Blood of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 2) Read online

  “What the hell are you doing?” Simon bent next to me on the fourth door and I pushed him away. The faintest smell of an abnormal lingered around the handle.

  Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

  I stepped back to the side of the door and snapped my knuckles against it. Simon frowned at me and hunched his shoulders. Maybe he couldn’t pick up the scent of abnormals because he was one. But this was how I’d hunted them in the past, using the few abilities I had to my benefit, and their detriment. The weaker the abnormal and ability to mask their scent, the stronger the musk. Simon and Zee had very little scent of abnormal about them.

  Mancini had none.

  A grumble from the other side of the door preceded the rattle of the chain lock sliding. A nose far too long for a normal face stuck out and a single round eye peered at us. “Yeah?”

  I brought Dinah up and smiled as I rested my finger on the trigger. “Open the door, or I’ll blow it off the hinges.”

  His jaw dropped open and his fingers fumbled with the lock. “I didn’t do nothing. I swear I didn’t . . .”

  “No, you didn’t. Now open the fucking door.” I motioned with Dinah and the door swung open wide. I tucked her back into her holster and she let out a sigh.

  “Damn. I really was hoping you were going to let me blast him.”

  The abnormal’s single round eye that was situated to the left of his head blinked several times. “Your gun . . . talked.”

  I didn’t so much as blink. “She did.”

  He slid to his knees and bowed his head. “Just make it quick. Please.”

  I did not like the feeling that passed through my body. Regret and shame were not emotions I felt often in my life, mostly because there was not a lot of room for them. “Listen here, Popeye. Get up. I’m not going to kill you unless you force my hand.”

  I brushed past him, quickly inspecting the main room.

  Couch, chairs, TV and in the corner, a desk with a computer.

  I pointed at that couch. “There you go, Simon. Have a sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  Simon shook his head, and I could see there were questions he wanted badly to ask but held back. I had no doubt those questions would come up soon enough.

  He flopped himself onto the couch and threw an arm over his eyes. Popeye got up from the floor.

  “You aren’t here to kill me?”

  I stared at him hard. “Have you done something that deserves killing?”

  “No, no, of course not!”

  “Then why would I want to kill you?” I asked.

  “Because you’re the Phoenix,” he said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t have random victims. They all earn my visit. They all earn their deaths.”

  Visit. Like I’d just shown up for a coffee and a chit-chat.

  “I . . . heard you’re on the outs with your father.” Popeye hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor.

  “You got a name?” I sat at the computer desk and clicked the mouse. The screen came to life in a flicker of colors.

  “Daniel.”

  A giant pair of breasts with what looked like a foot stuck between them came up on the screen. I turned to Daniel. “Kinky.”

  His throat bobbed a few times and his single eye wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “My roommate . . .” He trailed off. “He—”

  I shook my head. “Don’t. Just don’t. You have no one here with you, no roommate to blame this on. Be as kinky as you like, just make sure the lady agrees before you go jamming your foot between her tits.”

  Daniel’s whole body heaved. “I don’t understand. Why you are here? Why did you come to my apartment?” He heaved again like he was going to spew chunks.

  I pointed at the door that led to the kitchen. “I suggest puking in there.”

  He scrambled in the direction of what I hoped was the sink. The splatter of vomit on the tile floor told me he hadn’t quite made it.

  “And clean that shit up. I’m not smelling it all night,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am” came the subdued reply.

  Simon got off the couch, grabbed a chair and sat close to me. “You know, I’m not going to sleep a wink here with all that yelling and puking. And speaking of charm, you’re really laying it on thick.”

  I glared at him and then looked back to the screen as I pulled up the Internet browser. “I know. I’d been hoping for an empty apartment.”

  Daniel peered back into the room. “You really aren’t going to kill me?”

  I didn’t even look his way. “Not unless you keep bothering me. You got any coffee?”

