Dead to Rites by Ari Marmell Read Free Book Online Page B

pullin’ a Rip Van Winkle while you’re still tryin’ to figure out what species she is, at the same time you’re tryin’ to get to know the other daughter after sixteen years apart, will do that to a person. Still, she was clearly thrilled to hear from me. Nice lady, Bianca Ottati. “How are you?”
    “Oh, can’t complain.”
    I mean, sure, I
coulda
complained. I coulda complained until I was blue in the cows and my face came home, or however that goes. Not least because my ear was near on fire and my whole head buzzed like I had bees makin’ whoopee in my sinus cavities. Damn, I hate using the phone. But I wasn’t willin’ to trundle across town to speak with her right now. Not this late at night, when there were fewer trains and the trip woulda taken hours, and not with Carmen McCall out there. She already knew too much about Adalina, but I couldn’t be sure
how
much. Yeah, she almost certainly knew where the Ottatis lived, or at least enough to look ’em up—but just in case she somehow didn’t, I wasn’t gonna lead her right to their doorstep.
    Guess, with the way my luck’d been running, I oughta have been thankful the phone was even working after my little display earlier.
    “Listen, Bianca, I won’t keep you long. I’m just givin’ you a ring to see how Adalina’s doin’.”
    Nice, but no bunny. I heard her mood change, her whole body tense and the hair on her neck stand up, even before she said another word.
    “She’s fine. I mean, as fine as… as usual. Why? What’s wrong?”
    “And Celia? She’s home? Everyone’s good?”
    “Tucked in bed. Mick, what is it?”
    Hadda pick my words carefully here. I wanted ’em on their guard, but not panicked. Enough to do what little good they could, not enough to make ’em worry over the fact that if one of the Fae really
did
have a beef with ’em, nothin’ they could do
would
prove much good. I hated to upset the Ottatis even that much—especially since I’d done pretty much the same, a few months back—but if I were them, I’da wanted the warning.
    And no, I sure as fuck was
not
gonna tell her about McCall’s supposed cure-all elixir. No way I was gonna get
those
hopes up until I had it in my paws and
knew
it was more’n snake oil.
    “It’s probably nothin’,” I hedged, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “Really. But just in case, you and Fino may wanna have a few of his boys keep close to Celia for the next few days. Maybe put an extra man on Adalina’s room, too.
    “Um, and they probably oughta be carryin’ iron pipes or knives in addition to their gats.”
    “Oh, God. Why do these things keep targeting us?”
    I decided to assume it was “present company excepted” where
things
were concerned.
    “I meant it when I said it’s probably nothin’, Bianca. But, if it
ain’t
nothin’, no, you don’t have anyone new after you. It’s possible—just
possible
—that Goswythe’s back in town.”
    She spat somethin’ in Italian then that I knew, one, she’d picked up from her husband, not her mother, and, two, she wouldn’ta wanted translated.
    “I want that bastard out of our lives, Mick.”
    “Trust me, we got similar goals here.”
    “Do you think I should tell Celia?”
    Hmm.
    “Probably,” I conceded. “I don’t wanna panic the girl. But she lived with Goswythe for most of her life. If anyone’ll know what to watch for, or see him comin’ no matter what shape he’s taken, it’s her. Probably fairer and safer to let her know.”
    “You know best.”
    Ha! Good one.
    “Just make sure she knows this is a precaution. Better safe, ’n all that.”
    “All right.”
    “And that I’m lookin’ into it.”
    I never have figured out how some people manage to smile so that you can hear ’em over the blower.
    “That’ll make her feel better.”
    Makes one of us.
    “Listen, while we’re jawing…” Much as I wanted to just hang up already and get as far from the damn payphone as the building’s architecture