by Dakota Banks
“I need information on someone who calls herself Countess Elizabeth. She’s Ageless, so the title could be real. This woman is either the puppeteer jerking my strings or she’s guarding the puppeteer.” She gave a quick summary of the events in the pub, leaving out Elizabeth’s plans to convert Maliha to her personal warrior.
She thinks I’ll go into the human trafficking business at her command. Been there, done that. No way I’ll do it again.
“I’ll put together her background,” Hound said.
“Where are we with the doctors in this building?” Maliha said. “You realize if nothing pans out we’re starting from scratch with all the doctors in the city. I don’t like those odds.”
“That I’ve made some progress on while you’ve been out drinking,” Amaro said. Hound shot him a warning look. “In all three wings of Harbor Point Towers, there are a total of seven hundred and forty-two units, minus any that have been cannibalized to enlarge other units. One hundred and fifty-eight docs in the house. Of those, one hundred and twenty-four check out clean.”
“I’m impressed! How did you get all that work done in such a short time?” Maliha said.
“I recruited some hacker buddies from the old days. They thought it was a fun diversion from the usual.”
“So we have thirty-four possibilities. How many are surgeons?”
“All but six.”
“Okay, Jake and Amaro, will you work this list? We need to eliminate these people as fast as possible.”
“That leaves you,” Hound said. “What are your plans?”
“I . . . I need a break,” Maliha said.
All three of them looked at her. “You’re not running off somewhere again, are you?” Amaro said.
“No. Can’t I just need a break?”
“Where will you be? In case we need to get in touch with you,” Amaro said.
“She’ll be in her haven, right, Maliha?” Jake said.
“Haven? What’s that?” Hound said.
Jake looked at Maliha. “They didn’t know?”
She sighed. “They do now.”
“Sorry. I thought . . .”
“I have another condo in this building,” Maliha said, to surprised looks. “I go there for privacy and I store some things there. No one’s been in it except Jake, and that was only once.”
“Yeah, and she stabbed me for it, too,” Jake said.
“It’s on the forty-eighth floor, Suite 4876. It’s a secure place and the entrance is booby-trapped. If you manage to get as far as stepping inside the door, you’ll be killed. So don’t try it.”
“You have a hidden getaway right in this building,” Amaro said. “Amazing.”
“For privacy, not exactly for hiding,” Maliha said. She glared at Jake.
Suddenly she had a thought that gave her a chill. “What if Yanmeng is right here in this building? If I can have a secret condo, so could the doctor. These places are large enough for a complete medical suite if you only have one patient.”
“Holy cow,” Amaro said. There was silence for a minute.
“You don’t use your real name for the haven, do you?” Hound said.
“I haven’t used my real name in a long time. But I didn’t use Marsha Winters, the name I used to purchase this condo, either.”
“That’s what I thought,” Hound said. “The medical suite would be owned by someone not on our suspect list. A corporation, maybe.”
She could see that they were growing excited about the idea. “You have to promise me something. If you come up with any suspicious condos, you will not break into them. It would be fatal to enter my haven, and I have no doubt there would be nasty security anywhere Yanmeng is being held. Remember Countess Elizabeth is involved. I think we’re talking about more than crushed potato chips on the floor. You have to promise that you’ll back off and let me or Jake go in.”
They both nodded. “Yes, ma’am, we’ll call in the cavalry,” Hound said.
She left them working and headed for her haven. Jake followed her.
“Thanks for blabbing about my haven,” she said.
“I thought you were more open with your people.”
She looked at him skeptically. “Don’t you have a place you go for privacy besides your house? Do you tell everyone about it?”
“I do have places. It seems to come with the territory of having a long life. All this interacting with people. I’m not working with a team, so I haven’t told anyone. There hasn’t been a need.”
“How about me?”
“I have one spot in Belize and one near here. It’s an unused storage room in one of the museums. I’ll take you to both of them, if you want.”
