Eater of Lives(SPECTR #4) (10 page)

She had to. No one else would have access to
the jacket.

Sekhmet, Devouring Lady, thank you.

“Thanks, Will,” he said, looking up the
address for Design F on his tablet. “You might have just given us
the break we need.”

Will touched him lightly on the shoulder.
When he looked up, the other smiled down at him, familiar warmth in
his eyes. “You’re welcome. John, do you think—”

“No. I don’t.” He shrugged. “I’ve moved on
Will.”

“Well. You can’t blame a man for trying.”
Will swept his long dreadlocks back and secured them with a
flamboyant scarlet tie. “I’m off for another day of sifting the
dross of uninspired design for gold.”

“Good luck,” John said.

“You too.”

The address came up. Grabbing his cell phone
out of his pocket, he dialed Kaniyar’s number even as strode to the
stairs to wake up Caleb. She answered just as he walked into the
bedroom. Caleb’s eyes opened, and he frowned in puzzlement.

“Ma’am,” he said to Kaniyar, “I need a team
to meet me at Design F Studio. I know where to find the
wendigo.”

A convoy of SPECTR SUVs, vans, and sedans
screamed down the narrow street, sirens echoing off the brick
buildings and drilling into Caleb’s sensitive ears. Beside him,
John leaned forward as he drove, as if he might somehow urge the
car to go faster.

“There!” Caleb said, pointing to the discreet
logo decorating the glass door of the studio. The seatbelt cut into
his shoulder when John slammed on the brakes.

“You know we’re parked in the middle of the
street,” Caleb pointed out, as John turned off the engine and flung
open his door.

“We don’t want anyone else getting caught up
in this,” John said, and indeed the other SPECTR vehicles formed an
effective roadblock behind them. Other agents bailed out of the
vans and SUVs, most of them visibly armed. Kaniyar climbed out of
one of the cars, followed by Sean and Forsyth.

Gray roused, sending a tendril of hunger
slithering through Caleb’s veins. The drakul had been subdued
around John, but the promise of a meal seemed to have cheered him
up.

“
Feeding without you will not be the
same.”

Caleb made a face.
Sorry, but I’m not
going to miss sucking blood at all
.

John drew his Glock, and he and Tiffany fell
in to either side of the door. She gave a little nod, and he kicked
it open, swinging inside while she covered him. “SPECTR agents! No
one move!”

Someone inside screamed. His teeth aching and
the tips of his fingers starting to burn from Gray’s energy, Caleb
strode inside, ready to fight.

Silvery winter light spilled into the
two-story foyer, highlighting a woman behind a reception desk who
smelled of fear, but not of demons. Nor did the knot of matronly
Hispanic women huddled in a doorway, or the stylishly dressed man
on the stairs. Caleb took a deeper breath, hoping to get some
thread of scent, something to confirm the wendigo had at least been
here recently.

Nothing.

Oh hell. “John? It’s, uh, not here. There’s
no trace of any kind of demon.”

“Demon?” exclaimed the man on the stair. “I
never! I demand to know what you’re doing here!”

John lowered his Glock, his expression
dismayed. “Are you sure?” he asked Caleb.

“Positive.”

Kaniyar came in behind them.
“Starkweather?”

John recovered himself. “Sean, please get my
tablet out of the car. Are you Francois?” he asked the man on the
stairs.

The man cautiously descended the rest of the
way. “Yes, and I demand to know what you’re doing here.” Given his
southern accent, Caleb doubted Francois was his original name.

“Special Agent John Starkweather, SPECTR.”
John took his tablet from Sean and pulled up the picture of the
jacket. “Did this come from your studio?”

High spots of angry color showed on the
designer’s face. “Yes. Did someone put you up to this?”

“We have reason to believe the person who
owns this jacket committed a series of possession-related murders,”
John replied.

Francois paled. “M-murders?”

“Only a few of these were made, is that
true?”

“J-just the one. For the show.”

A lucky break for once. “I assume someone
here must have taken it home?” John asked.

Francois sneered condescendingly. Once he
realized he didn’t have to worry about getting shot, he seemed have
developed an attitude. “Don’t be absurd. We don’t keep old designs,
especially ones the fashion world is too backward to understand. We
have standards.”

