Dead Letter Day (9 page)

“SO HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO ZAP THINGS LIKE that?” Sophie asked after we’d observed a decent amount of silence.

“How long have you been able to throw knives like that?” I countered.

“That was my first time.”

“Pretty good aim to hit your target like that from a moving vehicle the first time,” I observed.

She smiled her big sunshiny smile. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“How did you know you could do it?” I glanced over at her. She was still smiling.

“I just…knew. It was the weirdest thing. It was like my body just knew.” She spread her hands in front of her and stared at them.

I could see that. I’d had that happen a few times. Not with knives. I was a little jealous. That was a skill that could come in handy.

“And now it’s like my brain knows, too.” The expression on Sophie’s face made it seem like her mind was totally blown.

“What does it know?”

“It knew how many rotations the knife would have to make to stick into those cows and what distance I would have to be from them to have enough space to make them.” Her smile faded. “So what do you think that was all about? The cows and that package.”

I hadn’t had time to process much about that. “I’m not sure.”

“It felt like a trap, Melina. Someone lured us out there and sicced those cows on us.” Now she sounded angry.

I nodded. I’d come pretty much to the same conclusion, but who did things like that? First of all, there was that rule that no one was supposed to mess with the Messengers. Second of all, who used cow assassins to do their dirty business? Third of all, just plain why? Near as I knew, I hadn’t pissed anyone off lately, certainly not enough for them to send cow assassins after me in the dark of night.

“So tell me more about the knives,” I requested, reverting to our earlier conversation.

“I honestly don’t know. The second I had them in my hand, I knew it, though. I knew how to hold them. I knew
when to release.” She leaned back in her seat. “It felt pretty awesome.”

I understood what she meant. There’s something about an action feeling automatically good instantly that is incredibly satisfying. I’d felt that way the first time I’d done a spin kick. It was still one of my best moves. “We should probably capitalize on that. Get you some lessons or a practice board or something. I bet we could set something up in the studio.”

“I’d like that. You’re a good teacher, Melina. Thank you.”

I was shocked by how good that felt, too.

I DROPPED SOPHIE OFF AT HER HOUSE, WATCHING UNTIL she was inside and had flashed the lights at me to know she was safe, and then went back to my own apartment. I dragged myself up the stairs. The apartment was dark and quiet. Norah had either already gone to bed or was staying at Alex’s. I didn’t know or really care which. All I wanted was my own bed. I texted Ted that I was home but was headed straight to dreamland.

I slept in the next morning, not even bothering to pretend that I might go for a run without Ted there to drag me along. Besides, I wasn’t feeling completely safe. The cow attack was still creeping me out and it seemed better to err on the side of caution. Besides I’d have a long night tonight. It was one of the few shifts I was still taking, over at the hospital, and my shift went from eleven at night to seven in the morning.

I puttered around the apartment until it was time to go into the dojo. I peeked out the peephole and spent a minute or two letting my other senses feel their way around the area before I opened the door. The routine was going to get pretty old if I had to do that every time I left the apartment, but
I was having a big case of better safe than sorry at the moment.

There was nothing there. There were no packages on my doorstep and no mad cows lurking in the street. I took the Buick through the car wash—she had treated me well the night before and I felt I should return the favor—and went to the studio.

Again, I was cautious as I opened the door, casting about with everything open. Again, I felt nothing. Maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe the cow thing was a one-off. I couldn’t imagine who or why, but maybe the danger had passed. I certainly hoped so.

The different classes filed in and out over the afternoon and early evening. Everything seemed totally normal. After the last students left, I locked up the studio, changed into my work clothes for the hospital, slipped out the back door and headed out. No one seemed to be following me. I finally started to relax.

Maybe the cows had been a fluke. They’d attacked on their own. That could happen, couldn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t something you read about in the papers on a regular basis, but certainly stranger things had happened. Spontaneous human combustion, for example. That was totally stranger than demonic attack cows.

I parked the Buick on the top floor of the hospital parking garage and took a few seconds to appreciate the night. It was desperately dark, but the air was crisp and clean in that way that only happens in the fall. I allowed myself a few moments of peace before I waded into the barely controlled chaos that was our inner-city emergency room.

I hit the doors and did an immediate detour. Suddenly I wanted grapefruit juice. No. I didn’t want it. I needed it. I’d make a quick run through the cafeteria, pick myself up a
glass and then I’d get to work. Even with the detour, I still ended up at my desk on time. I got a nod from my boss for that. I favored her with a smile.

Then the humanity began to drag itself past me in all its glory. I had two pretty obvious drug seekers first, not that it was any of my business. They were most definitely the doctors’ problem and not mine. Still, I’d been working here long enough to recognize all the signs. Non-specific pains and lots of drug allergies to anything non-narcotic.

Then I had one niece admitting her elderly aunt who she’d come to visit for the first time in months and found the poor dear a little more confused than the last visit.

