Grave Robber for Hire (26 page)

The back seat, mashed against Tyreal’s, wedged him against and half under the dash. Blood ran freely from a cut on his head over his airbag’s remains.

I inflated my lungs an infinitesimal amount, seemed ridiculous to ask. “You okay?”

His voice sounded like rocks grated in his throat. “My leg’s jammed, and if my pain memory serves me well, broken. Otherwise, marvelous. You?”

“I think I re-broke my arm and some ribs.” My back ached but I could feel my legs and toes.

We at least had fresh air. The windows had all thoughtfully shattered and sprinkled us liberally with shards of glass confetti. Very pretty. “I’m going to wait for help, what’s your plan?”

He snorted. Wriggled his hand up and swiped at the blood on his face. “I like yours.”

Vig arrived at Tyreal’s side, stuck his head in and looked at Tyreal’s leg and winced. He put his hand on Tyreal’s head and I saw a flicker of gold light. The bleeding eased.

“Hard head. He be okay.” A guardian angel’s diagnosis was better than none.

Within minutes, we were surrounded by people. A woman in her fifties came to my window. “I’m a nurse, do you need immediate help?”

“No. Check Tyreal, my passenger.”

“I’ll be fine. Nothing urgent,” Tyreal said.

“Okay, but I’ll stay by the door here until the ambulance comes, just in case.”

Two people tried to open mine and Tyreal’s caved in doors. Others stood staring and jabbering on the phone. A man called the nurse over to the motorcyclist.

An emergency response truck roared down the road, lights flashing and siren blaring. I’ve heard a few sirens screaming for me, mostly ambulances, but this one sounded the most musical. Tyreal’s pale face frightened me, and my body was losing its pain blocking abilities.

The first emergency officer came to my side. “I’m pretty okay, lot of pain, broken arm and ribs. My passenger’s leg is jammed. He thinks it’s broken and his head’s bleeding.” Vig had eased it so it wasn’t running a river anymore, but it still worried me.

Emergency guy nodded and pointed to another fireman. “Roy, passenger side.”

My savior jiggled the door. “Tommy give us a hand here mate.”

More sirens screamed their race to arrive. Blue and red police and ambulance lights strobed, lighting the area with colorful flashes. Over the years, I’ve grown fond of ambulances. They had pain killers and trained medical professionals who administered them. As the two firemen fought to open my door, I watched two others peel open Tyreal’s.

A dark haired brick of a man looked in at Tyreal. “Your seat’s been rammed forward. We should be able to haul you out. As a precaution we’ll put you in a neck brace.”

I swung around. Pain lit all my nerves on fire. “Jesus, what’s wrong with his neck?”

Tyreal flinched, stretched his hand to my arm. “Nothing, Princess, it’s just precautionary.”

Then why was his dark honey skin pasty gray, and covered in sweat?

My two firemen wedged a huge set of jaws-of-life into the gap in my door, crushing and ripping the metal, tearing the lock apart until they could twist the door back on its one functioning mutilated hinge.

After a thorough and quick evaluation, the man took my hand. “Take a deep breath, I’m getting you out of here, fuel’s leaking.”

Great.

With help from another man, he eased me out onto a board, then slid me onto a gurney. My side internally roared if protest, I screamed, and the words, ‘
motherfuckingshit, motherfuckingshit’
ran over and over in my mind and might have burbled out of my lips. Why no drugs before the move? So what if we might explode? Sadists.

An ambulance officer, his hair in a short frizzy red and silver braid, put his hand on my broken arm. I growled and lifted my lips in what I hoped looked demonic. He snatched his hand back and took my good arm. Ah yes, a man who respected a good snarl.

Sweat trickled down my face. “You better have drugs, I need drugs.”

“You’re in pain?”

Scared I’d bite the idiot like some rabid mutt, I ground out through clenched teeth, “I think my ribs are broken.” I pointed to my cast and saw it was actually shattered down one side. “This is
definitely
re-broken.” Vig sat beside me and put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my head. Some of the pain eased as if he soaked off some of it. I snuggled closer.

“I’ll give you pain relief in a minute. Your husband is being seen to now. I just need some information.” I sighed, leaned more into Vig and watched Tyreal as I absently answered ambo man’s questions and waited for my much anticipated shot.

The ambulance guys put Tyreal on a gurney, set up an I.V. and put it into the back of his left hand. They left him there to help the guys moving and lifting the motorcycle rider.

