J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (26 page)

She eased out of bed, knowing Paul would sleep and dream of only her until she released him from the sleep spell she’d cast. Standing up completely naked, she admired herself in the mirror for a moment, admired the beautiful, young, voluptuous body that was one of her greatest assets.

She threw on a robe, walked out of her bedroom, down the hall and into the apartment’s other bedroom, which she used as a combination study and workroom. She picked up the phone there and called her master, and It answered the call before the phone rang the first time. “I sensed you wanted to speak with me,” she said.

“Ah, my dear Belinda. You’re a treasure beyond value. Is the young Lord ready?”

She chose her words carefully. “There’s something missing here, something I can’t name. It might be best if we waited a few more days.”

Her master answered her with a long, painful silence. Finally, It asked, “Have you failed me?”

A knot of fear formed in the pit of her stomach. “No, master,” she pleaded. “It’s just progressing more slowly than I anticipated.”

“Perhaps you’re enjoying him too much,” It said. “That would be so like you, my dear Belinda. You do love the pleasures of that magnificent body of yours, though I’ll never understand what mortal men see in your curves.”

“No,” she pleaded. “It’s not that. I mean, I am enjoying him, but there’s something missing.”

“You do have him under your control, don’t you?”

“Yes, master, of course I do. It’s just that the—” She shivered as her master’s anger washed through her, like a splash of icy water on a winter day.

“I’ll send a car for you,” It said. “Have him ready this afternoon.”

“You fool,” Ag shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.

Simuth, on his hands and knees before Ag in his private study, blood dripping from his nose where Ag had struck him, cringed and tried to retreat, crawling like a dog. That enraged Ag even further; he crossed the distance between them in an instant and stomped on one of Simuth’s hands. Anogh heard the bones snap as the Winter Knight cried out and curled into a fetal position on the floor. Ag gave full vent to his rage and kicked and punched at the helpless fool.

Anogh glanced at the other courtiers standing about watching Ag’s cruelty. Many looked on with excitement or pleasure in their eyes. Cruelty was a hallmark of the Unseelie Court, bred into its denizens for millennia, and they all shared in a certain reverie whenever malice and brutality were manifest. Anogh wanted to look away. But to do so would draw Ag’s attention, and after six hundred years attending the Winter Court, Anogh had learned Ag’s attention was never a good thing. Simuth was immortal, and he’d survive and eventually heal from any wound, no matter how grievous.

“Follow her,” Ag shouted. “Yes, an excellent idea. Abduct her and rape her! Fine, as long as you don’t bring down the wrath of the Old Wizard. But to be caught, and in so doing obligate this Court, obligate me, to the old man—”

Ag kicked Simuth in the ribs several more times. Then he abruptly stopped, and spun toward Anogh. “Summer Knight,” he snarled.

Anogh stepped forward immediately and dropped to one knee. “Your Majesty.”

“Following her is a good idea.” He glanced down at Simuth and gave him another kick, more as an afterthought. “But this fool can’t keep his priorities straight.”

He looked back to Anogh. “You follow her, keep a close eye on her. She’ll lead us to this young wizard. I have no doubt of that.”

Anogh said, “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

He didn’t mention he’d been following her for his own reasons. Now he could follow her openly, would no longer need to keep his activities hidden from Ag and the Unseelie Court.

Paul sat up in bed. Dim, gray light leaking through the window told him it was a cloudy San Francisco day. His thoughts seemed unusually clear, and he wondered at that, because he was a clear-thinking type of person, and he shouldn’t be so surprised to find himself thinking clearly. He stood, completely naked, climbed into his underwear, found his pants and pulled them on.

The apartment seemed unusually silent, deathly so, no sounds of Belinda moving about the place, no street sounds from outside. He stepped up to the window, pulled the curtain aside and looked down onto the street. It was a busy San Francisco street, but frozen in time, pedestrians motionless in mid stride, cars still and silent in the middle of the street, with an odd sense of speed that had been arrested somehow. A young man in a business suit had just tossed a fast-food wrapper toward a city trash receptacle, and the wrapper hung motionless in midair, waiting for time to march forward again.

Confused, Paul wandered into the bathroom, found Belinda there dressed in a terrycloth robe. She’d clearly just finished her bath, now stood before the mirror over the sink in the midst of running a brush through a wet tangle of her magnificent mane of black hair. Like the pedestrians on the street she stood frozen in time.

