Touch of Betrayal, A (28 page)

“Stand. I will lie on the bed while you work.”

I planted my sneakers firmly on the floor, and then pressed against the hard surface, testing the strength in my muscles. Falling was out of the question, because I didn’t want to come in contact with whatever might be on the floor, nor did I want to lose face. It was important to breathe strength into every move I made—to face this demon-bitch psychopath as an equal.

When I stood, one of the candles flickered out.

Xifeng gasped.

I sent a swift prayer of gratitude to Pele. There’s nothing like a little assistance from the goddess of fire when you’re trying to establish your dominance.

“Let’s get this done. I have things to do this evening.” An image of Mitch lying on the ground filled my mind, slamming coherent thought aside. My muscles forgot to support me, and I stumbled. I had to get out of here. To take care of Mitch’s body. To be sure he was treated with respect. Pain crushed the air from my lungs.

Xifeng pushed me aside, jarring me into reality. She arranged herself on the bed. “You may begin. Do not touch me.”

I inhaled, centering myself with the scent of greasy Chinese food. I’d never be able to eat it again. “I work by touch. It’s how the healing energy passes from me to you.”

It was probably good I couldn’t see her eyes clearly, because the hatred in her glare was tangible. “Learn a new way.” She spat the words at me.

Last thing I ever planned to do was touch the living embodiment of evil, but I couldn’t pass on a chance for my fingertips to see something important. I pushed out a heavy sigh, wanting her to think I was annoyed and frustrated, and then I stepped to her feet and held my palms over her legs.

“Not there,” she screamed. And followed it with a furious smattering of what I assumed to be Chinese, finally reverting back to English. “My face. Heal my face.”

Calm the crazy woman, Everly, or the Wah Ching will kill you before you have a chance to kill her.

I breathed in through my mouth. The taste of the greasy air was worse than the smell, but I managed not to vomit. “Energy travels, Xifeng. Your face is delicate, so I want to go slowly, have time to adjust the intensity of the healing energies.” And have time to plan the best way to get my knife out of the sheath and into your heart.

She sniffed. “Get on with it.”

I pulled a protective buffer around myself and then carefully opened my senses to her aura. Fragments of sooty black energy seeped into my working space. I brought them into balance, weaving slick white energy through the gritty black. It was the only way I could get deeper into her psyche without hurting myself. That black would be a killer if it touched me. Probably suck the breath right out of my lungs.

Now, Everly. She’s dazed from the shift in her aura.

I bent to retrieve my knife.

She abruptly sat up, aiming both hands at me. Shadows danced in the room, illuminating the outline of her body, and one side of her face. The perfect side. She was breathtakingly beautiful. “I know about the knife. Do not reach for it.”

TWENTY-NINE

Xifeng knew about my knives.
Shock crashed into me. But wait, she’d said knife. Singular. Maybe she didn’t know about the Kershaw strapped to my left ankle. Did I want to take a chance? Not until I knew more. “Why didn’t you take it?”

“Because it will please my Wah Ching family to find it when they cut you. It is one of my gifts to them, to chop you into small pieces with your own blade.”

Psychotic beyond belief. And she’d only referred to one knife. Again. I was so far beyond terror that I found her somewhat amusing. I slowly straightened. “Back to work, then?”

She adjusted herself.

My mind spun with possibilities. I could reach for the Kershaw, or maybe… What exactly had Grandfather said about dying being a way to heal? Something about healing not only being defined by life, but that it could come with death as well.

A distant crash shattered
the quiet of the room. Xifeng was off the bed in a flash, crouched, facing me, candlelight glinting off the blade in her hand. She shouted something in an Asian tongue, the words bitter and hateful.

I bent, a too-fast move that set my head injury throbbing and the room spinning. Fumbling, I grasped the Smith and Wesson boot knife, keeping the Kershaw as backup. Xifeng stood over me, teeth bared, a manic sound growling in her throat. “People are here to save you.” She cackled. “You wouldn’t need them if you had real magic. Imposter.”

