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

by Harley Jane Kozak

  Fergus took out his cell phone and hit some buttons. “All right, here we go. Hot off the presses. The DNA matches. All four women had the same sexual partner at the time of death.”

  Tony nodded. “All right, there you have it. We sent the fluid samples to our private DNA lab—not the one the department uses—so what you now know, no one else does. So what we have is—”

  “Male,” Sailor said. “Caucasian, and not a vampire, unless it’s a vampire Keeper.”

  “And not a werewolf,” Fergus said. “There’s a sequence in weres’ blood that’s not in those samples. And not leprechaun, either. Possibly ogre, though.”

  “What else? What does that leave?” Sailor asked. “Shifters, pixies, vamp Keeper but not a vamp, other Keepers... When will we know if it’s a Keeper versus an Other?”

  “Maybe never,” Tony said. “We’ve got one guy working on it, one lonely vampire in a lab in Denver, and he’s not well-funded. Hard to raise money when you can’t talk about your research.”

  “If we can’t wait for the science,” Sailor said, “we’ll just have to do the detective work.”

  “What’s with the ‘we’ stuff?” Tony asked. “When did you join Robbery/Homicide?”

  “Tony, you know my dad’s philosophy, that Keepers have room to maneuver that cops don’t. I have no legal authority, but I also don’t have to worry about things like probable cause, search warrants, all that. Now, let’s talk about the Scarlet Pathogen.” She walked over to Tony, and unbuttoned the top buttons of her sundress. “See any cuts on your victims that looked like this?”

  Tony and Fergus both stepped closer, looking with professional interest at her chest. “No,” Tony said. “The others were made with a single slicing agent in the case of Charlotte Messenger, and human teeth in the case of the other three. Here you can clearly see three marks. A hint of another just here.” He gently touched her chest. “Animal, not human.”

  “And can you tell, from the talon marks, what kind of bird?” Sailor asked. “Or could it be a bat?”

  “I’d have to bring in some birds and some bats, and start excluding the ones that didn’t fit. And because there are fifty different kinds of bats in North America and God knows how many birds, we won’t be getting around to that this week. But, Fergus, take a photo of her chest anyway. Let’s get some measurements.”

  “Dr. Krabill already did that,” Sailor said.

  “And now we’re doing it,” Tony said.

  They moved to another room, where Fergus photographed the wound with equipment that was more sophisticated than Kimberly’s had been. “So why is it,” Sailor asked, “that my blood clotted and the victims’ didn’t? Is it that I’m not Elven?”

  Tony frowned. “Normally Elven blood clots as well as human blood, but the pathogen messed with their coagulation process. Fergus?”

  “Among other things,” Fergus said, “the victims’ blood had a complete absence of prolactin. Of course, the Elven regulate prolactin differently from mortals anyway, being unable to cry or sweat. Anyhow, when I looked at your blood samples from last night, I checked for prolactin right away. You had plenty—in the second sample anyway. In fact, the levels were consistent with someone who’s just had, well, sex.”

  “Excuse me?” Sailor said.

  “Or any highly pleasurable experience. Gambling, chocolate, whatever. During your, er, episode, with the rising temperature, there were elevated dopamine levels. In the second sample, post-episode, dopamine dropped, with a corresponding increase of prolactin. And oxytocin and other stuff.”

  “I have no idea what that implies,” Sailor said, buttoning her dress back up.

  “The good news,” Fergus said, “is that your neurotransmitters are working as they should. Most important, your blood’s coagulating. And your other symptoms are mild, relative to what we know of the four dead victims, despite the pathogen being delivered directly into your bloodstream.”

  “How was it delivered to the others?” she asked.

  “They swallowed it,” Tony added, “which slowed its absorption, and even so, the effects were obviously far stronger than anything you’re experiencing. Which is good news for you. So far. The other good news? It’s very unlikely that the disease is airborne. Not that an Elven couldn’t catch it by inhaling a large, undiluted batch of it, but you’re unlikely to infect them by normal interaction.”

