I See You (Oracle 2) (22 page)

“She’s too fucked up,” Beau said matter-of-factly.

“Indeed. I don’t know for certain that this drug does anything to her bloodstream, but it seems a safe bet.”

“I’ll track them,” Kandy said from behind us.

I pivoted around to see that she was carrying some loose articles of clothing.

“I really, really don’t want douchebag Cy in my nose, but I think his scent will be more reliable. Judging by Ettie’s scent, she hasn’t been here in a week or so.”

Blackwell nodded. “Starting from the bank?”

“Seems like as good a point as any.”

“It might be difficult to access right now. I’ll contact the marshal.”

“Whatever.”

Kandy jogged down the steps beside us. As she passed Beau, she lightly touched the top of his head. The gesture of comfort was seriously out of character for the werewolf, but it appeared to settle Beau further.

He sighed, nodding as if he’d come to some decision. Then he stood up and held his hand out to me.

I took it, actually forcing him to drag me to my feet in an attempt to be playful. He grinned, then dropped my hands to follow Kandy to Blackwell’s sedan.

“I would like to look at your new sketches,” the sorcerer said, falling into step beside me on the front walk.

“They’re not finished.”

“I would still like to look at them.”

I nodded. Saying no wasn’t really an option. Without Blackwell, I’d still be figuring out how to get to Beau and Kandy.

“Beau?” Blackwell called ahead of us.

Beau turned around, catching the keys that the sorcerer had tossed to him in the same motion.

“Back seat,” Kandy said as she climbed into the sedan. “I want my car back ASAP.”

“Me too,” I said.

I slid into the seat behind her, retrieved my sketchbook, and passed it to Blackwell as he climbed into the front seat.

The sorcerer took the sketchbook reverently.

I knew he wouldn’t deface it in any way, but my stomach still ached for the entire time it was in his hands and not mine.

CHAPTER TEN

“Six Big Macs, four double Quarter Pounders with cheese, two chocolate shakes, and four fries. Supersized.” Kandy barked her order at the blurry-eyed cashier behind the glossy white laminate counter.
 

“We don’t supersize anymore,” the cashier said. “I can upsize.”

“Then do that,” Kandy growled.

“A southwest salad, please,” I said, interjecting before Kandy climbed over the cash register and ripped the kid’s head off. “Oh, and a baked apple pie. Thank —”

“Make that three pies,” Kandy said. Then she elbowed me harshly in the ribs when I went for my wallet.

I could practically hear the skeleton-crew kitchen staff groaning as I took off for the bathroom. They’d probably been cleaning up in anticipation of closing. A few of the tables in the restaurant were still occupied, but it was ten minutes shy of midnight.

Despite Kandy’s insistence on being ‘lean and mean’ and keeping their edge, she and Beau had to eat. He had opted for McDonald’s. Blackwell refused to even enter the fast-food place, choosing instead to stay in the car and pore over my sketchbook.

Beau and Kandy had eaten three Big Macs each by the time I made it back to the fire-engine-red booth. Beau looked apologetic, then dug into his Quarter Pounders.

“That is not enough food,” Kandy said as she watched me squeeze the lime wedge that came with my salad over the greens. “That is not enough food,” she then repeated to Beau. He only shrugged.

Beau looked terrible, and it wasn’t because of the horrible overhead lighting or the garish mishmash of red, orange, yellow, and white on the floor-to-ceiling tiled wall behind him. His face was haggard, lacking any of the joy I normally associated with his everyday attitude. But then, I’d never seen him so … assaulted. Not as badly as he had been today. He looked as if he’d been mentally battered, multiple times.

And it wasn’t over.

Kandy downed a large fries in two mouthfuls, then reached for a second helping. “We get rid of the sorcerer next,” she said between masticating mounds of deep-fried potato.

“How?” Beau asked.

“We cite family business.”

“He won’t go,” I said.

“Then I’ll make him,” Kandy snarled.

I glanced at Beau. He was watching the green-haired werewolf, wary but not overly concerned.

“You see the way he’s poring over my sketchbook?” I asked.

“So?” Kandy asked. “He’s obsessed with you … and Jade.”

“He’s not obsessed with me, and these visions don’t have anything to do with the dowser.”

“Then what?”

“The drugs,” Beau said grimly. He was carefully wiping each of his fingers with a napkin.

