Bloodstone (8 page)

I didn’t hear their response because I was halfway down the stairs, off to retrieve my brethren.

The wind had picked up. It was the kind of cold that slaps your skin and seeps into your bones just to remind you to appreciate the spring. I jogged all the way to Down and Dirty, trying to outrun it.

The high-pitched screech of Madonna’s “
Like a Virgin”
wailed through the speakers as I opened the door.

The club was dark so I stood for a moment, eyes adjusting. A cocktail waitress holding a tray filled with test tubes approached me, clearly on a mission.

“Hey, you want a shot?” Her liquid soldiers clinked together, then came to a standstill when she did. She was going for the big-haired, MTV look.

I shook my head.

“Oh, I think you do,” she said.

Looking past her, I strained to search for Ivy.

“No, I’m good, thanks,” I stepped to the side of her tray.

“Can’t come in unless you do a shot.” She put an arm across the entryway, blocking me from going forward.

For a moment, I considered cracking her over the head with her own tray, but that was more my cousin’s style.

“Why the hell not?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes and glanced over her shoulder.

“Look, it’s not my call. It’s my first night and the boss says no one gets in without an 80s costume unless they buy a shot.”

Of course. And I had no money.

I said, “Cindy.” It was on her name tag. “I am in costume. Can’t you guess?”

She stood back and looked me up and down for a minute. I sure hoped she’d come up with something, because I hadn’t a clue what this black ensemble could qualify as in the costume department.

Slowly, I saw the wheels turning as she tried to form a picture in her mind. Her brown eyes lit up. “Oh yeah.” She smiled. “But where’s your mask?”

“My mask?”

“Don’t the teenage mutant ninja turtles wear masks?”

I mentally slapped her and moved on.

The crowd was thick with middle-aged drunk people reliving their John Hughes moments. I didn’t see Ivy anywhere and couldn’t hear a thing over what I now realized was a Karaoke machine with Monique at the wheel.

“Like a Vir-ir-ir-irgin, touched for the very first time!” She was shimmying up and down a pole, screaming into the microphone, but really all she could do was wave her arms because the mermaid skirt was wrestling her legs and wasn’t about to let go. She reminded me of a worm wiggling on a hook.

Scully was hunched over the bar in his usual spot so I approached him, asked where Ivy was.

He was sipping a beer, staring down at a piece of paper that he promptly folded. There was a purple string tied around his wrist.

“Haven’t seen her,” he said.

“Really? So you often tie purple strings around your wrist, do you?” That had to be from a spell charm.

His eyes flickered briefly, then he pulled his sleeve down.

“What’s on the paper?” I asked.

“Nothin’.”

“It better not be what I think it is.” If Ivy was practicing magic in this wide open venue—with booze flowing and people running in and out and no stable energy concentration—it could only lead to trouble.

“She’s a good kid, don’t you go yellin’ at her,” he grumbled.

Scully had been a fixture in this town all my life and I don’t believe he said that many words to me total, let alone all at once.

“I’m just trying to protect her,” I said.

He lifted his eyes with warning. Ivy must have told him about our dispute the last time she came here. Then he sees her again unsupervised and that mixed with the fact that she probably bought him that beer he was drinking (which was highly illegal and enough ammo to use against Monique should I need any) seemed to have worked together to forge some sort of odd bond. The only things I had ever seen Scully show any concern for was his bar stool and his beer.

He scowled and thumbed to the back room.

“Thanks,” I said.

I decided now wasn’t the time to worry about the friendship between my newfound sister and Amethyst’s oldest resident so I shoved that to the back of my mind and stepped in the back room.

The scene came at me in quick snapshots. Ivy. The cards. The bloodstone. It was in the center of the table vibrating with such intensity the sound reached me ten feet away. Rage propelled me forward and I grabbed her forcefully.

What I didn’t see was who sat across from her.

TWENTY-FIVE

Bloodstones are powerful and that power is difficult to harness. They are audible oracles that hum when charged and open gateways to our ancestors and spirit guides. Symbolizing truth and justice, they were called the Warrior stone by ancient soldiers who wore bloodstone amulets to protect them from fatal wounds.

Which was perfect because I was about ready to kill this kid.

“Ow! What’s your issue?” Ivy asked.

“What’s my issue? Are you kidding me? I thought you had more sense than this.” I pocketed the stone—my stone by the way—and reached for the tarot cards.

“Those are mine!”

I didn’t bother to face her as I collected the well-worn cards. How long had she been at this? Tarot reading was not on the Geraghty syllabus. If it didn’t come from within—if the magic wasn’t something you could see, touch, or feel, it was not respected or trusted by Birdie. “Not anymore,” I told her.

Then I saw the money and my blood turned to lava.

My eyes met hers and held them. “Are you hustling?”

Ivy grew very quiet.

“Answer me, Ivy. Right this minute.”

“No.” She looked down at her shoes. “I just tell fortunes and do little good luck charms. You know, to practice. Sometimes people pay me for it.”

So that was where she got her bankroll.

I threw my hands up. “Next you’re going to tell me there’s a Ouija Board in your backpack!”

“There is not! I’m not stupid, you know.”

I took a step forward, wishing I could wave a wand and make her realize how dangerous a game she was playing, but a strong arm pulled me back.

“Take it easy, kitten.”

Leo only called me that when I was under extreme distress. Unfortunately, that was more often than either of us would have liked.

