Some animal instinct
inside her told her to get up and run, but other feelings welled up and
quickly smothered the panic.
“I want to forget,” she
heard herself say. “The money. The booze and the drugs. All the things I’ve
done for them. I can’t stand it anymore.”
The girl touched the side
of her neck, running her fingers over the tiny twin scars there. At the same
time, the voice in her head asked
Do
you remember who gave these to you?
“The best trick I ever
had,” Alisa said, and sighed. “He had a thing for biting me. And he dumped
me for a cop, if you can believe that.”
If
you tell me what you know, I will give you what you want.
Alisa felt a confusing
sense of relief. She didn’t mean pills, but that didn’t seem to matter
anymore. “You want to know about Lucan?”
Yes.
The girl leaned forward and gave her a soft, sweet kiss before taking her by
the hand.
Come
inside and tell me everything.
#
During his human life,
Jamys had taught to track and hunt game by his uncle, Gabriel Seran. Gabriel
had taken him into the forests of Provence, and shown him how to use his
senses and his intuition, and think like the creatures they pursued. In a
few years Jamys had become so adept that he brought meat to his family’s
table every time he returned from the hunt.
“Honor the hunt and take
down only what you need,” Gabriel had cautioned him. “To kill for pleasure
wastes what God provides and defiles your talent.”
That talent had changed
after he and Gabriel had risen to walk the night. While he and his uncle had
been given other abilities, both of their senses had also been enhanced,
become almost painfully acute. Whether God had cursed them, or they had been
infected and altered by what Alexandra Keller called the Kyn pathogen, Jamys
and his uncle remained two of the best hunters among their kind.
Tonight Jamys set out to
find the nameless Kyn who had desecrated the helpless dead, and cast doubts
over his own reasons for coming to Lucan’s territory – but first he had to
deal with Lucan’s seneschal, Rafael, who had been tracking him since he’d
left
Infusion
.
Kyn scent was nearly
impossible to erase, but Jamys knew how the Kyn tracked each other, and
began his ruse by doubling back over his own steps in order to confuse the
direction of his path. After retracing his steps several times, he ducked
into an alley that stank from mortals using it to relieve themselves, where
he deliberately walked through the two standing puddles of urine. From there
he jumped up onto a third-floor fire escape, where he opened the window and
shed enough scent to make Rafael believe he had entered that room.
Again he leapt to a
window ledge in the opposite building to do the same there, then to the
fifth floor of the first, and continued to leap back and forth and mark each
landing until he reached the roof, where the wind coming from the ocean blew
steadily. He didn’t walk across the flat tarred roof panels, but jumped from
the building’s edge to the top of a cooling tower, then from there to the
roof of the next building.
It took jumps to and from
six other buildings, but by the time he had finished he felt sure that the
wind had scoured away most of the scent he had left behind in the air. By
the time Rafael finished searching the rooms in the buildings where he had
left his scent and moved onto the roof, Jamys felt sure even the slightest
trace of his scent would be gone.
Once he climbed back down
to the street, he hailed a cab and had the driver take him to the bistro
where Samantha had found the dead mortal. He didn’t make the mistake of
trying to enter the restaurant – leaving any scent trace there would only
reinforce the lady’s belief in his involvement, but had the driver stop a
block away. As soon as he paid and got out of the taxi, he realized two
things: he couldn’t smell any trace of Kyn scent but what Samantha and
Rafael had left behind, and this was the same spot where he had seen the
beautiful female who had tried to approach him.
Jamys went to stand where
the girl had, and crouched down beside the postal box she had touched. Many,
faint mortal scents clung to the painted metal, but one stood out, strong
and distinct, a mixture of a single female’s musk mingling with several
males’ seed. There was also something else in the scent, something that he
didn’t expect – the bitter, metallic aroma of very old blood.
Jamys breathed in to fix
the complex scent in his head, and turned until he picked up the trace. It
did not lead toward the restaurant; from here the girl had abruptly changed
direction and walked south.
“You know if they find
you down here,” a wry voice said, “they’re going to think you did it.”
Jamys turned to see Chris
parked at the curb in a much smaller car than the one she had driven from
the train station.
“Don’t look so
surprised,” she added as she leaned over to open the passenger door. “If
someone accused me of doing something this nasty, the first thing I’d do is
prove that I didn’t. Get in.”
He would have to send her
away, and climbed into the car to do so. Before he touched her, however, she
held up one hand.
“Don’t try to shazam me
and send me home,” she said. “I’m not here because of Sam or Luc. I’m here
for you.”
He set his jaw and stared
through the windshield.
“You think you don’t need
help, fine. But I’ve got wheels, I know the beach, and I’m the only person
who knows for real that you’re innocent.” She nudged him with her elbow.
“How hard would it be to think of me as your
tresora
for the
night?”
He took hold of her
wrist.
The
one who did this is dangerous.
“I don’t know if you’ve
noticed, but I work for the most dangerous lord in these parts.” She watched
his face. “Tell you what. I’ll stay in the car and drive you where you need
to go. I won’t even get out.”
He needed to return to
the walkway, where the scent trail was strongest. But as he opened the car
door, he knew she would simply follow him. To protect her, he would have to
compel her to leave him and forget everything she had seen – but he couldn’t
bring himself to send her away. Back in the club, she had defended him. In
this strange territory, she was the only friend he had.
“You think that girl in
the red dress who stepped out in front of that cab is part of this, don’t
you?” she asked, startling him again. “I saw her when it happened; I just
didn’t make a big deal out of it because I know how you guys attract women.
