DeVante's Coven (14 page)

Funny, he’d never wished it before, not with anyone.

Daniel insisted he had to go home just after four in the morning. Reed was grateful he didn’t have anything other than a late lunch with a client on his schedule tomorrow.

He thought he should stay awake and berate himself for taking advantage of the boy, wallow in guilt, try to analyze what the hell was coming over him… but he felt so satisfied and languid that all he could do was drift into a sweetly deserved sleep, dreaming of blond hair, brilliant green eyes, spiced lavender… and oh, God, that smile…

Chapter 16



How to investigate a murder (take two)

Tony was staring at Lily when her eyes opened, her body went rigid, and she took a sharp intake of breath. He knew instantly that she was both shocked and totally pissed off. Her words shot at him like bullets. “What have you done? You idiot! You fucking idiot!” Such anger filled her face that Tony flinched. Lily had never been angry at him before. He didn’t know what to do. “I can see the fucking sky, through the ceiling. Oh, Tony, what have you done to me?”

Tony cringed away from her and held up his hand. “Lily—your voice is so loud—stop shouting, please.” Her jumbled anger filled his ears, his brain, scaring him. He visualized a stereo face, imagined he was reaching out his hand to the volume knob and turning it down. It almost seemed to work.

“What are you doing? Are you turning me down, tuning me out? How dare you!”

“Wait! Lily—are you getting my thoughts, inside your head?”

She stared at him, cocked her head and squinted her sloe eyes. He could actually feel her anger melting away. Her voice came quietly out of her mouth, “Sort of. Something like that, but I can’t explain it. What’s happening? What happened to you at that party?”

Because he didn’t know what else to do, he told her everything. Everything that he could remember, that is. Told her about Roderick, and what little Roderick had explained about survival. And he suddenly remembered Roderick had thought that
was very odd that they couldn’t communicate with one another inside their heads. He added that to the story he was telling Lily.

Lily’s eyes grew larger and larger as she listened. She looked like she was getting more upset as Tony spoke, not less. He tried to soothe her with his voice, woo her with the fact that he could leap to a fifth floor balcony, and he was sure she could, too.

“The rules don’t seem to apply to me, Lily. I walked over here in the sun. I didn’t get burned. The sun made me squint. That’s all.”

She nodded. “That Roderick, he slept yesterday morning, too, right? And you didn’t.”

Tony nodded. Only it wasn’t yesterday morning, it was days ago. He felt a little confused himself. It would take some time to get days and nights switched around in his brain. Especially since he couldn’t sleep at all.

“Roderick killed that girl,” Lily said, tears in her voice. “Oh, Tony, how can you stand it? And how can you stand that you’ve done this to me? How will I live? I can already feel an urgency, anxiety that has my insides itching, my tongue numb. I feel like I need to get out of here or I will go crazy. And if I end up killing someone… how will I live with myself, Tony? Remember, this is me, Lily, and I don’t handle things well. You know that.”

“I didn’t kill anyone, Lily—I didn’t even think on it. It was like I just knew when to stop. It’ll be okay. It has to be.”

***

Two murders in a week. Detective David Lark pushed through the ever-growing crowd of people who should be going to bed so they could get up for work in the morning, but were instead gathered outside the large Spanish-style residence, blocking him from his crime scene. The crowd annoyed him. Jesus, would the morbid mobs ever change? Damned ambulance chasers. Need to be ‘in the know’ of other people’s tragedy. The house seemed too big for just one family, he thought, but he knew better. One family, upper middle class, generally pampered but today devastated.

“Walk on, people, just walk on,” Lark murmured, as he made his way past the people to the concrete steps. He reached the door and flipped his badge at the patrolman standing guard.

“Hey, Lark, good to see you,” the kid said.

Lark stopped and looked at the patrolman, really seeing him. It was his cousin’s kid, Joe, er, . . . Jeff, maybe? “Hey kid, how’s it hangin’?”

