Keeper of the Night (The Keepers: L.A.)

by Heather Graham

  “And you are...?” Brodie asked.

  “Nick. Nick Cassidy,” the young man said. “This was just a silly game, right? He hasn’t really been found, has he?”

  “I don’t know,” Brodie said, and hesitated. If he did have the answer to Jordan Bellow’s disappearance, his longtime lover wasn’t going to like it. “Stay here. I’ll be right back, and I’ll see if I can help you.”

  He started back into the Snake Pit, but Rhiannon was already walking out in search of him. He practically collided with her at the door.

  “Can you get a ride home with Sailor?” he asked her. “I’m going to take this man to the morgue and...find out if Jordan really has been found.”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “Before I go... How were you getting the answers?”

  “They appeared in the glass, which isn’t just normal clear glass. You were seeing a picture of the lower half of my body, while I had a computer monitor beside me,” she explained. “I have no idea how the magician got the answers to show up there, though.”

  “Go talk to that magician. Find out who he is—and what he knows,” Brodie told her. “But don’t go talk to him alone—don’t go anywhere alone. Sailor is going to have to give you a ride anyway, so make her stay with you. She’s the Elven Keeper, so that might give you some clout.”

  “I’ll be fine—go,” Rhiannon told him.

  Brodie rejoined Nick Cassidy.

  “Where are we going?” Cassidy asked him.

  “The morgue,” Brodie said.

  * * *

  The magician had seemed a nice enough guy, and since she was going to be working at the Snake Pit herself, Rhiannon didn’t think it would to be difficult to get a chance to speak with him. It was a little more difficult to disentangle Sailor from Darius Simonides, but Rhiannon feigned a total fascination with magic and finally drew her cousin away.

  Sailor made her unhappiness known, though. “Rhiannon, I know this means nothing to you, but I want a life beyond this Keeper thing, and Darius can help me with that.”

  “Yes, and your future looks just peachy. But you are a Keeper. That’s the way it is. The Elven Keeper. I don’t even want to live in L.A., Sailor, but here I am.” Rhiannon stared into her cousin’s eyes. “And right now I need you.”

  Instantly Sailor looked contrite. “I’m sorry. Let’s go see your magician.”

  Backstage, the magician—who billed himself as the Count de Soir—was happy to greet them. He thanked Rhiannon for participating in the show, and he held Sailor’s hands and kissed her cheeks, telling her that the Elven were extremely lucky that their new Keeper was so young and beautiful.

  Rhiannon let them flatter each other for a few minutes and then stepped in. “Count, can you tell me, please, where the answers were coming from? I didn’t see a ringer out in the audience who could have been sending them to me.”

  “Ah, the answers,” the count said, drumming his fingers on his dressing table. Then he looked at her and said, “You live with my old mentor.”

  Rhiannon frowned, and then arched her brows. “You mean...Merlin?”

  He nodded. “I saw him in a dream, and he said that I was to help you.”

  “You saw him in a dream?” Rhiannon repeated. That sly old dog. He was haunting the magician, and the man didn’t even know it.

  “He told me to use my magic for good. I don’t have all the answers, of course, but I read the newspapers. Not online, either. The real thing, front to back, and I’ve been waiting for someone to ask about a friend or family member who’s gone missing here in L.A. There is no such thing as a John Doe. Not really. Everyone is someone. I listen and I learn. I knew that you’d be working here.” He lowered his voice, looking around his small dressing room. “I know that the man you were sitting with is Brodie McKay, a cop, not an actor named Mac Brodie.”

  “But how did you know that someone looking for a dead man would come to the Snake Pit and ask you about him?” Rhiannon asked.

  “That’s easy,” the Count told her. “Everyone who wants to see or be seen comes to the Snake Pit.”

  Rhiannon thanked him and said goodbye. Before they left, the count kissed Sailor’s hand and told her that he would see her the next night at the council meeting.

  When they left, Rhiannon took Sailor’s keys from her. “I’m driving,” she said.

