Darkness of the Soul (19 page)

Some
kid
that
turns
into
a
puppy
dog
as
soon
as
his
manager
shows
up
is
most
definitely
not
our
guy.
Christ,
he
practically
faints
when
he
pops
a
zit,
and
I
bet
if
she
scratched
him
behind
the
ear,
he’d
cream
his
jeans,
Parker thought, not unkindly, as he lit a cigarette and shook his head.

Among the other things that Vance had been so wonderfully accommodating with was the guest log. That was their one solid lead at the moment, and Parker felt that too was going to go nowhere. Only three check-ins the night before, and that was great, or would have been… if the killer was an idiot. But Parker was pretty sure that they weren’t dealing with an idiot, at least not in any conventional sense of the word. Sure, hacking people up over some goddamn painting, especially the wife of a cop, might not have put the man in Mensa and calling to taunt the detective assigned to the case was pretty much an instant disbarring from that group, but he covered his trail well for a psychopath. Of the three names in the log, there was Mr. Clement Irving of Dakota (the old guy and his wife), Mr. Shane Johnson (the teenager), and one Mr. Ahmal Tehn. Mr. Tehn’s room had been sealed, and the fingerprint guys were going over it now, but Parker didn’t think it was really going to matter.

What made it worse was that the clerk, cooperative as he was, hadn’t really gotten a good look at Mr. Tehn; the shithead had apparently come in pretty late the night before, wearing a drover’s coat over a hooded sweatshirt. Vance didn’t have much else to say about him, except that he thought the guy had a bit of an accent—maybe British, maybe not—and that he either had a pretty good tan or was “a Mexican or something.” It was not a lot to go on, and Parker was almost certain what they had was wrong. Given the name, he had his money on someone Middle Eastern, maybe Indian, but sure as hell not British or Mexican—but at least it was something. No initial information had come up on the name, but Parker had the boys back at the office digging. If there was anything to find, they’d find it.

He was working on his second cigarette and slurping from a cup of coffee that the pretty manager, who’d introduced herself with a firm handshake as Cherie Vriar, had shoved into his hand when Drakanis coughed behind him. Without turning, he held the pack of Camels over his shoulder, continuing to watch as the officers poured into and out of room #8, formerly occupied by Mr. Ahmal Tehn.

“You should have called me.” The click of a lighter came from behind him, as Drakanis lit his smoke. Parker pocketed the pack and rolled his shoulders.

“Didn’t have time, and by the time I did, he was already gone. Figured you needed your sleep. Get any?”

A wheezing exhalation, followed by a cough seemed to be the only reply he was going to get. As he was about to say something else, in an attempt to get Drakanis to at least say
something
, the other man answered at last, flat finality in his voice. “Nope.”

“Me either. We got a name, at least.”

Drakanis grunted and stepped up next to the larger man. “Yeah, I heard. Might as well be Mickey Mouse for all it matters though. I think you can call off the dogs too. He ain’t that stupid.”

Parker grunted in agreement, pitched the cigarette into a trash bin, and tried to resist the urge to boot it across the parking lot. He blew smoke out from between his lips, and for a moment, Drakanis studied his profile in the early morning light and thought of dragons. Then Drakanis shook his head, trying to clear it.

“You find anything out about the painting itself?” Drakanis’s voice sounded a little overeager, the tone of a child who has something to show Mommy but will make her play a guessing game first. Parker arched his brows at the sound of it.

“Nothing’s come back yet, no. Sounds like you got something though. Share.”

Drakanis spread his palms and then pitched his own cigarette to join the one Parker had tossed in a moment ago. “There’s this wonderful new invention, you know, old buddy? They call it the Internet. You can find anything, if you’re patient.”

Parker rolled his finger in that familiar gesture, the one that said both, “Fuck you,” and “Spit it out already.” Drakanis lowered his hands and continued, the faintest trace of a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.

“You want the official history, or the campfire story version?”

“Both.”

“That’s going to take a while, and I’m fucking hungry. Let’s go get something to eat while they finish up. Then we can come back.”

Parker’s brow climbed higher, as he finished off the coffee that Cherie had been so kind to bring him. “You want to come back?”

Drakanis was already walking back to his car. He paused only long enough to glance back and roll his shoulders in a shrug. “Of course. I might see something.”

“Like what?”

Drakanis sighed, sounding as if he’d be happy to just deck Parker at the moment. “I don’t know. Just… something, okay? It’s a damn hunch. Now get in the damned car and let’s go, asshole.”

Parker smirked a bit and started after Drakanis. Once he was about fifteen feet from the can, he paused long enough to bounce on the balls of his feet and launch the cup at the trash can; the cup rolled around the rim and then fell out.

“Well, fuck a duck.”

Drakanis’s reply came back, whiplash quick and with an equal amount of bite. “Nope. Hole’s too small.”

Parker smiled.
Seems
there’s
a
little
of
the
old
Mikey
left
in
there,
after
all.
He dropped into the shotgun seat, flipped down the sun visor, and leaned back, draping his arm extravagantly over the seat of the battered Mustang. By the time Drakanis had the car started and pulled back onto the freeway, heading for the nearest Denny’s, Parker was almost thinking it was a normal day. He had completely forgotten the things the killer had said about Officer Woods.

Chapter
16
 

10:00 am, December 14, 1999

Damien dragged himself through the wide double doors leading into the RPD, eyes still at half-mast and still hauling his headache behind him like an anchor. If he’d had the option, he wouldn’t have shown up at all. It wasn’t like it would have mattered though, since the glamour he’d laid around himself—one of the many benefits of being elected the Disciple, or so it seemed—would pretty much make everyone forget about him for the day anyway, remembering only that there was indeed an Officer Woods on the payroll, somewhere, so he must be getting a forty-hour week.

