Urban Enemies (Cainsville 4.5)

"Texas?"

"Arizona," I said.

"What's your name?"

"Lee."

She extended her hand. "I'm Ava."

I went to shake it, and she twisted my wrist and slammed me into the wall, giving it a nice dent in the shape of my head. "Where's Marie?" she shouted, her small hand wrapping around my throat.

She was strong and sneaky, I'd give her that much, but her approach could have used some work. I couldn't answer if she was choking me unconscious.

She slammed me again, and this time I saw two bright spotlights flare in front of my eyes. "I know you're helping her find Constance!"

"Yeah, you figured out I'm helping Marie find her lost sister. You want a medal?" I grumbled, tugging at my shirt, popping off the buttons. Two in one day. Goddamn wardrobe changes were eating up all the pay I could hope to see from this lousy gig.

Ava let out a half hiss, half scream and jerked back from me like I'd burned her. In a way I had--the white lines that ran all over the skin of my chest and stomach were meant to pack a jolt, if you were a monster. Or the human kind of monster, the one that made the types that looked monstrous on the outside.

I didn't bother with good-byes, I just hauled ass out of there. I had a feeling Ava and I'd be seeing each other soon enough.

At home, I double-locked the door and leaned against it until my hands stopped shaking and my heart calmed down. Hellhounds didn't bother me so much as what they represented--hellhounds worked for a Reaper, and Reapers worked for demons. If one of them was tracking Marie, then she wasn't just a nice lady looking for her sister, and this wasn't just another job I did to make rent and buy cheap liquor. I mostly needed the liquor to forget those days when the job was a calling rather than a burden I'd shrugged off a long time ago.

There was a division there. The Lee Grey from Arizona, the man who expected to grow old and die, was the one who had handled hellhounds and necromancers running in the streets. The Lee Grey I was now couldn't have given a rat's ass.

I'd bought the little bungalow in Laurel Canyon for the view--it sure as hell wasn't for the termites or the sinking foundation. On my back porch, I could look away and imagine I was back home--the mountains, the violent blue sky, the ferocious light. Sure, it was anchored by mansions and scrub instead of the empty desert floor, but it was close enough.

I tossed the cap from a bottle of whiskey into the patch of scrappy yucca that was my backyard and took a long swig. It burned a little less, but not much. The yard was the only place outside my shower I went without being totally covered up. The scars all over my torso tended to put normal people right off their food, and I couldn't blame them. But it wasn't like I could get rid of them. And hell, they'd actually come in handy today, putting the hellhound back on her keister.

I was a good mile down the road to being drunk when I heard a clang from my garage and jumped up. Probably just a coyote come down from the hill, but I still kept my body out of the way as I rolled the door of the garage back. Shadows filled up the space around ancient paint cans and old boxes from the previous owner, and rusty lawn tools hanging from the rafters.

I dug my lighter out of my pants pocket and flicked it, the flame making the shadows leap back. A figure in a pale nightgown threw up her arms. "Please don't hurt me!"

Her face was smeared with dirt, and the nightgown was torn along the hem, like someone had grabbed it. Her hair fell around her face in bouncy natural curls, but she looked just like Marie.

"Constance?" I said, shutting the lighter. She got up from where she'd crouched behind a box of old blankets and shuffled into the fading light outside.

"I heard you come into the Deluxe. When you fought those things off. You didn't seem scared, so I snuck out to your car," she said. "I had to get out of there. If I just ran out on the street, they would've found me right away." An all-over shiver wracked her as wind whined from the top of the canyon.

"Come inside," I said.

She didn't sit when she got to my sofa, just looked at it longingly. I went into my bedroom and dug out a fresh shirt for myself and a dressing gown for her. Dusty, but it did the trick.

"Thank you, Mr. . . . ?" she said as she wrapped herself in it.

"Call me Lee," I said. "Your sister will be happy to hear you're all right. She's real worried."

Constance's eyes watered and her chin wobbled. She did sit down then, and curled in on herself. "You can't take me back to her." She started to rock, rubbing her arms until her nails snagged in the cheap satin of the dressing gown. "Don't make me do it again," she whispered. "Don't make me . . ."

"Hey," I said, catching her and settling her. "Why don't you tell me what's got you so spooked?"

"I came here because I thought I could hide," she said. "Louisiana, where our people are, it's a small place. Easier to hide from her in cities. But she always finds me. Blood knows blood, she says."

I handed her a rag for her eyes and went to the little kitchen nook, striking a match to the gas under a pot of strong coffee that had gone cold from this morning.

"Is that why you're working the brothels on Fountain?" I asked.

She shook her head.