The Trouble with Fate (27 page)

The closer she got, the more my eyes started their preflare burn. I pulled Bob’s wraparounds
off the top of my head and slapped them on as she reached my side of the street. Ice-cold
eyes stared down at me from a fifty-year-old face. The owner of those eyes had made
an attempt to hold back the evidence of time and gender with a careful application
of thick foundation and liner.

“Bridge wants me to collect his Tinker Bell,” she said in a carefully throaty voice.
The redhead studied me briefly, one side of her mouth pulled down. “If I don’t come
and bring you back, the bloody man will drag himself across the street. Let’s hurry,
shall we? It’s beginning to rain again, and my hair will get wet.” Her head turned
before her hips did. And then Cordelia, who had possibly been born Carl, swayed her
way back to Trowbridge. She stopped, perhaps unconsciously, right in the middle of
the golden circle provided by the streetlight, and turned to flick me a glance over
her shoulder. Her penciled-in eyebrows rose as her lips pursed. “Well? Chop-chop.”

I didn’t chop, but I sure as hell followed. It was too damn delicious.

*   *   *

Cordelia didn’t ask a single question. Not one. Not how Bridge got shot, or who I
was. She had bony hands, with three blue veins and large knuckles that looked strange
with the nail extensions and French polish. But everything she did with those hands
was graceful. She brought out a blanket, which she passed to me. She lowered the seats
in the cargo area, and then snapped her fingers for the blanket. I put it in her bony
paw. With a flick of the wrist, she covered the back with the blanket, and then went
to gather up Trowbridge.

She pulled his arm over her shoulder and helped him to his feet. “You in first,” she
said to me. “Cradle his head, and keep him from rolling about in the back.”

I tried, but Trowbridge passed out on the fourth pothole on the Gardiner.

*   *   *

“Look, darling, I’m sure you think I can carry him up all on my own, but this is Ann
Taylor, and you’re wearing rags, so will you put your bloody back into it? Help me
with him. Hold up your side while I get the key in the door.”

We’d helped Trowbridge into the elevator, steadied him as it shot up to the eleventh
floor. We’d got him down the corridor to the door of her condo. What we couldn’t do
was to get him to go any farther. By that time, he was all Were and irrational man.
The closer he got to passing out again, the more adamantly he held on to the door
frame.

“I refuse to fight with him,” she said. “He’s all yours. I need to find some tweezers
and plastic anyway. Drag him down to the dining room when you can.”

I put two hands on his back and shoved him into the apartment. Trowbridge’s shirt
was mostly wet. Rain had done a bit, blood had helped, and sweat had taken care of
the rest. All I wanted was to rip that torn, stained shirt off. It offended me, somehow,
deep inside. The sight of it and the long, sleek muscles standing out on arms that
were beginning to tremble, plus the stench of his spilled blood tainting his signature
scent of the woods and wild; all of it bothered me.

I urged him a little deeper into the apartment then closed the door behind us. He’d
gone from clinging to the outside door to clinging to the hat rack. Cordelia liked
hats. Bridge’s fists were crushing the wide, soft brim of a bronze chapeau more suited
for the Kentucky Derby than church. A veritable concoction of netting, faux roses,
feathers, and ribbon. Who wore that stuff?

I tamped down on my irritation. “Come on.”

“Can’t go with her,” he said to me, through his teeth.

“Isn’t she safe?”

“I can’t control the flare in my eyes.” He ground the offending orbs into the crook
of his arm. “They’re going off like sparklers. I don’t want to—”

“Let her see,” I finished. “Can’t you just keep your eyes closed? Maybe pass out again?”

He shook his head. A wet curl got caught up in his bristles, and stayed there, hanging
onto his chin.

“The bullet is working itself out the wrong way.” Cordelia came out of a doorway with
her hands filled with first-aid stuff. Bandages, scissors, long tweezers, and a knife.
“Traveling up through the bone, rather than out of the flesh. Femur, I think Bridge
said. That happens sometimes. The bullet will have to work its way through the hip.
Painful, and sickening, if it’s silver-tipped. It wasn’t, was it? I’ve spread some
plastic out on the table. Bridge, I’ll help you to lie down.”

I found myself stepping in front of him. One of his hands left its death grip on the
hat rack to squeeze my shoulder. I had to spread my legs to keep from buckling.

