An Easy Death Page 24

  Eli looked at me, the shock clinging to his face, until gradually he began to absorb what I’d said. “How do you do it?” he said, shaking his head. “How do you kill so easily?”

  “Easy?” Now I was the one who was taken aback. “You think this is easy? No, no, no. It’s quick. But it’s not easy.”

  “Do you pay for this? Inside yourself?”

  “Eli, how do you feel when you take a life?”

  Eli didn’t answer in words, but he nodded after a moment.

  “I’m not lesser than you,” I said.

  But this is what I’m good at. This is my job. And I have standards.

  Eli still didn’t seem to be sure I’d done the right thing, but whether right or wrong, the thing was done. “They’ll come looking for her,” he said. “Whether or not she really was Klementina.”

  “If she was such a great wizard, why didn’t she stop me?”

  That seemed to hit Eli right between the eyes. “Why not?” he said very quietly, as if to himself. “Indeed.”

  And there was a knock outside. We hadn’t even heard footsteps. I was getting too involved with Eli’s feelings to do my job. I drew out my gun and pointed it at the door. Eli stood, took a deep breath, and readied his hands.

  We both stepped out of a direct line with the door. The body on the floor had not changed its form. A little doubt began to niggle at me. What if this really had been Klementina? But I pushed that little doubt down in the hold where it should be.

  “Who is it?” Eli’s voice was so quiet I almost asked him to repeat his words.

  But our new caller heard him just fine. “It’s Klementina, you idiot,” she said.

  Eli said a word I’d never heard him say before. He stepped to the door, grasped the knob and turned it, and stepped back, out of the line again.

  And Klementina, in the doorway, looked down at her dead self.

  “What an interesting situation,” she said. “Who killed me?”

  “I did. Do I need to do it again?”

  Klementina glanced at me. “I certainly hope not. You seem to have done a good job the first time. Who are you, young woman?”

  I didn’t speak. Eli needed to step in and do some work on this situation.

  “Klementina, what’s your code word?” Eli said.

  “Hot. But it’s a bad choice for April in Mexico.”

  There was a long moment where anything could happen.

  “Who’s on the other team?” I asked.

  The woman gave me a look that would have withered an apple. “As if I would tell you,” she said scornfully.

  “Tell me,” Eli said.

  For the first time the woman seemed to notice that Eli’s hands were at the ready. “As if you could defeat me,” she said, a little wonder in her voice.

  “Tell me.” He was not going to back down.

  Her gray brows drew together. “You’re serious.”

  Eli did not speak.

  She looked down at the body. Then she came into the room and shut the door behind her. “All right, I guess you have reason. Benjamin the Brit, Anna, Andrei, Evgenia, Peregrine, Belinda . . .”

  Paulina had been proof that there were English wizards in the Holy Russian Empire, driven there by the scorn and mockery of their countrymen, but I hadn’t known there were so many.

  “Belinda?” I said. “Would that be Belinda Trotter?”

  Klementina looked at me curiously. “She might go by that name. She’s a middle-aged woman, as nondescript as they come. Wears frumpy clothes.” She sat on the chair, the same one she’d been sitting on before I killed her. I shivered. “Why do you ask?” the old woman said.

  “This one”—and Eli nodded at the body—“didn’t know that. Didn’t know any of those names.”

  “So you killed her.” The real Klementina looked directly at me.

  “There have been people all along the way who weren’t who they looked like,” I said. “And I killed them, too. Though Eli and Paulina did their share.” I didn’t know what to make of this woman, but I knew she was scary.

  “Of course they did,” Klementina said, but she wasn’t thinking about the death-dealing excellence of her junior grigoris. She was still thinking about me, and I didn’t like it at all. Maybe I’d kill this Klementina, too. Killing the same person twice would be a real milestone. I dug my nails into my hand. My brain felt itchy, like this woman was trying to get inside my skull and rummage around. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I gave her stare for stare.

