Kade's Dark Embrace (Immortals of New Orleans) (9 page)

Simone told him that a man named John Palmer had sent for her from England and brought her to Jamaica. She was given as a gift to his new wife, Annie Palmer. She worked as an indentured servant, a handmaiden. It was in Jamaica where she learned Voodoo from Annie who was a dangerous and abusive mistress known as the White Witch. Annie regularly tortured Simone and the other workers and slaves on the plantation. Simone had been beaten or whipped nearly every day she’d been at the plantation. Nothing ever made the mistress happy except when she practiced her dark arts. During these sessions, Simone was expected to assist the mistress, but Simone was not happy to merely assist. She kept her eyes lowered but secretly copied Annie’s notes and memorized whatever spells Annie cast.

One night during one of the many extravagant parties they held on the plantation, a guest expressed interest in Simone. Annie offered her handmaiden as a gift to him to use as he wished. Simone reluctantly took the stranger’s hand out of fear of a whipping. The stranger led her out into the fields where he raped and turned her. She was not aware that she had left Jamaica until she awoke in a dirty hotel room in New Orleans. Her new master sat on a chair next to her and explained she’d been turned into a vampire; she’d be his new slave. While she shook in bed trying to come to terms with what he was saying, the door burst open, and a man shot a wooden arrow into his chest. The vampire disintegrated on the spot. Assuming Simone was an innocent human, the killer said nothing as he turned and left the building. Simone scrambled out onto the street, but realized she was weak. She stumbled into the muck and lay helpless until Kade found her.

During the next few years, Simone seemed to adjust to life in New Orleans and transformed into a beautiful woman. Her white, pale skin highlighted her lush, ebony hair. It wasn’t long before Kade and Simone became lovers. He wasn’t in love with her, but he was lonely and she was available. He could not risk being involved with a human during those times, so another vampire offered him the companionship he needed. What Kade didn’t realize was that Simone never gave up practicing Voodoo and had started secretly practicing the dark arts when he was out of town. She knew Annie’s secrets and wanted the power she knew could be hers. It wasn’t until a werewolf, named Tristan, approached him and told him about his missing sister, that Kade found out Simone had evil intentions. Tristan had come for Kade’s help, and an agreement. Tristan would offer peace with the local wolves. In exchange, Kade would get his sister back from Simone.

Kade was horrified to find Simone in the barn that day. She had captured at least ten girls, including Tristan’s sister, and was holding them hostage. The girls were barely alive, cuffed with silver, beaten and naked, hanging on the walls. Infuriated, he commanded Simone to him and shoved her to her knees. While he initially wanted to kill Simone for her crimes, she begged for her life. Granting her mercy, Kade banished her forever from the United States. Forced to leave, Simone left with only a ticket for passage overseas and the clothes on her back. He destroyed her ritualistic objects, her spell books, and all that remained was a burned field where the barn used to stand.

He had nearly forgotten about Simone until Luca told him he scented her at the Jennings’s scene. If Simone was involved, he knew she would kill Sydney without a second thought. If she was able to capture and torture strong werewolves, like Tristan’s sister, she could easily kill a human. He didn’t know what he could do to convince Sydney of the danger that she faced. He knew he couldn’t stop her from continuing the investigation, but damn if she was going to go out on the streets without him. He had to be serious with her and make her understand that she would obey his orders in order to work with him. He needed to tell her about Simone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sydney had never seen him this angry. Who the hell did he think he was? “Newsflash, vampire, I'm not your daughter, nor are you my boss. So, let me make myself clear. I do not take orders from you. We may be partners for now, but this is my city. I do apologize for not calling you, but I figured you’d be...I don’t know...sleeping or whatever it is that vampires do during the day. I knew your office would call you, and I'm not your secretary. You’re here now, so let’s get to work.” She knew she was wrong, but that was the best apology she could cough up at the moment. She was not going to let some guy tell her what to do. She was a competent detective who kicked ass and took names later. So what? There was a murderer killing women on the street. They’d catch the guy and then, next year, it would be a different perp out killing people; that was life in the big city. She was here to catch bad guys, and was not a little girl playing cops and robbers.

