Darkyn - Incarnatio Part 4

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 b.i.t.c.h did to you."

We cannot lead her to him.

Chris braked suddenly, stopping the car in the middle of the road. "Why the h.e.l.l 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?"

The scents that had filled his head in the drive had been too many to count, but he had felt the span of her borrowed power. Hundreds.

"We need to think this through," she said as she accelerated. "I'll take you to my place."

A short time later Chris led Jamys up the stairwell of an apartment building and into a flat on top floor. She didn't give him time to admire the neat red and black decor, but guided him through it to her privy, which was done in stark, icy white. He had stopped bleeding, but took care not to touch anything.

She left him and brought back a small steel-backed chair with a black vinyl seat cus.h.i.+on. "Sit down."

He wanted to tell her he could clean up by himself, but she already had a small kit out and was tearing open a packet of gauze pads.

"You're a mess," she muttered as she dampened a pad and began cleaning the streaks of dried blood from his face. "You shouldn't have left your blades back at the club. I know you guys are all about the honor and stuff, but that was dumb."

He raised his brows.

"Don't get all Kyn on me," Chris told him. "She could have blinded you." She finished wiping his face and carefully pushed aside what was left of his hair to look at the wound. "It's closed, but it's not healed. You need blood." She began rolling up her sleeve.

Jamys caught her arm. No, Chris.

She glared at him. "It's part of my job."

I will not feed on you.

"The honor thing is getting really old and tired now." She yanked down her sleeve. "I keep some bloodwine in the fridge for Sam. I'll get you a gla.s.s." She stalked out.

Jamys stood and looked at his face in the mirror. Luce's blade had hacked off most of the hair on the side of his head; he was lucky not to have lost an ear. He searched through the kit until he found a small pair of scissors and went to work on the rest.

By the time Chris returned with the bloodwine he had filled her small trash can with cuttings.

"I liked it better long." She handed him the gla.s.s and took the scissors. Shadowed crescents rimmed her eyes, and he could almost feel how exhausted she was. "Sit down and let me do the back."

Jamys sat and sipped from the gla.s.s, closing his eyes as the rejuvenating warmth of the bloodwine spread through him. His head felt oddly light without the length of his hair, and the gentle brush of Chris's fingers soothed him.

"It'll probably grow back in a week," she said as she snipped. "I wish mine would. Last year I went blonde, huge mistake, and then I tried to dye it over with this gorgeous purple color. It ended up the color of sewer sludge."

He drained the gla.s.s and set it aside, but the taste lingered on his lips. He needed to leave and hunt, but Chris's luscious scent filled his head. When she came around to stand in front of him he latched onto her wrist.

"Ouch." She grimaced. "Little sore there." He turned her wrist over and saw the stained bandage she'd wrapped around it, and then looked at her pale face. What have you done?

"I kinda lied to you. I don't keep any bloodwine in the fridge for Sam." She tried to smile. "It's okay. I've got six pints, and you needed the boost."

She'd bled herself for him. If he could have cursed, he would have. He lifted her into his arms and carried her out, looking this way and that until he found the room where she slept.

"This is nice," Chris murmured as he placed her on her bed. "Just like in the movies." When he tried to straighten she tugged on his s.h.i.+rt. "I'm cold."

He wasn't, not with the force of her blood coursing through him. He eased down beside her, gathering her close and pulling the black and white geometric bedspread over her s.h.i.+vering body.

"I'd really love to have s.e.x with you," she whispered, "but I think I'm going to be criminally stupid and pa.s.s out now."

Her eyelids slowly closed, and her body relaxed.

He checked her bandage to make sure she hadn't cut herself too deeply, then rose from the bed to stand at the window.

Sunrise was only a few minutes away. He glanced at the telephone on the bedside table. He needed to warn Lucan about the Kyn who had come here, but even if he could speak, he doubted they would believe what he told them.

Behind him, Chris whimpered, and Jamys went to her. He placed a hand on her forehead. All will be well, my little friend, he lied to her. Forget what has happened tonight and rest now.

When he was sure she slept peacefully, he found her car keys and slipped out of the apartment. As he went downstairs, he didn't see the girl in the sparkling red dress step out of the shadows at the back of the landing.

Chapter Five.

Sam eased out from under the heavy weight of her sleeping lover, and took her clothes from the closet before sneaking out of their bedroom to dress. She never needed to rest as long as Lucan did during the day one more oddity of her adjustment to being made Kyn and knew after the hours they'd spent making love that he'd probably stay conked out until dusk. That would give her the time she needed to follow up with Tenderson and see if there was any evidence linking Jamys Durand to the victim.

She felt sorry for the kid, but the last couple of years had taught her never to blindly a.s.sume anything about the Darkyn. If she were wrong and Jamys wasn't involved, she'd apologize.