“Bathroom,” he said into my ear.

“Trowbridge, I don’t want to help you—”

“He’s not asking you to hold his dick to pee, darling; he’s asking you to take him
somewhere private to heal.” Cordelia approached us slowly, her knowing eyes sorting
and calculating. “Well, well, how totally unexpected.”

“What?” I asked, looking between the two of them.

“Bathroom,” Trowbridge said, sounding sour. He nudged me to the door on the right,
three feet down the hall. He had lousy balance, and I ended up being his two-legged
walker aide into Cordelia’s tastefully gray-blue bathroom. It had a lot of shiny things
in it: sparkly mirrors, and a glinting silver soap dispenser.

Cordelia placed the first-aid stuff on top of the granite counter. “Does she know
what to do? She has to be very exact with the knife. Extracting a slug from a bone
without causing more damage is not an easy task.” Her mouth thinned to almost nonexistent
as she moved the white towels out of our way and looked around her spotless bathroom.
“I should have brought the plastic in here.”

“Do?” I asked. Trowbridge was holding himself upright with a bloodstained hand on
the wall. He’d gone from white to the type of gray that spoke of imminent collapse.
I took a step backward just to be safe, but his fist was clenched on my Barry Manilow
T-shirt. “What do you mean ‘do’? The last bullet came out on its own.”

“The last bullet? Bridge, what
have
you been doing in the past few hours?” Cordelia’s gaze flicked to me. “How are you
with a knife, darling?” She smiled, a patrician effort that didn’t warm her wintry
blue eyes. “I can stay, Bridge. I can help you through this.”

He shook his head.

“You can trust me.” Some of her confidence slipped. “You have to know that.”

As Cordelia read his face, her mouth twisted. She turned away. I noticed the skinny
white skunk line near her scalp as she bent over, searching for new towels under the
sink. She passed me some ratty beige ones and a bottle of bathroom cleaner. “I want
every bit of his blood cleaned up, afterward. And don’t touch the white towels.” Then
she spun on her slingback silver heels and left the bathroom.

“Lock the door,” Trowbridge said. His head was tilted back against the wall. He was
bracing himself with his good foot against the tile. “Hurry up.”

I turned to do so, and so I missed seeing his long slide down the wall. I heard it,
as did the Were-bitch inside me. I could feel her twisting inside me in agitation.
I stared at my fingers on the lock, until he let out his final grunt of pain. Then
I slowly spun around.

He was lying on Cordelia’s white tile, his head near the toilet and shower enclosure.
His bad leg was stretched out, but his good one was bent at the knee. He still had
my glasses on. One lens was smeared with a thumbprint of his dried blood.

I knelt beside him. “We don’t need glasses anymore.” I took off my pair and reached
for the ones covering his eyes. His hand caught mine. Warm. Hard. A little bloody,
which generally would have made me puke, but it was Trowbridge blood, which made it
precious as well as horrible. The gouge was still there across his knuckles from when
he’d missed the bouncer and got the pole instead.

“I can’t stop flaring,” he said in a tight voice. “I can feel it.”

I picked up one of her white towels, rolled it into a long snake, and jammed it against
the bottom of the door. “Flare, then.” I eased the glasses off his nose. He opened
his eyes, and blue light, soul-searing, shone from them.

My own Were seemed to swell under my skin, making it feel tender and tight.

“You’re going to have to help me, if the bullet doesn’t change course. God, I’m so
hot.” He grabbed the front of his shirt and gave it a good yank. The last of its buttons
went rolling onto the floor, chittering like skittles on the ceramic. “Test the knife
on your thumb. Is it sharp?”

“You’re asking me to use a knife on you?”

“As long as this is working its way through me, I won’t heal. Do you want me to be
weak? In my uncle’s territory? Now?” His neck muscles moved as he swallowed. “I can’t
protect you or myself. You wanted Lancelot, now be Guinevere.”

“I’ve seen
Camelot.
She ended up being stuck in a nunnery, while he swanned off to France.” I hooked
my finger under the strand of hair stuck in his beard, and gently tugged it loose.
“What would you have me do with a knife?”

He mustered a shaky grin. “First promise me that you’ll leave me with my balls.”

“You got it.”

“Good girl.” His lips were bloodless. “God, I’m thirsty.”

