Every Which Way But Dead

Eight

The rhythmic thumps of my running feet jolting up my spine were a pleasant distraction from my thoughts of Nick. It was bright, the sun glittering off the piles of snow to make me squint through my new sunglasses. I had left my old pair in Takata’s limo, and the new ones didn’t fit as well. This was the second day in a row that I had gotten up at an ungodly ten in the morning to come out and run, and by the Turn, I was going to run this time. Jogging after midnight wasn’t as fun—too many weirdos. Besides, I had a date tonight with Kisten.

The thought zinged through me, and my pace increased. Each puffed breath was timed with my steps to make a hypnotic tempo luring me into a runner’s high. I picked up the pace even more, reveling in it. An old witch couple was ahead of me doing a fast walk/run as I passed the bear exhibit. They were watching with a hungry interest. The bears, not the witches. I think that’s why management let us runners in. We gave the large predators something to watch besides kids in strollers and tired parents.

Actually, our collective group of runners had taken it upon ourselves to adopt the Indochina tiger exhibit with just that in mind. The funds for their upkeep and health care came entirely from our special-pass fees. They ate very well.

“Track!” I exclaimed breathily in time with my steps, and the two witches slid aside, making a spot for me. “Thanks,” I said as I passed them, catching their heavy redwood scent in the crisp, painfully dry air.

The sound of their companionable conversation quickly retreated. I spared a confused, angry thought for Nick. I didn’t need him to run; I could run by myself. He hadn’t run with me much lately anyway, not since I got my car and didn’t need to bum a ride from him.

Yeah, right, I thought, my jaw clenching. It wasn’t the car. It was something else. Something he wouldn’t tell me about. Something that “frankly wasn’t my business.”

“Track!” I heard faintly from someone not far behind.

It was low and controlled. Whoever it was, they were keeping up with me with no trouble. All my warning flags went up. Let’s see if you can run, I thought, taking a deep breath.

Different muscles eased into play like gears shifting as I pushed into a faster pace, my heart pounding and the cold air slicing in and out of me. I was already going at a good clip, my natural pace somewhere between a long distance run and a sprint. It had made me a favorite in the eight hundred meter in high school and had stood me in good stead when I worked for the I.S. and needed to run down the occasional tag. Now, my calves protested at the increased speed and my lungs began to burn. As I passed the rhinos and cut a left, I vowed to get out here more; I was going soft.

No one was ahead of me. Even the keepers were absent. I listened, hearing his pace increase to match mine. I snuck a quick look back as I made a sharp left.

It was a Were, somewhat short and lanky, sleek in matching gray running pants and long-sleeve shirt. His long black hair was held back with an exercise band, and there was no strain on his placid face as he kept up with me.

Crap. My heart gave an extra hard thump. Even without the cowboy hat and wool duster, I recognized him. Crap, crap, crap.

My pace quickened with a surge of adrenaline. It was the same Were. Why was he following me? My thoughts drifted back further than yesterday. I’d seen him before. Lots of be-fores. He was at the watch counter last week when Ivy and I were picking out a new perfume, to overpower my natural scent mixing with hers. He had been putting air into his tires three weeks ago when I was pumping gas and locked myself out of my car. And three months ago I’d seen him leaning against a tree when Trent and I talked at Eden Park.

My jaw clenched. Maybe it’s time we chatted? I thought as I ran past the cat house.

There was a drop-off ahead by the eagles. I cut a right, leaning back as I went downhill. Mr. Were followed. As I thumped along behind the eagle exhibit, I took stock of what I had. In my belt pack were my keys, my phone, a mild pain amulet already invoked, and my minisplat gun loaded with sleepy time potions. No help there; I wanted to talk to him, not knock him out.

The path opened up into a wide deserted section. No one ran down here because the hill was such a killer to get back up. Perfect. Heart pounding, I went left to take the slope instead of heading for the Vine Street entrance. A smile curved over me as his pace faltered. He hadn’t expected that. Leaning into the hill, I ran up it full tilt, seeming to be in slow motion. The path was narrow and snow-covered. He followed.

Here, I thought as I reached the top. Panting, I snuck a quick look behind me and jerked off the path and into the thick shrubbery. My lungs burned as I held my breath.

He passed me with the sound of feet and heavy breathing, intent on his steps. Reaching the top, he hesitated, looking to see which way I had gone. His dark eyes were pinched and the first signs of physical distress furrowed his brow.

Taking a breath, I leapt.

