Stormrise

by Knizley, Skye

  Oh…drama… Raven thought. Someone around here likes theatrics.

  Annoyed, Raven opened the car door and stepped out onto the ice-slick flagstone floor of the atrium. “Okay,” she called. “We’ve played Mousetrap long enough. I don’t scare easily, so why don’t you cut the theatrical nonsense and tell me what it is you want!”

  By way of answer, several gas jets placed around the center of the floor burst into life, simultaneously blinding her while surrounding her with bright white light.

  “As you wish, Fürstin Ravenel,” a deep voice called. “Or should I just call you ‘daughter’?”

  “The first will do,” Raven replied. “You’re most definitely not my father. What do you want from me?”

  “Not your father? My child, if I am not your father, then who is?”

  “None of your business,” Raven said. “Why don’t you come out where I can see you?”

  “Not yet, my child, not yet,” the voice said. “Your skill with that firearm you carry is legendary, as is your penchant for shooting first and asking questions later. I would not want you to use it without hearing me out first. Someone could get damaged.”

  “You’re afraid of me and my Automag?” Raven asked. “Aside from keeping me from dessert, you’ve done nothing but annoy me. I don’t shoot annoying people; if I did, I’d be at it all day!”

  “I have no doubt,” the voice replied stiffly. “Still, for now I feel this is safer for both of us.”

  Raven rolled her eyes and stepped closer toward the flames, her senses stretched tight as she searched the shadows for the stranger. “Fine. Tell me what it is you want,” she snarled. “I have things to do and I’m missing chocolate. Good chocolate.”

  “What I want? Why, you, Ravenel,” the voice replied. “You are your mother’s fiercest protector. I want you by my side!”

  “Strohm…” Raven said.

  “Indeed,” the voice replied. “And I mean to take what is mine.”

  Raven shifted on the melting ice and let her hand slide beneath her jacket toward the grip of her pistol. Somehow, her nails brushing the Hogue grips made her feel safer. “What makes you think the throne is yours?”

  The voice, now from somewhere above her and to the left, laughed. “It was always mine, Ravenel. The tales of my demise were greatly exaggerated. Your mother and her human lover buried me alive and stole my throne. Now, I want it back.”

  “Right…and you are either crazy or stupid enough to think I’ll help you?” Raven asked.

  “Of course, Ravenel,” the voice said in a reasonable tone. “As Fürstin, you are sworn to protect the throne and whoever holds it. As a police officer, you took an oath to uphold the law.”

  “So you plan to take the throne and then use me to hold it? You have to get past me to ascend!” Raven said.

  “Not true, my child,” the voice replied. “Rightfully, I still hold the throne. I never abdicated nor died. It was stolen from me. By the laws of the Totentanz, you are sworn to protect me from the usurper or face penalty of death.”

  Raven frowned, her nails still twitching against the weapon holstered under her arm. “Not going to happen, whoever you are. Strohm is dead. My father killed him and my mother ascended to the throne. It’s to her I owe my allegiance, not some fruit loop with a sexy voice and a proclivity for theatrics.”

  The voice laughed again and a heavy briefcase landed in the middle of the atrium a yard from Raven’s feet. “I did not expect you to believe me, Fürstin. The evidence is all there. Peruse it at your leisure and I will speak with you again soon.”

  When the echoes of the voice faded, so did the flames, leaving Raven alone in sudden darkness. She blinked furiously and drew the Automag, moving forward before her vision had completely cleared. She kicked open the door at the end of the atrium walkway and stormed through, spinning three hundred sixty degrees, her ears pricked for any sound, her eyes straining in the darkness.

  Finding no one and knowing that whoever had been speaking was long gone, she kicked the wall in frustration and glared at nothing. She was getting tired of these stupid vampire games. This is why she avoided Court in the first place!

