Waking the Queen (5 page)

 Stupid me, I’d thought having a partner was my one chance to have a semi-normal social connection with another person. I thought I could trust him. My fucking mistake. He had lied to me. Of course, what else could I expect?

 “If Dakyries don’t die, then why are we running from tall, scarred and really pissed off?”

 “An exception to every rule and that ash bullet won’t keep him down long. They call him The Cross. He’s an assassin. And a siren.”

 “A siren? Are you fucking kidding me? I thought they were women?”

 “He’s the son of Parthenope and Alexander the Great. His song is powerful enough to make you wish you were dead.”

 “Let me guess, a siren’s song is one of the only things that can kill a Darkyrie?” I rolled my eyes. This just kept getting better and better.

 “Or a Valkyrie like Astrid, if you were curious. But he didn’t kill her. He just sent her back to Valhalla.”

 “Great. We know what kills me, what kills him? How do I stop him?” I hadn’t meant to ask him anything, but it would be stupid not to arm myself in any way I could.

 “You don’t.”

 “Fuck that. Come on.” Really? Everything had to die.

 “I don’t know, Brynn.” He shrugged as he turned the wheel sharply and this time I crashed into him. “Will you put on your goddamn seat belt?”

 “I don’t understand why you’re so angry. You’re the one who lied to me.” I buckled the belt.

 “And you don’t need to. Not yet.”

 Thanks for that, Mr. Cryptic. Like I needed more cloak and dagger bullshit on my mind. But I knew I wouldn’t get any more out of him than what he wanted to tell me, so I changed tactics. “Where are we going?”

 “I haven’t gotten that far yet. We have to assume he already knows where you live and everything about you. If he knows about you, then he must know about me. I have a house in—”

 “Wait, you’re talking like I’m going into witness protection and I’m running from this guy indefinitely.”

 “You are,” Jason said, his jaw set like it had been carved from marble.

 “Bullshit.”

 “What part of he’s going to kill you was unclear?” Jason grabbed my shoulder and shook me as he spoke to punctuate his point like I was some vapid, air-headed damsel in distress who was too stupid to tie her own shoes.

 “What part of Queen of Hel was unclear?” I shoved his clenched fist from my already torn shirt. I sincerely fucking doubted a queen of anything as cool as Hel would run from some immortal pissed off choirboy. Even as I made the comparison in my head, I knew instinctively the Cross was more than that, but I refused to be afraid.

 “But you’re not, Brynn. You’re nothing like the Helreggin I knew. She would have already crushed him under her boot. And you…this incarnation.” He scowled, his lip curled with disdain.
“You just stood there, under his spell.”

 Jason spit this last part at me with such venom. His voice echoed with the disgust I’d heard in my father’s when he talked about the prey. He’d known me in my last incarnation, obviously. And he found this one lacking.

 “I suppose I did. But you’re nothing like what I thought you were either, Grimes.” I almost choked on the words, but I was too much of a hardass to let something petty like emotion keep me from saying what I wanted him to hear.

 “Yeah?” He didn’t even look at me. He didn’t give a damn what I had to say, but I was going to say it anyway.

 “Yeah,” I tossed back at him quietly. “You were what kept me in my cage.” I didn’t give a fuck what he knew about me now, the real me. The me I was under my skin. He thought he knew it all already. “I thought you were a good man. Every time I wondered why I had to protect them—humans—I looked at you. But that wasn’t real, was it? So
fuck them
.”

 He turned to look at me now, a pained look on his face.

 “And fuck you.”

 “Brynn—” Jason started.

 Suddenly, I couldn’t stand it. The closeness of him. The claustrophobia of betrayal. I didn’t want to hear the sound of his voice, smell his cologne or look at his face. I had to get away from him. When he slowed to a stop at a red light, I flung the door open and ran. I didn’t know where I was going, I didn’t much care.

 I wanted to go home. Not my loft across from the Folger’s Plant, but
home
. For one horrible instant, I wanted my father.
Daddy
. He’d know how to fix everything. How to kill everything. How to make my world bright and pure again. There was much to be said for drawing in only black and white.

 I knew I couldn’t do that. Childhood was dead and I was no dewy-eyed girl. I was a monster full-grown. For a moment, I hated everyone who made me feel anything, especially Jason. My father for leaving me alone. For a moment, I was drunk on misery moonshine, and just like any rotten bathtub brew, I was ready to spew it over the next thing that crossed my path. I swallowed it down like bile and turned the faucet of emotion off. It dribbled like a rusty spigot, but it was enough relief that I could function.

 Instead of going home, I decided to go to Kami’s—a privately funded safehouse/boarding school for abused kids. It was a favorite cause for my department and while I was putting in my mandatory time, I discovered not only were kids easier to deal with than adults, but it was prime hunting ground. Whenever I needed reassurance about the way the world worked and my place in it, I went to Kami’s.

 I avoided the little ones. Babies always reminded me of Thora. Of what I’d lost. That was too much like taking a wrecking ball to the wall I’d built and I couldn’t have that. I liked the older kids the best, anyway. They could tell me about who’d hurt them—set those who’d trespassed against them in my sights. The little ones had enough people who cared for them, wanted them. It was the others that slipped through the cracks; that sometimes ended up with blank switchplates where their humanity should be—just like my father.

