Dark Descendant (6 page)

“I’m going to do better than that. I’m going to drive you home, seeing as what’s left of

your car has been towed. And there’s not much in the way of public transportation out here even

in the daytime.”

I examined his words for hidden nuances, but couldn’t find any. Still, there was

something decidedly fishy going on. If Anderson had decided to release me, I was pretty sure I’d

have been gone hours ago. Jack showing up here in what my body clock told me was the middle

of the night or very early morning screamed of ulterior motives. Unfortunately, I had no idea

what those motives could be.

“Why would you do that?” I asked suspiciously.

The grin came back full force. “Because it’ll make Jamaal shit bricks.” He rubbed the

glyph on his forearm. “I’m of Loki’s line, so making trouble is in my blood. And Jamaal is the

easiest target ever.”

I wasn’t much of an expert on mythology, but if memory served, Loki was a Norse

trickster-god. But since I didn’t buy this whole descended-from-the-gods bullshit, I didn’t buy

Jack’s explanation, either. Still, letting him drive me home sounded like an excellent idea.

“Real nice of you to pick on someone whose best friend just died,” I said, deciding that

even if he was letting me go, I didn’t much like him.

“Isn’t it, though?” he responded, unperturbed.

“And you’re not worried about what Anderson will do when he finds out?” Maggie had

seemed awfully sympathetic to me, but she had categorically refused to defy Anderson’s orders.

“Descendant of Loki, remember? We tend not to trouble ourselves about consequences. If

I didn’t piss Anderson off at least once a week, I’d feel like a disgrace to my divine ancestor.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. Even crazier than the rest of the crazies here, that is.

He straightened up and gave an exaggerated shrug. “Hey, no skin off my teeth if you’d

rather stay locked up down here. Make yourself comfortable. Anderson’s going to come talk to

you in the morning, and I’m sure that’ll be just
loads
of fun.”

I felt myself pale on cue, a hard knot of fear twisting in my gut.

“I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” I told Jack hurriedly, hoping I didn’t look as

scared as I felt. I’d never thought of myself as a shrinking violet, but I’d been scared so many

times over the last few hours I might have to reassess my own toughness.

Jack nodded briskly. “I thought you’d come to see it my way.” He reached behind him to

pick something up from the floor. He held it out to me, and I saw that it was my pocketbook.

At least, it had been a pocketbook once upon a time. The tan leather was soaked through,

turning it almost chocolate brown, there was a slash all the way across the front, and one of the

straps was gone. I took a moment to mourn the loss—I love my bags, and this one had been my

favorite—then took the ruined pocketbook from Jack.

“I couldn’t get your car key out of the ignition,” he told me, “but I got the rest of the keys

off the ring and put them in the inside zipper compartment.”

Numbly, I checked the pocket in question and was glad to see that my apartment keys

had survived the crash. I was tempted to check the rest of the contents of the purse, but decided

that might be rude, implying that Jack might have taken something. I didn’t know why he was

helping me—if that was really what he was doing—but if he was going to take me home, I didn’t

want to do anything to risk pissing him off.

“Ready to go?” he asked, stepping away from the door.

Way more than ready, I hurried out of the cell and into the hallway beyond.

Jack drove me home in a surprisingly bland black BMW
. I’d have figured him for the

red sports car kind of guy, but maybe he didn’t like to be predictable. Or maybe he was

“borrowing” someone else’s car. I wouldn’t have put it past him.

The clock on the dashboard informed me it was four A.M. I fought a yawn. God, I was

tired! My body felt ridiculously good, considering the abuse it had taken, but if I really was now

possessed of supernatural healing ability—a fact that I was going to have trouble continuing to

deny—I must have burned extra energy to do it. I could hardly hold my head up.

The streets of Arlington were deserted at that time of night, and Jack made good time into

Bethesda. He seemed to consider the speed limit merely a suggestion. Same with red lights and

stop signs. If I weren’t exhausted down to my bones, I might have been alarmed.

The good news was that we didn’t get stopped by cops, and that Jack was blessedly quiet

for the whole ride. I wasn’t up to either an encounter with the police or another conversation that

would make my head hurt. The bad news was that Jack never bothered to ask me where I lived.

He drove straight to my apartment building, barely even looking at street signs.

The obvious conclusion was that even if he hadn’t taken anything from my pocketbook,

he’d obviously looked in it. My driver’s license would conveniently provide my address, which

made the fact that he was willing to let me go a little less surprising. As long as he knew where I

lived, he—and his crazy friends—could get to me. The smirk he gave me as I dragged myself out

of the car made me wish I had the energy—and the guts—to smack him.

“Be seeing you around,” he said with a wave just before I slammed my door closed. The

smile and the twinkle in his eye failed to hide the warning behind the words.

Moments later, I was safe inside my own home and could have wept in relief. My body

still cried out for sleep, but I didn’t have time for it. I had no illusions that the folks at Nutso

Central were going to leave me alone, and that meant I had some preparations to make.

First, I had to get out of the apartment, much though it pained me to admit it. The feeling

of safety that enveloped me when I stepped in the door was nothing but an illusion when Jack

knew where I lived. He might or might not have been releasing me behind Anderson’s back, but

either way, I knew he wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart. I also knew he wasn’t

going to keep my address a secret.

I went into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee—I was never going to stay awake

otherwise—while I tried to figure out where to go. The light on my answering machine was

blinking, and I hit it by reflex.

“Hey there, Nikki,” said Steph’s perky voice. “You know I hate it when you keep me in

suspense. How’d it go tonight?”

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. The Date from Hell seemed like it had

happened in another lifetime. And any date Steph arranged for me came with a mandatory

debriefing afterward, one that I could have done without in the best of times. In my current state

of mind, I couldn’t bear to face it. The answering machine beeped, then moved on to the next

message. Steph again. What a surprise.

