I took a breath, mouth open, drawing in air over my tongue and through my nose with a soft scree of sound. I covered my mic and said to Eli, “Death. Several days old. Multiple people. I don’t smell . . . I don’t smell, or hear, activity.”
He covered his mic and said, “Copy that. Didn’t know you could smell activity.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t something I could explain. It fell under a category of weird, like people who could walk into a house and tell if anyone had been there recently. Movement of air currents. Presence or absence of faint sounds or echoes. Whatever.
Eli said, “Tracks in the yard are hours old. I think they bugged out.”
“And left the bodies,” I said.
* * *
• • •
We were both right. By the time PsyLED got there, we had called the coroner and left the house to the five human corpses and the dead dog. I didn’t want to think about what Des Citrons had done to the people in the B&B. But I knew this. I’d kill them when I found them.
I sent a text to Alex. Make sure this was a random kill site. No attachment to Leo or any clan.
He sent back, Roger that. The kid was growing up.
* * *
• • •
Five hours after I leaped out of bed to go to war with Des Citrons, Shemmy dropped me off at home. Eli had reached the house an hour before and I envied him the hot shower he had undoubtedly taken, as I entered the house, hearing the sound of hammers and a skill saw from the third floor, and men talking from the living room. Neither group heard me, so I stopped in the shadows of the door to eavesdrop.
Edmund said, “Titus agreed to the location, and proposed the first-round combatants. His people and Leo’s are close to deciding on a time to begin. Thank you,” he interjected as if he’d been given a glass of wine or a really good cookie. “Leo dispatched Derek Lee and an initial security crew, his entire housekeeping crew, and the combined and motley gangs of tattooed and disreputable-looking carpenters, electricians, and plumbers to the accepted house.”
“Security is Jane’s and Yellowrock Securities’ job,” Alex said. “Why weren’t we sent?”
“Derek is taking a scouting team,” Ed said. “Jane is too important in the search for Des Citrons to waste her talents watching carpenters ripping into walls and floors.”
“But if Jane’s there she’ll make sure we have indoor plumbing. And hot showers,” the Kid said.
“Showers. We don’ need no stinkin’ showers,” Bodat said.
“Forgive my saying so,” Edmund said, “but that is incorrect. You both need showers, quite desperately. What did Jane used to call you?”
“Number two? When she called my bro number one?”
“She called you shit? Dude.”
“Bodat. Shut up,” Alex said, sounding tired.
“What? What’d I say?”
“Stinky,” Eli said, his voice with that Zen modulation it acquired when he was cleaning his weapons. “Which we’ll call you again if you don’t go up right now and shower. Both of you.”
“Jeez. You people,” Bodat said.
“Upstairs,” Alex interrupted. “Let’s get cleaned up and you packed. Your bus leaves for the last inhabitable room in the toe of the state in half an hour. If you’re not in place we can’t set up cell or satellite, and Wi-Fi on the island.”
I stepped back, into my bedroom doorway.
“But what’d I say?” Bodat complained as they passed me without seeing me in the shadows.
“Things will be more primitive than usual,” Edmund said. “I’ve seen the house, though that was over sixty years ago. Old-fashioned bathrooms and only two of them. No central heating or air-conditioning. The bedrooms without windows are limited so Mithrans will be sleeping several to a room. Humans will have only three or four rooms to choose from, mostly bunk-bed-style sleeping areas, if I recall. Ancient furniture.”
Eli said, “George thinks we’ll leave for the island fast and the Duello will start in less than two days.” When Edmund said nothing, Eli asked, too casually, “Have you seen the proposed list of elimination rounds?”
Edmund didn’t answer.
“That bad?” he asked.
“Everyone wants to fight Jane. Every single one of the Europeans,” Edmund said at last. “From Titus’s sous chef to his primo.”
I heard soft clicks and snaps as Eli worked, growing more noisy than usual. Edmund’s admission had disturbed him. “Show me.”
I had seen the list. I wanted to blow off steam. I slipped into my room and changed into exercise gear: tight, Lycra-based running pants and a padded sports bra. Bare feet. I walked into the living room and pointed at Eli. “Spar. Now.” Then at Edmund. “And when I wipe the floor with him, it’ll be your turn.”
Edmund’s lips lifted faintly. “As my mistress desires.”
I didn’t even bother to fuss about the mistress comment. I turned on my toes and raced up the stairs, across the construction mess, into the bedroom with the sparring mats. And faced away from the door, toward the windows. I let my body loosen. I breathed. Let my mind stop. Relaxed until a white haze filled my brain and body, not silent, but a place, a state of mind, an existence without sight, texture, or sound. An absence of sensation.
Then I let it bleed back into me. A rubberized mat covered the wood floor. I let my soles feel the mat, the cushioned perception of weight, of gravity. I smelled the chemicals that composed the mat. Heard water come on in the showers. And I heard Eli enter the room, so silent a waking cat wouldn’t have heard him. The air moved. Smelling of Eli.
I ducked, dropped. Opened my eyes. Captured my balance on one foot and both fists. Swung the other leg out and around. Missed him.
Took a blow to my rib cage that sent me into the wall. I laughed. It sounded not quite right. I launched myself at him. Took a blow to my abdomen. Block block block. Strike strike. Blow. Block. Pain woke me up. My fists tightened. My crouch deepened a quarter inch. And I attacked. Fastfastfast. Beast chuffed through my throat.
Eli’s heel came at my throat.
Killing strike. Knowing I would dodge. Because I was faster than Eli. Always had been.
Time . . . stopped.
And then . . .
I was standing in the room, eyes closed. Back to the door. And I smelled Eli.
I dropped and rolled, shouting, “Edmund!”
He was instantly in the doorway, the little pop of sound that announced a vamp moving fast. My eyes were wide. Eli, in attack position, was staring at me. I slammed my spine to the wall and foot-crawled hard, to stand against it.
“Jane?” Eli said. “What?”
“Time did something. I already had a fight with you. And now we’re starting over. Something’s wrong.” A spike of pain lanced through my head. And I remembered time doing something weird with Leo recently. Tears welled over and fell from my eyes. Scoured down my cheeks. Though whether from what was happening or from the memories of the tortured bodies of the Stephens family at the B&B I didn’t know. My skull spiked with pain and I wanted to hurl. I put one hand to my head and one to my belly, which felt hard and tight. “Something’s very, very wrong.”
“I’ll make tea, my mistress,” Edmund said. “Eli. Come with me, please.”
Eli looked like he didn’t want to go, but he followed Edmund. They left me there, alone in the spare bedroom with the fighting mats. The stench of rubber. And a body that hurt. As if I’d been beaten.
* * *
• • •
In the kitchen Edmund was preparing a fast cuppa chai in the Bunn coffeemaker. Eli was sitting at the table. I pulled an afghan off the couch and wrapped it around me, ignoring that it smelled of Bodat and pizza. I was cold.
I watched them. They seemed fine.
I sat at my usual place. No one said anything.
Upstairs, one shower went off. I hadn’t heard it come on in this timeline.
Ed placed the mug of spiced tea in front of me. The cup was one with a saying on it. I DON’T NEED ANGER MANAGEMENT. I JUST NEED PEOPLE TO STOP PISSING ME OFF. The tea had a thick layer of frothed cream on top. My tears, which had stopped, gathered again, at the kindness. I wrapped my icy fingers around the mug and lifted it from the table. Sipped. The frothed cream made it perfect. The tea and cream were delicious and quickly helped my belly pain to ease. Ed put two Tylenol on the table and I took them without argument.