One Bounce Away from Crazy, page 17
As the vision fell away, I closed my eyes, pulled air into my lungs, and gave Justice’s hand a squeeze. “Hang back,” I whispered, and then stepped out into the open. I wasn’t surprised to find Kimmie, wide-eyed and ghostly in the moonlight. I was a bit more surprised to see Mickel holding a knife to her throat.
“We meet again, Traveler Kitt.” The vamp was calm, unconcerned about me or my weapons. “I’m glad you came to me. It saves me the trouble of going after you.”
“I assume those ghostly things are your handiwork?” I responded. It all suddenly made sense. Shannon hadn’t been working alone. She would never have found Nicholas without help. Mickel had sent her to the compound. He’d likely told her what lay in the hills beyond. The two of them had formed an alliance, probably initially of blood and then of something else. “I’m guessing that’s what happens when you feed off the torn emotions of the zombies you created by draining monsters of their blood?”
Mickel inclined his head. “Very good, Traveler. I’ll admit I didn’t think you’d put it together so quickly. Unfortunately for you and your fellow traveler here, it’s still too late.”
“And the rabid petting zoo? You and Shannon did that together?”
“Lovely, aren’t they?” he responded.
The shadows shifted behind me and silky fur brushed the backs of my legs. I fought to keep from looking at Elvo as he did what he did best…melding into the shadows.
“I think you underestimate us,” I told the vamp. My gaze slid to Kimmie and she shifted slightly. I hoped that meant she took my meaning.
“It’s hard to outrun a blade,” Mickel said, and then sliced the knife into Kimmie’s throat. But I’d already bounced. The moment my feet touched the ground behind Mickel, my blade went through his heart. He jerked beneath the assault and I touched Kimmie’s shoulder, bouncing us away as Elvo struck.
Justice had joined the fight by the time we landed behind the pallets. Kimmie sagged downward as soon as her feet touched the ground. The amount of dark liquid running from her throat was alarming. “You’re going to be okay,” I assured her, ripping my t-shirt over my head and applying it to the wound. “We’re going to get you some help.”
She shook her head. “Leave me and get out of here. This place is tainted beyond repair.”
She wasn’t wrong. I could feel the magical pollution through every pore in my skin. Mickel and Shannon had created a poisonous mix of monster mash and rabid ghosts, and it was going to take a lot of time and manpower to clean it up again. “We’re not leaving you,” I told her, pressing the shirt harder against the wound. “Justice!”
“Kind of busy here,” he said after a pregnant pause.
The sound of bodies flying around the room, crashing into things, verified his statement. “I need to get Kimmie to the Travel Bureau.”
“Go. We’ll catch up later.”
I peered around the pallets at him. He was looking a little battered but his blades still whirred so fast the eye couldn’t register them. “Are you sure?”
My question was met with an “Umph!” as Justice kicked Mickel in the belly and he flew across the room. The vamp hit the wall and slid into a puddle on the floor, whereupon Elvo jumped on him.
“I’m sure,” Justice said, giving me a smile. “We’ve got this. Go.”
I nodded. “Don’t let Elvo get hurt.”
“I’m touched that you’re concerned for my well-being, Traveler Kitt.”
Winking, I thought of the Bureau and felt the world shifting beneath my feet.
A moment later, Kimmie and I landed on top of somebody’s desk, scattering various and sundry office paraphernalia and the people using them. A few surprised shouts accompanied our landing. I hit my hip on the edge of the desk and crashed into the rolling chair, landing with a thud on somebody’s oversized shoe. I looked up into the pink eyes of a really big guy with chalk-white skin and white hair. The albino glared down at me. “Sorry,” I said, groaning as I tried to sit up. Warm liquid ran from my nose and, when I went to wipe it on my sleeve, I realized I didn’t have a sleeve. I was living everyone’s worst nightmare. I’d gone to the office half naked.
Shoving embarrassment aside, I took the hand he offered me. “Traveler Kimmie needs med help.”
“Already on it,” the man said in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.
I followed his line of sight and saw that Kimmie was already being carried toward the back of the facility, people tending her wound as they moved.
Somebody handed me a blanket. Somebody else took my arm as one leg tried to buckle out from under me. And the next thing I knew, I was being led toward the back of the place myself.