I turned to the ambo. “Who’s the driver of the car that hit my side, and are they alright? Yellow car?”

“Driver wasn’t there. Hit you, somehow got out of what’s left of his car and must have ran.” He contemplated the crowd. “Unless he’s injured, the bastard’s probably here gawping, pretending to be a bystander. They’ll probably call their car in as stolen.”

Bastard,
sounded about right.

Ambo guy gave me a shot and liquid ease pumped through my system. The ambo’s wrinkles softened. What a nice man, what a nice gurney, gee those lights were pretty, like a nightclub. I like dancing.

Someone screamed. The ambulance officers ran for the motorcyclist. Arched into a hard seizure I saw a silver light misting around his body. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but I figured he wasn’t long for this Earth. I hoped I was wrong.

My drug soothed brain focused on a movement. Out of the crowd, Sasha, long chestnut gold shot hair floating around his shoulders, slipped over to Tyreal who appeared asleep.

In Sasha’s hand was a long thin blade.

Drug fog thinned and a blast of
don’t-fuck-with-mine
adrenaline surged through my system. I jumped to my feet. Everything around me spun. Vig grabbed my arm and steadied me.

I focused on the red haired devil dressed in jeans and ran. “
Nooooo, Sasha.” More adrenalin pumped power through my body in a burst of cold fire. Electrical surges shot through my limbs.

Sasha put the blade to Tyreal’s throat. Tyreal sprung forward in a blur of movement, threw his fist at and connected with Sasha’s jaw. Sasha stumbled. Tyreal flung himself from the bed, and landed on his broken leg. He roared in agony and fell in a tangle of I.V. lines and limbs. He hit the ground, hard.

Sasha grabbed Tyreal’s hair and hauled his head to one side, exposing his neck. I threw myself forward, air rushed past me. I can
flyyyyyyyyyyy.

My hands made contact with Sasha’s knife wielding arm. I shoved him, he tripped backward. I jumped and wrapped my legs around his waist and we fell to the ground—a knot of sisterly and brotherly hate.

I could reminisce about the hundreds of times we’d fought like this, but the bastard was all for action. He grabbed my hair and hauled me off and up as he stood. His blue eyes glowing red, I kicked him in the chest, pushed myself backward.

Then I smiled and kicked him in his boy bits so hard I fell backward.

His lips peeled back, revealing shark like teeth, he toppled to his knees, and bellowed like a walrus in heat with sore balls.

I laughed darkly and scrambled up, latching my fingers onto his throat and squeezed.

He choked, gasped—turned a funny shade of gray.

And I fucking loved it.

He pushed, clawed, and hit me but I felt nothing. I wanted him dead, victory was in my hands.

I leaned in close to his sulfur smelling face. “You cannot harm me or mine anymore. Today, brother mine, you die.”

A second Sasha raised above his human body into a tall black smoke effigy of himself that thrashed as I choked his human body. I gaped at the apparition and realized it wasn’t Satan who’d been frying my electrical equipment, but my brother.

Asshole
. He’d cost me thousands and thousands of dollars. I wanted to choke him harder. But choking someone while using a broken arm is difficult, and kind of hurts.

Sasha stretched higher until he towered at least fifteen feet tall, then in a whoosh sucked back down into his human body.

Nothing more than a piece of human shit once more.

Hatred seethed inside me as he fell unconscious. I wanted to keep squeezing his neck, but my body burned. I pulled my hands away and looked at them and down my body.
Holy hell
, I glowed white gold.

Tyreal dragged himself to me and put his hand on my thigh. “Princess? Princess, you really do have wings. Oh fuck, I’m dead.”

I scowled and looked behind me. Wings of fine filament gold arced high above my head and fell in a dramatic fall of brilliant feathers tipped with the deepest blue purple, the same color of my eyes.

The wings were beautiful. I had no idea where they came from unless I was dead too. I felt alive and Tyreal looked alive, in fact, he looked in pain. I doubted the dead feel pain. Actually I kind of hurt too, my arm was killing me. And diving onto Sasha might have shifted some of those ribs.

I glanced at my still un-moving crap-of-a-slug brother and knew my grin held a few traces of self-satisfied maliciousness. I felt powerful and righteous and fucking kick-ass- awesome.

I
was
Super Angel. Super Angel with wings.

