“Just what I need. What’s going on?”
“Rebecca’s dead. She’s been murdered.”
My stomach lurched. Rebecca was a member of Dani’s coven. “Dani, come over now.”
She paused, then said, “Before I do, I need to tell you something else. I’ve heard rumors on the street and I think they may play into Rebecca’s death.”
A premonition swept over me. Whatever she had to tell me was sweeping in with trouble and mayhem and death. I felt like I did before a thunderstorm hit, when the air was charged.
I steeled myself. “What did you hear?”
“Charles escaped. They think he made his way back here to Seattle. I’ll be over in ten minutes.” And with that she hung up. I stared at the phone in my hand, very still.
The Souljacker was back. Which meant that a whole lot of people, including Dani, Nate, and myself, were in danger. Because Charles, aka the Souljacker, was stark, raving mad. And the Souljacker? Was a vampire.
Chapter 4
The Souljacker. My stomach lurched. I slowly set my phone on the table, staring at it like it had suddenly turned into a snake. “Nate, you’d better stay until Dani gets here. She has some news that you should hear too.”
Nate refilled our mugs. “Something tells me I’m not going to enjoy this little coffee klatch, am I right?”
I let out a soft laugh. “I’m afraid you’re right. Wait here, and don’t fall asleep. I want you awake and on your game while I’m in the other room.”
I headed into the parlor, ready to open up a long chapter of my life I thought I had left behind. All that remained from a lifetime that seemed so very long ago were my memories, and the mementos in a big oaken chest. After closing the door behind me, I knelt by the massive chest. Four feet long, three feet high, and two feet in depth, the trunk had been a gift from someone I had once loved too dearly. I hadn’t opened it for seventy-five years.
I sat down on the floor, cross-legged. The key to the chest dangled from a charm bracelet that I never took off.
As I fiddled with the clasp, Whisky came running into the room. Sleek, with taut muscles, his coloring made him look a lot like a snow leopard, and his eyes were luminous and blue. His name was a misnomer, tricking people into thinking he was just one hell of a big, silly cat.
“You play your part pretty good, bub.” I scritched him behind the ears. Mr. Whiskers purred. He put on a good act of being skittish around strangers. Truth was, he had a long history, and a lot of secrets. I’d saved his fuzzy butt on a cold November night six hundred years ago, and he had been my companion since then.
Now, he nudged my leg. I tickled his chin. “Listen, I know what I said about the chest, but we’re in trouble. I have to do this.”
He let out a purp and gazed up at me.
I shook my head. “Sorry, bub. You can’t do much good on this one. But do me a favor?” He gazed at me, waiting. “Be careful, please? Vampires don’t like being anywhere near cats, but that doesn’t guarantee they won’t try to hurt you. And…oh, when Dani gets here, hang around and listen, okay?”
With a chattering sound, he padded off toward the kitchen.
I fit the key into the lock and opened it. As I swung back the lid, it exhaled slowly. I stared at the tray lined with red velvet. It was filled with letters, photos, and other mementos, most from the days when I had remained undercover, before the world knew my kind actually existed.
One of the pictures caught my eye, and I froze, staring at the haunted face looking back at me. I had tried to forget him for so long, but he still wandered through my dreams. Marsh. He’d been…more than I wanted to remember right now. Biting my lip, I deliberately turned the picture over. Too much baggage and too many heartaches waited down that fork of memory lane. If I was smart, I’d rip up the photograph. But then, if I could bring myself to get rid of it, I would have done so years ago.
Shaking my thoughts away, I felt along the sides of the tray until I found the indentation containing a recessed button. As I pressed it, a click sounded, and the tray unlocked from its position. I lifted it out and set it on the floor.
Beneath the tray, the rest of the box was full. And there was what I was looking for, right on top. Slowly I lifted out the black leather sheath, and withdrew a silver dagger from the scabbard, holding it up to the light. The blade gleamed. Forged from the scales of a silver dragon, the dagger sang, the metal smooth and satin-like under my fingers. It had been a long time since we’d talked, but I could still feel the murmur of magic running through the knife into my hands. My mother had given it to me before she died, and it had served me well.
