Sentinel Lost (Mind Sweeper Series Book 5) (3 page)

“I give you plenty of privacy when you’re playing with your kitty cat.”

I growled and lifted my arm to glare at her. “Stop calling Griffin a kitty cat. He’s the leader of the US shifter contingent.”

Marie’s eyes twinkled. “Whatever you say, dear. Where has he been lately, by the way?”

“In Europe, meeting with international shifter leaders.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?”

“Because it would have been boring, and they sure wouldn’t have let me attend the meeting.”

“Right, we don’t need you causing any international incidents.”

“Funny.”

Marie giggled. “I am, aren’t I? Now let me try out some of these jokes.”

My phone rang—
thank God—
and I made a grab for it, not even checking to see who it was. Even if it was a telemarketer calling at the butt crack of dawn, I was grateful for the save. “I have to get this, Marie. Hello.”

“Kyle, are you up?”

I glared at Marie some more, and she smiled innocently at me.

“Yes, Misha, I’m awake. What’s up?”

“Jean Luc and I just checked the museum to see if we could find out anything else about our green-blooded visitor now that the sun is up, but we came up empty. Since we’re close by, why don’t we pick you up?”

“Sure. I’ll be ready in five.”

I flung off the comforter and scrambled out of bed. “I’ve got to go, Marie. I can’t talk about Jean Luc anymore. Now go away, so I can get dressed.”

“Kyle, sweetie, we have the same lady parts.”

“Marie!”

She chuckled and faded away. I brushed my teeth and dressed quickly in jeans and a turtleneck. I pulled on thick socks and rummaged in my closet to find my backup work boots. I crammed my foot into the first boot and then hopped on one foot out into my hall while I yanked on the other one. I hopped right through Marie floating in my path. Icy pinpricks skittered over my skin.

“Holy crap! I thought you left.” I frowned at her. “Are you haunting me? Do I need to burn something of yours to set you free? Maybe a priest could get rid of you.”

She floated a little higher and glared down as if she wanted to intimidate me. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“Well, unless you’re tied to me for some strange reason, I can’t figure out why you’d spend your undead days in Cleveland, Ohio.”

Marie beamed. “It’s not the place that attracts me, dear. It’s the people. Now your teammate, Misha, is a Shamat demon, right?”

Warning bells rang in my brain. “Yes.”

“Is he single?”

“We are so not going there.”

“Russians are a very passionate people.”

I shuddered. “It’s official. I’m going to need therapy.”

Tires squealed outside, and I ran to my window to check the street below. The team van sat in front of my apartment building, smoke still rising from the tire burns on the street. One of these days, my neighbors were going to call the cops on Jean Luc.

“See you later!”

I grabbed my coat, locked up, hustled down the stairs, and hopped into the back of the van. Once I snapped my seatbelt on—because you never rode anywhere with Jean Luc without buckling up—I let out a hard breath.

Jean Luc peeled away from the curb. “Rough morning,
ma petite
?”

“You could say that.”

Misha stared longingly as we passed the all-night bakery, like a child stared under the tree on Christmas morning. “I would have loved some donuts.”

“Maybe tomorrow, big guy. So, no luck at the museum, huh?”

“No,” Misha said. “I also called Nicholas earlier to fill him in on what’s going on.”

I shrugged, not giving a flying fig if Nicholas knew what was going on or not. Even though he ran the Bureau of Supernatural Relations—or BSR, like all the cool kids called it—I didn’t consider him my boss anymore. Not after he threatened me last year. There would be no Boss of the Year mug forthcoming.

“Where’s Talia?”

Jean Luc turned the corner. “She took the blood sample to the lab so Doc can look at it after she has finished her shift at the hospital.”

Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the empty parking garage and trooped upstairs to the office. Since it was 6:00 am, Dolly wasn’t manning the front desk yet, so Jean Luc unlocked the door to the reception area. With its heavy wooden furniture and high ceilings, the room looked like something out of a 1940’s mystery novel, but newcomers were in for a shock when they went into our back office, which was populated by rejects from the 1970’s. An almond-colored faux wood table and lime green sofa were the highlights of the seriously out-of-date décor.

Jean Luc hustled to the kitchen to make coffee, God help us. Misha and I plopped down at the table, and he started hammering away on one of the laptops before I could take a deep breath. Our technology guru hard at work.

“What you doing, Mish?”

“Trying to match up the drawing with pictures from our supernatural database. I doubt it’s going to be that easy, but we have to start somewhere.”

“Right. Are you cross-referencing demon powers as well? Maybe we can narrow the suspects even more.”

Misha grinned like a proud papa.

“What? You think I don’t pay attention to what you say? Okay, so I don’t pay attention to a lot of your techno-babble ’cause it’s so geeky, but I still pay attention.”

“And I’m proud of you. Next thing you know, you’ll be spouting factoids like Abby from
NCIS.
”

The office door squeaked open, and Talia bustled in. Even first thing in the morning with no sleep, she was all pulled together. She reminded me of a prettier version of Halle Berry, if that was even humanly possible. Between her and Jean Luc with his long black hair and sexy good looks, I felt like I was surrounded by Calvin Klein underwear models.

Talia strolled in and gave Jean Luc a quick kiss. “Doc said she’d call us when she had information about the blood.”

I groaned. “Dear God, no PDA. My eyes are burning.”

Misha giggled, which was quite disconcerting coming from a six foot six, two hundred and forty-pound demon.

Talia smirked. “You must be cranky because you miss your cat.”

“Griffin’s not my cat. You’re starting to sound like Marie.”
Oh, crap.

Misha stopped typing. “Marie who?”

