Shadowlight (27 page)

“The ground still reeks of him,” Devon, the lead tracker, said. A falconer in his human life, he had acquired as a Kyn warrior the ability to see through the eyes of his hunting birds. After discovering the animals that had died after exposure to the body, however, Devon had left his peregrines behind. “ ’Twill have to be burned over and strewn with copper.” He crossed himself. “Perhaps even blessed.”

“The Heavenly Father and fallen angels had nothing to do with this.” Lucan crouched, removed his glove, and touched the ground. Where the body parts had lain, the soil felt wrong, but he could not define how. He scanned the area before he stood. “Gabriel Seran is yet in Europe chasing after lost Kyn, is he not?”

“So it is said, my lord,” Devon said.

“Damn me. If anyone could track this thing, it would be him.” His mobile rang, and he checked the display before he flipped it open. “What is it, Alex?”

“Hello to you, too, big guy,” she replied. “Kendrick said you were out hunting, but this can’t wait until morning. I analyzed the tissue samples he sent over from the last victim. The good news is, we can break out the champagne. Bradford Lawson is definitely not Darkyn.”

He would celebrate later. “What else can you tell me?”

“The victim’s tissues are saturated with a powerful neurotoxin.”

“A what?”

“A poison produced by the body and lethal to pretty much anything that breathes,” she explained. “I can’t identify it, but the components share similar characteristics to flying-insect venom.”

He took the phone away from his ear, stared at it, and then spoke again to her. “Alex, while I am quite certain that you have more knowledge in your smallest finger than the sum of what resides between my ears, I can assure you that a bee or a wasp did not kill this man.”

“Not unless there were a couple million of them involved,” she agreed. “Whoever or whatever this killer is, he probably can produce this venom in large quantities. My guess is he uses it like our abilities, and with it he can stun or kill anything he bites or touches.”

Lucan gazed at the men around him. “Does this venom affect us?”

“Fortunately, no,” she said. “I tested it on several Kyn blood samples, and our pathogen ate it for breakfast. But, Lucan, that makes us the only living things who are immune to it.”

“This is all very well and good,” he told her, “but we cannot pick up a scent trail, and there have been no more bodies.”

“If he’s begun eating them, there won’t be.” She sighed. “The tissue samples sent to me gave off an extremely strong odor that blocked out everything else I could smell in the lab, even Michael. It’s probably a hundred times worse there. You need to move away from where the body was found.” She hesitated. “Has Sam tried to read the victim’s blood?”

“No. Seeing what Lawson did to the first victim caused her to collapse.” He stared at the blood-soaked ground. “I will not allow her to know what was done here.”

“I understand.” And the tone of her voice told her that she did. “Call me if you need anything else.”

Some of the knot in his gut loosened. “Thank you, my lady.”

Lucan switched off the phone and breathed in. He had hunted hundreds of killers during his lengthy existence. Not one of them, no matter how mad, had given off such a stench.

“My lord?” Devon asked.

“Lady Alexandra has determined that this one is not Kyn,” he told the men. “Nor is he human.”

“A changeling, perhaps?” one of the other hunters suggested. “There are creatures who feed on the dead. If he has been using their blood …”

“She vows he is not one of us. And changeling or not, no Kyn can consume flesh.” Lucan paced around the marked perimeter as he inhaled over and over. As before, there was no scent trail leading away from the crime scene, but the farther he moved from the rotten odor left behind by the body, the easier it was to breathe. Then he picked up the faintest trace of something else—a different scent, one of sweat and chemicals—emanating from another source.

He found the flashlight sitting in a clump of weeds, and removed it. The batteries were dead, but as soon as he picked it up the sour, unpleasant smell intensified.

“I think he must have handled this,” he said to Devon when the tracker joined him, and indicated two dark stains on the handle. “Blood.” He sniffed them. “Not polluted as the dead man’s was.”

“Give it to me,” a familiar voice said.

Lucan looked up to see his
sygkenis
walking down from the road. He handed the flashlight to Devon before he strode up to meet her. “You were not to come to this place.”

“Yet here I am.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Ordering Kendrick to keep me away was a nice move. Too bad it didn’t work.”

When she tried to walk past him, he seized her by the arm. “This is my work, not yours. You will return to the city.”

She smiled up at him. “You want me to accept what I am, and be Darkyn, and handle all the shit that comes along with it, but only when it’s convenient for you and I won’t get in the way? Is that how you think this is going to work?”

