TEN
You’ve got one minute, then I’m leaving. With your surprise.” Evalle muttered the warning on her second hike past the back side of Grady Hospital in downtown Atlanta, where heat hovered in the eighties at close to nine at night. What she wouldn’t give to use her power and stir a breath of wind, something to blow away the stench of urine oozing through the humid air in this spot.
Where was that ornery Nightstalker?
The temperature dropped ten degrees to a comfortable chill.
“What happens in one minute, E-valle? Not like you gonna leave ’till we talk.” Grady’s deep Southern voice brushed past her ear like charred wood scraped against rough concrete.
Evalle stopped on the sidewalk running along Pratt Street. She didn’t turn around. A waste of time, since no one stood behind her. “I’m in a hurry, Grady.”
The translucent form of a thin male took shape, wavering in front of her. The coffee-colored skin on his jaw was covered with gray whiskers that stopped just below a slash of cheekbone. His creased nose had failed to dodge a fist or two that had left their marks. Bony elbows interrupted the long arms sticking out from his red-and-black plaid short-sleeved shirt.
The air continued to cool, a welcome change.
From what Grady had told her, he looked the same way now he had the day he’d died homeless on the streets at age sixty-eight, a decade and a half ago.
When his head came into focus, sharp eyes with two chips of coal for pupils glowered at her before his gaze dropped to the denim shoulder bag hanging against her hip. “What surprise?”
“Not until we have a deal and shake.” Negotiating with Grady was like dealing with Charon on the River Styx. If you didn’t set the price before you got on the boat and refuse to pay until he ferried you safely to the other side, he’d dump you in the river and leave you to drown.
Grady lifted his stubborn chin. He was a wily old bastard who gave up nothing for free. He, like all Nightstalkers, was the metaphysical remains of the less fortunate who’d died on the street. They would do anything for a craving. Sometimes it was drugs or food, but usually it was alcohol, and in Grady’s case, there was only one thing he wanted.
Mad Dog 20/20.
All a Nightstalker needed was one quick handshake with any powerful being—and they could take human form for ten minutes.
“Whatya got?” He eyed her bag.
“Clock’s ticking.”
“I’m listenin’.”
“I need information on two Cresyls and a Birrn demon that were running around town this weekend. Got anything on them?”
“Maybe.”
“I can’t play this game right now, Grady. My butt’s in a sling.”
“With who?”
“Everybody if I don’t find out who sent the demons.”
“Who’d you piss off this time?”
“I didn’t do anything.” Other than being born an Alterant. “But a demon mauled a human. The body’s in the morgue and word is going to be out by tomorrow morning, if it takes even that long. If I don’t come up with evidence to prove the demon mauled that human, everyone’s first default will be that an Alterant did it. Not a good thing for me. You got anything on the attack or not?”
“Why would a Cresyl attack a human and not eat the body?”
She wanted to choke him and his game of twenty questions. But then, she hadn’t mentioned that it was the Cresyl who’d killed the human. Grady definitely had information. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. It’s tied to the Birrn, I think.”
“That don’t make sense.” Wrinkles on Grady’s face piled together in a frown. “Cresyls belong to a German practicing dark arts and the Birrn to Nigerian black majik. What makes you think they’re connected?”
He probably knew why and was testing to see how much information she had. “I’ll share if you do. Got information or not?”
“Maybe.”
He could be the most obstinate of ghouls, but he was one of the better preternatural informants because of that annoying trait. Hoping to nudge him along, she bluffed, “If you can’t help me, just say so.”
“Didn’t say that, but I still don’t see why you’re in a jam, ’less you got mouthy with somebody. That I’d understand.”
I will not let you bait me. But Grady had that look, the one that said he wouldn’t budge until he got his questions satisfied. “Things have gotten a little more difficult for me than normal over the past eight weeks since those nine Beladors were killed in North Carolina.”
“By that Alterant?” Grady floated off the sidewalk.
“Yes. Get back over here,” she hissed at him.
“Oh. Didn’t realize I drifted.” His flickering form moved back as though blown gently, but there wasn’t a breeze to be had. His gaze puckered with concern. “That ain’t right to come after you every time another one shifts into a beast.”
