The Isis Collar

I sat up straight, and it made my head pound. “The guard. The guard at the school said something.”



“What? What did he say?”



I tried to remember, but it was useless. I barely remembered going to the school, let alone specifics of a conversation. I wouldn’t have been able to come up with as much as I had if Rizzoli hadn’t prompted me.



His dark eyes looked me over carefully from head to foot. “You really are in bad shape, aren’t you? What do the doctors say?”



I threw up my hands in frustration. “Nothing. They say nothing. Because they haven’t got a freaking clue.”



He winced. “That sucks.”



“Yeah. It does. But that’s not why you’re here, is it?”



His expression grew weary and I realized I wasn’t the only one who looked bad. Rizzoli’s normally a good-looking man if you’re into dark Italian-American types. Every time I’d seen him his suits were well cut, fit him perfectly, and no wrinkle dared appear. Not today. The charcoal suit was still good quality and well tailored, but it looked as though he’d been wearing it for a couple of days straight, only bothering to change into a fresh shirt.



“We’ve found evidence of devices having gone off at six different schools. I found out about the one near Denver, Colorado, by sheer accident. It was in the same school district where the high-school shootings happened a few years back, so when the furnace malfunction was discovered in the basement, it made the local six o’clock news and got splashed onto the Internet.”



“And you put two and two together.”



He rested his booted feet on the coffee table and I instinctively motioned for him to put them back on the floor. He did. “Well, actually, all I put together was one and one. But it did make me search the Internet for other weird news and I started calling around to ask whether any other similar reports of post-furnace-malfunction illnesses had come in at the local level. That’s when we found Chicago, Daytona Beach, and Dallas. Boston only got reported this morning, which is why we think there might be more out there.” He yawned wide. “I’m hoping you have coffee, because I’m going to need it for the trip.”



I stood up and started to limp toward the kitchen, saying over my shoulder, “I have coffee, but where are you off to? One of the schools?”



“Not me,” he replied. “Us. I need you to come down to our field office to help me with something.”



That stopped me cold. “The last time you showed up, it didn’t go so well.” That was an understatement, and he knew it. The last time he’d knocked on my door, I’d been living in a different house. He’d appeared in the middle of my Christmas Day party, claiming my going with him was a matter of life and death … not to mention national security.



It had been. I’d barely survived.



He waved his hand at me like I was overreacting, but there was a tension next to his eyes that revealed his words as a lie. “This is a piece of cake—nothing like that last time. But it is important. The assistant director dropped by my office this morning and specifically requested you for this job.”



I raised my brows and then sighed because I now understood that Rizzoli was being pushed. In the FBI hierarchy, the assistant director rarely dropped by the office of a field agent. While Rizzoli had gotten a temporary promotion during a crisis, it apparently hadn’t stuck … or he’d refused it. So I was being “fetched” and he was the delivery boy. The thing was, I needed him available to me when I asked. He was really handy for putting pressure on people I couldn’t because I didn’t have a badge in my pocket. I had a nifty laminated card, but what does that mean?



Because who listens to a bodyguard? Nobody.



Really. A crossing guard has more credibility.



“So,” I said after a long pause. “Two coffees to go then. But while I get cleaned up you’d better heat me up some of the broth I’ve got stored in the freezer. And we need to keep it short because this headache is really hammering me. Maybe I should just cut it off altogether.”



He didn’t comment on that. “Go get dressed. I’ll start the coffeemaker.”



It took a few minutes. I had to dig around to find clothes warm enough for the weather and then we were out the door. Just yesterday, it had been sunny and warm, a typical spring day. But today, winter had returned with a vengeance. “I will never get used to this.” The words came out in a mist of steam that matched the snow covering the ground. No, there shouldn’t be snow in Southern California, especially in March. Blame it on the rift. According to the weatherman, the world’s brush with the demonic dimension messed with the climate. The jet stream was presently somewhere over Brazil and wasn’t expected back anytime soon. On the plus side, glaciers in the Arctic Circle were back to the levels of a hundred years ago and they predicted there wouldn’t be any wildfires this year. I could stand a little snow for those benefits. But relearning how to drive has been a challenge for many people.