I set the dagger aside to shift through the other items in the trunk. First, the leg strap that went with the blade and sheath, and then wrist cuffs—also forged from silver dragon scales. Together with my pentacle, the dagger and cuffs were a matching set.
I flashed back to the years when the roads had been no more than winding dirt paths through vast fields. When small towns and villages, rather than large cities, were the norm, and women traveling alone learned to journey unseen and unheard. The wrist cuffs weren’t particularly protective, but they helped me aim my weapons and strengthened my grip. They had enabled me to survive during a time when I had to protect myself on the road. A time long before cops and locks and wards and the future had become part of my life.
And right now, with the Souljacker on the loose, I needed to jog those memories, to remember what I had once been. Replacing the tray in the chest, I closed and locked it. With a soft shush, the chest once again went back to guarding my past, and I was ready to rock.
I strapped the dagger to my thigh, smiling softly. “It’s been a long time since we were on this road together,” I whispered, unfolding my legs as I stood.
The moment Dani had told me about Rebecca, I knew the vampire that had been in my house was the Souljacker. I had no idea why, but with the way he had paused in the hall, I knew that he had been targeting both Tygur and me. I reached for my pentacle, closing my palm around the pendant. He hadn’t counted on my dragon-scale pentacle—the one thing I owned that even a vampire couldn’t get past.
The doorbell rang and I hurried out to answer it. That would be Dani. It was time to figure out how our past had come to intrude on our present.
• • •
I first met Danielle Halloran the day I moved into the Blood Night District. I ran into her literally and creamed her car. I was usually a good driver, but I was tired that day; I wanted to finally unlock the door of my new home and be done with moving, so I wasn’t paying attention.
On the other hand, Dani was barreling down the street too fast. She had a lead foot and admitted to being a speed demon. As I turned the corner, she shot through the stop sign. While technically she crashed into me, my car survived and hers didn’t. Together, we turned her vintage VW beetle into a crumpled mess.
Dani escaped with a broken arm, and somehow, during the mess of medical bills, we realized that we hit it off. She wrote me a check for damages, and we started getting together for coffee several times a week. Within a month, we were best buds. As an added benefit, she stopped driving like a maniac, and I made it a point to look both ways at intersections, even when I had the right of way.
Danielle Halloran was five-three at her tallest. Plump and curvy, she ran the Wandering Eye—a witchcraft shop. Her hair was shoulder length and smooth, black as ink. Irish by blood, she had a temper to match. I often joked to Nate that Dani might look soft and huggable, but woe to the person who laid a finger on her without her permission.
Now she was waiting at the door, a stark look on her face. Dani handled crises well. She was essentially fearless to a fault. But tonight? She looked like she’d tangled with a ghost and had come out on the wrong side of the battle.
I blinked. “You look like I feel. Get your pretty ass in here and sit down.” As she shrugged off her velvet jacket and hung it on the peg by the kitchen door, I noticed the new dress. Dani had an eye for fashion, except tha
t she created trends rather than following them. “New?”
“Yes, you like?” Dani slipped into a chair, looking exhausted. She was wearing a shimmering, plum-colored dress. With a deep, plunging neckline on the bodice, and the skirt cinched at her waist and flared out. She’d paired it with a silver-studded black belt and chunky heels. The heels gave her a good four extra inches of height.
“I like it a lot. It wouldn’t fit my style, but it’s gorgeous on you.” I was five-ten, and while I was curvy in my own way, my figure was more athletic than anything else. I envied hourglass figures, but then, I could run without a bra, which Dani couldn’t. “Nate, pour Dani some tea?”
As he filled the kettle again and replenished the cookies, Dani set her huge handbag on the floor next to her seat. The smile vanished from her face as, one finger at a time, she removed her gloves, laying them neatly over the handbag.
Nate set the tea in front of her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. She air kissed him in return. Dani never went out without her makeup. While her lipstick was smudge proof, she had perfected the art of the air kiss and golf clap for use with some of the social elite who came to her for tarot readings.