  “I’m perfectly sober,” Sailor told her.

  “I’m sure you are, but I’m more sober, since I never even got my beer,” Rhiannon said.

  * * *

  Traffic was comparatively light, and the drive home was quick.

  When Rhiannon parked, Sailor looked over at her. “I know you think my whole life is all about me—me, me, me—but I really am here to help you. And I’ll be a good Keeper, you know. Luckily I have the Elven, mostly law-abiding citizens who prefer mind games and getting along in life to fighting. You and Barrie are cut from tougher cloth, so it makes sense you inherited the vampires and the shifters. But whatever you think, I am here for you.”

  Rhiannon immediately felt guilty. She gave Sailor a hug. “Good night—and I’ll count on that.”

  Sailor nodded. “By the way, watch out.”

  “Of course.”

  “No, I mean, watch out for your heart—and your sanity. With Brodie.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rhiannon said. “He’s a cop and I’m the vampire Keeper. We’re working together, that’s all.”

  “No, you’re playing the part of lovers. And you’re going to want it to be real,” Sailor warned her.

  “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” Rhiannon assured her, then watched Sailor go into the main house before letting herself into Pandora’s Box. She was exhausted, and she quickly prepared for bed, dully wondering if anything she’d learned tonight would help them in their investigation. Brodie, she knew, was just as frustrated.

  Brodie.

  Watch out!

  Lying in bed, she found that she was thinking about the Elven detective, and that she was thinking about him in the very way Sailor had just warned her that she shouldn’t. She was a sucker for tall men to begin with, probably because of her own height. And there was no way out of the fact that Elven males were...

  Beautiful. Gorgeous. Men probably didn’t want to be thought of as beautiful and gorgeous, she told herself drily. Too bad.

  Elven males were also athletic, well-muscled, agile....

  But it wasn’t Brodie’s physique that drew her, she thought. Or not only that. It was his eyes; it was his intensity. It was the way he looked at her, and the way she felt when he touched her.

  She tossed, pounding her pillow, a blush rising to her cheeks. That afternoon, when she’d been in the shower, she’d had the most absurd fantasy of stepping out of the shower, grabbing a towel and walking downstairs. His flesh was almost as golden as his hair, and she longed to touch it. She’d imagined stepping up to him and letting the towel drop, telling him that too much work would leave them exhausted and incapable of logical thought, and that surrendering to the desires of the flesh could leave them ready to tackle the world again.

  Pride was a great savior, though, and she’d done no such thing.

  And yet...

  She was imagining him again now, tall and imposing, seductive in his chinos and tailored shirt and black leather jacket.

  A sound broke into her fantasy, something high-pitched and continuous. The sound of...

  The alarm. One of her cousins had hit the little red button.

  The House of the Rising Sun was under attack.

  Chapter 7

  The worst part about his job wasn’t the dead, Brodie thought. It was the living.

  He watched Nick Cassidy as he waited anxiously in the family “viewing” room at the morgue. Tony Brandt had no intention of walking the young man into the back and right up to the corpse of his partner. He was showing the face—cleaned up and as human as it was going to be without the talents of an expert mortician—on a monitor.
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  There was no doubt that Nick Cassidy had loved the man he saw on the screen. Brodie saw what he had expected and dreaded. First the look of denial, followed by the dawning of realization—and then the horror that what he saw couldn’t be denied.

  And last of all the tears.

  Nick Cassidy convulsed and sank to the floor, shoulders shaking, hands to his face, tears streaming through his fingers.

  Brodie let him cry, because there were no words to say. It wasn’t going to “be all right,” and nothing would make this moment better.

  “Do you have family in the area?” he asked at last.

  Nick shook his head. “Our families disowned us. We haven’t seen or talked to any of them in...a decade. Not that I really had any family. My dad took off when I was two...my mother remarried some macho jock and I...I left at sixteen. Never looked back.” He shook his head. “I’m not going back to my family now.”

  “Family doesn’t always have to do with an accident of birth,” Brodie told Nick. “Do you know anyone at all in the L.A. area?”