I met Vig’s huge smile. “Hayyel, is angel.” He kicked Sasha, did it twice more, harder and grinned. “Dybbuk shit.”

I looked at Tyreal. “I don’t know what I am, but I’m smoking hot. Did you see how I beat him up?”

Tyreal snorted and groaned. “You’re always hot.”

“Hey look, that lady’s got wings.”

“Oh, my God, it’s an angel. That woman is an angel.”

I spun and felt something snap at my back.

“Oh, it must have been a light,” someone said.

“I don’t’ see any wings.”

“Weird,” a man in his thirties said as he turned away. The people gawking shook their heads, before turning back to the rescue scene going on around them.

I twisted and found my wings gone. Oh well, fun for a minute. I was still super Angel. I’d taken on Sasha and won. I looked down at Sasha ready to yell, “Police.”

He was gone.

“Motherfuckingshit” My hands tingled and anger surged and ebbed inside me like a moonless tide. I channeled the anger down my hands, draining it from my body so it would dissipate the way Viggo taught me years ago when dealing with Sasha.

A glint of cherry and gold hair caught my eye, and my tall lean monster-brother strode off into the night.

Bastard
.

Fuck my arm and ribs hurt.

Chapter 24

Two days slipped past in a drug and anxiety haze. Sasha had disappeared. No big surprise. Josey hadn’t appeared at or contacted any of her usual haunts. No shocker there either.

Every cell of my body ached incessantly. No astonishment on my behalf.

Ribs strapped and arm cast in purple, to go with the bruises, I’d been reduced to oral pain killers and raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake to dull my aches. Even Vig playing chess with me, hadn’t made the time pass faster. And he’d pulled my cell phone apart so I had to buy another one. I could barely move because every muscle I owned acted as if I trekked to the summit of Mt. Everest then plummeted back down.

At the hotel Vig and I awaited the okay to collect Tyreal from the hospital. Via taxi. The hired Toyota had gone to a holding yard. From there it was destined to be reincarnated into steel railway tracks.

Tony, Tyreal’s cop buddy, was currently trying to legally have the Toyota’s trunk’s contents turned over to me. I doubted the painting’s frame survived the rear impact, but prayed the canvas survived unharmed or could at least be superglued. Hopefully my wrapping efforts survived, and Tony didn’t get leech blasted either. I couldn’t imagine explaining that to anyone. Miss Meyers, our straitjackets come in white and white.

That morning I’d already avoided three calls from Claudia Reese-Jones. No point giving good news until I really knew we possessed the Rembrandt, not something the kids drew a hundred years ago. And it was no good to anyone until it could be touched by humans. Looks like this would be another job for, High Witch Angel and sidekick Tyreal. At nearly seven hundred dollars, a pop, it’s good Bettina’s spells are re-useable.

I found Tyreal waiting in the hospital’s lobby. He’d scored two pins in his left leg, fifteen stitches in his scalp and a concussion. The left side of his face sported purple hues and swelling. His body was even more heavily beaten up than mine.

Tyreal scanned my outfit for the day. I’d come to Sydney for one night so I’d dressed in what I could recycle, so it was burglar black. Since my face displayed the brilliant shades of charcoal, purple, and blue, highlighted with yellow, I’d gone pancake, don’t-smile thick with foundation. To help disguise my blackened and swollen eyes, I’d applied so much eyeliner and mascara that my eyelids drooped. Air bags save lives, but they punch like a pro boxer.

“Punk Princess. Gives me fond memories of when we met.”

Considering the current state of him, the twice zapping, and lust drug episode, I’m surprised
any
memory of meeting me was fond. Insanity is a great place to vacation.

I looked him over. He wore faded jeans someone had cut off
on his left leg to just above the knee, one black sneaker, and one of his skin tight white t-shirts. He held his crutches in the ready to run position.

“You look eager to leave.”

“Hate hospitals. A man could starve.”

“I brought you food.” I stepped closer and held up a large pizza box and gave him my best saucy grin and winked. The mascara on my top and bottom lashes adhered. I tried to peel my eyelids apart, wiggled them until they f
luttered and at last separated. Wow, that should knock him dead.

Tyreal snorted, “Sexy.” He eyed the pizza box, a childlike smile lit his face, then it shrunk, even shriveled. He let out a long sigh. “Don’t tell me … vegetarian?”

