in front of me to make it look like I killed him,” I said.
“Then you need to keep a low profile until you see what she does.” She turned again, making it the fourth unnecessary turn since I got in the car.
I twisted in my seat and checked the rear window. “Are we being followed?”
Meryl pulled back onto Dot Ave. “Yeah. He’s being pretty obvious about it. Picked him up about a block after you.”
She stopped at a red light and revved the engine. A block behind, a small dark car idled in the middle of the street. “Why is he sitting there?”
The light turned green. Meryl hesitated, but the car behind us didn’t move. She drove on. “He’s pulling our chain. Someone wants you to know you’re being watched.”
I slouched in the seat. “Yeah, big news flash.”
We entered the Weird, driving down the back end of Summer Street over the Reserve Channel. In the odd way nighttime neighborhoods worked, we were safer in the industrial zone in the middle of the night than a few blocks away, where people lived. Muggers hung out where they expected to find people, which wasn’t warehouses closed up for the night. The people on the streets around the channel were people you didn’t want to mess with, and people who were not likely to help if you needed them.
Meryl glanced at her mirrors. “Tail’s gone.”
“Guess he either got his message across or he was too chicken-shit to come into the Weird,” I said.
Meryl cut across Drydock Avenue and pulled up near the edge of the Tangle. She patted the dashboard. “Poor baby takes a nap if I drive in any closer. You going to be all right from here?”
“Yeah. Want to come spend the night?” I asked.
She leaned over and kissed me. “We already played man-on-the-run-meets-hot-chick-for-sex this week.”
“Yeah, but this time I have wounds and bloody clothes,” I said.
“Here,” she said. She placed her hand on my chest and built up essence. A warm layer of light spread across my skin. A burning sensation ran across the slash on my chest. Short pops of pain shot in my cheek and ear. The warmth slid away, and Meryl withdrew her hand.
I kissed her again. The healing spell didn’t wipe away the injuries, but it pushed them past the pain and discomfort phase of healing. My druid nature would speed up the rest, and within a day the cuts would be gone. She put her hand on my neck and rubbed her thumb along my cheek. “Are you going to be okay?”
I debated bringing up the whole fostering thing but decided not to, not tonight. I was tired and had a lot to think about. “Cal’s going to be okay now. That’s all that matters. I do want to talk to you about it, though. I learned some family history. It’s kinda world-altering.”
She stared out the windshield. “Families usually are. Go get some sleep.”
29
The white noise echo of the city faded as I entered the Tangle, the sound of my footsteps becoming louder in the narrow space between buildings. The Tangle exaggerated everything, like a focusing lens for our baser instincts. What was commonplace to me—even before I ended up in the Tangle—outsiders saw with fear and wonder. The illicit tryst in a darkened doorway heightened the passion of the moment. The shimmer of essence in an eye held the promise of love or danger, maybe both. The swagger of a step promised confidence and menace. The bones of old buildings were at once beautiful and foreboding, flickering candlelight hinting of both refuge and danger. A stranger was as likely to hurt as help.
Even my feelings about the place existed in a nervous tension. I didn’t like the pain the Tangle produced, nor the sorrow. Blood and hate flowed in the gutters as often as rain. Yet I couldn’t deny the rush of life that permeated the air, of dramas and fates unfolding in unexpected directions. People lived in the Weird, but they resonated with life in the Tangle. A lifetime could be lived in a single night.
My thoughts played along those lines, musing on the last twenty-four hours that began with the fear of a hospital room and ended with death in a cell. I saw no irony that places that others found safe—a hospital, a residential neighborhood—were places of pain for me, and the Tangle, where dead bodies were statistics instead of events, had become a place of comfort. Until, of course, a blaze of essence nearly took my head off, and I remembered that I wasn’t safe anywhere anymore.
My body shield flickered on the moment I sensed the attack, and I bounced against a brick wall as I ducked. The shot struck high, hitting a row of second-story windows. The essence raced in lightning streaks around the metal frames, ricocheting back on themselves before the glass dissipated them.
The narrow pedestrian alley was empty, a common shortcut people used to get through condemned warehouses, a lane of bricked-over doors and worn advertising posters. That didn’t make it a busy place to be even in the late night of the Tangle. I pressed myself into a doorway of a former garage as another blaze of essence split the air.
I craned my neck to get a handle on the source. The trajectories were angled down, so the shots were coming from above. My sensing ability picked up hints of druid essence, but deadened, as if it were weak or muffled.
Near the entrance to the alley, a couple paused, their attention attracted by the electric sizzle of essence- fire. They stood under a vapor lamp, curiosity on their stark faces. Their body language didn’t convey any threat or aggression, so the shots didn’t come from behind them.
I leaned back into the doorway and tried to call Meryl. Static crackled from the receiver, the weave of metal fire escapes and tendency of the Tangle to screw up tech. Annoyed, I closed the phone.
A woman entered the lane from the opposite end. Another essence-bolt shot down, fracturing the pavement at her feet. Panicked, she backpedaled, running when she reached the corner. No one seemed to be interested in helping a trapped druid, a classic reaction in the Tangle.
I dodged across the alley into the next doorway. An essence-bolt from ahead of me struck the wall. Shots from two different directions meant I had a tag team. Random essence strikes showered. Neither attacker seemed skilled at what they were doing. At such close range, they should have been able to sense my body shield and pick up that it was from a high-level druid.
I was caught in a standard Tangle jack-up: target someone, gauge the response, move in on the weak, and collect any valuables. I was wearing nondescript clothing, so maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. My options were to fight, which I couldn’t because I had no offense abilities, or reason with them, which was pointless when dealing with a street mind-set prone to random violence. That left running. Running was always good.
The pauses between strikes were similar in length, which meant the attackers needed to give their bodies a chance to recharge. Higher-powered fey didn’t need any recovery time. I gauged the timing of the shots and the distance to the next doorway, and made a dash for it. Wild essence struck the walls around me. I had taken them off guard, and their already poor skills couldn’t cope with the surprise. I relaxed, confident I’d be able to outwit them now that I had their measure. It wasn’t the fastest way to get home, but I would get out of the alley without much more trouble
Two essence-bolts streaked toward me. I dove behind a dumpster, my shield flashing with sparks as I was grazed. The first attacker had moved in closer behind me, which helped improve his aim.
I pulled my daggers from my boots. The gold dagger warmed in my hand, then shifted and stretched, becoming a sword. That wasn’t good. I hadn’t been able to figure out how to turn the dagger into a sword, but every time the thing grew on its own, I was in trouble—as in near-death trouble.
To add a new complication, the stone in my head pulsed with heat, not painful like the darkness but a wave that cascaded through my body. My body shield reacted to it and hardened, golden-faceted planes refracting the ambient light.
I huddled between the dumpster and a wall. The sword was nice to have—if a bad omen—but without abilities, surprise was what I had to work with. I darted from the dumpster and ran back the way I had come. As I hoped, the one who had been blocking my exit mistook my direction, and his shots fell short. The other fired from a second-story window, the strike warping off course around the metal of the dumpster. The mistake gave me a twenty-second clear run to the end of the alley before they recharged, and I took the chance.