“Yeah,” I said. “The stuff in the diffuser and the drugs.”

Kandy glanced sideways at Beau, then answered somewhat carefully. “I could text Alain, the beta of the Gulf Coast pack. See if Byron’s or Cy’s names come up, and figure out how deep this shit runs.”

“Why?” Beau asked.

“She’s worried that those two young werewolves dying is connected to this all somehow,” I murmured.

“What? How?”

“It’s just … instinct,” Kandy said. “Timing. And Ada. Werewolves don’t overdose, but Ada was high as hell tonight. If it turns out that this crimson bliss is what killed the Gulf Coast’s fledglings, it’s better to get out ahead of it. Better for Beau.”

“Not yet,” I said. “What if calling in the pack is what makes everything explode? And results in Ettie’s death?”

“What if not calling in the pack results in Ettie’s death?” Kandy asked.

Beau scrubbed his head so fiercely I was worried he’d hurt himself.

“I can keep my mouth shut a bit longer,” Kandy said. “But your family is about to get caught up in a world of shit.”

“If they’re involved,” Beau growled. “If they’re not just victims.”

My heart pinched at Beau’s continued defense of absolutely horrific people. I looked down at my salad to cover my reaction.

Kandy shrugged her shoulders and stuffed an entire hot apple pie in her mouth. “He’s a sorcerer, not a chemist,” she said as she chewed.
 

It took me a moment to realize she had returned to the subject of getting rid of Blackwell. “He’s a collector,” I said.

Kandy jabbed her finger at me. “You. You got us into this.”

“Hey,” Beau said.

“She can fight her own battles,” Kandy snarled.

“Yeah, she can. But you won’t like it,” I snarled back before Beau could step in to defend me further.

Kandy snapped her teeth together, eyeing me. Then she started to laugh.

And laugh. And laugh.

A few nearby patrons found the werewolf’s laugh creepy enough that they got up and changed tables. Two groups of twenty-something diners actually left.

Kandy stopped laughing as abruptly as she’d started. She locked her gaze to mine, deadly serious. “I like you, Rochelle. And Beau ain’t half bad either. But I loathe the sorcerer.”

“I made a choice.”

“That you did.”

“It wasn’t like I could call the far seer. And you know Audrey would still be going through proper channels to get you two back. Channels we’ve agreed aren’t a great choice right now. Did you want me to call the dowser?”

“God, no. She’d hate the heat. It would melt all her chocolate. Plus, she travels with a small army these days. No. It would be over by now if you’d called Jade, but there’d be a body count.”

“The dowser wouldn’t kill humans,” Beau said.

“I wasn’t talking about the dowser.” Kandy grabbed the last of the fries, then picked up the trash-filled trays. “You can eat that to go, right?”

I grabbed my salad and apple pie protectively. I was hungry and tired. We’d been up since before dawn and were about to see another sunrise in a few hours. If I couldn’t sleep, I sure as hell was going to finish the only greens I’d eaten all day. Plus, I had a thing for apples. That would keep me going.

∞

Blackwell took over driving for the next leg of our trip, and we returned to the bank in silence. It seemed funny that with so much to talk about, there wasn’t a single conversation the four of us wanted to share.

Blackwell would want to talk about the vision and dissect the sketchbook, which I’d safely tucked back in my satchel. But neither Beau nor Kandy would want to talk about the future I’d seen as it continued to unfold.

Beau would want to talk about … all the things his family had accused him of doing. They weren’t terribly subtle with their insults. The fact that they would hold something so desperate against Beau was agonizing. Painful enough that I was trying to not think about it … other than the fact that he’d gotten over it. He’d made it through. But he wasn’t going to discuss his past in front of the sorcerer or an enforcer of the West Coast North American Pack.

Kandy wouldn’t want to talk at all. The werewolf was so angry that I could feel the energy rolling off her, even with a generously sized middle seat between us. She kept lifting the clothing she’d found at Ada’s to her face and inhaling, alternating between a yellowed wifebeater and a pink head scarf.

Beau reached back alongside the front passenger seat, reaching down to wrap his fingers around my ankle. I leaned forward, pretending to root through my satchel, but instead curling my right hand around his wrist. He squeezed me and I reciprocated. Some of the tension he carried in his muscles eased slightly.

