook his head.
“So there was nobody else. In fact, there’s been nobody since. You’re it, Asha. You’re all that stands between innocent people and criminal others in this city. And all you’ve done for the last — how long?”
“One hundred years,” he murmured.
“Oh my God, for the last century your only effort on the people’s behalf has been to write the bad guys’ names in a book? No wonder the place is a cesspool! You know, I came to ask for your help. You’re a Power, and I was hoping you’d share just a little of it with me. Just enough so I could do my job, stop a guy who’s killed hundreds of your people and mine, and hopefully save my brother’s life in the process.”
I paused. Had to. The tears that crouched at the back of my throat, waiting for me to consider the men in my family, had to be swallowed. When I’d gulped them down, and then taken a second to marvel that Asha hadn’t slammed his gate in my face but stood rooted to the sidewalk, his mournful eyes glued to mine, I said, “But I can see that’s a waste of time. You decided a long time ago just to sit on your power like a gigantic ostrich, bury your head in the sand, and wait for somebody else to show up to do the hard work.”
The sound of squealing tires distracted me. I turned to look as a van hurtled onto the street. Though it was still maybe five blocks away, the light reflecting off the satellite dish attached to its roof revealed its identity. I’d bet my next pay check when it pulled up to Asha’s gate the sticker on the side would translate to Channel Fourteen.
As soon as I saw the van I felt an ache between my shoulder blades. Confirmation that the vehicle contained one, if not all, of the reavers. How had they found me?
I looked at my watch. “Shit! It’s a new day!” I slapped my hand to my forehead, as if that could cover up the Mark. I felt my arm for the syringe of holy water I usually kept there. But it was gone. I’d given the sheath to Cole to feed his oral fixation and had stored the syringe back in my weapons case.
“What is happening?” asked Asha. His eyes had moved from the van to the rooftops and gone as round as campaign buttons. The mahghul were gathering.
“The reavers are coming for me. Remember that one you wouldn’t let me kill?”
Asha nodded, wincing at the bite of my tone.
“Well, his sponsor is a mortal enemy of mine who found him a bunch of willing bodies working at a local TV station. Now he’s dumped the demons he was carrying in his head into those bodies, and at least a few of them are in that van.” I took a second to think. No way could I fight off the reavers if, indeed, all six of them had piled into the van for this showdown. I was about five miles from home base, so no time to run for cover. Cirilai would’ve told Vayl I was in trouble, but he’d never get here in time to help. And Asha. Well, we’d already established his status.
I turned to him. “Do you have a car?” I asked, as I looked over my shoulder. They were two blocks away now. I could see reavers in the driver and passenger seats as well as one glaring out the front window between them.
“A car? Yes. But . . . I rarely drive it. I mean —”
“Good.” I pushed him inside the gate, slammed it shut, and barred it from the inside. “I need it.”
We ran around to the back of the house. Asha opened the garage door while I pulled Grief. I thumbed off the safety as I heard the van screech to a halt in front of the house.
“In here,” Asha whispered. I followed him into the garage and stifled a whistle as he opened the driver’s side door of a black BMW 3.
Sweet. He handed me the keys, shielding his face from me as we made the transfer. Still, I caught the glint of tears on his cheeks. Aw, for — are you kidding me? The guy could probably kick my ass into the Persian Gulf while juggling the reavers with three fingers if he wanted to. But I’d called him a name and made him cry. And now I felt bad. Because the truth is I do have a big mouth that I absolutely need to learn to keep shut, and he did have an excellent reason for avoiding the mahghul. I was just so desperate, at this point I’d smack the angel Gabriel upside the head if I thought it would make him mad enough to get down here and yell at me for three days. Because sometime within that span I’d need backup, he’d be there, and voilà. Problem solved.
I slipped into the driver’s seat and closed the door. Asha reached through the open window and poked the remote attached to the visor. The back gate began to roll open. I started the car. “I’m sorry, Asha. I was a real shit to you back there, and here you are, lending me your wheels.”
He leaned down, his sad eyes nearly level with mine. We couldn’t hear the reavers, but they were coming. My back muscles spasmed, as if at any moment they expected the reavers to jump up from the rear seat, rake the meat off my spine, and yank out my still-beating heart.
Asha wiped the tears off his face with both hands. “Here,” he said gently. “Take them.” He cupped my cheeks. I sucked in my breath as the moisture burned into my skin.
“Asha.”
“Now go!”
He made a commanding motion and of its own accord my foot slammed the accelerator.
Chapter Twenty
I believe in miracles. E.J.’s my main proof. I can’t look into those wide green eyes, feel those perfect little fingers wrapped around mine, realize this complete little girl with her own personality, made of my sister and her husband and a little bit of me, shares my world, without knowing our family recently experienced a miracle. That’s a biggie. Sometimes God throws me small ones too. Like the fact that I didn’t crash Asha’s BMW as I took a sharp right coming onto the road out of his back gate despite the fact that most of my attention was on the rear view mirror.
Four reavers had come after me. Two of them ran after the car. One actually jumped onto the trunk, but flew off as soon as I turned the corner. The other two had entered the garage to confront Asha, and I felt my chest tighten with fear for him. I’d just decided to turn the car around when I saw the reavers fly out of the garage and the door thump down. Then I was on the street, wailing down the asphalt like a bank robber, heading back to base through choppily lit, third-world-looking neighbourhoods on roads that were often so narrow I wasn’t sure how vehicles passed each other during the day.
I’d made it maybe halfway back when the TV van caught up with me.
It tried to ram me in the rear end, but I gunned the engine and pulled far enough ahead to wonder if I was giving them too good of a shot at my back tires. I took the next left before I could find out, watched the van nearly roll in its attempt to follow me, and decided a zigzag course might be the best way to keep them from flattening any part of Asha’s ride.