  Eli put his big hand on the old wizard’s thin shoulder. “Klementina,” he said, his voice hard. “Leave her be.”

  “Oh, have you found a sweetie?” she said, her voice dripping distaste.

  “She’s saved my life over and over,” Eli said. “When it would have been far easier for her to save herself and let us die.”

  The old wizard turned her eyes on him. “But my Paulina, my star, she did die.” Maybe that was what Eli had intended, to turn Klementina’s focus on himself. If so, I was grateful. The relief of being free of her gaze was like cool water on a dry throat.

  “Tell me about Paulina,” Klementina said. Ordered. She was telling Eli, so I got to stay out of it. I was on my feet, but it was an effort. That old bitch packed a punch without even reaching out a hand.

  This was the second time Eli had related our adventures to Klementina, and it was easy to think of something else. I kept watch, standing carefully to one side of the window.

  Right in the middle of Eli’s story, I saw Chauncey in the courtyard below.

  It was weirdly like seeing the false Klementina only a short time before. I waved my hand, and Eli’s voice came to a stop.

  “What is it, girl?” Klementina snapped.

  “Is this really my friend Chauncey, or is it someone else in his body?” If anyone could tell me, this old woman could.

  A backward glance told me she was mindful of that compliment. She rose and came to the window, and I made plenty of room for her. I did not want to touch her. When I stepped back, I was against Eli’s front, and I inched away to stand free. I was working.

  Klementina said, “I can’t tell.”

  I felt angry. And unhappy.

  “But that means I do know who’s behind this whole sabotage,” Klementina went on.

  That sounded promising. Knowing who the enemy was . . . that was a great step forward.

  “Who?” Eli didn’t sound like he’d been in suspense. And that was a big step backward. He sounded terrified.

  “Your father,” Klementina said.

  I could have smacked him with the butt of my gun, but I did not let my face change, because I knew the older wizard would see that. Eli was the only ally I had. I’d thought of him as a real young oak tree; he was a reed. But look what I’d done to him, led him on a wild-goose chase when I could have told him my father was dead and gone, and I was his best hope.

  And look where that had gotten me. Look at all the bodies that had piled up.

  I did not turn to look at Eli. When he spoke, he said, “I was afraid of that. But I could not believe he would sacrifice me. Gunnie, make me a promise.”

  “What’s that?” I was trying to follow this, but I was stunned.

  “If you ever see my father, kill him for me.”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  “He thinks his goals are for the good of the country,” Klementina said, strictly to Eli. Her voice wasn’t consoling, but her words were. Maybe.

  “He’s a traitor,” Eli said, and there was no give-and-take in this. “He owes fealty to the tsar. Anything else is treason.”

  “This is big news,” I said without any excitement or pleasure. “But it doesn’t solve the problem we have now at this instant, which is that a man I know is down there trying to find me and kill me or Eli, if we assume he’s following the pattern of the past few days. Chauncey’s got a kid, and I’d just as soon not have to kill him. Can he go back to his right mind?”

  Klementina gave
him another, longer look from the window. This time she had her eyes closed. “No. The damage to his brain is considerable.” Klementina didn’t have any give, either.

  Well, hell. “All right,” I said, leaving with Jackhammer and a knife.

  “Where are you going?” Klementina asked as I shut the door behind me.

  “She’s going to kill him,” Eli said, though I had to imagine the last two words, because I was moving quickly. I went up the steep attic stairs—not far from our room—unlocked the door at the top, and climbed onto the flat roof. The next building was jumping distance, and almost level with the hotel, so I leaped over. It was easy, even with the skirt. I went to the far corner of the building, which gave me a different shooting angle. Hopefully, it would not look like Chauncey had been killed from the roof of the little hotel. While I was aiming, a woman in her sixties emerged through a trapdoor, stepping out onto the roof, dragging a basketful of wash. I should have noticed the clotheslines. I could have blocked the door somehow.

  “What are you doing?” the woman asked with more curiosity than alarm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I hit her with the rifle butt. She went down like someone had cut her strings.