“Samantha, you cannot see this. Not after what was done to this man. Lawson—”

“Ate parts of him. I know. I made Kendrick tell me. That’s why we have to find him, tonight, before he does this again.” She tried to shrug off his hold. “I’ll be all right.”

“No.”

“You can’t stop me—”

“I can.” He picked her up to toss her over his broad shoulder, but she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him. That sent all the fear and anger out of his head, and slowly he lowered her down onto her feet.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered against her mouth. “You are not fighting fair.”

“No one says I have to. Listen to me.” She put her cool hands to his cheeks. “I can do this. I’m stronger than you think. Let me help you.”

He lifted his head. “Devon,” he called out, not looking away from her beautiful eyes.

“My lord.” The tracker joined them.

“Give my
sygkenis
the flashlight.” To her, he said, “There is some blood on the handle. I think it came from Lawson.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he added, “I know he is still alive. But you were able to read my blood that night at your apartment.”

“You died a human death and came back to life as something else,” she reminded him. “That was the only reason I could.”

He nodded. “Until last week, this man was mortal. Alexandra says he is not Darkyn, but perhaps he underwent a transition like ours.”

“Maybe.” She took the flashlight from Devon. “The blood is a week old anyway, I probably won’t.” Abruptly she stopped speaking and gripped the handle, denting the aluminum surface beneath her fingers as her eyes closed.

She shuddered once, and then froze. The flashlight fell to the ground.

“Samantha.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. When she didn’t respond, he shook her. “Wake up. Damn it, you will not do this to me again.
Samantha.”

“No,” she said softly as she looked up at him, her eyes huge. “I won’t. Yellow jackets.”

“What? He is wearing a yellow jacket?”

“They killed him.” She moved past him and went to a spot some yards away. He followed her, and there saw the mounds of dead insects on the ground around a broken nest. “Here.” She pointed to a depression in the ground. “You were right. He did die. Right here.”

“Where is the body?”

“He rose again, the way we did. But he’s not like us. He’s like the insects. On the inside, where you can’t see it.” Her expression twisted as she pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “I can feel him now. He’s in my head. He can feel them, too. Jesus, he’s almost there.”

“Where?” When she didn’t answer, he caught her chin. “Samantha, look at me. Where has Lawson gone?”

“He’s gone to where Jessa Bellamy is,” she said simply. “He’s gone to Savannah.”

She’d never struck another person in her life, and she felt horribly ashamed of herself. She didn’t want to leave him like this, helpless and alone. But this was her only chance to escape, and whether he was telling the truth or just another elaborate series of lies, she had to get away from him.

She opened the fire door leading to the surface hatch, and went through it to a narrow stairwell. She climbed up two levels, and saw a landing with two different doors. She discovered that neither was locked, and the first one she tried opened to a small, neat garden with a stone path leading out to a street.

Jessa knew the moment she walked outside that she was in Savannah. As cool and damp as the air was, she could smell the river, and the lush scent of growing things. As she made her way to the street, she noticed the flower beds and the neat rows of small green plants laid out in the tiny yard. Then she glanced back and stumbled as she saw the tall, stately house with its elegant lines and the faded but still sparkling outer coat of dark blue paint.

Sapphire House. She’d been kept prisoner under her own home. She was standing in her own backyard.

Jessa shook her head, backing away from the sight before she turned and ran. It was a bad dream—it had to be—but then she saw the square where Darien had died, and the imposing spires of St. John’s, and even the much-hated coffee shop across the street.

Matthias had brought her home.

Pain lanced through her head as she fled down the street, away from the square and toward the river. She didn’t know where she was running, only that she had to run; she had to escape this. And still the questions screeched inside her head: How had he known? Why hadn’t he told her? How could he have built that place under her own house?

She had to stop and catch her breath at the entrance to the riverfront walk, and as she gulped in air she remembered something: Darien had never permitted her to go down into the cellar. He’d frightened her with tales of rats and spiders lurking down in the dark corners, and kept the door latch padlocked.

But more than once during her holiday visits from school Darien had disappeared from the house, only to reappear hours later. None of the servants ever saw him leave. Once, when she asked him about it, he told her he’d found his own little hiding place in the house, and he went there when he wanted some peace. Jessa also recalled some odd references to masons coming to the house to talk to her father in the sporadic letters Geraldine had written to her.

