Chapter Seven
Asher
“Got about ten minutes before I’m closing up for the night,” I told the only person in the bar, who was drinking her sadness away with some good old-fashioned Irish whiskey.
She looked at me with those tear-stained cheeks and gave me a pitiful smile. Many different mental states came in here, and it wasn’t my job to be a therapist to them all. But when they did try starting conversations with me about their issues, I would listen, and then give them advice. Which was usually not what they wanted to hear. The truth is hard to handle sometimes.
I walked into the back room to my office for a few minutes, knowing that the woman was just going to drink as much from her glass as she could until I had to kick her out. I checked to make sure everything was ready for me to start shutting down the system, then grabbed some cleaner before heading back out to the bar top.
“All right, time to start heading out.” I looked up from my boots as I was walking to give the poor woman a warm smile, but she wasn’t there anymore. Interesting. I honestly thought I was going to have to call the woman a cab and walk her out. Definitely would have preferred that rather than her face the city alone in her mental and physical state. Walking behind the long wooden bar, I double-checked to make sure nothing was taken, even though I’d spelled my liquor to only be touched by certain people. If she’d tried, she would have felt like she was trying to lift a car instead of a bottle.
Seemed like everything was in order; she just ran out. I looked along the bar top and saw some cash. Well, at least she didn’t skip out on paying for the drink. I grabbed the cash and realized the glass she was nursing was missing. Maybe she knocked it off the bar on her way out, or even took it with her. People have done stranger things.
I walked around the corner to see if her glass was on the floor when my whole body froze.
The woman was there, on the ground, and she was bleeding out onto my wood floors. Shit.
In just three steps I was at her body. She was still breathing but barely. Little cuts had been made all over her body, and her shirt was completely torn in the back, exposing her skin that was marred by two slits that had been made in between her shoulder blades. Blood was gushing out from those marks.
Her watery eyes were looking at me as best as she could, and I knew she was dying. Without thinking, I placed my hands on her skin and chanted a spell to seal the wounds that had been inflicted on her. Whispering it over and over until the magic began suturing every slice, one by one.
The energy to heal her cuts had been taken from the earth, below the foundation, rising from the core, where energy is infinite. The magic merged with her own earth essence to heal her body.
She was weak when the magic had done its job—too much blood had been lost. Calling the authorities could ruin the bar’s reputation, but I needed help with this.
Echo.
An envelope had arrived this morning containing Echo’s number inside, with a note that only had a winking emoji on it. It wasn’t from her. At first, I thought it was because Phillip knew I wasn’t done with my once house cat, but now I’m wondering if it was because he knew I’d call in that favor she owed me. She hadn’t left her number after the kiss—just punched me in the gut and walked out the door.
I opened my hand and willed the air to carry the paper with the number to me, along with my phone, staying by the woman’s side, making sure she didn’t die.
My fingers were slightly shaking as I dialed her number and waited for her voice to come through the speaker.
“Detective Cross.”
“Echo, it’s Asher. I’m calling in that favor.” I was getting straight to the point. I heard a sigh on her side, but she didn’t hang up.
“What do you want?” she grumbled, and I wanted to laugh at her anti-enthusiasm, but considering the circumstances I held it back.
“I’ve got a woman dying in my bar. She was cut up bad, no clue what fucking happened. I’ve healed her, so she isn’t bleeding anymore, but she already lost a lot of blood. It’s like someone was trying to blood-let her or something. She had two big-ass slices in her back. Shit, I know I should call 911, but someone dying in my bar would literally kill business.”
I felt like shit saying that, but business had been off and on lately, and this would be the nail on the coffin for the bar on the off side. Someone being murdered in the bar? No witnesses? Shit, I would be the first suspect!
Echo hadn’t said anything for a few seconds, and I wondered if she was still on the line.
“Echo?”
“I’m on my way,” she said softly and hung up the phone.
“I’ll be right back; you are safe now,” I told the woman and then raced upstairs to grab a shirt for her, because the one she’d been wearing was shit now. Once Echo was here, she could help me get it on the woman.
I was back down in a flash, just talking to her, keeping her awake, and calm.
Echo showed up about ten minutes after my call and walked in with a look of horror on her face. Her tanned skin was unnaturally pale, and I worried she was going to faint.
“Help me get her in this shirt; the one she was wearing is all torn and bloody,” I demanded. I looked the woman in the eye and told her exactly what we were going to do. She gave me a weak nod. Then I helped her get up, holding her body as best as I could without touching anything inappropriate. Echo was subtly shaking as she walked over and grabbed the shirt.
We managed to get her clothed, but the woman was so weak.
“She needs blood. We have to take her to the hospital,” Echo stated, and I looked at her with a grim face. I knew she was right.
“Sweetheart, I just realized I never got your name.” I scooped up the woman and held her in my arms, resting her head on my chest.
“Lisa.” She whispered so low I strained to hear. We were running out of time.
“Let’s go.” Echo was right behind me as I walked out of the bar. With a quick finger flick toward the door, it locked.
“Handy,” Echo murmured and walked over to an all-black classic Camaro, then opened the door for me to put Lisa in.
“A girl after my own heart.”
Little did she know I too was a fan of old muscle cars.
In fact, in the parking lot behind the bar was my very own version of her car—but mine is red. Built it from a rust bucket to the perfection it was now. The pro section of the Echo-and-me list just kept on growing.
She drove us to the hospital without much delay; people weren’t really out and about this late on a Wednesday.
“What are we going to tell them? Can’t exactly say she was sliced open, and I healed her. I don’t want that kind of attention,” I told her, and truly I didn’t. Something like this would attract the attention of my coven, and I was happy with them doing their thing and me doing mine.
“I know a girl that works there. She’s helped me out on a few occasions.” Echo pulled into the parking lot, and we got the girl out. I carried her into the hospital, ready for whatever fate had planned for me tonight.