When Darkness Hungers: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 5) (10 page)

“Thanks.” She shot him a smile. “Knowing you’re here to hold my hand through the rough spots made the move a lot easier.”

“I got your back, kid.”

“I know,” she said, and she meant it. Leena was her friend, her adviser, her most valuable resource. But Edgar had become her rock.

“Thin crowd,” Edgar said as they crested a small hill.

Alexis frowned; Edgar was right. Usually murder scenes drew the lookey-loos. “The bad weather, maybe.
And we’re a bit off the beaten path.” Still, with police band radios being all the rage, the remote location of a crime usually didn’t keep the crowds away.

She easily made her way to the yellow tape with Edgar at her side. Once there, she focused on the drama playing out in front of her. It was a murder mystery, and right away she could identify the key players, although she had to admit that they were playing their roles in an unfamiliar way.

The man she thought was the medical examiner, for example, did nothing other than press his hand to the victim’s forehead. No inspection of the body. No thermometer to detect the core temperature. Just that single touch.

It was weird.

She eased left, following the tape until her line of sight shifted and she got a view of the vic. Penny Martinez. Female, twenty-eight years old, just like she’d heard. And right there in plain sight, Alexis could see the vicious neck wound.

“Like hell this case doesn’t fit the task force parameters,” Edgar said.

“Damn sure fits ours,” Alexis agreed. She took hold of the crime scene tape, lifted it, and slid under, ignoring Edgar’s muttered curse as he followed. As she’d expected, one of the uniformed officers scurried over to them. She flashed her counterfeit badge, forestalling his prattle. “FBI. This crime scene is part of an ongoing investigation.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but—”

“It’s okay, Officer.” Another man approached, Hollywood-handsome in a suit that was only slightly rumpled. He extended his hand; when she ignored it, he
offered it to Edgar. “Severin Tucker,” he said. “Homeland Security.”

“Detective Edgar Garvey, and I think we’ve got a little problem here. This case is part of a joint task force between the FBI and local law enforcement.”

“This case is outside the FBI’s jurisdiction.”

“I’m afraid that we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that,” Alexis said. She marched past him toward the body. “You want to tell your man there to get his hands off my vic. You people never heard of preserving the scene?”

Tucker didn’t say anything. She saw him glance at another man—this one taller, with broad shoulders and dark hair and a scar marring his right cheek. The man nodded, and Tucker seemed to relax. “He’s one of our forensics experts,” he said, nodding at the man fondling the body. “I assure you, we’re doing everything possible for the victim.”

Like hell
, she thought, though she didn’t say it. She just frowned and kept on walking, certain that any second someone was going to take her by the elbow and lead her forcibly away.

Fortunately, there wasn’t any trouble. She reached the body, glanced down, and got a closer look at the violent puncture on the female’s neck. The supposed forensics expert was still crouched over the body, his hands on the victim, and despite the fact that Alexis was both curious about what he was doing and irritated that he was manhandling a victim’s body, right then she had her own problems.

She glanced around, checking to see how much attention they were paying to her. But Edgar—bless him—had Tucker wrapped up in deep conversation, and the
rest of the officers were giving her a wide berth. With luck, she’d have a few minutes to maneuver.

Slowly, easily, she dropped into a squat, hoping she presented the appearance of a woman who wanted a closer look at the body. She pressed a hand to the ground as if balancing herself. What she was really doing was digging her fingers into the ground to collect the dirt she needed for Leena.

The witch’s first project when they’d arrived in Los Angeles was to find vampires for Alexis to hunt. “Can’t you just look into a crystal ball and find them?” Alexis had asked. “Then we’ll go to the cemetery or the spooky mansion and dust them during the daylight?”

Leena had responded with a massive eye roll. “First,
we
has to be
you
.” She tapped her leg and shrugged. “I wish I could be in the field, but I’d be dead within a minute. Second, vampires aren’t equipped with OnStar. I can’t just flip a switch and have their locations show up on Google Earth. It’s more complicated than that.”