  Minutes later she sat in the Shelby, flipping through the contents of the briefcase. All thoughts of Francois were forgotten as she perused the variety of documents within. Most of it was information she already knew. Valentina had been Strohm’s first wife and concubine; she had fallen in love with Raven’s father and he had helped her escape the clutches of the elder vampire, killing him in the process.

  What she hadn’t known was that they had been unable to actually kill the sanguinarch vampire. Instead, the vampire had been interred beneath the old North Church and left in a state of suspended animation, with the idea that with time he would crumble to dust. Based on the files in the case, his most loyal followers had found him, dug him up and brought him back to health over the last five years.

  Raven read and reread the documents, unable to believe she had been lied to for so long; that her mother had dared tell such a fantastic story for so many years. Though the evidence could have been fabricated, it seemed to be authentic, which could mean Strohm was right and she had an obligation, under the laws of the Totentanz, to assist him in retaking his place as Master of the City.

  “Like that will happen,” Raven growled. “I only get involved in the vampire crap for Mom. I’m not about to help some thousand-year-old psycho drag us back to the dark ages.”

  Deciding it could wait until she’d had a good night of rest, Raven put the car in gear and went slowly back the way she had come.

  II

  A bright morning dawned, the sun’s rays pouring over buildings and bubbling down roads and alleyways like thick, golden syrup. Raven opened one eye and glared in irritation at the gap in her room-darkening curtains and then stuck her head under the pillow for protection from the sun. After several minutes of trying to get back to sleep and failing, she tossed the pillow at the offending window and climbed groggily from bed. It hadn’t been a good night; her sleep had been laced with nightmares about a masked vampire stalking her family, leather, and, for some reason, black licorice. Who ever dreamt of black licorice?

  Smacking her lips with distaste, Raven stepped into her private bath and peered into the mirror. Her wounds were healed from the vampire attack two days before, but she was still pale and the dark circles under her eyes made her look very much like one of the walking dead. To make matters worse, she had tossed and turned enough that her usually tidy red hair looked as if three or four birds had been nesting in it.

  Bleh, she thought. Not my best look ever.

  Knowing she had work to do, Raven turned toward the shower and set about getting ready for the day.

  She stepped into the hallway sometime later dressed in a clingy copper-colored sweater over black leggings and her treasured knee boots. She wore her Automag in a hip holster under the sweater and covered everything with her new black coat. Her rich hair had been pulled back with a pair of combs to cascade down her back, and the skillful use of cosmetics hid the dark circles and pale skin. Knowing she looked better, she felt almost human.

  Raven padded down the hallway and stopped outside the door to her mother’s room, where she knew her mother and Dominique would be resting. She reached for the knob, but thought better of entering. Her mother would be unconscious in any case and Dominique wouldn’t know anything about Strohm’s death. She hadn’t been around until long after he was dead and buried. Or ashed…or whatever.

  Pushing away thoughts of her mother and the encounter with the supposed Strohm, Raven continued down the stairs and toward the elevator that would eventually take her to the garage.

  Didi, who was holding a slim envelope, stopped her outside the kitchen. “Good morning, Fürstin,” she said politely. “Lord Du Guerre left a message for you early this morning.”

  Raven smiled and took the offered envelope, waiting for Didi to curtsey and return to her duties before opening it
.

  I missed you last night, my love. I’ll call you when I rise; perhaps we can enjoy an early dinner.

  Yours,

  Francois

  Raven smiled wider and savored Francois’ scent on the paper before slipping the entire message into her purse and continuing on her way.

  She arrived at the district to find Levac scouring over surveillance footage from both King’s apartment building and the Old Town camera near Club Purgatory.

  “What do you have?” Raven asked.

  “Not much so far,” Levac replied. “Lots of people coming and going is about it. I’m trying to place Symone at either location on either the night Victoria Laveau or Nathan King was killed. What about you?”

  “I went to records and picked up our file, then had a short interview with Wilson. Guess who he sold the murder weapon packaging to?” Raven asked.

  “I don’t suppose it was Brand Symone?”

