Blood Trinity (Belador #1)(39)

Brutus dropped down in front of the rock with paws outstretched as if told the “down” command.

Yeah, right. Like that would happen in her lifetime.

Pick up the stone and prove to yourself it isn’t molten and that you’re not nuts. While she couldn’t take it home, there was no law against holding a rock for a few seconds to convince herself she wasn’t going bonkers.

She squatted down and touched the rock with one finger, quickly, in case it was hot. Not injurious hot, but a comforting warmth. That made no sense. She closed her eyes and let her fingers curl around the smooth shape, lifting it into her palm to identify the rock with a sculptor’s touch.

She could swear the stone moved as though it was a living thing.

When she opened her eyes, the colors in her hand glowed.

She glanced around the park, but something was odd about how everything looked blurrier than before through her glasses. She used her free hand to slip her thick glasses off, and her breath backed up in her throat at what she could see.

Everything.

A young man threw a Frisbee for his dog halfway across the field. The Border collie leaped high to snatch the toy from the air. A young couple sitting on a blanket fifty feet away played with their baby, who had a new front tooth.

This couldn’t be happening.

Laurette pushed her gaze to Tenth Street, which separated the park from a residential area. She wouldn’t normally be able to see that street from here. Car headlights burned crisply against the twilight darkening the city.

She’d never had vision this good, even with glasses. Even before her diagnosis.

The rock sat in her hand, pulsing with a vibrant energy.

Her head wanted to argue that this couldn’t be happening, that rocks did not restore eyesight, but her heart didn’t care.

She could see.

Testing her theory, she opened her fingers away from the rock, then scanned the busy park activities again. She couldn’t see as clearly as before but still better than she had with the best glasses she’d ever worn.

“What am I going to do, Brutus?”

He gave her a yap and danced around, happy.

Laurette closed her fingers once more around the rock and the world came back into sharp focus. She hooked her eyeglasses through the scooped neck of her sleeveless top.

Was this really happening? Or was she losing her mind?

If insanity was taking over, she’d use that as a basis for her defense if she got arrested for taking a piece of city property, because she held a miracle.

And she wasn’t telling anyone about this rock. Or ever giving it back.





TEN




You’ve got one minute, then I’m leaving. With your surprise.” Evalle muttered the warning on her second hike past the back side of Grady Hospital in downtown Atlanta, where heat hovered in the eighties at close to nine at night. What she wouldn’t give to use her power and stir a breath of wind, something to blow away the stench of urine oozing through the humid air in this spot.

Where was that ornery Nightstalker?

The temperature dropped ten degrees to a comfortable chill.

“What happens in one minute, E-valle? Not like you gonna leave ’till we talk.” Grady’s deep Southern voice brushed past her ear like charred wood scraped against rough concrete.

Evalle stopped on the sidewalk running along Pratt Street. She didn’t turn around. A waste of time, since no one stood behind her. “I’m in a hurry, Grady.”

The translucent form of a thin male took shape, wavering in front of her. The coffee-colored skin on his jaw was covered with gray whiskers that stopped just below a slash of cheekbone. His creased nose had failed to dodge a fist or two that had left their marks. Bony elbows interrupted the long arms sticking out from his red-and-black plaid short-sleeved shirt.

The air continued to cool, a welcome change.

From what Grady had told her, he looked the same way now he had the day he’d died homeless on the streets at age sixty-eight, a decade and a half ago.

When his head came into focus, sharp eyes with two chips of coal for pupils glowered at her before his gaze dropped to the denim shoulder bag hanging against her hip. “What surprise?”

“Not until we have a deal and shake.” Negotiating with Grady was like dealing with Charon on the River Styx. If you didn’t set the price before you got on the boat and refuse to pay until he ferried you safely to the other side, he’d dump you in the river and leave you to drown.

Grady lifted his stubborn chin. He was a wily old bastard who gave up nothing for free. He, like all Nightstalkers, was the metaphysical remains of the less fortunate who’d died on the street. They would do anything for a craving. Sometimes it was drugs or food, but usually it was alcohol, and in Grady’s case, there was only one thing he wanted.

Mad Dog 20/20.

All a Nightstalker needed was one quick handshake with any powerful being—and they could take human form for ten minutes.

“Whatya got?” He eyed her bag.

“Clock’s ticking.”

“I’m listenin’.”

“I need information on two Cresyls and a Birrn demon that were running around town this weekend. Got anything on them?”

“Maybe.”

“I can’t play this game right now, Grady. My butt’s in a sling.”