So while Alexis had focused on training and getting into the best shape of her life, Leena had hooked up with some of her sources in the psychic-witch-new-age fringe. It had taken a few weeks, but eventually Leena had found a way. “Everything has an aura, right?”

Alexis shrugged. Until recently, something so very woo-woo would have prompted her to roll her eyes. Now she was willing to believe.

“So all we need to do is track the vamp’s aura.”

“How?”

“By accessing some of the vamp’s energy.”

“Again I ask: How?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Leena said. “It’s not the perfect solution, but the simple fact is that a vamp
is going to leave aural residue on and around his victim.”

Alexis’s stomach twisted. “So you’re saying I can hunt them after the fact.”

“Like I said, not the perfect solution.”

“No, it’s not.” She drew a deep breath. “But it’s better than nothing. At least I can start by going after the vamps we know have murdered humans. Hunt them, kill them, take them out of the equation.”

The dirt held that auric residue, and once Alexis had a handful, she stood up and casually dropped it into her pocket.

Time to get out of here
.

She turned to find Edgar and realized he wasn’t where she’d anticipated. Frowning, she glanced over the scene, but stopped when she saw a man in the distance. He was standing by himself in a copse of trees, well past the crime scene. His face was half in the shadows cast by the bright lights that Homeland had set up. It was an attractive face, with classic lines highlighted by a hint of stubble, as if he couldn’t be bothered to shave. But it wasn’t his looks that caught her attention—it was his eyes. She couldn’t make out the color, not from such a distance, but she had the impression that when she saw them up close she’d learn that they were slate gray, as hard and unyielding as a rock.

She stared—and realized that she’d stopped breathing because seeing him was like looking in a mirror. Her own emotions reflected right back at her. Frustration. Hate. Regret.

And a burning need to get revenge against the worthless subhuman who’d done this to an innocent girl.

Her
.

Serge looked across the field into the eyes of the woman from the alley, and everything he was feeling—rage, hunger, regret—was reflected right back at him. She’d come for the same reason that he had—because a rogue vampire had escaped, wounded and hungry and looking to feed.

She blamed herself just as Serge did, and the anger and frustration clung to her body like perfume. He breathed it in, welcoming its power and taking selfish comfort in the feeling that, for this singular moment in time, he wasn’t alone. Because right then they both sought the same thing: Mitre’s head on a goddamn platter.

And it
was
Mitre who’d snuffed the life from poor Penny Martinez. Serge had caught the scent the moment he’d arrived. Slightly putrid with an undercurrent of copper, like blood left to rot in a drain. It twisted on the wind, kicked up by the shoes of the PEC agents who were stomping all over the scene. Faint because of the rain, not even strong enough for a vampire to catch. But Serge was more than that now. His senses were keener. His body more finely tuned.

The woman had wounded Mitre, and he’d raced away searching for food. And because Serge had been too damn slow, a girl now lay unseeing on the cold, hard
ground, surrounded by agents of the PEC, all trying to find a clue to her killer.

Damn it, damn it, god-fucking-dammit.

A slow, dangerous anger bubbled up inside him, and he clenched his fists, his nails cutting so hard into his own palms he drew blood. He needed to leave—to track Mitre’s scent before he decided to attack another human. But once again the woman had stalled his departure, and though she had turned her attention to the body, Serge couldn’t rip his away from her.

He stepped back into the shadows cast by the copse of trees and watched as she knelt by PEC agent Ryan Doyle. Only a few humans knew of the PEC’s existence, and in the United States, it was neatly hidden within Homeland Security.

Serge knew that Doyle hadn’t been randomly assigned to the case; he’d been called in because of his unique skills as a percipient daemon. As Serge watched from a distance, the agent pressed his hands to the girl’s forehead, trying to pull out the last images she’d seen before dying. The last bursts of emotion.

Trying to see her killer.

