The Lost (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

J
osepha is a master at reading the power, or
ashe,
stoking any situation, and immediately sees what Yulyia Kolyadenko has in mind: a fire that will consume Little Havana, and—whether the Russian knows it or not—half the neighborhood with it.

Normally Josepha wouldn't object to a little flame. Fire is her greatest natural ally in her work as a priestess. She is adept at reading the light in candles, and using that power for spiritual cleansing and magical spells. She is a master at mixing incense and salts and herbs and oils to magnify the ability to control human behavior, but most of all, she enjoys the sizzle of freshly spilled blood fueling a leaping flame. It is a powerful way to transfer magic from the divine orishas to herself, and a purifying tool as well.

But Josepha knows she is not in control of this potential fire—not yet—and she has to tread softly in this situation. Her dear Marco is somewhere inside Little Havana.

“Come to see our little kitchen, Kolyadenko?” Josepha says.

Yulyia takes a long drag, then leans against the doorframe, cigarette dangling low. “
Nyet.
I thought I'd do the cooking today.”

Josepha has to give it to her. Outnumbered ten to one, and she still acts as though the saints favor her. If only all of Josepha's men had such balls. “But you're burning everything, you stupid bitch.”

“I didn't say I was good cook.” Yulyia shrugs, then purses her lips like she's just had an idea. “But we could ask Marco to teach me. He's just inside, you know.”

Josepha's gaze drops to the ash lengthening on Yulyia's cigarette. Damn Marco for being so lazy, cooking the shit every Monday afternoon. It makes him predictable. But the
pendejo
can't get up in the middle of the night to work. Has to drink his
cerveza
and grab his crotch and watch those reality shows where nothing is real. How many times has she told him, habit is what defines a person. His reply? Stop reading all those self-help books.

But who will help you, Josepha thinks, if you don't help yourself?

She should just leave him to his predictable death. Should . . . but won't.

“And you are one tiny step away from the same fate, Kolyadenko. Drop that cigarette, and you burn, too.”

“But then your secret is out,” Yulyia says, taking another drag. “Everyone will know you've been cooking up
krokodil
on the same shiny stainless steel stove as your
frijoles
. Will your patrons like sipping propane along with their
postres
?”

“They will like the new kitchen it has paid for.” Josepha smiles a grotesque smile.

“You are counting chickens before they hatch.” Yulyia brings a lighter from behind her back, and flicks the flame. “One more step, and there goes the neighborhood.”

The two women stare at each other, taking measure, their hatred and admiration mingling in equal degree. Question is, which of them is willing to set the world to burn?

G
rif left the lights off in the restaurant's dining room, not that he could find them in the construction anyway. But even with his enhanced eyesight, his need for stealth had him sticking to the shadows. His gun was drawn, the same .38 that'd been strapped to his ankle when he died, but there were only four chambered bullets. Using them didn't concern him. Come four-ten in the morning, all four bullets would be back in place, just as they'd been when he died. What concerned him was staying alive until then.

Keeping to the walls, Grif came upon a hallway with two bathrooms, which he checked, but they yielded nothing. He moved quicker after that, back into the restaurant and to a side door. Locked. Cute, Grif thought, waving it open. Less amusing was what he found inside.

“So this is where death is cooked,” Grif muttered, surveying the storage area. Oil solvent and lighter fluid were neatly stacked in combustible piles while gasoline and paint thinner littered the room, a chem lab gone bad. In the center was a folding table, stacked high with packages and jars and envelopes. Grif picked one up and stared at the white pills. A citywide supply of codeine. He canvassed the room again. A citywide supply of
krokodil
.

But no Dennis Carlisle, Grif thought, tossing the package down, and closing the door behind him as he left.

Instinct told him to find the kitchen, so he loped across the dining room's middle to the swinging door on the other side. It was metal, with a viewing glass, and Grif had to decide: push or pull. He pushed, and immediately cursed as a white blur tripped him up, then whisked past, whimpering and, if Grif wasn't mistaken, trailing urine behind it. He righted himself as he watched the thing disappear.
Was that a dog?

The blow came from the side, so fast his snub-nose went flying. His hands shorted out in uncontrolled spasms—the same pins-and-needles shot through his legs—and his last thought as he fell was: I've died like this before.

“You think we wouldn't find out, Shaw?” A kick to the gut, already bloody and split wide. “You think you could screw this family—screw my little sister, you bastard—and that we wouldn't find out?”

