She laughed. “But, Detective, this is Hollywood. Everyone out here is soulless, don’t you know?”
The music ended. Applause filled the room.
“Thank you for the dance,” Charlaine said.
“No, thank you,” Mark replied.
He noted Greg Swayze was still with Alessande. They were standing and chatting by the table. Alessande seemed to be introducing him to the rest of the group.
“Intrigued by the screenwriter?” Charlaine asked archly. “Or intrigued by his interest in your friend?”
Mark looked down at her. “I think he’s exceptionally talented.”
She laughed softly. “Come, take me over to meet the rest of your friends.”
“You must know Barrie Gryffald—she’s the Keeper of the Laurel Canyon shapeshifters.”
“I know of Barrie Gryffald,” she said.
“She’s also a reporter, and she’s looking to give the movie a boost,” Mark said. “No doubt she can send some publicity your cousin’s way, as well.”
“Please, Detective! Investigate us all you like, but don’t mistake me for a fool. Her interest is purely in the Hildegard connection to Death in the Bowery.”
“Ah, but if it’s okay that we investigate you all we like, why not help Barrie and let your cousin and the family business benefit, as well?” he asked.
She tipped her head to the side as she mulled over the question. “You’re right, the publicity will be quite beneficial.” She offered him a seductive smile and moved closer to him. “So let your friend play cat and mouse with Greg and the crew. I don’t mind at all if you ‘investigate’ me. Some of my favorite friends and...investigators through the years have been vampires.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” he said.
“Now introduce me around,” she said, her mischievous smile intact.
He led her to the table, where the men rose as he made the introductions. Barrie acknowledged Charlaine with a smile and said she was pleased to meet her at last, and Charlaine admitted that she seldom attended council meetings, preferring to live quietly, out of the mainstream of the Otherworld.
Throughout the conversation, Swayze remained silent, a besotted smile on his face as he watched Alessande. Eventually Charlaine took his arm and led him back to their table.
“Anything?” Mark asked as he sat back down.
“I’d say Swayze has a crush the size of Texas on our Alessande,” Brodie said.
Mark leaned forward and said, “They’re having coffee tomorrow. He wants to talk to her about the lead role in the upcoming movie.”
“Go figure,” Sailor said, but she was smiling as she shrugged.
“Sailor, I have no interest in that role or any other,” Alessande said.
“Don’t be silly—better one of us gets the part,” Sailor said.
Alessande smiled. “But this opportunity could be really important for you. I just want to find Regina and stop what’s happening before anyone else dies.”
“We’re going to find Regina,” Sailor assured her. “And we will stop this, but I confess I wouldn’t mind landing a role, too,” Sailor said, grinning. “That would mean a real paycheck—one that could mean I won’t have to wait on so many tables.”
They all smiled at that. Alessande turned to Mark. “Speaking of crushes...”
“She’s right,” Mick said, looking at Mark with a teasing light in his eyes. “Our shape-shifting beauty Ms. Charlaine Hildegard seems to be eating you alive with her eyes.”
“We don’t have a date for coffee,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s coffee she wants,” Barrie commented dryly.
“Keep an eye on the Hildegard crew,” Mark told the table. “Alessande, want to take a walk?”
“Sure,” she said, but there was a question in her eyes.
“We’re going back to see Digger,” he told her.
“Ah,” she said.
“You’ll follow him tonight?” Brodie asked.
Mark nodded.
“Just give me a buzz if you need me,” Brodie said.
“I think Barrie and I should hit the research trail,” Mick said. “We can take Sailor home with us. Declan owns the place, so he has to stay, and it makes sense for you to stay, too, Brodie, since you’re engaged to Rhiannon.”
“It’s a good plan,” Brodie said. “I think I’ll circulate downstairs and see if I can pick up any good gossip. You never know what might turn out to be relevant.”
“Works for me,” Mark said.
“Not for me,” Sailor protested. “I’m staying here. I can hang out up here and see if the Hildegards and their film friends get up to anything suspicious.”
“That makes sense,” Alessande said. “Especially because it would be natural for Sailor to slide into conversations with any of the film crew, since she’s a working actress.”
“An almost-working actress,” Sailor said.
“A wonderful actress,” Brodie assured her.
At that, Mick, Barrie, Alessande and Mark made a show of saying goodbye, leaving Brodie and Sailor still at the table and pausing on the way out to make a show of thanking Declan. Outside, they split up, Barrie and Mick retrieving Mick’s car from the valet, while Mark and Alessande headed down the street.
As they walked, retracing their steps from the previous night, Mark said, “So, did you work any Elven magic on our boy Swayze?” He sounded jealous, he realized.
She looked up at him, smiling. “No, actually, I didn’t. Believe it or not, he’s genuinely attracted to me.”
“Oh, I believe it.”
“What about you? Use any vampire glamour on the lovely Charlaine?”
He shook his head. “Of course, I’m not having coffee with Charlaine Hildegard.”
“Coffee seems quite tame, really, doesn’t it? It was pretty evident what she wants from you.”
He grinned. “Jealous?” he teased her.
“Not at all,” she said. “What’s important here is solving this case and finding Regina.”
