She paused just after stepping inside, and she stared at the foursome until one of them looked up and saw her. Just so happened, it was Junior. She liked that. She gave him a long, level look, which he returned.
Hook baited and line cast.
Then she headed for the bar. This time she ordered a real beer. The bar was much like its counterpart, casually decorated and comfortably worn. This one had black-and-white photographs of the silver mine hung on the walls. Randy Travis sang “She’s My Woman” loudly over the sound system. An indefinable something separated the locals from the travelers who had stopped for the night. She wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was how people talked to each other.
She leaned her folded arms on the bar and nursed her beer.
They kept her waiting all of ten minutes.
“Heard you found my dog,” someone said behind her. “He got loose the other day, and I’ve been looking for him ever since. I was just fixing to go get him.”
The talker was Junior, she saw as she glanced over her shoulder. He was smiling. He looked relaxed and confident, a man who was sure of his world and his place in it. He was dressed in jeans and a lined flannel shirt like the other local men, but his haircut would not have looked out of place in a country club.
One of his friends stood at his shoulder, while the other two came up on either side of her at the bar. She looked at the bartender, who had somehow become busy at the other end of the room. That was just fine with her. She wanted the bartender to stay out of the way.
She turned around to face Junior and said, “You heard wrong. He’s my dog now.”
Junior came closer, his big body moving with a smooth athleticism he had not yet lost. His smile deepened, his eyes full of sociopathic charm. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Tell me what the vet bill was, and I’ll double it. In cash. Then you can hit the road again, and put this whole thing behind you.”
She took a pull on her beer and set the bottle down as the guys on either side crowded closer, their expressionless faces oddly menacing. They were all taller than she was and built like football players.
She met Junior’s eyes and said, “Fuck off.”
Astonishment wiped the charm off Junior’s face. He lunged forward until his body pressed hers back against the bar. His hands gripped the bar on either side of her, and he came nose to nose with her.
“You must be one incredibly stupid bitch,” he said.
Hook swallowed.
“I know you did it,” she said. Her voice was soft and even as she looked full bore and unblinking into his eyes. “You shot him, and then you beat him. Then you tied a rope around his neck and you dragged him, God knows how far. And you didn’t do it alone, because there were two different-caliber rifle bullets in him, and I’ve got both of them. So your friends can fuck off too.”
“Did you hear me offer the stupid bitch money,” Junior said to the man on her left.
“Why yes, I did, Scott,” said his friend. “I heard that loud and clear.”
“It could have been so easy for you to walk away,” Junior told her.
Tease the line out. Let the fish run.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she told him. “You can’t do anything in here. It’s too public. Unless you’re going to fuck that up too. Really, I don’t think you understand the definition of
stupid
and who it applies to.”
She watched with interest as fury swallowed his handsomeness and turned him ugly. There you are, she said silently. Now you’re showing your real self.
“Outside,” Junior said to the others. He stepped back, and the men on either side of her suddenly moved closer, each one grabbing her by the wrist and bicep while they hid the maneuver from the rest of the bar with their bodies.
“Scream and I’ll break your arm,” one of them whispered.
She didn’t scream.
Junior and his third friend moved in from behind. By the time they hit the door, they were almost running and had her completely lifted off the ground. She jerked, trying to get her arms free, but the pressure to her arm sockets was brutally painful.
Junior said, “Take her out back.”
She looked up as they rushed her around the corner of the bar. The storm had died down, but the night sky was still sullen and overcast. A couple of cars were parked out back near a spiky tangle of desert shrubbery and a line of yucca trees.
The spot was a little too close to public activity for her taste, but it was still private. None of the other buildings or houses was nearby, and with the loud bar music, no one inside would hear any screams. The one weakness would be if someone arrived in the parking lot around front and heard something, but there were a lot of ways to muffle noise.
“What I want to know is why you did it,” she said.
“Who the fuck cares what you want to know?” Junior said contemptuously.
“There’s a story to this,” she said. “And it wasn’t personal. Rodriguez wouldn’t have gotten involved if it had been, not unless you pulled something royally asinine, like getting caught with your dick out in public. Not that you’re beyond that, at least from everything I’ve heard.”
“I’m going to enjoy making you hurt,” he said. “And I’m going to hurt you a lot.”
“No, Rodriguez would have gotten involved only if his job depended on it,” she continued. “That would mean this matters to your father somehow, and I think what matters to your father is the silver mine. How’m I doing so far? Am I hot or am I cold?”
“You’re dead fucking meat, is what you are.” He said to the others, “Right here.”
She tightened her abdomen muscles against a blow. They slammed her down, stomach first, against the trunk of one car and held her bent over. The cold of the metal trunk bit through her jeans and sweatshirt. Junior moved up behind her, putting his hands at her waist.
Time to reel in the fish.
She started to laugh. “Wow, are you inept. You can’t even do this by yourself.”
He grabbed her by the hair, cruelly pulling at the roots. “Back up,” he snapped at the two that held her arms. They let go of her as he pinned her with the weight of his body. He hissed in her ear, “You should have stayed silent. Should have moved on. Should have taken the money when I offered it. There are so many ‘should haves’ you should have done, so I figure that means you asked for this. You’ll be begging before we’re finished with you.”
As he talked he reached around her waist to the front of her jeans, searching with hard fingers for the fastening.
She didn’t have enough room to leverage out a serious blow. No normal human woman could have broken his hold.
But she wasn’t quite a normal human woman.
Telekinesis can be a finicky Power. Some people could manipulate things from a distance away. Others, usually those with a lesser degree of Power like her, needed to be able to touch what they wanted to shift.
