said shortly, not letting my relief sound in my voice.
I cleaned his blood from the blade by wiping it on his pants and put it away in a sheath not easy to hand. I didn't want to draw it again until it had some attention. I should question him again. Hard and thoroughly. Just because he had been trussed up at a crime scene like a young calf didn't mean he hadn't been culpable on some level. Maybe he let the bad guys in. Maybe he did something else. But I wouldn't interrogate him. I would take the coward's way out and vanish. I stood and said, "Is there video surveillance of the attackers?"
Using one purpled palm, he pushed up and rolled over, looking at the destroyed computer and electronic equipment. He laughed, a pained chuffing sound. "I doubt it. Looks like they shot up the whole works."
"I need transportation."
"I have a Yamaha Super Tenere bike beside the building out front. Can you ride?"
"I'm a Harley girl. Yeah."
"Keys in my pocket." He tried to move his fingers and hissed through his teeth at the pain.
"Give me ten minutes before you call the cops," I said. "Mr. Pellissier will make it worth your time." I fished for the keys and left through the front door. The bike was in the shadows at the side of the building, hidden from the parking lot, helmet on the back. It was a sleek, sporty street bike, all black, built for speed and comfort. I stored my weapons and clothes in the aluminum side cases and strapped the Benelli to the bike along my knee. The weight and balance were different from Bitsa, and it used a key start, which I had always thought was a wussy way to start a bike, but I wasn't complaining. I keyed it on and it had the nice steady purr of a well-kept engine. The last thing I did before leaving the airport was to throw the new cell phone as far as I could and let my braids down from the crown to put on the helmet. It smelled of the air traffic controller but wasn't too horrible. I'd been around worse smells today. I tucked the braids into my collar and was on the road in seconds, heading toward the city lights.
Popular wisdom says it's supposed to rain all the time in Seattle, but it was dry and balmy for November, in the high seventies, even this late. Scudding clouds were advancing across the sky, and the night was black with buffeting winds and unfamiliar scents, mostly fecund earth and dense greenery, exposed rock, still warm from the sun. I shifted gears and climbed a hill, gaining speed. Putting the past behind me. Right now no one knew where I was. No one could contact me. If I wanted, I could take off and just disappear. Start over.
Beast does not run away, she growled softly.
But I could. If I wanted. A large part of me did want to head for the hills. Every time I blinked I saw the man I had left in the Learjet. Black road. Blink. Bloody body hanging on the jet's bulkhead wall. Open eyes. The man I had left alone, unprotected, to be tortured by vamps. Black road. Blink. Bloody body. Open eyes. Black road. The hanging, bloody man had been familiar, part of an old memory, a memory from my Cherokee past. Familiar, but fading. Already the vision of the man in the past had merged with the dead man of tonight. The familiar, hanging pose. The distant memory tumbling into the present, yet not quite sliding into place. I had seen such a thing when I was a young child. I was nearly certain. Nearly.
For months, little bits and pieces of my current life had fallen away or were ripped from me, much like the man's flesh had been flayed off. But my grief had all been internal - not overt - and therefore easily pushed away, shunted aside in favor of more immediately important matters. Ignored. But at the sight of the tortured flyboy, and the half-recalled memory, the enormity of my life changes had socked me in the face like some dark demon risen from hell.
Black road. Blink. Bloody body. Open eyes. Black road. Grip bike. Apply more speed. Bend into the turn. Wind beating at me. My breath was hot under the faceplate, almost panting. Almost a sob.