  “I can make a fresh pot.” The hopeful tone in his voice told me a great deal about him. Some abnormals thrived on serving those stronger than them. They felt safe if they were working for one of the big dogs. Currently, I was a big dog and he was happy as a pig in shit to make me happy.

  I didn’t have to like it, but for now, it would work.

  The clatter of pots in the other room, and then the hiss of the coffee pot filling was the only sound other than the click of the keyboard as I signed into one of my bank accounts. I had a dozen set up to spread the money around from the studio in Hollywood. From the one account, I sent fifty thousand dollars to a wire transfer place not far from the apartment block.

  “They won’t have that kind of money tonight,” Simon said as he watched me move it around.

  “They’ll have it. They keep at least fifty thousand in their safes.” Money opened doors and shut mouths and I suspected we would need both.

  His eyes bored into me. “How do you know that?”

  I signed out of the account and stood. “Because it’s smart to know where you are sending your money, and that they can make good on it.”

  “Where is all that money from?” Simon’s frown creased his brow.

  “Insurance money.” I lied easily. He’d thought I didn’t get the money out of the warehouse. I’d kept it from him mostly because he didn’t work for it. A twinge of guilt snapped at me. Simon had taken a beating after being caught by Romano’s men, so maybe he’d earned a little. Maybe I’d give him some once we were all done. If I gave it to him now, he’d fuck off, and even I could admit that he’d been a help so far. Shit, he’d saved my life. That was no small thing.

  Daniel came out of the kitchen with two large mugs of coffee. I took mine and Simon shook his head. “I want to sleep. You go ahead, you probably need it.” He motioned at Daniel to drink, which the abnormal did. There was no reluctance in him as he tipped the cup to his lips and gulped down a mouthful of the steaming hot liquid.

  I put it to my lips and paused. Something smelled off in the coffee, like a floral scent, or herbal maybe. Was he trying to knock me out? I put the cup down. I did not need a repeat of being drugged again. “What’s in it?”

  Daniel froze. “What?”

  “What is in the coffee?”

  He shook his head, his one eye wide. “Nothing, nothing but coffee I mean, obviously, coffee. But nothing else. I just figured you didn’t want anything else, because you’d be afraid I might try to put something in it and try to cover it up with cream and sugar, not that I would do that, but some abnormals would, you know, because of the bounty on your head.” He sucked in a deep breath and that one eye of his was more than a little filled with horror. No doubt those were not the words he’d been planning on.

  Simon pushed past him and into the kitchen. I waited, my eyes on Daniel, watching him squirm. He wasn’t lying, of that much I was certain. But then what the hell was up with the coffee?

  “He used this.” Simon held up a bag of coffee with a big A on the center of it. “Coffee grounds spiked with a little pick-me-up for abnormals. It won’t affect you at all.”

  Daniel slumped and he leaned on the wall beside him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have any normal grounds and I didn’t think it would bother you. Or that you’d even notice the difference.”

  I shook my head and picked up the coffee, took a sip, and rolled it around in my mo
uth. The brew was strong, but there was a hint of lavender under the coffee. I liked it. I gave him a nod. “Might be weird, but it tastes good. Thanks, Dan.”

  He gave me a wobbly smile. “Thanks for not killing me.”

  Simon laughed, and then slapped his hands on his legs. “Oh, god, this keeps getting better and better. He thanks you for not killing him after you break into his house and he thinks you’re going to kill him.” Another peal of laugher erupted out of him. Fatigue was setting in and making him loopy. We needed to wrap this up.

  I kept drinking my coffee until Simon finished his fit of what looked like uncontrollable laughter, then I handed the cup back to Daniel.

  “Stay out of trouble, Dan.” I clapped a hand on his shoulder and then drew him close so his one eye was in line with my right eye. “Because if I hear you have breathed even a single word of my visit to even your closest friend, I will come back, and I will not be here for coffee.”

  “And then we’ll get to meet you,” Eleanor said from her holster. “You don’t want that.”

  “I do. I want that,” Dinah said.

  Daniel gave a fervent nod. “Yeah. I got it. I understand. You can crash here anytime.”