She jabbed at me. I twisted, her blade slicing into my left shoulder. Jerking away from the pain, I slapped my knife hand over the wound.

Bad move.

She aimed at my chest. I slashed, cutting deep into her arm, then rolled to my feet.

“Kill the gweilo,” she screamed, lunging for me, the tip of her knife pointed at my heart.

I parried, slapping her weapon away with my blade, and then dropped back.

Footsteps pounded toward the door. Xifeng turned, yelled, “Destroy her now. She has no magic.”

Her distraction. My advantage. I lunged forward, and my blade caught her in the shoulder, a clean slice.

She let out an animal screech that sent chills ripping down my nerves.

Something slammed into the door and the frame cracked. The Wah Ching? Coming to finish me off? Rage beat in my veins. This woman was behind Mitch’s death, and no one was taking me out before I gutted her.

I focused on Xifeng, Whitney’s words running through my head.
The heart and stomach are the most vulnerable. Stomach wounds are psychologically brutal and will confuse your opponent. Big arteries bleed out faster than small ones. Neck angles are a bitch.

We circled, crouched like wrestlers, only with knives. I waited for a clear shot, then went for her stomach. My blade sunk into her soft, jelly flesh. Sickeningly deep.

Sirens, yelling, a battleground of sound closed in around me, and I yanked the blade free. Xifeng dropped to the floor, a hideous gurgle coming from her mouth.

I leaped back, knocking a candle to the floor. Flames sprang up, engulfing the curtains.

The door slammed open, ripping away from the top hinges. A sharp stream of light flowed over Xifeng’s inhert form, illuminating both sides of her face. Grotesquely injured on the left, stunningly beautiful on the right.

My stomach lurched.

Her gaze locked on mine. She turned her knife in her hand and jammed it into her heart.

And then Pierce’s arms were around me, crushing me against his chest. His heart beat strong and fast against my cheek, and his incoherent syllables bathed my ears in comfort.

The sobs came, slowly at first, and then they took over my body and I crumpled against him, inhaling the safe scent of soap and sweat. And smoke.

“Everly.” Adam’s hand stroked my back. “We have to get you out of here. It’s a crime scene and it’s on fire.”

“Mitch,” I whispered the only word that mattered.

“He’s gone, Everly.” Adam’s voice broke. “The medical examiner is seeing to him now.”

My soul had known from the moment the light left Mitch’s eyes, but Adam’s words stole my last fragment of hope.

Pierce did one of his infamous grunts, swung me into his arms, and made for the door. I didn’t have the energy to fight him, but a huge part of me wanted to lie next to Xifeng and let the flames cleanse my soul.

Pierce laid me on a gurney and barely had time to squeeze my hand before he was yanked into the chaos surrounding us. The scene outside the restaurant was a tumultuous mess that blended with the emotions tearing pieces from my heart—despair, pain, sorrow, regret, love. They took turns stripping sanity from my mind until I was nothing but a mass of sniveling, exhausted flesh that alternated between numbness, hot flashes, and icy cold chills.

A paramedic stuck an oxygen mask over my face. I batted her away. “Don’t need that.”

She ignored me, securing it in place, and keeping her hand there until I stopped thrashing. “We don’t know how much smoke you’ve inhaled, ma’am, and the oxygen will help the shock.”

I nodded agreement.

“Breathe normally while I bandage that gash on your shoulder,” she said, probing the area with skilled, gentle hands. It was the first time I realized I didn’t have a shirt on, and images of trying to stop the blood from pouring out of Mitch assaulted my mind. My heart bumped, painful in my chest, and grief welled into unchecked tears that pooled along the edge of the oxygen mask.

A tall man strode up beside the gurney. I shut my eyes, closing him out, but his strident tones rasped insistently over my skin. “Ms. Gray, I’m Detective Jason Larrabee, HPD.”

Resigned, I opened my eyes, giving him the benefit of a hostile glare. He flipped a look at the paramedic. “Can you take the mask off for a few minutes? I have to question her.”

I figured it was my decision, and since I wanted to get this over with I slid the mask off my face. “Where do you want me to start, Detective?”

