Chapter Thirty-Three – Lucy

 

“Where are we?” I asked as we stepped into the building, the smell of mold and decay thick like an oil that coated my skin and clothes. My blindfold was still tight over my eyes, cloaking my world in perpetual darkness.

“Does it matter, lass?” Winters’s disembodied voice asked, that fake sincerity just as viscous as the smell in the air. “We’ll be done soon enough, then you and your little friend will be away from here. Don’t fret, now. Amber? Ready, lass?”

“Hey,” I said, stepping forward, “what do you need her for? You said this wasn’t happening till midnight.”

“If you must know, I need her help in these early stages if we’re to make sure the ritual goes off without a hitch.” He paused. “Amber? Ready?”

I swallowed hard, wanting to interject. To step between Winters and my friend, stop her from going. But I knew one false move, and all pretense at niceties would fall away like a shroud. Better to play it safe and just go along with this act of Winters’s.

“Uh, yeah, um, sure,” Amber said. “Sure.”

“That’s a good lass,” he said. “Now, Ms. Skinner, Larry here’s going to take you to a place you can rest for a while, while I’m off to prepare our little space. Soon as that’s over, we’ll all be on our way with a spring in our step, and not a care in the world. Footloose and fancy-free, as they say.”

Then, he turned and began to walk away with Amber in tow, their steps receding with an ominous echo as they left me with his partner.

“Amber?” I asked into the darkness.

They paused. “Yeah, Lucy?”

“Be strong, okay?”

“I know.”

Their steps started up again, and I heard Winters mumble something to Amber. She giggled like a schoolgirl, her voice bouncing and dancing off the walls of this hollow-sounding place.

“This way,” Lazarus said from behind me, giving me a little nudge in the middle of my back as he did so.

I didn’t respond, at first.

He put a hand on my shoulder and tried to guide me forward, but I brushed it off.

“You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?” I asked quietly, the words passing my lips before I could even think to cut them off. “You’re going to get that egg out of her, then you’re going to kill me.”

Lazarus sighed. “Would you just fucking come with me? Let me get you to someplace warm, at least.”

My hands balled up into fists, digging my nails into my palms as I ground my teeth together. I was right. They were going to kill us.

“Just, come with me, so I can get this blindfold off you and put you somewhere more comfortable. Okay?”

I could turn right now, go for his eyes. Rip my blindfold off, curl my fingers into claws, and just rip those damn things out. Would he regenerate them? I didn’t know, but I was willing to find out. But, what good would it do? Winters had Amber somewhere in here, and I knew I wouldn’t be any match for him. Hell, Lazarus had gone up against Carter last night, and they’d both walked away from it.

“Don’t try it,” Lazarus whispered. “Just don’t. What does it matter what we’re going to do, or not do, in a few hours? It’s cold as fuck right now, and we’ve got a kerosene heater back there. Don’t make me drag you kicking and screaming, because I will if I have to. It’s not worth it, for either of us. Besides, he’d hear you as soon as I fired a shot. And what would happen to your little friend, then?”

Goddammit, his words actually made a little bit of sense. My shoulders sagged down as I released my fists from the little diamonds they’d become.

“Good. Nice to see someone listening to some fucking reason, for once.” He put a seemingly gentle hand on my shoulder, guiding me around. “Now, come on.” Then, we were walking through the building. The cold wind had been replaced by just a cool damp, the kind that sinks into your bones after a long time. The kind of cold that leads to pneumonia and rot within the body.

“You’re not like him, are you?” I asked after we’d turned our first corner. “Like Winters? Even if you did murder Carter, you’re still not like him.”

“Carter was just part of the job. It wasn’t anything personal, even after what he did to Zoey. Watch your step, there,” he said, guiding me off to the side, around something that crackled beneath my shoes. Off in the distance, water dripped into a puddle with rhythmic frequency. You could have set a metronome by it.

And, outside, the world began to freeze. The wind kicked up, rattling windows in their frames.

“Do I have to stay blindfolded?” I asked as we rounded another corner and came to a stop. “It’s not like me seeing the inside of this place is going to endanger you.”

“Just a little bit farther,” he said, his voice still dry and unyielding. “Then, once I’ve got you settled in, I’ll take it off. Promise.” A metal door groaned on its hinges, the bottom of it scraping over rough concrete as it swung open. Warmth hit my face, flooding out of the room like a pent-up reservoir escaping from a burst dam, swaddling me within its comforting grasp.

At least he wasn’t lying about having a heater squirreled away back here. “You know that’s a fire hazard, right?” I asked as I shuffled into the room.

“What’re you going to do? Write me a citation? Condemn the place?” He reached up, undid the blindfold, and pulled it away. “Too damn late.”

He wasn’t lying about it being too late, either. One quick glance around the room told me this place was in danger of coming down around itself.

We stood there in a medium-sized room, maybe fifteen feet across on each side. Rotted drywall lined the sides, and chunks of the ceiling had dislodged themselves over the years. In the center of the room was the kerosene lamp he’d spoken of earlier, surrounded by three winter-grade sleeping bags. Off in the corners, and hanging from the ceiling in one spot, were battery-operated camping lamps, which cast an eerie white glow over everything.

As I took it all in, he closed the door behind us, the metal grinding back over the concrete as he pulled it shut. The steel barrier must have gotten stuck on the concrete, because he had to put some extra force into the last inch or so, yanking it towards us with a resounding crash that made me flinch.