  Sailor nodded, relieved. It was the first good news she’d gotten about the Scarlet Pathogen, but thinking of the victims disturbed her. “The killer made them drink it?” she asked.

  “Mixed it into their drinks,” Fergus answered. “Champagne for the first two—Cristal, if you’re interested—red wine for the fourth, and the agent from GAA had diet cola. We found traces of the pathogen in all four glasses and in their stomachs.”

  Sailor stared at them. “So he was friendly enough to have drinks with them. But wait. You said all four glasses. If you don’t know where Charlotte Messenger died, then—”

  “She was working on a film,” Tony said. “And they were shooting at a house near Benedict Canyon. She left her Mercedes there the night she disappeared. And her trailer was just as she’d left it, they hadn’t cleaned up. Which is how we were able to test the champagne glass.”

  “How do I even know,” Sailor said, “that the attack on me came from the same person, when everything about it is so different?”

  Tony said, “You don’t. If I could have swabbed you as soon as you were clawed—well, even then, there’s no guarantee we would have gotten anything from it.”

  “And how do we find the antidote?”

  “Fergus is going to take another blood sample from you right now,” Tony said. “We’re hoping it will be like the flu, which just runs its course and leaves your body. And if that’s the case, we’ll see some indications of it. In the meantime, even though we don’t think it’s airborne, lie low. It’s better not to take chances, and half the Elven population would still look at you like you’re Typhoid Mary.”

  On that happy thought, Fergus stuck a needle in her arm, after which Tony dismissed her, recommending she use her feet rather than her superpowers to see herself out.

  When she returned to the parking lot, she found Declan Wainwright leaning against her Jeep.

  * * *

  The sun glinted off his mirrored sunglasses. His arms were crossed, and he watched her approach with neither a smile nor a greeting. Her heart was beating fast, alternating between happiness and apprehension. Would there ever come a day when she could set eyes on him and feel completely confident?

  Not with him looking at her like that.

  She cleared her throat. “Hi,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Turned off your phone, did you?” His voice was neutral.

  “Left it in the car,” she said.

  “While you did a quick two-hour errand. While illegally parked.” He plucked a citation from her windshield and handed it to her. “Good job.”

  She stared at it. “Forty-eight dollars? Man, talk about a crime, and in full view of the crime lab.” She looked at him and repeated, “What are you doing here?”

  “You didn’t answer my calls. I got impatient. The question is, pet, what are you doing here?”

  “But how did you find me?”

  He shook his head. “You first.”

  “I—” She stopped. A pair of LAPD officers passed by them, quite close, moving toward a squad car parked in the next aisle. She knew this wasn’t the place to talk.

  Declan knew it, too. He took the parking ticket from her and stuck it back on her windshield. “Come on,” he said, gesturing toward the main campus. “Let’s walk.”

  He took her arm, and the feel of his skin against hers was like a jolt of electrical energy, pulling her into his force field, the scent of him, the way his body absorbed the heat of the sun. It made her unsteady on her feet. “Let’s walk toward a vending machine,” she said. “I need water. I teleported into the crime lab.”<
br />
  Teleportation looked easy to anyone watching—here one moment, gone the next, or vice versa—but it was hell on the one doing it. Her short jump inside the building had been the equivalent of a 5K run, uphill. She’d minimized the aftereffects with Tony Brandt and Fergus, but now she was feeling dehydrated, headachy, extremely thirsty and mentally fuzzy. Declan steered her across the parking lot toward the campus. He let go of her arm, but stayed close, his hand straying to touch her back at one point, sending another jolt through her. Soon they were at the food court.

  Somewhat to her surprise, Declan gave her a break, saying nothing until he’d bought her four bottles of water—waving away her protest that she could buy her own—and watched her drink three of them almost without pausing. When she was halfway through the fourth she stopped and took a deep breath.