“I have a second one, also,” Maliha said. “It’s an island in the Mediterranean.”
He nodded. “Lucius’s island. I know you inherited it.”
It sounded odd to hear Lucius’s name from his lips. They were at the door to her haven. Jake kissed her. “Want me to come in?”
“Then it wouldn’t be private.”
He left her in the hallway. She went in and lit some incense in a five-hundred-year-old burner from a Tibetan monastery. As the fragrant smoke spread throughout the room, she settled on the floor in a full lotus position. Her knees touched the floor and her spine aligned so that she could sit with minimal effort, enhancing the ability to sit perfectly still. Her hands rested loosely on her crossed knees. She leaned her head forward slightly, letting her tongue rest on the roof of her mouth. Shifting slightly, she nudged her body into a maximum comfort pose.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on becoming aware of her breathing. Her thoughts gradually faded until all activity that was left was totally focused inward. She imagined slipping off her physical self and conscious mind and storing them in front of her, like coats on hangers. That left her subconscious mind and her life energy behind. It was similar to what she did when she experienced someone’s death experience, without the death experience to focus on. She became very still.
Maliha was in her haven to try to contact Yanmeng. If he was unconscious, she might be able to reach his subconscious. Distance was no barrier, because she was moving to another plane of existence to do it. Yanmeng had told her that the planes were twisted and connected by what he described as ladders but that she visualized as wormholes.
She formed an image of herself in her subconscious and launched it with a single powerful message: Yanmeng!
Nothing happened. She was about to bring herself out of the meditation. Then she felt the faintest tug at her mind, and an image formed of Yanmeng. It wasn’t the same as the way she saw him. He was younger, more vital. She was seeing him the way he saw himself. The link faded.
Maliha donned her body and conscious mind and came out of her meditation. She was ecstatic. She’d made a connection with him, she was certain. He was alive, and best of all, he knew that she was looking for him.
She unrolled her futon and fell into a restful sleep. Three hours later she awoke feeling deeply refreshed, her mind and purpose clearer than they had been for days. The stress and doubts that had been assailing her were alleviated. Whatever was coming, she knew she could handle it.
Watch out, Elizabeth. I’m baaack!
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elizabeth smiled into the webcam. She’d decided to go along with Fred Smith’s request for a video call. She figured he was hoping she’d be in a hot negligee and they could mix business with pleasure. So she went one step further. She was naked, but submerged to just above her breasts in her tub.
“Good to see you, Fred.”
“You look great, Liz.”
She permitted the familiarity. He was the only man in her long life who had ever called her “Liz” and survived. She was looking forward to cutting out his tongue when the time came. She raised one of her legs from the water and turned it this way and that, as if inspecting it. Her lower leg, so recently separated from her body, showed no scars. Glancing at the monitor, she saw Fred staring
with his mouth open when he thought she wasn’t looking at him.
This is too easy.
“How’s the plan coming?” he said.
“Excellent. The meeting is set up, as you insisted.”
Idiot.
Fred had a smug look on his face. He’d wanted a face-to-face meeting with Maliha. Elizabeth had said no at first, then let him seem powerful and get his way.
It doesn’t do any harm. Both of these people are under my thumb anyway. Or will be soon.
“Good. Uh, Liz, that isn’t blood in your bathwater, is it?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Why would you think that?”
“Just something that popped into my mind because of the color.”
“Oh, silly. You mean this?” She held up a handful of water and dripped it between her breasts. “It’s a special oil for my skin. I have it custom-made. If you were here, you’d know that it smells like roses.” She stood up, with the red water streaming down her body. “It keeps my skin clear and soft all over. More pleasant for you to touch. I wish you were here. . . .”
The bath servant turned off the computer and then held a thick white robe for Elizabeth. She stepped out of the tub and wrapped up in the robe. There was a body hanging over the base of the tub like an upside-down doll, broken and battered, her throat wound hanging open like a bloody frown. Elizabeth caressed the girl’s blood-spattered cheek.