 I walked back to my car first to change my shirt—sure the Cross was long gone. He’d want to stay mobile. He’d be sure that Jason wouldn’t have let me return to the scene.

 It wasn’t that far a drive to Kami’s and as I pulled into the parking space in front of the main gate, I saw I was just in time. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on.

 Fifteen year old Angela Crane stood on the steps to the dormitory, sobbing, her blond hair whipping around her tear-stained cheeks. Her thin sweater buttoned over the small bulge of a pregnant belly that could still pass for adolescent chubbiness. There was a man at the gate, tall, also blond, clean cut and professional in a designer suit and GQ haircut. A BMW sedan was the only other car in the lot and the personalized license plate read “Dr L.”

 He’d never do any time. He was a doctor and Angela was his stepdaughter. He’d been slipping into her room at night and raping her since she was twelve. He’d plead down, get probation. Even though the girl was pregnant with his child, although that was something she hadn’t told him yet.

 Angela had confessed this to me as well as the fact he’d been sneaking onto the grounds and trying to talk her into recanting, saying she’d lied about everything. Angela said he’d killed her older sister, that she’d watched him do it when she’d threatened to tell. I’d checked her story out and her older sister Kelly was listed as missing.

 I approached with my hand on my gun and my credentials out.

 He looked up at me, tears glistening in his eyes. He’d managed to cry as pretty as any stage actress. But I knew him for what he was.

 “I just want to see my daughter,” he pleaded.

 “I understand that,” I replied. “But that’s for the court to decide. Until then, there’s a restraining order against you. You can’t be here.”

 Something shifted on his face, almost like something slithering beneath his skin—something only I could see. Recognition bloomed, he belonged to me, but I didn’t need that otherworldly click in my psyche to know that. I’d already decided.

 “Angela,” he pleaded, turning his attention back to his victim.

 She sobbed harder.

 “Go back inside, Angela. Everything’s okay.”

 “It’s not okay. It won’t be okay until you come home. Until you tell everyone that you lied. After your sister… Your mother is so sick, she—” he said.

 I didn’t let him finish. I grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the gates. I’d heard pederasts use that same argument at least a hundred times. “Dr. Larkin, do you want to have this conversation with handcuffs or without them?”

 He backed away from the gates and then turned his charm on me. “I apologize. This has just been so hard for us. You have to understand, I’m not upset with her. I know I’m a safe place for her to project everything that’s happened to her. Someone at school hurt her. I work with kids like this all the time. I know she’s suffering and I just want to help her.”

 James Larkin was good, I’d give him that. He said all the right things that would fool any expert. But not me. Because I didn’t judge him based on of what had come out of his mouth—I judged the subtler things. Like his body language, his micro expressions, and that extra sense that told me what he was. I knew I’d been sent here for a reason. Exactly the sort of vindication I’d been looking for.

 “I know you do, Dr. Larkin. Why don’t you come with me to the Liberty Memorial Park and we’ll talk about how you can best help Angela?”

 “I’d rather we talk at my office, if you’re serious.”

 I smiled easily. “Sure.” Liberty Memorial Park would have been easier. I could have made his death look like a trick gone wrong. But there were possibilities in his office, too. I wasn’t going to let him hurt Angela or any other child again. That baby in her belly would just be something else he’d use to control her and she’d never be free of him.

 My cell buzzed and I saw it was Grimes. I debated not answering, but I couldn’t stop doing my job just because my partner made me angry.

 “Excuse me just a second,” I said before answering my phone, “Hill.”

 “Surprised you answered,” Grimes said softly into the phone.

 “Why? I have a job to do. So do you.”

 “You’re right about that. Captain wants us at the Capri. Two dead bodies.”

 I looked up at Dr. James Larkin with a frown. “On my way,” I said as I hung up.

 “Duty calls?” he asked with an arched brow.

 “Yeah, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for a rain check on that chat.” I didn’t want to let him go. My fingers itched to close around his throat. I needed to make sure he wasn’t going to be back to bother Angela.

 “Any time, Officer.”

 “Good. I’ll hold you to that. I don’t want to see you anywhere near Kami’s until the judge says so. Do we understand each other?”

 “I think we do,” Dr. Larkin replied amiably.

 “Excellent. We have a lot to talk about.” I waited for him to get into his car and exit the premises before I headed to the Capri and I called his plates in to dispatch and requested extra patrols. I knew the guys in my squad would come sit in their own cars all night just to make sure that fucker didn’t come back.

 Satisfied Angela was safe for the time being, I headed to the Capri and the dead bodies waiting for me.

CHAPTER FOUR

 
T
he Capri Motel was exactly the kind of place where I’d expect to find a dead body in the mattress. In fact, at the Capri, the dead bodies were the least of your worries. It was the live bodies that were the problem—the place was infested with pimps, drug dealers, whores and addicts. Even the homeless wouldn’t take vouchers to spend a few nights out of the cold there in the winter. They’d have a better chance of waking up again if they slept under the bridge or in some abandoned building in the bottoms.