When Darkness Hungers: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 5)

by J. K. Beck

  “I’ll get it.”

  “Sit. Keep the ice on that knot. I’ll bring you coffee first, and if that doesn’t work we’ll shift over to the hard stuff.”

  “Bourbon?”

  Leena snorted. “Whatever works.” She limped off toward the kitchen, and Alexis realized that she was smiling despite the pain in her head and her frustration at having missed the second vampire. And why not? She had an important mission and a damn good friend by her side.

  Hard to believe that so much had changed so fast. She’d once been hopelessly naïve. Now she wasn’t.

  She could remember with absolute clarity the day it had all started. She’d been a young FBI agent, ridiculously proud at having been handpicked for a newly formed national task force with only one year out of Quantico under her belt. She’d been assigned to the New York office, where the task force was based. It had been created to investigate a series of violent deaths that had crisscrossed the country, the nature of the fatalities suggesting that the deaths were related, possibly by interstate cult activity.

  The murders were showing up in clusters all over the States, but the highest percentages were in dense urban areas, which made sense if the FBI’s gang- and/or cult-related theory was accurate. Somewhere, though, there was a ground zero. There had to be a leader who was organizing all of this. Some David Koresh–type nutjob with a Dracula complex who was telling his followers to go out and suck the blood from his victims—yes, suck—and to do it from the neck.

  It was sick. It would be one thing if all these folks did was drink blood from a butcher store and wear black and file their teeth to points. Weird, perhaps, and certainly not Alexis’s thing. But harmless enough. That’s not what they were doing, though, and they’d crossed a line. A very dark, very scary line.

  Unfortunately, whoever these people were, they weren’t stupid. They were operating under the radar and doing a good job of it, too.

  The case had been occupying her time 24/7, but when her college roommate flew into town to audition for a soap opera, Alexis took a rare day off. They’d been out shopping—playing a game where they picked the tourists out from the locals—when Antonio Gutierrez had called. He was the SAC—Special Agent in Charge—and he’d offered no niceties about interrupting her day off. “Get your ass down to the First Precinct,” he’d said. “Ask for Detective Lanahan.” He’d clicked off, and Alexis had turned to Brianna.

  “Let me guess. You’ve got to go.”

  “The exciting life of an FBI agent.” She spoke ironically, but the truth was that she loved it. The job. The excitement. It was what she’d worked toward since she’d turned twelve. That was the year her sixteen-year-old sister Tori had gone missing, and even though her parents and the police had told Alexis that Tori had run away, Alexis refused to believe that her sister would leave. Not Tori. Sure, life was shit at the Martin house, but Tori had always been the one who stuck up for Alexis. Who comforted her when their dad went off on one of his tears. Who’d dried Alexis’s eyes when their mom had thrown out all of Alexis’s favorite books because she’d caught Alexis reading under the covers with a flashlight, and rules were rules were rules.

  No, Tori wouldn’t leave Alexis. Not on purpose. She’d been taken—Alexis was certain. And for years she’d fantasized about joining the FBI and tracking down the son-of-a-bitch who’d abducted her sister. After her parents died six years ago in a Colorado plane crash, Alexis had discovered Tori’s diary in a box in their attic, and she’d been forced to acknowledge that maybe her sister had run away. It had been a hard reality to swallow, but not as hard as the horrible truth that the diary had revealed—a pattern of physical and verbal abuse from both parents, with the worst being the way their father would creep into Tori’s bed at night.

  The words had been practically etched onto the page, Tori’s pencil pushing so hard that it sometimes ripped the paper. The scrawled, rambling sentences were accompanied by strange splotches—dried tears, Alexis assumed—along with awkward, violent sketches that were enough to make Alexis nauseated. Remembering, Alexis shivered. She’d been boxing up her parents’ personal effects when she’d found the diary, and the uncomfortable emptiness that accompanied the loss of her parents had morphed into anger when she learned what they’d done to drive the older girl away. If Alexis could have taken some of that abuse onto her own shoulders, she would have, but she hadn’t even been aware it was going on, even though Tori’s diary made clear that it had been a pattern since she was in first grade. She’d run because she couldn’t take it anymore, but she’d stayed as long as she could to protect her little sister. Knowing that, Alexis loved her even more. But to her shame, she still hated her for leaving.