John frowned. “Then what happened to it?”

“The models take our discards, of course, as
part of their payment. Disgraceful, watching a group of grown women
fighting over a pile of silk and trim.”

What a jerk. Caleb half-wished Francois had
been the wendigo, just to have an excuse to beat him up a
little.

John’s frown turned into a scowl, but when he
spoke, he kept his voice level. “Do you keep track of who takes
what? Is there any way to find out which model ended up with the
jacket?”

Francois’s sneer spoke volumes. But before he
could actually say anything, a soft voice peeped up. “Um, sir?”

John turned to the woman behind the desk. She
looked barely old enough to drink, and her hands shook visibly with
nervousness.

John’s expression softened immediately. “Yes,
Miss…?”

“Patty, sir.” She swallowed, glanced at
Francois, then back at John. “I’m friends with a few of the local
models, and…and it’s Valerie. Valerie Sain. She took the
jacket.”

“Are you sure?”

“Y-yes. She’s worn it a few times, when we’ve
gone clubbing.”

“Do you have an address for her?”

“Yes, but…she’s not home.” Patty twisted her
hands nervously together. “She’s working the catwalk today.”

Oh hell. “She’s at the expo?” Caleb
blurted.

Patty nodded.

“What studio is she modeling for?” John
demanded. “When?”

“I don’t know.” Patty blinked rapidly. “We
were texting each other—she said she’d gotten another job, finally.
She’d gone through some trouble—”

“Couldn’t stay away from the snacks,”
Francois said disdainfully. “What a cow. Disgusting.”

“She lost the weight,” Patty said
defensively. “And now she’s got a real chance! She’s opening a
show. But she didn’t have time to talk—she was on her way to meet
someone—and I didn’t get the chance to ask who hired her.”

John’s gaze met his, and Caleb read the same
sick horror in his eyes. “Thousands of people are expected to be
there today,” John said.

Thousands of people. Thousands of walking,
talking dinners, to the wendigo among them.

“Come on,” John said, heading for the door.
“Let’s get over there, and hope we aren’t too late.”

* * *

“First looks!” the show producer shouted.

Valerie tried to force herself to remain
still, but she couldn’t stop shivering. Why the fuck was it so cold
back here? The cheap plastic of the huge white tent must not hold
in any heat at all; it felt like standing in a damn freezer.

Except all around her, everyone else sweated,
a tantalizing smorgasbord of hot, delicious flesh. Her stomach
cramped in pain. God, she was hungry. She had to consciously keep
herself from taking a bite out of the stylist working on her hair.
The man’s thick arm looked juicy; she imagined the pop of skin
under her teeth, the sweet meat underneath, blood streaming into
her mouth.

No. Stop it
. She closed her eyes.

“
None of them can hold a candle to you.
They are sheep, and you are the wolf.”

The stylist released a cloud of hairspray
across Valerie’s elaborate coiffure. The heavy particles stung her
nose, and she let out a growl.

“Are you okay?” he asked. She opened her eyes
to find him watching her askance.

“I’m fine. Just cold.”

“Are you crazy? This place is a sauna.”

She shrugged. It didn’t matter. This show was
her ticket to somewhere warm. Milan, maybe. Or Paris…well, Paris
wasn’t especially warm, but a trip to the south coast of France
would be lovely.

“
Yes. We will leave here, and it will be
wonderful. Perfect.”

Because I’m strong.

“
Because you are strong.”

The hairstylist moved on to the next model.
Valerie stood up; the chunky heels dragged at her feet like
weights.

The show producer ushered them into line. A
smile stretched Valerie’s mouth as she stepped into place. Just
three months ago, her agent threatened to drop her. She’d ballooned
to a size six, and he regretfully explained he “just couldn’t
represent plus-sized models.”

She’d been so scared. She’d tried
everything—hours of exercise, boxes of laxatives, oceans of water,
anything to lose weight. Until the night, half-hallucinating from
her body’s weakness, she’d had an epiphany. She’d realized just how
powerful she really was, how dedicated to her career.

“
Yes. And you called me to you.”

