An Easy Death Read online

  It was just barely possible my uncle and my tough little cousin would send someone after us for revenge, but I doubted it. Felicia was too little, Sergei was too afraid, and they were too poor. If I were them, I’d just be glad I was gone.

  Sergei might decide he’d try to sell the girl to me, persuade her she’d have a great adventure in the Holy Russian Empire. That would be more in character. But Felicia seemed pretty damn stubborn. I wasn’t worried about dealing with them, if we did.

  Our real danger lay in the other camp of grigoris. If there were any left, and I hoped there weren’t, they’d be searching Juárez for us now. Maybe, before we killed him, the head guy had already called for reinforcements. After all, the rate of attrition was high. And we hadn’t traced them to Belinda Trotter, whose role in this I surely didn’t understand.

  Eli glanced at me out of the corner of his eye as he pulled on his pants. I thought he felt a little shy. That was kind of funny, because he’d seen me upside, downside, and from every angle.

  “Did you know the circumstances of your birth all along?” Eli asked.

  That was the last thing I’d expected to hear. “Pretty much, because other people were always pointing it out to me.”

  Eli looked shocked.

  “Yeah, kind, huh? So I learned pretty early what ‘bastard’ meant, and even ‘half-breed.’ But my grandparents held their heads up, my mom became a teacher and held her head up, and I learned to hold my head up, too. And when I grew up, I took care of the problem.”

  Eli shook his head, his long hair sliding along his shoulders. It looked good, and I had to yank my mind back to the conversation. “Did you ever think about talking to him, asking him . . . anything? For example, if he’d known about you?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “I never did. My mom would have told me if she’d let him know she had a bun in the oven.” If there was one person in the world I trusted, it was my mother.

  “It is a wonder you could stand to do all this,” he said, kind of waving his hand at the bed, “with a wizard. After that.”

  “I think it’s pretty amazing myself. But at the moment it was what we needed to do. Right?”

  “Yes, very much.” Eli turned away to tie his boots, but he was smiling. He seemed more at ease. It came to me that Eli had felt uncomfortable because he’d been so personal with me . . . and yet he didn’t know me very well. So he’d felt obliged to learn my life’s history.

  I’d thought he already knew most of it. It wasn’t like there’d been a lot.

  I didn’t feel the same obligation to read the book of Eli. I had been learning Eli the whole trip. I didn’t need to know his favorite color. I did need to know if I could trust him. Knowing what his dick looked like did not change that.

  By the time we’d repacked, and I’d put on the skirt again—it looked surprisingly clean, and I’d traded the blood-speckled blouse for one of my shirts—we needed to eat. The desk clerk was surprised to see us walk out the door, since Eli had made him forget us. But he was a practical man, and distinctly relieved that we looked respectable—if mismatched. Eli told him we were keeping the room another night and paid up front. And then Eli spelled him to forget what we looked like.

  In the street we looked around carefully. Eli finally seemed as alert as I could ever wish. He even remembered to check the roofline. It was a relief to notice Eli was not the only tall, fair person in the vicinity. We were at the edge of as well-to-do an area as this city could boast. Here, at least, Ciudad Juárez had a sizeable mixed population of Anglos and Mexicans.

  The sun hadn’t yet reached scorch level, so people were still moving at a fairly brisk pace. There was an open-air restaurant on the next corner, canvas stretched between poles to form an awning, with the kitchen at the rear. We sat at a free table right by the kitchen so we’d be less visible. There was a gun in my lap, hidden by the table. I carried what could pass for a woman’s handbag, and it was open, with my favorite knife hilt-up. The waiter appeared promptly, not blinking an eye at us, and we ordered everything we could think of. The orange juice was wonderful, and I got a second glass. We had eggs and toast and bacon. It was as peaceful a meal as any I’d eaten with Eli. It was also no place to talk about anything important. We concentrated on the food and on keeping a lookout. This must be what deer felt like, I thought, when they were drinking at a stream.

