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

by Harley Jane Kozak

  “The guy sat next to her at lunch on the set, and they went out for drinks that night. Which she needed. A drink, I mean, because of having to work that close to water, you know? And the guy was really sweet, she said, and at first she thought he just wanted to do something nice for her, get her some auditions. But then he was calling her like three or four times the next day, wanting to date her.”

  “But she didn’t tell you his name?” Sailor asked.

  “No. She didn’t want me to Google him. We had this thing where we’d tease each other, like I threatened to call him up and say, ‘Dude, she’s just not that into you’ if I heard her talk about him one more time. So what I think happened was, the night she died, I think she agreed to meet him for a drink, just to let him down gently. And then, you know, he—did what he did to her. That’s what I think anyway, but I was out all day at a rehearsal for Jumpers, the play I was doing at school, so I have no proof, plus I don’t even know the guy’s name. So that’s why the cops blew me off.”

  Declan looked at Hank to see how he was taking all this, but his attention was on a pair of small, well-worn pink skates lying in a shoe box. He put his hand over one skate, covering it completely, and Declan could imagine him putting the skates on tiny feet, lacing them up with big beefy fingers, tying double knots. Be careful, he would have told the little girl before sending her off onto the ice.

  A few moments later Sailor was saying her goodbyes, and she and Declan walked down the street in silence. After a time he said, “You did well. That wasn’t an easy interview.”

  “That sucked,” she said. She was as subdued as Declan had ever seen her. “How did you find Hank?” she asked.

  “The tabloids found him. I know people who own the tabloids. It wasn’t hard.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Want to tell me what went on in the Council meeting?”

  “Give me a few minutes. I don’t want to think about those people now.”

  “There’s a surprise.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic with me just yet, Declan. I’m too sad to put up a fight.”

  “All right, we’ll fight later.”

  The daylight was dissolving, growing less harsh. A smell of orange blossoms hit them as they walked. The old neighborhood was filled with citrus trees, the branches reaching out over picket fences to the sidewalks. Sailor dodged one, leaning into Declan, and he put his arm around her without thinking.

  “I’m imagining Ariel on the beach all day,” she said softly. “Ten, twelve, fourteen hours, no trailer to escape to because she’s just an extra or a day player. But she’s an Elven, so the sound of the surf is terrifying, and no one understands except another Elven, but maybe she’s the only one, so she hides how hard it is for her. She tells herself how exciting it is to be working on a movie set, how cute she looks in her bikini. She thinks, ‘It’s just one day’s work, but it could lead to something bigger. I just have to be the absolute best, brightest beach volleyball player there ever was. It’s what I’ve dreamed of all my life.’ But time moves so slowly on a film set, and no one cares about the comfort of a day player. And when they say, ‘Moving on’ or even ‘That’s a wrap,’ she’s so relieved she can barely stand it. And some nice man, some Other, he offers to buy her a drink, he recognizes her as Elven, he knows what she’s just been through. And she’s so happy to be able to tell someone just what it was like, and he understands, he knows what it is to dream of the movies, to want to act so badly you’ll do anything. You’ll hide your terror of water, you’ll do things that are dangerous, bad for you. And he becomes her friend just by listening to her, and then telling her what she wants to hear, that she’s good, she’s special, she’s got the look, the talent, he could see it right away, she’s destined to be a star, and he can help her.”

  Declan pulled her in close, and she didn’t resist. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to be walking down the street together. The feel of her skin, the warmth, the shoulder blades under her T-shirt...he felt a strange familiarity, a possessiveness that he couldn’t understand. This wasn’t erotic, this was simply—

  “Declan?” Sailor looked up at him suddenly, her distress evident. “My Council is doing essentially nothing. We’re supposed to gather information within our own district but not cross into others. To listen for gossip, rumors of bad blood between the Elven and the shifters or vamps. And not to talk among ourselves, much less to anyone else. And we’re supposed to keep the entire pathetic plan strictly confidential.”

