by Rachel Lee
“Now?” asked Jude.
Damien didn’t answer. He closed his eyes, murmuring something, and then held out his arm. Caro could see the blue sparks dancing along it, and from the expression on Jude’s face he could, as well.
Still murmuring under his breath, Damien turned slowly, extending his arm as if it were a pointer. A minute ticked by, then he dropped his arm.
“To the west,” he said. “The bokor hasn’t moved since last I sensed his general direction. But I’ll have to keep checking so I can home in on him.”
Then they were off again, on a wild ride from Caro’s perspective, but one she was beginning to love even though the cold wind of their movement threatened frostbite to her nose. She loved being wrapped around Damien this way, loved the way she could feel his muscles bunch and unbunch, so fast it was hard to believe any muscle could twitch that fast.
It felt like a speeded-up roller-coaster ride, leaps followed by gentle landings but enough that her stomach couldn’t decide whether it was rising or falling. Like being on a crazy elevator, she thought, and she had a wild urge to laugh because she liked it. No amusement park would ever again seem exciting.
They paused again, and she took the time to get grounded, feet firmly planted, stomach settling, as she looked out over the rooftops. This wasn’t a vantage she was used to, and it proved a bit difficult to get her bearings.
Damien was holding out his arm again, but this time he wiggled his fingers a bit, as if trying to get more detailed information.
She closed her eyes and reached out with her own senses, feeling for the elemental. It was nearby.
“Damien. It’s here.”
“I feel it,” he agreed. “Jude? Sprinkle some of that holy water on us, will you?”
Jude obliged, pulling a spray bottle out of his pocket. He must have read the astonishment Caro felt on her face, or smelled it, because he smiled faintly. She still had to get used to that smelling part.
“It’s efficient,” he said as he walked around her, spraying. After he sprayed Damien, he handed the bottle to Caro. “Do me, too, if you don’t mind.”
A moment of absurdity, she thought as she used an ordinary spray bottle to cover Jude in holy water.
Then she closed her eyes and reached out. “It pulled back a bit.”
“Let’s go,” Damien announced. “Not much farther.” He swung Caro up onto his back as if she weighed nothing at all and the roller-coaster ride began again.
Fear fluttered in her stomach as she wondered if she would survive this night.
Chapter 14
When at last they stopped, some deep instinct told her they were in the right place.
They walked cautiously to the parapet and looked down on the street below. Caro gasped as she recognized the shop. “Alika! Not Alika!”
At once she thought of the talisman in her pocket and pulled it out. As she started to hurl it away, Damien snapped his arm out and stopped her.
“You said you felt nothing ill about the gris-gris.”
“I didn’t. But if she’s behind this...”
“We don’t know she’s behind this. Not at all. I just know it started here. It could be someone else. Regardless, if she’s part of this, she gave you the talisman for protection. Maybe she wanted to protect you from the force she unleashed. Or maybe she just wanted to protect you from something else she was aware of.”
Caro tightened her grip on the talisman, hesitating. It was true they couldn’t be sure Alika was the bokor. It was equally true that she had sensed nothing evil about the pouch in her hand. More confident in her special senses, she checked it once again. It still glowed with a lavender light and seemed to offer no threat. Slowly, she returned it to her pocket. “It didn’t protect me that day on the street,” she remarked.
“But that elemental may have been strengthened. Or perhaps you survived only because it couldn’t do its worst work.”
She looked at Damien. “You don’t feel anything bad from it?”
He shook his head. “We don’t discard anything that might be helpful until we’re sure it’s not.”
“Okay, then.”
Jude crouched beside Damien. “You’re sure it’s in that building?”
“Most definitely. I can’t tell exactly where it’s coming from, though. But it’s definitely emanating from there.”
“Then let’s go. Carefully. I’ll surround the building just as soon as you’re close enough.”
Just before they descended the building, Damien drew Caro close. “Know this. I’ll keep you safe at any price. Trust your instincts about what to do. And don’t use any more power until we know who we’re facing. Just as I can sense the use of it, the bokor may, as well.”
She nodded and swallowed hard. This was it. An experience beyond her imaginings. She had at least been able to imagine the ritual he had suggested, but for this she had no known paradigm. This would be so totally and completely outside her realm of experience that it staggered her.
What had he meant by protecting her at any cost? Her heart squeezed and she grabbed his arm. “Damien? Don’t do anything foolish on my behalf. Please.”
He smiled and brushed a chilly kiss against her cold lips. “It’s certainly not my intention.”
That had to satisfy her, because he quite clearly wasn’t about to make promises of any kind except that he would keep her safe.
She didn’t like that mentality. Partners were supposed to look out for each other. A joint effort. She should have made that clear from the outset.
Well, she promised herself that she’d have his back no matter what. And clearly he felt he needed some backup or he would have insisted on doing this alone. Vampire or not, he still had plenty of male arrogance about him at times.