“Hey, gorgeous.” Nate winked at her.
“How’s it hanging, chiphead?” Dani winked back, but her sparkly nature was subdued.
“Low and lonely.” He sighed. “Low and luh-ohhhn-leee.”
I motioned for Nate to top off my mug and, making sure the door was locked, sat down.
Dani’s gaze went directly to my dagger. “You’ve been in the chest.” It was a statement, not a question. While I had never shown her the blade, I had told her about it.
“Yeah, we’re going to need all the help we can get. My wards are fucked up, Dani.”
“What do you mean? I made those myself.”
“There’s a problem. Something happened to them. Dani, tonight a vampire got through the wards and killed Tygur Jones in my salon. I saw it leave through the wall when I went back upstairs after getting a drink. It started to come after me, then stopped and fled. I know the only reason I’m not dead too is my pendant. Dragon silver trumps a vampire every time.”
Dani paled, and that on top of her porcelain complexion made her look like smooth alabaster. “Vampire? You’re certain?”
“I smelled anise. And the black shadow passed through the wall.”
“Lily, was there anything…missing from Tygur?”
I frowned. “You mean was he robbed? His clothes and wallet were still here—”
“No, I mean was…” She let out a sigh. “When they found Rebecca, a strip of skin was missing from her shoulder. The shoulder where Charles tattooed her spirit leopard. The skin had been carefully excised, and the tattoo was gone.” She leaned forward. “Tygur was part of our group, wasn’t he? He had a tattoo, didn’t he?”
“Damn it, now I remember what I was trying to tell Jolene.”
Nate was leaning forward, a worried expression on his face. “Which was?”
“Tygur had a tattoo. And yes, the skin had been flayed from his body. Jolene said a professional had to have done it. Or someone who had a steady hand and plenty of practice. Remember, Tygur was with us when we all decided to get ink during that big party when we were…celebrating Greg’s victory. It was his mother’s name tattooed on a rose. That was before he became one of my clients.”
And that was what I had forgotten.
Dani pressed her hands against the table. I suspected my mention of Greg’s name hadn’t helped matters. “This can’t be a coincidence. The Souljacker escaped two days ago. That gave him two days to hide himself in Seattle. And now we have two dead ex-clients of his? Both members of the India Ink Club.”
Nate sputtered. “Wait just a minute! Charles is still alive? You told me he was dead, Lily. Where the hell did he escape from and why did you lie to me?” He looked like he might throw up.
“I’m sorry. I just…” There was no good answer except that I knew how terrified Nate had been when Charles was turned. Since he had been locked away, it seemed easier to let Nate believe the Souljacker was dead. After all, WestcoPsi never let anybody out.
“WestcoPsi is the West Coast Psionic Asylum—it’s a few hours away from Seattle, toward the mountains. It’s for nonhumans who are considered criminally insane. They hardly ever take vampires because they’re so hard to contain, so I have no idea why they let Charles in, but once you’re there, you never get out.”
“Unless you escape,” Dani mumbled.
“So they sent Charles there after he murdered that entire family? But the cops stake bloodsuckers who are mass murderers, if they can catch them. Now you tell me that he’s not only alive, but on the loose?”
I reached out, about to use my powers to calm him, but stopped myself. Dani noticed his discomfort and leaned over to rest a hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry Nate. We didn’t tell you because…well, he was locked up, and we just wanted to put it behind us. I only found out that he escaped about an hour ago.” She stroked his arm for a moment and he began to breathe normally again. Dani might not be a succubus, but when she put her mind to it, she could make people relax.
“You said Rebecca is dead, too? And that her tattoo was excised just like Tygur’s?” Nate leaned his elbows on the table, staring at his hands, anger crowding out any sign of his usual good nature. “She was nice. I liked her.”
Dani ducked her head, her long lashes fluttering softly. “Yeah. She was killed last night, but they just found her about two hours ago.” She glanced over at me. “I don’t even want to know what he could be thinking.”