“Of course.”
“Are you jealous?” she asked.
“You bet,” he told her.
She smiled at that. “Okay, so I’m a little bit jealous. More than that, actually. I’d like to smack her in her smug, overly made-up face.”
He laughed and pulled her close. “You know...she doesn’t compare to you,” he said softly.
He wasn’t sure what she would have answered, because she suddenly tensed and said, “There’s Digger!”
He was leaning against a building, smoking. They approached him, and he instantly straightened, looking worried. “Hey, I have a prescription,” he said. “It’s for medicinal use!”
“Sure, whatever,” Mark said. “We were looking to, um, see what you have tonight.”
Digger squinted and looked at the two of them. “Oh, yeah.” He frowned. “Cool to see you again.”
“You sound surprised to see us,” Alessande told him.
“No, uh, no. But—” He stopped and looked around, as if afraid someone might overhear him, but after a moment he seemed satisfied that no one else was around. “That was some pretty powerful stuff I gave you. I don’t usually get repeat customers so quickly.”
“We want another dose,” Mark said.
“I, um, don’t have any more right now,” Digger said. “I mean, I can get them. I can get them for you by tomorrow night.”
“If that’s really the best you can do...” Alessande said regretfully.
“It’s the best, I swear it.”
“Whatever,” Mark said, then sighed and slipped an arm around Alessande. “Come on, honey, we’re going to have to wait.”
“But it will be worth it!” Digger called after them as they walked away.
“What do we do now?” Alessande asked Mark as soon as they were out of sight.
“You been practicing your shape-shifting?”
“I feel pretty confident,” she said.
“Want to do a bat?”
he asked. “I would suggest a wolf, but that’s far too obvious for the streets of L.A.”
She grinned. “Yeah, I can do a bat. What then?”
“Police work. We perch somewhere—and we wait. And we see where he leads us.”
They rounded a corner into an alley. Mark went first, willing the change in his mind. He turned to smoke and then flapped his way up to a terrace in perfect bat form.
Alessande followed. She was good, he had to admit; she looked like the real deal.
He waited for her to feel comfortable with the change. They he flew down toward the street, looking for Digger.
They were not disappointed.
Digger was leaning against the building again, another joint in his hands. Mark rested on a rooftop, Alessande followed, and they settled down to wait together.
Waiting. It was one of the most tedious parts of his job.
He found himself thinking about the night he and Brodie had waited to burst into the Hildegard tomb. He was still troubled by the daydream or vision or whatever it was that he’d had that night. Alessande had been featured in it, though he’d yet to meet her at that time.
And now...
Now he knew her, and the vision was even more disturbing.
He told himself that he didn’t need to be so worried. Not at this time anyway. There was no blood wedding on the horizon. They were bats, perched on a building, watching. And waiting.
At last they saw someone approaching Digger. Mark strained to see—not easy when he was in bat form.
It was a man, a tall man. He was wearing a trench coat despite the fact that the night was warm and there wasn’t even a hint of rain in the air.
The man stopped in front of Digger, who managed to shrug his way out of his smoke-induced haze, straighten and begin talking to the man with a great deal of enthusiasm.
The man was angry. He smacked Digger against the wall and, as Mark watched, pulled a knife from an inner pocket of his trench coat and raised it.
Mark flew down in a fury, moving as quickly as he could. He realized Alessande was at his side, moving swiftly in perfect unison.
Mark crashed purposefully into the attacker’s arm. The knife missed Digger, striking the stucco facade of the building instead.
Digger twisted away and screamed, then turned and ran.
As the tall man raised his knife again, Mark took human form and grasped the man’s arm, wrestling him to the ground. The knife went flying. Alessande, also in human form, went for the weapon.
The man was no match for Mark’s strength, but as they struggled he managed to pop a pill into his mouth. As he swallowed, Mark was able at last to get a good look at his face.
It was Jimmy—the Hildegard butler.
“Jimmy!” he gasped.
Jimmy only stared back at him, not saying a word, as his lips started to draw back and he began to gag.
Mark realized that he hadn’t swallowed something hallucinogenic.
He’d taken poison.
“No!” Mark roared, trying to wedge his fingers into Jimmy’s mouth to keep him from choking.
Too late. Foam spewed from between Jimmy’s lips.
Jimmy died before him, choking and writhing in pain.
Then...nothing.
Mark pulled out his phone to call Brodie, and, as he punched in the number, he looked around and saw that Digger was gone.
And so was Alessande.
Chapter 9
For someone who was so stoned, Digger could move.
Luckily Alessande could outrun almost anyone, including other Elven, simply because she loved to run and did it often.
But he had a head start.
Even so, she had no trouble chasing him down and overtaking him in the alley where she and Mark had transformed, and she certainly had no trouble tackling him to the ground. As she straddled him, he raised his arms over his face screaming, “Don’t hurt me! Please, don’t hurt me!”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Digger.”
He screamed again, like a baby, or a cat with its tail caught in a door.
“Digger! I am not going to hurt you!”
He began to whimper.
“Listen to me. Get it through your head that I’m not going to hurt you—but you are going to answer some questions.”