Then she noticed something. “Wait,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Don’t you feel it? Listen.”
“To what?” Damien asked, then said, “Oh.”
There were no sounds at all, as if they’d been caught in a soundproof bubble. A glance down at the street, despite the early hour, showed that no one was about.
“We’ve been cut off,” she murmured.
“Yes.” Damien closed his eyes. “The bokor knows we’re here.”
“Damn it,” Jude said.
“He’s drawing power.” Damien’s eyes snapped open, and now they were as dark as the depths of space. “It’s going to be a helluva fight. Caro...”
“Don’t even think it. I’m going with you. Only an idiot goes into a dangerous situation without backup, and you’re not an idiot.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “I would die for you.”
But would he live for her? she wondered. The question was painful. No time for that. “You’re not an idiot,” she repeated.
“No,” he said after a beat. “No, I’m not. But are you being unwisely stubborn?”
“I’ve never let my partner go into a situation without backup. I’m not going to start now.”
He offered no more argument. Instead, he stood quietly, as if feeling the world around them, but he did nothing to display his powers. Maybe he was using his vampire senses.
“There’s no one nearby,” he said eventually. “Except in that building.”
“That’s not one of the ones set for demolition, is it?” Caro asked.
“No,” Jude said. “But that doesn’t mean the bokor is simply acting to protect this one building. Friends or family could be involved. Or he or she could live in one of those buildings.”
Caro nodded. “I was just wondering if we knew of a direct link.”
“As of now, no.”
“All right,” Damien said. “I think it would be wise for us to get down from here out of sight of the bookshop. While we won’t exactly be a surprise, we can at least avoid providing additional information.”
“How about heading away a bit?” Jude suggested.
“Good idea,” Damien agreed. Turning, he held out his hand to Caro. Sh
e could have sworn she felt an almost electric zap as they touched. Then she was on his back again and had no idea where they were going.
When next they alighted, she looked around and realized they were no longer on the same street.
The sense of being in a bubble had vanished.
“It might look like we missed him. Her. It,” Damien said. He gave a quiet chuckle. “Maybe we bought a few minutes.”
Perhaps out of deference to Caro, they made their way down a fire escape. Though it creaked and clanged, no one even looked out a window. Maybe, Caro thought, this was a neighborhood where seeing things could be dangerous. It wouldn’t surprise her. As a cop she was intimately acquainted with how many people never saw or heard a thing, even when the ruckus should have wakened the dead.
Once they reached street level, they began walking at a human pace. Not that anyone would have seen if Damien had lifted Caro on his back and flown. The streets were amazingly empty, although that might be in part because of the bitter cold, and in part because this wasn’t a safe part of town. Still, her instincts rose into high gear.
“There’s something wrong,” she said. “Cold, night, whatever, there’s no part of this city where you don’t see groups of young men out until the wee hours.”
“Gangs?” Damien asked.
“Often, but not always. Something’s going on. Maybe somebody put out the word to keep inside.”
“Who would have the power to do that?”
“A bokor,” Jude and Caro answered simultaneously. But Caro continued. “Someone everyone is terrified of.”
“Then it seems we may have come to the right place.”
“I thought you already knew we had.”
He flashed a grin. “I do, but I’m just talking for the sake of talking.”
“Are you nervous?”
“A bit. Aren’t you?”
“I’d rather not think about it.” It was true. Nerves were to be ignored, not fed. They were useful only insofar as they kept you alert. Beyond that, they could become a hindrance.
They covered two blocks before she again saw the storefront. She kept waiting to feel the bubble again but didn’t. “We fooled them,” she said.
“For a little while,” Damien agreed. “Not much longer, though.”
Only a few steps later, she felt it like ice on her neck. “The elemental is here.”
“I feel it.”
“Get to the door,” Jude said. “Let me know when you’re sure it’s there with you and then I’ll get to work warding the area.”
“The bokor is already warding it,” Caro said uneasily. “Do you feel it, Damien? The bubble is coming back.”
He turned to Jude. “Can you sense it?”
“Only vaguely.”
“Surround the entire block, then, as soon as I tell you. Caro, where’s the elemental?”
“All around me,” she answered as ice began to seep into her. “It’s after me again.”
“Let’s hurry.”
Without further ado, Damien gripped her arm, lifted her and began heading for the shop door. “Stay close. Stay very close. My power will cloak you, as well.”
“What about mine?” she croaked.
“I feel the light of it. What it will do I don’t know. Use it carefully. Only you can direct it. But not yet, not unless you feel that thing getting too far into you.”
She had begun to shiver and wondered if it was already time. Then she remembered she needed to carry the thing into the store with her, so that Jude could create a circle around the entire area. She let the cold seep in even more, until her teeth chattered.
At last they reached the door of the shop.
“It’s in me,” she said.
Damien spoke. “Go now, Jude. Caro has the elemental.”
Jude disappeared as if he had never been.