“S’okay. Sad story in there,” he answered.

Lark nodded, and threw one more angry glare at the jumble of people before going inside.

The girl was right there, in the entryway, sprawled in obscene openness on the floor. One dainty hand curled around the edge of an oriental rug. Her short red plaid skirt was flipped above her waistline exposing white cotton panties that matched her white cotton blouse.

Sweet Jesus.

If she was thirteen Lark would eat the report he’d be writing later. She was tiny and dark, head thrown back, lips parted just enough to show small white even teeth. Her long black hair was fanned out above her head, half of it held together with a hair tie, the other half rippling flat softness straight out from the top of her head toward the wall. Neat, as if it had been arranged that way.

Why only half?

She was Chinese or Korean, Lark thought, from the shape of her eyes. He couldn’t tell which because he was a terrible judge of that kind of thing. He didn’t care where people came from—everybody should just be people. Part Chinese, he decided, her skin almost as white as her blouse.

His partner Nelson appeared from a room to Lark’s right. He nodded to Lark, and then jerked his head toward the room. “Parents are in here,” he said quietly.

Lark started toward the doorway, then glanced over his shoulder at the girl. Then he turned his body right around and stared at her. Something wasn’t right. But what? The whole scene was obscenely wrong.

Blood.

There wasn’t any. That was it. She was so white her skin was almost transparent, like the young girl outside Treasure Island, the girl with no blood. This looked like an incredibly pale young girl taking an absurdly awkward nap. There were no outward clues to tell Lark how she had died.

He studied the young girl on the floor. Feet in, of all things, old-fashioned saddle shoes. Unclad legs. Skirt flipped above her waistline. He wanted to pull it down, save her some grace, for God’s sake, but had to wait for the photographers to get here. The forensics guys, too. Damn. Poor kid. He studied her edges, looking for damage, signs of foul play. His eyes roved ever toward her strangely fanned hair... there. There it was. A red smear just beneath her ear. So there would be damage to her head. A blow, perhaps.

He faced the parents with great dread.

They sat on an uncomfortable-looking couch with thin ornate wooden legs. An antique, Lark supposed. It was set strangely in the middle of the room, facing the doorway. The father looked up first, eyes red-rimmed, cheeks wet. “That’s my Nancy out there. My sweet Nancy.”

Lark nodded. Both parents were Caucasian, the man gray haired, wearing a sleek gray suit, and the woman pale blonde. Her high-necked sweater matched the color of her hair.

“Fourteen years old,” the father said, and the woman cut his words off by reaching out and taking his hand, twining her thin fingers amidst his, and bursting into sobs. “We adopted her when she was two,” the husband continued, despite his wife’s obvious distress. “Taught her to speak English, raised her to be an all-American girl. We’ve just been eyeing the future with trepidation, her voyage into adolescence.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “Weren’t we, dear? We talked just last night about how we felt heavily the responsibility of guiding Nance into adulthood.”

The woman sniffled, “And now she’s gone, just gone, our baby!” She found a tissue tucked beneath the sleeve cuff of her sweater. She smoothed it out before gently blowing her nose. Her voice came out thin and reedy, as if she had barely breath to speak. “We were starting to search for her birth mother, in Korea. She was just brave enough to start asking questions. And I had a glimpse of what our adult relationship would be like. She’s such a good girl. Kind. Loving.”

Movement behind the couch caught Lark’s eye. A bright blonde pigtail, held on top of a small head with some kind of pink bow.

He moved off to the side and looked. A very little girl crouched there, holding a blanket and suckling her fingers in her mouth. “Hi sweetheart,” he said. “What’s your name?”

She didn’t answer, and seemed to stare just past his left shoulder.

“Hannah,” the man said, turning to look at the child. He reached one arm over the back of the couch and drew the girl around the couch and onto his lap. “This is Hannah. She is six years old. Hannah, say hello to the police officer.”

Lark thought there was something wrong with the little girl.