Now I’d done it. How was I going to answer and keep them from going ballistic? I mean, I’d opened up to Misha and Jean Luc about the Key of Knowledge and how it seemed to be in me now, hadn’t I? I’d told them I would not keep secrets going forward. But I hadn’t gotten around to telling them about Marie yet.
So sue me.

“Ahhh, do you remember when Dalton was talking to his dead grandmother last summer?”

Jean Luc walked out of the kitchen. “
Oui
.”

“Well, she kind of never left, and she talks to me now.”

As far as reactions went, it was about what I had expected. Jean Luc carried on a conversation with himself in rapid-fire French, and Misha’s Russian curses were very colorful. Talia sat next to me and waited for the international tirade to peter out.

When silence finally descended, she said, “Is she haunting you? Do you feel like you’re in danger?”

“She’s more annoying than scary.”

“And what does she want?” Jean Luc demanded.

“She says she wants to be my guardian angel, since I have a tendency to get into trouble.”

“Smart ghost,” Misha muttered under his breath.

Jean Luc sat across from me. “Why is she still here?”

“She’s got the hots for you.” I blurted, the whole honesty thing apparently turning off the common sense filter in my brain.

Jean Luc’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth and then closed it again. I’d never seen him at a loss for words before.

Misha guffawed. “I thought I’d seen it all, my friend. Now even the ghostly females are after you.”

“I wouldn’t laugh, if I were you. She’s set her sights on you now that Jean Luc’s taken.” Yep, my filter was no longer functioning.

Now it was Misha’s turn to imitate a guppy.

I held up my hands. “I’m sorry, guys. I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, honest. If I’d felt threatened, I would have told you.”

Jean Luc frowned. “I do not like it,
ma petite
.”

“Why? She’s harmless.”

“If she is harmless, then why are the angels allowing her to come to earth now that her mission is complete?”

As usual, Jean Luc cut right to the straight and pointy of things. My
something’s-rotten
meter started to ding. I would be asking Marie that very question the next time I saw her.

Chapter 4

“So where are we?” I asked.

I stood in front of the clean whiteboard in the back office and reached for a black marker. I wrote “Art Museum,” “Break-in,” and “Murder.” Then I listed the powers the supe used on Carl and David and finished off with the word “Demon,” and added “Green Blood” underneath it with a series of question marks.

Misha looked up from his computer screen. “So far I haven’t found a match for the drawing in our database.”

“What about the powers?”

“I’m compiling a list of demons that have shown at least one of these powers. I haven’t found anyone yet able to do all of them.”

“That we know of,” Talia added. “The database is only as good as the info we’ve been given. I’m sure there are demons out there that hide their abilities.”

I stared pointedly at Misha, who had hidden his own telekinetic abilities from me for years. Hell, he still hid his powers from his family.

“What have you found out, Jean Luc?” I asked.

“I am still completing the background check on Carl Willis. So far, I have discovered nothing abnormal. He was married with two grown children. He was a security guard at the museum for ten years, and does not have a prior record.”

“And David Heller?”

“Heller’s parents were killed five years ago. He and his younger sister live with their grandmother. Heller graduated from high school last summer, and from what I can ascertain, he is now supporting the three of them with his security guard salary.”

“Of course he is.” This kid was on the short list for sainthood. There had to be something they could do for him. I wrote the name David on the board, but as I wrote the letter H, my hand shook so hard I dropped the marker. I stared at the floor, watching it roll away.

Talia jumped to her feet. “Kyle?”

Jean Luc flashed and caught me before my body seized up fully. Muscles locked in my legs and had me whimpering like a whipped puppy. He picked me up and laid me on the couch while Misha fetched a blanket and covered me.

“Should I call 911?” Talia asked.

“
Non.
She will be all right.” Jean Luc turned to me. “Breathe through it like we practiced,
ma petite
. With me now. Deep breaths.”

He rubbed my shoulders, and his vampire thrall rushed through me. I closed my eyes and let the warmth envelop me, and as I’d learned, I didn’t fight the names bouncing around in my cerebellum. I had to let the Key show me what it needed to, and when the names lit up, two came to the forefront, and I sighed as my muscles unclenched.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, I opened my eyes to find Jean Luc sitting on the coffee table next to me, smiling. Talia and Misha hovered close by, both wearing worried frowns. Misha was holding something wrapped in plastic.

“She will need some protein now,” Jean Luc said for Talia’s benefit while Misha unwrapped the stick and gave it to him. “This is beef jerky. Are you ready for a couple of bites?”

I pushed myself into a sitting position slowly, and Jean Luc tucked the blanket around me. I took a bite of the jerky, chewed, and swallowed the salty meat.

Talia scowled and put her hands on her hips. “Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

I nodded at Jean Luc, who launched into the story.

“Last summer, when Sebastian and the Pavels were looking for the Key of Knowledge, we found it. Or rather the Key found Joe.”

“What does that mean?”

“The Key is not a physical object. It is knowledge that is absorbed by its keeper. In this case, it was supposed to be Joe.”

I set the jerky down, my stomach souring. “Sebastian tortured Dalton because he believed Dalton had stolen the Key. He didn’t know it was a part of him. And when we finally rescued Dalton, he was badly damaged. Nicholas felt the only way to save his life was to change his memories of being the Key and knowing us.”

Jean Luc frowned. “Nicholas forced you to erase Joe’s memories.”

“He might have threatened me, but he wasn’t wrong. It saved Dalton’s sanity. But when I finished, I had somehow not only absorbed Dalton’s memories, I had absorbed the Key.”

“Does Nicholas know you have the key?” Talia asked.

“No. And I want to keep it that way. You’re only the sixth person who knows about this. Jason, Doc, and Griffin do, too. Oh, and Marie, which makes seven, but she’s a ghost.”