Black Dog (5 page)

 

CHAPTER
8

I
t had been so long since I'd even let myself think there might be a way out of my contract with Gary that it felt like I was falling, my stomach pressing up against my ribs, the rest of me just waiting for the impact with the ground.

“So why can't you kill your father the old-­fashioned way?” I asked Leo. He'd agreed to drive me back to the Mushroom Cloud so I could make the call, and we were cruising through presunrise streets behind the UNLV campus, strip malls and off-­brand casinos as far as the eye could see, blending into tract housing and then the desert.

Leo hadn't spoken much after he'd unchained me, and I hadn't felt like talking. Still, silence gets thick after a while, and I hadn't spent this much time with anyone who wasn't another hellhound or a collection job in a long time.

Leo's hand tightened on the steering wheel. His sleeve was rolled and showed the dagger tat on his forearm, ink popping off the lean muscle when he tensed. I wanted to see more of his ink, the stuff under his slick white shirt, but I figured asking would probably send him the wrong kind of message. Hounds didn't generally fool around with humans, and it was hard to remember how to even talk to a man, never mind ask him to take his shirt off without things getting weird. If I was more used to this, I'd probably also be telling myself that a guy who'd chain me up and threaten to torture me wasn't an appropriate lust object, but I couldn't bring myself to be that mad about it. Leo was doing what he had to do, just like I was.

“I want him to stay dead,” he said. “Necromancers have a way of recovering from blades and bullet wounds.”

I didn't ask why Leo wanted to kill his father. I'd wanted plenty of ­people dead in my time. “You think it'll be easy to get Gary's Scythe?” I said. “Because I don't.”

Leo shrugged. “It's been pretty easy to take down three hellhounds. Usually the bodyguards are worse than the big boss.”

I went back to staring out the window. I didn't want to be reminded of how I'd fucked up and let Leo drop me. It was embarrassing.

If Leo thought his plan was that foolproof, he was nuts. Gary was slippery as fresh blood on a blade, and he hadn't survived this long as a reaper by being an idiot. What was I thinking?

I wasn't even sure reapers could be killed. And if they could, what would happen to the pack? Not just me, but the loyal ones. I was sure some of his other employees hated Gary as much as I did, but some really were lapdogs. They'd want a piece of me if Leo went through with this.

“You healed.” Leo pointed at my bare arm and neck. I felt my eyes narrow.

“Yeah. You know what didn't heal? My fucking jacket.”

“If this goes well, I'll be in a position to get you a lot more than a new jacket, sweetheart.” He grinned at me as we pulled into the motel parking lot.

I snorted at the “sweetheart,” but I didn't mind enough to tell him to back off. Truthfully, having someone pay attention to me who wasn't Gary or another hellhound was something I'd been missing for a long time.

I knew something was wrong the minute we pulled up to a parking spot. The neon sign was off, the lot was empty, and the air tasted metallic, like it did just after a lightning strike.

Leo peered out the windshield. “What a shitbox.”

“Wait here.” I didn't give him time to argue, just got out of the car and moved. Things had gone sideways, and I didn't need a warlock swaggering around getting in my way.

Marty looked up from his TV when I came through the door. He was back in his gangbanger guise, but he was so pale and shaky that any edge it might have given him was gone.

“In the office,” he managed. “Waiting for you.”

Fuck. There wasn't going to be any phone call to Gary. I could smell hound and Hellspawn from where I stood. Gary was already here.

Braced against the motel counter, I took three deep breaths. If this was it, I wasn't going to be quivering and crying when I went down. I also wasn't going to give Gary anything that I didn't have to. I'd never tried to lie to him before. Reapers have a way of seeing through you, like they can reach in and pluck out the truth like a weed out of dirt. And if you try to fight it, you get hurt.

There's a first time for everything, though. Dying, lying to your scary-­as-­fuck Hellspawn boss.

I shoved my hands into my jacket to hide them shaking and pushed past Marty, coming through the door like I had nothing to be afraid of. That was the biggest lie I'd tell today.

Gary looked up from behind Marty's rusty metal desk. Wilson stood behind him like some kind of butt-­ugly mannequin left over from a haunted house.