I straightened in my seat, offering Kandy a rectangle of spearmint gum. Beau kept hold of my ankle.

Kandy curled her lip derisively at my offering. “Tracking,” she said, but with less heat than I’d expected given her mood.

I nodded and popped the gum in my mouth, leaning forward to offer the package to Beau and Blackwell.

“No. Thank you, oracle,” Blackwell said.

Beau took a moment to pass his thumb across my butterfly tattoo. I gathered he needed to keep his senses clear as well, though werewolves were better at tracking by scent than tigers.

Blackwell found his way back to the bank without assistance from any of us or the GPS, proving that the sorcerer had a way better sense of direction than I did. Though honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember anything about this part of Mississippi. Nothing against the state. It would just be a way nicer place without Beau’s family in it.

But I had known that going in, hadn’t I? And I had pushed us to this point, in that self-righteous, quiet way I had of pushing. Because I was still hoping that magic was … something. That there was some reason behind it. Not necessarily fate, or destiny, or any of the shit that I couldn’t really quantify. Just … right and wrong, good and evil. If I had this power, then I wanted to do good. Yeah, me. The moron who was friendly with the sorcerer everyone else said was evil incarnate.

We circled the bank, parking at the rear on the side street. The houses surrounding us were mostly dark now. It was that late. Though I could see the reflections of a few TVs through half-opened curtains farther down the road.
 

I’d expected the doors of the bank to be crisscrossed with crime-scene tape, but they weren’t. If you didn’t count the drug dealers kidnapping and imprisoning Beau and Kandy, it seemed that we were the only criminal activity that had taken place in the bank that evening. The marshal would have executed his arrests on the outstanding warrants. I found myself wondering if that included searching the place for drugs.

“Stay here,” Kandy said to both me and Blackwell as she climbed out of the car. “I don’t need you muddying the trail. Beau and I will go for a walk.”

“That should go over well with the neighbors,” Blackwell said, obligingly settling back in his seat. “A hulking stranger walking his wolf in the middle of the night. What could be more normal?”

Beau snickered as he exited the car. Kandy slammed her door shut. Blackwell rolled down his window as the werewolf stepped over to the sidewalk. “The bank isn’t empty.”

Kandy whirled back. “What am I, an idiot? I can see!”

Blackwell nodded, not bothering to roll his window back up. Though there wasn’t any breeze, I preferred the warmth of the evening over the car’s air conditioning. Up ahead, a dim light glowed through one of the rear windows of the bank. Someone was in the break room, or maybe one of the bathrooms. I tried to remember the interior layout correctly.

“They won’t go inside, right?” I asked.

“She’ll just try to pick up Cy’s or Ettie’s scent around the exterior,” Blackwell said. “They want me gone, then?”

I had been thinking about distracting myself from the urge to follow Beau and Kandy by pulling out my sketchbook, so the sorcerer’s quick change of subject took me a moment to process.

“Yeah.”

“And you?”

“I’m grateful for your help.”

“When you refine the sketches, do you add to them?”

“No. I mean, I just heighten them. Sharpen them, you know? And then I decide which ones to take to a larger scale. For the shop.”

“So everything that you remember is in those rough drafts?”

“Yes.”

“Then Ettie knows the location of the lab where crimson bliss is being produced. As does Cy, of course.”

“How did you deduce that? I saw the diffusers …” I pulled my sketchbook out of my satchel.

“You’ve already figured it out, Rochelle.” Blackwell’s tone was uncomfortably kind as if he was babying me somehow. “Beau won’t appreciate being kept in the dark. He isn’t that … type.”

“I’m not lying to him.”

“But you’re not fully seeing either.”

“It’s been a shitty day, sorcerer,” I snapped.

Blackwell waved his hand, acquiescing.

That just pissed me off further. “You weren’t just looking at the sketches while we were eating,” I said.

“No.”

“So just tell me what you know.”

“I know what you know, that this drug lord … Byron, Beau called him … is interested in Cy, so he’s interested in the drug. Crimson bliss, you called it. And the crystalline drug Beau found at his mother’s is indeed red. So Cy must be involved somehow. Otherwise, why would he be avoiding his former employer?”

“Plus according to one of her clients, Ettie is selling crimson bliss. So that’s a double connection back to Beau’s family.”