Bond of Darkness

by Diane Whiteside

  She coughed, choked, and wheezed until she recovered, waving off Posada’s offer of help. She knew perfectly well what the problem was: If she tried to talk about Ethan, she’d die, the bastard. She could only talk about their liaison once—and she’d wasted that on a bachelorette party. Everyone there had been so drunk, they’d written off her tale as a wild fantasy.

  “Are you sure you’re okay now?” Posada asked again, his voice very gentle.

  “Perfectly.” She slipped her own sunglasses on, hiding her expression, and kept her voice in the same polite register she used with judges.

  “Good. The bike shop staff have been cleared.”

  She spun around to stare at him. She’d never suggested they were involved.

  “They were at a quinceañera for the chief welder’s daughter. Given the number of people at that party, they’ve all got solid alibis.”

  Thank God. If they’d been considered suspects because she couldn’t name Ethan, she’d have dragged his worthless ass in personally—once she found him.

  “Maybe we can do lunch the next time I’m up here”—now that was a polite fiction, given the typically brutal Texas Ranger schedule—“but I’ve got to get back to San Antonio.”

  “Anything nastier than usual?” she asked, to cover her true thoughts—how the heck could one bring a vampiro to justice?

  “Not particularly. We’ve been stretched a little thin the last couple of days, since we’ve had to work a few crime scenes longer than usual.” He tossed his briefcase onto his truck’s seat, obviously ready to close the conversation.

  She’d need to find Ethan’s address. Maybe that old business card of his would help, the one with his phone number.

  “Long hours at crime scenes?” She could sympathize. She’d done that before—and she’d probably be spending some serious quality time with computers to track down Ethan. She retrieved her duffel, easily compensating for the guns’ and ammo’s weight.

  “The MEs have been busy, digging deep for some women’s death certificates. We had a couple of suicides but they had to track down the pollen-caused respiratory problems.”

  She blinked. Pollen? This early in the year in San Antonio? Since they didn’t have many fancy flowering trees like Northerners, they normally didn’t have any allergy problems until late summer.

  “We’ve been having a lot of wet weather, y’know, making it worse than usual for ragweed. The ladies had their necks arched and mouths hanging open from trying to breathe.”

  Yeah, that sounded like a wicked hay fever attack. But bad enough to kill healthy young people? Well, if the doctors said so.

  Posada swung himself into his truck and held out his hand.

  She shook it, recognizing dismissal—and the opportunity to bring a murderer to justice on her own.

  “Keep in touch, Reynolds.”

  She lifted a hand in farewell, wiggling her fingers. She had a lot of work to get done before she could sleep that night.

  Ethan stood at attention with Jean-Marie, Luis, Gray Wolf, and Caleb in Don Rafael’s office, fists clenched and cursing himself over how close the afternoon’s attack had come. All the days he’d spent worrying about how to regain Steve, what weapons he could wield against Devol, where he could find allies—everything had led to this.

  Four bodies had been placed in ambulances, covered in sweat and vomit, their faces hidden by oxygen masks, guarded by hard-edged medics who spoke to no one else. A woman and her three young children just like his sister Camille and her family, who’d been destroyed during the Civil War. Correction—they’d met their deaths because of his failure, just like today.

  His preoccupation had allowed Beau to slice through their defenses and come within five miles of Compostela. How that legendary assassin must have been laughing at them when he chose to attack the Perez family instead! He’d proved his own superiority by making Ethan and his mesnaderos look like incompetent fools.

  Ethan’s stomach roiled again, sour with bile and dust from old graves.

  The heavy shutters’ darkness made the spotlight on Don Rafael’s knightly sword all the more significant and hard to live up to. A session under Don Rafael’s steel-tipped whip would have been easier than the lash of his tongue.

  “It does not matter what you thought, Ethan, or you, Gray Wolf,” Don Rafael continued, his dark eyes stabbing into their souls. “The enemy penetrated into the heart of my lands, something you said was impossible. He injured my people—innocent people—solely because of their connection to me.”