“This is leading down the rabbit hole. A long, dark, dank, terrifying pit. And we really don’t want to go tumbling in.” I glanced outside at the sky. Though it wasn’t full dark—the snow put up too much of a reflection against the silver clouds for that—I really didn’t want to think about what was waiting out there in the night for us.
Apparently, Nate didn’t want to think about it, either. “Before we jump to conclusions, we need to calm down. Maybe…maybe we’re wrong. This could just be one hell of a wild coincidence. They do happen, you know.”
“Maybe, but you know this isn’t one of those times.” Dani shook her head. “Face reality now and it might save our skins, because you know the cops won’t have any hope of protecting us, even if they had the resources to guard us 24/7.”
“Let me think,” I said, holding up my hands. “Yes, I do think this is the Souljacker’s work, but we have to know for sure. Tell you what. Jolene promised to hook me up with a PI. He might be able to help us out. Because Rebecca and Tygur? Their murders are closed cases. The cops just don’t have the ability to handle vampire kills, no matter how much they want to. Jolene pretty much told me that if we want any more answers, the ball’s in our court.”
“You called Jolene?” Dani’s voice was soft. She knew all about my friendship with Jolene and why it had gone south.
I nodded, biting my lip. “It wasn’t an easy call to make, either.”
I glanced down at my leg. Beneath my jeans, a beautiful phoenix in blue and orange trailed down from the top of my left hip to encircle my ankle with its tail. It brought out my inner self. When I looked at it, I felt like all my masks had been lifted. “So…the Souljacker escaped…”
Silently, Nate pulled up his sleeve. On his left bicep, a brilliant purple skull shimmered under the light, encircled by a sleeping gray kitten. Dani shrugged the shoulder strap of her dress down, exposing a forest nymph on her right breast. It held a bottle of poison in one hand and a glowing orb in the other.
We sat there, tattoos exposed, in silence.
Yes, we all knew Charles and he knew us, intimately. He had been able to reach inside, to contact our very essences, and coax them out to blossom on the flesh. That’s how he got his nickname. The Souljacker could jack right into your soul. In some ways, he was the one person who would ever know you as well as you knew yourself. Sometimes better.
> “You think that the private eye can help us find out what’s going on?” She pulled her strap back up and picked up her tea. “I suppose…given Rebecca’s death along with Tygur’s…you should call him. After you do, we’ll try to figure out why your wards failed.”
“Yeah. There’s just one thing. He’s a chaos demon.”
Dani carefully sat her cup down, staring at me. “You have to be joking.”
“I’m afraid not. His name is Archer Desmond, and he’s a chaos demon.” Before she could light into me, I put in a call to Jolene to get Archer’s number.
“I can’t use the department’s funds to pay him, but tell Archer I told you to call and that you’re my friend. He’ll cut you a deal. If he finds out anything…the department could use whatever information you might dig up. I know it’s not fair, given you’re paying for it but…”
“Sure thing. Hey, Jolene…I found out something.” I didn’t want to worry her. Jolene had enough on her plate and I didn’t like stirring up old memories, but I had to tell her. She was wearing a pair of scales on her back. She was in danger, too. “The Souljacker escaped from WestcoPsi. We think he’s back in town. Dani just came over with the news that Rebecca’s dead.”
There was silence on the other end. Then, “Fuck. Just, fuck.”
“Make sure your wards are strong. When they found Rebecca, her tattoo was missing. She had been skinned like Tygur—and I remember that the flesh missing from him? Had the Souljacker’s tattoo on it.”
Again, silence. Then she said, “I’ll see what I can find out. Communication with other precincts is dicey, so I’m not expecting much. We’re dealing with a lot of petty power plays. But I’ll do what I can. Talk to you tomorrow.”
She hung up without a goodbye and I stared at my phone, punching the off button.
Dani and Nate quickly segued into a conversation about growing tomatoes as I punched in Archer Desmond’s number. He was out, so I left a message and asked him to call me at the first available opportunity, day or night.