Her voice might have been venomous, but her eyes were dark, her mouth was set in a hard line, and her hands were clenched into tight fists. For a second, Bria looked exactly like Catalina had right before she’d thrown up—sick, wounded, and vulnerable.
Bria eyed Catalina. A bit of sympathy flashed in my sister’s eyes, momentarily softening them, but the expression was quickly snuffed out, and her features hardened again.
Bria surged to her feet and stalked back over to me, her movements even quicker than before. “Tell me what happened.”
I stared at her, wondering what had her so riled up. “Aren’t you even going to ask if I’m okay?”
“What? Why? You’re fine. You’re always fine.” Bria waved her hand. “Tell me what happened, Gin. Now.”
I frowned at her dismissive attitude and abrupt tone, but Bria just sighed, rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest, as though I were the one being curt and childish. So I gave in and filled her and Xavier in on everything from Catalina’s run-in with Troy last night, to him following her to the garage, to Benson showing up and killing Troy.
The only thing I didn’t mention was Silvio Sanchez seeing Catalina and me, and then apparently leaving a Burn pill behind for me to find. Maybe Silvio thought he could squeeze me for some money to keep his mouth shut. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t told Benson we were here. Either way, I wanted some time to puzzle out the vampire’s motives. And Bria’s too, since she was acting so strangely.
Bria’s speculative gaze zoomed back over to Catalina. “She’s one of your waitresses, right? Does she work for Benson too?”
I frowned again, wondering why she was so focused on Benson. “No, but she grew up with Troy.”
I told them a condensed version of what Catalina had revealed to me about her past. Xavier shot Catalina a sympathetic look, but Bria started tapping her foot, the toe of her boot snap-snap-snapping against the concrete, racing along with her thoughts.
“What about that pill you found?” Bria asked.
I pulled the plastic bag with its blood-red pill out of my pocket, and she snatched it out of my hand. For a second, I thought about snatching it back from her. Bria’s lack of manners was starting to get on my nerves.
“You know what it is?” I asked.
Her tense expression grew even grimmer. “It’s called Burn. It’s the latest designer drug on the streets, courtesy of Benson.”
“Burn? Why that name?”
“Because it’s supposed to make you feel like you are a mile high and like your veins are on fire at the same time,” Xavier rumbled in his low, deep voice.
“Well, I suppose that explains the rune stamped on it,” I murmured. “That crown-and-flame design represents raw, destructive power. But that’s not Benson’s rune, is it?”
“No,” Bria said, still staring at the pill. “His is the letter B with two fangs sticking out.”
“Supposedly, just one of those little babies will take you on the ride of your life,” Xavier chimed in. “Human, vampire, giant, dwarf. It’ll knock you on your ass no matter how big and strong you are, make you see things that aren’t there, and generally screw with your head, according to the reports and what we’ve seen. It’s supposed to be a real trip.”
“Elementals too?” I asked.
He and Bria exchanged a glance.
“We’ve actually heard that it’s even more potent for elementals,” she said. “And it doesn’t seem to matter how strong or weak their magic is or what element or offshoot they’re gifted in. It really packs a punch with them. Nobody knows why, though.”
“But haven’t you guys analyzed the pills to figure out what’s in them?”
She shook her head. “We’ve tried, but the lab folks haven’t been able to figure out all the ingredients. They’ve told me that there’s something that gives the pills their zing, but that they haven’t been able to pinpoint it yet.”
Her words made me think back to the fork I’d touched in the Pork Pit. The utensil had had plenty of zing, so much so that it had practically sizzled with the auburn-haired woman’s magic, whatever it was, before the sensation had slowly started to dissipate. And now here was something else that was unknown, dangerous, and deadly.
I didn’t believe in coincidences. I never had, and all the close calls, deadly schemes, and tangled webs I’d navigated through ever since I’d killed Mab Monroe had made me more suspicious and paranoid than ever before. So I couldn’t help but wonder if the woman at the Pork Pit could somehow be connected to Benson and his drugs. But I didn’t see how. The auburn-haired woman had magic, and Burn was just a pill, just a chemical compound. Maybe they had nothing to do with each other. Maybe the woman had just come into the restaurant for a good meal. Maybe she meant me no harm. Maybe . . .
I rubbed my throbbing temples. Maybes always made for one hell of a headache.
“Anyway,” Bria said, sliding the plastic bag with the pill into her pocket. “I’ll call the lab and see if anyone is working tonight. Maybe it’s not too late to get this one analyzed.”
She pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket, hit a button, and held the device up to her ear. “Hey, it’s Coolidge. I need to talk to whoever’s left in the lab . . .”
She started pacing back and forth, her boots crack-crack-cracking against the concrete again. The longer Bria talked, the higher and faster her voice got, and she kept throwing one hand up into the air, punctuating all of her sentences, even though the person on the other end of the phone couldn’t even see her.
“What is up with Bria?” I asked Xavier. “She’s usually not this . . .”
“Forceful? Gung-ho? Eager to nail a bad guy’s ass to the wall?” he said.
“I was going to say cold, rude, and dismissive. But yeah. All that too. I mean, she’s always happy to throw drug dealers and other criminals in jail, but this seems . . .”
“Personal,” Xavier finished.
“Yeah.”
He looked at Bria, but she was still talking on her phone. Xavier nodded his head at me, and we stepped a few feet away from her. Catalina continued her silent vigil by Troy’s body.
“Look, Bria asked me not to say anything,” he began. “But with what happened tonight, I figure that you deserve a heads-up.”
“About what?” I asked.
He glanced over to make sure that Bria wasn’t listening to us before turning back to me. “Bria and I have been working on taking down all the dealers who sell Burn for a couple of months now, ever since it started showing up in Ashland over the summer. It makes people crazier than anything else I’ve ever seen, so crazy that they’ll claw their own skin off because they think it’s on fire or melting or something like that.”