Unfortunately, since he’d woken up with Sheila and during the brief time he’d been asleep he’d gotten a bit more guidance from whatever powers guided him from time to time, he didn’t have that option. Sheila, he knew from previous experience, wouldn’t be fooled by the pretense of his nonexistence, and failing to follow orders was a good way to get in deep shit very quick.

He wished the dreams had given him an easy way out of this one, one that didn’t practically scream at him that his time was up, to punch the clock and head on out, but they had made it very clear that he wasn’t going to be able to pass this job on to someone else. He knew who the killer was now, and it was his job to do something about it. Drakanis was going to get a note, but that was the extent of involving the police on this one.

What was bothering Damien wasn’t the high probability of his impending doom, nor was it really the identity of the killer. It was the nagging sense that he had missed something, something vital, that and the fact that he’d been so goddamn
blind
this whole time. He’d sat across from the bastard, having coffee and shooting the shit just like everyone else, and never known a goddamn thing. The idea that he’d been too busy jumping at shadows and waiting for orders to notice the root of the fucking problem sitting right in front of him did more than bother him; it depressed the shit out of him as well and made him wonder what other elementary truths he might have overlooked while he was contemplating his navel.

He walked past the front desk—thankfully, Sheila was on the crapper or something, so he didn’t have to deal with her, yet—and ignored the door to the bullpen, walking right on toward the maintenance closet. As he was walking, his mind was running ahead of him, casting nets to pick up that sense of miasma, that aura that the killer seemed to project when he wanted to stay hidden. He knew enough about what it came from to pinpoint the source now, if he could get a vibe on it.

He wasn’t getting anything from the closet itself, nothing fresh anyway—just a lingering mental reek—so he pushed the door open and headed in. He figured the killer would come back there eventually, and when he did, Damien intended to be ready for him.

When the broom handle came whistling down, trying to crack the side of his skull, Damien almost earned himself a Shot(s) Fired form, before reminding himself of where he was and lashing out with his mind; he managed not to scream as he turned toward the bludgeon. He shoved it back violently with the telekinetic power that was just one of his many gifts. Then he fell against the door, laughing at himself and trying to get his heart beating normally again.

In his mind, he’d imagined the killer standing there, smiling sweetly even as his eyes gleamed with violence and he brought the bludgeon down on the back of his neck. What had really happened was a great deal simpler; the broom had just been leaning against the door, and when he’d opened it and moved in, it had fallen toward him.

“You need to calm the hell down, my friend. Not to mention buy the department a new broom.”

Damien didn’t like the sound of his own voice; it was too shaky, too full of easy rationalization. Also, he wasn’t overly pleased with his own performance. Just a falling household item in a potential avalanche of a closet, and he lashed out with enough force to turn the damned thing into splinters. Not a good sign.

Still laughing and trying to catch his breath, Damien turned away from the closet, deciding that maybe the surprise tactic wasn’t the best idea. Wired like he was at the moment, he was liable to cause some major damage to whoever opened the door first, whether or not it was the one who was supposed to be getting the brunt of it. What faced him as he did so made him holler again and jerk backward, tumbling several of the cleaning agents and paper supplies from the shelves to bury him as he sputtered.

Karim, also known as Karesh, smiled innocently at him, the nimble fingers of his mind rifling through the Disciple’s brain and finding what he wanted. He nodded once and then spoke with a smile in his voice.

“Ah, Mr. Woods. I had so hoped to see you today.”

Damien lurched out of the pile of debris, dragging the unawareness that surrounded him and stretching it to cover the whole of the closet. He felt an uncomfortable tingling, and then it seemed as though the shroud he had drawn had been boosted. He realized Karesh had added his own strength to it, apparently not wanting to be interrupted any more than Damien did.

“So, you know. Excellent. I was beginning to think that I’d have to do something drastic to get your attention.”

Karesh didn’t appear to be disturbed in the slightest by the prospect of dealing with Woods here and now. He might have preferred to arrange an accident or to have the Disciple removed in some other fashion—declaration of insanity, perhaps. It might not have stuck, but it would have put him out of the way long enough for it not to matter.

Damien was nonplussed with the concept of direct action against Karesh, but at this point, he didn’t see any other options. Whatever would be would be, and he could only do his best to make sure that if he went down, Karesh came with him. He pulled what little of his energy he could afford, tapping into the reservoir that he had touched only once before, knowing he was going to need the kind of power that had bound Sheila; anything less wouldn’t even scratch the bastard.

If
this
doesn’t
work,
we’re
all
toast,
his mind calmly commented, like an announcer at a golf game. Then, in a second tone, he answered himself,
Doesn’t
matter.

Karesh felt the surge of power, the disturbance in the threads of magic that held everything together and felt it coming. Incredibly, he was laughing, his black eyes alight with perverse glee. He smelled the energy crackling in the air and knew well what Woods was going to attempt, just as he knew it would fail. He saw no reason to stop the boy. He wasn’t going to hurt Karesh, after all, and he’d very likely just kill himself in the effort—perhaps not as immense a personal victory but quite amusing.

Woods was having no trouble reading the thoughts in Karesh’s head now. The Warden had apparently seen little need to hide the images in his head from his apparent victim any longer, and now Damien was being buried beneath a mental onslaught of atrocity. A single thought continued to pulse through Karesh’s mind, swimming through that flood like some vicious fish.
He’s
going
to
kill
himself!

You
just
keep
thinking
that,
asshole.
Woods didn’t believe Karesh had full access to his mind—not right then anyway, not while he was busy trying to break him with images of pain and torture—and that was to the good. Best Karesh didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.