“True, but we’re in the minority with that opinion.” What was it going to take to move this along?
“How much you know about that Birrn killed this morning?” he asked.
She flexed her jaw muscles. Patience. “Give me a break tonight, Grady. I got a lot to do and not much time.”
“You wouldn’t be so wound up if you did something other than work at night. Maybe found you a nice young man to give you a—”
“Grady!”
“—back rub.” He pulled off a look of mock despair a Catholic mother would be proud of. “Not much chance of that happening when you can’t even get a date.”
“I’m not wound up.” Yet. “And I can get a date, old man.”
“Better an old man than an old maid. Who dates a woman that lives underground like a mole and has weirdos for friends?” His lips stretched into a dog-happy grin. No sense of urgency at all—a luxury of the not-entirely-dead, which Evalle couldn’t afford.
“You have a twisted sense of humor, Grady, but I wouldn’t call you a weirdo.”
“Was talkin’ ‘bout Tazer and Quill, those two goons you hang out with.”
“His name’s Tzader. Z! The T’s silent and it’s Quinn, not Quill. He and Quinn are not weirdos or goons.” She tapped her foot. “Can we move this along?”
“And that thing you call a pet—”
“Grady!” She no longer felt guilty about her surprise for him. “Back to my demon problem. Please, for the love of Macha.”
“Which you still haven’t explained,” he interjected. “I’m surprised those two goons aren’t here helping you.” The irritating rascal didn’t take a breath. “But you don’t need them or anyone else. Some hard tail come at you, he’d end up with his ass booted into next week.”
She was glad one person, even if he was dead, had faith in her ability to defend herself.
Grady scratched at his beard. “But that’s another reason you can’t get a date. Men want a sweet woman, not some Amazon what’s gonna kick their butts.”
How did he always manage to run so far off track? “We are not discussing my love life—”
“That’s for sure. Nothin’ to discuss.” Grady’s bushy eyebrows lifted in an all-knowing way as he nodded.
“If you don’t stick to the topic, I’m going to someone else.” Evalle wiped a bead of sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, prepared to dicker. “I’m out of time. You ready to shake?”
“No free nothings.”
“Like that ever changes? Here’s my deal. We’ll shake if you agree to share everything you know about the Cresyls and Birrn who were here in the Atlanta area over the past forty-eight hours,” she said, spelling out the specifics.
He acted like he considered it, but they both knew he wouldn’t walk away. “You got it.”
She pulled her thumb free from her jeans pocket and extended her hand. Due to fear that too much power shared would alter the normal state of a Nightstalker, VIPER rules forbade an agent from shaking for more than ten seconds without special dispensation. A rare exemption she’d seen allowed only once when national security had been at stake.
But with her level of power, she could give a Nightstalker human form for ten minutes with a five-second shake.
“Ready?” she asked, glancing around to make sure they were still alone. The only living thing anywhere close to this dark stretch was some poor old vagrant across the street covered in newspapers and sleeping shoved up against the hospital’s back wall.
Grady’s hand trembled when he started reaching for hers. He licked his lips, anticipation blooming in his sagging gaze until he paused and pulled back. “What’d you bring me?”
She shook her head, refusing to tell him what was in her shoulder bag. “Not until we shake.”
“Should have made that part of the deal,” he grumbled and stuck out rough fingers that had fought to survive. “Do it.”
When her hand touched his, heat spread across her palm with the energy flowing from her.
The exultation on his face always plucked at her heartstrings. His life had come down to ten-minute visits to this world. She could go to other Nightstalkers, who would agree in a snap to anything she asked, but Grady was far more intelligent than the rest when it came to information, and the grouch behaved like a grandfather who gave unsolicited advice.
Her fantasy of a grandfather, since she’d never had one she knew of.
Within seconds, Grady’s body turned completely opaque, his dark flesh hung loose with age, but the old coot’s body emitted a quiet strength.
She withdrew her hand. “Start talking.”
“What’s my surprise?”
Evalle sighed and dug into her shoulder bag for the McDonald’s sack filled with a hamburger, French fries and a bottle of water she lifted into view.
“You’re kidding, right?” The look he gave her questioned her ability to chew gum and walk.
