Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [115]
“Cal, you don’t have to—” Ian started to say.
“Yes, I do. I’ll go to them, if it keeps them from coming to you.”
12
Cal sat nervously on the couch while I got ready for our evening out. Either by way of making conversation or just being fretful, he asked, “Does it always take you this long to leave the house?”
I said, “No,” as I examined the contents of my go-bag. Lock picks, glass cutters, one small firearm (the .22, more for show than for firepower) and extra ammo, an envelope full of cash, my most recent disposable cell phone, handcuff keys, and some duct tape because hey, you never know. I’ve used that stuff as getaway rope, as restraints, and much more. Once I used it to strap a diamond necklace to my thigh like a garter, because I didn’t have a better way of carrying it. As an old acquaintance of mine used to say, “If you can’t duck it, fuck it.” I’m pretty sure he knew it was duct and not duck, but I’ll forgive him for the sake of the rhyme.
I also begged a baggie of A-negative off Ian, who traveled with a supply kept on ice in an Igloo chest. Usually, tracking down a butcher or blood bank is a vampire’s first priority when relocating, but neither Ian nor I had gotten a spare moment to scope for an in-town supplier, so the old stuff would have to suffice.
“Is this a special occasion, or what?” Cal asked, still looking nervous, and a little bit prim.
“Special only in the sense that it’s going to be dangerous—though more for me than for you,” I added, because why give him something else to fret about? I already had the feeling I was going to have to watch him like a hawk and maybe save his ass later on. But I wasn’t sure I’d mind saving his ass, if it came to that. He’d gone all Prince Valiant on me there, back at the Revolutionary—stepping forward in order to save his patron’s hide. Truly selfless, or so it appeared on the surface.
Still, my innate mistrust of ghouls did not let me give him any more credit than a baseline assumption that he would play along and not go out of his way to fuck it up for us both. And I didn’t like extending myself so far as to make that assumption. For all I knew, I could be wrong.
Except … if Cal wanted to bring Ian to real harm, there were easier ways to go about it. And he’d had ample opportunity over the … years? I had to assume they’d been a pair at least that long. More assumptions. I hate those things.
I added a cigarette lighter and a bottle of lighter fluid to my arsenal, then a small thin saw with a pointed tip, some waterproof matches, a second cell phone for good measure, and went ahead and zipped up the canvas bag. I said to Cal, “You ready?”
He said, “Yeah.” Then he watered it down by adding, “I guess.”
Apart from a ludicrous level of personal loyalty, I couldn’t figure out what Ian saw in him.
He continued, “You’re not going to need half of that. Probably not any of it.”
“I hope you’re right.” In fact, I knew he was right, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I never needed even a fraction of what I packed, but this was just one more parachute designed to cushion my neurotic topple into madness. And sometimes my obsessive emergency preparedness actually worked, so I didn’t feel compelled to stand around and defend myself.
I bet I wouldn’t need to defend myself to Pepper or Domino. Especially not after I’d already expressed them another phone, which ought to be waiting in the post office box within another night or two. Overprepared my ass.
No such thing.
Cal was driving because we were moving around in his rental car, the one he’d picked up at the airport as soon as they’d arrived. I’d been taxiing about and hadn’t had a chance to do my usual buy-something-secondhand-off-a-lot thing yet, so I let him fiddle with the keys to the white 2008 Malibu (which would not have been a first choice of mine, but whatever).
Once inside, he checked all his mirrors and the dashboard as if he hadn’t been the only