Another kick, another deadly slash . . . but then the knife was suddenly in Grif's hand, and the blade sang again.

Then the crack of a pistol sounded, fifty years in the distance . . .

And suddenly Grif was back in the present, looking up at another man, who also held hatred in his eyes. This time there was no knife at hand, just indecipherable syllables raining down like shards around Grif's head. He well understood the fist that flew at him next, though. He knew the sound of bells ringing. That, at least, was the same in any language, and this man was nothing if not succinct. One shot, and then his footsteps, and Grif's vision, both receded.

K
it inched backward in a slow crab crawl. Palm, heel; palm, heel. She didn't want to draw attention—and the sights of all those guns—back to her. Twenty more feet and she could run into the place she'd fought to avoid minutes earlier. Find Grif and Dennis and the front entrance, she thought. And hope the Cubans hadn't blocked off that exit as well.

Palm, heel.

Only Sergei, body splayed just inside the threshold, had his gaze turned her way. Careful, he seemed to say—or the Russian equivalent. One quick move and Josepha might shoot. Yulyia might scatter ash. Because neither of them was the type to wait to burn.

Proof? Yulyia's next words: “We should team up, Josepha. Kill the P.I., Shaw, the woman.” Kit froze. “The cop inside, too. When they're gone, we go back to our lives.”

“And my Marco?” Josepha replied stonily.

Yulyia hesitated to admit the fate she'd had planned for Baptista. “He's in the freezer.”

I want them to long for the flame even as it burns around their ears.

Kit increased her pace. Palm, heel. The freezer would be locked, Kit knew. Dennis's captor was seeing to that. But Grif could open it, if he knew Dennis was there. If she could get to him. Palm, heel . . .

But the slapshot vibration of running feet sounded suddenly, and Kit cringed, ducking aside just in time. Yulyia's driver made his grand entrance then, gun drawn, clearly reacting to the gunshot that'd killed Sergei. He was already growling as he turned the corner, and as he passed, Kit's palm-heel retreat shifted into a full-reversal sprint. She saw his gun arm lift to sight on the open entrance. It coincided with Yulyia half-turn—she, too, had heard his feet.

Everything blurred after that. Time tangled. Even fleeing, Kit could hear the bullets drubbing flesh, the clatter of steel and gold, the roar of instant flame and heat.

And the cries of two women caught in a web of their own making.

Grif and Dennis, Kit thought, running blindly.
Grif and Dennis.
It was all that kept her mind from sliding out of control as gunfire and flame overtook the world behind her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

G
rif woke alone on the kitchen floor, vulnerable but fine, though a quick sniff told him something was burning. Groaning, he fumbled for his gun, then remembered the damned commie had knocked it out of his palm. His jacket was gone, too—so that's what the man had been doing when Grif stirred the first time. Turning out his pockets for more weapons.

Finding nothing in the jacket but an old greeting card—the window into Grif's past, offered by Mary Margaret—Grif saw that the man had tossed both aside. The card was splayed alongside the jacket, opposite the gun. He turned toward the latter, but a rapping noise behind him had him jolting in the reverse direction.

There was a face in the icebox . . . in the viewing window, that was. Grif pushed himself to his knees, then feet, because the face was also familiar. Dennis mouthed something, frowning as he pointed down, and Grif nodded. He put his hand to the door, and the lock clicked open, sounding a little like a trigger being cocked. Yet the door opened faster than it should, and the man who emerged wasn't Dennis. He was shaking, his dark skin gone ashen, but he was jacked up on fear and adrenaline, and he hit first—meaning Dennis first, then Grif—before he ran.

I am tired of being knocked over, Grif thought, and so was surprised when he was offered a helping hand. Dennis's palms were taped together, and damned cold, but they were strong and steadying—though his face was a mess. Still, Grif would have smiled at him if the ceiling wasn't suddenly curling with smoky edges.

“Which way did Marco go?” Grif asked, as he worked at the tight wraps of tape.

Dennis began shaking his head, but stilled as he stared over Grif's shoulder, and said something totally unexpected instead. “Kit.”

The name was like a summoning. Kit was suddenly there, at his side—her moonbeam face directly in front of his own, her beautiful mouth moving, her voice right there but relegated to white noise as his own questions took over.

What was she doing here? How did this happen? How was he going to get her out again safely?

“Did you hear me?” she was saying, shaking Grif's shoulders. “There's a fire. We have to go, but I think the place is surrounded!”