He turned me around and regarded me like I was wearing a bright shiny bow he wanted to unravel.

For a minute, nobody spoke. When I got my bearings I said, “Oh, so now you understand about this stuff? Do you have any idea how old she is?”

Leo’s lips turned just at the corners, apparently amused at my frenzy. “Your little sister did mention that she’s not yet old enough to drive.”

Ivy spoke up then. “I told Leo about how we met in the program?”

I looked at her, puzzled. What the hell was she talking about?

“I think it’s great you joined Big Brothers, Big Sisters,” Leo said.

So now we were stealing, hustling and lying. Tomorrow, we’ll be making moonshine in the bathtub.

Ivy’s face pleaded with me to keep her story straight so I said nothing. Why was she hiding our sisterly secret from everyone but me? Granted, Chance knew because we had to crash his place, but why no one else?

Thankfully, John swung around the corner then and shoved a bottle of beer in Leo’s hand. “Hey, it’s the cat burglar,” he said.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your honeymoon?” I asked.

“Yeah, well you kinda spoiled that didn’t you? Anyway, Deirdre’s firing up the Karaoke machine,” he said. “That Sayer fella talked her into a duet.”

The bars to “
Summer Lovin’”
crooned through the speakers then.

“Oh, Stacy, can I sing next?” Ivy asked.

Suddenly, I understood how Leo must have felt dating my family and me. Reality challenged, every last one.

Exasperated, I said, “Do you not understand what’s happening here? What you’ve done?”

She shrugged. “I get it, you’re mad. You’ll get over it.”

John laughed and I back handed his shoulder.

He didn’t flinch but he did point out that assaulting a peace officer was a felony. Naturally, Leo chimed in with the time he arrested me for launching a snowball at his cruiser.

Ivy said, “You’ve been in jail? That is so cool.”

“It’s not cool and it’s not what you think. I’m about as threatening as Mary Poppins.”

“Didn’t Mary Poppins ply kids with sugar and make them fly off the roof?” John said.

“Why are you here again?” I said.

Leo explained that John was his mentor many years ago back in Chicago. Now he investigated judges, which is how he met Deirdre. She was a court stenographer.

“This guy was your mentor? Really?” I asked and Leo just smiled.

Monique made a Herculean effort to two-step through the doorframe then, carrying a shot that she handed to John. “For Deirdre,” she said.

Her seashell bra must have been exceeding the manufacturer’s recommended capacity because the ladies were pointing in two different directions, clearly trying to escape.

“You owe me a dance officer.” She looked right at me, put her arms around my former man and stuck her tongue down his throat.

It took everything I had not to kick her fin out from under her.

The storm of the century was brewing back outside. That’s another quality of Bloodstone—it wreaks havoc on the weather. Call a cab, call Chance or walk?

“Why didn’t you just punch her?” Ivy asked after a minute.

“Why would I do that?” I said, but I was really thinking, yeah, why didn’t I?

“It’s so obvious Officer McHottie has it bad for you and she is a total tartlet. I would have sunk her to the ground.” Then she did some swift martial arts move that was most impressive.

“Boy, are you going to like Cinnamon.” Luckily, my cousin was due back tomorrow.

I couldn’t wait for Cinnamon to get home. I missed her but I also had a suspicion that she could relate better to Ivy than I could. She wasn’t that much younger than me, but she was craftier in the violence and hijinks department.

“And he’s not a Mc anything, he’s Greek.” I looked down both sides of the street. Not many people around and no one I knew to ask for a lift.

“Well whatever he is, I wouldn’t mind having one of those with a side of Chance for breakfast. Except, you know,
my
age,” she said. “How did you get so lucky anyway?”

“It’s a small town.” I fumbled through my pocket for my phone.

“I mean, I think you’re super pretty in a Maybelline ad sorta way, but still, two scrumpalicious boys at the same time?”

Found the phone. “What? No. I’m not dating either of them.” No signal. Damn.

The scent of rain was in the air and as cold as it was, it would probably freeze on its way down. That would not feel good on the skin.

Ivy continued to babble. “They both want to date you, I can tell. You should play the field, live a little. Make them jealous. You know when I was in the eighth grade, Heather Hutchinson—have you ever noticed all Heathers are blonde? Anyway Heather liked Bobby and—”

“Stop! Why the sudden interest in my love life?” That’s when I noticed she was rooting around in her backpack.

I narrowed my eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Ivy shuffled her feet.

“Hand it over.”

“Fine.” She passed the backpack over to me and I looked inside. Something was glowing.

“What is that?” I asked.

The door to the club opened then and Leo said, “Do you two need a ride?” Just as a wide vein of light divided the sky followed by a thunderous jolt.

“Sure!” Ivy said and winked at me.

“No,” I said.

“Come on, you’ll catch pneumonia out here,” Leo said. “Car’s right across the street.”

Ivy bounced over to it and said, “Do you know where Chance lives?”

Leo looked at me like I just stole his lunch money, but I didn’t worry about that on the ride home. If he could let Monique slobber all over him then I could sleep with (or near) anyone I wanted to.

I did, however, worry about what was in Ivy’s bag that glowed.

TWENTY-SIX

“I would have picked you up.” Chance looked over my shoulder at Leo’s car.

I gave him a look that left no room for further discussion on my choice of transportation.

Ivy stretched and yawned. “I’m sleepy. Time for me to hit the sheets.”