“You’re sure you’re okay, Mom?” my daughter asked. She sounded concerned, so I did what I always did when my overprotective daughter worried about me. I lied. “I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep very well last night. I’m going to take a nap and I’ll be back to new again.”
“You sound beat.” Concern still painted her words, so I resorted to a foolproof distraction. Shoes. “I can’t wait to show you the new pumps I got last week. They’re buttery black leather with big black bows on the toes. I thought I’d wear them when we went to the concert in the park in a couple of weeks.”
“Oh! Those sound wonderful. You’re wearing the black and white checked blouse and the slim black slacks?”
“Probably. I’ll have to see what kind of mood I’m in that day.” Honestly, I mostly couldn’t care less about what clothes I wore. If I didn’t have a best friend who made fashionable duds, I’d probably live in jeans and t-shirts. “If you need help deciding, just let me know. We can have a FacePlant session and I’ll be your fashion Sensei.”
I laughed at the misnamed app. I’d once called it that, joking to her about a bad FaceTime® session with a potential date and she’d glommed onto the phrase. “Sounds perfect, honey. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”
“Bye, Mom. Love you.”
I hung up and sighed, staring blankly out at the trees swaying beyond my living room window. The day had started out cool, but a warm front was rolling in and the change had spurred a spring storm which lay on the horizon, threatening the day.
I didn’t care all that much. I’d called Molly when I returned home the night before and told her I wasn’t feeling well—not a lie—and wouldn’t be in. I felt guilty about that, given that I’d already missed several days of work, but Molly didn’t seem at all concerned.
On the Traveler front, Justice and Elvo had delivered a battered and beaten Mickel to the Bureau for imprisonment. Shannon had likewise been gathered up and put behind bars. Apparently, she’d survived Justice’s magic blades.
My two partners had suffered only minor wounds. So, that was good. I felt slightly guilty I hadn’t been there when they’d finally taken the nasty vamp down, but Justice had assured me I’d had the right priorities. My quick action had likely saved Kimmie’s life, so, I felt good about that.
Any wounds I’d gotten from our battles in the hills of Monsterville had been healed at the Bureau. My body seemed to have taken the stress of multiple bounces fairly well, though strangely, I had no sense of smell or taste.
And I was tired. So tired. My plan was to spend most of the day in bed, trying to sleep off the jetlag of bouncing between worlds.
But that apparently wouldn’t be happening any time soon. My doorbell rang. I thought about ignoring it, but energetic pounding quickly followed the bell. “Yoo-hoo! KittKat. I know you’re in there. Open up, girl.”
I grimaced at the nasally falsetto, wondering what Rog was doing at my house.
With a long-suffering sigh, I shuffled to the door and wrenched it open.
Rog’s big brown eyes got bigger when he saw me. “Girl, you look like ten miles of crumbled tacos.” Mol’s assistant sashayed past me clutching a covered dish with something delectable and healing inside. Too bad I wouldn’t be able to taste it.
I started to close the door and a small, perfectly manicured hand slid through, stopping me. “Oh, honey,” my best friend said. “You look terrible.”
I let her pull me into a hug. “You guys are so good for my ego,” I said unhappily.
She smiled. “Friends tell friends the truth.”
“Really?” I asked, feeling cranky. “Then, should I tell you how I really feel about that beaded purse shaped like a frog with a fly for a zipper pull?”
“Of course.” But the words were wrung like a mop from her perfect lips and I wasn’t too tired to note the warning. “I…love it,” I ground out, because to say anything else would risk an apology day at the spa wherein my best friend would torture me with facials and massages and other punishing beauty rituals.
She smiled. “I knew you did. I’m going to give you one for Christmas.”
“Ah! Don’t do that. Really. That’s so nice of you. But I don’t have anything to go with reptile.”
Laughing, she smacked me gently on the arm and moved past me with a bag of what I presumed were biscuits. “I’m getting a strong sense of déjà vu.”
“You should,” Rog said snippily. He set out three bowls and silverware.
“Don’t forget the napkins,” Molly said, placing the bag in the center of the table.
“Yes, my queen.”
I reached for the greasy paper bag and got my fingers smacked. “Ouch! What’s that for?”
“Soup first. Cookies later.”
I felt my eyes light up. “You brought me cookies?”