She’d gotten down to a double-zero in no
time. And today, she opened a show.

Only two models mattered in any show: the
opener and the closer. This would make her career. She would be
first down the catwalk, wearing the greatest creation of the
hottest new designer in the country. Her agent had the biggest
fashion houses and magazines on speed dial already.

An hour from now, her career would be made.
All because she’d finally gained the strength to defeat her weak,
flabby body, and to control the cold thing which answered her
summons.

“
Oh yes, you are in control. Always. I am
only a servant.”

God, the things around her smelled good.

No, not things. People. The people smelled
good. Like food.

“Valerie!” snapped the show producer. “I
don’t know what you’re on, but concentrate!”

Fucking bastard. He’d get what was coming to
him.

Valerie straightened her shoulders and took
her place at the head of the line, schooling her face into the
perfect indifference expected of models on the catwalk. Her job was
to be a living coat hanger, nothing more or less. The designer
walked up, frowned, and thrust a hand up her skirt to tug down the
hem of her shirt. His skin burned against her thighs like fire.

“And…go!” the show producer exclaimed.

She went, passing through the plastic flap
separating the backstage from the rest of the tent. A sea of
indiscernible faces met her gaze, before the flash of a dozen
cameras overwhelmed her ability to see anything but afterimage.
Thank God the catwalk was just a straight line.

Left, right, left, right, not too fast, not
too slow, right hand on hip, face expressionless, nothing to
detract from the clothes draping her body…

“
Look at all of them. Once I feast on
their flesh, I will be powerful enough to fight the
monster.”

What? No! She wasn’t feeding on anyone, not
today.
Are you crazy? These people are buyers, fashion critics,
the ones who will make or break us!

The cold blanketed her, as if she stood in an
arctic winter, alone and naked. Her limbs trembled, and she
stumbled.
Recover, recover
…

But she couldn’t. Her legs wouldn’t obey her
now.

“
Because they aren’t yours any
more.”

Disapproving murmurs rose all around. “Is she
drunk?” a fashion writer asked with a sneer, while a photographer
thrust his camera close to get photo after photo of her
humiliation.

She needed to get up. A misstep on the
catwalk wasn’t the end of the world—it all came down to how the
model handled it. But she couldn’t unclench her hands, or force her
frozen legs to move. She was trapped in a blizzard, in an ice age,
in the heat death of the universe, and no one seemed to
understand…

“
You have always been trapped, you little
fool.”
The familiar cold voice held a cruel edge to it now
which she’d never heard before.

I…what? I’m not trapped. I’m strong. Just
help me get to my feet, please, and we’ll…

“
There is no ‘we,’ mortal. And you have
never been strong. Just another weak, insipid voice, mewling to me
for help.”

Memory: a cold place, and starvation, and a
voice screaming for aid. Answering the call, and finding only pain,
and hunger, and madness, until the heat of a fire set it free. But
it couldn’t forget, couldn’t stop waiting, watching,
needing
…

No. NO, you’re lying, it’s just me, I’m the
only one strong enough!

“
Wrong. You are pathetic. Ready to do
anything, to believe anything, to make your silly mortal dreams
come true. But your time is up.”

The thing wearing her skin snapped its head
up, saliva flying. The photographer was the first to realize
something had gone horribly wrong; he dropped his camera and tried
to move back, but the mass of people pinned him in place.

“
Good.”

Valerie tried to scream as her body spun
around, faster than she dreamed possible, and seized the model
behind her in a clawed hand. Her teeth sank into sweet, delicious
flesh, even as her own body bowed and twisted and took on a shape
never worn by anything human.

No! Oh God, stop! Please! I’ll do
anything!

The thing laughed because, as it said, her
time was up. She’d summoned it exactly forty days ago, after
all.

No! Please! Noooo!

It didn’t answer. She was locked away inside
her own flesh, like an inmate in an asylum, screaming and pounding
at the walls. But no one would ever answer her cries.

* * *

The expo was a madhouse. Standing at the edge
of the downtown park which held the expo, John wondered if they had
any chance of finding the wendigo before people started to die. The
green space was barely visible beneath rows of white tents, swarms
of photographers, and hordes of fashionistas.