“In San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
She tilted her head in confusion. “Why would I kill him? I didn’t even know him. It was probably Angelica.”
Yeah, I figured it was Angelica, too. But how would Crystal know? “Why do you think Angelica-”
“What day was this man killed?” she asked suddenly, as her frown deepened.
I was taken aback by the question but went ahead and figured out the day. “It was two weeks ago last Friday.”
She thought for another moment. “Yes. That’s right. After I realized that Angelica was meant to die, I followed her around for a few days, trying to learn her routines. On that Friday you’re talking about, I followed her all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. She crossed over into the city. I turned around and drove home.”
“Why didn’t you follow her into the city?”
Her lip curled in distaste. “Everybody knows San Francisco has been embraced by Satan.”
“Ah. Good point.”
What sounded like a dog or a wolf howling in the distance made me flinch. Great. All this and wild animals, too.
“Now, we’ve talked enough,” Crystal said, waving the gun at me. “I’m afraid the Great Ogun is growing impatient. You’ve got to strip.”
“One more thing. Why did you send Angelica’s body to my house?”
She smiled. “That was for Max. A gift and a warning.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
“I can see you were shocked,” she said. “But she looked pretty, I thought. I didn’t want her to suffer, so I suffocated her in her sleep. And I embalmed her myself, so she should’ve been well preserved.”
“You…embalmed her.”
She shrugged. “It’s a skill we all need to learn if we’re going to survive the coming wars.”
“Right.”
“I didn’t want you to be too grossed out, but I did need Max Adams to realize she was dead.”
“Oh, he got the message. He saw her.”
“Good. Angelica had been keeping tabs on Max Adams, and I had been keeping tabs on Angelica, so I was able to tell Solomon where Max was hiding every time you moved him.”
Crystal had been watching us? She knew where we were each time? So her instincts had worked better than any GPS bugging device. I had completely underestimated the woman. Big mistake.
“At first,” she continued, “Solomon was really surprised to hear Max was alive. Surprised and very, very hurt. He couldn’t get over it. It started affecting his work, and I knew I had to take care of this for him. Poor man.”
I had a hard time believing Solomon was “hurt.” But Crystal had bought his act completely. So she had killed Angelica and sent her body in a box to my home through a delivery service. Oh yes, I had most certainly underestimated Crystal Byers.
“What about that delivery guy?” I asked. “You killed him, too?”
“Oh, I hated to do that, but he was a loose end,” she explained. “Melody helped me. I didn’t want to drive into the Pit of Satan all by myself.”
I assumed the Pit of Satan was the city of San Francisco. “Your sister helped you kill that man?”
She bit her lip. “I probably shouldn’t have involved her, but she insisted on helping.”
I gaped at her. “Melody insisted?”
“She distracted him while I came from behind and slipped the plastic bag over his head.” She smiled again. “We’re very close, Melody and me.”
“Please don’t judge me, Brooklyn,” she said. “Only Ogun can judge me. And he has judged me worthy.” She held the gun with both hands and pointed it right at me. “Now stop trying to distract me. Just do what I asked you to do.”
“Fine, but I think you’re going about this all wrong.”
She sighed. “I’m not listening to you.”
“Well, you should.” I unzipped my jacket slowly, but instead of pulling it off my shoulders, I shoved my hands into the pockets, grabbed the candy kisses and flung them all at Crystal.
“What?” She cringed and held one hand in front of her face to fend off whatever she thought was attacking her.
Taking advantage of the moment, I rushed forward and knocked the gun out of her hand, but not before a deafening gunshot blast rattled the quiet air of the forest.
I had the advantage of surprise, but Crystal was even stronger than I’d always thought she was. She punched me in the face and I saw stars.
But I got a handful of her hair and yanked. She screamed and shoved me into the dirt, and we rolled around. She was slapping my face so hard, I could barely see. She got up and straddled me and started pounding. I held up my hands to protect my face from her flying fists, but they were fast and beefy.
In a surge of energy, I bucked her off me and we rolled in the dirt again. I was not strong enough to do any real damage to a crazed Ogunite built like Crystal, but I did my best. I had to hold on until Derek followed those Hershey’s Kisses.
I tried to wrap my arms around her, if only to trap those dangerous hands of hers, but her chest and back were too broad. So I settled for scraping my fingernails down her face until she howled in outrage. Really, as a fighter I was pretty pitiful.
I was losing this fight by a mile, losing steam and consciousness. My head was spiraling from too many hard smacks. I made one last swipe at her face and raked my nails deeper across her cheek, drawing blood.
“There’s your true blood, bitch,” I snapped.
She grunted and slapped me again, and I knew I was close to finished. That’s when I heard what sounded like a wolf pack stomping through the trees and into the clearing. There was snapping and growling, and Crystal was suddenly yanked off me.
Through blurry eyes I thought I saw the head wolf.
With one tremendous, incoherent roar, he flung Crystal away from me and pulled me close.
“My God, Brooklyn,” Derek said, burying his face in my hair. “Are you all right?”
“Jus’ fine,” I muttered. “I coulda taken her.”
“Of course you could’ve,” he crooned, and swept me up into his arms.
From the corner of my rapidly puffing eye, I saw Gabriel catch Crystal. She tried to tangle with him, but he subdued her with one hand, yanking her arm and whipping her around. He clutched both of her hands behind her back, then dragged her over to the fallen tree where he found the duct tape and managed to wrap it around her wrists. Then he shoved her down to the ground.
Okay, Gabriel was back in action. Hooray!
I smiled at Derek. Everything was right in my world again.
When I woke up from my little nap, a female EMT was cleaning blood off my face.
“It’s not my blood,” I murmured, wincing when she touched a tender spot on my jaw.
“Yeah, it is,” she said, chuckling as she continued daubing antiseptic on my chin and neck. “She nailed you good.”
“Hey, I got a few jabs in.”
I tried to sit up, but she stopped me. “Easy, Sugar Ray. You barfed the last time you tried that.”
“I did?” I winced. “How pleasant for you.”
“I love my job.”
I felt dizzy again and decided to take her advice and stay right where I was. Looking around, I saw that I was lying flat out on some kind of tarp in the clearing where Crystal had almost killed three of us in the name of her beloved Ogun. Or maybe it was for her beloved Solomon. Who cared, as long as she rotted in prison for a few hundred years?
I assumed Emily and Minka were being treated by medical techs somewhere nearby. I couldn’t see them, but I
