He placed one heavy hand on the barrel of my gun, gently forcing it lower. “Humor me, okay?” His light was aimed at her, so I couldn’t see his face, but he sounded dead serious.
“Whatever. I’m bleeding from a bullet wound, but I can probably spare a few minutes for you to flirt with Jessica-fucking-Rabbit.” I shrugged. “Why not?”
“Let her kill me.” The succubus pouted but couldn’t quite pull off the “pitiful” act with her hands curled into fists. “You know what he’ll do to me if I go back empty handed.”
Two more bullets pinged against the floor. “Not my problem, Lori. I told you to quit.”
“You two know each other?” I shifted my aim back to her head. When I shot the succubus—and Iwouldshoot her—I wanted the bitch todie, not lie bleeding and whining on the floor of the plane.
“Lex, how bad is your arm?” Murphy asked, ignoring my question altogether.
Nothing a battlefield amputation won’t fix.
“It’s fine.” I brought my right hand up to support my left-handed grip on the gun, to prove I was still in the game. The bullet must have just grazed me, because my arm still worked, though it hurt like hell. “But that little bitch shot a hole through the sleeve of my favorite coat.”
Lori smiled sweetly, as if we’d just traded recipes, rather than gunfire. “I was aiming for your chest. It’s just that the target’s so small…”
I laughed, pleased to hear how genuinely amused I sounded. “Stick to your strengths, sweetheart. You make a better Lolita than Rambo.”
“Toss me my gun, and we’ll test your theory.”
“Sure.” I nearly choked on my own sarcasm. “You want me to paint a fucking target on my forehead while I’m at it?”
“Ladies, please.” Murphy ejected the last bullet and tossed the empty magazine across the fuselage, toward the flight deck. “Okay, Lori.” He was the very essence of calm authority. “How much am I worth, and how did you find me?”
“Believe it or not, hon, I had no idea you’d be here.” She batted her eyes at him, looking irritatingly unconcerned by the gun I was aiming at her. “I’m here for her.” Her gaze flicked back to me, her expression hardening. “And Idon’tneed her alive.”
“Okay, this is entirely too weird,” I said, trying to maintain my two-handed aim, despite the agony in my arm. “First the goblins, now you two. Is my mail carrier going to show up in a minute with a bazooka? Or my hairdresser with a hidden camera?”
Lori’s forehead furrowed over sculpted blond eyebrows.
“Never mind. You’re too young to remember Candid Camera.” A premise that had only worked back before peopleexpectedto be recorded as a matter of daily life.
“Devich put a hit out on Lex?” Murphy looked as confused as I felt. “Why? She’s working for him.”
“That’s not how it looks, with her cuddled up in here with you, hours after she killed the team he sent to bring you in.”
Shit. Devich thought I’d betrayed him.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I told Lori. “I had no idea the goblins worked for him, andthey’rethe ones who came atme, waving guns around.” Threatening to kill me slowly. “This is a misunderstanding.”
Lori tossed her red-blond waves in the narrow beam of light. She looked for all the world like a spoiled sixteen-year-old, as unconcerned with what others thought of her as she was about her cholesterol and blood pressure. “Then how do you explain this little tête-à-tête?” Her gaze flicked from Cale to me. “Not that it matters. Word’s out. You’re burned. If I don’t take you out, he’ll send someone else. Or he’ll come for you himself.”
Fuck. I had no idea what Devich was, but I knew I’d need something bigger than my Ruger to defend myself against him.
The irony stung. I’d been ready to move on from this sham of an afterlife for more than a century, and I would have leapt in front of Lori’s bullet instead of dodging it if I had any faith that a second death would work out any better for me. But there was areasonI hadn’t been able to move on the first time, and if I died again before I figured out what that was, chances were good that I’d be no better off than before.
“No better off” being thebest-case scenario.
“Do you even know what your boss is up to?” Murphy asked Lori, and I got the distinct impression they were continuing an old argument, something I wouldn’t understand even if I’d been around from the beginning. “Do you have any idea what he’s trying to do?”
Lori shook her head, hair swinging from side to side. “Don’t know, don’t care. So long as he keeps paying me, I keep working. He wants her head on a stake, and rumor has it there’s a cash bonus for you—alive. This should have been my lucky night.” She turned to me, squinting at my flashlight. “Out of curiosity, why ditch the flight from Halifax, then show up exactly where you told Devich you’d be? Not your smartest move, Walker.”
I wanted to point out thatshewas the one staring down the barrel of a gun. “I didn’t know he was fucking hunting me,” I said as I shifted my aim to make her nervous.
The truth of that sat on my chest like a lead weight, heavy, suffocating, and impossible to escape. Devich was trying to have me killed for some imaginary disloyalty. He probably didn’t evenhavethe information he’d promised me, and murder was his way of clearing a debt.
“I’m tired, cold, and bleeding.” In fact, just thinking about my arm made it hurt worse. I’d have to eat soon, if I wanted to heal, and a little rest wouldn’t hurt either. “Let me shoot her now and get it over—”