You were sweet, little Katie, but ten-year-olds just don’t have enough blood.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Damn, when you pick ’em, you really pick ’em,” Hound said. “This bitch Elizabeth is straight from hell.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Details?” Maliha said.
“Her name is Countess Elizabeth Báthory. She was born in 1560 and came by her title honestly, as a member of the Hungarian nobility. She had a political marriage at the age of fifteen to a man who spent a lot of time away as a commander in the military. She was left with the castle and the villages that came with it, and spent more time managing the home front than her husband did.”
“She’s used to getting her way. I can vouch for that,” Maliha said.
“Now the bad news. Elizabeth is the world’s most prolific female serial killer. She slaughtered over six hundred young girls and women, almost all virgins, most of them after her husband died. I guess her husband kept her in check while he was alive.”
“I thought you said he was gone most of the time,” Amaro said.
“Maybe he threatened her or hired someone to make sure she didn’t express her murderous traits. She did have an outlet for violence, though. It was okay in those days to treat your peasant servants cruelly. The aristocracy didn’t care and the peasants had no recourse.”
“Basically slavery,” Maliha said. Her cheeks burned. She lived through slavery on the wrong side of freedom. As a demon’s slave, she did things that were now abhorrent to her.
“Yup. Then when her husband died and the restraints were gone, Elizabeth started out by holding classes at her castle for daughters of the aristocracy, promising to give them all the skills to be proper young ladies. Only the young ladies didn’t return to their families. They were beaten and tortured with everything a sadistic imagination could come up with. Razors, red-hot pokers, knives. The wellborn families became alarmed after too many ‘accidents’ at the castle and refused to send their daughters.”
“I know they weren’t big on autopsies then, but wouldn’t the mutilated corpses give away what was going on?” Maliha said.
“The accidents were probably things like being mauled to death by a horse or burned, things that covered up the physical evidence of torture. Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Amaro said.
Hound continued. “Once the supply of daughters of her peers dried up, she enticed young peasant girls with the promise of high-paying positions as maidservants in the castle. Parents must have pushed their girls out the door for that. At least, until those girls started disappearing by the hundreds. Elizabeth had accomplices who helped her obtain girls by force if she couldn’t get them by subterfuge.”
“Didn’t anyone speak up for the peasants?” Amaro said.
“It took a while for anyone with some power to notice. There was so much outcry that word finally reached the king, who was a relative of hers. I guess he didn’t like a family member of his having the moniker of ‘Blood Countess.’ He sent a court representative to ferret out the truth—his cousin, I think. Essentially it was damage control. A small force of men invaded her castle at night and found the grisly proof. All of the accomplices were executed, naturally, but the king refused to even bring Elizabeth to trial.”
“What? That’s carrying nepotism a bit far!” Amaro said.
“One of the bennies of being king. He didn’t want any more fuss, though, so he had her bricked into a room in her castle with a small hatch to take care of necessities. She died four years later.”
“Except that she’s Ageless now. I can see how a demon would be drawn to her! It’s horrible to know what we’re up against,” Maliha said.
“All of that’s historical fact,” Hound said. “Now we get to the interesting legends. Elizabeth was a vain woman always concerned about her appearance. One day when she was beating a servant girl, the girl’s blood landed on the back of Elizabeth’s hand. She felt her skin was rejuvenated in that spot. Smoother, softer, whatever. So she decided that if a few drops worked well, a lot of blood would work even better. She began drinking and bathing in her victims’ blood to preserve her youth and beauty.”
“The demons must have been fighting over her,” Maliha said.
“Besides being called the Blood Countess, she’s also known as Lady Dracula,” Hound said. “Did I mention she’s from Transylvania?”
“Seriously?” Amaro said.
Hound nodded. “And she has her fangs in our friend.”
Maliha hesitated. She didn’t know what, if anything, to reveal about her contact with Yanmeng.
