Huntsman by Cambria Hebert
23
Earth
The Rotten Apple was busy,which should have been a good distraction.
It wasn’t.
My mood was darker than usual, but aside from a few wary sidelong glances, no one said anything.
Although, to be fair, no one would dare challenge me or ask me to talk. I ran a bar, not a therapist’s office, and frankly, most everyone was afraid of me. I liked it that way. ‘Course, that didn’t stop drunk assholes from crying on the bar top after they had one too many. I usually cut them off and sent them packing.
I knew.
I knew how Neo would react to any hint of anything between me and his sister. I’d had a chance to patch up a little of what went wrong between us, and I fucked that up too. Now he was even more pissed off, and I couldn’t even fault him. Hell, in his position, I would have reacted the same. I wasn’t good enough. I had no business even looking at Virginia. Touching her. I was the one in the wrong.
But still, I fought with him. I challenged him instead of backing down.
I still wanted her anyway.
What the hell was wrong with me? Going around… feeling shit. All my life, I prided myself on not feeling. Being detached.
All that started to burn the day Ivory White walked into our lives. The day the hit was ordered on her well-groomed head.
It was like she was the catalyst—the key to opening a floodgate of shit I didn’t want.
And now look. Just fucking look. I was fighting with Neo more than before. I was slicing open guys after I said I wouldn’t, and I was seriously craving a kill.
But more than that, I was craving something more.
No. Not something. Someone.
I could disappear. Get into my car and drive until I didn’t even recognize what reflected in the rearview mirror and there was absolutely nothing waiting for me when I stopped. I’d done it before.
I knew how to disappear like smoke. I knew how to exist in the shadows.
All these emotions would die, and I would be left the way I’d always been. Hollow, cold, and precise. I could go back to being a huntsman.
The thought of disappearing didn’t offer the relief I thought it would. Instead, it created a heavy knot of something that suspiciously felt like panic.
“Get out!” I roared, my shout punctuated by the slamming of the cooler door. Inside, bottles clanked together from the force. It was late. I was annoyed, and frankly, I was sick of looking at people, even paying customers.
I heard a few heavy sighs, but no one argued. Instead, they all shoved to their feet, a few awfully unsteady, grabbed their bottles, and filed out onto the sidewalk.
The silent solitude settled in, and though it didn’t do much to ease my mood, I was glad to be alone. So of course the door jangled, announcing a new arrival. I all but snarled, straightening from the counter I’d been wiping down to see Officer Fig and his partner, whose name I never cared to remember, make their way toward the bar. They were still in uniform, which made me wonder if they were on duty.
I wasn’t much for any police officer, but this guy was my biggest dislike. Fig considered himself the Grimms’ finest officer of the law, and I considered him a loser with a badge he used to hide his insecurities.
Maybe I’d respect him more if he didn’t have it out for my family, having hauled in Neo and Fletcher more times than I could count. ‘Course now with Fletcher’s new “identity” and the fact that he was living with New York’s favorite prince, his days of hassling him were over. Unless of course he wanted all the top lawyers in the city riding his ass. And Ethan’s fist in his jaw.
Look, I gave Ethan a hard time and a glare every time I saw him, but secretly, I was glad Fletch got with a dude like him. Everyone saw Ethan as some proper Upper East Side elitist, but I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to toss his manners out the window when it came to protecting Fletcher.
I felt a small smirk curl my lips. That’d be something to see.
And of course, it would be about the same for Neo now too, thanks to Ivory’s team of lawyers on standby, so I figured about this time, Fig was starting to get bored. He’d yet to haul me in despite many threats and feeble attempts, but maybe now he’d start putting more effort into it.
Despite the clear dislike he harbored for me and my brothers, he still drank here a lot with his buddies. I mean, this was the neighborhood bar. I didn’t give him free beer, though. Cops didn’t get perks in my place. Hell, the only reason I let them in was that they paid.
I wasn’t in the mood for his shit tonight—especially if he was on duty—and I was about to tell him to see his way out when I noticed the exhaustion and somberness that clung to him and the man trailing behind.
When he noticed my scrutiny, Fig’s expression pinched, and the legs of the barstool scraped loudly as he pulled it back. “We just got off,” he explained, setting his hat off to the side. “It’s been a hell of a day, and we need a drink.”
“Was just about to close up.”
“Just give me a shot, then,” his partner said, raking his hand through his already mussed strands. He looked even worse than Fig.