  She knew she was an emotional mess where her family was concerned, but she’d channeled her roiling emotions into her work. Even once she’d realized that Tori had left of her own accord, Alexis’s desire to join the FBI hadn’t faded. By then, the thought of being an agent—of honoring that badge and helping victims of unspeakable crimes—had invaded her soul, become a part of her. She’d clung to the dream, shifting it around only slightly for Tori’s benefit. Alexis was no longer looking for her abductor; now she was looking for Tori herself. She wanted to throw her arms around her sister and tell her that their parents were dead. That Tori could come back. That she could be a big sister again.

  It was a fantasy that Alexis clung to with determined tenacity. So far, she’d done everything a civilian could do to search for her sister, and a few things only an FBI agent could manage. One of these days she was going to ask official permission to use FBI resources to track Tori down. She had to, because Tori was all the family she had. Considering what she now knew about her parents, Tori was all the family she’d ever had.

  Until then, though …

  Well, until then, the FBI was her life. And if Gutierrez wanted her on her day off, then she’d been more than ready to go.

  What she hadn’t understood was why she was going to the police department. By then, the task force had been in place long enough that the cops knew to call the FBI and the forensics team from the get-go. It had to be a cold case. An unsolved crime filed away that the local cops had dug out to pass off to the task force. A pain in the ass for the cops, maybe, but for the task force it could be gold.

  She’d arrived at Lanahan’s office eager to see the file, and he hadn’t disappointed. After the briefest of introductions, he’d passed her a thick sheaf of papers fastened with a binder clip. “Only a few months old,” he’d said. “So tepid, not cold. But the detective assigned didn’t realize he should call you folks in.”

  “Didn’t realize!” Alexis said, but Lanahan only shrugged.

  “There were wounds on the neck, but those weren’t the only injuries. Sure, he should have realized, but what can I say? He fucked up. And he’s moved on—Kansas, Nebraska, one of those corn-fed states. Soon as I got the file, I called you folks.”

  She skimmed the initial detective’s notes from the scene. “Unidentified female?” she asked, glancing up at Lanahan. “She’s a Jane Doe?”

  “It’s all there,” he said. “We didn’t get anything back with prints. Girl looked to be a recovering junkie—but there wasn’t any physical evidence of drug abuse. She did have some old puncture wounds on her neck and some scar tissue on her wrists. Could be drug-related, but the coroner thinks no.”

  “Self-mutilation.”

  Lanahan shrugged. “Who knows. Our guy canvassed the streets, but he didn’t come up with anybody who knew the female.”

  “She was found in the subway system?” Alexis asked. The answer was on the report, but she wanted to hear what this detective had to say. As she waited, she flipped pages, looking for the crime scene photos.

  “Not far from the Battery Park station,” he confirmed. “In a pile of debris in one of the homeless squats.”

  Alexis frowned, hating the thought of some poor girl, probably a runaway, holed up in one of the areas carved out within urban subways
where the homeless would park their carts, warm their hands over Sterno cans, and trade needles and bottles of Jack. At her lowest, she wondered if that was where Tori had ended up, but always immediately banished the thought.

  “I can take you there if you like,” Lanahan offered.

  “That would be great,” Alexis said as she flipped another page. She knew she wouldn’t find a clue, but just being close to the scene and seeing what the victim saw could help. “Maybe we could go—”

  She stopped talking, her eyes riveted on the morgue photo in front of her.

  “Agent Martin?”

  She could hear the concern in Lanahan’s voice. She didn’t care. She couldn’t look away from the page.

  Because despite the bright fuchsia hair and emaciated cheeks, Alexis knew that face. Tori.

  Her stomach cramped, and she had to force her hands not to shake. Her sister had been murdered. Violently. Brutally. And by the very killer that Alexis was looking for.

