partner and Mort’s lover? “She’s a fucking saint, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, just about.”
The wound didn’t look too bad, Gaby decided. In a few days, she’d be almost healed.
“Ohmigod.” Bliss stood over her again. “Gaby, what happened?”
“An accident, that’s all.” Gaby rose from her seat and went to the kitchen sink to wet some paper towels. She scrubbed at the skin blackened by the heat of the bullet and removed the dried blood encrusted around it until she could see the inch-wide furrow gouged out of her flesh.
Already it looked better, but then, she’d always been a really fast healer.
“What kind of accident?”
Glancing at Bliss, seeing her white face, Gaby said, “Nothing.”
“It looks like something.” Bliss swallowed hard. “You know you can trust me, Gaby, right? I can keep secrets. I promise.”
Because Bliss looked so damned hopeful, Gaby gave in. “It’s just a gunshot that missed, that’s all.”
Bliss faltered back a step. She looked sick and scared. “It did
“Mostly missed. Trust me, he was hoping for a kill shot.”
Breathing hard and fast, Bliss put a hand to her heart. “He?”
“Just some idiot gang thug.”
Bliss studied her face. “Did you kill him?”
“No, so don’t go fainting on me.” No way in hell would Gaby tell Bliss what she
Bliss hesitated, and that annoyed Gaby even more. Then, with a determined expression, Bliss said, “First things first. Please, sit down and let me help.”
She urged Gaby back to her seat.
Gaby gave an aggrieved huff, but what the hell, why not? If it made Bliss happy, she could put up with her fussing. “Isn’t that coffee done yet?”
“Not yet. Soon.” Being more careful than necessary, Bliss took out a tube of ointment and coated the wound, put a clean gauze pad over it, and taped it in place.
As she smoothed the edge of the tape down, Bliss whispered, “I keep seeing you with a kid, Gaby.” Other than a quick glance at her face, she didn’t meet Gaby’s gaze. “Not a child of your own—”
“Course not.” Nothing could be more absurd. She was only just learning to deal with adults.
“But . . . a little girl who’s in a lot of danger.”
“Good.” Gaby sat back and crossed her arms.
“Good?”
“I saw it, too, Bliss.” Unwilling to expound on that for fear that others might discover her pastime as a graphic novelist, Gaby said, “Not the way you did. Not like a vision or anything. But I just sensed that she’s there and in some kind of trouble. Really bad trouble.”
Tears filled Bliss’s eyes and she nodded. “Really bad.”
“If you saw it, too, then maybe you have some details that’ll help me to find her before it’s too late.”
“I wish to God I did, Gaby. But all I keep seeing is you with this scared little girl who . . . ”
“Tell me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know if I can. It’s . . . it’s just so horrible.”
A gnawing shaft of fear crawled up Gaby’s spine and coiled around her neck. Fear was such a foreign emotion that she shot out of her seat and went for coffee, just to have something to do.
After a scalding drink of the too-strong brew, Gaby faced Bliss again. “I’ve heard it all,” she claimed with a fallacious bravado that couldn’t beat back the surge of anxiety. “So just spill it, and then I can take care of everything.”
Keeping her head down and her hands folded together, Bliss stood, too. Trembling with fear, she struggled with herself.
And finally, in a whisper so faint Gaby had to strain to hear her, Bliss confessed, “He . . . he wants to consume her.”
A tidal wave of rage swelled over Gaby, warring with incredulity. Everything in her vision turned as red as fresh blood. A crushing weight bore down on her chest, on her heart. “What did you say?”
Bliss gave a sob. “Oh God, Gaby, someone wants to bleed her, and then . . . then
And Gaby, a powerful paladin, a mortal with untold powers and astonishing abilities, did something absurd.
She lost her meal.
Ann put the car in park at the curb out in front of Luther’s house. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t need to. He knew what she thought. They’d been partners—and friends—too long for it to be any other way.
“What will you do if she takes off again?”
Staring out the wet windshield to the dark street, Luther shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“She’s involved, Luther. Again.”
“I know that. But she’s not the one draining those poor bastards.”
“I realize that. Gaby is many things, but she doesn’t hurt innocent people.”
Luther’s muscles tensed. “She puts herself at risk all the damned time, trying to protect people.”
“Yes, she does. But that doesn’t change anything. Her involvement puts you at risk, too, you know. She crosses the line—”
“Our line, not hers.”
Ann touched his arm. “Luther, our line is the one that matters. Whatever Gaby is, whatever her reasons for playing vigilante, she’s on the wrong side of the law.” Ann sat back. “And that’s a complication for me.”
Turning only his head, Luther met her gaze. “What do you want from me, Ann?”
“The truth.”
“Fine. I think Gaby is . . . otherworldly. I think she sees and feels and understands things that we don’t.” Putting his head back and closing his eyes, Luther gave Ann what she wanted. “I don’t understand it. But I trust Gaby, as much, maybe more, than I’ve learned to trust you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
His eyes opened again. “I’ve seen her . . . pick up on stuff. It affects her physically. And somehow, I swear to you, she just knows when shit happens.”
It was Ann’s turn to look away. “Maybe she knows because she takes part in some way. No, I’m not saying Gaby is bad. I wouldn’t. There’s something about her . . . ”
“The same something that draws you to Mort?”
“Maybe.”
“But only after his involvement with Gaby. I saw him before that, Ann, and I swear, you’d have felt nothing but pity for him.” He let out a long breath. “You’ve seen the change in Bliss, right?”
Ann smiled. “She’s a darling girl. It breaks my heart to think of anyone abusing her. Somewhere she has a family who threw her away. Their loss.”
“Bliss is bright and cheerful and she’s getting her life together—because of Gaby.”
“How did they meet?”
Luther smiled, though the first acknowledgment of the tale had filled him with rage, both at Gaby’s audacity and the danger she’d put herself in. “Gaby saw a guy abusing Bliss, and she stopped him.”
“Dare I ask how?”
He shrugged. “Nothing worse than what you’re already imagining. She sank her knife into his shoulder and then threatened to castrate him if he ever again hurt a woman.”
“Wow.” Ann took a moment to assimilate that, then she, too, shrugged. “Effective.”
“Gaby does what we’d like to do. And somehow she always gets away with it. But that particular time, she’d only happened onto the conflict. She hadn’t . . . ” He refused to say she hadn’t been summoned. “She didn’t have