  “Acquaintances, that’s all,” Nick said as he stood up slowly. He was suddenly angry. “Who did this? Why Jordan? He was the nicest guy in the world, never hurt anyone, loved the world, even when the world kicked him in the teeth.”

  “I don’t know,” Brodie said. “But I intend to find out. And you can help me with that. I need any emails you got from Jordan, and I need you to try to remember every conversation you had with him after he came down here.” He paused, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you file a missing person report?”

  “Because last time I talked to Jordan he was all excited. He’d auditioned for the road show, and if he could travel, he was basically guaranteed the part. I just thought he was traveling at first, and when I started getting worried, I guess I was too upset to think of anything but coming down here to look for him myself.”

  “Nick, does the title Vampire Rampage mean anything to you?”

  Nick stared back at him blankly. “It was a vampire play. I don’t know if he ever said the name.”

  Tony showed up in the viewing room just then. He looked at Brodie, and Brodie nodded.

  “I’m going to need you to help me,” he said gently to Nick. Can you help me fill out some papers so the detectives can find out who did this to your friend? He really needs you to be strong right now.”

  “I—I...yes. Jordan...oh, Jordan!” Nick started to sob again.

  Tony got him seated and looked at Brodie. “I’ve got this,” he said. “You look like hell. Can’t burn the candle at both ends forever, you know. Get out of here. Go home and get some sleep.”

  “I drove Mr. Cassidy here,” Brodie said.

  “I only came in to meet you,” Tony said. “When he and I are finished, I’ll see that he gets back to his car or his hotel.”

  “I’m going to need to interview him tomorrow,” Brodie said.

  “Of course. I’ll make sure to get an address where you can reach him.”

  Brodie still stood there. He would never get used to having to tell people that their loved ones were dead.

  “I’ve got this,” Tony assured him.

  “Thanks,” Brodie said gruffly.

  He was on the freeway when his phone started ringing.

  He answered it quickly. “Brodie.”

  It was Rhiannon. “I need you. Can you get over here? Now? Please!”

  * * *

  Never in a thousand years had Rhiannon expected that the compound alarm would ever actually go off.

  She was out of bed in two seconds and racing downstairs. A cabinet in the living room held an array of weapons. She opened it and hastily decided on a small crossbow that shot silver-tipped arrows—an effective choice against both werewolves and vampires.

  She started to race for the door and then realized she wasn’t even sure where she was going, because only the signal system at the tunnel entry would tell her whether it was coming from the main house or Gwydion’s Cave. She grabbed her phone off the desk and stilled her shaking fingers long enough to dial Brodie’s number, and then she dropped the phone, racing toward the kitchen. As she ran to the basement and reached the tunnel, she saw that the alarm had come from Sailor.

  Rhiannon knew that it was her fault if Sailor had been targeted—she had involved her cousin in everything that was going on.

  The tunnels were equipped with emergency lightning, so she had no problem finding her way. She took the turn to the left, toward the main house, and nearly collided with Barrie, who was racing from Gwydion’s Cave.

  “What’s happening?” Barrie asked anxiously.

  “I don’t know!”

  They burst into the basement of the main house and ran for the stairs that led up to the kitchen. They found Merlin waiting for them at the top.

  “What is it?” Rhiannon demanded.

  “Shadows, dark shadows, swirling around Sailor. And there was a raven—a real raven—sitting on her bedpost. And I can’t wake her up!” Merlin said.

  With Rhiannon a step ahead of Barrie, they raced through the house and upstairs, then into Sailor’s room.

  Merlin had told the truth. A massive raven was now sitting on Sailor’s chest.

  Right on her chest!

  Rhiannon couldn’t use her weapon without skewering her cousin, so she tossed it down and made a dive for the bird. It flapped its giant wings and rose from Sailor’s chest, then flew at Rhiannon with talons extended toward her. But Rhiannon felt the adrenaline pumping through her and ducked back down for the weapon. She didn’t have time to discharge it, but she swiped with all her strength at the raging black creature throwing itself at her.

