Chapter Seventeen

Buying another car would be better," Eli said slowly. He looked at me, waiting to see if I agreed. I tried to look encouraging. "On a train we'd be trapped," he said. We'd be a little more trapped. "Okay," I said. "And when we get a car, where are we going?" "North out of Mexico, any way we can," Eli said. No doubt about that at all. "The quickest way we can, that's not the obvious way. When we get to a telephone, I have to make a long phone call to my superior in the order. Then they'll send someone to escort me back to San Diego, probably my mentor, Dmitri Petrov." He brightened. Because, obviously, he'll be safer with another grigori than with me. I felt all the muscles around my mouth get stiff. "Eli, you live in a different world than me," I said. He looked confused. "How do you know whoever they send won't be on the other side? How long do you think you'll live?" Eli was shocked. My heart sank when I realized this had never occurred to him . . . though people in that same organization had been trying to kill him over and over for a week. "Master Petrov would never harm me," he said, but he didn't sound any real sure. "He loved Paulina. She was his first protégé." That, Eli was sure of. "So all the grigoris we've killed, including the people they hired, starting with Josip while we were still in Segundo Mexia . . . they have nothing to do with your Master Petrov? Don't even know him?" "Why . . . ?" "Jesus, Eli, someone had to tell them you love your little brother. Someone had to say, 'Go take a gander at that kid. If you make the corpse look like Peter, Eli will take the bait.'" Eli was looking at me, but he wasn't seeing me. "That makes sense," he said, and his voice made me sad. Older, grimmer. "I'm sorry," I said, meaning it. Mostly. "This is hard for you. But you got to get this straight." I looked at his face and pondered. Eli hadn't mentioned two important items. What he intended to do about my valuable blood . . . and when he intended to finish paying me. That wasn't on the top of my list of things to worry about—but it should have been. I tried to imagine killing Eli and taking the money from the car sale. My problems would be solved. No one in Segundo Mexia would think twice if I said the grigoris had gone back to San Diego. In fact, hardly anyone would blink if I said I'd shot Paulina and Eli along the way to Ciudad Juárez. They'd be sure I'd had provocation. That raised another question. Did anyone back at grigori headquarters, whatever it was called, know I'd gone on this trip with Eli and Paulina? The two might have reported in without me knowing it. In fact, that seemed real likely. I'd be pegged as the killer for sure. But there was no way to ask Eli,By the way, does anyone know we're together? without being pretty obvious. I knew already that I couldn't kill Eli unless he was trying to kill me. I was wasting my time considering it. And that bothered me. I should have been determined to watch out for myself. Eli and I weren't tied to each other, like Tarken and I had been. We weren't bonded by family, or town, or profession. We didn't have the same religion or the same language, even. Plus, he was a grigori. The only person I'd ever deliberately hunted down and killed had been a grigori. I wondered if Eli could kill me. He had the ability, but did he have the will? There was a lot I didn't know about him still. Eli made a little throat-clearing sound, and I knew I'd been looking at him for a long time, thinking my thoughts, not satisfied with them. "Are you angry with me?" he said. "Angry?" After a second I understood what he meant. "How could I be angry? That was the best sex I've ever had." He grinned. "Yes, it was great." He looked kind of proud—totally guy. To my disgust, I found that kind of cute. "We're going to get out of this," I said, almost at random. I wasn't sure we'd both get out alive, though. "I'm thinking of ways to do that." We'd have to find another car dealer, but that was the smallest of our problems. If selling the previous car had been complicated, getting another one would be even more so. I tried to make up a story that would be credible to a car dealer if I went in by myself. Not too many single women in Mexico could buy any vehicle, and of those few, not many would. Cars and trucks were almost exclusively men's territory. It crossed my mind to track down Señor Reyas again . . . but then he'd know too much of our business, and I didn't want to have to kill him. I explained all this to Eli, who was sitting in the cane chair while I sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm trying to think if you could do it," I said. "Not that you couldn't manage it, of course. I'm just worried