  He nodded. It was what he’d suspected. And it was frustrating, but for the moment he was most concerned about Sailor. Despair was an emotion he’d never seen from her before. “And what do you plan to do?” he asked.

  “Me?” She looked at him, her eyes green with a trace of scarlet. “I’m going to cross borders and break rules. I am going to find the killer. And when I do, I’m going to cut out his heart and bring it to the Council.”

  Okay, that was more like her. “How?”

  “By talking to anyone who’ll talk to me. And yes, I may be contagious to the Elven, so I’ll be careful, but I’ve been thinking about it, my approach and your approach. And while yours is valid, mine is, too. I don’t care if the cops are already covering this ground, because I have something the cops don’t have.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Insight. Insight into the minds of the dead women. I’m a woman, and I’m an actress, and I’m part Elven. And I have the disease. I’m exactly the person to do this. I’m the only one. There’s no one else.”

  She had a point, he realized.

  “I want to retrace their steps,” she continued. “There has to be a way to walk the path they walked, until it takes me to the man who killed them.”

  A chill went down his spine.

  “Maybe,” he said, “but you’re not doing any of it alone.”

  * * *

  As they reached the car, Sailor got a call from Darius’s assistant, who patched her through to her boss.

  “I am finishing dinner at the Water Grill,” Darius told her. “I’ll be in the courtyard of the Mark Taper Forum until seven minutes before curtain. I suggest, my dear, that you arrive prior to that, prepared to deliver the report I requested. I’m not known for giving something for nothing, so please make it worth my while.” He hung up.

  Sailor checked her watch. The Mark Taper Forum was in downtown L.A. She was in Studio City. Driving from one to the other would take anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours depending on traffic, and another fifteen minutes to find parking. Damn.

  “You won’t make it,” Declan told her when she repeated the message.

  “I have to. I need him to get me onto the set of Charlotte Messenger’s movie. Also Technical Black, Gina’s film.”

  “I can do Technical Black. I know the producers.”

  “Seriously? How about tonight? I’m off work at midnight.”

  “Tonight? Are they shooting?”

  “They are. I checked. And how about Charlotte’s movie?

  He shook his head. “I was asked to invest in Knock My Socks Off, but I didn’t like the director. Or the script. Word got back to the director, who already didn’t like me. So no, I wouldn’t be welcome on that set.”

  “Then I’d better be nice to Darius.”

  “Yes. I’d drive you downtown, but I’ve got a meeting at Universal. A band from Dublin I’m hoping to sign. I can’t skip the meeting because they’re heading back to the airport this evening.”

  “Lend me your car and I’ll drop you, then pick you up afterward. It’s on the way, and I’ll save a half hour.”

  He looked at her, stunned. “Lend you my car?”

  “Yes.”

  “My car?”

  “Yes, your car. It’s not like I’m asking for a kidney.”

  He continued staring.

  “So that’s a ‘no’?” she asked.

  “That’s a ‘hell no.’”

  * * *

  The sun had set and the moon had
risen by the time Sailor found Darius sipping espresso. He sat at an outdoor café in the plaza that joined the Mark Taper Forum to the other three world-class stages that made up the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles. His elegant assistant, Joshua, was sitting across from him. Upon seeing Sailor, Darius dismissed Joshua and gestured to the chair he’d vacated.

  “In the interests of time,” Darius said, “we’ll dispense with the pleasantries. I’d like your report on the Council meeting.”

  “And I’d like entrée to the set of Knock My Socks Off, and access to someone highly placed enough to answer some questions and help me out,” she replied.

  “Then let’s hope your report is sufficiently interesting.”

  She nodded. “Charles Highsmith is an egomaniac. He proposed a plan that consists of ‘asking around’ about the Scarlet Pathogen, sticking strictly to our own districts, and then called for a vote. It was a tie, with Highsmith himself being the tiebreaker. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but I have to assume he’s bribed or blackmailed half the Council, creating a coalition of minions. I have no idea how my father tolerated it.”

