Embers & Echoes (15 page)
“But that still leaves the question—if your sister isn’t the ‘cold merciless force coming to Miami’ that they talked about, then who the hell is?”
Ash didn’t respond to this. She had no answer either. Instead she sat down on the lip of the pool and slipped her
legs into the water. The bottom of her dress was instantly soaked, but with the burns all over it from Rey’s fireball, even Miami’s finest dry cleaner wasn’t going to salvage it.
Wes kicked off his shoes, then his socks, and rolled his pant legs up until they were cuffed just above the knee. He joined Ash at the water’s edge. Even when he was sitting down beside her, the night god towered a head above her.
“Ashline,” Wes said, and he clasped his hands in his lap. “I want you to move in here.”
“Whoa.” Ash was so blindsided, she nearly slipped off the edge and into the pool. She tried to cover her shock with sarcasm. “I promised Mom I’d have a rock on my finger before I’d move in with a man. Or at least know him longer than twenty-four hours. I’m old-fashioned, you know?”
He flicked water at her. “I don’t mean permanently,” he said, “I mean for however long you’re in Miami.” His tone shifted from playful to protective. “Listen, I’m not going to blame you for losing your temper and blowing your cover tonight, but now you’re exposed. We’re all exposed. And if we have four Seasons of trouble lurking around the city, clearly itching to rumble with other gods, I would feel less antsy if you were a room away from me, and not holed up alone in a seedy motel.”
Ash crossed her arms. “As flattering as it is that you want to play the role of the big brother, I’ve singlehandedly taken on a tsunami and come out the other
side alive.” She pulled herself out of the water, letting her legs drip onto the concrete around him. “I don’t need the big bad Aztec sandman to be my gladiator.
And
, if you can remember way back to yesterday, I was the one who saved
your
ass.”
Wes caught her by the wrist, firmly but affectionately, as she started to go. “Please,” he said delicately. “Let me rephrase my invitation in a way that would appeal to an independent woman. I would feel a hell of a lot safer myself with my own lava lamp nearby to protect me. Strength in numbers, you know?” He grinned from the left corner of his mouth. “If it sweetens the pot, Aurora is an
amazing
cook when she’s not flying five towns away to pick up takeout.”
Ash glanced at the light coming out of the door to the apartment, which Wes had propped open with a cinderblock. “Fine,” she agreed at last. She lowered herself back down to the lip of the pool, and couldn’t help herself from sitting closer this time, so that their thighs were touching. She smiled to herself when she felt his muscles tense under the touch of her scorched dress. “But if the Four Seasons come knocking, I call dibs on throwing Lily off the roof.”
“Done,” he said. “I might need you to sponge up any of Rey’s fire too, so I can take another crack at his face.” He looked her up and down provocatively. “Might be nice to see how much clothes he can burn off this time.”
She punched him in the arm. “Jackass. Don’t make me reconsider being your roommate.”
The mention of burning dresses sent her on a flashback to the night of the masquerade ball, the singed remains of her dress after she’d evaporated the tsunami, lying next to Colt on that wet stone. . . .
Don’t
, she cautioned herself.
Don’t project any memories of Colt onto a guy you just met.
Especially one who was handsome and potentially interested, even though he was, regrettably, another god.
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask,” she said, changing the subject, “but how is it that you can afford such a ridiculous penthouse?” She gestured to the vacant chairs lounging around the pool. “And unless you’re paying all the other tenants
not
to use this beautiful pool deck, I’m going to assume that the whole roof terrace belongs to you.”
She expected him to at least crack a smile, but his expression sobered. He shifted over, putting just an inch between them. It might as well have been a mile. “This all belonged to my father,” he said. In case the way he’d used the past tense had left any room for confusion, he added, “I inherited it.”
“I’m sorry,” Ash whispered. On a whim she reached over and touched his knee. “How recently was it?”
“Three years in August.” He stood up. Ash was painfully aware that he wasn’t offering her a hand to join him. “Make yourself at home. The spare guest room is yours, and you can retrieve the rest of your belongings from the motel tomorrow.” He started around the pool and made
it into the stairwell before he leaned out the door and added, “Oh, and tell Aurora to leave some of those crab rangoons out for me.”