It was. Grif knew, because tangled in the coils of poisonous smoke were streaks of silvery plasma, and lots of it. The mucilage of fate was creeping in. It would be sealed soon.

“Help him,” Grif ordered, pointing to the tape-ends pulled from Dennis's feet as he worked the hands.

Sparks were slipping from the ceiling now, settling like fiery falling stars. A flare sizzled as one caught hold of something, and Grif's hands stilled as he saw what it was. Mary Margaret's card.
His
card.

His abandoned jacket could burn. If he lived, it'd return to him at four
A.M
. anyway. Ditto the gun. But that card was the only clue he had to that long-ago death. He hadn't even seen the photo of Barbara McCoy . . . the woman who was so sure he and Evie deserved to perish. He needed that card. It was a crazy thought, but if he died with it on him, he could take it with him to the Everlast, and more of that mystery would be solved.

“Grif!” Kit's voice spiked as he bent, and Grif's fingers had just curled around the edges when he saw that flash of white again. The dog. His knee-jerk reaction would have been to shoot it, if he'd had his gun. But the damned thing ran in circles, running for the sake of running, because running was the only thing it could do.

It was the only thing it could do . . .

It certainly couldn't open that big swinging door. Kit screamed again, and Grif turned and saw the shoes. Marco Baptista was back, his own pistol in hand.

And he wasn't cold or shivering anymore.

K
it had never been in a fistfight, much less a war, but she imagined that a warrior experienced the same heightened senses that she felt now, adrenaline sharpening every corner, searing colors at the edges, but slowing movement, as if the world were a fishbowl, and they were swimming somewhere at its core.

So Kit knew what happened next, and it occurred in exactly this order: Marco Baptista rocketed through the swinging door opposite them all, and then his face contorted in about three different directions when he spotted her. Forget the disdain he'd shown for her at their first meeting. This was pure hatred erupting across his features. This was
blame
.

Second sight: Yulyia's damned dog. Probably the only creature that was going to get out of this place alive.

Third: Grif—
her
Grif—Kit's angel and protector and goddamned partner, ignoring it all to reach for a greeting card on the floor. To reach, she thought, for the past while her whole world burned.

Those things happened at half-speed, like there was all the time in the world to alter the outcome. Then Baptista yelled at her, something in rapid-fire Spanish that required no translation, because his gun hand came up and suddenly everything sped up again. Sure, Grif finally turned back, but it was too late now. All he could do was look up at her, dumbstruck realization shifting to horror, as Kit, helping Dennis like Grif told her to, played sitting duck for a smoky hatred.

But the man next to her had shifted, too, moving before Kit even heard the report of the fired shot. Or maybe it was obscured by an almost imperceptible rushing of air-bound wings. All Kit knew was Dennis's body jerked in recoil before slumping in front of hers.

Crying out, Kit caught him, while over his shoulder, Baptista resighted.

Marco cursing, Dennis falling, the damned dog yelping, the ceiling burning, and finally—finally—Grif moved. Kit's scream was drowned out by a second blast that pulverized the air.

The crackle of the burning ceiling sounded like silence in the aftermath. Kit felt welts pop up on her body, like boils, and knew somewhere in her animal mind that they were burns, but Dennis was on his back . . . and Grif was, too. The smoke of his gun, held two-handed in the direction of Baptista's body, was lost in the smoldering room. Kit's ears buzzed, and her vision narrowed until all she saw was the blood pooling around Dennis's head. His ear had disappeared in a haze of red. Kit suddenly couldn't breathe. She felt like she was submerged in the ocean, if the ocean had gone smoky and silent.

The ceiling broiled above them like hot coals.

Crouched over Dennis's unmoving body, she yelled at Grif, “What kind of angel are you?”

Her voice registered lower in her throat than she'd ever heard it before. Her head shot up and she glared at the only other living person in the room.

Half-person, anyway, she thought with a snarl.

“Put down that goddamned card,” she said, glaring at Grif, “and help!”

Grif's eyes shot wide. She scared him, she realized. She scared him and she suddenly liked that. He
should
be damned scared of her right now.

“Kit, please—”

Yes, she thought, beg.

“You have to calm down—”

She didn't have to do any damned thing she didn't want to do. She smiled to herself, suddenly in complete agreement with Yulyia Kolyadenko. It was a position every woman should be in.

Looking down, she realized she didn't want to hold Dennis's head in her lap anymore. So she let it drop.

“Kit!”

