Part 22 (1/2)
He sounded as bemused as she'd probably feel if she stopped to think about all the things that had happened since she woke from her nap, and having him sitting beside her working gently at her hair was hardly the least of it. So she somehow didn't snap at him in the sudden embarra.s.sment of the absurdity of what she'd said. ”I didn't want to go empty-handed. And you know what, I think he liked it.”
Masera looked down at his work, frowning over a particularly tight witch's knot. ”You might be right about this.”
”Giving up so easily?”
That got his attention all right. He gazed at her with those blue eyes hooded, long enough to see if she'd back down or ease upa”very much the look he'd given her in the break room that first daya”and said, ”You should know better than that.”
She just smiled. Then she told him the rest of what had happened at the spring, and by the time she was done he had come up on his knees to take her into his arms again, holding her tighta”only this time she felt it was for him more than for her, a fierce reaction to the thought of the things that might have happened but hadn't. And it was she who stroked his ruffled hair back and rubbed her thumb along the evening stubble on his cheek and gave him the moment he needed.
But not much more.
”Now,” she said. ”You tell me.”
”Tell youa”?”
”We have things to talk about,” she said, repeating his words from the night before. Only the night before. She moved aside a small section of hair they'd actually managed to untangle; it was soaked with the coat finisher but drying fast, as sleek and s.h.i.+ny as ever. Not normal hair, she thought, not for the first time in her life . . . only now she knew why. ”I could have called animal control a long time ago. I didn't, because you dropped a few vague comments. I didn't do it . . . because you didn't want me to, even if you never said so in so many words. Now . . . I want to know.”
He grew distant, then, without ever moving a muscle that she could see. A distinct vibration in the air around him, complete with little no trespa.s.sing signs. Brenna ceased working on her hair, let her hands rest in her lap, and looked at him. Whether he knew it or not, he hovered at a point of no return.
He must have known it.
He still hadn't moved, he still watched her with as much tight concentration as ever, but something inside had relaxed, and she knew it without having to know how she knew it. She went back to work on her hair.
”We were trying to build a connection to Parker's cocaine source,” he said, apparently starting right in the middle of the story.
”We, who?”
He looked up, mildly startled. ”Me, animal control, the cops . . . who else?”
Brenna shrugged.
”No,” he said, and then laughed, short but truly amused. ”You didn't thinka””
”You tried hard to make sure I didn't know what to think, didn't you? Me or Eztebe. Do you know how worried he is? And since when do the cops go to civilians to solve their problems?”
Masera sobered. He ran his fingers through the hair he'd freed up, letting it slide through his fingers like heavy silk. ”I was walking a line, Brenna. I didn't intend to get involved at all. Before I even started working at the store, Mickey spotted me there and asked me about the best food for performance dogs.”
”The same brand he ended up stealing, I suppose.”
”He was walking away with merchandise from the start. He only worked there so he'd have access to what he could take, and a discount on what he couldn't. Parker's supply man. Happens I saw him in a dogfight photo my friend in animal control was showing around. By then Mickey knew me . . . I started asking around and ended up in the middle of it. The cops wanted me out, especially after Parker's boys pulled their little initiation stunt on me. Lots of shouting over that, believe me.”
Brenna thought back to their first real conversation, when he'd barely been able to move and the bruises had obscured the well-defined features with which she'd since become familiar. ”That day in the break room? The first of many times you p.i.s.sed me off?”
Grinning, he glanced up; the light reflected from his eyes in translucent indigo. A rare humor, and she thought it was just as well; it was nigh to irresistible. ”The day you got my attention.”
”I was trying to get your goat,” she said, and wrinkled her nose at him. ”That beating was their little initiation stunt?”
He snorted; instead of working on her hair he'd transferred his attention to sc.r.a.ping a blob of mud from the fringe of her cut-offs. ”As far as I can tell, it was a transparent attempt to gauge my determination. Parker's minions; they came and went, except for Mickey and a few others. Didn't matter. It was Parker I wanted, the son of a b.i.t.c.h.” He scowled and reached up, using a knuckle on her chin to tilt her head to the light; she let him. Whatever he saw satisfied him, for he let it go without comment. Her nose, probably. It still throbbed, but with less fervor. ”There was no way . . . not once I knew Parker had blundered through akelarre and had a fast-growing power at his back . . . that he would do anything to gain access to your springa”” He shrugged, and quit trying to put it into words. ”It wasn't something I could leave to the cops.”
