“Not Ant’s fault. I… failed… him. Look after”-the painful inhale again-“the kid. The Hounds. They’re family. Mine. Yours.”
“Hey, now. Don’t get all soft on me. You and I can look after the Hounds together, okay? I promise.” I poured magic into him-more, faster.
“Worth it,” he exhaled.
Pike’s one eye stared at me. I did not look away from him. Did not look away from him as the Veiled rushed me and shoved greedy fingers into my skin, burning, hurting, eating the magic out of my flesh. Did not look away from him as the last spark of life drained from his eye. Did not look away from him as he became unnaturally still, vacant, empty. Dead.
Only then did I let go of the magic pouring into him. Only then did I look away from my friend.
As soon as I let go of the spell, the Veiled faded. I stung from head to foot. Felt like my skin had been scraped raw by frozen sandpaper. My thigh throbbed; my chest throbbed. Every breath caught and burned, and, damn it, tears poured down my face.
But I was raging inside, seething. And way past caring about my own pain.
I was angry as hell. Trager was going to pay. Fuck the law. I was going to kill him with my own hands. I pushed up onto my feet, turned a slow circle. I couldn’t smell Trager, but I could feel him like a dirty echo in my bones. He was here. Near. I followed my gut and my rage and walked toward the corner building. The wind picked up again, pulling ice off the skin of the river and slapping me in the face with it.
I felt alive. Focused. If this was the last thing I ever did, it would be worth it.
I strode along the building until I found a door that was partially open. The smell of blood came from that room-Trager’s blood. I tightened my hold on the dagger and calmed my mind. I didn’t hear anyone moving behind the door.
I pushed it the rest of the way open. Two rooms were divided by a wide arch in the center: an office. A large solid desk held down the back wall. Both rooms nicely furnished. Modern. Tasteful.
Except for the dead man with a slit throat on the floor. Lon Trager’s goon. There was a trail of dead people, actually, and if I had to guess how they got that way, I’d bet on Pike. I walked past them all, noting their fatal wounds with satisfied detachment. Slit throat, bullet hole in the head, bullets in the chest, a knife still lodged in the carotid artery. The man with half a head missing, his buddy sporting a matching wound-probably from the big-ass gun in the river of blood on the floor. Six of Trager’s men. The same six that had been on the bus with me.
Fuck, I thought. What a mess. Even though I was not accustomed to being this close to dead people, the numb rage that filled me let me note that I was going to have nightmares about this but also let me not care. All that was important right now was that Trager was not among the corpses. How could Pike have missed him?
Maybe another room, another office. I turned to leave. Heard someone struggling to stand behind me. I turned back around. Lon Trager stood behind the desk. Blood covered one side of his face, turned his crisp white business shirt red.
Looked like he and Pike had both gotten their hits in.
Trager white-knuckled the edge of the desk to stay standing. He held a gun in his other hand, leveled at my chest.
“Bye-bye, Beckstrom.”
I threw myself to one side, yelled at the fresh tear of pain in my thigh. The bullet grazed my left shoulder, and my vision went black for a moment.
Trager fell back in the chair behind the desk, breathing hard. He wasn’t moving. The gun clattered to the floor.
I pulled myself together and strode across the room, boots slapping in the blood of dead men. I walked around the desk and stopped in front of Trager. He watched me but did nothing more than breathe hard and hold still.
“You killed Pike,” I said.
Trager, the bastard, smiled. “Won’t be my last.”
With a strength I didn’t think he had, he lunged at me, a wicked knife in his hand.
Oh, hells, no. He wasn’t the only person with a knife in the room.
I gripped the dagger in both hands and thrust all my weight behind it.
Pain rattled through me again. Trager had aimed low, stabbing my thigh.
I, however, hadn’t. The dagger sank into his belly, catching against a scrape of rib on the way in. Trager went limp, heavy, his body dead weight against me, until all that held him up was my grip on the dagger in his gut.
“Yes,” I said, “it will.”
He gurgled and stank. I stepped back, pulling the dagger out as hard as I could. Then I watched him fall to the floor and move no more.
I was covered in blood. My blood, Trager’s blood, Pike’s blood.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was still screaming and screaming. This was a nightmare, and I wanted out. There was a dead man on my shoes. A man I had killed.
Killed.
But in the front of my mind, I was too furious to care.
I pulled my feet out from beneath Trager’s dead weight and then knelt and shoved him over so I could see his face. The dagger wound added to the blood already on his shirt. I was no expert, but it looked like Pike’s bullets, which had left three clean holes through his shirt directly over his heart, had done just as much damage-maybe more-as my knife in his gut.
I swore. Killing Trager, feeling him die in my hands, hadn’t changed my anger. And it hadn’t done a damn thing to bring Pike back. I stood and stared down at Trager, trying to make sense of it all. Pike had come to kill Trager, who had been waiting for him. Pike said Anthony had Pike’s blood-probably sold it to Trager in exchange for blood magic and drugs.
But Pike had said something else. The girls and a doctor. A doctor had my blood. I didn’t know which doctor. But I knew how to Hound. And I sure as hell knew what my own blood smelled like. All I had to do was track it-track the magic in it-and I’d have the last piece in this puzzle.
“Jesus Christ,” a voice said behind me.
I swung around, dagger at the ready.
Davy Silvers, the hangover kid, stood in the doorway.
His eyes and nose were red, his cheeks splotchy. He’d been crying. He smelled faintly of alcohol and puke. He’d obviously been following me.
“You’re up early,” I said.
“Not early enough. Lon Trager?”
“Dead.”
He glanced down at the bloody knife in my bloody hand and then looked me up from shoe to face.
“Did you kill him?”
I wiped the blade across the least gory leg of my jeans, staring Davy straight in the eye as I did so. “He was dead when I got here,” I lied.
I had to give the kid credit. He didn’t look away. He shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet, as if every inch of him wanted to turn and run from what he saw in my gaze. Still, he stood his ground.
“Good.” His voice caught. “Wish I was here to see it.”
Boy had a vengeful streak. That would probably serve him well in this business.
“Pike?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
He just shook his head. “I called 911.”
I nodded. “When the police arrive, tell them I was here. Tell them I didn’t see everything, but I’ll give them my statement. If Detective Stotts shows up, tell him I’m Hounding a lead on the case I worked for him, but tell only Stotts that, got it?”
“Yeah.”
“And if you follow me, Davy Silvers, I will kick your ass. Even if I have to come back from the dead to do it. Understand?”
He swallowed and nodded, and then moved out of my way.
Smart boy.
I strode out of that damn room, out into air that smelled too much like blood. I pulled a small amount of magic into my sense of sight and smell. And strode off toward the trail of magic in my blood that hung like a ghostly fire in the air.