  Ethan had failed his master, the man who knew all his sins and had still brought him into his house. Ethan hadn’t failed Don Rafael this badly since before he’d entered El Patrón’s service the first time, when he’d stolen Don Rafael’s horses and killed one of them in the process.

  Every bone in his body suddenly turned to pure ice, chilling him from the soul outward. Christ, what a memory to stir up now. He couldn’t afford to lose his creador’s good opinion, lest he lose the path to his own soul.

  “My humblest apologies, patrón.” He prostrated himself before his master, something he hadn’t done in decades. “It will not happen again.”

  “Bien,” Don Rafael all but snarled, gesturing him up.

  Ethan climbed back onto his feet. He’d have to pay a very personal price, of course, to obtain forgiveness. It would not be pleasant but it would be welcomed.

  “And you, Jean-Marie, your networks should have done better than this.”

  “Mille pardons, patrón.”

  Jean-Marie, of course, could always be counted on for a smooth apology, even under the worst tongue-lashing. There was something to be said for what had apparently been a damn cold childhood.

  Their master’s frigid gaze passed over Ethan again, and he remained still, not about to twitch even to straighten his clothes. With Don Rafael in this mood, he didn’t want to offer something small for him to take offense at.

  “Take the men away from guarding me and set them to hunting these devils.”

  What the hell was he thinking of? Didn’t he realize what would happen to Texas if he died?

  Everyone burst into objections.

  “Throwing more men into hunting for Beau will only cloud the waters. Mesnaderos are warriors, not spies,” Jean-Marie stormed, words tumbling over each other.

  “We already have plenty of men hunting for them,” Gray Wolf argued, his voice deepening in a rare sign of imminent rage. “To add more men means taking away from—”

  “That’s a trap! It’s exactly what Madame Celeste wants us to do,” Ethan yelled, discarding any hope of being a quiet, invisible servant.

  “Risking yourself like that is foolish, Don Rafael,” Luis snarled, directly disagreeing with Rafael for once. “It won’t help the prosaicos or the esfera if they lose you.”

  Their language filled up with curses.

  “¡Sí!” Rafael roared.

  They snarled and growled but ultimately fell reluctantly silent under the weight of his glare.

  Ethan seethed, unable to argue. His creador could—and would—read any of his thoughts when he was this angry. Even so, Ethan wouldn’t lie and pretend to approve.

  “We must stop them, no matter what,” dictated their master, forcing them to meet his eyes one by one. “The penalty for failure is death, mis hijos. You do not like my punishments—but you will hate those doled out by the enemy more.”

  Despite himself, Ethan flinched before throwing his shoulders proudly back. Don Rafael’s punishments were creative beyond belief—and hell on earth. But he’d rather endure years of them than see his master dead.

  A boot heel struck wood floor, instead of carpet, in the great room just outside. The assembly fell into shocked silence at its closeness and lighter tread.

  A woman?

  Ethan sniffed again, sorting through a heavy layer of foul odors until he recognized her. He flung an astounded glance at his master, who’d never previously brought a lover of either gender to Com
postela.

  Don Rafael closed his eyes for a moment, his mouth softening slightly, before he turned to face the door.

  “Doctora O’Malley?” He issued the summons in his most formal and gracious tone. “Please come in.”

  Ethan gritted his teeth, then moved to a better vantage point, the better to watch his fellows. They hadn’t believed his description of the lady.

  “Doctora.” Don Rafael started to take command as usual.

  Still dusty and sweaty, reeking of horse and deathly ill dogs, a tall, red-haired woman tossed her Stetson onto the hat rack, strode past everyone else without a second glance, and wrapped her arms around him.

  Don Rafael choked with laughter and hugged Grania close, his body promptly curving into a protective, loving embrace around his lover.