“Have a seat, Ava,” Gary said.

I did as I was told. The springs of the rolling chair squealed with my weight.

“Is there a problem?” I said. “I was going to call you when I had something.”

“I know,” Gary said. “Do you need to consult your notes, perhaps pull out some index cards? Did Leo Karpov give you a script?”

I was fucked. Gary knew about Leo. Of course he knew. Why had I ever thought I could get away from him?

Knowing that this was it actually calmed me down some. It had happened when I'd died too. Once I knew that I wasn't getting away, that the pain inflicted on me would eventually stop, and that I'd be gone, I stopped struggling. I was still terrified then, of course. But once I'd realized there was no hope, things went blank and cold rather than hot and panicked. It was the same now.

“Don't look so constipated, Ava,” Gary said. “Leo's a smart man. He knew exactly what information on a rat in my ranks would be worth to me. Someday, I'm going to cut him such a deal.”

Gary's voice nauseated me. Leo had set me up. Gotten me to admit everything I'd buried so deep it might as well have been in a grave and then dimed me out to Gary.

He hadn't even had to torture me for very long. I should have figured it out—­he'd set up the whole scenario with Alexi to lure Gary and me here in the first place, and now he was throwing me under the bus that Gary was driving.

I skipped wondering what Leo had gotten in return. Power. That was all men like Leo Karpov ever cared about. I'd been desperate, and I'd gotten sloppy. Any glimmer of a life other than this, and I was a starry-­eyed idiot again, ripe for the plucking. The last time, it had just gotten me tortured and murdered. This time was going to be a lot worse.

“I'm glad you're not going to deny it,” Gary said. “That makes this whole process much less embarrassing for both of us.”

He stood up and came around the desk, leaning on it and tapping his fingers against the metal. I stayed put. He knew I wasn't going anywhere. “You know why I chose you, Ava?”

I was convenient, a pathetic dead girl who didn't know what she was agreeing to, freshly dead and terrified of what came after. No mystery there.

“I felt sorry for you,” Gary said. My breath stopped. That was news to me.

“You were so small. So broken. I felt like I had to offer you a chance.” Gary sighed, rubbing between his eyes with his index finger. “But I should have known better. You never offer someone a contract out of pity. That's the first thing they teach you when they hand this over.”

He pulled out his Scythe. I could feel the crackle in the air as the blade drifted toward my face.

“So I think it's time I rectify my mistake,” Gary said. “Cut my losses and move on.” He closed his hand around my hair and yanked my head back, exposing my throat. Wilson made a small humming sound. I couldn't tell if he was excited or simply impatient.

“You were nothing special in life, Ava,” Gary said. “And you were a pain in my ass as a hound. Good riddance.” The tip of the Scythe pierced my skin, and I felt the bite of its connection searching for the thing that kept me running, the corrupted hellhound soul Gary had shoved into me in place of my human one.

“I remember.”

I don't know why I said anything. I sure as shit wasn't going to change Gary's mind. I was tired, that much I knew. Tired of his talking, tired of his never letting me forget how pathetic I was. I was tired of being a dog.

Really, I just didn't want to die without giving Gary the finger.

The blade paused on its route into my major artery. Gary looked pissed as I'd ever seen him. “The fuck did you say?”

“I remember what I was when I was alive,” I snarled. “And I was good, Gary. I was young and stupid and in love, but I was good. You took that from me, but you didn't take the memories. I remember that I used to have something good in me.” I bared my teeth. The hound knew what to do, even if I didn't. “You
never
had that. You're a bottom-­feeding piece of shit, and I hope when you die it's not fast. I hope you beg for the pain to stop, like every single one of your hounds did.”

I relaxed into the Scythe and felt the cool slide of metal. Getting stabbed doesn't hurt at first, if the blade is sharp, and Hellspawn weapons always are. I'd said my piece. Before, dying had been the worst thing I could imagine. This time, it wasn't even close.

Gary, conversely, threw me away from him, out of the chair and onto the floor. I choked on dust and years-­old crumbs.