  When our plates were clean, we were still alive. Just in case someone had spotted us eating, I stepped out into the open first. I had to shove Eli back. Apparently, now that we were bed buddies, he felt he should take the risks. I shook my head, trying not to look angry. “My job,” I said, and he let me take the lead.

  We also got back to the hotel without dying.

  It was going to be that kind of day. Brushed my teeth, didn’t die. Stepped outside, didn’t get shot. Ate breakfast, didn’t get poisoned. Got in our hotel, nobody waiting.

  We were in the hotel room, the door shut, as private as we were going to get, before I took a deep breath. Now that we were back at the scene of our mutual crime, Eli was having trouble starting the conversation. He didn’t know whether to suggest another go-round, whether to pretend it hadn’t happened, or whether to tell me how much he respected me. I was not so conflicted. I wanted to get out of this place.

  “Do you want to try to buy another car or do you want to catch the train?” I asked.

  Eli relaxed visibly. I don’t know if he’d expected me to drop to a knee and propose, or what.

  I wouldn’t have minded having a day with only fun stuff to do. We could have sex (more). I could braid his hair. I could find a dress to wear that was actually pretty. I could wash my clothes. Eli could charge his magical batteries, or whatever grigoris did to refresh themselves. But that wasn’t going to happen, because I didn’t think we had the time. Getting out of Ciudad Juárez alive was more important.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Buying another car would be better,” Eli said slowly. He looked at me, waiting to see if I agreed. I tried to look encouraging. “On a train we’d be trapped,” he said.

  We’d be a little more trapped. “Okay,” I said. “And when we get a car, where are we going?”

  “North out of Mexico, any way we can,” Eli said. No doubt about that at all. “The quickest way we can, that’s not the obvious way. When we get to a telephone, I have to make a long phone call to my superior in the order. Then they’ll send someone to escort me back to San Diego, probably my mentor, Dmitri Petrov.” He brightened.

  Because, obviously, he’ll be safer with another grigori than with me. I felt all the muscles around my mouth get stiff. “Eli, you live in a different world than me,” I said. He looked confused. “How do you know whoever they send won’t be on the other side? How long do you think you’ll live?”

  Eli was shocked. My heart sank when I realized this had never occurred to him . . . though people in that same organization had been trying to kill him over and over for a week. “Master Petrov would never harm me,” he said, but he didn’t sound any real sure. “He loved Paulina. She was his first protégée.” That, Eli was sure of.

  “So all the grigoris we’ve killed, including the people they hired, starting with Josip while we were still in Segundo Mexia . . . they have nothing to do with your Master Petrov? Don’t even know him?”

  “Why . . . ?”

  “Jesus, Eli, someone had to tell them you love your little brother. Someone had to say, ‘Go take a gander at that kid. If you make the corpse look like Peter, Eli will take the bait.’ ”

  Eli was looking at me, but he wasn’t seeing me. “That makes sense,” he said, and his voice made me sad. Older, grimmer.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. Mostly. “This is hard for you. But you got to get this straight.” I looked at his face and pondered.

  Eli hadn’t mentioned two important items. What he intended to do about my valuable blood . . . and when he intended to finish paying me. That wasn’t on the top of my list of thin
gs to worry about—but it should have been.

  I tried to imagine killing Eli and taking the money from the car sale. My problems would be solved. No one in Segundo Mexia would think twice if I said the grigoris had gone back to San Diego. In fact, hardly anyone would blink if I said I’d shot Paulina and Eli along the way to Ciudad Juárez. They’d be sure I’d had provocation.

  That raised another question. Did anyone back at grigori headquarters, whatever it was called, know I’d gone on this trip with Eli and Paulina? The two might have reported in without me knowing it. In fact, that seemed real likely. I’d be pegged as the killer for sure. But there was no way to ask Eli, By the way, does anyone know we’re together? without being pretty obvious.