  Time slowed to a crawl, and it seemed to take forever for her to lift her head to meet the detective’s eyes. “I’m going to catch him,” she said slowly and carefully, in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. “I’m going to catch all of them. And I’m not going to stop until they’re all behind bars.”

  She wouldn’t stop until she’d avenged her sister.

  At the time, though, she hadn’t understood what that meant or just how deep into the world of nightmares she’d have to sink in order to make good her promise.

  Images of Tori’s ripped neck and emaciated body had tormented Alexis for days. She worked the case constantly. She didn’t sleep, barely ate, and the other members of the task force started to tiptoe around her, afraid of setting off a burst of temper coupled by a steel-bladed tongue. After she’d yelled at one of the interns for not pulling a fingerprint record fast enough, Gutierrez called her into his office and told her to sit her ass down.

  “I’d rather stand.”

  “Consider it an order, Agent.”

  She sat, but on the edge of her seat. There was no relaxing for Alexis anymore. Nothing but the hard push to get it done, and the damnable frustration that came with knowing she was failing at that one simple task. Failing the task force. And most of all, failing Tori.

  “There are other victims in this case, Agent. Other leads to follow that might track back to your sister’s killer. But you’re too close, Alexis. You need to back off. Focus on another file, another victim. Either that or resign from the task force altogether. Or take a leave of absence,” he amended, apparently seeing the glint of steel in her eyes. “You’re burning yourself out, and that’s not doing anyone any good, least of all Tori.”

  “She’s my sister,” she said, pouring herself into the words. “I can’t just walk away.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I’m just saying that it’s time to come at this from a different angle. She’s one of ours now, the FBI’s. The task force. They’re all good agents, Alex. Solid. You know that. Back off a little. Clear your head. And then you can come back to it fresh.”

  “Sir, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think—”

  “Or you could consider a transfer.” For a moment the words hung in the air. “You could go to Los Angeles.”

  At his words, her entire body went stiff.

  “The task force is up and running there, too.”

  “I don’t want to go back to LA.” She’d grown up there, but it had never been home. Not after Tori had left, anyway. Now it was just a place on a map. Her childhood friends had all moved away, and even Brianna lived in New York now, having gotten the part in the soap. And while Alexis liked Edgar Garvey, the LAPD’s liaison with the task force, whom she’d met when he’d done a week of training with the FBI, he was undeniably odd with his strange beliefs and wild conspiracy theories.

  Most of all, though, she couldn’t move that far away from Tori.

  “If LA’s out of the question, then there’s always Dallas or Chicago.”

  Dear God, they were determined to get her out of there. Had she really screwed it up that bad?

  Of course she had. Hell, she knew she had. The question now was how to fix it.

  Play it smart, Alex. Screw up, and you’re screwing Tori.

  She tilted her head down, focusing on her hands, fingers twisted together in her lap. “You’re right about my lack of focus. I owe you—I owe the Bureau—an apology.”

  “You don’t,” he said. “There’s not an agent here who wouldn’t be equally preoccupied under similar circumstances. But I need you on your game.”

  “I’m not interested in a transfer, sir. I realize it’s a lot to ask, but could we take that off the table?”

  He regarded her evenly for a moment, then nodded. “Take a few days, get your head straight, and come back refreshed.”

  She’d promised to do just that. Of course, she’d been lying. On her days off, she spent her time doing the same thing she’d done when she’d been active: prowling the streets, searching the subways, talking to the homeless, the vagrants, the lost souls with vacant eyes and hopeless faces. Had Tori been one of them? Alexis was certain that she had, and that reality cut deep into her soul. Because despite the undercurrent of anger and worry that had surged through her ever since Tori’s disappearance, she’d always held on to hope. Hope that Tori had managed to get away. To make a real life for herself. But if this was where she’d ended up—this dark place where cruel eyes watched you and hope was something that moldered in the shadows—then what had been the point? Why had Tori left home—left her—if she was only going someplace worse? If she was simply stepping out into the world to meet a new kind of monster, one that wouldn’t just hurt and belittle her, but would actually kill her?