I filled a glass with water, and brought it to his lips. He gulped it down, tipping
his head back and breathing through another spasm of pain. “Get me out of my jeans,
and then we’ll talk about what I need you to do,” he said. “Hurry. Just split the
seams with the blade.”

Something rippled under his skin, right near his cheekbone. Then, another ripple,
over his brow. There was a sound, like the chatter of teeth, but Trowbridge’s were
clenched. Oh God, his bones were moving. My Were was howling inside of me. Howling,
like a dog shut up too long in its crate. “Son of a bitch,” he managed to get out.

“Trowbridge? What’s happening?”

“Fuck, I feel like I’m changing.”

“What do you mean, ‘feel like’?” My hand hovered in the space between us. “Don’t you
know when you’re going to change?”

“I shouldn’t be able to. It’s too early in the lunar cycle. There’s not enough moon
to make me … Oh son of a bitch.” His back arched. “The bullet’s moving again…” He
gasped twice. Two sharp wrenching inhales in between backbreaking contractions. “Hurry
up with the knife. You’re going to have to cut down to the bone.”

I ripped away what jean material I hadn’t cut away and poised the blade’s tip over
his hip. I could see his skin stretching and thinning.

“Whatever you do, don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “Don’t be afraid in front of me,
okay, Tink?”

“I’m never afraid of you.”

“Liar.”

“Mhhmmhh,” I said. My eyes were hurting, burning fiercely. He was in pain, my Trowbridge.
Horrible pain. And the answer seemed to be right there.
Yes,
my fur-girl said
. Guide him.
“Trowbridge, change.”

“I can’t.” He rolled his head on the tile. “I won’t. Not now.” His ribs flexed and
I watched the skin sink in between them as he took a deep breath.

I watched his leg muscle ripple. “You’d heal as a Were, wouldn’t you? Faster than
as a man?”

He gave a rough nod.

“Then change,” I pleaded.

“I can’t. It’s not a choice. It’s not time.”

“Well, you better get yourself a new moon calendar because you’re changing. I can
see it. Your bones are moving. I can hear them.” It was an ugly sound, but I didn’t
want to tell him that. “If I cut you down to the bone with a fillet knife, it will
be horrible and bloody and more than a little aggravating to your Were.” I paused,
studying him. “Oooh, you should see what just happened to your jaw. Look, pain is
triggering your change anyhow. Let it happen. Otherwise, I’m the girl with the bloody
dagger facing a pissed-off wolf.”

“You talk too much.” At least that’s what I thought he said. His vowels were changing
shape along with his jaw.

“Sometimes.” I reached out to brush back his hair, as if I had every right to do so.
If I was going to die, fate should at least hand me that cookie crumb. While he was
on the floor, writhing, he was mine. Just for a bit, before he turned all ugly and
furry, and possibly throat-ripping-outish. “Trowbridge, change.”

“Can’t. Control. It.” He took a breath and then spat out, “Might hurt you.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one with the knife.” I put a shaky grin on my face, as I cut the
rest of his jeans off. “Do it.”

“Throat.” The ripples were constant and ugly and made his words come out as mumbles.
“If I attack. Push in deep. No—”

The room went blue.

In the end, he didn’t change fully. He changed just enough to scare the shit out of
me, and maybe it was that—the stink of my fear in that small bathroom—that made him
pause halfway. Could he do that? Even for me? I don’t know. Maybe all the shifting
of bones, the snapping and crackling, the stretching of skin and tendon … possibly
all those horrifying body adjustments was enough.

Trowbridge stopped, hovered and held, halfway between man and wolf, and then with
a terrible howl that belonged in neither the world of beast nor of man, he pulled
himself back from the brink. My bullet, flattened and twisted, pushed through his
flesh and fell into my waiting palm.

The rippling under his skin stopped. The noises reversed. Pops gave way to sound that
made my stomach turn—somewhere between the noise an ocean makes and a slurp. There
were a few more crackles, one long stretch of sea-slurp, and then he was Trowbridge
again.

Wet with sweat. Stinking of pain. And strangely, mine.

Other women say “I do” when they’re wearing white and their groom is wearing a new
haircut and tie. My man was wearing a torn-up shirt and his old wedding ring. He was
lying on blood-smeared tiles in a bathroom that smelled vaguely of Pine-Sol and Obsession.
But he was mine. My Were-bitch had always recognized him, even before I’d recognized
her.