“Yeah,” I said without hesitation, starting off east through the Village. “Not a problem.” The thought of sitting down at my desk and not using an ounce of psychometry for a little while felt like the best idea in the world right now.
I slipped my phone back into my pocket and pulled my gloves back on. To double ensure I didn’t trigger a blessed thing, I jammed my hands down into my jacket pockets. My brain and emotions needed to settle. It saddened me that sometimes shopping was far more perilous that dealing with zombies and vampires.
10
Hours of paperwork back at the office kept me nice and distracted from the mental confusion of earlier in the day. When Jane texted me hours later saying she was at Mason Redfield’s apartment working, I felt settled enough that I headed out into the dark and the rain to meet up with her.
I opened the door to Professor Redfield’s high-rise apartment before ducking underneath the police tape and stepping in. Outside the patio doors rain poured down, giving the low light of the apartment a creepy look. Jane was sitting in one of the professor’s giant wing chairs with a bunch of books on her lap and a satchel lying at her feet. A variety of candles, charms, and chalk bits were scattered on the floor in front of her. She was engrossed in one of the books and looked up only when I closed the door behind me. She let out a tiny yelp.
“Sorry,” I said. I craned my head, looking around the quiet, empty apartment. “You said they had you working. . . Did they leave you alone here?”
Jane nodded. I went over to her and started picking up the bits and pieces scattered by her feet.
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she said, grabbing my wrist to stop me. “I haven’t seen any sign of Aqua-Woman. I’m just wrapping up warding the place. Sorry I screamed. When you came through the door, I thought you might have been the ghost of the professor.”
“Do I look like I’m a ghost in my late fifties?” I said. “I know working for the Department is probably aging me prematurely, but come on.”
Jane stood, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed me. After a moment she stepped back and looked up at me. “Better?”
“Much,” I said, smiling. “How’s it going?”
“I think it’s going good,” she said.
“Think?”
Jane let out an exasperated sigh. “Look, I’ve never done this before.” She grabbed up the book she had been reading. “Director Wesker came through here and spent about seven seconds instructing me on how to properly ward a place before he had to run off on another case. This skeleton-staff work schedule is killing me. I think I’ve protected the place with the symbols on the walls and even laid down a few traps if anything paranormal returns to the scene.”
I walked around the main living room area looking at the variety of symbols drawn on the wall in Jane’s handwriting. There were all kinds that looked vaguely runic to my eye, but what did I know? I was out of my element.
“So what do you think?” I asked. “You think this woman in green was bound to the professor somehow?”
“I don’t know,” Jane said. She started packing up her stuff, handing me a small pile of books. “Here. I thought these looked promising for you.”
“I already tried to get a read on the stuff in here,” I said.
“I figured maybe with all the distractions your powers have been giving you lately, you might want to chance it again.”
“Sure,” I said. I stuffed the books into the messenger bag hanging at my side, not even getting into why I had zero plans to read anything with my powers right now. “But getting back to my question . . . what do you think? Was that woman bound to the professor?”
Jane shrugged as she filled up her own bag with the materials on the floor. “Maybe,” she said. “Part of me wonders if she lived here. If she did, I bet she had more than a drawer.”
Although Jane sounded playful enough when she said it, the angry twinge rose up in my heart unbidden and I couldn’t hide it in my voice. “Jane . . .”
“I’m fine,” she said. By the tone in her voice, it didn’t sound like it.
“About the other night,” I said, swallowing it down. “I’m sorry I hesitated when you asked about me about the set of drawers. These emotional flairs from the tattooist have really been messing with me. Connor had to remind me you were asking for more space, not anything big like moving in.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I wasn’t asking that. I just wanted somewhere to put my things.” The look on her face faded, replaced with one of shy concern. “But since you went there, would it be so horrible?”
The tattooist’s emotions tried to press themselves forward, but I tried to be rational. “I just don’t want to mess this up,” I said. “I don’t want to rush anything. I’ve rushed things before, and you know my history. I’ve a lot to think about. . .”
“Like what?” Jane asked, snapping a little. “Seems pretty simple to me. Either you want to be with me or you don’t, right?”
I sighed. “Let’s not fight,” I said. “It’s late. We’re both exhausted and touchy. I just came to pick you up, maybe take you to dinner.”
Jane softened a little and nodded. “That, I can get behind.”
The half-built driveway loop in front of the high-rise was half-flooded from the downpour of rain, but thankfully one fully built sidewalk was in place and led down to First Avenue. Once my arm was around Jane under the protection of my umbrella, we huddled under it and I finally felt myself relaxing. I didn’t want to worry about our domestic problems all night, and in that regard, I needn’t have worried.
As we came off of First Avenue onto the side street, we were met by a lack of late-night traffic and a now-familiar figure. The green woman Jane had been warding the apartment against was standing out in the downpour in the middle of the empty street.
“Holy hell,” I said. “Guess that answers the question of if we finished her off when Connor dropped the statue on her.”
Jane looked uneasy. “Should we call in the troops?” she asked.
“We are the troops,” I said, taking out my bat. “Budget cuts, remember?”
“Oh, right.” Jane looked disappointed. “Crap.”
“You okay with this?”
Jane nodded. “I just hate fighting in the rain,” she said. “More so when it’s some aquatic bitch who tried to drown my boyfriend.”
I squeezed her shoulder. “Feel free to work with that. A little vengeful thinking can go a long way when it comes to a fight.”
I collapsed my umbrella, pulled my bat out of its holster, and slid the umbrella into it.
“Gotcha,” Jane said and the two of us headed off for the green woman. When the woman saw us in motion, she strode toward us in great, deliberate strides, Terminatorstyle. She stopped thirty feet away in the middle of the deserted street, and I hesitated. Jane kept moving forward, but the woman raised her arms out to her sides and turned her head up to the heavens. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but I had a bad feeling about it. I reached for Jane, catching her arm.
“Wait,” I said, tugging her back.
The words were barely out of my mouth when I heard the sound of rushing water explode somewhere off to my right. I turned, and water was shooting toward me from the remains of a fire hydrant along the curb. It slammed into me full force, causing me to fling Jane off in the opposite direction as its pressure catapulted me into a row of parked cars. I landed hard on one of the roofs of a gypsy cab, leaving one hell of a body print in it and absorbing a ton of pain that screamed across my back.
Jane was luckier. My spin had sent her stumbling across the street, but now she was running in the direction of her momentum, diving for the cover of a van parked on the opposite side of the street.
I rolled off the top of the cab toward the safety of the sidewalk area. Water was now filling the street at a rapid flow. The direct approach wasn’t going to work with this creature. As I tried to come up with a next move, the sound of crumbling stone rose up behind me. I looked down. I was standing next to another fire hydrant. . . and it was shaking violently, crumbling the sidewalk beneath it.