“It’s midnight, and you haven’t called me back yet,” she scolded. “I promise to forgive

you, but only if you’re not calling because you’re in the middle of some hot and heavy sex.”

I snorted, both at the ridiculousness of the idea of me having hot and heavy sex with Jim,

and at the ridiculousness of my real reason for not having called.

“I wish,” I muttered.

I briefly considered going to stay with Steph for a while, just until I got things sorted out.

Unlike me, she was willing to dip into her trust fund, and her house was more than big enough

for the two of us. Not that my condo was a humble shack. My adoptive parents, the Glasses, had

set up a trust fund for me at the same time they’d set up Steph’s. When I’d refused to touch it,

they’d bought this condo and offered to rent it to me for a ridiculously small sum. I should have

turned it down, but I’d fallen in love with the place. I assuaged my guilty conscience by paying

them three times what they asked, although they didn’t need the money.

Mr. Glass had built a start-up company into a multinational corporation when he was

young, and he had money to burn. I know it bothers him that I won’t use the trust fund—he’d

grown up poor and always dreamed of giving his children a better life. But as much as I loved

my adoptive family, I can’t help feeling like an interloper who doesn’t deserve a share of their

wealth.

Frowning fiercely as I packed a small roll-aboard bag, I decided that although Steph had

plenty of room, I didn’t dare stay at her place. It wouldn’t be hard for Anderson and crew to find

her connection to me and to track me there. I didn’t want to put her in danger. Which meant I

couldn’t stay at the Glasses’ house, either, even though they were away on a round the world

cruise and I’d have had the place to myself. That left a hotel.

I took a long, hot shower before I left. Afterward, I stood naked in front of the foggy,

full-length mirror. The wound was nothing but a faint red line. I couldn’t even find a bruise

anywhere. I didn’t know whether to be thankful, or just freaked out.

Worse, the glyph was still there, despite my attempt to wash and exfoliate it away. Gone

was my hope that it had all been a frighteningly realistic nightmare.

The sun was just beginning to rise when I cautiously set foot outside my apartment

building, dragging the roll-aboard and carrying my laptop in a backpack. Along with the laptop,

the backpack held my .38 Special and several boxes of ammo. I had never once needed to use it

in my line of work, but I did sometimes have to venture into neighborhoods where I didn’t feel

safe. Having a gun gave me a sense of security. I wasn’t a very good shot, and I wasn’t sure I’d

actually be able to pull the trigger if I were pointing it at a human being, but it was comforting to

know I had the option. Of course, since I was headed for D.C.—the better to lose myself in the

crowds—carrying a handgun was risky. I had concealed carry permits for Maryland and

Virginia, but there was no such thing available for a civilian in D.C. Still, given the mess I was

in, I wasn’t leaving home without it.

I looked carefully up and down the street, but didn’t see anyone suspicious lurking

around. I then headed for the closest Metro stop and took the train to Dupont Circle, where I took

a room at the Holiday Inn. The fact that no one on the train or in the hotel gave me a second

glance suggested that Maggie had been telling the truth and ordinary people couldn’t see the

glyph. I refused to allow myself to speculate about which of the other outlandish things she’d

said might be true.

As soon as it was late enough for businesses to open, I located the nearest shooting

range—which, of course, was outside the D.C. city limits, making me thankful for our efficient

public transportation. I had a feeling that with Anderson and his crazies potentially after me, I

might need to use the gun whether I wanted to or not, and it wouldn’t hurt to try to upgrade my

shooting ability from “poor” to “okay.”

I picked up a new cell phone to replace the one that was destroyed in the accident. Then I

showed up at the shooting range by ten o’clock, my nerves taut with one hell of a caffeine buzz

even while I found myself yawning every two point five seconds. There were three other people shooting—all men—and even through the earplugs, the sound of all those gunshots made me

jumpy. Probably just the caffeine. Or the fact that the guy standing nearest to me was firing an

assault rifle, which sounded rather like a cannon.

I figured with the exhaustion, the caffeine, and the way I jumped every time the assault

rifle fired, I was going to have one of my worst shooting performances ever. I took aim at the

target, taking a few slow, deep breaths in hopes that it would soothe my frazzled nerves. The guy

with the cannon fired off a shot right as I was squeezing the trigger. My attempt to go Zen

notwithstanding, my arms jerked as I jumped at the noise.

I almost laughed when I saw that my shot had hit the bull’s-eye. Maybe I should take

target practice while exhausted and jumpy more often. I took another couple of deep breaths to

dispel the remainder of the adrenaline, then fired again. This time, my hands were steady.

And I hit the bull’s-eye again.

Luck
, I told myself. Even a bad shot had to hit the bull’s-eye occasionally. That I’d just

done it two times in a row was nothing more than a freaky coincidence. I lowered the gun so I

could roll my shoulders a little bit to work out the tension. Then I took my shooter’s stance again

and squeezed the trigger.

I swallowed a yelp when I saw that for the third time, I’d hit the bull’s-eye. If two times

in a row was a freaky coincidence, what was three times in a row?

I lowered the gun again, this time looking it over as though I might find some magical

can’t-go-wrong gizmo had been attached while I wasn’t looking. Of course, there was nothing

different about the gun. I couldn’t help remembering Maggie telling me that my glyph meant I

was a descendant of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt. Crazy talk, right? But if it
was

crazy talk, then it seemed like an awfully strange coincidence that suddenly I seemed to have

become a sharpshooter.

Telling myself three bull’s-eyes in a row was statistically within the realm of possibility

even for a lousy shot like me, I raised my shaking hands and took aim again.

I was considerably less surprised this time when I hit dead center.