Evan Tenderson was just finis.h.i.+ng his s.h.i.+ft at the morgue when she arrived, and grumbled as he went back to his office to retrieve his preliminary autopsy notes.

"Virginia confirmed the I.D., although the kid's parents are dead and so are all the other living relatives," he told her as they walked down the hall. "According to their FAX, the vic was reported missing in sixty-nine and declared dead in seventy-six."

"Did you find any trace?"

"Not so much as an epithelial or an eyelash," he said, pressing a square of gum from a foil packet he took from his pocket and popping it in his mouth. "Considering the condition of the body, it was extraordinarily clean," he said as he chewed. "Makes you wonder if Bundy had a little brother."

She didn't like jokes about serial killers, but she could appreciate the reference. Ted Bundy had kept the bodies of many of his victims for some time, amusing himself with them as well as was.h.i.+ng and grooming them. "Cause of death?"

"I can't say by what means yet. I didn't find any blood or body fluids, so I sent hair, tissue and bone samples for a tox screen." He opened a drawer of his immaculately tidy desk and took out a steno pad. "No sign of failure or trauma in the internal organs or the brain, and the neck and wrist injuries were post-mortem. Barring anything unusual from the tox, your vic probably died of heart failure. I found a good-size blowout in the aorta. What I'd love to know is why every drop of blood is missing. The heart for d.a.m.n sure didn't pump it out." He tried to blow a bubble with his gum and failed.

"Yeah, that's a little weird." Sam kept her voice bland. "What else?"

"Something even weirder," Tenderson said. "Virginia advised me that Wilson Robert Carcher filed for a name change before leaving the states. Birth certificate reads Wilma Rachel Carcher."

She would never have guessed, looking at the corpse. "Wilson had a s.e.x-change?"

"Nah. All she changed was her name and wardrobe," Tenderson told her. "She strapped down her b.o.o.bs, and kept a d.i.l.d.o in her drawers for appearances, but her body was never altered. Your vic was a female."

"When did he did she die?"

"That's what I don't want to put in my report." Tenderson gave her an uneasy look. "Yesterday."

"What?"

"I knew no one would believe me, so I saved a sample." He went to the small refrigerator beside his desk and took out a vial filled with a thick red substance. "I pulled this out of her sternum and checked it under the scope. From the condition of the marrow, this gal was alive yesterday."

Sam took the vial and studied it. "Who else have you told about this?"

"Well, I thought about calling Doctor G. up in Orange County," he said, spitting out his gum into the trash and replacing it with a fresh piece, "but somehow I don't think she'd want me to upstage her on her cable show."

"Is this the only sample you have?" When he nodded, Sam pocketed it. Before he could squawk, she placed a hand on his neck and shed enough scent to make his eyes darken. "Evan, I want you to forget about the bone marrow anomaly and the bite marks on the body. Report that the victim died of natural causes. Arrange to have the body released to the county, and send her to be cremated."

"Forget. Report. Arrange," he said in a distant monotone.

"Try to give up the gum and have a merry Christmas while you're at it." Sam ripped the pages of notes he'd made from the pad and stuffed them into her pocket before she opened the door to the office. "Thanks."

The fresh air removed the bemus.e.m.e.nt from the medical examiner's face. "Yeah, yeah." He removed the wad of gum from his mouth and pitched it at the trash can. "Happy holidays to you, too."

Sam went down to headquarters and reported to Garcia's office, where she briefed him on the case. After relating the details from the autopsy along with the startling fact that the victim had been a woman, she asked, "Is it possible she was killed by a Kyn lord because she was a cross-dresser?" "Possible, but highly unlikely. She could not have fooled a Kyn lord for long." Garcia tapped his nose. "They can smell our gender."

"Okay. Could she have been this Kyn lord's tresora?"

Garcia, who like the rest of his family had served the Kyn his entire life, frowned. "Also unlikely. Our lords generally do not feed on us unless they have no alternative." He hesitated, and then added, "Over time a few tresori also serve as kyaran, the mortal companions. As such they provide our lords with blood, s.e.x and affection. But a Kyn lord would not wish to have his kyara dress like a male."

Sam knew most of the Kyn were remarkably conservative when it came to matters of s.e.xuality. They were still wrestling with the reality of modern alternative lifestyles. "Let's say he did. Why would he drain the body of blood and then dump it in a public place?"

Garcia made an uncertain gesture. "I cannot say, Samantha. Such intimate relations.h.i.+ps between lord and tresora are difficult to sustain, but they do happen, and sometimes result in tragedy. The more often a Kyn lord uses a mortal, the more likely he is to lose control, go into thrall and kill them. But had that been the case, you would have found an unconscious Kyn beside the mortal."

"Maybe it happened somewhere else." She waited as Garcia answered his phone, and then took the receiver when he handed it to her. "Brown."

"My lady, forgive me for disturbing you at your work," Herbert Burke said, "but I am concerned about Christian. She did not come to the club today, and she does not answer the phone at her flat."