about raising suspicion or being noticed." "There were lots of other gringos around this morning," he said. "At least you don't have the tattoos on your face," I said. "Can you disguise yourself? With magic?" "I've never tried." Eli looked excited, like I'd thrown down a challenge. I stayed quiet while he thought and (I guess) rummaged around in his mental magic chest to find the tools necessary. First he became a dog. I laughed my ass off. But that appearance didn't hold long. He became the woman he'd left the bag with the previous day. That lasted a little longer. Then he tried being the proprietor of the hotel in Mil Flores, Jim Comstock. That appearance he could stick with. It made me a little queasy, watching all this, and thinking that part of this man had been inside me. He could have turned it into something else. I shook myself. It was no time to think of that. In fact, I should never think of that. When Eli had held on to Jim Comstock's appearance for five minutes, I was sure we had something good. Though it made me feel awful antsy, sending Eli in to negotiate made sense. I rehearsed him about what the dealer would expect: extensive haggling, criticism of the car, and so on. Eli nodded (he was himself for now). He'd listened intently, and he was no fool. For all I knew, they offered and counteroffered all the time in the HRE. "What will you be doing while I'm getting the car?" Eli was pocketing the money we'd gotten from selling the Tourer. That was a good question. "I'll walk through this neighborhood to see if I can spot any more grigoris. Could they possibly know me? Do they know, back at your headquarters or whatever you call it, that you've got a young female gunnie?" I kept every scrap of urgency out of my voice. "No," he said. "I was the one who called them to tell them we were on our way to Juárez, that we had a lead, and we had hired a guide and bodyguard. I didn't specify further than that." I was really, really relieved. "That makes it easier for me to keep an eye out," I said. "Since everyone who saw me with you . . ." "Is dead." "Just about." No way around that. Eli didn't look like he thought anything real suspicious about my remark. When I really examined my skirt, flattening it out by the window, I found a bloodstain that had been hidden by the folds. It was unmistakable. Eli promptly went out to one of the little stalls and got me replacements for the whole outfit—including a new hat, so I wouldn't be covered with kerchiefs. The new skirt, which fell to the middle of my calves, was patterned in white and red, the blouse was sleeveless and white, and the hat was broad brimmed, natural straw color. He'd gotten sandals, too, which would help me blend in better. Everything fit well enough. "Thank you," I said, after a quick glance in the small mirror. "You look pretty," Eli said, almost shyly, and then he left on his errand. I was out the door shortly after Eli, locking the door behind me and stopping at the front desk to tell the clerk that we didn't want the room cleaned. I had too many guns for the taste of most innkeepers, and we might get thrown out. The clerk looked very confused. I had to remind myself that Eli kept making him forget us. It felt good to get out and walk free, and it felt good to stop worrying for a few minutes. I didn't spot a single grigori, and I didn't feel the presence of any. On the other hand, I did see my friend Chauncey Donegan. Last time I'd seen Chauncey, he'd told me he'd been guarding Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Penn. I thought it was real odd that the two Britannians were nowhere to be seen. I wasn't with my charge, either. But I had the feeling I'd gotten when my mother took me to the river when I was little. I'd waded out into the shallows, on the stones worn smooth with the passage of the water and slick with slime, and the next step I'd slid into a deep hole that had been hidden from sight. Cee hadn't seen me yet, or maybe he hadn't recognized me in my skirt and sandals. I stepped into the open doorway of a jewelry shop that had just opened. I stared down at a turquoise necklace while the shop owner began to tell me how much handwork had gone into it, and how beautiful I'd be with it around my neck. I smiled and nodded, but I was thinking hard. Running across Cee here again, that was a real strange coincidence. Meeting him earlier on this trip, that could happen to any two people in the same profession. It was even especially likely in Mexico, where affluent gringos often traveled with someone who knew how to shoot. I was clean out of the ability to trust two coincidences in a row. I turned down the necklace with regret and drifted away from Cee. The best way to