  “Dammit, Alexis, stop it.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples and looked away from a filthy homeless woman with missing teeth who was staring at her with pity. She didn’t want the woman’s pity—didn’t need it. She was there to do a job, and it was better for everybody—herself, Tori, the task force, and all the other victims—if she could get her act together and get her head back in the game.

  With renewed determination, she turned back and forced herself to look hard at the homeless woman. When she did, she could see that despite the years of dirt that had settled in her deep facial wrinkles, the woman’s eyes were still sharp. This was her domain, this small corner of a subterranean world, and she watched silently as what passed for living went on in front of her.

  Alexis knelt, bringing her to eye level with the woman. “I’d like to ask you a question. Is that okay?”

  Gums smacked, causing strands of spittle to sparkle in the dim light like perverse gems. “Sounds to me like you already asked.”

  “Fair enough. I’ve got another.”

  The woman blinked. Stared. Waiting. Alexis had the impression that was what she did the most. Waited. She pulled out the picture of Tori. The crime scene photo, because the one in her wallet showed a healthy, vibrant girl. Not a strung-out, fuchsia-haired junkie. “This girl. Do you know her?”

  “Dead,” the woman said. “If you’re looking for her, you’re not gonna find her.” That wide grin. Those strands of spit. “Not unless you’re planning to follow her to hell.”

  “How do you know she’s dead?”

  “Got eyes, don’t I?”

  Alexis’s heart pounded against her rib cage, so hard that she feared she’d crack a rib. “You saw her? You saw her killer?”

  “Saw the cops find her.” The woman raised one bony finger and pointed. “Dump spot. Under some newspapers. Not that she was reading. The dead don’t read.”

  “No,” Alexis said, choking out the words. “They don’t. But you read. You pay attention. You listen and watch. Can you tell me what you saw? What you learned?”

  “Saw nothing. Heard nothing. Just that she was dead. That the girl was dead.” She shrugged. “Not the only one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Peopl
e die, don’t they?”

  They did, Alexis thought. People died, and people like her were left behind, either to mourn them or to stand up for them. Where Tori was concerned, Alexis was trying to do both. “Are you saying there were other bodies?”

  “Down here? Always will be. This is where the monsters live.” Those sharp eyes narrowed, becoming almost lost in the creases of the woman’s face. “That’s what you’re looking for. A monster.”

  “Damn straight. Can you help me?”

  “Not me. The girl. Maybe. If you ask nice. Sugar and spice, not snails and tails.”

  The sharp eyes were starting to dull; whatever dementia had brought this woman down into the subways was setting back in. “Wait,” Alexis said, clutching the woman’s wrist, then squeezing until the old lady looked her in the eye. “Who’s the girl? Where can I find her?”

  “Can’t,” the woman said. “She finds you. In here.” She tapped her temple. “That’s where she lives. Squeezes inside and looks around. Looks inside your head for the monsters. Now, go on with you. Bedtime now. Gotta tuck in Mr. Padgett.” She slipped her hand in her pocket and Alexis saw the pocket move. A rat’s pointed nose and beady black eyes emerged, staring her down and daring her to stay.

  She thought about taking Mr. Padgett up on that dare, but she’d gotten as much out of the woman as she was going to get. The old lady was fading fast, cooing to her rat and swaying softly like a mother with an infant.

  Alexis got the hell out of the subway, her mind on the girl. A girl who got into people’s heads. A girl who found monsters. That was a girl Alexis wanted to meet. But how the hell was she supposed to find her?

  In the end, she didn’t find the girl. The girl found her.

  For two days, she’d continued to canvas the subway tunnels near Battery Park. She still asked about Tori, but now she was also asking about the mysterious girl. She’d wanted to pull more information from the old woman—she’d gone so far as to bring a sandwich from a nearby deli—but the woman and her rat were gone, lost to the tunnels like so many others.