Authors: C.J. Barry

Body Thief (11 page)

BOOK: Body Thief

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She slipped in front of him, and his eyes immediately focused on her. “We look for answers. For why the Shifters are operating this way.”

Her voice was low and husky.
Borrowed voice,
Griffin reminded himself, even as he stared into her eyes. Gold highlights moved in her hair. He should say “Forget it,” but those sirens were getting closer by the second. When she raised her chin in challenge, he followed the long line of her neck down to the T-shirt and the breasts that filled it out.

“Mercer?” she asked.

She wasn’t going to let him off the hook.

“Two hours’worth of XCEL’s resources,” he said.

“Six,” she countered. “And I want Ernest.”

Damn, she was good. “Four. Not Ernest. He’s a kid.”

“Three, and we need Ernest,” she said. “He’s brilliant.”

She was right about that. Ernest wasn’t bleeding all over the floor at the moment. Griffin offered, “Three, and Ernest.”

“Deal,” she said as she turned and headed toward the exit. He shook his head, wondering why he’d given in. He was way out of line, and Harding would have his head. Then he noticed the sexy way her hips rolled when she walked, and he realized he needed a good night’s sleep pretty damn soon.

“I thought you said this was just a scratch,” Cam said as she watched Lyle stitch Mercer’s shoulder. It had to be painful, but Mercer was far tougher than she realized. He just sat there on the kitchen stool and didn’t say a word. Like this happened every day.

“Do you do this a lot, Lyle?”

The bartender stood up and gave a loud sigh. “More than I care to. Used to be a medic in the army.”

He cut the last of the threads and tossed the needle on the countertop behind him. “Griffin has a thing about doctors.”

Mercer winced and pulled on a clean shirt. “Don’t tell her anything. She’ll use it against me.”

“My kind of girl.” Lyle winked at her and washed his hands in his kitchen sink. “Come downstairs when you’re ready. It’s last call. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Cam nodded at Lyle as he left. There was a pile of bloody paper towels in the sink. “You must really hate doctors, because this couldn’t have been pleasant. There’s a rumor that Novocain works wonders for humans.”

Mercer stood up and rolled his arm. “I don’t hate doctors.”

Cam said, “No? So what’s the deal? Childhood trauma? White coat phobia?”

He put his hands on his hips and squared off in front of her. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“You don’t ask enough.” She smiled. “So why the aversion? Because I have a funny feeling that this won’t be the last time we end up here.”

Mercer turned serious. “Let’s just say that I don’t want any official medical records of my injuries.”

Cam frowned. “Who would care?”

“XCEL would,” he said, sounding surprisingly disgusted.

And she was confused. “You can’t tell me that XCEL agents don’t get hurt all the time. I know better.”

Mercer held her gaze. “I’m not an XCEL agent.”

Cam took a full step back. “Whoa. What? You’re not an agent? What the hell are you, then?”

For a moment, he didn’t reply and she wasn’t sure he would. Getting information out of him was like pulling teeth. From a tiger. Cornered.

Finally, he seemed to come to some kind of decision. “I
was
an XCEL agent. And then a Shifter took my place.”

Now
that
she hadn’t expected. “And?”

He started to say something and then shook his head. “Let’s just say that I’ve been trying to convince everyone that I’m really myself ever since. It’s been a blast.”

His tone turned bitter, and she understood why. Humans were really attached to their uniqueness, their
specialness
. Not that she’d ever personally agreed with that. Mostly, they were all identical assholes.

“That sucks,” she said. “But what does that have to do with you refusing to investigate something you know is wrong?”

He eyed her. “You’ve met Harding.”

She wrinkled her nose. “True. I don’t suppose he handles surprises well.”

Mercer grabbed his jacket off the chair and pulled it on. “He doesn’t handle anything well, but I have to go through him.”

To get what I want
, he left unsaid, but Cam heard it loud and clear. That meant Mercer didn’t give a damn why Shifters were blowing things up. He just wanted to give Harding his answers and get his job back. His identity back. She didn’t care as long as she got what she wanted too.

“We had a deal,” she reminded him. “Three hours.”

“How could I forget?”

But he grinned in the shadows when he said it, and Cam realized he would keep his word. She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did. Either that or she was getting soft.

Griffin lay on the couch with an aching shoulder and a stiff neck. Midday sun tipped through his window blinds. He sat up gingerly and checked his apartment. No sign of Cam, and his bedroom door was shut. One less thing for him to worry about. She was too curious for his good.