As she listened to his heavy footsteps retreat down the stairs, the water she was dipping her feet into suddenly felt frigid and uninviting.
On cue there was a whoosh in the air, and Aurora dropped through the palm fronds overhead, landing in a slight crouch beside Ash. Clutched in each hand was a brown paper bag that smelled enticingly of grease and saturated fat. She was wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt tucked into the waistband of her shorts. “Sorry it took so long,” she apologized between labored breaths. “Our favorite Chinese restaurant is in Fort Lauderdale. Thirty miles, but the food is always worth the flight time, and . . .” She suddenly took notice of Wes’s absence. “Where’d he go? He was sitting right here when I was circling to land.”
Ash turned back to the door. “What happened to his father?” she asked.
Aurora set the bags down on the cement rooftop and sighed. “You asked him, didn’t you?”
“I have a history of asking the wrong questions at even worse times.” Ash added to herself,
Or in the case of Colt and Eve, not knowing the right time to ask the right questions.
Aurora’s wings sagged. “Wes’s father was . . . killed.”
“You mean
murdered
?” Ash asked, sensing Aurora’s hesitation.
Aurora said nothing.
“Did they ever catch who did it?”
“They did,” Aurora said. “And they acquitted him of any wrongdoing.” A pause. “And now he lives in his father’s penthouse.”
You stand in front of the large vault door
. The metal is cool to the touch as you caress it, but you leave a trail of warmth as you draw concentric circles around the two dials. You knock three times and let the solid clack of knuckle on metal pulse through the underground chamber. Just from the sound of the knocking, you try to envision the bank vault on the other side, the rows of safety deposit boxes lining the walls, the hoard of gold and cash, hopefully in plain view or stashed accessibly.
Not that accessibility has ever been an issue for you.
The barrel of a revolver presses into the back of your skull. “Not a move,” the man behind you growls. “I got no problems painting that vault door red if it keeps you on this side of it.”
You turn your head just slightly; you can recognize the
gun just by the sound the hammer makes when it snaps into place. “Colt Banker’s Special,” you say. “Thirty-two caliber? You’re not messing around.”
The night guard must sense the mockery in your voice, because he forces the barrel deeper into your neck. “Hands to the ceiling and turn around real slow,” he orders.
You sigh and hold your arms up limply to give the appearance of weakness. You do a little bobbing dance as you turn around to face him. He’s got a horseshoe mustache tipped with the first tinges of gray. His eyes widen when he sees the wooden mask covering your face, with only slits for the eyes and mouth. He can’t be that surprised, though. Drawings of these masks have been appearing in the papers for months now, as far away as Saint Louis.
“So it’s true, then,” he says. His eyes dip to take in your whole body—as if he needs to see the curves hidden beneath your floor-length coat to figure out that you are a woman. “The Tiki Bandits are just a couple of costumed hussies.”
“We’re no suffragettes,” you say, “but we do prefer ‘costumed
women’
.”
“Shut up,” he barks. “If you’re the door woman, then where’s your torch?”
You cock your head to the side, hoping your wide eyes peering out through the mask will unsettle him. “Torch?”
He motions to the bank vault with his free hand. “All
the other vaults were seared clean-through with an acetylene torch,” he says. “Don’t tell me that you’ve just been using a book of matches and a—”
The dim and grimy lightbulb overhead suddenly flickers and dies, interrupting his sentence. The underground foyer falls into darkness. He takes his eyes off you for a moment to examine the bulb.
“Storm’s coming,” you say.
A hand snakes around his neck and covers his mouth. The night guard’s eyes bulge, and he spins his revolver around to intercept his ambusher.
Violet’s too fast for him. The electricity shoots out of her palm and into his open mouth. He instantly crumples to the ground. “Storm’s already here,” she corrects you. She reaches down with her hand to shock the convulsing man again.
You catch her by the wrist. “He’s out already. What the hell took you so long?”
“Patrol was lingering outside. Had to send a lightning strike onto the apothecary to lure them away.” Violet gestures to the vault door. “What’s taking
you
so long?”