The body was cold, though, and Serge wondered if Doyle would find anything. Time was the strongest enemy. It taunted everything it touched. Even the immortals, who should be able to wield time like a weapon, staggered beneath the weight of eternity.

Serge scowled, irritated by his self-pitying thoughts. If time was punishing him, it was only because he deserved it.

Behind Doyle, Luke paced. Lucius Dragos, the newly appointed vampiric liaison to the Alliance. The new governor of the Los Angeles territory. A man who had
reluctantly assumed the mantle of power. A man who had once been Sergius’s closest friend. Now, as far as Serge knew, Luke believed him to be dead. It was better that way. Though Luke’s daemon lived close to the surface, he had finally learned control, unlike Serge who repeatedly succumbed. Now he had the beast to contend with, too. Luke hardly needed that weight added to the incredible burden of responsibility recently heaped upon him. No, Serge walked a new path, and he had to walk it alone.

Within the crime scene tape, Tucker approached the woman. As he did, Serge tensed. He knew what was coming, and he hated the thought that the agent was going to play with this woman’s mind, erasing her thoughts and changing her memories. He knew it had to be done, but it seemed criminal to alter the will of a woman who’d proven to be so very strong.

There was, however, nothing Serge could do about it. Not unless he wanted to reveal himself to the group. And that was definitely not on tonight’s agenda.

As Serge watched, Tucker and the woman walked back toward the small group of humans that had gathered behind the crime scene tape, joined as they went by a short man in a rumpled suit jacket. When Serge had first arrived, the crowd of humans had been massive. But Tucker and a couple of the vamps on the PEC staff had moved among the crowd, giving the humans the most massive of mind fucks and making them suddenly realize that there wasn’t anything to see, and that they had at least a dozen other places they’d rather be and a handful of other things they’d rather be doing.

Now Tucker once again pulled his mumbo jumbo, this time including the woman and the rumpled man
along with the few reporters and new onlookers who’d come by to see what the lights and action were all about. A few moments later the crowd, including the woman, dispersed. Serge swallowed the raw bitterness that rose in his throat, the knowledge that the woman had lost that rage and purpose sitting in Serge’s gut like a heavy stone.

But he could go now. Somehow the fact that she’d left the scene released him as well.

He started to move away, then saw Doyle take his hands off the body and stand, a bit unsteadily. Serge hesitated, interested to see if the paradaemon had pulled any images from Penny Martinez’s last moments alive.

“Agent?” That was from Luke, who’d moved to Doyle’s side and was watching him closely.

Tucker took Doyle’s arm. “Give the man some breathing room. He has to get his own head back.”

Serge stood perfectly still, focusing on their words, his curiosity keeping him rooted to the spot.

“She was surprised,” Doyle said, his voice strong, but singsong. Like someone under hypnosis. “And then she was afraid. It grew, that fear—it filled her.” He closed his eyes, shook his head. “I pulled out too fast. Her emotions—they’re still clinging to me.” He shuddered. “Her thoughts were a jumble.” His words were coming fast now.
“Shouldn’t have come through the park. Was daylight, so it’s gotta be safe. Shouldn’t have come alone. Should have brought a Taser. Pepper spray. Run! Run!”

“What about images?” Luke asked, his voice deliberately soothing. “Did you see the one who did this?”

In the trees, Serge leaned in, as if that would make the answer come faster.

“Had to go deeper.” Doyle’s voice was weak now, as
if he’d used up everything inside him. “Into the black. Had to go all the way inside.”

“Dammit, Luke,” Tucker said. “He hasn’t fed in days. Let me take him to Orlando’s and we can do this back at the office.”

Orlando’s was a soul-trading bar, and Doyle was a paradaemon who fed off human souls. His gift, Serge knew, drained him, leaving him a shell if he didn’t feed. Luke knew that, too, but he only shook his head, silently denying Tucker’s request. “Come on, Doyle. What did you see?”