  “Finish it,” he said.

  She shook her head, feeling energy return. “I’m done.”

  He took the bottle from her, wiped a drop of water from her chin and led her to an outdoor table.

  “Okay,” he said, sitting opposite her. “What were you doing here?”

  “Can you take off your sunglasses?” she said. “You look like a Secret Service agent.”

  He complied. His eyes, piercing blue, sent another zap of energy through her. “Better?”

  She nodded. “Better.”

  “So talk.”

  “I came here to see Tony Brandt,” she said. “Just like you did.”

  “I hope you were more successful than I was.”

  She felt a twinge of triumph. “I was.”

  “And why the big mystery? Why not tell me on the phone you were coming here?”

  “Because you’d have told me to forget it, to just drop everything and get to Dr. Krabill.”

  “I did tell you that,” Declan said with a wry look. “And?”

  “And...” Sailor sighed. “Look, Declan, I’d like to think I bring something to this party, something other than blood samples. I’d like to think I’ve got some skills. And if I don’t have them, I damn well better develop some.”

  “So this is your on-the-job training.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “And what did Tony Brandt say?”

  She hesitated. “Not to repeat anything he told me, for one thing.”

  “Lucky you’re the girl who doesn’t do as she’s told.”

  “I’d like to think I’m the girl with some integrity,” she replied.

  Declan smiled and reached for the bottle of water she’d left unfinished. “Not when it comes to your partner, love.”

  “If you’d talked to Tony,” she said, “would you have shared everything you learned with me?”

  “Yes.” He looked right at her before taking a long drink of water.

  But was that true? He wasn’t shielding his thoughts from her, but shielding wasn’t the only technique against Elven telepathy. There was also a trick called actualizing: if a person could convince himself of the truth of what he was saying, then that was how it would appear to the Elven—or Elven Keeper—who “read” those thoughts. It was a kind of self-hypnosis, hard to sustain, but some people were quite good at it. They were the kind of people who could lie and pass polygraphs. Sociopaths.

  And now, she realized, he was reading her thoughts.

  “We either trust each other or we don’t,” he said. “The fact that I can beat a polygraph doesn’t mean I’m lying to you.”

  “My God, you’re good,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Not me. You. Completely transparent sender.”

  He was right. She was a pretty fair receiver, but her real strength was sending. With enough effort and focus she could even do it without eye contact—meaning long distance—provided the intended recipient was open to nontraditional communication. But it meant she needed to guard her thoughts with Declan.

  “C’mon. Enough,” he said. “If information’s what you bring to the party, you’d better share, or it’s not much of a party.”

  “All right.” She filled him in on what she’d learned in the crime lab, starting with the confirmation that all four victims had been killed by the same male.

  “A male with a penchant for biting,” Declan said.

  “Not in Charlotte’s case,” Sailor said. “There was an escalation in the violence, possibly because he discovered he liked it. It’s possible that he was surprised when she bled out. He might not even have realized the pathogen was lethal. If so, that means his reason for infecting them with the pathogen was something other than murder.”

  “The biting thing—that would indicate a vampire.”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t a vamp. Teeth aren’t fangs.”

  “And if I’m not mistaken, vamps don’t leave behind DNA,” he said, and took another drink. She found herself watching him. Such a prosaic action, but it made her want to touch his face, run her fingers along the rough darkness of his five-o’clock shadow.

  “Declan,” she said, leaning in, “the key to this, as I see it, is figuring out what man had access to all four of them. He’d be someone with sufficient, well, charm, I suppose, to persuade them to have a drink with them. That’s significant, given that Charlotte and Gina were major movie stars. They wouldn’t drink with just anyone.”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he said. “Starting with the victims makes sense, but that’s exactly the course the cops will take. The ‘opportunity’ part of the means, motive, opportunity equation. Who had the opportunity to get to the victims and win their trust? That’s where the cops will devote their energy and resources. Let’s leave it to them. I’m suggesting you and I look at the means, the Scarlet Pathogen. That’s where the cops can’t go, because it reaches too far into our world. Tony Brandt? He can’t tell them what he just told you, he’s going to have to give the public and the police force some cleaned-up version of what happened. So now you and I have an edge.”