She ignored Grif's shocked cry. Dennis was going to die anyway. She could see the plasma swirling around him like flowing silk . . . how could she see that?

She didn't care how. She had the power now. For instance, she had the power to put her hands to his throat and squeeze. She did so, because she wanted to see the moment his soul left his body. As she pressed, she imagined Dennis's vision going as dark as hers, darker than the smoky sea where she now lived.

Darker, Kit thought, than even the shadows in the coldest depths of the Eternal Forest.

G
rif saw the moment Scratch entered Kit's body. He heard the etheric snap like a bullwhip. She was scared of the fire, distressed about Dennis, and furious with Grif, and all of it combined to create the perfect emotional environment for Scratch's longed-for possession. The fallen angel had been lurking nearby, waiting for its opportunity to enter Kit, and now it was in.

As evidenced by her slim hands closing around Dennis's exposed neck.

The controlling consciousness was evil but the vessel was still Kit's, and Grif tried to keep that in mind as he squeezed between her and Dennis, his body creating a wedge between the two. Scratch's control imbued her with extra strength, so when she socked Grif in the jaw, faster and harder than he expected, his own fist curled automatically, and he loaded up to return the favor.

Scratch's eyes twinkled darkly, and it held Kit's body still for the punch. Growling his frustration, Grif redirected, and rolled her off Dennis, pinning her arms to her side.

Frowning, Scratch headbutted him. The blow sent tears springing to Grif's eyes, but not enough to shed. Besides, the fallen angel would bite him before allowing Grif's tears near its mouth again.

Grif bought himself time to think by blocking and parrying, but not throwing any blows of his own. Kit was scratching and spitting now, in the full throes of possession while the walls around them smoldered. The smoke was thick and black. If he didn't do something soon, they'd all die in this building.

Scratch would like nothing better.

Scrambling both physically and mentally, Grif dodged another hammering fist. Mindful of Dennis, he worked to keep Kit and Scratch away from the unconscious man, but was surprised when Kit used her leg strength to roll the other way.

Scratch propelled her body fast, heading directly toward a wall seething with sparks.

Grif had to lunge, throwing his body between Kit's and the burning wall. His wings were folded, one completely incapacitated beneath his own body weight, and hitting the wall felt like he was being branded, but he'd recover.

Kit would not.

Where the hell was the fire department, the emergency response, Grif thought, cringing from falling ash as he pinned her body with his own. He could really use a big hose right now.

That idea gave him another. Unexpectedly, he snapped Kit's head against the floor, not hard enough to give her a concussion but hard enough to make the stars in her eyes roll. In the fistful of moments that Scratch needed to recover, Grif dragged Kit's body over to Dennis's, and tucked them each under an arm. His wings snapped overhead, shielding them all from the singeing ash, though there was nothing he could do about the smoke but move fast.

He bounded back through the restaurant, darker than before, where the fresh construction wood and roomful of toxic propellants sat smoky and silent, like a ticking bomb. Kit's legs began wheeling, and a sharp pain shot through Grif's arm as her teeth found the flesh of his biceps, but he just squeezed her neck until her limbs fell still again. Sorry, sweetheart, he thought, dragging her along. But as long as Scratch was inside her, it was forced to live with her fleshly limitations. Grif had no choice but to use that.

Keeping his head low, Grif burst through the front doors and out into the open. Kit had told him the place was surrounded, but the building was ablaze now, and the Cubans had retreated. With one final marshaling of his strength, Grif tore past the onlookers as sirens wailed in the distance. A little late, Grif thought, falling to his knees on the cracked deck of Shangri-La's murky pool.

He left Dennis sprawled next to the turbid water as Kit swung and kicked and bit at him. Holding tight to her body, possessed by this creature, Grif wrested her arm and ducked the blows.

“You will die, Shaw!” Kit muttered, throaty and earthy.

“No. You will.” Then he plunged Kit's body deep, and held her down.

Her limbs exploded in action. Grif knew Scratch was strong, but he hadn't been prepared for the violence of the reaction, and her face breeched the surface, black pinpricked eyes reeling madly as Scratch fought for purchase. Grif shoved her under again.

“Get out, you bastard,” Grif growled, because as long as those eyes remained starry, opaque points, Scratch was in possession of his girl.

Being dunked would be a sort of reverse baptism for a fallen angel,
Jesse had said.
It'd kill them rather than save them.

Grif hoped so. Because if this didn't work, he was killing the woman he loved.