Indigo(28)
Nora staggered from her office cubicle, heading for the exit. The room was still spinning and swaying. She felt eyes on her, watching her weaving progress. Some of her colleagues might think she was drunk, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting home, talking to Shelby, trying to make some sense out of what was happening.
A dark shape loomed in front of her. She cried out.
“Hey, hey,” a voice said. She felt hands on her arms, steadying her. “It’s just me. Are you okay?”
She blinked until her vision cleared. Staring down at her with concern was Sam Loh, his lower lip cut and still a bit swollen from the punch she’d thrown at him.
“Sam, I … I gotta go.”
“Go where? Look … I came by to talk about what happened the night before last. You’re not yourself. I don’t think you should be going anywhere right now, Nora. You look terrible.”
“I’m fine, I’m just … not feeling too well.”
“Look, Nora, there’s obviously something going on with you—”
“There isn’t,” she insisted, pulling away from him. “I’m fine. Well, except for the fact that I think I’m coming down with something … flu maybe.”
“Flu?”
She scowled. “You don’t believe me?”
He raised his hands. “The way you’ve been behaving recently, I don’t know what to believe.”
She saw the hurt on his face, the concern. She reached out a trembling hand and touched him on the shoulder. “Look, Sam, I’m really sorry. You’re right. I haven’t been myself and I was … stressed. It’s this story I’m working on. The murders. It … well, it got to me, that’s all. But I’m so sorry, and I’m fine now. Other than…” She wafted a hand.
“The flu.”
“Yeah. The flu. I just need to go home, get some sleep.” She was already edging past him. “Look, I’ll call you, okay?”
“You’d better.”
“I will. I promise.”
And then she was past him, and out the door. Running down the stairs as if something were after her. Her thoughts churning, churning.
6
Nora’s rush of confusion and panic took her almost to the subway station before she managed to stop beneath a bodega awning and take a deep breath. It was as if a section of her memory had been snipped out. She’d been standing at Shelby’s apartment door, about to knock, and then it had been morning and she’d been working at her desk without any recollection of the events in between. She’d been blackout drunk at least once in her life, but an episode like that wouldn’t have impacted her ability to remember getting up in the morning, taking a shower and getting dressed, and commuting to work. Besides, she didn’t feel hungover. And she’d never heard of a drug that could cause such a memory lapse.
So what. The fuck. Was this?
Her heart hammered in her chest. Her skin prickled and she glanced around, wondering if anyone might have noticed how oddly she was behaving. Certainly her face must be flushed. Nora took a deep breath and pushed through the doorway into the bodega. She bought a bottled iced tea, conducting the transaction more to feel normal than anything else, then stepped back outside.
Home, she thought, uncapping the tea and taking a sip. Maybe she really did need sleep, but that felt too simple. Whatever had happened to her, it hadn’t been normal. She needed to be home, behind a locked door, safe. She needed to think. She also needed to call the office and make her excuses, then figure out a way to make everything right with Sam. It didn’t matter how worn-out or confused she felt, he was an important person in her life and she had to make it right.
As she started toward the subway station, she thought about the look on Sam’s face when she’d brushed him off just now, and guilt washed over her. Distracted, she took another sip of her iced tea and started down the dark, narrow steps into the subway station.
The moment she reached the landing, something moved just at the edge of her peripheral vision. Reflex alone saved her from a blow that would have crushed her trachea, if not outright killed her. She jerked back enough to take the worst of the impact on her shoulder, and her arm instantly went numb from the force. Her assailant charged forward with a flurry of devastating blows that she barely managed to block, each of them sending jolts through her arms.
Mugger? No. This was not random and Nora had nothing on her worth stealing. This had to be the cult. A Phonoi assassin. Nora felt a momentary panic, but then she reached out for the shadows and everything seemed better.
Alone in that subway stairwell, at least for a moment, Indigo turned toward her attacker, a woman in her early to mid forties, dressed in a simple black outfit, no jewelry to catch the light. No earrings or bangles to get caught on obstructions in the middle of a mêlée. She moved with regal grace and her face offered no emotions. This was a warrior, someone to respect. Maybe someone to fear.
The woman moved in a low circle and swept Indigo’s feet, knocking her on her ass before she knew what happened. She’d dealt with Phonoi assassins before, but never one this fast.
As the woman stepped closer, dark eyes assessing her, Indigo struck. The wave of shadow stuff caught the woman in the stomach and sent her staggering backward even as Indigo rose to her feet and drew the stairwell’s gloom in to cloak her.