  “Then what do you suggest we do?”

  “Research. Where does this pathogen come from, how is it transmitted and who managed to obtain it? It’s the pathogen that makes this killer unique.”

  She jumped up from the table. “Then let’s do both. My way and your way. Let’s go.”

  Declan stood. “Where? The doctor’s office?”

  “Tony Brandt’s a doctor,” she said, setting off. “He already examined me.”

  “Brandt’s not Krabill,” he said, catching up to her.

  “What’s the big deal? Isn’t Tony on our side?” she asked.

  “Tony’s a were. He’s on his own side. And he’s an autocratic bastard, doling out information on his own terms. Your going to him directly cuts Krabill out of the loop, so now she’s got to beg him for news, rather than vice versa.”

  “We’ll tell her what we know,” Sailor said, walking faster. Once again her conscience chimed in, telling her she was saying too much to too many. But at least Tony and Kimberly were colleagues.

  “I’m talking about the science, the test results. She’s doing her own research, and her priority is the living. Finding an antidote. Brandt’s priority is the dead.”

  Sailor looked up at him, their long-legged strides matching one another. “But isn’t our priority the dead, too?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Not entirely.”

  “I mean, of course I care about the potential victims, too,” Sailor added. “All the Elven women I’m responsible for.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Because they were walking in sync, when he stopped, she stopped, too, looking up at him. He reached for her hand, and, curious, she let him lead her off the path. They went past a large elm, into a little alcove created by the tree’s branches and the side of a building.

  She leaned against the brick of the building, grateful for its solidity, because she was nearly quivering at the nearness of him and the knowledge of what was coming next. She didn’t have to use telepathy either. His intention was coming off hi
m in waves.

  He faced her and brushed a lock of her hair from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. “You have no idea who I might mean? Who else is worth keeping alive?”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “You mean me.”

  “Yes, I mean you.” He kissed her on her temple, and then dropped another kiss farther down on her cheekbone.

  She was, she realized, shaking. “I—I should tell you that Tony told me, or actually Fergus told me, that my neurotransmitters are working, and so are the something or other in my blood, so I’m not in danger of bleeding out like— Oh, shoot, here I go, my temperature’s rising. So anyhow, there’s a chance the pathogen could possibly just run its course and not even— Of course, an antidote would be even better, because— Oh God, Declan...”

  He’d let go of her hand and found her waist, and now his warm hands slid up to her bare back until she was caught between him and the brick wall, the literal rock and the hard place, and she pulled him in closer. He complied, his body firm against the length of hers, and he himself was hard, pressing against her until she could hardly breathe. She was glad to feel his obvious need for her. “Don’t stop,” she whispered. “I...don’t want you to stop.”

  His tongue was hot on her neck, and he made a sound of deep satisfaction. She felt teeth on her throat, just briefly, and then he blew into her ear, sending a shiver down her spine, just before his lips came close to hers. “So,” he breathed, “you don’t want me to stop?”

  “That’s right,” she said, her fingers digging into his back, his shoulder blades.

  He undid one button of her sundress and then another and then he reached inside, reading her mind, doing exactly what she wanted him to do. The warmth of his fingers, of his palm on her breast, was more than she could bear. She wrapped one leg around his thigh, feeling the hard surfer’s muscles, wanting the skin-on-skin contact so much....

  His hand found her butt and he lifted her, and she wrapped her other leg around him, her thighs squeezing, causing him to groan deep in his chest. She felt the power that came from making him desire her, and wrapped her arms around him, her hands caught in his black hair, relishing the feel of it on her face....