“What? What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Those pills you sold us the other night. Where did you get them? That man—”
“What, are you stupid?”
“All right, maybe I am going to hurt you.”
“No, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—stop! You saw the man. The man who attacked me. That was the man who was giving me the pills to sell. Where the hell did you come from anyway? Oh, man, I’m so messed up.”
“Digger, I need to know about the man.”
“What’s to know? He came down to the streets and found me—said he had the best stuff, stuff no one else had. He said I could walk away a rich man just by being selective, by finding couples to sell the stuff to. I mean, people didn’t come back for more, not until you two, but no one wanted their money back, either. He’s the one who knew about the stuff, honest. I was just trying to make a buck. I’m a salesman, that’s all.”
“Who is he, Digger?”
He opened his mouth to answer, and then his eyes suddenly went huge.
Alessande tried to turn around—to see what Digger had seen.
But even as she realized there was someone, something, behind her, she felt the air move, felt something heavy slam against her skull. For a moment she fought the dizziness that seized her. But the dust motes before her eyes began to dance, and, when she keeled over, she was dimly aware of Digger’s scream as it faded away.
* * *
“Alessande!”
As Mark stood and shouted her name, Brodie came running down the street toward him.
“What the hell’s going on?” Brodie asked. He looked at Jimmy, lying facedown on the sidewalk. “Who’s that, and what happened to him?”
“It’s Jimmy—the Hildegard butler. He took something before I could stop him. Cyanide, maybe. Call an ambulance—I’m going to find Alessande. Did you pass her?” he asked Brodie frantically.
Brodie shook his head. “No, but go. I’ve got this.”
Mark tore off in the direction he recalled seeing Digger take, hoping Alessande had followed the dealer.
He almost passed the alley, but some instinct told him not to.
Where did a man run when he was terrified of the cops?
Into the shadows.
He turned on a dime and raced into the alley.
Time seemed to stop when he saw her; his body was paralyzed, his heart in his throat. She was lying, blond hair tumbled all around her, on the dirty pavement of the alley near a Dumpster.
Digger was there, too, flat on the ground in a pool of blood.
He raced to Alessande’s side, falling to his knees. Even as fear numbed him, he reached for her, and she groaned softly.
“Alessande!”
Carefully, he cradled her in his arms. Her eyes opened to meet his, as blue-green, as large, as engulfing, as the sea. He felt life return to his limbs.
“Alessande,” he said again.
“Mark!” she cried. Then she turned and saw Digger, and a gasp of horror escaped her. “Oh, Mark, I failed... I was... I should have seen what was coming, I should have saved him. Oh, God, I should have—” She broke off, a soft choking sound escaping her.
“Alessande, stop, there was no saving Digger any more than I could stop Jimmy from taking that pill,” he said firmly.
“Jimmy?” She looked at him vaguely.
“Jimmy—the man who attacked Digger—was the Hildegards’ butler.”
She blinked. “The Hildegards’ butler?” she said hesitantly.
“Sit still. I need to call an ambulance.”
He heard the sound of sirens and realized Brodie had called in Jimmy’s death.
“No ambulance,” she said. “Plea
se.”
“But you’re hurt.”
“I want to get out of here. Take me back to the House of the Rising Sun. I can heal myself. And I can’t bear to go to the police station again, trying to say what I need to say but holding back so anyone who’s not an Other won’t hear.”
She was right, he realized.
“You didn’t see who attacked you?” he asked.
She shook her head and looked over at Digger.
“Don’t,” he told her. “It was fast. Looks like they knocked you out of the way and killed him quickly.”
“I have to get out of here.”
“Can you teleport? Do you have the strength?” He could hear the ambulance and backup cop cars blaring their way down the street.
She nodded.
“Get to Castle House. Barrie and Mick should be there. Go quickly—and then lie down and heal.”
“I will,” she promised him.
She took his face in her hands and kissed him quickly, then disappeared.
And even there, in the presence of death, he felt her warmth, her touch, lingering on his lips.
* * *
Alessande materialized in the dining room of Castle House almost on top of Barrie. She and Mick had gone into research mode; they had old newspapers and spreadsheets fanned out on the table next to their laptop computers.
“Alessande!” Barrie cried. “Oh, no, look at you—you’re bleeding.”
“Just a little bang on the head,” Alessande said. “I’m fine, really.”
She wasn’t, though, and she knew it. She was shaking. She’d been afraid she would lose it in the middle of teleporting, that she would wind up in molecular pieces somewhere, or simply flat on her back in the middle of the freeway, a semi bearing down on her.
Mick walked over, took hold of her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
She nodded and quickly explained what had happened, rubbing the knot at the back of her head and already feeling the pain subside.
“The butler,” Barrie mused. “Someone else for us to investigate. Now sit down. I’ll brew some tea and then tell you what Mick and I have discovered. The public record is full of information if you know where to look.”
“Yes, sit,” Mick told her, pulling out a chair. He lifted her hair to inspect the damage. “Glutton for punishment,” he told her.
Keeper of the Dawn (The Keepers: L.A.) Page 13