  I shook so much after that I had to wait a moment before I could take up my rifle. I blanked my mind out. It took a big effort, but I managed long enough to aim and fire.

  And then what was left of my friend Chauncey was gone.

  I do not remember going back across the roof and down the stairs to the second floor and going to our room. The two wizards were at the window, looking down into the courtyard. The body of the Klementina stand-in had changed to that of a woman, maybe thirty, with raven-dark hair. She was still dead. I squatted to check.

  “You need to do something with this,” I said. I stood, just looking at Klementina.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Klementina just sounded grumpy.

  “That was her friend she just shot,” Eli said, but he knew there was something more.

  Anyway, it was done, and it had had to be done, and I’d done it. Hitting the woman in the head was better than killing her, I told myself.

  “We have to get rid of this body,” Eli said.

  “Do you have any suggestions about that?” Klementina said.

  Eli glanced at me for ideas, but I didn’t say anything. The body had looked like Klementina, so it should be her problem, especially since she was supposed to be so all-fired amazing. Reluctantly I said, “Turn it into a sneak thief.”

  “I’ve never transformed a dead person,” she said as casually as I’d say I’d never eaten grapes. “Transformation is Eli’s father’s specialty, not mine.”

  “What’s your dad’s name?” I said, looking at Eli.

  “Vladimir Savarov,” he said, looking off to the side.

  “Prince Vladimir Savarov,” Klementina said, grinning at me. “Eli is Prince Ilya.”

  I held on to my temper with a desperate grip, but my fingers slipped.

  “Screw you all. I’m outta here,” I said, and picked up my stuff and headed to the door. Just to show I had no hard feelings, I gave Klementina the gunnies’ good-bye. “Easy death,” I told the old grigori.

  It was a great sound, that door shutting behind me.

  The skirt was dragging around my legs and after I draped the shawl over my head, it limited my side vision. I could hardly wait to wear my own clothes again.

  Now I had a whole heap of new problems. I had to figure out how I was going to get home. I had some money, courtesy of Eli—excuse me, Prince Ilya. I had more than enough for a train ticket. I’d seen a few train signs in my wanderings, so I knew the station wasn’t far.

  At least the problems I faced now were my own. For me to solve.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was possible Eli would try to catch up with me, but I figured he’d be too proud with Klementina watching him. After all, he was the son of a prince. I could feel my face pucker up. I was disgusted, angry. What a slum dweller I must have seemed to him. What a convenience. And I had been that close to trusting him.

  I got as far away from the hotel as I could, walking as quickly as I could walk, laden as I was with guns and the skirt and my small bag of clothes. I turned some corners sharply and waited to see if anyone else was following me, any of Prince Ilya’s many enemies.

  I was calming down. I felt uneasy, as though I’d betrayed my employer. My grand gesture of sweeping out had felt good at the moment, but every step I took made me more convinced I had only given way to my momentary pique. I should not have left Eli. But after all, he had the great Klementina to protect him, and he was good in combat himself.

  He just couldn’t shoot, and sometimes that was what you had to do.

  I felt a strong urge to become somebody else. I stopped at a secondhand clothes stall and bought a different skirt and blouse, and when I ate a light lunch in a restaurant, I changed in its ladies’ room, transferring everything in the pockets. I wadded up the hat and shawl and stuffed them into my bag, and I resumed the kerchief over my hair. When I came out, I looked different, but I did look like most of the young women I’d seen in this area. Paler, for sure, and my hair was still too short under the kerchief, but otherwise I blended.

  They found me anyway.

  I’d counted my money in the bathroom, out of sight of prying eyes, and I was sure I had enough to get to Sweetwater in Texoma. From there I could walk home. It would take me several days, but that seemed like nothing compared with the vision of my relief when I was out of this mess, a prospect so golden that it lured me forward.