He heard me, but it was too late. I landed against him as he spun, pinning him against an old oak. His breath whooshed out as his back hit, his eyes going wide and surprised. My fingers went chokingly under his chin to hold him there, and my fist hit his solar plexus.

Gasping, he bent forward. I let go, and he fell to sit at the base of the tree, holding his stomach. A thin backpack slid up almost over his head.

“Who in hell are you and why have you been tailing me the last three months!” I shouted, trusting the odd hour and the closed status of the zoo to keep our conversation private.

Head bowed over his chest, the Were put a hand in the air. It was small for a man, and thick, with short powerful-looking fingers. Sweat had turned his spandex shirt a darker gray, and he slowly moved his well-muscled legs into a less awkward position.

I took a step back, my hand on my hip, lungs heaving as I recovered from the climb. Angry, I took off my sunglasses and hung them from my waistband and waited.

“David,” he rasped as he looked up at me, immediately dropping his head while he struggled to take another breath. Pain and a hint of embarrassment had laced his brown eyes. Sweat marred his rugged face, thick with a black stubble that matched his long hair. “God bless it,” he said to the ground. “Why did you have to hit me? What is it with you redheads, anyway, always having to hit things?”

“Why are you following me?” I shot at him.

Head still bowed, he put up a hand again, telling me to wait. I shifted nervously as he took a clean breath, then another. His hand dropped and he looked up. “My name is David Hue,” he said. “I’m an insurance adjuster. Mind if I get up? I’m getting wet.”

My mouth dropped open and I took several steps back onto the path as he rose and wiped the snow from his backside. “An insurance adjuster?” I stammered. Surprise washed the remnants of adrenaline from me. I put my arms about myself and wished I had my coat as the air suddenly seemed colder now that I wasn’t moving. “I paid my bill,” I said, starting to get angry. “I haven’t missed one payment. You’d think for six hundred dollars a month—”

“Six hundred a month!” he said, his features shocked. “Oh, honey, we have to talk.”

Affronted, I backed up farther. He was in his mid-thirties, I guessed from the maturity in his jaw and the barest hint of thickening about his middle that his spandex shirt couldn’t hide. His narrow shoulders were hard with muscle that his shirt couldn’t hide, either. And his legs were fabulous. Some people shouldn’t wear spandex. Despite being older than I liked my men, David wasn’t one of them.

“Is that what this is about?” I said, both ticked and relieved. “Is this how you get your clients? Stalking them?” I frowned and turned away. “That’s pathetic. Even for a Were.”

“Wait up,” he said, lurching out onto the path after me in a snapping of twigs. “No. Actually, I’m here about the fish.”

I jerked to a stop, my feet again in the sun. My thoughts zinged back to the fish I had stolen from Mr. Ray’s office last September. Shit.

“Um,” I stammered, my knees suddenly weak from more than the run. “What fish?” Fingers fumbling, I snapped my sunglasses open. Putting them on, I started walking for the exit.

David felt his middle for damage as he followed me, meeting my fast pace with his own. “See,” he said almost to himself. “This is exactly why I’ve been following you. Now I’ll never get a straight answer, I’ll never settle the claim.”

My stomach hurt, and I forced myself into a faster pace. “It was a mistake,” I said, my face warming. “I thought it was the Howlers’ fish.”

David took off his sweatband, slicked his hair back, and replaced it. “Word is that the fish has been destroyed. I find that extremely unlikely. If you could verify that, I can write my report, send a check to the party Mr. Ray stole the fish from, and you’ll never see me again.”

I gave him a sidelong glance, my relief that he wasn’t going to serve me with a writ or something very real. I had surmised that Mr. Ray had stolen it from someone when no one came after me for it. But this was unexpected. “Someone insured their fish?” I scoffed, not believing it, then realized he was serious. “You’re kidding.”

The man shook his head. “I’ve been following you trying to decide if you have it or not.”

We had reached the entrance and I stopped, not wanting him to follow me to my car. Not that he didn’t already know which one it was. “Why not just ask me, Mr. Insurance Agent?”

Looking bothered, he planted his feet widely with an aggressive stance. He was my height exactly—making him somewhat short for a man—but most Weres weren’t big people on the outside. “You really expect me to believe you don’t know?”

I gave him a blank look. “Know what?”

Running a hand across his thick bristles, he looked at the sky. “Most people will lie like the devil when they get ahold of a wishing fish. If you have it, just tell me. I don’t care. All I want is to get this claim off my desk.”

My jaw dropped. “A—A wishing …”

He nodded. “A wishing fish, yes.” His thick eyebrows rose. “You really didn’t know? Do you still have it?”