After that came a woman in her late twenties who was clearly in agony. Every few minutes she would literally double over in pain, groaning. The pain had started that morning and had gotten progressively worse throughout the day. It wasn’t easy to get her information, since with each wave of pain, she’d be unable to talk or even really hear my questions.

Then after one particularly intense-looking spasm, she gasped, “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I think I peed all over your floor.”

I stood up and looked over the counter that separated us. Yep. Body fluid all over my floor. Fantastic. Still, it was hard to get angry with her. She looked like hell. I hit the buzzer to ask for an orderly to come help her back into the emergency room in a wheelchair and to bring a mop. I couldn’t believe the triage nurse had sent her over here rather than straight back into a bed.

By this time, most of the other file clerks were starting to watch what was happening. What can I say? We don’t get out much.

Everyone was quiet until she was wheeled out, doubled over again in the grips of some terrible cramp.

“That chick is having a baby,” Letitia said.

Okay. The woman was a little plump, but she did not look like she was nine months pregnant. Besides, it’s kind of a salient point when one is seeking medical care. “She didn’t say she was pregnant. In fact, I’m pretty sure she said she wasn’t.” I sat down to look at the part of the form we’d actually managed to fill out.

Letitia crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what she said. She’s pregnant and she’s having that baby now.”

A loud scream came from behind the doors as if to punctuate her point.

“How is that possible?” I asked. “How can you not notice that you’re pregnant?”

“Haven’t you seen that TV show? The one about all the women having babies who didn’t know they were pregnant and then having them in toilet stalls?” Veronica, another clerk, asked, sitting down and wheeling her office chair over next to mine.

I don’t watch a lot of TV. It doesn’t exactly fit into my schedule. “There’s a whole show about this?”

Letitia nodded. “With reenactments. Personally, I think all those women are idiots.” She peered over my shoulder to look at the half-filled-out registration form. “I mean, how can you not notice that you haven’t had your period? How can you not notice the morning sickness or how tired you get.”

“Or how emotional you get,” Veronica chimed in from behind her partition. “I cried over everything the first three months I was pregnant. And I was barfing when I wasn’t busy crying.”

“I used to get so dizzy, I could barely unload the dishwasher,” Araceli threw in from two cubes down.

I started to get a very uncomfortable feeling. Some of those symptoms sounded a little too familiar to me. Dizziness. Throwing up. Fatigue. When had my last period been? I wasn’t in the habit of keeping track.

“There’s no excuse for not knowing your pregnant,” Letitia said. “You can buy a pregnancy test at the dollar store.”

“Can you trust a dollar store pregnancy test?” That sounded way dicey to me. “I mean, you get what you pay for, right?”

“Chemicals are chemicals. I’m pretty sure they work just fine.” Veronica shrugged.

We all stopped as a howl emanated from behind the door. Then there was the distinct sound of a baby crying.

“Told you so,” Veronica said.

Letitia crossed her arms over her chest. “Eeshh. I hate that noise. It makes me feel like my milk is going to come down again.”

I excused myself and went to the bathroom to throw up.

4

NORAH WAS HOME WHEN I GOT IN, MAKING ME VERY glad that I’d jammed the box with the pregnancy test in it into my purse. No way was peeing on this stick going to be a group project. I knew that Norah would make it into one if she got even the slightest whiff of my concern.

It really could be nothing. It could totally be what I’d been thinking it was. Fatigue. A bug of some kind. Overwork. There might be no little pink plus sign about to form on the end of that stick.

Please. Let there be no pink plus sign about to form on the end of that stick. Let it be a big fat blue minus.

Whatever was going to be there, I did not need an audience or a cheering section or a Greek chorus, all of which Norah was capable of being all at one time. I needed—wanted—solitude. It was going to require thought. Plus I had a little bit of a shy bladder.

So I smiled and made small talk as Norah drank tea and
ate oatmeal, although, quite honestly, I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to what she was saying. The spoon made the rest of the journey to her mouth. My stomach rolled. Had she always chewed and swallowed that loudly?

It took forever for her to leave. At least, it seemed that way. It probably wasn’t any longer than she ever took, but today with that pregnancy test weighing my purse down as if it were fifteen pounds, it seemed like an eternity. I practiced my deep breathing and sipped coffee and tried to smile.

“Are you okay?” she asked, one hand finally blessedly on the doorknob.

I startled. “Why? Do I not seem all right?”

“No. You don’t. You seem a little tense.” She paused. “A little tenser than normal, I guess.”

So much for my deep breathing. “I’m a little tired.”

“You’ve been tired a lot lately.” Dear Lord, would she never turn the doorknob and leave?

“Meredith thinks I need a vacation.”

“She’s a smart woman.”

“Got it. I need to slow down a little bit. I’m all over it.” Now go so I can figure out exactly how much I have to slow down.

Finally finally finally Norah left with a little wave. I waited a few minutes. She’s been known to forget things. When a decent amount of time had passed, I fished the package out of my purse and headed to the bathroom.