  I knew already that I couldn’t kill Eli unless he was trying to kill me. I was wasting my time considering it. And that bothered me. I should have been determined to watch out for myself. Eli and I weren’t tied to each other, like Tarken and I had been. We weren’t bonded by family, or town, or profession. We didn’t have the same religion or the same language, even. Plus, he was a grigori. The only person I’d ever deliberately hunted down and killed had been a grigori.

  I wondered if Eli could kill me. He had the ability, but did he have the will? There was a lot I didn’t know about him still.

  Eli made a little throat-clearing sound, and I knew I’d been looking at him for a long time, thinking my thoughts, not satisfied with them. “Are you angry with me?” he said.

  “Angry?” After a second I understood what he meant. “How could I be angry? That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”

  He grinned. “Yes, it was great.” He looked kind of proud—totally guy.

  To my disgust, I found that kind of cute. “We’re going to get out of this,” I said, almost at random. I wasn’t sure we’d both get out alive, though. “I’m thinking of ways to do that.”

  We’d have to find another car dealer, but that was the smallest of our problems. If selling the previous car had been complicated, getting another one would be even more so. I tried to make up a story that would be credible to a car dealer if I went in by myself. Not too many single women in Mexico could buy any vehicle, and of those few, not many would. Cars and trucks were almost exclusively men’s territory. It crossed my mind to track down Señor Reyas again . . . but then he’d know too much of our business, and I didn’t want to have to kill him.

  I explained all this to Eli, who was sitting in the cane chair while I sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m trying to think if you could do it,” I said. “Not that you couldn’t manage it, of course. I’m just worried about raising suspicion or being noticed.”

  “There were lots of other gringos around this morning,” he said.

  “At least you don’t have the tattoos on your face,” I said. “Can you disguise yourself? With magic?”

  “I’ve never tried.” Eli looked excited, like I’d thrown down a challenge. I stayed quiet while he thought and (I guess) rummaged around in his mental magic chest to find the tools necessary.

  First he became a dog. I laughed my ass off. But that appearance didn’t hold long. He became the woman he’d left the bag with the previous day. That lasted a little longer. Then he tried being the proprietor of the hotel in Mil Flores, Jim Comstock. That appearance he could stick with. It made me a little queasy, watching all this, and thinking that part of this man had been inside me. He could have turned it into something else.

  I shook myself. It was no time to think of that. In fact, I should never think of that.

  When Eli had held on to Jim Comstock’s appearance for five minutes, I was sure we had something good. Though it made me feel awful antsy, sending Eli in to negotiate made sense. I rehearsed him about what the dealer would expect: extensive haggling, criticism of the car, and so on.

  Eli nodded (he was himself for now). He’d listened intently, and he was no fool. For all I knew, they offered and counteroffered all the time in the HRE.

  “What will you be doing while I’m getting the car?” Eli was pocketing the money we’d gotten from selling the Tourer.

  That was a good question. “I’ll walk through this neighborhood to see if I can spot any more grigoris. Could they possibly know me? Do they know, back at your headquarters or whatever you call it, that you’ve got a young female gunnie?” I kept every scrap of urgency out of my voice.

  “No,” he said. “I was the one who called them to tell them we were on our way to Juárez, that we had a lead, and we had hired a guide and bodyguard. I didn’t specify further than that.”

  I was really, really relieved. “That makes it easier for me to keep an eye out,” I said. “Since everyone who saw me with you . . .”

  “Is dead.”

  “Just about.” No way around that. Eli didn’t look like he thought anything real suspicious about my remark.

  When I really examined my skirt, flattening it out by the window, I found a bloodstain that had been hidden by the folds. It was unmistakable. Eli promptly went out to one of the little stalls and got me replacements for the whole outfit—including a new hat, so I wouldn’t be covered with kerchiefs. The new skirt, which fell to the middle of my calves, was patterned in white and red, the blouse was sleeveless and white, and the hat was broad brimmed, natural straw color. He’d gotten sandals, too, which would help me blend in better. Everything fit well enough.

  “Thank you,” I said, after a quick glance in the small mirror.

  “You look pretty,” Eli said, almost shyly, and then he left on his errand.

