Devil's Punch

“But?” Why don’t you hang up? Idiot.

“I don’t know where she is.”

Sweet Lethe

My fingers tightened on the phone until I felt them going white. The hard edges bit into my palm. “How long has she been gone?”

“I saw her yesterday. She left her phone at my place, but I didn’t worry about it because we were supposed to meet for lunch today. When she didn’t show—”

“You decided something must be wrong because that’s not like her.”

“Sounds like you know her pretty well.”

“I did. Jesse, can you feel her?” He’d sensed I was in trouble from Texas, when I was investigating my mother’s death in Georgia. His empathy had a powerful range, and it extended to those he cared about.

“No.” His anguish came across the line clearly. “It’s like she’s dead. Or…gone. So far, I can’t sense anything. But she wouldn’t just leave…” Then he seemed to recall I was a stranger. “Shan told you about me? Who are you again?”

“Corine Solomon.” I paused, wondering if my name meant anything to him.

A sharp intake of breath. “I feel like I should know you. Like I do know you.”

Poor Jesse. He exuded bewilderment.

“It’s…complicated. But don’t worry—I won’t say anything. I’m gifted, too.”

“Ah. Corine.” He repeated the word like a talisman. “My parents mentioned you once. Asked me where you’d gone, and since I didn’t know what they were talking about, I just shrugged. And my boss, Glencannon,” he added in a tone of realization. “He assumed you’d left because of my job. Who the hell are you?”

Chuch and Eva knew everything; they were old friends, not gifted themselves, though some of their family had been. So they knew the score with regard to spooky happenings. They both had a shady, interesting past—Eva had dabbled in forgery, and Chuch used to run weapons, but they’d settled into suburban bliss in Texas.

Chance and I stayed in Laredo long enough to see their baby daughter, Camelia, christened. Eva’s mother was religious, and she insisted on having the rite performed as soon as possible. Afterward, I’d explained to Chuch why Shannon wouldn’t be returning to Mexico with me. I offered money for her room and board, but he’d refused, as I had known he would. He said Shan was welcome to stay as long as she needed, and that Eva appreciated her help. He’d also promised not to say anything until the forget spell wore off because I didn’t know what the effects would be if magic ran up against human interference. I’d heard it could be traumatic to force people to recall something they were blocking, so if this was similar, then we had to err on the side of caution. I hadn’t wanted to hurt Shannon and Jesse, only protect them.

“Well?” he prompted in his sweet drawl.

“The important thing is finding Shannon,” I said softly. “You start the search on your end. I’ll do what I can here, and if I locate her, I’ll call you.”

“That’s not good enough—” But I did then what I should’ve done earlier, and cut the call.

He rang back, but I let it go to voice mail. Jesse was Shannon’s boyfriend, which meant she was all that connected us. I’d made my choices. Even if he remembered everything down the line when the spell wore off, as it seemed he might, I’d never be with him. Some things you just don’t do, and hooking up with your best friend’s ex sat at the top of the list. For me, Jesse Saldana was now an untouchable.

It seemed I had to go to the rendezvous point on the back of the note if I intended to save the girl. And obviously, I did. I couldn’t bear to consider what she might be suffering; I had to focus on the here and now. After tucking my cell phone in my pocket, I got a backpack and started filling it with provisions for a road trip. When Chance arrived a little later, I was still at it. Tia must have let him in; I didn’t hear the bell, but my room had thick walls and was near the back of the house. So, not surprising.

He tapped on the door and then came in before I answered. Because he knew me so well, he took one look, drew me against him, and said, “Tell me.”

It felt good to be in his arms, familiar, even with the differences. I was slimmer than I had been at any point in our relationship. Rubbing my cheek against the smooth fabric of his shirt, I explained the situation succinctly. He let go of me then, but not in rejection. He picked up the note to examine it, and studied the writing.

“So you think demons have Shannon?”

“The spell suggested as much. Certainly they’re involved on some level.”

“What do they mean, ‘claim the crown’?”

He knew I’d handled my business with Montoya, but he didn’t know the particulars. And this wasn’t the time to tell him.

“I’m not sure,” I prevaricated. “But I am sure demons took Shan.”

Chance nodded. “Let me get my laptop. I’ll input the coordinates and figure out where we’re going. It’s a good thing the shop isn’t finished yet.”

Gratitude warmed my smile by ten degrees. I wasn’t ready to sleep with him, or move in with him, but I remembered why I’d been with him in the first place, before everything went wrong. Maybe second chances made more sense than I thought. By and large, I’d thought that if something failed, it was best to put it in the rearview mirror and try not to think about it. I cut ties like a professional swordsman, and only Chance refused to let me go. Maybe that meant something after all.