It brought happiness to me, so I should share it.
“I want to tell you something about Yanmeng,” Maliha said. “He’s alive. I know it for certain.”
Hound sat down on the couch, put his elbows on his knees, and supported his head in his hands. Amaro’s eyes flashed with hope that Maliha hadn’t noticed was missing.
“How?” Amaro said.
“It was a brief mind contact, mostly Yanmeng’s doing, I’m sure.” She felt strange talking about an experience that was intensely private to her.
Hound looked up. “He can tell you where he is, then.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned this.
“No. All I got was an image of him, not where he is now or anything else helpful. It was the mental image of ourselves we all carry around. You know, years younger, no flaws, not the version of what we see in the mirror now. But there’s no way I could have gotten that if he was . . .”
“Dead and refrigerated to keep the parts fresh?” Hound said.
Maliha nodded. “You thought of that too.”
“Eliu has to hear this,” Amaro said. He knocked at her door but she didn’t answer.
“She could be asleep,” Hound said. “I’ll call her cell phone.”
When there was no answer, Maliha was worried. She tried the doorknob and found the door locked.
“Stand back,” Hound said. He was going to rush the door.
“Stop! This is my home. I don’t need any smashed doors. Give me a minute.”
She was back from her bedroom in a few seconds and picked the lock even faster. Maliha opened the door cautiously. “Eliu, it’s Maliha. I’m coming in.”
The room was dark. Light-blocking shades were pulled down. Hound and Amaro were crowding Maliha’s back, wanting into the room. She flipped on the light switch, hoping she wasn’t going to find Eliu’s dead body.
The room was empty. The attached bathroom was empty.
It was a relief in one way, worrisome in another. Maliha rou
nded on her two companions. “Where did she go?”
Hound shook his head. Amaro shrugged his shoulders.
“You were here, right? When I took my break and went to the haven?”
“Of course we were,” Amaro said.
“Then what the hell happened? Oh, I see, you were each in your rooms working.”
“Damn,” Hound said.
“Hall cameras,” Amaro said. He rushed over to the laptop and played back the last hour at high speed. The door opened and Eliu walked out, wearing a long gray coat and a scarf over her hair.
“At least we know she left under her own free will. Get me a photo that shows her face,” Maliha said. After tucking a ceramic knife in her hair, disguised as an ornament at the top of her braid, she took the photo and went to talk to Chick. He was standing right inside the front entrance, taking a break from the cold.
“Have you seen . . .” Maliha said.
“This nice lady? Sure,” Chick said. “She was here about a half hour ago. I hailed her a cab.”
“Do you know where . . .”
“The Art Institute. I told her it closed at five and she should save her money and go tomorrow when there was more time, but she didn’t want to hear it.”
It was 4:30 P.M. now. “Thanks, Chick. You’ve been very helpful.”
“You know, I could probably be even more helpful. You and I should have a talk sometime.”
“I agree, but this isn’t the time.” Maliha called Hound and told him where she was going, then started to walk outside.
“Call you a cab?” Chick said.
“No, I’m . . . going for a walk.”
“You’re gonna need something warm. Hold on a second.” He rummaged in the Lost and Found box at his station and came up with a dark blue jacket with two pockets and a hood. “This looks like it’ll do the job. Keep your head warm, too.” He raised his eyes to the ornament in her hair and winked at her. “See ya later.”
She slipped on the jacket and walked out to the rear of the building. The loading dock door was closed and there was no one around. In privacy, she took off running at Ageless speed so no one would see her vanish. The museum was close, on South Michigan in Grant Park. She could get there much faster on foot than in a cab in rush-hour traffic. Weaving among the pedestrians and the cars in the street slowed her down, but still Maliha was there in less than five minutes. She raced up the steps between the bronze lion statues and headed for the stone arches of the entryway. Inside, she failed to stop and show her membership card at the desk.