“Sorry about that,” he said, coming around in front of me. He stuffed his pistol away in the back of his pants. “It gets stuck sometimes.” He frowned so hard the corners of his mouth almost reached the floor. “Sorry about all of this, really. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Eyebrows raised. I rocked back on my heels, surprised by the admission.

“Here,” he said, going over and grabbing a pair of camping chairs that were folded up off to the side. “You want to sit?” he asked as he came back over, began to set them up near the heater.

“Uh,” I said, walking over and joining him, “sure.” I sat down with a little trepidation, uncertain of what his game was. Hoping he might explain himself, I didn’t say anything at first. Just leaned forward, my hands out over the camp heater just in front of me.

He cleared his throat, stayed leaned back in his chair.

I was far enough away from Winters now, I realized, that I could make a move on Lazarus. If I could get the gun away from him, get it right against his chest, I might be able to kill him without too much noise. Then, I could get to the other rat, and Amber, and get her south to St. Louis.

Or, maybe, I could just kill Lazarus. I glanced over at him, took in his small, wiry build. How his eyes were distant as he stared into the glow of the heater. He and I were really about the same size. He was maybe a little bigger, but I thought I could stand a chance.

Not to mention the fact that he’d killed Carter.

Jesus.

I shook my head, the tears already starting to come. Carter.

“He’s not dead, you know.”

I stiffened up, sat a little straighter in my chair. “Excuse me?” I asked as I turned to him.

He cleared his throat, began again in his raspy voice. “I said he’s not dead. I put two bullets into the door, not into his head.”

Slowly, I blinked my eyes. I went to say something, but the words just wouldn’t come as a sense of relief flooded through me. He was still alive? Carter was somewhere out there still? But, no, why would Lazarus have spared him? He was working with Winters…

He had to be lying. He had to be doing some kind of psychological warfare trick. So I didn’t try and find a way to escape, or hurt myself.

A phone buzzed somewhere, and Lazarus shifted in his seat as he pulled his cell out of his pocket. “See?” he asked, passing it over to me.

I looked down at the screen, at the words typed on it. “Carter’s here.”

“Why would Zoey be sending something like that if he wasn’t alive?”

I swallowed hard, shook my head. “No, I saw it happen. I saw you shoot him in cold blood. I saw you murder him.”

“No, you heard it.” He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees as he extended his hand to me. “Not the same thing, in my experience. After all, there’s a reason why no one says ‘hearing is believing.’”

Alive! Could he really be alive? I looked at the phone again before putting it back in his hand, just for confirmation.

I slumped back in the chair. The idea of warming my hands was gone. Done and over with. Now there was the more pressing idea that Carter might still be out there.

“What did she mean by him being there?”

A look passed over Lazarus’s face, his receding hairline coming down lower as his brow furrowed. “We got the bullets out of her, the silver, after you helped her to stop the bleeding. But, wounds from silver don’t heal up well for shifters. Not like normal ones. Winters wanted to bring her along, but I convinced him to leave her behind at the office we’d been using as a safe house.”

“Why? Wouldn’t she be just as safe here?”

He didn’t say anything at first, just nodded his head. After a moment, his eyes shifted to meet mine. “She would’ve been, yeah. But Carter wasn’t going to come here first, was he?”

I blinked in surprise.

“You wanted him to find her? Why?”

“Who else was going to get us out of this?” he asked.

“Us? This?”

He drew an invisible circle over his head with one hand. “All of us. Zoey and I want out. Once I realized Winters was prepared to leave me and her to die, to kill anyone that got in his way, I knew it was time to go. We’re not murderers.” He shivered a little, despite the warmth from the lamp. “Not like him.”

“Except for the hotel.”

He sighed, shook his head. “No, what Winters said in the truck was right. The people Carter works for—”

“Used to work for,” I corrected.

He nodded. “Yeah. We heard that, which was part of the reason why we’re willing to let bygones be bygones. Someone was asking after me and Zoey both, and we found out it was some witch down in St. Louis. Found out, too, that he’s off the government teat, and him and those shifters are working for some private company. Gone freelance.” He shifted forward, chuckled a little. “But, since we found that out, we realized we weren’t on some hitlist of his. That, when he didn’t come after us right away, he was probably after the phoenix egg, instead.”

“How’d you know he’d go to where you were before?”

“A hunch. Figured he’d be able to put two and two together, since we used the same work trucks. You two were smart enough to find this girl, right? To track her down. That was impressive.”

“So why Carter, then? Why flip like this? Why not just walk away, leave him here to do it on his own?”

“Because,” Lazarus said after a moment more of staring into the heater, “if we did that, Winters might still get the egg and survive what’s coming for him. And, if that happened, we’d be right at the top of his list for payback. Once you get promoted to a list like that, there ain’t no walking away from it. Not ever. Not with a man like Winters. And then, there’s the matter of our good names.” He cracked a mirthless smile. “Rats are already lowest of the low when they ain’t shifters. You think us being able to have a human form somehow makes that go away?”

“So, what happens now?”

“Now? My woman convinces him that he needs to come here and rescue the two of you, and put a triple tap in Winters’s head.”

“Think that’ll happen?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But, if anyone can do it, it’s Zoey. She’s the most convincing woman I’ve ever met.”

“Well, let’s hope so.”

“Yeah,” Lazarus said, nodding his head. “Let’s.”

I glanced over at him, and what I saw there shook me to the core.

Because one look told me that if Carter didn’t get here and take care of this for him, Lazarus was going to see it through to the end. He’d just go right along with Winters if he had to.

Which meant, even if Carter was still alive, both Amber and I might both still be dead by sunrise.