Page 23 of Soothsayer

“And I didn’t see the first one coming any more than I saw the last one,” I replied. “Can you sew me up?”

“This is my civilian med kit, man. I don’t have the stuff for that.”

“Butterfly bandages, then.” I didn’t care, as long as it stopped the bleeding.

“We’re cleaning this first.” He did, and it was excruciating. I barely noticed him take a sliver of glass out of my neck or wipe blood off my face.

“You need to get a hotel room and sleep for a while.”

That roused me out of my stupor quick enough. “No, no time. I need to get Sören out of the city as soon as possible. You might just want to drop your Tesla at a body shop, because it’s likely they’ll try to track it.”

“I know how to hide from people,” Andre said, rather enigmatically. “And I know when someone’s had it, and you’ve had it. You need rest.”

Oh, it was adorable how mother hens just seemed to fall into my life. “I can’t stay here because it’s a danger to you andyour family, and I can’t stay in a hotel because I’m carting an unbreathing body around and getting him inside with me would be rather difficult. I need space, is what I need. And”—I took a deep breath—“your car.”

“My what?” Andre looked blankly at me for a long moment before he started swearing. “Oh, fuck no, you’re not taking my Electra, and I don’t care how you beg. You can rent something.”

“No, I can’t, no time. Butyoucan rent something.” I bent over—more than a little woozy, but at least I didn’t fall—and pulled out a roll of cash. “Here. Two grand.” I tried to hand it to Andre, but he just stared at me, so I set it on the counter next to the first aid kit instead. “This should be enough to cover some work on your ride and the cost of a rental for a few days. Tell your wife someone rear-ended you so you had to send it in to the shop, and you let an old army buddy borrow the Buick. It isn’t a great car for someone with a baby, anyway.”

“You’re a goddamn piece of work,” Andre muttered. “Are you serious?”

“Serious as a heart attack. C’mon.” I nudged the cash again. “Take it. I know you know someone who can do that kind of work. They’re just bullet holes. It’s not like the structural integrity of the car is compromised.”

“Jesus Christ.” He cast his gaze up, sighed, and then looked at me again. “I want that car back. She’s a 1975 Buick Electra. I just got the power windows working, and I was about to start on priming her.”

“I’ll get it back to you.”

“Her. You call her Electra, ’cause she’s a lady who’s doing you a favor, carting you and your pasty not-dead guy around.”

“Whatever you say.” He could have asked me to worship his car and I would have looked for an appropriate sacrifice at this point. “Do you mind moving Sören to the trunk?”

Andre threw his hands up in the air.

“What? It’s not like I can do it, and your windows aren’t tinted. The last thing I need is a curious cop catching a glimpse of the backseat.”

“I’ll move him,” Andre said at last. “You get dressed, and for god’s sake, drink some water. You’re dehydrated and you’ve lost too much blood.”

“Sure thing.” Andre left, and I eased myself into a fresh button-down shirt, grabbed a couple of my pills, and headed to the sink. I turned on the faucet and drank straight from the source, washed down my medicine, and wished for something stronger than water. It tasted good, though, like it was filling a void I’d been ignoring, and I supposed I had. I sat back down and took stock.

I was out of ammunition. I was out a significant amount of cash, although I still had some in reserve. I was healthy enough, but Andre was right—I was running on fumes. I had maybe four, five hours left in me before I crashed unless I took something more stimulating than coffee, and with the meds I was on, I didn’t think I could afford to do that. I had the Egilsson family searching for me and I’d potentially compromised my only contact in this city, but I had a car. I had my phone with all of my contacts in it.

And I had Sören, who might not be breathing but was definitely alive. Overall, I’d say the balance was in my favor.

Chapter Thirteen

It took for fucking ever to get out of Chicago. Seriously, I don’t know how they evencalledit all Chicago. It was like, “Oh, the city center!” and then hours’ worth of suburbs before the highway suddenly spit me out into farmland. I could smell the cow shit from here, and it was not lovely.

I would stand out like a five-alarm fire in one of these little farming towns, not that I expected the Egilsson family to be on my tail quite yet. Still, Andre was right. I needed to sleep, and that meant I needed to stop for a while. Sören was safe in the trunk—shit, and I hated that he was stuffed back in the trunk, but there really wasnogood way to explain the functional equivalent of a corpse to someone if they happened to look inside.

I pulled off the highway and headed east, from a double-lane paved road to single lanes, and finally stopped beneath a cottonwood on the side of a dirt road that looked neglected. My arm ached like I’d shoved my fingers directly into the wound andrummaged around in there. I could feel my exhaustion threaten to swamp my brain, but I had a few things to do before I could recline the seat and sleep. I pulled out my phone. Marisol got the first call.

“What on earth is happening with you?” she demanded before I could say a word. “I did a card spread for you, and they were nothing but swords, everything discord and upheaval! There are news reports about a gunfight in a hotel in Chicago. Was that you?”

My heart rate picked up dramatically. “Are there any clear pictures?” One family of maniacs I could probably evade, but my chances went way down if the regular police force got involved.

“No. Not that they’re showing on the TV, at least. What did you do?”

“I got Sören. It was just…a little more complicated than I’d imagined it would be.”

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