Page 61 of Spring's Arcana
His laugh was more of a bark now, and his nose twitched. “Oh, man,” he wheezed when the chuckles stopped. “You’re a damn comedian, too. I’ll tell you something, then, since you so funny.”
Great. “Go ahead.”
“That horsethief will kill you if he can, buffalo girl. But a lot of others will do worse. You’re nice and young and tender.”
I was a teenage girl in America, you think I don’t know that?“So staying with Dmitri is for my own protection?”Just like a battered girlfriend. Great.
Coyote found that funny. At least, he laughed again, tipped his hat like a cowboy once more too, and did an about-face. He strode from the Elysium’s bar like he had somewhere to be, and right before he went through the smoked-glass doors he capered a little, dancing to music nobody else could hear.
Nat watched him go in the mirror, and it felt like everyone in the bar was looking at her now. Maybe they were, and if someone else wanted to come up and give a bunch more cryptic pronouncements or threats, now was as good a time as any.
But nobody did. The bartender glided back in front of her, a smooth motion like he was on rails. “Another vodka, please,” Nat said, even though the first one was still stinging her throat and she should probably have something solid. Drinking on an empty stomach was bad for you, or so Leo said even though he did it at least once a week.
“Yes, ma’am.” The marble-eyes didn’t roll in their sockets, and the saloonkeeper’s movements were just as robotic as ever.
One more, and then go to bed. It wouldn’t do to skip dinneranddrink all night. But Nat wondered if taking a bottle up to your room was allowed.
It might be the only way to get some sleep.
GODSAKE
She wasn’t hungover, at least. Nat woke in a wide white Elysium bed, blinking against winter sunlight sharp as a thin yellow ceramic blade, the gas insert’s fire pale and anemic but still hiss-devouring fuel and oxygen. The empty vodka bottle stood stiff and formal on the nightstand, and it was no brand she’d ever heard of, its label so faded from condensation and age it was just a rag of glued paper clinging to embossed glass.
It was nice to take a shower without worrying about the hot water running out for Leo or Mom, nice to poke at the white plastic coffee machine with its self-contained pods in fantastical flavors, and she was considering the prospect of breakfast when a thundering series of knocks on the door between her room and the gangster’s brought her out into the suite’s sitting room in a heart-thumping rush.
“Openup,” he growled, and it sounded like he was as bad-tempered as Mom on Saturday mornings, when child-Nat wanted someone to turn on the balky old television for cartoons.
Nat folded her bare arms, staring at the white door with its golden lever-handle. Facing down Dmitri in her soft yellow pyjama tank top and boxers wasnoton the menu today.
Another thundering series of knocks, but he didn’t just bust in. Maybe he couldn’t?
Her heart was in her throat.
“Eh,zaika!Open the fuck up!”
“No.” Her throat was dry, so she had to clear it and pitch her voice loudly enough to carry. The coffee machine made a soft seriesof beeps; she’d chosen a French vanilla pod. Maybe they’d charge her double for it. “No,” she repeated. “I haven’t even had coffee. Cut it out.”
A crackling, dangerous silence pressed against the door. It groaned slightly, and she wondered if he was about to simply break it down.
All the same, Mom was lying in a hospice bed miles to the east, waiting for Nat to save her. She shouldn’t be sleeping past dawn. She shouldn’t have agreed to stopping last night, either.
With that cheerful thought pulling up her shoulders and settling like an icy bowling ball in her stomach, she crossed the room and yanked on the little golden handle. The door swung wide, almost hitting her, and she jumped nervously back, bare feet slipping on thick green carpet.
“I’ll be ready in—” Words failed her, and she stared.
Dmitri’s face was discolored, bruises puffing over both dark eyes and a slice along his cheekbone. The bruising spread down his neck and across his muscled, tattoo-writhing shoulders; he was in a black tank top and a pair of well-worn jeans, his forearms a mass of scrapes and cuts and his knuckles scabbed.
In short, he looked like he’d been put through a meat grinder, and Nat’s jaw dropped.What the hell?
“Smells like coffee.” He pushed past her, one bare shoulder almost striking hers, and the room behind him was almost too dark to see a rumpled bed, heavy red draperies, and a knee-high pall of clinging smoke that didn’t smell like burned wood or tobacco. The smog trailed into clear air just before her door, and she caught a glimpse of a broad black leather couch crouching at an angle before there was a click and a sigh behind her.
He’d lit one of his incense-smelling cigarettes and ambled into the bedroom, heading for the small counter with the coffeemaker. “Sleep well?” He exhaled a cloud of thin grayish vapor and bent to look at the stream of coffee falling placidly into a pretty white mug. His back was a raw mass of injuries, tattoos vanishing under slices, scrapes, contusions, scabs, and one particularly nasty gash running diagonally from his left shoulder to right hip.
“Are you all right?” She flinched in sympathy as some of thescabs cracked; he glanced over his shoulder, not even bothering to wince. “What happened?”
“Oh,zaika,it almost like you care. Just had some fun, that’s all. Storm’s gone, we drive fast today.” He grabbed the mug as soon as the machine finished, and slurped at it while he drifted to the window.
“Did it… the guy in the bar last night said other people are after it too. The Heart.” Nat found she was hugging herself, cupping her elbows in her palms. “Was that it? Are they after you? Did you get into a fight, or—” It was probably that Ring thing. She was even more glad she’d turned downthatlittle entertainment.