  His inner council gawked like children but Ethan’s lips curled in a smile’s travesty. He’d won his bet with Caleb about how strong Don Rafael’s obsession was, but life would have been simpler if he hadn’t. Madame Celeste would enjoy knowing where her enemy’s emotional levers were and Texas couldn’t afford any weaknesses right now. A moment’s inattention by Don Rafael could prove fatal to all of them, just like the price for Ethan’s own daydreams.

  He should give up Steve or at least stop thinking about her until the war was over. But if her marriage hadn’t kept her out of his mind, then nothing this side of hell would.

  He just had to be more efficient. Somehow. While always putting Don Rafael and Texas first, of course.

  “Glad you could have lunch with me, Dan. The food here is even better than you promised.” Steve studied her old friend over her marinated chicken, still hot and crispy from the tandoori oven.

  The midday glare picked out all his old wrinkles, plus a dozen new ones. At least the restaurant patio’s sunny corner offered them the privacy to chat, if he chose to, especially this late in the lunch hour. The hauntingly sweet and complex smell of chai tea hung in the air like an invitation to share secrets.

  Dan Schilling grunted, his mouth full of highly spiced lamb. He’d had a long, largely unintelligible conversation with the Indian restaurant’s manager before he’d ordered their meals. Food was his passion—or rather, restaurant food was. He knew every establishment in Austin—every chef on every shift, every dish on every menu. Given the hours he worked as a deputy medical examiner, he didn’t get to eat at home very often, let alone shop or cook. So he collected other people’s efforts the way some folks collected jewels.

  And his friends—the other denizens of long shifts—turned to him for a respite from brutal reality. He could always be counted on for a recommendation on where to find the best food, plus good beer or wine if served in the same establishment. Most of his pals didn’t even grouse about how his waistline stayed narrow, while theirs kept expanding.

  Dan tore off a piece of garlic naan and used the flatbread to sop up some gravy, his eyes measuring the patio’s dwindling population. A mother and daughter left, their T-shirts brilliant against the ancient pecan trees.

  “You were present when the Rogers girl was found, right?”

  Steve frowned. What the hell? “Up in San Leandro?”

  “The Olympic swimmer.” He tore off another piece of bread, watching her very closely.

  Ice trailed over her skin. “I saw the scene being processed. But I didn’t arrive until twenty or thirty minutes after she’d been found. Are you the medical examiner responsible?”

  He nodded, lines deepening at the corners of his mouth. He was usually much better at laughing than frowning.

  She sipped her iced tea. “You have my statement,” she added, underlining the obvious.

  He nodded again, his eyes searching her face. “Did you see anything you didn’t put into it?”

  Dan was very, very good, certainly the best in the county and probably in Central Texas. Travis County handled over fifteen hundred investigations a year for itself and surrounding counties. They were highly professional and had the track record to prove it.

  So why on earth was he watching her as if her few minutes of eyeballing the alley outside an ice cream parlor could save him considerable aggravation?

  “The only unusual thing I noticed was her frightened expression,” Steve commented slowly, carefully selecting every word. “Judging by the body’s position when I saw it, she’d had her back to the oncoming storm. Plus, she’d had ready access to shelter. I’m not aware of any good reason for such alarm.”

  “No, nor is anyone else.”

  Shit.

  Dan pushed rice around his plate. Steve shifted, came up against her Sig Sauer’s hard bulk in her purse, and thumped back down in her chair. At least it was daylight and Ethan couldn’t possibly see her being clumsy. He’d have given her a hell of a lecture, followed by some damn creative punishments—the bastard.

  “We don’t have a cause of death for her,” Dan muttered, his voice little more than a whisper. “Not since we basically ruled out arrhythmia.”

  Steve’s eyebrows flew up. “Where her heartbeat would go wild and kill her?”

  “Yup.” A muscle throbbed in his jaw. “She’d just had a complete checkout by the Olympic team doctor, up in Colorado Springs. Worse, since she’d been targeted as a potential Olympian for more than three years—”

  “They have lots of data.”

  “Tons. All the other obvious causes of natural death are nogos. Suicide doesn’t look likely. No signs of a struggle or injuries. No head trauma, sexual assault, suspicious drugs. At least not according to Olympic quality tests.”