“
Gourmet
vegetarian. Thick with feta, spinach leaves, grilled pepper, grilled eggpl ….”

Armpit resting at the top of his crutch, Tyreal’s hand gave a quick wave from the handgrip. “I can hardly hold myself back.”

I grinned, raised the box near his nose, lifted the lid and let a waft of steam and a hint of garlicky and spicy aroma escape.

He groaned, “Pepperoni?”

“Close, spiced soy sausage.” He glared at me, grunted when I laughed and followed me to the taxi.

I opened the door for him. “At the hotel I have chocolate layer cake with Bailey’s cream that I guarantee heals broken bones.” Vig was minding it.
Hopefully his longing to eat it wouldn’t damage it.

“Great, I’ll need something to wash down the soy sausage.”

“It’s the second cake I bought. The other was a cheesecake, but I ate it. I needed the calcium in the cheese for bone repair.” An entire cake worth of calories should look good padding my ass next week.

“Calcium
is
important.”

“It is.” You’ve gotta love a man who understands a woman’s need to gorge cake. “I rebooked our flights for tomorrow. An aisle seat’s the best I could get for broken leg room of a near giant.”

In the taxi, Tyreal’s cell phone rang. He squirmed and shuffled to pull it out of his jeans pocket. “Tyreal here. Tony, hi. Yep still limping. In the trunk, wrapped in a sheet.” Seconds passed. Tyreal’s face froze. “Hell. Yeah … yeah. Thanks man.” Tyreal hung up and slumped further into the corner of the taxi and stared at me.

“We’re fucked, Princess.”

“Why? What happened now?” Surely nothing more could happen to us on this case. Nobody has luck that rotten.

“The painting’s gone. When Tony turned up at the car impound two hours ago, the car was missing. Our boys in blue found it six blocks from the yard, trunk jimmied open, empty.”

“No painting?”

“Nope.”

For a second everything went static, like television without a broadcast.
Schschschschsch
Oops signal back on. “Motherfuckingasshole Sasha.” Our luck wasn’t rotten it was putrid.

“No ransom note?” Okay getting a bit desperate here, but it was worth asking.

“Nothing in the trunk, except for two face masks, two skull caps, two pairs of black gloves, a hammer and a crowbar. Good thing that doesn’t look incriminating.”

Errrrr
. “Tony didn’t ask about those?”

“I think he didn’t want to know. Could be Josey who took the painting.”

“Nope. Sasha.” I stomped my foot on the floor. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “I just know it. Bet your family jewels, Sasha drove the yellow car that crashed into us. And he’d hoped to get the painting worth gazillions and kill me all in one accident. Good thing I don’t die easily.”

“My nuts again. I have to make you more appreciative of my anatomy.”

I stared pointedly at his leg. “I like my men more limber.”

“Cast is only from my knee down. Knee still bends.” He flashed his life transforming smile, flexed his leg, went pale, threw his hand onto his thigh and gripped it tight. Through gritted teeth, he gasped, “Might need a few days first, but I will heal.”

My giggle turned into a high pissed off squeak. With a tight fist I pounded the seat. It felt so good I did it again. If physically possible, I’d have tossed myself on the taxi’s floor and thrown a big fat tantrum.

Sometimes even complete and utter failure doesn’t really compute, unfortunately, my inner CPU chip ran smooth. Sasha and Josey held in their clutches the Rembrandt, the Rubens and my chance of a bigger farm upgrade. Every atom in my body screamed, hunt the bastards and steal back our treasures, but I couldn’t work out how we’d chase and fight evil people.

One creature turns itself into smoke, visits his sister and blows up her appliances, while he rotted in jail?

The other
thing
looked to have lived for at least a hundred and sixty years, turned into a monster and could blast out some sort of evil black mist.

What
creature could do these things?

Beings far more powerful than I. Even if I went super-hero. Being a lowly relatively normal human I doubted I’d be victorious. I’d end up eating dirt. After I was dead and buried.

And how was Sasha a monster thing and yet also my twin? Sure we weren’t identical, he was better looking, taller but, we’d still shared DNA and a womb. I blew out a big who-the-heck-knows snort and while processing it all, had a little mental seizure.

I had no one to ask. Family wise, Sasha was all I had left. The rest were dead. My family and generations past seemed prone to catastrophic accidents or to finding themselves at the wrong end of a dark alley. My parents had died in a car accident. The car’s accelerator jammed, and they’d driven into a brick wall, with Sasha and I strapped into our baby safety seats in the back. At seven days old, Sasha and I’d ended up in full body casts.