  I let him go and brushed past him, Simon on my heels.

  We let ourselves out and the door did not lock behind us.

  Chapter Nine

  Simon managed to wait until we were out of the apartment building and on the street before the questions began. I was impressed. I’d thought he wouldn’t even make it that far.

  “How did you know an abnormal lived there, in that specific apartment? There were no marks on the door, and I wasn’t tracing him.”

  Our footsteps echoed as I debated what to tell him. I finally settled on the truth. “When Zee trained me, he helped me hone a few skills that would help me identify abnormals. One is their scent.”

  Simon dropped a hand on my arm, stopping me. “You smelled that abnormal? Like a fucking bloodhound?”

  I shrugged, not bothered in the least by the way his eyes had widened. I was not the freak show here. He was the abnormal and he needed to remember that. “Hands carry a great deal of scent on them with abnormals, so door handles hold the smell longer. So yes, I smelled him.”

  Bear would have laughed at me and asked me to show him how to do it. My heart leapt because he was alive and one day I would show him whatever he wanted. I shook Simon off my arm. “You of all people should know that tracing people is not easy. That you use what skills you have at hand to make shit happen. That is one of mine.”

  “I do know that. But I’m an abnormal. My ability to trace comes from that place in my DNA that got screwed up somewhere along the line of my ancestry.”

  I shrugged. “And mine comes from an exceptional ability to differentiate scents. It’s like those wine connoisseurs. This one smells oaky; that one smells like fruit from an orchard where lilacs bloomed. It’s there, it’s subtle, and I know what I’m looking for. It’s no good for distance tracing. It’s only when I get close.”

  Simon went silent as we started walking again. He was silent all the way to the wire transfer place. I wasn’t sure what was going on in his head.

  “Do I smell?” he finally asked, and I smirked.

  “Not like Daniel. You aren’t weak, which means with you, I have to work at identifying your scent.”

  “And Mancini?” His question got to the heart of it.

  “Nothing on him. The most powerful of abnormals could walk right by me and I wouldn’t smell a thing.” I stared at him. “You good now? Done questioning me?”

  “Yeah, for now.” He gave me a nod.

  I turned away and tapped on the window of the wire transfer place. “Hey, I got money coming in.”

  A sleepy pair of eyes blinked at me, and the guy manning the place gave a jaw-splitting yawn which he shoved his fist in front of. “Yeah, sure, come on around.”

  He motioned toward a side door. I went to it, he buzzed me in, and I shut the door before Simon could follow me.

  “You got your confirmation number?” The night manager yawned again and shook his head.

  I held out the piece of paper I’d printed my confirmation number on.

  “ID, too,” he said.

  I pulled Dinah from my hip and tucked her muzzle under his flabby jaw. “You got it.”

  He blinked a few times, as if finally waking up. “Right. Let me get—” His eyes dropped to the amount on the paper. “Shit, that’s everything we’ve got.”

  “Perfectly legal,” I pointed out. “My ID was stolen earlier today.”

  Perfectly legal minus the gun under his chin, of course. Dinah didn’t say a word. Even she knew there were times not to make herself known. Right now, I was just a thug with a gun and a confirmation number. If my guns started talking, it would pinpoint me in a nanosecond. Assuming this guy would know who to talk to. He was about as human as they came.

  Not too many talking guns floating around as far as I knew. Then again, maybe Mancini had made more than one set. I motioned for the night manager to get moving, and I followed him to the back room.

  “The safe is set with a code,” he said, stalling.

  I dropped a hand onto the back of his neck and gave a hard squeeze, driving the tips of my fingers into the excess flesh. “Here’s the deal. I can get into that safe without you. And if I don’t need you . . .” I turned him so I could see his face. His skin paled at a rapid pace as he picked up on what I was saying. If I didn’t need him, I’d as soon kill him to get to the money.

  “Right. I’ve got it here.” He fumbled with the keypad and I let go of him. I knew what my presence did to some people. Normal, abnormal, it didn’t matter.