  “Not even close. He sold the Whitehall packaging to our voodoo friend Tasker,” Raven said.

  “Tasker? The guy who pointed the finger at Symone in the first place?”

  “The very same finger-pointing priest,” Raven replied.

  “Did Wilson say why Tasker wanted the goods?” Levac asked.

  “You know Wilson. I don’t think he thought that far ahead,” Raven replied.

  “Are we going down there, then?”

  “Unless you have something better to do,” Raven replied.

  Levac laughed and stood. “After you…”

  III

  The bocor’s church sat sullen and silent in the morning sun, somehow looking like a predatory cat waiting for its next meal. The painfully obvious guards were gone, as were the not-so-obvious ones who had been skulking about on the nearby rooftops. The church seemed strangely abandoned, a fact Levac mentioned as the two detectives approached the brightly painted red door.

  Nodding in response, Raven reached out and tested the latch, pressing down on it with her thumb. The door opened at her touch and the officers entered, looking around in surprise. Everything was gone, from the pews to the altar to the tapestries; only a broom and dustpan remained, leaning unattended against the wall. Even the wallboard had been pulled down, revealing only rotting studs and crossbeams.

  Levac stared around the room in disbelief. “He packed up and left overnight?”

  “Looks that way,” Raven replied, moving towards the door that had led to Tasker’s quarters. “Moved out and took everything that wasn’t nailed down with him.”

  Raven toed the door open and peeked inside, confirming what she already suspected. The throne and all of Tasker’s belongings were gone as well.

  “Now what?” Levac asked, looking over her shoulder.

  Raven ignored him and stepped into the room, her senses working overtime. There was something familiar in the room, something she couldn’t see.

  Concentrating, she worked to sift out Levac’s strange mixture of cheap cologne and cheeseburgers…and the surprising hint of a rose in his pocket. She then filtered out the smells of old incense, chicken blood, and Tasker’s sweat to focus on the odd, somewhat nutty smell that still lingered.

  There. The scent was coming from the middle of the room. She moved closer and knelt, her heightened eyesight picking out the edges of a well-sealed trapdoor in the floor. With a business card, she cleaned out the edge of the door, pulling bits of powdered walnut shell from the crack; someone hadn’t wanted her to smell whatever was beneath. She looked up at Levac. “There’s a pry bar in the trunk of the Shelby. Grab it and get back here!”

  “On it,” Levac said, moving from the room. When he returned, Raven had cleared three of the door’s edges and picked out a small section of the wood floor, clearly a spot designed for a tool of some sort to lift the entrance. Levac stepped past her and slid the end of the screwdriver-shaped pry bar into the slot. The door opened on a counterweight when he applied pressure, and both detectives reeled back from the haze of death and decay that spewed forth from the dark hole beneath.

  “Christ! Is that what I think it is?” Levac yelled, covering his nose with his hand.

  Raven nodded and closed her eyes, fighting to swallow the bile in the back of her throat.

  Levac reached out to touch her back. “You okay, partner?”

  “Yeah…yeah. Just give me a second,” Raven replied through clenched teeth.

  “Want me to go first?” Levac asked.

  Raven shook her head and pulled the mini-mag flashlight from her purse, shining the light into the hole. The narrow beam illuminated a set of stairs that disappeared into the darkness some ten or fifteen feet below. Trying not to breathe, Raven turned and descended into the dark, followed by Levac.

  The room at the bottom was twice the size of the church above. A variety of tables and what looked like steel dog kennels lined the walls, and they appeared to have been recently cleaned; the polished metal gleamed in the beam of Raven’s flashlight.

  “What is all this?” Levac asked, looking around the strange room.

  “My guess is this is where he kept his chickens, among other things," Raven said.

  “It smells like something died down here.”

  Raven nodded and flashed her light along the walls, following the beam deeper into the gloom. “That's what I smelled upstairs. I think there is a body down here somewhere.”