A faint noise in the living room startled him, the only noise in a world gone deathly still. He walked down the hall and peered cautiously around the corner into the living room. Dayandalous sat in a comfortable chair there.

“God damn it,” Paul said as he dropped all caution and stepped into the living room. “What’re you doing here?”

Dayandalous smiled, exposing brilliant white teeth in his coal-black face, and his vertically slit eyes flashed blood red. “You young people!” he said sadly, shaking his head. “No sense of propriety. You should say something like, ‘Hello Dayandalous, what a pleasure to see you again.’ And then we’d have a little small talk, and slowly ease into the purpose of my visit.”

Paul approached the seated Dayandalous and stood angrily over him. “It’s all a game with you. Riddles and hints and puzzles and conundrums, and I’m tired of it.”

Dayandalous sighed deeply. “I can understand that, Paul.” His eyes narrowed and he turned serious. “But I’m rather disappointed in you. I thought you were taking control there, for a while. Purchasing the gun, while crude, was nevertheless effective. It showed you were becoming proactive instead of reactive. But now you’ve slipped into this cocoon of unthinking reaction, going where you’re told to go, doing what you’re told to do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You will,” Dayandalous said. “And if you hope to survive, you need to take control.”

“Paul.”

Paul turned at the sound of Belinda calling his name. She walked into the living room still wearing the terrycloth robe, and as she approached him he could think of only one thing. He reached out, opening the robe, exposing her naked, incredible body. “Who were you talking to?” she asked as he cupped her breasts in his hands and leaned down to kiss them.

“Not now,” she said, taking his hands in hers and lifting them off her breasts. “You need to shower and get dressed. My father’s sending a car for us. Who were you talking too?”

Paul turned back to the chair. For some reason he thought there should be someone sitting there, but it was empty. He said, “I must’ve just been thinking out loud.”

Chapter 18: The Trail

Katherine had awakened early in the cheap motel, though her sleep had been shallow and fitful since she’d kept a piece of her always focused on the charms. The bathroom was clean, though the place smelled of cheap disinfectant. She showered quickly, combed her hair back into a ponytail—which was so not like her—carefully applied her makeup—there wasn’t a demon in hell that could make her go out on the street without makeup—then pulled on a baseball cap—also not her style. Someone was going to pay big-time for this.

She checked out of the motel, found a nearby diner and ate a rather hearty breakfast, which wasn’t good for her figure. Yes, she thought as she returned to the street, someone was going to pay dearly.

Her plan was simple. Yesterday Paul had stepped outside of whatever wards or spells were hiding him. Yesterday was close enough in time, and Paul was a strong enough practitioner, that he must’ve left some trace she could identify. She’d still had one of his hairs stored away in her workshop, and she’d used it to construct a charm she hoped would ring an alarm if she crossed his path, though it had to be recent, good if within the last day, better if within half a day.

She’d carefully mapped out a one block radius around Paul’s suspected location, then started door-to-door. At private homes she knew the wards of a practitioner would be placed at all entrances, so if Paul had emerged from such wards there would be a trace of him on the front stoop. She simply walked up the steps to each front door, stood there for a moment and fed power into the charm.

Apartment buildings were a different matter. A practitioner would place wards at any possible entrances to the apartment—doors, windows, mirrors and such—but not at the front entrance of the building. But there was no time for her to walk up and down every hallway on every floor of every building. She hoped that yesterday Paul had at least made it to the front entrance. Sometimes she got in by ringing one of the bells and mumbling unintelligibly into a speaker, and sometimes she just spelled the lock on the front entrance, then checked out the foyer or lobby for any trace of Paul.

It was tedious work, and by late afternoon she’d illegally entered dozens of apartment buildings and stood on the front stoop of as many private homes. Her biggest fear was she wasn’t certain the new spell would actually work, wasn’t certain it would allow her to sense some residual trace of Paul. She’d only know it worked when it did. And if it didn’t, she might’ve already crossed his path a dozen times and not know it. She stood on the sidewalk in the middle of a long city block and surveyed her surroundings. She wasn’t even close to half-way done.

“She’s tryin’ her best, ain’t she Jim’Jiminie.”

At the sound of the Irish brogue Katherine spun and spotted the two leprechauns. They were both leaning casually on opposite sides of a light pole.

She marched up to them angrily, her patience at an end. “Can you help?” she demanded.

One of the little fellows looked at the other and said, “Can we help her, Boo?”

He shrugged and answered. “Not if she asks in that tone of voice.”

“Aye, Boo, you have the right of it there.”

