Draw One In The Dark(70)

"Mind? She was positively gleeful. Very sorry none of their six children inherited the characteristic."



"Children." Kyrie was beyond astonishment. That a shifter could secure all these things that she thought were out of her reach because she was a shifter felt absolutely baffling.



"They live in Arizona," Rafiel said. "Where Bill and his wife lived till about a year ago, when they drove through town and stopped at the Athens for breakfast and all of a sudden realized they'd never felt so at home anywhere. So they decided to sell the place in Arizona and buy a house here. Ever since then, Bill went into the Athens for his morning breakfast after roaming the neighborhood as a coyote."



"Well, at least no one would notice a coyote. Not in Colorado."



"Right. Lions and panthers are something else."



"And dragons."



"Yes."



She could hear him take a deep breath.



"So, we know that the victim was definitely a shifter."



Shifter. Victim. The back of the Athens. The beetles. Kyrie desperately wanted to go to bed, but she felt she should tell Rafiel. After all, he was a police officer. He would know what to do about it, right?



"There is more," she said.



"More about the victim?"



"More . . . another victim."



"What?"



"I was . . . I forgot I parked my car up front," she said. "Because of the broken window. So I went into the parking lot and there were . . . They were beetles. That type of shiny rain-forest type beetle that they make jewelry out of?"



"Someone made jewelry out of beetles?"



"No. It would take a very big person to wear those as jewelry. They were six or seven feet long and at least five feet across, and shiny . . ."



"Are you sure you didn't dream this?"



"No, I absolutely am not sure. But I think they were there. They were huge and green blue and they were dragging something. A corpse. I think it was a corpse because I could smell the blood."



"A corpse? In the parking lot of the Athens? Another corpse?"



"I didn't see it. It was just something—a bundle—they were carrying. And it smelled like blood."



"Are you sure this is not a dream you were having when I woke you up with my phone call?"



"Quite." Kyrie looked toward her still made bed. "Very much so. I haven't gone to bed yet."



"Fine," he sounded, for some reason exasperated. "Fine. This is just fine. I'll go to the Athens and check."



"Take . . . something. They might be dangerous."



"Oh, I wouldn't worry," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I have my regulation bug spray can."



She had a feeling he didn't believe her, and she couldn't really blame him because she wasn't a hundred percent sure she believed herself. "Right," she said. "And, oh, remember you wanted to know about the dust on the floor of my porch. There is dust. It's bright green."



"Lovely," he said. "I'll be there. Right after I check the parking lot of the Athens."

* * *



Tom hurt. That was his first realization, his first awareness that he was alive. The back of his head hurt like someone had tried to saw it open, and the pain radiated around the side of his head and it seemed to him as though it made his teeth vibrate. An effect not improved by a twisted rag, which was inserted between his teeth and tied viciously tight behind his head. His legs and arms were tied too, he realized, as he squirmed around, trying to get into a better position. It felt like there was a band of something around his knees, and one around his ankles. Very tightly tied.



With his eyes closed, trying to remember where he was and why, he smelled old car oil and dust and the mildew of long-unoccupied places. His face rested on concrete, but part of it felt slick.



The gas station. He must be in the gas station he was passing when . . . When someone had hit him on the back of the head. So. Fine. Shaking, he opened his eyes a sliver. And confirmed that he was lying in a vast space, on a concrete floor irregularly stained with oil or other car fluids. This must have been a service station at some point. Light was dim, coming through glass squares atop huge, closed doors that took up the front of the building.



He looked around, but his eyes felt as if they couldn't quite focus. And he wondered if he'd been attacked by some random local hooligans, who had felt an irresistible craving for his leather jacket and the kid's dragon backpack, which no longer appeared to be anywhere near. Or if it was the triad again.



Through the fogs of his mind, he remembered that the white car parked by the road side had been the same make and model as the one that had turned around while he was shifting before. Had they seen him? Had they followed him? Along the highway? If they'd seen him follow the highway, it wouldn't be hard to calculate that he would stop in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It wouldn't have been hard to figure out, either, that he'd land and shift some distance from town.