get someone to not notice you is to not look at him. And the best way to do that was to be sure he was behind me. As I poked along, stopping to purchase a cheap shopping bag and buying a batch of tortillas to put in it, I thought over our encounter in the bar. Had the men he'd identified as his employers ever acknowledged him? No. But he'd told me they didn't hold him in high regard . . . maybe so I would not be surprised if they didn't nod or speak to him. Was Cee more clever than I'd ever given him credit for being? That didn't seem likely, yet the evidence was before me. When a hand clamped down on my shoulder, it was all I could do not to turn and stab. My hand was on my knife. But when I did glance over my shoulder, trying to look only as indignant as any other woman touched by a stranger, I saw Eli. Who still looked like someone else, but I knew it was him. "¡Hola!" I said, and gave him a kiss. I knew Eli was taller than his illusion, but I had to kiss the mouth of the illusion, right? It was so weird. "Mi corazón," I said fondly, and wrapped my arms around what should have been his waist. "I completed my mission. And someone's watching us?" Thank God Eli was smart. "Yes, mi hombre viril," I murmured. "You remember the old friend I saw in the saloon where we had dinner?" Eli nodded, smiling down at me. "I spotted him just now, so he's on our trail. I don't know if those two Britannians were really his bosses, or if he just pointed them out to make his being in Mexico more believable." "What had we better do?" "We had better get back to our room as soon and as quietly as we can. Then we can talk." Eli, wearing his illusion, and I, wearing a skirt and a big hat, made it back and hightailed it up to our room. Where we took off our clothes as fast as we could and had sex, bang-the-wall sex. He looked like him, and I looked like me. "That was the best feeling I've ever had," he said with a gasp, rolling over onto his back. "Yes," I said. I was in complete agreement. We lay for maybe five minutes in contented silence before dragging ourselves back to the real world and our real problems. "What do you think will happen if no direct descendant of Rasputin can be found? Besides me, I mean. That is, do you think the blood Alexei needs has to be Rasputin's blood?" "We certainly tried a lot of other peoples'," he said. His voice was very dry. "And none of it made the tsar recover except for Rasputin's. When we could see the monk was fading, we tried the blood of his oldest child, Daniel. It worked. And that gave us hope. But then Daniel died." "What happened to him?" "A terrible accident," Eli said without expression. "He was swimming by himself in the tsar's pool when his foot got caught in a drain and he drowned." I shook my head. "Accidents will happen." Unless someone was there to prevent them. "There was an investigation, which came up with nothing." "And who headed that investigation?" He hesitated. "Actually, my father." "Wow. That's an important responsibility. Did your family come over with the previous tsar's?" Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children had been rescued in the nick of time by a team of White Russians and the English. Nicholas was first cousins with the English king. But Parliament had voted to keep Nicholas and his family from settling in England, so the royal family and all its retainers had started roaming in a little flotilla, until the offer came from the Hearst family to settle in California. "Yes, my father . . . owned an estate next to the royal family's. In the country. He and Nicholas grew up together. My father is still alive." "Your mom, too?" "My mother is my father's second wife, and much younger than him. She became an attendant to the tsarina when they went into exile. She was on the same ship. Any other suitable ladies-in-waiting had been killed, or were too old or too young." "Were you born then?" "Yes. I was very young. I had two older brothers by my father's first marriage. Mother was carrying my little brother when we landed in America." "And she's had two more children since she got to these shores. Girls." He nodded proudly. "Yes, plenty of family. Do you have any sisters or brothers? By the man your mother has married now?" I shook my head, my bristly hair brushing his shoulder. He rubbed my head like it was a good luck charm. "Not a one. Jackson has a brother, but no kids." We sighed at the same time, because we had to get back to the real world, where none of our family history mattered because we didn't need to get to know each other . . . because we were both (probably) going to die soon. I was surprised we'd lived this long, but it was waving a red flag at fate to say that out