She ignored the hiss of irritation that slipped from his lips and pointed out, “Last time you said how much you miss the taste of hamburgers.”
He rolled his eyes to the heavens as if someone up there would explain demented women to him, then swung around, searching the other side of the quiet street. Grady limped over to the homeless guy asleep.
Evalle would have zapped him with a lick of power if not for her aversion to hurting Grady in any way. Especially during his ten minutes of Nightstalker nirvana. “You forget you owe me information and that I’m on a tight schedule?”
He slipped a half-drunk bottle of wine from the bony fingers of the comatose bum and limped back. “I agreed to talk after we shook, but not how soon after.” He downed a swig of wine and jerked the bottle away. “Lord Almighty, that sucks.”
“What? Is your palate spoiled by Mad Dog 20/20?” She grabbed the bottle away from him. “I need answers.”
He sighed as he stared longingly at the bottle. “The Cresyls were on a leash, part of a spell. What were you doing with the Birrn?”
Figures that Grady would know about her fighting the Birrn. “Where’d you hear about that?”
“Those two junkyard heathens.”
She rubbed her hand over her forehead. “I’ve got to find those twins and shut them up.”
“They’ll sure as hell spill their guts if someone grabs ’em and plays hard.”
She didn’t have a nurturing bone in her body, but if someone hurt either of those two teenagers, she’d make that person beg for death.
Grady reached for the wine. “What have you got on the demons?”
She pulled it away again. “One of the Cresyls killed the human, then the Birrn ate the Cresyl. The Cresyls set me up, but I don’t know if it was to bait me into a trap or any Alterant who happened to be here.”
“You’re the only one I’ve ever heard of that ain’t caught yet.”
That was the unfortunate part. But she could hope there were more, couldn’t she? Just one more would shed doubt on the death being related to her powers. “Oh, and here’s the kicker—the Birrn had Celtic markings.”
Grady shook his head. “That don’t make sense with the Birrn bein’ Nigerian.”
“Yeah, I know. So where does a Celtic connection come in? Every way I look at this, I still come up with someone out to set me up by making the mauled human appear to be an Alterant attack.”
“Here’s what I got.” Grady finally turned serious. “The Cresyls were on a spell leash connected to the Birrn. That would mean the Birrn’s master was controlling all three demons.”
She handed him back the bottle. “I’ve never heard of that, but we could fill a library with what I don’t know about demons. What about the Celtic link?”
Grady turned the bottle up, swallowing a long gulp. “The majik holding the Cresyls was Noirre.”
That sent a shiver through her. Tzader’s lead for the traitorous Belador had something to do with Noirre majik. But Tzader was too involved in something to break free or she’d have heard from him telepathically by now.
“Any idea who conjured the majik?” Evalle glanced up when Grady didn’t speak, and she caught him considering his answer. Oh, she knew that look, and it was trouble. “Don’t even think to negotiate a new deal.”
He covered his heart with the bottle in his hand. “I’m hurt that you’d question my integrity that way.”
Nightstalkers had no integrity or loyalty as a rule, willing to sell the same information over and over as soon as they could shake again. But Grady had been different, an exception to the rule, and he’d protected intel in the past.
However, that show of insult on his face right now was nothing more than an act.
He belted down another quick slug and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “Most likely, it’s a witch conjuring Noirre, but that doesn’t rule out another being, since we ain’t got a Who’s Who directory of black majik folk around here. There ain’t been a Noirre in the south for the past fifteen years I been hangin’ loose. Only ones I ever heard of worked alone.”
Evalle smiled at how he described his years of being a Nightstalker as “hanging loose.” More than once she’d wondered if Grady was the derelict vagrant he presented to the world with his ragged speech or if his core personality was the highly educated man who peeked out from beneath the charade at times.
But that didn’t matter right now. If he was right about a lone witch being behind the Noirre majik, she jumped to the only conclusion she could.
Adrianna.
The witch who came from a long line of corrupt witches. After all, most witches were good people who harmed no one. That was their code: Do no harm. Whatever you send out into the universe will return to you threefold. That kept almost all witches in line. However, there were those who did dabble with the darkness, and Evalle couldn’t rule out the possibility of the Medb being here either.