  Barrie made a dive for Sailor, shaking her. “Sailor, wake up!”

  Rhiannon managed to slam the crossbow right into the raven. It let out a terrible screech of wrath and began to flap wildly toward the ceiling; then it wheeled and headed for the stairs, flying down toward the first floor.

  Rhiannon heard a furious oath explode from the stairway, and she realized that Brodie was there, running up the stairs as the thing raced down them. He slammed a fist into the massive bird and it fell to the floor, but when he reached down to grab it, it surged to life again and flew toward the living room.

  “Catch it! I think it got her—I think it did something to Sailor!” Barrie shouted.

  Rhiannon joined Brodie in the living room, where the raven was flying in frantic circles, searching for a way out. But as fast as it moved, Brodie moved faster. He caught it with his fist again, and again it fell to the floor.

  Rhiannon took aim and caught it with a silver-tipped arrow.

  What happened next seemed like a scene in a movie built on digital special effects. The raven disintegrated into a cloud of black ash that first seemed to take the form of a man and then a skeleton, before raining down in a haze of black particles.

  At the end something bounced down to the floor.

  A skull, quickly followed by fragments of bone.

  Rhiannon stared at Brodie, shell-shocked and speechless.

  He looked back at her and walked over to the pile of ash. He bent low, taking a pen from his pocket to poke at the skull so he could study it. The lower jaw was missing—it had landed across the room.

  He looked at Rhiannon. “Old vampire,” he said. “Very old. They only crumble to dust like this when they’re old. The new ones can be...messy.”

  Barrie came rushing down the stairs, accompanied by Sailor, who looked as if she didn’t quite know where she was, much less what had happened.

  “What’s going on?” Sailor asked.

  Rhiannon spun around to look at her cousin. “You don’t know?”

  “I was dreaming. A nice dream,” Sailor said.

  “A sexual dream?” Brodie asked her.

  Sailor flushed scarlet. “Yes...and then I felt Barrie shaking me...and then I woke up. I—what happened? Why are you all in my house—and why is there a giant pile of dirt on my floor?”

  Bro
die strode over to Sailor and inspected her throat. “Clean, thank God....” He looked thoughtful as he said, “It’s a good thing that we got him. Whoever the hell he was. Whatever poison he put into Sailor died with him.”

  “Poison?” Sailor gasped.

  “It’s all right—it’s gone,” Brodie said wearily. He looked at Rhiannon. She thought that she saw the slightest sparkle of respect in his eyes.

  “A vampire dared to enter the home of a Keeper?” Sailor asked incredulously.

  “And it went after Sailor, not Rhiannon,” Barrie pointed out.

  “Rhiannon can access the power of her charges,” Brodie said. “And vampires can sicken and die from attacking other vampires. What I want to figure out right now is how the hell the damned thing got in,” Brodie mused aloud.

  “The window,” Sailor said. “I was...warm, so I got up and opened the window, then fell asleep again.”

  “I guess it was that kind of a dream,” Barrie said.

  “Let’s make sure all the windows are closed, because eventually we’re going to have to get some sleep,” Rhiannon said.

  Rhiannon had forgotten Merlin, who had appeared at some point and was now standing near the sofa, looking thoughtful.

  “Whoever it was, one of us had to know him,” Merlin said.

  “What?” Sailor asked.

  Merlin looked at them in exasperation. “Whoever he was—”

  “Or she,” Brodie interjected.

  “Or she,” Merlin agreed. “One of us had to know them. A vampire can’t come in without being invited. There are a lot of silly rumors about vampires, invented by everyone from Stoker to Hollywood, but that one thing is quite true. Whoever you just killed was someone who’d been invited into the House of the Rising Sun. Might have been yesterday, might have been decades ago—but somewhere along the way, it happened.”

  “And they were old, very old,” Rhiannon murmured.

  “We’ll find out who it was—and why,” Brodie said. “For now, though, let’s search the house and close it up tight.”