I sat down on one of the cold benches. “Jenks ate it.”

The Were started. “Excuse me?”

I couldn’t look up. My thoughts went back to last fall and my gaze drifted past the gate to my shiny red convertible waiting for me in the parking lot. I had wished for a car. Damn, I had wished for a car and gotten it. Jenks ate a wishing fish?

His shadow fell over me and I looked up, squinting at David’s silhouette, black against the faultless blue of noon. “My partner and his family ate it.”

David stared. “You’re joking.”

Feeling ill, I dropped my gaze. “We didn’t know. He cooked it over an open fire and his family ate it.”

His small feet moved in a quick motion. Shifting, he pulled a folded piece of paper and a pen from his backpack. As I sat with my elbows on my knees and stared at nothing, David crouched beside me and scribbled, using the smooth concrete bench as a desk. “If you would sign here, Ms. Morgan,” he said as he extended the pen to me.

A deep breath sifted through me. I took the pen, then the paper. His handwriting had a stiff preciseness that told me he was meticulous and well-organized. Ivy would love him. Scanning it, I realized it was a legal document, David’s handwritten addition stating that I had witnessed the destruction of the fish, unaware of its abilities. Frowning, I scrawled my name and pushed it back.

His eyes were full of an amused disbelief as he took the pen from me and signed it as well. I bit back a snort when he brought out a notarizing kit from his backpack and made it legal. He didn’t ask for my identification, but hell, he’d been following me for three months. “You’re a notary, too?” I said, and he nodded, returning everything to his backpack and zipping it up.

“It’s a necessity in my line of work.” Standing, he smiled. “Thank you, Ms. Morgan.”

“No sweat.” My thoughts were jumbled. I couldn’t decide if I was going to tell Jenks or not. My gaze returned to David as I realized he was holding out his card. I took it, wondering.

“Since I’ve got you here,” he said, moving so I wasn’t looking into the sun to see him, “if you’re interested in getting a better rate on your insurance—”

I sighed and let the card fall. What a weenie.

He chuckled, gracefully swooping to pick it up. “I get my health and hospitalization insurance for two fifty a month through my union.”

Suddenly, I was interested. “Runners are almost uninsurable.”

“True.” He pulled a black nylon jacket out of his backpack and put it on. “So are field insurance adjusters. But since there are so few of us compared to the pencil pushers that make up the bulk of the company, we get a good rate. Union dues are one fifty a year. It gets you a discount on your insurance needs, car rentals, and all the steak you can eat at the yearly picnic.”

That was too good to believe. “Why?” I asked, taking the card back.

He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “My partner retired last year. I need someone.”

My mouth opened in understanding. He thought I wanted to be an insurance adjuster? Oh, ple-e-e-e-ease. “Sorry. I’ve already got a job,” I said, snickering.

David made an exasperated noise. “No. You misunderstand. I don’t want a partner. I’ve driven off all the interns they’ve saddled me with, and everyone else knows better than to try. I’ve got two months to find someone, or they’re going to shave my tail. I like my job, and I’m good at it, but I don’t want a partner.” He hesitated, his sharp gaze scanning the area behind me with professional intentness. “I work alone. You sign the paper, you belong to the union, you get a discount on your insurance, you never see me but for the yearly picnic, where we act chummy and do the three-legged race. I help you; you help me.”

I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from rising, and I shifted my attention from him to the card in my grip. Four hundred dollars less a month sounded great. And I’d be willing to bet they could beat what I was paying for my car insurance, too. Tempted, I asked, “What kind of hospitalization do you have?”

His thin lips curled up in a smile to show a hint of small teeth. “Silver Cross.”

My head bobbed. It was designed for Weres, but it was flexible enough to work. A broken bone is a broken bone. “So,” I drawled, leaning back, “what’s the catch?”

His grin widened. “Your salary is deferred to me, as I’m the one doing all the work.”

Ahhhh, I thought. He would get two salaries. This was a scam if I ever heard one. Smirking, I handed him his card back. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

David made a disappointed sound, backing up with his card. “You can’t blame me for trying. It was my old partner’s suggestion, actually. I should have known you wouldn’t go for it.” He hesitated. “Your backup really ate that fish?”

I nodded, going depressed thinking about it. ‘Least I got a car out of it first.

“Well …” He set the card down beside me, snapping it into the concrete. “Give me a call if you change your mind. The extension on the card will get you past my secretary. When I’m not in the field, I’m in the office from three to midnight. I might consider taking you on as an apprentice for real. My last partner was a witch, and you look like you have some chutzpah.”