“Ok,” Katherine said, struggling to be polite. “Please help. Pretty please.”

Jim’Jiminie considered her for a moment, then turned to his companion. “That’s much better, ain’t it, Boo?”

Boo’Diddle nodded carefully. “Aye, ‘tis better, Jimmie-boy. But you know we’re not supposed to be helpin’ her.”

Jim’Jiminie considered that with a grave look on his face. “Aye, Boo, you got the right of that too.” He rubbed his chin contemplatively and tugged at his red beard. “But it occurs to me if we were to be just walkin’ casually down the street, and this rude lass here was to be following us, and we didn’t know she was following us, and we happened to be walking in the right direction—well now, that would just be coincidence wouldn’t it, Boo?”

Both leprechauns stepped away from the light pole. “Jimmie, tell me more how this coincidence might work.” And with that they turned their backs on Katherine and strolled casually, slowly down the sidewalk.

It was the
slowly
part that was infuriating. Katherine wanted to rant at them to hurry up. She wanted to shout crude epithets at them and kick them in the ass. But she knew full well she dare not. The little men would move at their own pace, for their own strange and unknown reasons.

They’d walked to the end of the block and just turned the corner when the charms kicked in. Without warning Paul had emerged from whatever wards or spells had hidden him. The leprechauns continued strolling casually as Katherine stepped to the curve and looked up the street. It was a busy San Francisco weekday, the sidewalks filled with people and the street with cars both parked and moving, as well as pedestrians illegally crossing in the middle of the street. Up the street she saw a black limousine double-parked, other cars stopping momentarily, then swinging around and past it, but there was nothing unusual in that.

Leprechauns were sneaky little people, always operating to their own agenda, so there was always a chance they’d chosen to lead her away from Paul. She turned and looked the other direction, tried to focus for just an instant on every face on the sidewalk. Then she remembered the connection between the charms, closed her eyes and focused on that.

The little men had led her true. She opened her eyes, looked back up the street just in time to see the limousine pull away from the curb.

She could sense Paul moving, coming toward her. She tried to look into every face on the sidewalk, every pedestrian in the street. She stepped between two parked cars, stood right at the edge of the flow of traffic and tried to look through the windows of every car that sped by. When the limousine passed her, its windows black and impenetrable, the sensation of Paul coming toward her changed to that of him moving away, and then she knew.

Her car! She had to get to her car.

“It’s Katherine,” Paul said, pointing out through the window of the limo. “She must’ve come for me.”

Belinda’s control had begun to slip the instant they stepped past the wards of her apartment. So she’d held Paul’s hand tightly, never let go of it, pulled power continuously and fed the spells in which she’d entangled him. And then they’d passed the McGowan bitch, and it all started to unravel. She could see reason returning to Paul’s gaze.

Physical contact, hand to hand, skin to skin; physical contact strengthened the spells, as much physical contact as possible. She opened her blouse, lifted her bra and pressed the palms of his hands against her breasts. At the same time she opened his shirt and rubbed his chest, then slid a hand into his pants and began stroking him.

She tore the buttons off his shirt to open it completely, tore the buttons off her blouse to open it. She lifted her skirt, pushed one if his hands down inside her underwear, tried to ignore the pleasure that climbed up her stomach as he began stroking her. It took several seconds to get his pants down, and to get her pantyhose down, but as she expanded the physical contact between them she felt her control returning, and with that comforting thought she finally allowed herself to enjoy this. Physical contact, skin to skin, flesh to flesh, body to body.

A little piece of her realized the limo driver was getting one hell of a show.

“Mr. Karpov, this is Mikhail.” Mikhail spoke carefully into his cell phone as he followed the young woman up the street.

“What is it, Mikhail?”

“The young woman, she seems to be on the move.”

“What do you mean, on the move? Has she led you to the demon-wizard?”

“No, Mr. Karpov. But suddenly she started running up the street. She seems frightened, frantic. I think she’s headed to her car.”

“You can follow her, yes?”

“Yes. I parked my car near hers. But I think she may be going to the demon-wizard.”

Mikhail waited as he heard Karpov shouting orders in the background. Then Karpov came back on the line. “Stay close to her. And keep this line open. Give us directions so we can join you.”

Katherine wanted to shout at the attendant in the parking garage as he took his sweet time computing her bill. It was a little over twenty dollars, so she handed him two twenties and shouted at him, “Keep the fucking change and raise the gate. Now. This is an emergency.”

His eyes widened, and he didn’t say anything as he hit the switch that raised the gate.