Kade stared down at her and moved closer. God, he was sexy, but dangerous. Sydney could see his muscles bulging out of his tight, black t-shirt. For a minute, she thought about what it would feel like to slip her hands under his shirt and skim her fingertips along the hard ridges of his stomach.

Kade could not believe this woman. She did not get it. He should take her over his knee and spank that lovely ass until it was a nice shade of pink. How he would love to feel that ass in his hands. Shit. He needed to get her to understand the seriousness of the situation before this night was through. If Simone had an opportunity to kill these girls and lay them out in a busy, historic district in the middle of the afternoon, she could easily snatch Sydney.

He needed to try another tactic with his prickly but lovely detective. “Sydney love, I know you know these streets like the back of your hand, but we need to learn to trust each other. There are things you don’t know about. I promise I will tell you everything when we get time, but right now, I need you to give me a little trust. Do not go on calls by yourself. It isn’t good practice anyway, and you know it. Even though we are technically sharing this case, I could easily get you pulled off it if you don’t listen to me. There is a vampire involved in these killings, and possibly another creature with supernatural abilities. I don’t want to push you off the case, but I will if you don’t start cooperating, and that means that I lead the investigation, not you. Most importantly, you go nowhere alone, am I clear?”

If he weren’t a vampire, Sydney would have hauled off and punched him, but she knew he was right. It would not be hard for him to pull her off the case, and then she’d be done. She shot him a dirty look and snarled, “Crystal.”

Sydney decided to focus on the body. Arguing with Kade was not going to solve the case.
What other similarities were there to the first girl?
She pulled another glove on and reached for the girl’s wrist. The dress had long sleeves that fell past her fingers. Sydney gently pulled up the material to see if the girl had marks on her. Sure enough, the girl had bruises on her wrists indicating that she’d been bound and then perhaps cut loose after she died. Sydney looked around the site for evidence of cuffs or ropes that may have been discarded in the rush to dump the body. “Kade, check out her wrists. Like the other vic, she was bound too. We need to scour every inch of this alley to see if anything else was dumped with the body. Killers are careful, but these guys always make mistakes. We just need to find them.”

As she turned around, Sydney saw the coroner’s van pull up. She waved to Adalee who was walking over toward her with kit in tow. “Hey Syd, another vic I see?”

“Yeah, I can’t be sure but it looks like she has been drained. The site looks clean, no blood or urine around the body.”

Ada blew out a breath while she stared down at the dead girl. She looked over to Kade who was coming over to see her, and then looked back again at Sydney. “So listen, trace came in on the wrist fibers from girl one. Get this, looks like the hair was human, also hemp mixed in. So, whatever rope or binding this is, it’s got human hair in it.” Ada bent down and started working on the body, but kept talking. “And there was something else. We found residue on the body, some kind of oil. Trace came back showing mostly lemongrass. A few other small things, but it definitely was some kind of lemon oil. This case keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

Sydney watched Ada work. “Lemongrass? Maybe it was just some kind of skin cream or lotion? We don’t know it has anything to do with the perp.”

Ada looked up at her as she pulled out the body thermometer. “Well, all I can tell you is that it was only on her forehead, nowhere else on the body. The only time I’ve seen that kind of thing is in the church. You know, like Catholics do with the healing masses.”

Sydney looked over at Kade. He said nothing about the lemongrass. It was as if he knew. “What is it Kade? You're awfully quiet over there.”

He knelt down to look closely at the girl’s face. “I told you, Sydney. There are forces here that you are not used to fighting.” With a gloved hand, he reached over and carefully pushed a stray hair off the dead girl’s face. He sighed. “Lemongrass oil, Voodoo, Hoodoo. These are all practices, which use oil and herbs. Sometimes practitioners create a hybrid of Voodoo, Hoodoo, witchcraft, and black magic. Not all are pure of heart. Some seek power, or money, even love.”

Sydney shook her head. “Seems like a sick way to find love. Honestly, Kade, this just sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me, but I've seen people kill for all kinds of reasons...even killing for a pair of damn sneakers.”

Kade stood up, his face tightened. “In Hoodoo, there is a substance called Van Van oil. Lemongrass is used to make the Van Van oil. I will need to contact my sources to find out the purposes of the oil, but I assure you the folks who use these tools are serious in their desires. The perp may be anointing the victims with a purpose.”

