Sister Death (Acid Vanilla Series Book 4), Matthew Hattersley [best book club books for discussion .TXT] 📗

His feisty accomplice didn’t answer.

So that was a no, then?

He quickened his pace to keep up as she leaned into the next corner and they found themselves on a long open street busy with people – hordes of locals and holidaymakers alike all heading for the festivities in the old town.

“Hey, you,” he gasped, winding around families as he tried to keep up. “Wait. Can we just—”

“Fine.” She stopped and turned so fast he almost crashed into her. Sweat dripped down her face and she was fighting to breathe. “One drink. But I’m not promising anything, you hear me?”

Despite his own discomfort – the lactic acid cutting into his side – he hit her with his trademark smirk, complementing it with a cheeky wink for good measure. “Grand,” he said. “I reckon ya gonna love this bar, it’s so you.”

“One drink, Danny.”

“Sure,” he said. “One drink.”

Twenty-Two

“Bájate de mí,” Magpie snarled at the hulking doorman. “No me toques – get your hands off me.”

“Perdon,” he growled, before slipping into English, an attempt at formality perhaps, or distance. “I cannot let you leave. There has been a complaint against you.”

Magpie stepped back to take in the pathetic oaf. “By her? The woman you were talking with?”

He nodded solemnly. “I know you are a fan—”

“A fan? A fan?” She held her arms out. “You think she is some sort of famous person? Imbécil. So she smile at you and you believe all she says? That woman is no star. She stole from me. She is a thief. Una ladrona.”

The man’s face fell as he scrolled back through the last few minutes, perhaps realising his mistake. “Estas seguro?” he stammered. “You are telling the truth?”

“Yes. I am a guest here. She was in my room. Which way did she go? Quickly.”

The doorman frowned, still coming to terms with how easily he’d been duped.

Well, make that twice. Estúpido.

“Which way?” she repeated, before he dumbly pointed down the side of the hotel.

Giving the fool one last sneer, she turned and gave chase, running alongside the Ramon Labaien Plaza, heading away from the river. At the crossroads of Camino and Okenda Kalea she paused, scanning each street in turn, both of them full of people even at this time of day.

The festival.

Mierda.

Her entire body seethed with an uncomfortable rage, but it was useless. She’d lost them. The crushing and debilitating fury continued to flow through her system as she stood on the corner glaring at passers-by, those casting concerned or curious looks her way, and stuffed her hand in her pocket, her fingers finding the handle of the 92, the gun an extension of her own body. A second went by, and another. She didn’t move, fighting against an onslaught of powerful urges and almost blacking out with the pain of failure.

There’d be another time.

This wasn’t over.

But working freelance, with no organisation backing her up (and without the technical wizardry of Raaz Terabyte to help locate the prey), it wouldn’t be so easy. She’d struck it lucky today at the hotel, that brazen woman’s desire for all things indulgent and expensive had been her undoing. But Acid Vanilla wasn’t an idiot. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

Perhaps this is the way it should be, she told herself, as she set off walking. Hunting the old-fashioned way was purer, unencumbered by the entrapments of modern life. She tilted her head to the heavens. The sun was all but gone and the sky a palette of dusky yellows and lurid pinks.

“Ayudame Dios, dame fuerza,” she whispered, so quiet her plea to God to give her strength was lost to the buzz of traffic and revellers.

Down Okenda Kalea and she found herself back in the old town. It hadn’t been a conscious decision to head this way, yet perhaps something had drawn her here. The Basilica de Santa María del Coro was a couple of streets away, and with no further thought she headed over there, walking up the stone steps and entering the ancient church’s narthex entrance a few minutes later.

Mass had finished thirty minutes earlier and the cool, echoing nave was empty except for a tiny woman huddled under a black shawl on the front pew, lost in silent prayer. Straight away, Magpie’s eyes fell on the confession booth on the left of the wide transept. The thick wooden doors were closed but the priest was in.

Was this why she was here?

With the church so silent, she could hear every gentle slap of her soft-soled espadrilles as she made her way down the aisle, pausing to take in the painting of Christ hanging above the altar. The artist had depicted him as a torn and broken figure, his face drawn and weary as he dragged the heavy wooden cross through the streets. She took a deep breath, letting the powerful image permeate her soul while Christ looked down at her through heavy-lidded eyes, informing her of what she must do. She raised her face to his, thanked him for his message. Then she turned and walked back out the way she came.

It took her fifty minutes to get back to the convent, and a further five to arrive at her own quarters in the annex building. Once there, she heaved the heavy door shut and stood with her back against it, chest rising and falling as she steadied herself. Her mind had been – mercifully – free from thought as she’d walked through the busy streets and followed the winding path up the hillside. Determination now her only motivation. To do what she must do.

She moved into the centre of the room and stood in front of the modest dresser unit that, except for the flimsy old bed, was the only piece of furniture in the room. A small round mirror hung from the wall above and from where she was standing she could see the reflection of her head and torso. She cricked her neck to one