He dropped a quick kiss on my upturned mouth and then loped off. His smooth grace captured my eye, as it ever had, and I finished packing while waiting for him to return. Twenty minutes later, he was back in my room, laptop in hand. Tia didn’t have Internet, so he had a USB wireless card, convenient for travel. Chance took the note and brought up a program. A few keystrokes and clicks later, he had a map on the screen.

“They want you in the Sierra de Juárez in Oaxaca.”

I studied the topography. “That’s about five hundred miles southeast of here.”

“I could drive that in less than eight hours,” he said confidently.

While I had the utmost confidence in Chance’s maniacal skill behind the wheel, the roads might not be good enough to support the speed he preferred. I said so politely, and he laughed.

“Don’t worry. I won’t get you killed.”

“I wasn’t worried about that at all.”

At least not since I started getting regular cleansings. It wasn’t a perfect solution to his infernal luck, but as long as I had the bad karma scraped off on a regular basis, we rubbed along well. Tia was happy to do it, if I bought the eggs. Maybe one day we’d figure out a permanent fix, but until then, this kept me alive. Chance’s unique ability gave him the best possible luck in all circumstances, but since the universe liked to keep things in balance, the person closest to him got whacked with the most terrible shit imaginable. He could use it in the most interesting ways, dowsing for the sense of what direction would solve any given problem. It reminded me of focused coincidence; Chance’s luck could make the most improbable factors come into alignment.

“If the roads get bad, I’ll slow down,” he promised. “Chuch would kill me if I broke the Mustang’s axle.”

“Where we’re going, we might need a truck or an SUV.”

“It’s remote, I take it?”

“Incredibly.”

“Is the El Camino reliable enough?” He didn’t love the idea of driving my car, but it made more sense for a trip like this.

“I had a friend go over it after we got home. It doesn’t look fabulous, but he’s got it running like a Swiss watch.”

“He?” His brow rose.

Surely Chance wasn’t jealous of my mechanic friend. But I could tell by his steady look, he really wanted to know who I had fixing my ride. My nights since we got home had belonged to him. Apart from the errands I ran during the day and my studies with Tia, there hadn’t been time to date anyone else.

“Julio lives four blocks over. He’s fifty years old, married, and has four kids.”

His expression eased from tension to sheepish relief, and he lifted his shoulders in a half shrug. “It’s like you said in Laredo…I don’t know you that well anymore. I don’t know your friends. I want to, but you’re different that way too. You don’t share like you did.”

Yeah, I’d learned to be closed, self-contained—and the irony of that? I’d gotten those tendencies from him. Now it felt oddly like he was an open book, and I had figured out how to hide the lines that revealed everything about me.

“I got good at being alone,” I said softly. In the old days, I’d have called him first thing instead of packing a bag on my own, ready to handle whatever came my way without asking for help.

“I know.” Awkward silence.

He needed me to make a move. So I added, “But I’m remembering how to be half of a couple. I thought we were doing all right.”

He’d promised to tell me about his dead ex. Maybe this road trip would be a good time for that. Since our return, we’d danced around the edges of intimacy, two steps forward, one step back, a particularly self-conscious waltz.

So far, Chance wasn’t rushing me. He didn’t push for sex or commitment. Emotionally, he was more accessible than he had been when we were together. From the vantage point of hindsight, I suspected he shouldn’t have been with me so soon after Lily died. I’d been a light against the loneliness, a body in the dark, and our jobs kept him from having to think or grieve or heal. But I hadn’t known about her. Or his loss.

If I’d had more experience with relationships, I’d have known something was wrong sooner. Before Chance, I had only hookups, nothing real. I hadn’t understood how it should be, and I’d so desperately wanted it to work, had needed him to love me, that I hadn’t seen the problems staring me in the face. I don’t think he loved me at all in the beginning; maybe he did in the end, or he realized how he felt too late, after I’d gone. Now, I wanted to believe in his feelings, but I feared them too. I had such a collection of scars carved on my heart, and many of them carried his initials.

For him to be willing to dodge out on a rescue mission at the drop of a hat, no questions asked? That boded well for our future together.

“Tia,” I called.

“Is Chance staying for dinner?” she yelled back in Spanish.

“No. Neither am I.” I went into the kitchen, and in a few words summarized where I was going and why.

She listened with no judgment, and then she shuffled into her bedroom. I was used to her ways, so I waited. When she returned, she had a charm bracelet in one hand. It was dull and tarnished, didn’t look special at all, but when she wrapped it around my wrist to fasten it, I felt the thrum of magick emanating from the trinket.

“It is the best charm I ever made,” she said softly. “Wear it well.”