I mulled over different scenarios and ideas for hunting the two paintings, waiting for an epic epiphany, but we were screwed. As much as defeat sucks, we were incapable of hunting creatures of evil that we didn’t even have a name for.

“I’ll call Claudia and tell her we can’t find the painting. We’re not chasing this anymore. This ends.” I had a bad feeling if we continued Tyreal, or I, would be killed. I didn’t want to die. I had animals to care for and more to save. And being the cause of Tyreal’s death would give me that bad karma I’d worried about when I thought I’d killed that old lady outside the cemetery.

Being reborn as a dung beetle, eating and pushing balls of shit around, didn’t appeal. Not in any life. Unless I found fame in a documentary filmed with David Attenborough. David Attenborough was way cool.

I found Tyreal watching me. “So, Princess, what’s the plan?”

I’d shrug, but it would involve moving neck and shoulder muscles. Already glassy eyed, I didn’t need to scoff any more pain killers. “We have the house and antiques to sell. We can concentrate on those until our assorted injuries heal. I already have several buyers interested in the dining table and chairs. Selling those should tide us over and pay for the start-up renovations on the house.”

“What about your other cases?”

“There’s a few where I’m waiting for things to arrive so we can start doing some cyber searching. Then Claudia will pay for services rendered. We won’t starve.” Thank God for the person who first thought of charging a daily retainer.

“So, cup half full?”

“Has to be. Back at the hotel, I plan on it being half full of scotch because I’ve already guzzled the other half.”

“I’m with you on that one.”

#

The next day, I couldn’t wait to get home and have a long soak in the bath and just to zone out for a few hours or days. I wanted to be alone and planned on reading a book or six.

I drove Tyreal’s SUV from Brisbane’s airport. Once I hit the Gateway arterial road, I headed for the Bruce Highway and settled in for a cruisey quiet drive. Tyreal turned to me.

“Are you going to share with me how you glowed white and your brother turned to mist?”

He probably shouldn’t hold his breath. “I didn’t glow white.” Don’t grow nose, don’t grow. “And the mist—well that shit’s bizarre.” Didn’t know why, didn’t know how, and didn’t want to know. On some matters, the old monkeys covering their ears, mouths, and eyes make total sense.

“A white gold aura surrounded you and you had gold wings.”

“You’d had a lot of painkillers, probably saw all sorts of crazy shit.”

His chest rose and fell in a big heave. “Look at me”

“Hey, I’m driving. I need to focus on the road.” Really, I did.

“Bullshit, Princess.”

Cubic feet of it. “Oh for shit’s sake. I mean, where are those wings now?” I’d like someone to share about the wings too. “Light apparition. Shame, flying would be cool.” I could rock wing-bling like that.

“So you’re saying everything I saw was an optical illusion?”

“What else? Nobody glows or has wings.”

“Those wings, Princess, I’ve seen them on you before. The day we met, when you saved that old lady and the night you thought Sasha harmed your animals.”

I owl blinked at him a few times, thought of who-whoing and scowled. “I can’t see how.”

“Me either, but now I’ve seen them three times.”

“Why didn’t you say something the other times?” I could have checked them out myself.

“Figured I’d wait to see what happened, wait for you to tell me about them.”

“I’m really just pretty normal.”

“You with wings and a brother that turns into mist. Tell me
that’s
normal?”

#

At home, in the guest parking area, Luke’s black V8 Ford was parked alongside Baiden’s silver Nissan erection on wheels. Luke dressed in age softened jeans and a
save the whales
t-shirt I’d bought him six months ago, walked out the front door.

His longish golden sun bleached from surfing hair shone. Luke hit the driver’s door and opened it. “Babe.” He leaned down and kissed me, but I pulled my head sideways so he got my cheek.

Why was he here?

His green-blue gaze zeroed onto my new cast, my busted up face and obvious stiff sitting position. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Car crash. Broken arm and ribs.”

“You’ve got to stop this habit of breaking bones. If you want drugs that badly go next door, less painful.”

I went to shrug but stopped as it made my head ache. “I wasn’t expecting you here.” As far as I was concerned we were over. He’d taken our perfectly good friends with benefits sex life and destroyed it by wanting a relationship. He obviously did not understand the concept behind the phrase.