  The two detectives walked past the now-empty cages and tables, and Raven noted that many of the tables had a blood groove down the center and straps on either side, positioned in exactly the right places for human arms and legs. Levac paused to examine one, flipping back the leather, and Raven was not surprised to find that the hasp had a lock through it.

  “I don’t think Tasker was the upstanding citizen he liked to portray,” he said.

  “You must be slipping, Rupert,” Raven said with a smile. “I could have told you that a week ago. ‘Bocor’ is the title taken by those voodoo priests who practice a darker type of worship. Those who study black magic.”

  Levac made a face and turned to follow Raven, who was letting her nose lead the way deeper into the underground space. In the back of the room was what could only be described as a dungeon door. It was made of dark, heavy wood, bound with metal straps. A small metal hatch was placed at head height, and Raven assumed it was so the jailer could look in on the prisoner.

  Raven paused in front of the door, steeling herself against the smell she knew was going to come out when she pulled it open.

  “What’s the matter, Storm? You look like you’re about to lose your lunch,” Levac asked.

  Raven half turned and shot Levac a dirty look. “You know I hate the smell of dead things!” she growled.

  Levac opened his mouth to reply, but apparently thought better of it.

  Raven continued to glare at him for a moment before turning back to the door and jerking it open in a smooth motion, doing her best to shut down her nose against the smell of death and decay that billowed forth from the darkened chamber. She shone her light inside and was surprised to see the nude, decaying body of bocor Tasker lying on the thin pallet, his emaciated face frozen in a mask of terror, his stomach and lung damaged like all the others.

  Levac shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “I am guessing from the smell and the way he looks he’s been dead at least two weeks.”

  “At least,” Raven replied. “So who did we interview three days ago?”

  IV

  Late afternoon hung like a scythe over the district station house. The crime scene technicians had scoured Tasker’s church with a fine-toothed comb, but had come up with just a handful of trace evidence; the coroner and his team hadn’t fared much better. Dental records had confirmed the corpse was indeed bocor Tasker, and by the state of decay, he had been dead between three and four weeks. Cause of death was trauma to the internal organs, similar to the other victims, and Zhu was already testing for mercury fulminate.

  This left behind the puzzle as to whom it w
as the two detectives had interviewed during their investigation. Storm and Levac had spent the last several hours digging through mug shots and motor vehicle records in hopes of matching the face of the man they had spoken to with his actual identity.

  Raven leaned back in her chair and rubbed her tired eyes with a sigh. Levac appeared from behind with a steaming cup in his hand and said, “Coffee?”

  “Yeah, thanks, Rupert,” Raven replied, accepting the hot cup and holding it to warm her hands.

  Levac took his seat next to her. “I bumped into Frost in the hallway. He said Symone made bail. The judge didn’t believe we had enough evidence to hold him for premeditated murder.”

  “That was fast,” Raven said. “Wall or Symone must have called in some heavy favors.”

  Levac nodded and sipped at his coffee. “So… I'm starting to agree with you.”

  “Agree? About what?” Raven asked, surprised.

  “I don’t think Symone is the guy we’re looking for. I still asked Frost to put a car on him, just in case, but it’s more because I have a hunch our killer may go after him than anything else,” Levac said.

  “What changed your mind?” Raven asked over her cup.

  “Tasker. Obviously someone else is involved; there is no way Symone pulled off being a giant African-American with a Haitian accent,” Levac replied.

  Raven smiled and set her cup aside. “Well, I guess that’s something. Nice to know my partner has my back.”

  Levac paused and set his own coffee cup down, seeming to struggle with the next sentence. After a moment, he asked, “So, do you want to grab some dinner and we can come back after and try to find the imposter? We’re only about halfway through the databases.”

  Raven’s smile softened and she twisted in her chair to face Levac straight on. “I would, Rupert, but tonight I need to head home; there’s a family issue I have to deal with and it has to be tonight. Can I get a rain check?”

  “Rain check,” Levac agreed. “I’ll keep digging for a while and meet you back here in the morning.”