  When I let the real me surface there was no denying the killer on the loose. I smiled just as he glanced back at me. I didn’t think it possible that he would pale further, but he did.

  He lifted a shaking hand to the keypad on the large wall safe.

  I didn’t look away as he punched the numbers in and the door flashed red.

  “Shit, I just—” he stuttered and gulped a few times.

  “Nerves. Take a breath, calm down.” We weren’t in a hurry, but I would be as soon as I left. “The money isn’t going anywhere.” And hopefully Simon kept other people from the front of the establishment.

  The manager sucked in a few gulps of air and then nodded. “Okay. I’m okay.”

  I waited quietly, watched as he punched in the numbers with more confidence the second time. The light beside the pad flashed green and he twisted around to grin at me. “See, I knew I could get it.”

  “Stop gloating and open the door.” I didn’t lift Dinah and motion with her as I wanted to. Because some people broke fast under intimidation. There was a fine line between getting people to do what you wanted, and having them pass out at your feet. I was treading that thin line with the big night manager and his jittery nerves.

  He grabbed the handle and twisted it to the left, spinning it like an old-school safe. The door swung open and I shifted the bag off my shoulder and held it out. “Count it in.”

  “Of course, of course.” He grabbed the stacks of money. They were in five thousand counts and he dropped ten into my bag, counting them out loud. “There. Ten. That’s all of them.”

  I reached in and pulled one back out, peeled off a thousand dollars and handed it to him. “For your silence.”

  His eyes widened. “Holy shit, this is more than I make in two weeks!”

  “Good. Then maybe I’ll come back here the next time I make a wire transfer.” I tucked Dinah back into her holster. “What’s your name?”

  “Porter.”

  “Well, Porter, nice to meet you.” I turned my back on him. “I suggest you keep this between you and me, yes? That is if you want another payday.”

  I had no intention of ever coming back to this wire place, but he didn’t know that. He grinned. “You got it! Thanks. And come back soon!”

  I let myself out, and s
lung the bag over my shoulder. Simon arched an eyebrow. “No sirens? No police?”

  “Money works wonders,” I said. “You’d be surprised what people would do for it, even when they know it’s wrong.” I stared at him. He looked away, unable to hold my gaze.

  “That’s not nice, Nix,” he muttered. I shrugged and once more started walking. I didn’t feel bad for pointing out that he was in this for the money. That was something we both needed to remember.

  “Let’s find you a place to sleep, since you want a nice comfy bed.”

  The motel I chose was nicer than a dive, which meant the sheets were clean and free of bed bugs, but that was about it. I took my own room with a connecting door to Simon’s. I wanted—no, needed—some time to myself. To process the day’s events.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, hands pressed into the mattress, and hung my head so my chin nearly touched my chest. Bear was alive, and I was going to get him back. Away from Romano.

  “Phoenix? What’s wrong?” Eleanor spoke to me and I pulled her from her holster.

  “Nothing.” I laid her on the table, then pulled Dinah out and put her beside Eleanor. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Are we still going after your father? Now that Bear is alive?” Eleanor asked.

  “You heard Mancini. We’re going after Genzo and his Yakuza. Mancini will help us get past the two guardians once we do that.”

  The two guns wormed on the table, and surprising me, it was Eleanor who spoke. “We know a little about the guardians. Bianca . . . she was killed by the third.”

  I went very still, unable to believe what I was hearing. I pulled my shit together and spoke softly. “Your bullet was in her head, Eleanor.”

  “We are tools, Phoenix,” she replied. “I did not want to shoot her. But if someone pulls my trigger I have no choice but to discharge, and I did the best I could to change the trajectory of the bullet. There is no way for me to stop the bullet without killing myself.” She paused a moment. “The third guardian. He is the worst. He forced Bianca to do what she did.”

  “Why would . . . my father,” it galled me to say that but for this conversation I would allow myself to, “allow that? Bianca was his favorite, only behind Tommy.”