I think you’re right, too. She was with a young guy in a retro suit. Sam
said the dead guy was wearing the same thing.”
Chris’s eye for detail
had made the connection between the girl and the victim, and that decided
the matter for him. He closed the door.
“Which way did she go
from here?” she asked. When Jamys pointed south, she said, “Okay. When you
need me to stop, just put your hand on the dash, and I’ll pull over.” She
put the car in drive and merged back into traffic.
Jamys opened the window
and leaned out, letting the air wash over his face. It was more difficult to
track from a moving vehicle, but not impossible, and the scent of the girl
in the red dress was so unusual that he followed it easily. When the trace
began to thin, he placed his hand on the dashboard and Chris pulled over.
Beneath streetlights that
weren’t working, Jamys studied the tall building beyond the empty walkway.
It appeared to be a hotel that had been closed; the lawns were a tangle of
overgrown grass and weeds, the outside walls had been heavily painted with
graffiti, and sheets of plywood had been nailed over the windows on the
lower floors.
“That’s the Sunset
Sails.” Chris told him. “I didn’t know it was still here. It was supposed to
be demolished over the summer.”
Abandoned buildings made
excellent hiding places for rogue Kyn. Jamys opened the car door but turned
back to put his hand on the girl’s shoulder.
Keep
your promise and remain in the car.
“You’re not going in
there alone,” she told him. “You don’t even have a knife on you.”
I
will not enter the building. I have but to see if she did.
Chris didn’t look happy.
“You better stay where I can see you, or I’m calling the boss.”
As soon as Jamys stepped
over the rusted chain stretched across the long drive, the fresh scents of
other mortals bombarded him. He stood, breathing and sorting through them
until he found the one he wanted. She had sat for a time on a wall to the
right of the chain. Her scent led from there toward the abandoned building’s
front entrance.
Slowly he trailed the
girl’s scent, until he felt something else and stopped halfway to the
hotel’s doors.
The air around him
pressed in, and unseen hands caressed his face. As he jerked back, he heard
a laugh, and words in a low, guttural language, which suddenly changed to
the ancient French he had spoken during his human life.
There
is nothing you want here, dark one.
Jamys staggered back as
the invisible hands slammed into him, almost knocking him off his feet. Both
the hands and the voice belonged to a Kyn with a talent something like his.
He could feel it, although his unseen attacker had much more power to draw
on. They both might be able to speak through their minds, but the strange
Kyn was using something else, a power unlike anything he’d encountered among
his kind.
The girl in the red dress
came walking down the drive, halting a few feet away from him.
Run
away now
, the
voice in his head commanded, and
I
will not send my children after you.
Who
are you? Why have you come here?
Jamys seized the girl’s
arm.
Tell
me.
Her dark eyes widened.
“I’m Luce,” she choked out. “My name is Luce.”
Jamys realized that her
speaking voice did not match the tone of the one in his mind – in fact, that
voice had gone silent.
Did
you kill the man found in the restaurant?
“No. Heresabat did. The
boy was almost all used up anyway.” Tears spilled from her dark lashes. “It
still has me and all the others.”
How
does he use you? How is he controlling you?
“Heresabat takes our
blood and our strength. It keeps it young. It traps us inside and uses us. I
can’t fight it.”
The girl spoke of the Kyn
as an
it,
not a
he
.
Jamys had the feeling it was not because to the girl the Kyn seemed like a
monster.
Is
Heresabat a male or a female?
“I can’t tell.” She
staggered a little as his talent began to affect her balance. “You have to
help us. It won’t—“ she stopped as soon as he took his hand away from her,
and the fear disappeared from her face. Without another word she pulled out
a copper dagger and slashed at his face.
Jamys turned just in time
to save his eyes, and felt the burn of the blade slice through his scalp. As
he brought up his arms to protect his face, someone grabbed him from behind
and yanked him around.
“Come on.” Chris wrapped
her arm around his neck and pulled him away from Luce. Jamys picked her up,
holding her against his chest as he ran for the car. He didn’t look back
until he pushed Chris inside, but as he turned to face Luce he saw dozens of
other humans had joined her on the driveway, and more were pouring out of
the front of the hotel. Most were dressed in red jackets, dresses or pants,
which for a moment made Jamys think of the enormous crowd of customer
representatives used in commercials and advertising by a popular mobile
phone company.
“Get in here.” Chris slid
over to the wheel. “Hurry.”
He climbed in, and she
took off before he could close the door.
“What the hell was that?”
she panted as she glanced back. “Why did she cut you? Are you okay?”
Using his sleeve, Jamys
wiped the blood from his face and probed the head wound. Long strands of his
hair fell into his lap, but the edges of the gash were
beginning to slowly
close. He used his other hand to touch Chris.
I’m
not hurt badly. Do not take me back to the club.
“We are
so
going back to the club,” she snapped. “I’m going to tell Lucan
exactly
what that
bitch did to you.”
We
cannot lead her to him.
Chris braked suddenly,
stopping the car in the middle of the road. “Why the hell not?” she
demanded. “He’ll come down here and bust her into a million pieces.”
She
is being used by her Kyn master. I think he came here to challenge Lucan,
Jamys thought of
the terror in Luce’s eyes, and what she had told him.
He
will not face the suzerain himself. He will send the humans he’s
controlling.
Chris flinched as a horn
blared behind them. “How many humans does he have in there?”