As if reading his mind the father spoke, “I think she’s in shock,” he said. “She found Nancy first. She screamed and screamed and I came running downstairs to see what was the matter. Georgina came from the kitchen. There was Nancy on the floor. Hannah hasn’t said a word. Do you see, Detective... er...”

“Lark,” Lark said.

“Do you see? We were home. We were right here. Nancy must have just gotten home from school. She had a meeting with the school newspaper committee tonight. I thought perhaps she’d had a seizure. She was just... just there... in the foyer. But she’s dead. Oh God.” His voice broke and his body shook with silent sobs. Hannah remained stiffly perched on his lap.

Lark let the man weep and addressed the little blonde child. “Hi Hannah. My name is Dave. Gee, the bow in your hair sure is pretty.” He paused, collecting his words. “I bet it was scary to see your big sister on the floor.”

He could see commotion through the doorway and hoped they were removing the body of the poor girl so this one wouldn’t have to see the horror of it again. “Did you see anyone else with her? Did you just find her on the floor or did you see someone come into the house. Hannah? Can you tell me about it?”

***

DeVante. As much as Roderick hated to admit it, he had to return to San Francisco, because he needed his Master’s help. He had a bad feeling he would never find Tony on his own, not in Las Vegas, not in a million years.

Oh Mavis, he dreaded it. His skin crawled at the thought of cringing before DeVante with yet another problem. Especially now, having just left Daniel behind for DeVante to care for. It would be bad. DeVante would put him down, keep him down, hunched on the floor in total submission. Roderick’s soul shrunk. He hated that more than anything, the humiliation of submitting, of releasing his soul, his will to his Master. Powerless. Insignificant.

And that’s exactly why DeVante would do it.

Roderick might be a lot of things, yes, he might be silly and impulsive and melodramatic… he might be an absolute queer with a soft spot for young, pretty boys… but he was
not
insignificant. And he hated the feeling of smallness he got when DeVante put him down to the floor.

He had never put Daniel down, never taught the boy to drop at his cue, because he just couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand to have that kind of mastery over another being. DeVante had chided him and said he didn’t have control. Roderick just preferred to have emotional control, that’s all. So DeVante had taught Daniel the lesson, had made Daniel huddle on the floor a hundred times over… and Roderick was sure Daniel hated it too.

Of course, Roderick hadn’t even had a chance to think much on Tony’s training before the boy disappeared. They had got through the first night, Roderick just waiting for Tony to act like a regular vampire. And now training him wouldn’t do any good anyway. Tony could just up and leave in the morning while Roderick slept the dead sleep, completely oblivious.

He arrived home as these thoughts circled in his head.

The sound of voices in the early dawn made him look up at his balcony before leaping. Two people stood there, staring down at him. What the hell?

He recognized Tony and relief flowed into him, chasing away the dread.
Thank you, Mavis
, he said, almost laughing out loud.
The boy has returned
.

Roderick leapt up to join them. “Tony, what happened? I woke and you were gone. You should have waited for me.”

Tony’s eyes were huge and Roderick suddenly saw he was pale and terrified. “Umm… Roderick. I never fell asleep. You did, but I just laid there waiting. I waited for a long time. Couldn’t sleep. So I thought I’d go home and get a few things, clothes, whatever. Lily. And I intended to come right back. I did! But…” and he shrugged, helplessly, and gestured to Lily. “But I screwed up. I didn’t mean to!”

Roderick had recognized the woman was a vampire. “Oh, Tony. You didn’t.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Roderick held his head in his hands. And heard her voice, faint and frightened, in his head,
Help me help me I’m so scared please help me
.

“Let’s go in, please.” Tony said, and they did.

“Tony, what the fuck? You were waiting for sleep, and it didn’t come, so you went home? Went right out in the sun and felt nothing?”

“Well, the sun hurt my eyes a little. And I went home to Lily, which is what I always do, and we made love and then… then…”