You pull back your mask so that you can see better. “Cast-iron door, probably two feet thick, clad in steel plating with a layer of copper buried in there to slow down a torch.”
Violet toes the fallen night guard, who has finally stopped shuddering. “Will it slow down
your
torch?”
You slip off your overcoat and toss it to the ground.
“Just get the sacks ready and keep your eyes on the door, Vi.”
“Yes’m,” she replies, and heads down the hallway.
You roll up your sleeves.
You press your left hand to the metal vault door.
You feel the wheel turning in your mind, which, much like a bank vault door, requires the proper combination to unlock the abilities within you.
Then the metal slowly begins to give way.
Your fingertips penetrate the top layer first as your hand heats the metal to three thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Your powers of conduction continue to radiate through the door into the thick layer of cast iron first, then through the copper alloy, which your skin melts through. The copper pools around your hand like hot molasses.
When all is said and done, your hand sheers through the dual lock mechanism, and you’re able to rip the lock piston right out of the hole.
You whistle down the hallway. “Vi—we’re ready.”
You pull your arm free of the destroyed door. The already cooling liquid metal coats your left arm. There will be time to melt and slough the rest of it off later, but for now you use your right arm to pry open the vault door.
The two of you make quick work of the bank vault, emptying the teller trays into your bags. Every bank vault is different, but given that this is your eleventh robbery in the last year alone, you’ve learned enough to survive—
like how much you can carry before the load will slow you down.
On your way out of the vault, you almost don’t see the night guard stirring in time. His eyes are clearly struggling to focus, but he angles his Colt Banker’s Special up at you.
You twist and thrust out your metal-covered arm right as you hear the bang. The bullet hits you in the palm, and the force sends you backpedaling into the mangled vault door. You regain your balance and kick him across the face before he can fire off another round. It’s going to take a lot of moonshine for him to nurse that headache when he wakes up.
You try to shake off the remaining sting in your left hand, and hold it up to observe the bullet you caught at point-blank range. The round protrudes out of the metal like a wart, and you pluck it out with your free hand.
“Come on,” Violet urges you. “Now’s not the time for a palm reading.” She kicks the fallen guard in the stomach for good measure.
Outside, your getaway driver, Brigid, has the car idling in the shadows across the street, but she wheels around and pulls right up to the curb just in time for the two of you to toss your bags into the trunk. Violet slips into the passenger seat and you take the back.
“What’s the haul?” the wheel woman asks the moment you climb into the car.
“Enough to take a little vacation,” you reply. “Save
the accounting for later and concentrate on putting some miles between us and the bank.”
“Shit,” Violet growls as she adjusts the rearview mirror. “Looks like the suits are already coming out to play.”
Through the back window you watch as one police car comes blazing around the corner so fast that it nearly tilts onto two wheels. One of the policemen pulls himself out of the window and aims a pistol at your rear tires.
You reach beneath the backseat and withdraw the tommy gun concealed beneath. With your one usable arm you poke the tommy gun out the window and squeeze off a burst of fire, wide enough to intentionally miss the vehicle behind you, but close enough to frighten the policeman, who slides back into the car.
“My turn,” Violet says. She straddles the door frame, so that her head’s outside of the car while one leg remains inside to anchor her in place.
It had been a flawless warm Louisianan night before, but Violet telegraphs her usual prayers up into the clouds, and the maelstrom gates open. A heavy shower hammers down on the police car.
With the downpour obscuring the windshield, the passengers probably can’t see that the storm is miraculously leaving the Tiki Bandits in peace.
Your pursuers forge blindly on, but Violet’s not done yet. The precipitation shifts to freezing rain, which crystallizes into ice as soon as it hits the road.
The driver of the police car, unaccustomed to icy
roads in New Orleans, panics and twists the wheel hard in the opposite direction. As a result, their spinout worsens and they slam sideways into a lamppost.
With your pursuers incapacitated, Violet slips back into the car. From the wicker basket in the front seat, she produces a bottle of real French champagne—a gift from Vi’s bootlegging contacts. She pops the cork and pours two glasses. “Sorry, Brigid,” you say as you take a glass. “Somebody has to drive.”