I sat on the edge of the toilet, scratching behind Zee’s pointed little ears as he grabbed a fistful of individually wrapped packages of M&Ms and shoved them, paper and all, into his mouth. Behind him, Raw had picked up the nail gun and was shooting studs down his brother’s throat. Aaz giggled, swallowing each one. Dek, watching them, made a small sound of protest—and I opened a beer, which he fitted his entire mouth over and then knocked back with a sigh. Mal, who had disappeared from my shoulders, poked his head up from within the fried chicken bucket, too much like some crazed demonic gopher. He licked his chops and gave me a toothy grin.
I nudged the container of used syringes toward Raw. He cracked it open and began popping each one into his mouth like candy bars. Over the crunching sounds of plastic, chicken, paper, and aluminum, I said, “Tell me about the Black Cat.”
“Bad news,” Zee rasped, licking his claws. “Gave our old mother a hard run.”
“And that’s the reason three people associated with this woman have been murdered?”
Zee lowered his hand, sharing a long look with the others, who stopped eating. “Price to pay. No good road from that hunt. Bleed for darkness and darkness gets a taste.”
Winifred was going to wonder why her bathroom smelled like fried chicken and beer. “Why? Was she a demon?”
Zee sighed, resting his chin upon my knee. Hair spikes flexed, and his red eyes narrowed with memory as his claws gently tapped the tile floor. “Almost.”
“Almost. What does that mean?”
“Means almost.” Zee scrunched up his face. “Blood never lies, Maxine.”
I gave him a long look, suspicions and theories rumbling through my head. But before I could ask, Dek lifted his head and froze. All the boys did, staring at the door.
I was up in moments, out of the bathroom, running down the hall. Grant and Winifred were still seated in the living room, talking softly, but they stopped when they saw me. Grant did not need to hear my warning. He braced himself on his cane and rose in one smooth movement, knuckles white around the carved oak handle.
“Winifred,” he rumbled quietly, still staring into my eyes. “You need to come with us now.”
The old woman paled. No arguments, though. She stood, swaying, and Grant steadied her with his free hand. I moved ahead of them, Dek and Mal settling heavily in my hair. Red eyes winked at me from the shadows of the long hall. I listened hard, heard nothing.
The door loomed. Grant and Winifred lingered behind me. I held out my hand, gesturing for them to wait as I crept forward. From the shadows of the closet, Zee whispered, “Clear.”
And it was, when I opened the door. Nothing there.
We left the apartment without incident, and took the elevator down to the first floor. Winifred watched me the entire time, with such intensity my skin crawled. So many stories in her eyes, so much she knew that had not been spoken. I hated secrets. I hated the mysteries in the past that no one, even if they tried, would ever be able to explain. To understand something you had to live it—or live something so close that the empathy was second hand. What this woman had gone through—the events chasing her now—was beyond me. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try.
As the elevator doors opened I said, “You have ten seconds to tell me why you’re being hunted. No riddles. I want answers.”
“We were children,” Winifred said tightly, still evading my question. “We didn’t know what we were doing.”
I noticed she clenched that tightly folded square of linen in her hands, a hint of human leather peeking out from beneath the edge of cloth. I stuck my foot in the elevator door, holding it open. “Right. Because taking that from a dead woman is morally ambiguous. Try another one, Ms. Cohen.”
Winifred gave me a haunted look. “She wasn’t dead when we took it.”
And then, almost at a run, she rushed past me into the lobby. Grant began to follow, and stumbled. I grabbed his elbow, clinging tight, feeling as though he was holding me up just as much as I was holding him. I stared at the old woman’s rounded shoulders and whispered, “What is this?”
“Something worth killing over,” he replied, voice strained. “She wouldn’t say much to me, but whatever happened when she was a child left a black stain in her aura. Almost like a…handprint. I saw something similar in Ernie, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. He was dying. He might have shot someone. Any of that would cause a shadow.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I muttered, and let go of him to hurry after Winifred, who had stopped by the glass entrance and was looking back at us with those old dark eyes. We were alone. No one around to hear more confessions. I reached for the old woman, intending comfort, strength—something, anything, that would reassure her that it was safe to tell me the truth.
Before I could reach her, the glass in the door shattered. Winifred staggered into my arms, collapsing against me. I gasped, stunned, falling down with her—and my fingers touched wet heat. Came away red. She had been shot in the back.
A roar filled my ears, deafening and cold. Grant began talking into his cell phone. I hardly heard him. Winifred was still breathing. I slid out from under her, trying to keep my hand on her wound. Pressing down with all my strength.
Save them.
Blood seeped past my fingers. Winifred’s breathing was rough, little more than a strangled hiss—but except for that and the quiet persistence of Grant’s voice, silence seemed to press around us. Such terrible silence, as though what little sounds we were making meant nothing to the crush of empty air surrounding our bodies.
A strong hand covered mine. Grant whispered, “Go. Find who did this.”
I shook my head. “Not safe for you.”
His lips brushed my ear. “Justice, Maxine.”
I tore my gaze from the blood spreading through Winifred’s clothing and gave him a sharp look. Found nothing in his eyes but that old grim determination; and deeper yet, anger.
I stood, and his hands replaced mine, pressing down on the wound. My fingers snapped at Raw, who was peering at us from around the ruined remains of the door.
“Protect them,” I snarled.
And then I was gone, kicking out the remains of the glass to run into the street, searching for a shooter.
It was a cool Sunday night in New York City, and while this particular street was quiet, I heard the growling hum of cars and people rumbling through the night. No screams, though. No fingers pointing. Just me, and windows across the street, a mixture of light and dark. I stared, searching for movement, anyone watching—but found nothing except for a handful of people strolling across the intersection toward me. No sign that any of them knew what had just happened. I heard their careless laughter.
I began walking in the opposite direction. Zee flitted through the shadows, appearing briefly in nooks between brownstone stairs and garbage cans; leaping from the branches of slender shade trees and then reappearing moments later in the darkness beneath parked cars. I kept waiting for him to say something, but all he did was give me brief, uneasy glances that made my stomach hurt.
“What,” I finally asked,” did you find?”
“Nothing,” he rasped. “Gone.”
“You can find the shooter. Don’t play dumb.”
Zee fell backward into the shadows. I kept walking, scanning the street. Trying to let my instincts do what my demons would not. But ten minutes later, I had no answers. Nothing. Nothing, anywhere. Winifred’s attacker had escaped. I had known it the moment I stepped free of her apartment building.
Zee peered at me from beneath another parked car. I gave him a long hard look. He ducked his head, fading away. But not far. Close as my own skin, if anyone threatened me. The boys felt those things. My life was sacred. They would have known a gunman was close. They had known. But the threat had not been for me, or Grant—who they protected almost as carefully. And so they had let the bullet go.