Katherine hit the accelerator, slammed on the brakes as a young girl walked in front of her on the sidewalk at the garage entrance. The young girl paused and angrily flipped her off. Katherine blared the car’s horn at her and hit the accelerator. The girl had no choice but to skip out of the way as Katherine shot past her.

She sensed Paul somewhere north of her. She struggled with traffic near the Moscone Center, was forced to wait through one interminable light after another, finally pulled onto Market Street heading southwest. She turned north on Van Nuys, basically the main street running north through the city. She intended to drive up Van Nuys until she spotted the limo, or sensed Paul to one side or the other. The afternoon rush hour had started and everything on the street moved slowly now, an odd sort of blessing since the limo couldn’t outpace her.

Paul was still north of her and slightly west, getting more west all the time, so she concluded they must’ve turned west. She pushed the limits on every traffic light on Van Nuys, ran a couple just as they turned from yellow to red, prayed that some SFPD cruiser didn’t pull her over and ticket her. When she got to Lombard Street Paul was due west of her, so she turned west on Lombard. He was now directly ahead of her somewhere, though she couldn’t see the limo, and she didn’t know if she was closing the gap or not.

Clark Devoe had a special cell phone for which only special people had the number, and when it rang he answered it immediately.

“Clark, this is Walter McGowan.”

“Hello, Mr. McGowan, what can I do for you?”

“I’m sorry to impose on you at the last minute like this, Clark, but I have an emergency.”

“Not a problem, Mr. McGowan. What do you need?”

“I need your help, Clark. Could you get in your car and head north into the city? Stay in touch, and as you get closer I’ll know more about where we’re all going.”

“I’ll do it right away, Mr. McGowan.”

“And Clark, be sure to come prepared for trouble.”

“Of course, Mr. McGowan. I’m always ready for trouble.”

Lombard fed into Doyle Drive, the traffic bumper-to-bumper and moving at a snail’s pace. As he waited in the traffic that fed onto the Golden Gate Bridge, Mikhail hit the speed dial on his cell phone.

Karpov answered. “What is it?”

“I’m on Doyle feeding onto the Golden Gate. She’s going north across the bridge. But the traffic is shit here, Mr. Karpov.”

“Just stay close to her, Mikhail. We’re on our way.”

“Yes, Mr. Karpov.”

Sitting in the traffic, Colleen asked, “You put a tracer on your daughter?”

McGowan looked her way and grinned. “Of course I did. I’m her father. That’s what fathers do.”

“What kind of spell did you use? By now the blood is too old.”

McGowan’s grin broadened until it was absolutely cheesy. He held up a cell phone. “No spell,” he said, clearly proud of himself. “I bought a GPS cell phone, with parental controls. I bought a set of them. Isn’t this technology great? You can use a cell phone to track where your kids are.”

Colleen knew the answer, but she needed to ask anyway. “You gave her one of those cell phones?”

McGowan winked at her. “Well I didn’t exactly give it to her. I tossed it in the back seat of her car. I also tossed one in the back seat of that fucking Russian’s car, the one that’s following her. I can track him as well.”

Colleen grinned back at him. “For once, old man, I’m glad you’re a sneaky bastard.”

Once the traffic opened up on the Golden Gate Bridge, Katherine caught a glimpse of the black limousine about a quarter mile ahead of her. The traffic was too thick for her to catch up to it, but with the charms giving her a good, solid sense of Paul’s location, she didn’t need to. On Highway 101 north of the bridge the traffic opened up some. The limo driver seemed in no hurry and Katherine managed to catch up to them a bit. Her biggest fear was she might not see the limo exit from 101, that she’d only recognize her mistake when she passed them by and realized Paul was behind her. She’d have to continue on to the next exit, then backtrack, and by that time they could have him hidden behind the wards of any of hundreds of homes in the area. But the limo driver was careful to obey the law and he signaled well before exiting on Tiburon Boulevard, so her luck held. One had to have plenty of money to live in Sausalito, but Tiburon was home to a lot of old money.

Tiburon Boulevard wound back and forth as it led southeast onto the peninsula, and the rush hour traffic kept her from catching up to them. Twilight was settling over the roadway and the black limo was always just a momentary glimpse in the distance before disappearing around the next turn. And then suddenly Paul was behind her. She’d missed them turn off onto a side street.

Traffic going the other way was light so she hit the Jag’s breaks and spun a quick U-turn. The cars behind her skidded and honked their horns, and someone shouted at her.