Reaching under the bar, I pulled out two shot glasses and a bottle of vodka, filling them to the top.
His partner picked his up immediately and downed it all in one go. The second his glass clinked against the wood top, Fig lifted his.
Typically much more boastful, they were unusually stoic, which made me curious. I pulled out two longnecks from the cooler, popped the tops, and set them down.
“Another arrest gone bad?” I needled.
Fig’s eyes flashed as he grabbed the beer, tugging it into him. “I came to drink, not put up with your shit.”
“We found a body floating in the river.” His partner burst out, turning a little green around the edges. Pulling the bottle of beer into his chest, he whispered, “I’d never seen a dead body before.”
“Oh for shit’s sake, Paul, that’s official police business!” Fig snapped.
His fellow officer lurched up, pressing a hand to his lips, face turning a deeper shade of green as he lunged for the bathroom.
“If you make a mess, you’re mopping!” I yelled after him.
“Fucking rookie.” Fig grunted, drinking the beer.
I didn’t bother to point out he was looking a little green himself.
“A body, huh?”
Fig lowered the bottle, eyeing me suspiciously. I didn’t even blink. They brought it up, not me. If he didn’t want to chat, I wouldn’t make him. I’d find out when the tongues starting wagging. This might be the ghetto, but people still gossiped.
I guess Fig knew this too because he spoke. “Got a call about something down near the river, so we went down… There he was, bobbing by the shore, tangled up in some weeds.”
Even though the back of my neck prickled, I remained passive and moved to wash the two shot glasses beneath the bar.
“One of ours?” I asked. We all pretty much knew each other here in the Grimms.
Fig shook his head once. “No ID yet. Won’t be long, though. He hadn’t been in the water that long.”
My hands paused before continuing. Placing the glasses aside to dry, I grabbed up a rag. “Well, it’s a rough area. Kid probably got tired of trying to survive and jumped.”
Fig made a sound. “This was no suicide. Unless he somehow slashed his own throat.”
Never woulda pegged you as the type for a wheelchair kink. The gravelly, sinister words slid over my memory, coating it with the flavor of sulfur and acrimony. Beneath the rag, my hand fisted as another memory, one much more vivid, played behind my eyes like a private movie screening.
The keen awareness of being followed by someone sloppy and not making an effort to remain hidden. The sound of my blade whistling through the dark night, the way it sliced across flesh like a hot knife on butter, and the gurgling sounds of spluttering blood spilling out, draining life away one splatter at a time.
I’d left that man in the alley to die, encased in shadows, his life expectancy about one hundred to one.
I expected to hear about the discovery of his body on the morning news, even just a mere mention of a mysterious slaying of an unknown man.
None came, and I wondered if perhaps he’d defied the odds and made it to a hospital. If perhaps he’d somehow lived.
He didn’t.
He’d ended up in the river… but I knew he didn’t get there on his own.
Someone must have put him there.
Whoever hired him to tail me.
I leaned on the bar, giving away none of my actual thoughts. “You saying we got a murderer running around the Grimms?”
“Now I ain’t saying that,” Fig said like I might fall apart if he said yes. “We don’t know where the body came from. Could have floated downstream from any borough. It was probably a gang rivalry gone wrong.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, mildly interested as I went back to some chores behind the bar. Truth was that was the go-to assumption for all the cops around here. Violence? Gang-related. Maybe these uniform-wearing derps really thought gangs were the worst of this city, or maybe they just wanted to believe that so they didn’t get caught up in something they definitely could not control.
I wasn’t about to argue. Why would I? Blaming gangs kept all the suspicion away from people like me.
“Kid had a bandana tied around his wrist.”
I stilled. The shadow in the alley did not have a bandana around his wrist.
That meant one of two things:
1) My tail from the alley and Fig’s body in the river were two different people with very similar wounds.
Or…
2) That bandana was put there after I left him to die and before his body was dumped.
I didn’t believe in coincidences, so that left me with the second option.
I grunted. “Guess that makes it easy to know where to look and tie up the case.”
Paul, the green-gilled officer, made his way back from the bathroom, looking less green and whiter than when he’d run off. Gingerly, he sat back on the stool, giving the beer a longing but also wary look.
“You make a mess?” I asked.
“I flushed it.”
The worst thing about owning a bar wasn’t the drunk people. It was the people who couldn’t handle their liquor and puked all over the bathroom, leaving me to clean it up.
