My heart plunged into my gut. “You think…?”
“Better to be safe than sorry. Come get me when you’re ready to leave.”
Tre was settled on a bar stool, sipping a to-go cup of sweet tea when I finished my close-up duties. Nikka said goodnight and headed out the front. I locked up behind her and clenched my keys in my fist. “Ready to go?” I asked.
Tre stood and followed me through the bar, into the storage room, and out to the alleyway behind the building. I had climbed halfway up the staircase to my apartment before realizing Tre wasn’t behind me. I turned around, intending to ask him about the hold up, and found him crumpled at the foot of the stairs. Something cold and hard crawled up my throat. I covered my mouth before a scream escaped. Realizing panic was useless, I swallowed my fear and stiffened my shoulders. Something was coming for me, something undoubtedly bad, and I had to be ready for it.
Before I could descend the stairs, a man stepped from the shadows into the glow of the Stefanakises’ backdoor light and crouched over Tre’s limp body.
Ice water chilled my veins, but fire simmered beneath the surface of my skin. “Rolf,” I said, “or whoever you really are…”
Rolf stood, looked up at me, and smiled. “I’m of no consequence. I am merely a pawn, like you.”
“Helen sent you?”
He shrugged.
“How did you find me?”
“You’ve been very clever. I’m sure if I was merely a mortal, your attempt at anonymity might have been successful. But we are not human, are we? And the gods have their ways.”
“Where’s Helen?”
Rolf shook his head and stepped forward. “You’ll see her soon enough.”
I raised a hand and let my fire erupt around it. I kept the other hand, the one clutching my key ring, behind my back. “Don’t come any closer.”
“No?” Rolf sneered at my measly fireball. “And what are you going to do with that?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Convert yourself into a star again? Lose yourself for another month?”
My heart seized up like a piston without oil. “H-how do you know about that?”
Rolf laughed. “I know everything, Solina. I remember everything. There is nothing that happens outside my knowledge.”
“Then tell me where I went,” I said, challenging him. “Tell me where I was for that four weeks. Who was I? What was I?”
“You were Sol. You were her essence, the pure power that is her soul.”
“How did I come back?”
Rolf shrugged and stepped closer, moving around Tre’s lifeless body. “It’s not important.”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“I just said I know everything. I didn’t say I would share all the secrets of the world with you. I am not here to be your tutor; I am here to take you to Helen.”
“Not without a fight.” I made my way down the stairs, fast but cautious. Tripping or falling meant losing the fight before it started.
My fire flickered in Rolf’s eerie eyes. The light reflected on his gleaming teeth. He looked demonic and possessed by evil. “This should be fun,” he said.
“You need to find a new definition of fun.” I lowered into a fighting stance, ready to hit, hit, hit. Strike, strike, strike. Kick, claw, bite, anything to defend myself and prevent him taking me to Helen. Or at least make him think I was ready to fight.
“I know the secret for dealing with you,” Rolf said. “If I avoid you long enough, you’ll burn out, and I’ll take you when you’re exhausted and vulnerable.”
“I don’t plan on giving you the chance to wait that long.” I lunged forward, aiming a kick for his knee.
Rolf danced aside and laughed. “Ha ha, Solina! You weren’t joking.”
I gave him no time to reassess but brought out my other hand, the one holding my key ring, the ring on which I kept a tiny can of pepper spray. Misdirection was not a technique reserved solely for the use of magicians. Pickpockets, con artists, and smart women fighting for their lives depended on it, too. I thumbed the pepper spray’s trigger and pointed it at Rolf. The stream struck his face, and he screamed. Blinded and in obvious pain, he stumbled away. I dropped my keys, rekindled my fire, and attacked—kicking, hitting, yelling, burning. The pepper spray coating his hair and skin ignited. Rolf roared, and the scent of his charring flesh and hair filled the space between us.
I leaned in for another punch, but my fist met air. My ears popped as they did whenever the air pressure changed. The alley felt empty, devoid of Rolf’s animosity and ominous presence. I raised my flames higher, encouraging them to light the scene. The fire’s glow revealed nothing more than the still and silent figure of Tre, crumpled at the bottom of my stairs. I peered into the darkness overhead, searching for the dark figure of a man or a crow or anything out of the ordinary. Maybe Rolf had changed shape and appeared as that crow on my balcony, or perhaps he had other agents spying on me. Either way, he had disappeared, and the alley seemed empty except for me and the police officer at my feet.
I snuffed my fire, crouched beside Tre, and searched for a pulse in his neck. It thumped, slow and weak, beneath my fingertips. I blubbered in relief and dashed into the bar, where I grabbed a phone, called 9-1-1, and told the operator about the wounded police officer lying in an alley behind Stefanakis Spirits and Suds. Nikka kept a list of San Diego taxi companies by the phone so we could call a ride for our overindulgent patrons. I chose the first number on the list and told the dispatcher to have a driver pick me up at the diner down the street, the one where Nikka had bought me chocolate-chip waffles.
Before the ambulance and a whole throng of SDPD showed up and started asking questions I couldn’t answer, I raced up the stairs to my apartment and grabbed my prepacked tote bags. On my way out, I patted my ugly old couch. “Sorry, girl. Don’t think you’ll fit in the trunk, or I’d bring you along.”
Nikka deserved a call from me or a note, at least—some words of good-bye and thanks. If I didn’t tell her I was going, she couldn’t give a precise indication of when I had left if anyone thought to ask her.
Muddy the trail, Mundy. Skyla’s voice was urging me into action. Thinking of her made my heart hurt.
One tote bag slung over my shoulder, a duffle bag in one hand and another tote in the other, I started for the door and steeled my emotions against regret and disappointment. Damn Rolf Lockhart, whoever he is. Damn him and Helen and the entire Norse pantheon for screwing up a perfectly good life. I stifled another sob. Indulging in self-pity was a tempting but pointless waste of energy.
I passed Tre on the way out. He moaned and made an effort to move that ended in another painful groan. I felt like a humongous jerk for leaving him like that. Actually, jerk wasn’t a big enough word for how I felt. No word in my vocabulary properly conveyed my self-loathing at that moment.
