Or we'd all be dead.
I trudged into the parking lot and headed for the fall garden section, deserted except for the day's fading pansies and bags of mulch that hadn't sold. I slipped past the low wall of cinder blocks that separated the flowers from the parking lot. Rows of rakes and leaf blowers hung on the makeshift peg-board walls, and the whole area reeked of fertilizer. The door to the store itself was still open, and I headed inside. All around me, the cheap concrete of the building beeped and chimed like a cash register.
An empty cart, abandoned by some wayward shopper, stood by the entrance. I pushed the squeaking metal contraption to the women's section and grabbed the first clothes that looked like they might fit. Jeans. A bra. Panties. Long-sleeved black T-shirt. Matching fleece jacket. Socks. Boots. A black baseball cap with a red primrose rune stitched on it. The symbol for beauty. Because baseball caps were so beautiful in and of themselves.
My next stop was the pharmacy, where I grabbed antibiotic ointment, gauze, superstrength aspirin, and more medical supplies. I did a drive-by in the beauty section, picking up deodorant and body freshener to try to smother my catfish perfume. Then I went to the outdoors aisle and dumped several packs of chemical hand warmers into the cart. My final stop was the kitchen section. Several large knives went on top of my pile of goods.
I pushed the full cart to the self-checkout lane in the front of the store. I fished a credit card with a fake name out of my soggy vest and paid for the items. A clerk stationed by the registers gave me a bored look, then went back to her magazine.
Since I was merely wet and cold, and not strung out and jonesing for blood like the vampire hookers who shopped late at night, I didn't merit her attention.
I took my items to the bathroom in the back of the store. I locked the door behind me and stripped off my wet clothes, shivering all the while. Using the supplies I'd just bought, I cleaned the wound in my shoulder and the one on my bicep, glued them together with liquid skin, and covered both with gauze bandages. The injuries still throbbed and pulsed with heat, but they weren't deep enough to need stitches. The bullet had just grazed my shoulder, instead of punching through it.
Of course, I could have gone to Jo-Jo's and had her take care of me. A few minutes with the Air elemental healer, and I would have felt like I'd spent a week being pampered at a ritzy spa. But I didn't have that kind of time.
Not if I wanted to get to Fletcher and Finn before they got dead.
I tried calling the father and son again as I hosed myself down with the deodorant and body freshener, changed into the dry clothes, and cracked aspirin between my teeth. No answer.
I ripped open the hand warmers and stuffed them into the pockets of the jacket and jeans, and down into the space between my boots and socks. The bloody clothes got tossed into the trash. No point in hiding them. They were generic clothes you could find in any store. It wasn't like I'd stitched my name inside them: Property of Gin Blanco.
Besides, if Donovan Caine was smart, he'd check every store, gas station, and cab company in a five-mile radius of the opera house. Sooner or later, he'd get the surveillance footage from Sell-Everything. He would know I'd come in here to get cleaned up.
But that was all he'd know.
I ripped open the plastic covering the knives and tested one with my thumb. Not as sharp as I liked; the balance was off, and the wooden handle was slick as hot shit in the summertime, but it would do the job. Just about anything would, if you put enough force behind it. I tucked two knives up my jacket sleeves. One went against the small of my back, and two more slid into my boots, nestled next to the hand warmers.
Brutus had already paid for double-crossing me. Now it was his mysterious employer's turn and anyone else who got between me and Fletcher and Finnegan. I hoped Donovan Caine and the rest of the police force were stocked up on coffee and doughnuts and approved for overtime. Because the body count in Ashland was about to go up tonight-way up.
Hidden in the shadows, I stared at the front door of the Pork Pit. The neon pig glowed in the dark night, its pink lights taking on a blood-red tinge. Or perhaps that was just my thoughts darkening at what I might find inside the innocent-looking storefront.
I checked my watch. After ten. More than two hours since the botched assassination attempt at the opera house. I'd been crouching here three minutes, hoping for a sign of life inside. Nothing. Using my cell phone, I'd called the restaurant again, but Fletcher still hadn't answered. I'd tried Finn again, too. No response.
They were both probably dead already.
Brutus's employer would want to know about me-where I'd go, what I'd do, who I'd talk to. Fletcher and Finnegan could give him that information. Two hours was a long time to be in the hands of the enemy. Two minutes was enough to break most people.
Even without magic.
The smart thing to do would have been to walk away. To melt into the shadows. To disappear the way Fletcher had taught me. The way we'd always planned if something went wrong. I had enough fake IDs and credit cards in my vest to get me started, and more than enough cash hidden in various overseas accounts to live a life of anonymous luxury. It would have been easier than eating peach pie.
But I couldn't do that. I couldn't push Fletcher and Finn out of my mind. Couldn't turn my back on them. Couldn't disregard them and walk away like they would have wanted me to. Not when there might be a chance of saving one or both of them. I owed them that. They'd taken me in off the streets when I'd had nowhere else to go. I owed them everything. And they would have done the same for me. The father and son would have come for me as soon as they could, despite their own vows to the contrary. No, I wasn't walking away from them. Not now, not ever.
Besides, I'd never been one to take the easy path in life. Easy was for people too weak to suck it up and do what needed to be done.
And I wasn't weak. Not anymore.
I approached the Pork Pit from the back, slipping into the alley that ran behind the building. My eyes caught on a black crack across from the back of the restaurant, a narrow space just big enough for a child to squeeze into.
A hard smile curved my lips. An old hiding spot of mine, back when I'd been living on the streets. Empty and much too small for me now. Besides, I didn't need to hide. I'd become what I was so I'd never have to run and hide again.
But that didn't mean I still shouldn't be cautious. So I hunkered down beside one of the metal Dumpsters. Looking. Listening. Waiting.
Nothing. Not even a rat digging in the container beside me. Something very, very bad must have happened to scare the rats away.
I put my hand on the building, listening to the stone. The clogged contentment of yesterday had taken on a harsh, strident note. Something had upset the brick, intruded on its usual peace. Something sudden. Unexpected. Bloody. Violent. The low, sharp, vibrating rasp pounded in my skull like a dirge for the dead.
Fletcher.