”What about those dogs you bought?”
He didn't answer at first. Then he said, ”What do you think?”
What did she think? She knew he'd been working with them; Eztebe had cheerfully told her so. He'd said he didn't intend to fight them. He'd also said he didn't currently consider himself as having his own dog. ”I think you're trying to rehab them, find them homes.”
He smiled a private little smile, not looking at her. ”You'd be right.”
”Can you?”
”If they'd ever been fought . . . no. But they were just pups, not even in training. They'll be fine. I've just been waiting till this was over.”
”And is it?” she demanded. ”You're not going back to that barn.” Worried by her tone, Druid got to his feet and put his front feet against her leg, balancing lightly on his haunches to whine at her. She rubbed the base of his speckled ear and watched Masera.
He shook his head, frustrated. ”We hadn't gotten to the bottom of it.”
”It doesn't sound like it has a bottom, if you ask me.”
”You may be right, given what Parker's got going for him.” He shook his head again. ”Whatever. It's over. I suppose it was over as soon as you told me about the rabies. I told Ricka”my friend in animal controla”and they're going to shut it all down; I don't know exactly when. They'll get the training barn you saw, the fight rings, two or three breeding barnsa”Parker's been pretty methodical about it all. Not a hobbyist, a pro. Breeding carefully, taking good care of the dogs, training them with all the tricksa”in it for the long haul, and running a nice little drug-distribution scheme alongside it. You saw the cat mill out behind his barn while you were there? That's probably where most of the dead animals came from.”
”I saw it. I didn't understand it.”
”It's like a horse walker,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. ”Put a dog at the end of one arm of it; put a cat in front of it. The cat runs, the dog chases. After a while, the dog catches. It builds fitness in the dogs, and bloods them at the same time.”
Brenna made a choked noise, opened her mouth to respond, and couldn't find any words strong enough. Not to respond to this new image of the cat mill, with blood in the dried winter gra.s.s, the smell she couldn't quite locate or identify, the worn rut of dirta”she grimaced, and took a deep breath, and moved the conversation forward. ”The drugs came from his dead pal Gary, I suppose,” Brenna said, and then, unable to let go of the cat mill, added, ”I hope they turn that thing into sc.r.a.p metal.”
”It doesn't matter,” Masera said darkly. ”It doesn't matter, because Parker will get away, and his cocaine source is still unknown. He'll just start it up again somewhere else.”
”No,” Brenna said. ”He won't. He's got to be near this spring. He might start up with something else, but he won't leave this place.”
”Whatever. Dammit, if I'd just had a few more daysa”” He got to his feet, unaware of the comb he clenched in his hand, frustrated to find that the den wasn't big enough for any sustained movement.
”Iban,” she said gently, ”Iban, you stopped the rabies. They'll put down every single one of those dogs, knowing there's rabies among them. They'll test thema”and I swear I think CDC already knows this is a new strain.” She thought of Sammi's constrained and unnatural silence. ”They'll work up a new vaccine in case anything slipped through the cracks. d.a.m.n, this is what it's all about, what it's been about.”
”What?” he said, as his eyebrows pinched in on his nose. It made her want to reach up and erase the resultant line with her finger, though she could do it just as well with words.
”For weeks I've had those weird visions. I can't explain it . . . I know they're connected to Druid.”
”Visions?” he said.
”Impressions . . . memories. Only not my memories. I know it sounds crazya””
And it did. Too crazy. She hesitated, would have stopped.
Masera said, ”Tell me.”
Still hesitant, she did. She started at the beginning, at Emily's kitchen table with Druid asleep at her feet and dreaming, and took Masera all the way up to the stark moments she'd envisioned only the night before. ”I felt like I was looking at the days of the black death. All caused fora”and bya”Parker's dark power, and by its new rabies.” She stopped to look at him, aware she'd gotten sidetracked. ”It would have killed so many people . . . it would have killed me. It would have changed everything. But it won't, not now. Maybe you didn't get the drug dealer, but you stopped the rabies.” Even if Parker didn't know it yet. And if he'd been angry during their recent confrontation, then he'd be utterly beside himself when the raids went down.
And he'd blame her. He knew enough to do that.
”We stopped the rabies,” he murmured. ”One of us had to figure it out, first, and then have the stones to call the other in the middle of a dogfight.”