The age of the walls, the odd sizes of the rooms, and the library and the fireplace now made sense. Her father had loved sitting by the fire and reading. Matthias hadn’t built the underground shelter. Darien had, probably using the same tunnels his ancestor had for storing the goods he’d smuggled into the city.

I’ve spent more on Old Blue than likely I should have,
Darien had told her when they’d discussed her legacy. Yet Jessa could never remember her father making any major alterations to the house, or buying any high-priced items. They’d lived quietly and modestly, and Darien hadn’t cared to throw parties or waste money on keeping up with Savannah society. The only thing she could remember him purchasing regularly, in fact, were the books he loved.

Jessa climbed down the stairs to the side street leading around to the riverfront. All of the shops, bars, and restaurants were closed, so she had the walkways to herself. As she looked out across the river to the new hotel that had been built on Hutchinson Island, she folded her arms around her waist. Everything she knew had changed now, and everyone she had loved was gone. Darien and Tag couldn’t help her with this; there was no one she could rely on, no one to tell her what to do or where to go.

She was thinking like Minerva. She couldn’t do that. She had to get away from the memories as well as Matthias.

A clock in the window of one of the shops told her it was close to three a.m. In a few hours businesses would begin to open; she’d have to find an Internet café and contact Aphrodite. She could trust Di, and knew that if she asked, her friend would take her in, at least until she could figure out what to do next.

“Jessa,” someone whispered.

She turned around, expecting to see Matthias, but found only the empty stretch of walkway. Quickly she hurried toward the next alley that led up to street level, and when she heard the whisper a second time she broke into a flat run.

Clouds rushed in from the sea, covering the moon and blocking out the starlight. Jessa flinched as lightning flashed over the bridge and thunder boomed, exactly as it had the day Matthias had abducted her from the restaurant.

He was coming for her again. He’d take her back to Sapphire House, back to the ruins of her life, and then she would go crazy.

“Jessa.” A tall, broad shadow appeared in front of her, blocking her only avenue of escape. “I’ve been looking for you.”

She didn’t recognize the voice, but it wasn’t Matthias. Something crawled over her skin, a sense of wrongness, as if the shadow were some sort of nightmare she’d woken to. The man moved closer, and the smell of him struck her like a fist to the belly.

“I knew you’d get away from them,” the voice said. “I could feel you thinking about and planning every little detail. Just the way you did with me.”

Now she knew the voice. “Mr. Lawson?” She backed up a step. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” The shadow moved into the light, and it was Lawson, or a man who looked like him, except much bigger, with bulging limbs encased in skintight clothing. Some of his garments had begun tearing in the middle of the seams, as if his body had somehow swelled after he had dressed. He had been very well developed, she remembered from meeting him in the restaurant, but he hadn’t been like this. She would have thought he was wearing some sort of padding under his clothes, except for when she looked into his eyes.

After one glance she couldn’t bear to look at his face again. His eyes had turned as shiny and black as an insect’s, with no visible corneas, irises, or pupils. When he smiled, she saw something long, sharp, and pointed flash.

Fangs,
she thought.
He has fangs.

“You look surprised,” he said. “Did you think I wouldn’t find you?”

Jessa couldn’t move. “What happened to you? What did that to your eyes?”

“You did,” he said. “You attacked me. You had me crippled.”

“I didn’t do anything—” She stopped as she remembered the attack in the restaurant. “Matthias couldn’t have done this to you. I was there. I saw—”

“It was the transerum,” he told her. “I went to GenHance and stole it. Injecting myself with it was the only way I could repair the damage you did to my body. But I’m not angry with you anymore. You made me very strong.” He lashed out, slamming his fist into the wall beside him, and left a deep crater in it as bits of smashed brick fell to the ground. “You see? I couldn’t do that when I was human. You made me into a god.”

Suddenly she knew everything Matthias had said was the truth. GenHance was experimenting on human beings. Somehow they’d done this. And seeing that Lawson now had fangs, she realized that maybe even the stories about the dark Kyn were true, too.

What could she say to him, now that he was like this? Was there any way to change him back to the way he had been? Her stomach rolled as she sensed that there wasn’t. “Mr. Lawson—Bradford—you should be in the hospital. The doctors can help you.”

“I don’t need help. I’m right where I need to be, with you. I came to thank you in person.” He stretched out his arms in an affectionate gesture. “Come here and I will.”