  I was out the door shortly after Eli, locking the door behind me and stopping at the front desk to tell the clerk that we didn’t want the room cleaned. I had too many guns for the taste of most innkeepers, and we might get thrown out.

  The clerk looked very confused. I had to remind myself that Eli kept making him forget us.

  It felt good to get out and walk free, and it felt good to stop worrying for a few minutes. I didn’t spot a single grigori, and I didn’t feel the presence of any. On the other hand, I did see my friend Chauncey Donegan.

  Last time I’d seen Chauncey, he’d told me he’d been guarding Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Penn.

  I thought it was real odd that the two Britannians were nowhere to be seen.

  I wasn’t with my charge, either. But I had the feeling I’d gotten when my mother took me to the river when I was little. I’d waded out into the shallows, on the stones worn smooth with the passage of the water and slick with slime, and the next step I’d slid into a deep hole that had been hidden from sight.

  Cee hadn’t seen me yet, or maybe he hadn’t recognized me in my skirt and sandals. I stepped into the open doorway of a jewelry shop that had just opened. I stared down at a turquoise necklace while the shop owner began to tell me how much handwork had gone into it, and how beautiful I’d be with it around my neck. I smiled and nodded, but I was thinking hard.

  Running across Cee here again, that was a real strange coincidence. Meeting him earlier on this trip, that could happen to any two people in the same profession. It was even especially likely in Mexico, where affluent gringos often traveled with someone who knew how to shoot.

  I was clean out of the ability to trust two coincidences in a row.

  I turned down the necklace with regret and drifted away from Cee. The best way to get someone to not notice you is to not look at him. And the best way to do that was to be sure he was behind me. As I poked along, stopping to purchase a cheap shopping bag and buying a batch of tortillas to put in it, I thought over our encounter in the bar. Had the men he’d identified as his employers ever acknowledged him? No. But he’d told me they didn’t hold him in high regard . . . maybe so I would not be surprised if they didn’t nod or speak to him. Was Cee more clever than I’d ever given him credit for being?

  That didn’t seem likely, yet the evidence was before me.

  When a hand clamped down on my shoulder, it was all I could do not to turn and stab. My hand was on my knife. But whe
n I did glance over my shoulder, trying to look only as indignant as any other woman touched by a stranger, I saw Eli. Who still looked like someone else, but I knew it was him. “¡Hola!” I said, and gave him a kiss. I knew Eli was taller than his illusion, but I had to kiss the mouth of the illusion, right? It was so weird. “Mi corazón,” I said fondly, and wrapped my arms around what should have been his waist.

  “I completed my mission. And someone’s watching us?” Thank God Eli was smart.

  “Yes, mi hombre viril,” I murmured. “You remember the old friend I saw in the saloon where we had dinner?”

  Eli nodded, smiling down at me.

  “I spotted him just now, so he’s on our trail. I don’t know if those two Britannians were really his bosses, or if he just pointed them out to make his being in Mexico more believable.”

  “What had we better do?”

  “We had better get back to our room as soon and as quietly as we can. Then we can talk.”

  Eli, wearing his illusion, and I, wearing a skirt and a big hat, made it back and hightailed it up to our room. Where we took off our clothes as fast as we could and had sex, bang-the-wall sex. He looked like him, and I looked like me.

  “That was the best feeling I’ve ever had,” he said with a gasp, rolling over onto his back.

  “Yes,” I said. I was in complete agreement. We lay for maybe five minutes in contented silence before dragging ourselves back to the real world and our real problems.

  “What do you think will happen if no direct descendant of Rasputin can be found? Besides me, I mean. That is, do you think the blood Alexei needs has to be Rasputin’s blood?”

  “We certainly tried a lot of other peoples’,” he said. His voice was very dry. “And none of it made the tsar recover except for Rasputin’s. When we could see the monk was fading, we tried the blood of his oldest child, Daniel. It worked. And that gave us hope. But then Daniel died.”

  “What happened to him?”