He stood and felt every punch he threw and every stitch he’d earned last night. He was getting too old to be fighting punks. Once this mission was over, he could go back undercover, tracking down Shifters posing as humans, and at least one part of his life would be normal again.

Griffin reached for the answering machine and skipped all the collections calls. His grandfather’s voice was a welcome change.

“Hello, Griffin. This is your grandfather, Sani.”

Griffin went to the kitchen to make coffee while the message played. He briefly considered scotch, but it wasn’t quite noon and he never drank before noon. At least not lately.

“You have been heavy in my thoughts this past day. I feel pain.”

Griffin glanced at his shoulder wound. His grandfather always seemed to know what was going on, even when Griffin was a kid. He could tell when Griffin broke his arm or fell off his bike. These days, though, his falls were much bigger.

The message continued. “Today, I heard the Eagle cry. The wind had carried it far from home, and it was lonely.”

Griffin turned on the coffeepot, listening carefully. It was a habit he’d learned long ago. Elders were respected. Family was all-important. And everything you did—good or bad—reflected upon them.

“The Eagle missed the familiar things. It missed the water and the earth. It missed its family,” Sani continued in his slow cadence.

Griffin walked back into the living room to find Cam standing just outside her door. She frowned at him, listening to the message in rapt attention.

“It wanted to go home. But the wind would not go that way. The Eagle cannot get home. This is its home now.”

Griffin walked to Cam, their eyes meeting. His grandfather said good-bye, and the message ended.

“Who was that?” Cam asked, her voice sleepy.

“My grandfather,” Griffin replied.

Her expression softened into curiosity. “Does he always say weird stuff like that?”

“He’s a Traditional Navajo.” He amended, “He believes in a lot of legends.”

A hint of humor lit in her eyes. “I see. So nothing hereditary?”

“No,” he admitted. At least he hoped not. Although he didn’t abide by the cultural part of his heritage, he knew it well. He’d had no choice. Sani had made sure of that.

“Does he live around here?”

“He lives on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.”

“Who’s the Eagle?”

He almost stopped her, because it was way too early for twenty questions. Then again, she asked nicely. He sighed. “I have no idea.”

“He’s a storyteller?”

Griffin eyed her. How did she know that? “Yes.”

“Like my father,” she said.

That surprised him. “Your people have storytellers?”

“We had many a long time ago,” Cam said, and walked past him toward the coffeepot. “Very long. My father is probably the last one.”

Griffin took out two mugs, and Cam poured coffee into both. He hadn’t really thought about Shifters having a culture of their own. “Do you know the stories?”

She nodded. “Most of them. Not all.” She gave Griffin a little smile. “My father says I don’t have enough patience to listen.”

“There’s a surprise,” Griffin said over his coffee.

“Funny,” she said. “Do you know your stories?”

He took a sip of coffee. “Most of them.”

She grinned, knowingly.

“I’ve learned patience the hard way since then,” he said.

She didn’t reply, but he could almost see the wheels turning in her head. Which part of this conversation would she spring on him down the road? He was beginning to look forward to the challenge.

Griffin leaned against the counter across from her and noticed that she was wearing one of his T-shirts. A strange awkwardness stretched between them, and he found himself staring at her long legs under his shirt. Then he remembered that she was his ticket to normal. Or as normal as a shapeshifter hunter’s life could get. He had no business looking at legs.

“When do I get my three hours?” she asked.

Griffin laughed despite himself and realized that it had been months since he found anything funny, maybe longer. “Today.”

Cam gave him a brilliant smile. “Good.”

“Quietly,” Griffin amended.

“I can do quiet.”

He highly doubted that. “Ernest is not like us.”

“No, he’s smarter,” she said.

Griffin said firmly, “The only reason Harding tolerates him is because he is the best geek he has. I don’t want that to change.”

Cam set down her coffee and narrowed her eyes. “I’ll be careful, I promise. I just need a little research.”

They understood each other. It was getting a little scary, actually. Of course, by next week both of them would be on their merry ways. As it should be. Working on the same side with Shifters felt unnatural. Yes, there were one or two shapeshifters in XCEL, but no one ever really trusted them.

“By the way,” she said as she headed toward the bathroom, “thanks for the shirt.”

“No problem.” Then Griffin breathed into his coffee. “Nice legs.”

“Thank you,” she called from the other room.