loud. "Okay, then," I said, sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. "Where's the car?" "It's parked behind the hotel, you can see it from the window," he said. "It's a black Proenza. It has only five thousand miles on it, at least that's what the odometer says and the mechanic I hired to check it told me it was in reasonably good shape. I'm not sure what that means, but he said the brakes work and the tires are okay. I had to accept that." I went to our window and looked down. There was a little parking courtyard behind the inn. There were four cars parked there, a shiny black Proenza among them. "You got a mechanic to check it out," I said, hoping I didn't sound amazed. I'd never thought of doing that. Of course, I'd never bought a car before, and all the people I knew who'd bought vehicles had been mechanics, more or less. "Sure," Eli said, trying just as hard not to sound surprised. Galilee had once told me she knew an early boyfriend wasn't going to work out because there was a difference between them as wide as a river. There was more like an ocean between Eli and me. At least our parents both served their communities, my mother by teaching and his father by helping the tsar. I'd been staring at Eli, and he was beginning to look uneasy. I had to talk fast. "That was a good idea. So the Proenza runs, it's downstairs waiting for us, and how much money do we have left?" Eli sat up, too, and bent over to get his trousers from the floor. I tried not to think too much about the long line of his back, to say nothing of his butt. He rummaged in his trouser pocket and pulled out a much smaller wad of money, which he handed over to me. I felt like his mom. I counted it, trying not to make a big show of doing that. But I had to know if the cash could fund our trip out of Mexico. I breathed out, long and slow. "This should cover us," I said. "For the distance we got to go." I tried not to think of the many things that could happen to eat up that money. "I haven't paid you," Eli said, holding his shirt in his hand. I could tell from the way he looked at it that he was thinking that if he talked about money while he was putting on his clothes, it would feel awfully like asking a prostitute how much he owed her. "At this point I'll be glad to get out of Mexico alive," I said. "If we manage to do that, I trust you for my pay." More or less. But I had to say it. Eli looked a little embarrassed and a little gratified. He didn't have simple emotions except when he was naked with me. "But I'm going to give you some expense money. You'll need it in hand, in case I'm not near when you need to make a purchase," Eli said, sounding very reasonable. He pulled the bills out and set them on the night table. "So what do we do now? Start out of town?" He felt he could dress now, so I did, too. "Maybe I should find out what Chauncey is up to. I don't know if we can drive out of the area without someone noticing, now that I've seen him prowling. If he's watching, maybe other people are, too. Cee knows for sure I'm with you. Maybe he doesn't know Paulina is dead." There were too many things I did not know. I was trying to steer a course that would take everything into account, and that was impossible. "The thing is, I wouldn't have thought he was smart enough to have acted so innocent when I saw him, and now to seem so deep into the plot . . ." Imagining Chauncey caring about Russian politics almost made me laugh. "Maybe he's just doing it for the money," Eli said. "Exactly like me," I said. "I got a deep interest in this whole thing now, but I took the job for the money. Also, I had to find out what you and Paulina were up to, naturally. And if I had a sister." Eli's accent got stronger as he said, "I hope now we can be honest with each other." "I hope so, too," I said, but I didn't have any surety that would be so. I thought while I pulled on the new skirt and blouse. I didn't mind the sandals so much, or the hat. But after a couple of days I was getting tired of skirts flapping around my legs. I opened the room door, and I heard a familiar voice floating up the stairs. I raised my hand and Eli stopped to listen, too. "You got a young gringo gal here, maybe twenty, with real short black hair and a lot of guns? My boss asked me to track her down to offer her a job, and I ain't had any luck." "No, sir," said the desk clerk politely. "We have no one here like that." "She might be with a tall woman and a man, older than her. Some of them tattooed Holy Russians?" "I haven't seen people of that description," the clerk said just as politely. "Lucky I blurred his memory," Eli said into my ear. If we ever got naked together again, I was going to do something really special for Eli.