But still she couldn’t let the thought of Adrianna go.
Those like Adrianna and her family who danced on the dark side didn’t adhere to those happy pony rules. They were the deadliest of all because they had no conscience, and all that mattered was what they wanted.
If Adrianna really was here to work in VIPER’s favor and not turn on them, her first test would be finding the witch behind the Birrn.
Would that help or hinder Evalle’s position if Adrianna found out the Birrn had been looking for an Alterant?
Then again, she couldn’t see Adrianna doing anything to benefit her.
The heavens grumbled, threatening to turn this into a full sauna evening.
“I’ve got to make the most of tonight. That all you got on the demons?” Evalle gave her watch a quick glance. Grady would start to fade soon, then he’d be hard to find for an hour or two.
VIPER didn’t want her mentioning the Ngak Stone even though Grady would know about it being lost in Atlanta two years ago. But he might have something new to share if she positioned the question creatively. “Or anything else? Any unexpected energy floating around? Maybe a female with unusual powers who’s new on the scene?”
He took another swig. “Not part of the original deal.”
She should take his bag of French fries back, but the whining would be worse than pulling a sack of trick-or-treat candy away from a four-year-old. Not a pretty sight on a ghoul his age. She tried a sly approach. “I need intel now on anything unusual and quick. Something to show VIPER I’m on the ball.”
Grady shrugged. “And I’m running out of my anytime minutes. Want to shake again?”
“You know I can’t shake for another hour.”
“Then give me an hour of prime time Wednesday night.”
She grunted a disparaging noise at the ridiculous request. Even from Grady. “Want the Brooklyn Bridge while I’m at it?”
He growled and stomped around, putting on a show to let her know she’d ticked him off. Then he stopped suddenly, concentrating on something. His eyes stared off into the black skies.
She kept silent, since that was how he looked when he listened to some invisible spirit.
His lips moved without saying a word, then he flinched at something he heard before his gaze shot to her. “That’s all I got on the demons, but Kardos has more.”
She frowned at that. “What does he know?”
“Not sure, but I heard he and his brother were outside the Iron Casket when the Birrn caught him.”
“I’d believe Kardos was stupid enough to hang out in the parking lot of Deek’s nightclub, but not Kell. What makes you think Kardos knows more?”
“Because he’s at the Iron Casket right now.”
“Inside?”
“Yep.”
She didn’t like the suspicion raised in her mind at hearing all that. Had she made a mistake with Kardos and Kellman? Had they set her up with a demon? She just couldn’t believe that but would give Kardos a chance to explain. That meant her next stop was the IC.
Someone shoot me. She absolutely did not want to deal with the owner of that nightclub tonight. Or any other night, for that matter. “Can’t that boy stay out of trouble for five minutes?”
“He don’t seem worried about making his next birthday, that’s for sure.”
Yeah, and the first thing Kardos was going to explain when she found him was how he’d gotten past Deek’s tight security that didn’t allow teens into the club. “Okay, bud. Back to—”
Grady started fading. “I don’t have nothing for sure yet, but there’s a synergy moving through the city. I might have more later if you want to trade something like … more time.”
She’d lose him for a couple hours now, because unlike the other Nightstalkers, who tried to stay in one spot so they could be found easily, he tended to reappear anywhere in a ten-block area. “You be here when I come back with information on that synergy.”
His form flickered as he took a deep drink before answering. “You know I ain’t got no control over where I go next.”
“You would if you’d just concentrate when you start fading.”
“Like I need to be stressed out over anything at this point in my life? I am dead, dammit.”
“Yeah, and if you don’t get me the info I need, you’ll be even deader.”
He laughed. “Like you’d ever do me that way.” He guzzled the last of the booze before he faded out and the bottle tumbled to the ground.
Evalle felt a tingle run down her spine. Something in the air wasn’t right, but she didn’t know what it was.
The stone has been found.
She had no idea whose voice that was. Yet it’d been crystal. She shook her head to clear it. Was that a witch messing with her?
Or a warning sent by Grady?
She didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. She had to do what she had to do. Turning around, she headed back to her bike so that she could go to the last place she wanted to.
May Macha have mercy on her, because Deek would not.