Sydney was starting to see the seriousness of what he was saying. “Even if they aren’t purposefully placing the oil there, there could have been some kind of cross contamination. I agree that we need more information on why someone uses the oil in the first place, could help with motive. What about the hemp and human hair? Why the hell go through all the trouble of making a rope with human hair when you can just go to Home Depot and get a synthetic rope?”

Kade wasn’t entirely sure but attempted an educated guess. “Human hair and hemp have uses in witchcraft. My guess is some kind of cord magic, possibly intended to make death more painful. My understanding is that cord magic is not usually used as an actual rope to tie someone. I have heard of it being placed under a victim’s bed, or such. But if you needed a rope and you had this handy...why go to Home Depot when you already have what you need? The witch or mage could have used it as part of a ritual while they were binding the girl.”

Witches? Mages? Vampires?
Sydney suddenly felt a like a fish out of water. This was exactly why she hated to deal with the supernatural. She was not part of that world. But, a killer was a killer no matter how they did it or who they were. She learned long ago that evil was not a supernatural phenomenon. No, evil lurked in human hearts as well. Sydney contemplated turning the entire case over to Kade. She’d be done and could resume fighting normal, everyday human crime. But, already the faces of these poor girls were ingrained in her mind, and she felt a duty to find their killers so they could be at peace. Besides, Sydney was too far into this case to simply turn it over to Kade. What she wouldn’t admit is that she was too far into Kade to let him go.

She glanced at the girl’s face. “Ada, Kade, I don’t see any tattoos on this girl’s face. The other vic had them on her face. You think maybe Jennings didn’t get a chance to finish his work on her?”

Kade agreed, “Maybe Jennings did the tattoo on her breast? And did the other tattoos post mortem? My take is that Jennings was a human slave to whomever is killing these girls, but he wasn’t the mage, and there definitely is magic here, Sydney. I can feel it...there are remnants of it all around. But even though there are signs of magic, I am certain a vampire is behind these killings.” Kade was certain Simone was somehow involved. He wasn’t sure where she was or how she was using magic. But he wasn’t ready to tell Sydney about Simone. He needed more evidence before he disclosed his knowledge.

“Kade, Sydney...what is hell this?” Both Kade and Sydney snapped their heads to see what Ada was talking about. They both knelt down and watched Ada cradle the girl’s chin in her left hand, and with her right hand, she held a long pair of tweezers. “There is something in here. Syd, flashlight please.”

Sydney grabbed her flashlight, flipped it on and shined the light down the girl’s throat. Kade reached around to lift the girl’s head and helped to keep the mouth open so Ada could work. Slowly Ada reached in and pulled the tweezers back out. “It looks like maybe a small scroll or a piece of paper?” Ada had seen a lot of shit over the past five years as a medical examiner, but nothing like this. Kade held out his gloved hand and took it from Ada. The object was a red paper, folded into a five-sided star, a pentagram. He started to carefully unfold it.

Sydney joked, “Looks like someone has been practicing witchy origami. Kade, there’s writing on it. Let me see.” She leaned in close to Kade to get a better look at the paper. Her shoulder was flush against Kade’s chest. He held his arms out far enough so she could see the paper. She wished she wasn’t on a crime scene, but in a bedroom. The heat of his body enveloped her and she could feel her nipples tighten in response. She needed to get this case finished soon before she lost her mind from lust.
Hello? Crime scene. Dead body.
Sydney pulled her thoughts back into focus and read the note.

Written in black ink, there were only four words. '
You will be mine.'
 As she leaned toward the note, she smelled the faintest hint of cinnamon. She turned her head to look up to Kade. “You will be mine? What kind of note is that? Kade, do you smell that?” She knew he had super vamp senses. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination.

Kade tried to keep a poker face as Sydney read the words.
Simone.
He had banished her from the country and from his bed. He would never be hers no matter whom she killed. “Cinnamon? Yes, I smell it. It’s a common ingredient in witchcraft, probably infused into the ink.” Kade was fighting to keep from screaming in anger. He wanted to take Sydney right then and there and lock her up to protect her from this evil woman. Simone was back. He had to tell Sydney. He needed to find a way to share with her what was happening so he could get her off the case without completely pissing her off. If he could get her to understand, maybe she’d let go of the case.