Or in this case, a cop who couldn’t handle one little floating body. Probably wasn’t even bloody. The river would have seen to that.
Amateur.
“C’mon, we should go. Tomorrow’s gonna be another long one,” Fig told his partner. He grabbed up the bottle. “I’m taking this with me.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Why, officer, I can’t allow you to take an open container out of my establishment and into the city.”
“Shut it, Earth. You think I don’t see everyone tripping down the street at closing time, toting bottles with your logo on it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” I lied.
“Hey, we should ask him about the tattoo,” Officer Paul suggested.
A heavy sensation of foreboding settled over me. Despite its weight, the hair on the back of my neck stood.
Fig glared at him. “That’s twice tonight you’ve brought up official police business.”
“Like you weren’t out here talking about it,” Paul said around a less-than-demure burp. Part of me wondered if he would go running back to the bathroom. “I heard you when I came out.”
Fig didn’t even pause. “I was just reassuring a citizen of our jurisdiction that he didn’t need to worry about murderers running around.”
Paul snorted. “Like anyone would fuck with Earth.”
Fig looked as if he’d swallowed a hive of bees, and I couldn’t help it. I grinned.
Guess I’d need to file away ol’ officer Paul’s name for future reference.
“Let’s go,” Fig hissed.
Paul turned back to me, his red-rimmed eyes focusing a little more than they had since he stepped in. Some of the color returned to his cheeks, making them look ruddy.
“You know pretty much everyone around here because of this place. You probably hear all kinds of talk too.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I’m a nark.”
“See! Absolutely pointless to even talk to him.” Fig fumed.
“Not asking you to nark. Just wondering if you knew of a new gang forming around here. The tattoo on the victim, it wasn’t one we recognized.”
Oh, I was definitely interested. I wanted every detail about that tattoo… and at the same time, I didn’t.
Faint flashes from long ago assaulted me, almost blinding me with the way they flickered behind my eyes in rapid succession. My left hip tingled, the skin there turning hot.
I blinked, shoving away the bad memories and urge to rub at the burning spot, and forced myself back into the present.
“Do you have a picture?” I asked.
Fig sputtered, but Paul pulled out his phone, tapping at the screen.
“That’s official!” Fig protested.
“Then consider this an official question for the investigation,” Paul told me.
I inclined my head, not really agreeing but not disagreeing either.
He pushed the phone toward me, and I looked down.
Ice ran through my veins, so frigid that hypothermia was not just hypothetical but an actual danger. I looked a few seconds longer, pretending to really concentrate on the crude yet unmistakable mark marring the dead man’s wrist.
In reality, I couldn’t concentrate at all.
“Tattoos don’t smear like that,” I pointed out, the edges of my vision slightly blurred.
“Well, it ain’t really a tattoo. It was drawn there with marker. Figured it might be the gang’s way of marking their kill.”
The nosey tail in the alley didn’t have this mark. I would have noticed this. I would have noticed it as if it had been drawn with glow-in-the-dark ink.
That means he definitely didn’t die in that alley. And if he did, someone found him first. Someone wanted credit for this kill.
Or…
A message was being sent.
Message received.
Clearing my throat, I looked up at Paul. “Sorry, that’s new to me too. Haven’t seen anyone with this mark.”
“You’re sure?”
I glanced down again, not because I needed to but because it seemed like the thing to do. “I’m sure.” I confirmed. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
Paul shrugged and shoved the phone in his pocket. “It’s no problem. Thank you for your time.”
“Let’s go,” Fig called, and this time, his partner followed him to the door.
The second the men were gone, having walked down the block and not even visible in the windows, I sagged against the bar top, drawing in a breath.
It couldn’t be.Not after all these years.
The faint yet distinct ringing of a phone interrupted my jumbled thoughts. The bar phone remained silent, and the cellphone in my pocket was definitely not the culprit.
My eyes hastened in the direction of the office.
The crudely scrawled note on the napkin at the club flashed into my brain. Answer your phone.
I took off into the back. The door to my office banging against the wall with a loud crack and the sound of a drawer being yanked free of the desk fought to see which was louder. Everything inside scattered at my feet, but I ignored it, ripping open the false bottom of the drawer to grab the ringing phone.
Without a second of hesitation, I flipped it open, pressing it against my ear.
Silence greeted me.
The caller paused.
As did I.
We both waited soundlessly to see who would speak first.