“Did he send you?” Gary screamed. He pointed the Scythe at me, the tip dark with my blood.

I had no fucking idea what I'd said to set him off. I'd never seen Gary as anything less than the slick salesman Leo pegged him as, smiling and perfectly pressed while he bent you over and screwed you for everything you had.

“Boss,” Wilson said. His eyes roved from me to the door to Gary. Seeing that Wilson was as freaked out as I was did not help.

“Shut up, gimp!” Gary bellowed. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and lifted me one-handed.

That was the thing about Hellspawn. They look all nice and middle-­American until you realize they can lift a car and light fires with their mind. By the time you do, of course, it's too late and you're fucked. Just like me.

“Have you been spying on me this whole time? Did he put you there in front of me like a fucking entrée because he thinks I'm
stupid
?”

If normal Gary was shit-­your-­pants terrifying, Gary when he'd lost it was making me think that if I survived, I was definitely getting fitted for a padded room and some Thorazine.

“I . . . I don't know what you're talking about,” I said. “I just don't want you to kill me.”

Gary rammed me backward into the desk so hard that the metal bowed under my weight. More of my ribs decided to give up the ghost, but the pain barely registered as Gary's hand tightened around my throat, the Scythe hovering above my eye.

“You tell that motherfucker that if he thinks he's gonna rattle me with this amateur-hour shit,” Gary snarled, “then fuck him and that pale horse he rode in on.” His mouth flattened out into the Gary grin that I knew and hated. Gary only smiled when he was about to royally fuck up someone's day. “That is, if you run into him on your way to Hell, bitch.”

“Boss!” Wilson had opened the door and was standing with Marty. Beyond, I saw the shadow of at least three more hounds. Gary had brought in the hard boys to deal with me. I'd have been flattered if I wasn't so fucking terrified.

“I'm a little goddamn busy!” Gary barked.

“Yeah, um, I think you need to see this,” Marty piped up.

Gary whipped his head around, hand still clamped around my windpipe. Air become a precious commodity, and my vision went black and wavy.

“They just showed up out of nowhere,” Wilson said. His voice sounded like it was coming down a long tunnel.

“What is this shit now?” Gary grumbled. “As if I don't have enough to deal with.”

His weight pressed down on me again. “Let me deal with this and then we'll deal with them.”

“There's a lot of them . . .” Wilson didn't sound thrilled.

“Do I ask you to think?” Gary shouted. “Do I ask you to do anything with that lump of shit between your ears besides let it keep you breathing? No! Shut the fuck up, Wilson!”

I felt his grip loosen a fraction, and I had the thought that I could get out of here, that this didn't have to be where I died. I might just prolong my life by a few minutes, but the hound wanted to survive even if I knew it was probably useless to fight back.

Shoving up with my knees, I knocked Gary away from me. His Scythe sliced through the meat of my arm when he fell off balance, and the shock felt like biting down on a power line.

I dropped to the ground, limbs twitching. My tongue contorted itself toward the back of my throat, but I scrabbled for purchase on the floor. If I was human, I'd already be dead, so that was something.

There was a lot of yelling, a lot of hounds snarling, but I'd stopped paying attention. I ran, shoving Wilson onto his bad leg so that he toppled and crashed into the motel desk. Marty got out of my way with a yelp, his eyes the size of quarters. Covered in blood and beat to shit, I probably looked a lot more dangerous than Gary, on the surface.

Temperatures had soared while I'd been inside, desert sun beating into the asphalt and sending waves of thick heat floating over my skin.

I skidded toward the black car across the lot. Getting the fuck out of there was my only priority.

For a second, I thought I'd actually made it. Then I slammed into a body solid as a concrete wall, and death stench filled up my nose.

I hit the pavement and saw a deadhead looking down at me like I was a five-­dollar buffet at the Golden Nugget.

Not just one. Shadows crowded around me. It was like a deadhead convention out here. Behind me, Wilson and the other hounds snarled, forming a protective circle around the door of the motel office.

I could have told them they didn't need to worry—­I was two feet away from the nearest zombie, covered in my own blood. I might as well have poured steak sauce over my head.