“That doesn’t surprise me.” Leo slumped back against the car and crossed his arms over his chest. “You did get the best training on attack and evade, thanks to me.”
“You mean the Hunter/Prey game you and Jimmy used to force me into playing?” The two would start hunting her, prowling the tour buses or the stage equipment. She was always the reluctant prey. Except something inside her actually liked it while the rest of her hated it.
He shrugged. “We only did it ’cause your uncle paid us to.”
“What?”
Leo plucked a kitten from midway up his pant leg and set it down. “Five bucks a week. Skills building, he called it.”
“You’re serious?”
“Your uncle did things to protect you. He was super paranoid for some reason.” He peered into her eyes. “You still don’t…” He clamped his mouth shut and waved as he sauntered off. “Nevin, gimme a shout if you find the part for my truck.”
“I still don’t what?” she called after him.
“Have a sense of humor,” Leo said, though she knew that wasn’t what he was going to say.
She pinned Nevin with a glare. “Is this true, about Mon paying kids to torment me?”
He assumed the blank look of the guilty.
Her cell phone rang. “Speak of the devil.” She skipped right past hello. “Were your ears burning? I’ve got—”
“Ruby, there’s trouble.”
“Did you piss off your new neighbors already? I told you not to hang those weird artifacts all over your front porch. Creeps people out.”
“No, big trouble, ducky. Get over here, quick. There are things I have to tell you, things I should have told you long ago.”
Her throat tightened at the agony in his voice. “Be there in about forty minutes.”
“Speed.”
Speed in Miami traffic. Yeah, right. Especially since a storm had recently passed through, leaving the freeways wet and slick. Which made drivers either go too slow or too fast. The black mass of clouds now squatted roughly over the upscale neighborhood where Uncle Mon lived.
By the time she reached his house, the storm had moved on. Everything glistened from the recent rain. South Florida storms were wicked but brief. Mon chose this area for its secluded lots. Not that fans clamored over him. He had built his fame as a master illusionist overseas. He was almost a rock star in Germany. Deservedly so. Even as she’d watched from backstage, she had never once seen the trick, the hidey-hole, the sliding panel. When she begged to know just one secret, he always said with a conspiratorial wink, “It’s real magic, ducky.”
Her work boots scraped on the flagstones leading to his front door. Nothing seemed amiss, so his trouble was likely some exaggerated fear spun from his eccentric mind. She brushed past the animal bones, crystals, and silver stars hanging from the porch roof and lifted the knocker. The brass moon banged against the heavy wood door, echoing inside the marble-floored foyer on the other side.
“Uncle Mon?”
She heard a strangled warble that sounded like, “Go!” Which didn’t make sense since he’d ordered her to come.
She pushed the door open and stopped cold at the surreal sight of Mon several feet above the floor, his feet dangling. A bolt of green lightning speared him to the wall, right through his chest. She felt encased in a solid block of ice, unable to breathe.
His horrified eyes found her. “G-get…out, child.”
Run. Obey Mon.
Leave Mon to die from this thing? Hell, no.
She ran forward and grabbed the flower arrangement from the table in the center of the foyer, her gaze on the bolt.
Pain wracked his wizened face. “Don’t let it see you.”
Which didn’t make sense either. She threw the vase with every ounce of strength she could muster. It fell short, but she was already searching for something else before it even crashed to the floor. She had to knock the bolt away from him, but with what? The knives Mon collected that she was never to touch, except for throwing practice.
She ran into the den where several were mounted on the walls. Two knives slid free of their fancy sheaths in her clumsy grasp. She raced back, skidding to a stop and aligning herself so she wouldn’t accidentally hit him. His arms now hung at his sides. His fingers flexed, the only fight he was putting up now.
No.
Before she could throw the first knife, the bolt formed into a ball of light and shot upstairs. Mon fell to the floor in a bone-jarring thump, and she threw herself at him, sliding on her knees the final two feet.
“Mon! Talk to me.”
She gasped at the hole burnt into his chest, nearly gagging at the smell of seared flesh. His eyes lacked the light of life, dull yet still fearful.