Lars walked over to the tall dresser and an especially large puddle of blood and breathed in deeply. “Young human male, twenties. Healthy.” One of the perks of being Death was that he had a heightened sensitivity to the smell of blood from all the exposure he’d had. He could roughly estimate the age and sex of the person whose blood he was smelling.
“Or he used to be. Probably dead now,” Cutty said, looking around at the amount of blood present, just as Lars did. No single human could sustain this kind of loss and live.
“If you had heard that scream…” Cutty started shaking his head. “Lars, this isn’t just business. Or gathering assets. This isn’t anything like what happened with Karma, where she was wanted for solely what she could do. This feels personal.”
“You think Malokin wants her?” Lars asked.
“I’m not so sure this was Malokin. He’s cold and calculating. This feels too personal for him. I think it’s someone else.” Cutty rubbed a hand over his short-cropped hair as he tried to get a read on the situation. “Definitely someone high up, though.”
Lars looked up at the ceiling again. “You think she was romantically involved with whoever it was?” Lars had a hard time picturing Faith with anyone that was involved with Malokin and then had to remind himself that he didn’t know who Faith really was. He was being naive to think he did.
“If she was, she didn’t want to be. That I’d guarantee.” Cutty crossed his arms over his chest.
“Are you guessing or do you know? I understand that you like her but shoot it straight.”
Cutty hesitated, as if he wished he could confirm it without having to lie. “I’m guessing.”
“She was from Seattle,” Lars said. “You still got connections over there?”
Cutty nodded. “I did. Not sure if I’ll be able to get in touch with them right now, with the way things are.”
“Try. See what you can dig up.”
Cutty paused and then let out a barely audible uh huh. “I think you’re wrong not to trust her.”
“Just do it,” Lars snapped, and then tried to soften his words. “It’s not going to hurt anything to dig around.”
“I know.”
Lars looked at the bed again, covered in blood, and left before he snapped. Cutty followed him out and shut the door, but they didn’t move any farther away, both knowing there was more to discuss before they rejoined the others.
Lars knew Faith couldn’t continue to stay here. It would take several weeks at the minimum to get the wards in place to a standard where he’d feel comfortable. Fate’s place was secure from the outside but there was still the Karma problem. There was only one option left he felt comfortable with, even though it had been something he’d been trying to avoid. “I’m going to take her to my place.”
“That’s not a bad idea. He’ll never get past the sidewalk over there.”
“After I get her home and settled, get hold of Fate. He should know about this too. Then you guys meet me at the shop in forty-five.”
Cutty nodded.
Lars shook his head and hoped he wasn’t making a huge mistake as he headed back toward the living room.
Chapter 11
Faith had been thrown off-kilter when she’d seen Lars walk in. Obviously, Cutty would have told him but she didn’t think he’d be here tonight. When she’d watched him follow Cutty to the room she’d been sleeping in, she felt like she was going from off kilter to completely out of orbit.
What Keith had done looked bad, really bad. Maybe she should’ve told them everything from the beginning, but these guys didn’t run long on trust. She’d been a hair away from getting booted out, or maybe even killed, with the way that guy, Fate, had been acting. The bloody love letter painted on the ceiling was damning and might be the final straw with them.
Stay calm, don’t act like there’s a problem and maybe they’d pretend everything was okay too. That was her plan, no matter how stupid it seemed at the moment.
She cut herself a little slack. It was a last minute plan. They’d come barging into her room while she had still been screaming her head off. She’d only had a minute or so of barely rational thinking in which to decide on how to proceed, and the screaming hadn’t really gotten her off to a good start.
And now Lars was here. He made her nervous. Cutty was in her corner. She wasn’t worried about Bic and Angus. But Lars… Him she felt unsettled around.
He’d walked into Cutty’s without a word and barely a gesture of acknowledgment. Now he was walking back into the living room and he looked even worse, like someone had stolen his lunch money, or taken a big bite out of his only cookie.
He headed over toward where she was, beside Bic and Angus, and she had no idea what was coming. Would he call her a liar? Accuse her of holding out on them before tossing her on the street?
She got to her feet before he made it across the room, preparing herself for whatever was to come.
“Get your bags,” he said curtly.
Her stomach fluttered and her knees wanted to give out on her, but she refused to let them. He’d just handed her a ticket to hell. She couldn’t keep that lunatic away from her here and now she was getting kicked out. She swallowed, but had nothing to say. At least he didn’t want to kill her. She took a step forward and Lars’ arm shot out and blocked her way. “On second thought, let Bic go grab your stuff.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a step back. She guessed he didn’t trust her enough to give her free reign of the house anymore. At least he was letting her keep the clothes.
He looked down at her. He was containing it but he was boiling with anger, and the tendons in his neck were straining. She looked away and wondered if it was even worth waiting to get her clothes. She should get out while she still could. “You’ll be better off at my place. Safer.”
What? He wasn’t killing her or kicking her out? “Okay.” Okay seemed to be the entirety of her vocabulary right now but if it kept her alive, that was okay by her.
She was packed and tucked into Lars’ car within minutes, even before she got over the shock that her plan had worked. They weren’t kicking her out and no one was killing her?
She was so relieved that even the tension pouring off Lars while he drove didn’t bother her. She didn’t know what he was in a snit about but the silence was better anyway. She had her own thoughts to contend with.
Cutty’s words kept playing in her head. If she could just get past this phase, she could start over. The guys were searching for Malokin and she was sure it had nothing to do with sitting down for a nice discussion of their differences over brunch. Keith was Malokin’s second in command. There was no way they’d let him walk away. They’d kill him too, and she’d be free.
Once they were eliminated she could regain control of her life. There would be no one telling her to stay here or do this. No, don’t do that. Come. Stay. She’d be her own person again, whoever that was going to be.
She’d get through this. Even if the situation really sucked, she wasn’t a quitter. And the way she figured it, you never really knew what you were capable of until you were tested, although this was turning out to be one hell of a test. And she’d thought the SATs had sucked.
She wasn’t naive about the guys either. Yes, they were helping her but theories on why they might not be kicking her to the curb were clicking into place in her mind. In her panic, she’d foolishly thought that they might kick her out. That’s what she got for making decisions when she wasn’t thinking right. They wanted Malokin. They knew Malokin and his people wanted her. They’d never kick her out now.
They were playing the game and she was a pawn to be moved. As long as that movement was towards safety and bought her time to figure this mess out, she’d let them push and prod her across the board as they wished.