I
stood over the body and cursed.
“There’s
nothing you could’ve done,” Max said. “She lost too much blood.”
I
allowed myself a single display of temper: I punched through the wooden railing
of the beachside boardwalk.
“That’s
going to confuse the police,” he said, looking at the splintered wood.
“Let
it.”
I
turned and strode for the beach. My hand was bleeding, and I picked splinters
out of my knuckles as we walked. I have a high tolerance for pain, but I was
dripping blood all over the sand, so I ripped off one of my sleeves and bound
my knuckles with it. Max politely said nothing and got out his cell phone to
call in an anonymous tip.
The
police wouldn’t know what to make of her anyway, a bloodless body without a
mark. It was part of my job to keep them from suspecting the supernatural
existed, but I couldn’t put blood back in that girl’s body, and I wasn’t going
to hide it and make her family spend decades hoping she was still alive. She’d
looked to be nineteen, maybe younger. What a fucking waste.
It
was late, almost two a. m., so I didn’t bother with a glamour as Max and I went
up the deserted beach to my diner. My wings drifted behind me, and I walked to the
edge of the water where the sand was firmer, letting my right wingtip trail through
the still-warm water of the gulf. I could already see the lights of my restaurant
ahead. The bastard had killed within two hundred yards of it. It was an insult.
“They’re
on their way,” Max said, pocketing his phone and coming into step with me. “It’s
good we found her before the storm hit.”
“Yes.”
There was a good chance her body would’ve been dragged out to sea by the
hurricane if we’d just left her there.
“There’ll
be more questions this way.”
“There
will.”
He
fell silent while we walked. He knew better than to try and comfort me; we’d
been working together too long.
We
reached my diner, the front covered by a corrugated steel security gate, and I took
out the key and unlocked it.
“You
going to ride it out here?” Max’s normally carefree face was concerned. He was
a telepath—he knew what I’d planned already—but he liked to give me the
illusion of privacy.
“You
can go,” I said. “Go take care of Kaitlin or Kathy or whatever her name is.”
“Kellie.”
He flashed a grin that was almost apologetic. “Thanks.”
I
flapped my hand at him, and he took off for his car.
After
he’d sped down the empty street, I stood on the front porch and looked at the
stacks of plywood waiting to be nailed up. Max and I had almost finished
boarding up the windows when I’d felt the near-death terror of the victim and
gone racing down the beach. There were still three more to go. The Sand Angel Grill
had been through seven hurricanes since I’d owned it, and this wouldn’t be the first
one to blow it down, but Mandy was a small storm, and I was hoping to get away
without too much damage.
I
picked up the hammer, held a half dozen nails between my lips and went to work
on the last few windows. It had been a long time since I’d gotten an alarm like
that. I was Biloxi’s guardian, a sort of supernatural police chief, so when
something went wrong in the city, I could feel it. Usually, I sensed rogue sups
before they got into any trouble. Not this time. The vampire who attacked that
girl must have been a powerful one. Old enough to have control over his
bloodlust, to know how to keep me from sensing him. It was troubling. I slammed
the last nail in and tossed the hammer behind my cash register. It would do.
I
should’ve gone inside to get what rest I could before the storm hit, but I was
too unsettled. Natural disasters are difficult times for guardians. There’s not
much we can do about them—nothing to fight—and the chaos was going to weaken my
communion with the city. Max was smart to take off for his girlfriend’s. For
the next two days, I was going to be difficult to be around. More difficult, Max would say.
But
the storm wouldn’t hit for a few hours. I had time. I left the security gate
open and walked barefoot onto the beach.
The
sky was full of beautiful fury, all rolling blue-grey clouds above a
white-capped sea. The beach was still deserted, so I kept my glamour down as I
walked to the water and stretched my wings. It was a relief after keeping them
furled all day. My glamour kept them from being seen, but that didn’t mean the
wait staff couldn’t run into them. Once, out on the beach at sunrise, I’d been
stretching them out and a jogger had run right into them and gone sprawling. She’d
convinced herself she’d tripped, but I’d never seen her take that path again.
It
had been a busy day even before I started chasing rogue vampires—everyone
grabbing sandwiches so they’d have more time to board up and batten down. It
wouldn’t make up for the week of lost business after the storm, but it was
something. My feet were sore, my wing crests ached, and my feathers were sticky
with sweat and grease. I wanted nothing more than to dive into the ocean. I
didn’t have my swimsuit, but I didn’t care. I started shucking my clothes.
I
was down to my bra and underwear when the rain-heavy air shifted behind me. I
already knew who it was, so I didn’t turn around. He landed in the sand with a
soft shush and walked toward me. I
sighed and pulled my jeans back on.
“Evening,
Susannah.” He stood next to me and folded his arms.
“Hank.”
He
had dark brown skin and cardinal-red wings with black markings to match his
hair. He was the Atlanta’s guardian, serving his city just as I served mine.
“What
are you doing here?” I asked.
He
was four hundred miles from home. Even as old and strong as he was, it wouldn’t
have been an easy trip. Guardians lose strength the farther we are from our
anchor points. Too far, and we fade away entirely.
“I
have a candidate for you.”
I
didn’t look at him. “It’s not a good time.”
He
laughed, big and loud. “Not a good time? It’s been ten years and she says it’s
not a good time.” In my peripheral vision, I saw him shake his head.
“Hank,
this hurricane’s going to hit in three hours, I’ve got a rogue vampire running
around, and my line cook just quit. She can wait a week.”
Hank
smiled. “He.”
“What?”
“You
heard me.”
I
frowned. Male healers are uncommon. About as uncommon as female guardians.
“You
know I’d rather work with a woman.”
“Ah,
yes, that proved to be a splendid idea with the last one.” His lips twisted. “How
long did she last?”
“She
was a disaster. You saw her with that gunshot victim. She went into hysterics.”
Hank
looked at his bitten-down nails and sighed. “Susannah, you can’t reject
everyone out of hand. Potential healers aren’t exactly common. It took me a
long time to find this one.”
“I
don’t recall asking you to look." Healers
are like guardians: We can anchor to our birthplaces, draw power from them to
amplify our gifts. But Biloxi isn’t all that big, and the number of
born-and-bred natives with potential is low. I had no idea how Hank had found
this one, but it couldn’t have been easy.
“Give
him a chance. A trial. That’s all I ask.”
I
thinned my lips. Hank was the ranking guardian in the Southeast. He was the
sort to see this as his duty.
“I’m
not going to take that risk again,” I said.
“It
was a long time ago.” He turned to face me squarely. “This isn’t just about one
person’s life. And it’s not just about you.” His eyes were kind through the
gentle rebuke.
The
breeze was picking up. I beat my wings against it, letting it riff through my
feathers with a phuttering sound. I
remembered the dead girl on the boardwalk. Hank, wisely, stayed silent. Deep in
the oncoming wall of rain over the gulf, lightning struck.
“After
the storm passes,” I said.
He
inclined his head. “I’ll send him.” He looked up, assessed the sky and took
flight in a smooth burst of muscle and power. I watched him disappear into the
cloudbank.
It
took an hour for the drizzling rain to turn pounding and the storm surge to hit
the high-tide mark. The power winked out along the coast in a scattered line,
generators going on in a handful of houses. A few lights were still on in the
high rises, but the smaller hotels were dark. I could have closed my eyes and mapped the shape of the skyline in my mind. My beautiful, flawed, complicated
city. And now I was going to have to let someone else into it and trust him not
to screw up.
Trust
myself not to screw up.