  I set out for the train station at a brisk pace. I had about a mile to go when I realized I’d picked up a follower. When I got a look at her, I saw a girl, younger than me, no visible tattoos, but wearing a city-type dress and low-heeled shoes. I wondered if we’d killed off all the mature grigoris, the strongest ones. I hoped so.

  Since she was blond and dressed like a foreigner, the girl attracted a lot of attention on the street. A couple of men were trailing her, and they weren’t being subtle about it. I didn’t want her to get raped, and I didn’t want to kill her . . . but I would if I had to.

  I changed my course, took every dodge I could think of, switched back and forth between the hat and the shawl, and I simply could not shake the bitch. I didn’t know how good a wizard she was going to be, but she was a skilled tracker. Then, after ten more minutes of walking in the wrong direction, of getting tired and hot, I realized Blond Girl was only the lightning rod. There was another follower, a boy who could pass for Mexican. He was wearing the right clothes. He was as young as she was.

  He had a gun, too. I could see the outline of it under his shirt.

  Time to work. I set about it with a grim resolve. I was so tired of this city and its crowds. Everywhere someone was watching. And surely, one of those people would be law-abiding enough, or angry enough, to call the police. I couldn’t have that. Jail would kill me. Galilee had been in once, and she’d described it to me in a lot of detail. Jailers didn’t like gunnies at all, and I could be sure that was true here in Mexico as well as in Texoma. Walking faster, I headed for a place in the distance, an open space with no roofs. I hoped that meant no witnesses.

  When I got there, still ahead of the trackers by only a little, I discovered I’d worked my way into a section of the city that held the stockyards. And that was by the railroad, naturally. The fear of the animals was as heavy in the air as the odor of shit. There was lots of bellowing from the cattle, combined with the sounds of trains being shunted from one track to the next. Men shouted in the distance, but I couldn’t see a living soul.

  Perfect.

  I went around the corner of one pen, ducked behind a bin of hay, and waited.

  Sure enough, the girl reached me first. I had her before she could get her hands up, and she gasped behind my hand. “Don’t bite,” I said, in case she’d thought of it. I showed her my gun. “If you do, I’ll tap your skull.”

  Her
eyes were wide, but not with fear. I know what that looks like. I turned just in time to see the boy coming up behind me, his gun raised to give me the skull tap I’d promised her. I swung her around, the gun descended, and she was out. He jumped back with a cry of outrage, and I had my knife out, ready for a fight. Instead he turned to run. I tackled him and held the knife to his throat.

  “Who do you work for?” I stuck him with the point of the knife, just enough for him to feel the prick of the steel and feel the blood trickle.

  “I—I—no one! I’m just a thief!” The Russian accent told me that was a lie, even if I hadn’t known the truth already.

  “How did you find me?”

  “You looked like you had a bit of money on you,” he said, insulting me by hanging on to the story.

  I jabbed him with more force, and he yelped. “This is the last time I’m asking you. Who do you work for?”

  “Klementina,” he said.

  “Liar.” He’d given that up too easy. Klementina was way scarier than me. Of course, she wasn’t here with a knife.

  “How did you know?” He believed I could tell he was lying, maybe by magic.

  “Who?” I said, making him bleed a third time. I hated being this close, smelling his fear just like the animals’, watching the trickle of red.

  “Our prince,” he said, and I killed him.

  I got out of there fast. The girl was still unconscious, and I did not know whether or not she would live. But I could hardly stay there with her. She’d have to wizard her way out of her situation.

  I walked quickly, glancing down to make sure I was not bloodstained. I was clear of blotches, though I was dusty from lying on top of the boy in the dirt. That wasn’t critical. There were plenty of people who needed to wash, in these streets. I shook my skirt.

  I figured out my route to the station. I could actually hear the noise of an incoming train. I was so close. I was leaving Eli (Prince Ilya, I reminded myself) with his new champion, Klementina, so I should have had a clear conscience. I had done my job, all the way down the line. I could simply buy a ticket and get on the train—which I’d only once done—and go in the right direction. Sooner or later I’d be back to the life I knew and understood.