Rizzoli had parked his crappy government-issued sedan right next to my sporty convertible Miata in one of three marked places. Though technically, you could probably park fifty cars in front of my beach house if you didn’t mind digging your vehicle out of the sand on a regular basis.



I’d nearly reached his car when he held out an arm to stop me, catching me across the chest. The impact made me cough and stopping short almost dumped me on my fanny in the slush thanks to my bad leg. Rizzoli didn’t say anything or look at me, just pointed what looked like a high-end remote control toward the black sedan. A chirp sounded from the remote, and then another. He kept holding down the button until five tones had sounded and the whole device glowed green. “Okay. It’s safe. We’ll talk once we’re on the road.”



Safe? From what? I eyed the car suspiciously. “Should I be worried about getting in?”



He shrugged. “Probably not. But careful keeps me alive. This remote checks for both traditional bombs and anything magical or demonic that might affect the car or anyone in it. If I hadn’t already adjusted it, you wouldn’t have been able to get inside with those fangs.”



Sweet! I needed one of those. “Ooh … where’d you get it?”



His dark eyes twinkled despite looking bloodshot and tired. He gave me a small smile over the roof of the car that told me the remote wasn’t a consumer model. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”



Of course. The government got all the good toys. Still, I was betting I had some he’d never seen before.



The engine purred quietly after he put in the key and pressed the start button, but the thrumming under my feet told me there was more under the hood than I’d find in similar cars on the showroom floor. I waited impatiently while he steered out onto the open road. “Okay. So what’s up?”



“We detained a foreign national last night. I need you to get some information out of him before bad things happen.”



Um … excuse me? I turned my throbbing head to see if what he was suggesting even bothered him. “Just so we’re clear … how were you planning I’d do that?”



He flicked his eyes away from the road long enough for me to see that he knew exactly what he was asking. “You’re a siren. Do I really need to say it out loud?”



I glared at him. “No.”



When I didn’t say any more, he was forced to ask, “No, I don’t need to say it, or no, you won’t help?”



“Both.” No way in hell was I going any further in this plan, regardless of whether it would get him in trouble. Because I was controlling myself, my voice didn’t come close to the outrage I was feeling. “I can’t believe you’d even ask! I nearly wound up in prison for mental manipulation, Rizzoli, and that was before I even realized what my psychic abilities could do to a person. So, no. There’s nothing you can do to convince me to help you. Just take me back to my house. Find someone else to help you.”



He sighed and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. I could see it out of the corner of my vision. I stared out at the scenery, refusing to look at him, admiring the ice crystals dripping off waving palm trees. His voice was serious as death when he spoke next. “It’s important, Graves. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t.”



I felt my eyebrows rise high on my forehead. “Yeah? I’m pretty sure it’s not more important than my spending the rest of my life in a cage too small to sit up straight in. In fact, if I remember right, magical torture is banned by the Geneva Convention. Me using my innate abilities to force someone to talk is torture. It just is. Is this more important than winding up in front of the judges in The Hague? Turn around, Rizzoli. My answer is no.”



Another exit whizzed by on the interstate and the car didn’t slow. Rizzoli reached down and pulled something from his pocket. Okay, that time I looked. He pressed a button on the cell phone and held it up to his ear.



“Report. Have you secured the siren?”



I suppose it would have been sporting to tell Rizzoli about my enhanced hearing. But … nah.



It was a little surprising to hear the annoyance in my driver’s voice. I got the impression it wasn’t because of having to call in but because the speaker referred to me as the siren. Interesting. “Her name is Celia Graves. Yes, she’s with me in the car. But we have a problem. I need to explain the situation. Fully.”



“That’s need to know, Agent. And she doesn’t.”



“Sir, if you want her cooperation, I’m going to have to tell her at least some of what’s going on.”



There was a long, charged silence.



“We need her. But understand that I’m holding you fully responsible for her behavior. Understood?”



“Understood.” Rizzoli ended the call without another word. Maybe the other guy had hung up on him, but I didn’t think so. It made me wonder if he was going to get in hot water because of me. I hoped not. But he was right about one thing. If they had any hope of getting my cooperation they were going to have to tell me what in the hell was going on.