“Can you manage, Schatz?”
“A little longer. I’m so cold inside.”
He took her gently by the shoulders. “Imagine yourself as a vessel. A container for this thing. It cannot hurt the vessel that holds it. Like water in a jug.”
“It can’t?”
“Think of it that way. Believe it.”
Even as she shook from head to foot, and felt her lips stiffen from the cold, she got it. See herself as an inert vessel, holding it but not affected by it. She formed a mental image of a clear jug holding ice water, and as the image grew clearer, she felt the strangest thing. The cold didn’t leave her, but it felt a whole lot less threatening. It also didn’t get any worse.
“Ready?” Damien asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said, and she realized she had regained use of her lips, even though she was still shivering.
Damien reached out and pushed the door open. A bell rang, announcing their entrance but no one was in sight.
“Alika?” he called out. Then again when no one responded.
Finally the curtain at the back moved and a tall man stepped out. He looked to be in his thirties and resembled Alika, but only a little. His hair was almost white despite his youth, and his eyes, dark, held a burning intensity.
“My mother is unwell,” he said. “You need to come back another time if you wish to see her.”
“I just needed a book,” Damien said, apparently playing along. “Maybe you can help me.”
The young man shrugged. “I don’t know the store the way she does.”
Caro narrowed her eyes, wondering if she saw a bright red halo around him. It came and went so fast that she couldn’t be sure. “I’m so sorry Alika is sick,” she said. “How bad is it?”
“I’m sure she’ll be on her feet in a few days. But right now the store is closed.”
“Then you should have locked the door,” Damien said. He stepped closer to the man. “I’m Damien. You are?” He offered his hand.
“Who I am doesn’t matter,” the other said, refusing to shake hands. “I think I asked you to leave.”
“Well, unfortunately, we seem to have something that belongs to you. Or maybe it belongs to Alika.”
The man’s brows lifted. “What?”
“An elemental.”
“A what?”
But Caro could see something in the way he shifted that told her he was lying. Thank goodness for the street smarts she’d gained over the years. “Oh, come on. You know all about it,” she said. “I’m carrying it right now.”
“That’s impossible. You’re crazy.”
Caro closed her eyes and envisioned putting a stopper in the jug of ice water. As soon as she did it, she felt a little warmer. “It’s not impossible,” she said. “I contain it and it’s not going anywhere unless you’re willing to send it back to where it belongs.”
“What makes you think I can do that?”
“Because,” said Damien, “you’re the one who called it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But Caro could see his aura deepening. He was summoning power. She hoped Damien could see it, too. She had a feeling this was about to get very ugly, but she could hardly imagine in what way.
Moved by an impulse she couldn’t explain, she pulled the gris-gris Alika had given her from her pocket and showed it to the man. “We need to talk,” she said in her best cop voice.
“About what?” he demanded truculently.
“About how these murders are going to stop.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did Alika give you that?”
“Yes, to protect me. Apparently she knew something was coming after me. You miscalculated on that. Your elemental is following me because I saw what it did at the Pritchett house. That was your mistake.”
He shook his head. “Are you crazy? What are you talking about?”
“We’re talking about you,” Damien said silkily. “And your very big mistake. You’re apparently not a very good bokor.”
The man took a step toward them. “I’m no bokor. No way. Crazy or not, you’re talking to the wrong pers
on.”
“Someone here,” Damien said flatly, “called upon an elemental to kill people. That’s a very big mistake. Especially when it then turns its attention to a cop who had no part in Pritchett’s activities. Otherwise you might have left a trail of unsolved murders. As it is, you’re going to recall this elemental and stop murdering people now.”
“No one in his right mind becomes a bokor!”
“So I would have thought. But the power was called from here, so that leaves you, doesn’t it?”
Suddenly the curtain moved again, and Alika stepped out. She looked drained and unsteady, and at once the young man took her arm to help her. “Mother...”
“No, Jerome, I’m not going to let you fight for me.” She looked at Damien and Caro. “Yes, I called on the power. And I’m not going to stop, not while there’s a single person who might become homeless because a wealthy man doesn’t give a damn about the lives of the poor. You can’t stop me.”
“Mother...”
She patted the young man’s hand and settled onto a chair. “I tried to protect you,” she said to Caro. “I knew you weren’t part of it. And now my son tries to protect me. He cast a spell to keep you away. You should have stayed away.”
“Not while people continue to die,” Caro said. “I’m grateful for the gris-gris, Alika, but I nearly died anyway. How long do you want this to go on? How many have to die?”
“As many as it takes. In less than a month my son and his family will lose their home. Where will they go? What will they do? The rich never think of these things. Pah!”
Caro had to admit some sympathy with the woman’s view. “But there has to be a better way to fight.”
“We went to the meetings. We argued for our homes. They didn’t listen.”
“How does this justify murder? You took the law into your own hands. No one has that right.”