  Darius gave her a half smile. “Highsmith’s coalition of the bribed and blackmailed must be a recent phenomenon. He never would have tried it with your father here.”

  “Great,” Sailor said. “So Dad left town and it all went to hell in a handbasket because I’m considered a half-wit.”

  Darius’s half smile grew. “Well said. Tell me who you believe to be on Highsmith’s side.”

  “Everyone who had nothing to say in opposition, I’m guessing. Jill, the resident sex kitten. Maybe George Fairweather. A woman who reminded me of my old basketball coach. And others whose names I forgot because they weren’t memorable. I assume the ones who spoke up are lined up with Justine Freud, his nemesis.”

  Darius nodded to Joshua, who was standing a little way off, gesturing at his watch. Around them people hurriedly paid their checks and moved toward their theaters to make an eight-o’clock curtain. “Did you remember my advice?” Darius asked.

  “Perfectly,” she fudged. After all, he hadn’t asked if she’d followed it. “Listen, don’t talk. Oh, I have an alliance of sorts with Reggie Maxx.”

  His eyebrow went up. “The Coastal Keeper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Highsmith know about this alliance?”

  “Yes.”

  Darius sighed. “Too bad. Alliances function best when they’re under the radar. Ah well. Perhaps you’ll improve with age.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Anyhow, that’s all I have, Darius, and I hope it’s enough, because I spent a whole lotta energy getting here.”

  “Teleportation?”

  “Yes. I was late, plus out of gas, so I stopped at a parking lot three exits away, which is a personal best, distance-wise, and it wore me out.”

  “Then have some water before you start back. And I suggest taking a cab. There will be a drive-on pass for you at Metropole Studios tomorrow, and the director himself, Giancarlo Ferro, will speak with you. Don’t waste the opportunity.”

  * * *

  Declan, in the guise of a red-tailed hawk, watched Sailor materialize next to her car. He’d seen Elven dematerialize many times, but it was rare to catch one appearing out of nowhere. And he’d never seen a Keeper do it. It was a thing of beauty.

  He’d almost missed it. After his business meeting he’d tracked her Jeep, thanks to a spare cell phone he’d placed inside it earlier that afternoon. When he saw it had stopped short of the Music Center, he grew concerned and flew over to check. Less than three minutes later his attention was caught by a glow of light, subtle and mystical. He watched the light shatter into particles, and the particles rearrange themselves to become Sailor.

  He was mesmerized. One moment there was space, and the next that space was filled with a tall woman, hair streaming behind her, sexy and tough in jeans, boots and a black T-shirt. He understood how it was that mortals, witnessing it, would simply disbelieve their eyes. They had no frame of reference for a person appearing out of nowhere, and so their brains would persuade them that the person had been there all along.

  He watched her get in her car and followed her to a gas station, and when she was back on the 101 North, he flew to the Snake Pit, shifted back into himself and phoned her.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  “Fine, but I had to, uh—” she was searching for a word other than “teleport,” he knew, conscious of the cell phone taboo “—arrange transport for the last few miles. Let’s just say I’m worn out. And I have to work.”

  “Call in sick.”

  “I could be fired.”

  “Quit your job.”

  She laughed. “Spoken like a multimillionaire. But it’s a short shift tonight. Three hours.” The most he could get from her was a promise that he could pick her up after work and she would have one of her cousins drive her back to pick up her car tomorrow. He was literally afraid to let her drive home alone.

  * * *

  The House of Illusion was hopping, leaving Sailor with a sense of déjà vu. She was as exhausted as she’d been the night before, but not from the Scarlet Pathogen. Rearranging molecules took its toll. Why, oh why, hadn’t she listened to Darius? It had been insane to try a teleportation round-trip, especially on top of the earlier incident at the crime lab. Julio noticed immediately. He was bussing a table in her section and gave a low whistle when he saw her.

  “You still don’t look so good,” he said. “You need more of last night’s magic.”