Since Claudia’s aptitude for telekinesis wasn’t much, she’d had to work to figure out what she could and couldn’t do. Someone else might not have bothered, but the army was interested in her talents, and they spent a lot on training her. She was interested too, and she worked hard at every opportunity they gave her. As a result, what she could do was well thought out and well practiced.
She could hit like a motherfucker. Kick like one too. From a standstill, she could throw a roundhouse punch that could bring a two-ton troll to its knees.
She had to be careful when she was fighting those of the Elder Races who were faster than she was, and whose bodies were more durable. She had to think strategically. Turned out, she was good at doing that too. Fighting was a dance like no other, as each one of her opponents became her partner for a deadly brief period of time.
She had maybe eight inches of space to work with. That was more than enough. She struck back with her elbow and hit Junior’s midsection.
Junior coughed out all his breath and crumpled to the ground. She twisted around.
He had no air in his lungs with which to speak. His bulging gaze was astonished. It asked her,
What the fuck?
So she answered his question. She showed him what the fuck. She kicked him in the chest, using her foot to leverage his body weight. The blow lifted him off the ground and slammed him into the back of the building several yards away. When his three friends rushed her, she showed them what the fuck too.
When she finished with the would-be rapists and walked away, all four of them were on the ground. Two of them were unconscious, and one of them was crying.
Because Junior wasn’t the only one who had a hellish temper.
Claudia had a hellish temper too.
Chapter Five
Sacrifice
“Wake up, Precious,” a male said.
Luis came awake instantly. Once again, he almost lunged to attack but he managed to check himself before he tore off the other male’s face. It was the older man, the veterinarian. Jackson. She wouldn’t like it if Luis hurt him.
Jackson was a smart man. He had jerked back as Luis came awake. “Here now, none of that,” he said gruffly. Despite his obvious age and experience, the human didn’t sound nearly as confident as Claudia had when she’d shushed Luis. “I’ve got something for you.”
Luis was in the trailer, but Claudia wasn’t. A strange male, also human but much younger than Jackson, stood well away from them both, his nervous scent spiking the air.
Luis bared his teeth. He was groggy, confused and angry that the men had gotten into the trailer and Claudia had slipped away without waking him up. That would never have happened if he hadn’t been injured and heavily medicated. She had promised to protect him. Where had she gone?
Then Jackson showed him three liquid-filled vials. He stared. Jackson offered him the chance to sniff them but he didn’t bother. In his mind’s eye, the vials shone with Power.
“Don’t worry, son,” Jackson said. “I’m not gonna talk baby talk at you and ask if you’ll take the num-nums. I have a feeling you’d bite me a whole lot sooner’n you’d bite her. Feel like having a drink?”
“That’s all we had at the Urgent Care Clinic, Dan,” said the strange man. “You didn’t tell me why you needed it. You’re not really going to give thousands of dollars worth of healing potion to a dog, are you?”
“Yeah, Stewart, I think I am,” said Jackson. With a near-silent grunt, he levered himself down on one knee in front of Luis. “At least I’m gonna give him one to start with. We’ll see how that goes.”
“It’s going to take at least twenty-four hours for the clinic to replace those,” said Stewart. “Who’s gonna pay for them?”
“Not real sure about that part,” Jackson said. “I feel certain the money will come from somewhere. If nothing else, I’m betting his new owner will chip in. Worse comes to worse, I’ll pay for them myself. But I don’t think I’ll have to.”
“He’s a dog.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t think he’s just any dog, Stew.”
Luis watched intently as Jackson uncapped a potion and poured it into a shallow dish. He pushed upright enough so that he could drink, ignoring the harsh explosion of pain that his movement caused. He had his nose in the dish almost before Jackson could set it on the floor. Breathing shallowly, he lapped at the small, valuable amount of liquid and forced his swollen throat muscles to work. Power exploded like a sunburst inside him, flaring outward until his raw, abraded skin felt like it was on fire.
“Want another one?” Jackson asked.
Luis nodded.
“Well, fuck me dead and gone,” Stewart said. The other human sounded shaken.
“A heartfelt, if unsavory, sentiment,” Jackson said. He blew out a breath and poured a second one in the dish, and then the third.
Luis gulped them down.
“Mind if I take some of these bandages off?”
Luis growled, still drinking.
“Oh-kay,” Jackson said, drawing back. “Guess you’ll handle taking the bandages off yourself.”
Luis finished the last of the potion and lay back down, panting as the healing spell spread through his abused body. Broken ribs knitted, and torn muscle and skin mended. Healing potions did an amazing amount of good, but they weren’t pain-free. He felt like his whole body was immersed in flames.
Luckily the humans knew enough to stand well back and let the process occur, because for a short time he felt blinded, out of control. If either had been foolish enough to touch him, he really might have savaged them.
A formless amount of time later, the flames in his body eased. He stretched carefully, taking note of the changes. The pain in his rib cage and throughout his body was now a dull ache. He wasn’t completely healed. His injuries had been too severe, and the Power in stored healing potions was not as potent as fresh spells thrown by a healer.
But the disorientation from his injuries and the medication had burned away, and his mind could finally function again. He could take a deep breath without a stabbing pain in his chest, his raw abrasions had closed over, and the bullet wounds had closed enough so that they were no longer bleeding.
All of that might mean the difference between life and death, because now he was no longer helpless.
He nosed under the blanket to tear at the bandages with his teeth. Then he rolled over, onto all four paws, and shape-shifted. He stood as he changed, instinctively ducking his head in case the ceiling of the trailer was too low for his height.