Adam edged the man away, got in his face, complete with waving arms, and bullets of words too soft for me to hear.

“Go, Adam,” I whispered.

Hours later, I signed a release refusing transport to the hospital and Pierce took control. He lifted me into the back of the Jeep, tucked a blanket around me, and pressed a kiss on my forehead. “Sleep, Belisama. Give your heart a break from the pain.”

I woke to the sound of cicadas and rustling leaves. I was still in the back of the Jeep, knees pulled tight to my chest, my shoulder throbbing. Annie sat on the floor of the Jeep facing me, tears trickling down her cheeks.

“You’re awake,” she said. “Are you ready to go inside now? Pierce didn’t want to disturb you…”

“Hmm.” My legs were cramped, and I was dirty. And Mitch was dead. I pushed myself up, testing the knots in my legs. “Hurts. Everything hurts.”

She brushed the tears off my cheeks. “You’re home now. A hot bath will help.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Why didn’t you wake me? You shouldn’t be out here crammed into the back footwell of a Jeep.”

“I’m sitting Shiva with you, El. I loved him, too. Yes, I was furious with him, but I loved him just the same.”

Neither of us was Jewish, but it fit. Perfectly.

We made our way inside, my mind reeling with questions. “Where is he? Did anyone call Jayne and Parker? His parents?”

“The medical examiner hasn’t released him yet. I spoke with Jayne, and Pierce sent his pilot to pick her and Parker up. They wanted to escort him to North Carolina for the funeral. Jayne wants to bury him on his property if it’s all right with you. She planned to tell their parents.”

How was I going to get through this? Talking—explaining what happened—when every word, every picture battered at the empty space in my heart?

“One day at a time,” Annie answered my unspoken questions.

Light from her kitchen washed over us when she opened the door. I inhaled a shaky breath, preparing to face…whatever. There were two freshly poured glasses of Irish whiskey sitting on the table, ice still crackling.

I picked one of the glasses up, sipped. The burn of alcohol slid down my throat, sweet and comforting. “I have to give a statement. I’m the only witness to everything.”

“Adam arranged it for tomorrow. Um, Chad The Demon’s team is still out there, El. Just because Xifeng and her gang have been contained, you’re not out of danger.”

I took another sip of the Jameson’s. “Yeah, I guess I knew that.” A spark of anger ignited in my gut. “Not for long, though. I’m going to take a shower…try to…I don’t know, breathe maybe.” I wandered down the hall toward my bedroom, the glass of whiskey clutched in my hand.

Annie’s stare rested between my shoulder blades, sending silent concern.

Closing the bedroom door behind me, I stripped off my bloodstained clothes, leaving them on the floor where they fell. I turned the shower on full blast, climbed under the spray, and watched the blood swirl down the drain—mine, Xifeng’s, and Mitch’s. Sobs wrenched from my chest and I scrubbed until my skin was pink and raw. Numb, I toweled dry, tearing the bandage off my knife wound. It was raw and puckered. There would be a scar. I smiled ferociously into the mirror. It would be a good reminder, a permanent reminder that I’d briefly considered using my gift to take someone’s life. Psycho demon-bitch or not, the weight of that rested heavy on my soul.

Wait. Gift. Healing. Oh, bloody hell, Maddie!

I threw on a robe, paused, and then shoved my phone in the pocket. It had Mitch’s voice on it and I needed to hold him close. I tugged the edges of the robe closed, tightening the belt as I ran to the kitchen. Annie, Pierce, and Adam sat at the table nursing glasses of whiskey. “Maddie? Where is she? Is she all right?”

Annie’s gaze flew to the monitor under the kitchen cupboard. “Sleeping. What’s wrong?” she asked, scraping her chair back as she stood.

“The vial of healing toxin, poison, whatever it was that Aukele gave me. Did you get it from between the seat cushions in Mitch’s truck?”

“What vial?” Annie asked, running for the stairs.

Pierce and Adam stared at me with blank faces. Adam recuperated first. “You want to start at the beginning on that one, El?’