  “They sent some of their people down, didn’t they?”

  “Who are you kidding? Of course they did.” Dan snorted and knocked back the last of his iced tea before refilling it from the sweating glass carafe. “Hell, I don’t blame them—their reputation’s on the line, too. We’ve taken tissue samples of everything possible and sent out for a full toxicology scan.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “Nobody.” The single word hung in the air.

  “Nobody?” Steve tilted her head, something shimmering just out of reach behind her eyes.

  “No trace evidence of anyone else’s presence was found at the scene or on her body,” Dan stated flatly, and smacked his hands together. “I’ve told myself a thousand times the rain must have washed any evidence away. Then I remember there are no injuries, no bruises—nothing!—on the body or nearby.”

  “Only a frightened girl.” Cop’s instinct stirred deep in her gut.

  “Who collapsed during a thunderstorm. Real bad thunderstorm, so maybe she was just scared.” Dan’s lips compressed, as if he didn’t want to express his own doubts.

  “Maybe.” She’d have to put in some more range time when she returned to the academy. Having a gun in her hand always made her feel more settled. “I’m sure toxicology will come up with something.”

  He nodded, shredding flatbread as if it were theories.

  Silence fell between them and was allowed to linger.

  “I’d better head back to the office now.” Dan signaled the waiter. “The Old Man has called a department meeting to discuss vacation schedules. Rumor says nobody’s getting any unless you’ve already scheduled it.”

  “That won’t make him popular,” Steve remarked, and pushed her chair back.

  “Not much else he can do. We’ve been getting more cases than usual from other counties and the ME insists we solve them all.”

  More cases than usual? San Antonio had been having problems, too.

  “Respiratory illnesses?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Who knows?” He shook his head, counting out bills from his wallet. “Some respiratory, some heart problems, some just plain unexplained. A few more suicides than usual, but—”

  Part of her brain was acting automatically, sorting deaths into categories. Deaths, as in multiple. Every other gray cell was hoping Dan would say he’d been making a joke. She nodded and wet her lips, wishing her skin felt warm e
nough to need suntan lotion.

  “Yeah. We’ve got to explain the other ones, especially since they’re all young women.”

  She stared at him, hearing Posada’s words again. Young women were dying in San Antonio, a hundred miles south, supposedly from pollen.

  Maybe it was just coincidence.

  A shadow flickered just beyond her eyes, where neither trees nor shadow stood. Her mouth tightened. An instant later, she began to consciously relax her muscles. She’d been a cop too long to go against her instincts—she’d have to start asking around. Best to start at the academy, where there were students from all over Texas. That should give her enough of the latest gossip to narrow down where the problems really were.

  But for the first time in days, she almost wished she could talk something over with Ethan.

  “At least we’ve got the new DNA profiling machinery now and the GC mass spectrometer. They’re so fast, they’ve really freed up our investigators.”

  “Sounds expensive if they’ve helped your workload that much,” Steve commented, slipping her purse onto her shoulder. She automatically wiggled slightly, settling her gun next to her ribs where she could find it easily through the leather.

  “Five million dollars’ worth of high tech for the lot.” Dan smiled, looking almost happy for the first time.

  “Five million? From our legislature?” She almost stumbled.

  “Oh, hell no!” He looked around to make sure nobody else was near them. Even then, he leaned toward her before drawing a serpentine figure in the air, shielding it with his body from prying eyes.

  Steve stared at him. Her mouth opened and shut before she managed to form two words—Santiago Trust?

  He gave a short nod and moved away.

  The hair on the back of Steve’s neck stood up.

  Dan’s smile broadened and he began to whistle.

  According to Ethan’s business card, he was the vice president of security for the Santiago Trust. Why the hell would his employer donate high-quality equipment to the state crime lab, especially if they were half as arrogant and secretive as rumor said? Machinery that would make it very, very easy to catch them or their underlings?