Sam thought of how upset Chris had been after the confrontation with Jamys. "She's probably p.i.s.sed at me, Burke.

Let's give her the day off."

"Of course." He cleared his throat. "My lord Lucan also bid me to pa.s.s along a request that you return to the stronghold immediately, for your own safety."

She smothered a chuckle. "I bet he didn't say it like that."

"No, my lady," Burke admitted, "and please don't ask me to repeat his exact words." She needed to track Wilson Carcher's last movements, and that would take time. "Tell Lucan I'm fine. I have to track down some information about the victim and see if that tells us anything about this Kyn running around our territory. I'll be home in a couple of hours."

Burke sighed. "As you wish, my lady."

Samantha hung up the phone and took out the pa.s.sport Rafael had found on the victim. "Before she came over her, Wilson Carcher's last stop in Europe was in the Netherlands. Do we have any friends among the Dutch authorities?"

Garcia smiled. "We have friends everywhere on the planet." He jotted down a number and handed it to her. "Rafael called while you were at the morgue. He lost Jamys Durand's trail downtown last night."

That didn't bode well for Rafael or Jamys. "We need to find out where this kid is before any more bodies turn up."

"Rafael has summoned the best trackers in the jardin," Garcia a.s.sured her. "If he is still in Fort Lauderdale, they will locate him."

She left the captain's office and went to her desk, where she called their Dutch contact. The senior inspector, who spoke beautifully-accented English, was able to access and e-mail her the pa.s.senger manifest for the flight Wilson Carcher had taken from his country to hers.

"There is something else, my lady," the inspector said. "The flight was bought out by one individual, who paid for all two hundred and seventy-six pa.s.sengers."

That sounded like something a Kyn would do. "What's his name?"

"Her name is listed as Erzsebet Csejthe of Magyarorszag," he said.

Sam didn't even try to repeat it, but had him spell the name and the place for her. "Is that last bit some place in Belgium?"

"No, my lady. It is the proper name of a country. Let me think . . ." He fell silent for a time. "Ah, yes. Now I remember the English. You call it Hungary." "I didn't know we had Hungarian Kyn," she said.

"Neither did I, my lady. I will make some calls and see what I can learn."

Sam thanked him and ended the call. Knowing that Carcher had traveled to the U.S. on a plane with his seat and all the others paid for by a Hungarian woman didn't make things less complicated, but at least she had a name now. She pulled up a search engine and put in the name the inspector had given her.

The first link that popped up took her to some sort of online travel journal written by a filmmaker traveling around eastern Europe. She began to read about the English woman's difficulties in getting across borders and finding decent accommodations, and wondered why people who didn't like the discomforts of travel were always the first ones to jump on a plane and go to a third-world country where they didn't even speak the language.

After a few paragraphs of whining about the food, the hotels and the inconvenience and expense of obtaining the travel papers she needed, the filmmaker posted some blurry graphics of herself, a distant pile of ruins, and two books. One had a lurid- looking jacket and the screaming t.i.tle of Dracula was a Woman while the other bore an enigmatic sunburst and had been t.i.tled and subt.i.tled, but she could only make out the header: The b.l.o.o.d.y Countess.

The phone rang, dragging her attention away from the screen. "Brown."

"Detective, this is Carmen Figueroa," a frantic voice said. "My husband just call me. He say he see Luce down on the strip, but when he go to her she no talk to him. She walk away. When he try to stop her, she push him and he fall."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Sam said. "But at least you know she's alive and okay now."

"She is not okay," Carmen insisted. "She is dressed like a puta. She say nothing, not one word. She hurt my Eduardo."

Sam tried to think of what to say. "I think maybe Luce is trying to tell you that she needs some time to herself."

"Don't you no hear me?" Carmen shrieked. "She hurt my husband bad. He had to go to the emergency room. Luce broke his arm." "Sometimes a bad fall can cause a fracture, Mrs. Figueroa." When the other woman began arguing with her, she gave up. "If you want to press charges against your daughter for a.s.saulting your husband, I can send an officer over to the hospital.

We'll issue a bench warrant for her arrest."

"You no understand," the woman said before she gave up on English and continued in Spanish. "I spoke to my husband and the emergency room doctor. The fall did not do this to Eduardo, Luce did. She did all of it."

"Like I said-" "It was not one bone," Carmen said. "It was thirty.

Detective Brown, she broke every bone in his arm, his wrist and his hand." # Chris's blood rejuvenated him, but Jamys's strength slipped away just the same as soon as the sun rose in the sky.

Resigned to seeking the rest he needed, he pulled in and parked under a shade tree in the back lot of an all-night fast food restaurant. The cramped backseat of Chris's car wouldn't accommodate half of his long frame, so he reclined the driver's seat down until his head couldn't be seen through the windows, pulled his jacket over his face, and closed his eyes.