  And why not? she thought. She’d already given a blood sample today, so she didn’t need to worry about skewing the lab results. Declan might have a problem with it, but Declan wasn’t here, and she wasn’t interested in getting high, just getting through the shift. “Julio,” she said softly, aware of Kristoff nearby, “do you have any more síúlacht?”

  “No,” he said. “No, I’m all sold out. I got some nice mushrooms. Organic. But not good if you’re working.”

  “Mushrooms? Are you nuts?”

  “Tell you what, let me make a phone call.”

  Twenty minutes later Julio showed up in the kitchen as Sailor was garnishing a pair of entrées. “Here,” he said. “It’s only half a pill, but it’s the best I can do until later.”

  “Thanks.” A thought occurred to her. “Julio, the person you get the síúlacht from, is it the person who actually manufactures the pills?”

  He shook his head. “No. My supplier, he gets it from...I don’t know, some woman in Topanga, I think. I don’t sell a lot. The people who love it, they love it. Me, I tried it, it didn’t do much.”

  Sailor nodded. Probably you had to be Elven to feel its full effects, just as only the Elven were susceptible to the Scarlet Pathogen. “Can you find out this woman’s name for me?” she asked.

  He frowned. “I don’t think so. Even if I could, that’s bad business practice.”

  “It’s important, Julio,” she said. “And I don’t need to buy anything from her. I just need a bit of her knowledge.” Alessande had said that síúlacht was hard to make, so anyone who could do it well enough to manufacture pills from it had to have considerable expertise.

  “I could make a few calls,” he said, doubtfully. “You get off at midnight, right? Meet me in employee parking.”

  She went back to work. Business was slow, and that was a piece of unexpected luck. The half pill revived her just enough to take the edge off her fatigue. At one point she went into her purse and dug out the business card printed with Reggie Maxx’s phone number. Although he was called the Coastal Keeper, his territory included canyons, too, the ones to the west of hers. She left a voice mail asking if he knew of any healers particularly adept at creating síúlacht or in any of the healing arts. It was a borderline kind of message, suggesting Elven business while not actually saying anything outright.

  She then checked her own voice mail, hoping to hear Declan’s sultry voice. Her body had developed a craving for hi
s British accent, and just a few words coming through her cell would keep her going, she knew. But there was nothing. Only a curious message from Justine Freud, the Valley Keeper, asking Sailor to phone her. The call had apparently come in hours earlier, but in the incomprehensible ways of voice mail, she was only just now hearing it. She made a mental note to phone the elderly woman tomorrow.

  After a few dozen hours of sleep.

  * * *

  At midnight, dressed once more in her street clothes, she found Julio leaning against her Jeep. “One síúlacht,” he said, hopping up. He put the little pebblelike pill into her hand. “One is all I could score. It’s not exactly a popular item.”

  “One’s all I need. And I’m definitely paying you.”

  “No way.” Julio shook his head. “But listen, that information you wanted? No luck. Nobody likes to give up their sources.”

  “Thanks for trying,” she said, hiding her disappointment. She popped the pill, chasing it with a bottle of water she’d brought for the purpose. She gave Julio a hug. “You look as exhausted as I feel. You should go home. Get some sleep.”

  “Can’t. Gotta finish my shift. Besides, my car’s in the shop, so I have to wait for Tafiq to give me a ride, and he’s closing tonight.” Tafiq was another busboy.

  She tossed him the keys. “Here, take mine. I’ve got a ride. I’ll figure out how to pick the Jeep up in the morning.”

  He thanked her, and went back inside, leaving her alone in the moonlight.

  But not for long. Four minutes later she turned to see the Aventador entering the employee lot. She smiled and walked toward Declan, feeling as if her life were about to begin.

  Chapter 10

  “Where are we off to?” Sailor asked, leaning back into the black leather depths of the passenger seat.

  “Home,” Declan said. “You must be exhausted.”

  “Nope,” she said. “I got a second wind.”

  “How is that possible?” He peered at her in the dark.

  She shrugged. “I’m young, I’m healthy and I have no choice. Technical Black is a night shoot.”