“Thanks,” I said snidely.

“It’s not as boring as it looks. And safer than what you’re doing now. Maybe after you get beat up a few more times you’ll change your mind.”

I wondered if this guy was for real. “I don’t work for people. I work for myself.”

Nodding, he casually touched his head in a loose salute before he turned and walked away. I pulled myself straight as his trim figure slipped past the gate. He got in a gray two-seater across the lot from my little red car and drove off. I cringed, recognizing it and realizing he had watched Nick and me yesterday.

My butt was frozen from sitting on the concrete when I stood. I picked up his card, tearing it in half and going to a trash can, but as I held the ripped pieces over the hole, I hesitated. Slowly, I put them in my pocket.

An insurance adjuster? a small voice in my head mocked. Grimacing, I took the pieces out and dropped them in the can. Work for someone else again? No. Never.

Nine

Peace sat warm in me as I sprinkled the yellow sugar on the iced cookie shaped like the sun. Okay, so it was a circle, but with the sparkling sugar it could be the sun. I was tired of the long nights, and the physical affirmation of the turning seasons had always filled me with a quiet strength. Especially the winter solstice.

I set the finished cookie aside on the paper towel and took another. It was quiet but for music filtering in from the living room. Takata had released “Red Ribbons” to WVMP, and the station was playing it into the ground. I didn’t care. The refrain was the one I had told him fitted with the theme of the song, and it pleased me I had played some small part in its creation.

All the pixies were sleeping in my desk for at least two more hours. Ivy probably wouldn’t be up stumbling about in search of coffee for even longer. She had come in before sunrise looking calm and relaxed, self-consciously seeking my approval for having slacked her blood lust on some poor sap before falling into bed like a Brimstone addict. I had the church to myself, and I was going to squeeze every drop of solitude out of it that I could.

Swaying to the heavy beat of drums in a way I wouldn’t if anyone were watching, I smiled. It was nice to be alone once in a while.

Jenks had made his kids do more than apologize to me, and I had woken this afternoon to a hot pot of coffee in a sparkling clean kitchen. Everything shone, everything was polished. They had even scoured the accumulated dirt out of the circle I had etched into the linoleum around the center island counter. Not a breath of dust or cobweb marred the walls or ceiling, and as I dipped my knife into the green icing, I vowed to try to keep it this clean all the time.

Yeah, right, I thought as I layered frosting on the wreath. I’d put it off until I was back to the same level of chaos that the pixies had dragged me out of. I’d give it two weeks, tops.

Timing my movements with the beat of the music, I placed three little hot candies to look like berries. A sigh shifted my shoulders, and I set it aside and took up the candle cookie, trying to decide whether to make it purple for aged wisdom or green for change.

I was reaching for the purple when the phone rang from the living room. I froze for an instant, then set the butter tub of frosting down and hustled after it before it could wake the pixies. They were worse than having a baby in the house. Snatching the remote from the couch, I pointed it at the disc player to mute it. “Vampiric Charms,” I said as I picked up the phone and hoped I wasn’t breathing hard. “This is Rachel.”

“How much for an escort on the twenty-third?” a young voice asked, cracking.

“That depends on the situation.” I frantically looked for the calendar and a pen. They weren’t where I’d left them, and I finally dug through my bag for my datebook. I thought the twenty-third was a Saturday. “Is there a death threat involved or is it general protection?”

“Death threat!” the voice exclaimed. “All I want is a good-looking girl so my friends won’t think I’m a dweeb.”

My eyes closed as I gathered my strength. Too late, I thought, clicking the pen closed. “This is an independent runner service,” I said tiredly, “not a bloodhouse. And kid? Do yourself a favor and take the shy girl. She’s cooler than you think, and she won’t own your soul in the morning.”

The phone clicked off, and I frowned. This was the third such call this month. Maybe I should take a look at the yellow pages ad that Ivy bought.

I wiped my hands free of the last sugar and shuffled in the narrow cabinet that the message machine sat on, pulling out the phone book and dropping it on the coffee table. The red message light was blinking, and I tapped it, leafing through the heavy book to Private Investigators. I froze when Nick’s voice came rolling out, guilty and awkward, telling me he had stopped by about six this morning and picked up Jax and that he would call me in a few days.

“Coward,” I breathed, thinking it was one more crucifix tied to the coffin. He knew no one but the pixies would be up then. I vowed to enjoy myself on my date with Kisten, whether Ivy would have to kill him afterward or not. I jabbed the button to clear his message, then went back to the phone book.