“It was my idea,” said Mr. Snippy. “I despise chicken noodle soup. There has to be some payback for forcing it past my reluctant taste buds.”
“You don’t have to eat,” I told him, the picture of accommodation.
“Yes, he does,” Molly disagreed. She pointed to my chair like a game show hostess showing me the prizes. “Sit. Eat. Talk.”
I understood the first two parts of that bossy instruction, but… “What do you want me to talk about?”
She sat down and Rog followed her lead. Despite my question having been directed toward Molls, the assistant answered for her. “She knows something’s different in your life. And that tall sun-streaked, and gorgeous and his horse of a dog have something to do with it.”
Molly nodded and took a bite of soup, like a queen who had her own speaker so she didn’t have to wear out her lips forming her own words.
“And,” Rog went on before I could respond. “She doesn’t believe you got hit with paint balls the other night.”
Molly lifted perfectly plucked brows and waited, her soup spoon glossy with yellow chicken broth.
I stared at her. “Molls.”
She held up a hand. “I know you don’t want to tell me. I get that it’s something super-secret.” She glanced at Rog. “You can go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Can I have a cookie?”
“Did you eat your dinner?”
He sighed and stood. “Those cookies are good. But they’re not worth eating that soup.”
He slouched toward the door.
But Molly, as usual, got in the last word. “You can stop the act. I know you stuffed a cookie in your pocket before you got in the car.”
He paled and she laughed. “Don’t ever try to pull one over on me, Rog. I know all. I see all.”
He bowed theatrically. “Yes, my queen.” And he left.
“I don’t know how you can get rid of him so easily, but I’ll work extra hours for a month if you’ll tell me the secret.”
She leaned closer as if intending to offer me a confidence. “Give him a paycheck.”
I took a bite of the soup and found that my tastebuds actually worked a little. “Mm. Good.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She threw a glare toward the door Rog had just passed through. “He’s such a prima donna.”
“He’s more Donna than prima.”
Molly spit soup across the table. To my delight, I found myself laughing too. More importantly, I realized I felt less tired being around my best friend.
“But seriously,” Molly went on, her smile disappearing. “You’re doing undercover work, aren’t you?”
I blinked at her, shocked by her question. “What?”
Molly put her spoon down and leaned her elbows on the table, twining her fingers together and dropping her chin to her hands. “The woman you fell over last week, all the weird things that have been happening to you, the gorgeous new man, a massive drug-sniffing dog…” She reached out and clasped my hand. “You’re doing undercover work, aren’t you?”
My mouth opened and hung there as my brain tried to wrap itself around her faulty but alarming detective work. “How’d you know about that woman?”
She sat back, shaking her head at me. The high, glossy ponytail bobbed around like I Dream of Jeanie hair. “Putting aside the fact that you should have told me you stumbled over a dead woman…”
I flushed guiltily. “Sorry. But you were busy launching the new line.” A truth, but not the truth, since that had nothing to do with why I hadn’t told her.
“Pshaw,” she said. “You know I always have time for you.”
I decided to go with her assumption. It wasn’t totally wrong. I was working undercover, just not in the way she was inferring. “Okay, you got me. But I’m working for a new organization so you can’t tell anybody.”
She zipped her lips and grinned at me. “I’m glad you have a job that keeps you interested. I know you’ve been bored snotless at Muddle.”
“I have not.”
She flipped a dismissive hand. “I’m fine with it. You’ll still work for me when you can?”
“Of course.” Relief slid through me. “I do love my job at Muddle, Molls. I’m not lying.”
“I enjoy having you there too. But I respect your skills, Rae. I know you’re capable of more important stuff. The only thing I want to say is, be careful. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’ll be very careful. Besides, I have partners. Elvo is terrifying and Justice is…um…” I must have gotten a dreamy look because Molly laughed. “He is that and more.” She shoved her bowl away. “And speaking of dessert, let’s eat cookies in honor of your delicious new partner.”
“Coffee?” I asked, smiling.
She cocked her sleek brown head. “You have to ask? Oh. And we have to save Rog a cookie. If we don’t, I’ll be hearing about it all week. The man has serious grudge issues.”
“He certainly does, my queen.”
Molly’s lips twitched. “Just button it and make the coffee.”
The End
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