Nightkeepers notfp-1

by Jessica Andersen

  All of which were crucial to the spells of both Nightkeepers and makol.

  The PI said, ‘‘Zipacna is back in the compound— there’s some sort of gala being held there tonight. And the detective you asked me to flag?’’

  Strike’s fingers tightened on the handset. ‘‘What about her?’’

  ‘‘Her name’s on the guest list.’’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Leah’s new partner, Billy Cole, wasn’t a bad kid. Baby-faced and borderline pretty, Billy drove like a stock-car junkie, kept his mouth shut when it mattered, and seemed to do good policework. But he wasn’t Nick.

  Tired after putting in a full shift, and feeling rubbed raw from the sharp edges of a new partnership and the busywork Connie had been giving them rather than putting her back on the street, Leah sighed as Billy drove them back to the PD to clock out for the night. ‘‘Long day.’’

  It was the sort of thing Nick used to say when he was thinking of something else, and the memory punched a fist beneath her heart. She missed him, missed Matty. Without them she felt so damn alone, like nobody around her got her, or cared enough to try.

  ‘‘And it’s going to be a long night, too,’’ Billy said, making it sound like a good thing. At her sidelong look, he elaborated. ‘‘A bunch of us are going to hit the clubs.’’ He paused. ‘‘You want to tag?’’

  Dear God, no, Leah thought, but managed to stick some regret in her voice. ‘‘Sorry, I can’t. I’ve got plans.’’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘‘A date?’’

  ‘‘You don’t have to sound so surprised. And no, it’s not really a date. More of a friend thing.’’ With an agenda, she thought, but didn’t say.

  She was going to a party at the Survivor2012 compound with Vince Rincon, a computer programmer a good fifteen years older than she, who’d been a co-worker and friend of her brother’s. They’d met at Matty’s funeral and bonded over their mutual distrust for the weirdos her brother had started hanging with over the last six months of his life. It’d been Vince who’d urged her to follow up with the warrants and searches, Vince who’d shared her frustration when they’d come up empty, and Vince who, a month earlier, had gotten them both tickets to some fund-raiser-slash-recruitment thing being held at the Survivor2012 compound, on the theory that it couldn’t hurt to look around.

  At the time it’d seemed like a good idea—or, if not a good one, at least an idea, an opportunity to do something that might jump-start the stalled investigation into Matty’s murder. Now she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. Nick’s death and the forced vacation she’d gotten just after had given her some much-needed perspective on the evidence that’d led her to suspect Zipacna was the Calendar Killer.

  In all honesty, there hadn’t been any actual evidence, only her gut-level dislike for Matty’s involvement in Survivor 2012. Yeah, there were similarities between the Calendar Killer’s signature—removing the victims’ hearts and heads—and the ritual sacrifices of the ancient Maya. And yeah, Zipacna and his people were certified freakazoids. But she’d gone after him because she didn’t like him, didn’t like what he stood for, not because policework said he was the killer.

  ‘‘A friend thing. Got it.’’ Billy nodded. ‘‘Give me a call if you get done early and want to hook up.’’

  ‘‘Thanks,’’ Leah said, and meant it. She doubted she and Billy would ever have the level of partnership she’d shared with Nick, but appreciated the reach-out.

  Once she was in Peggy Sue and headed home, though, loneliness seeped in around the edges of her mind.

  It would’ve been nice to call around and hook up for dinner or whatever, but she’d let most of her old friends slip away over the years and hadn’t made others, first because she was studying to be a cop, then because she had Nick to hang around with, and Matty. Now they were both gone, leaving her behind.

  Which was why, instead of calling and canceling on Vince when she got home, as if she knew she ought to, she headed upstairs to change.

  It wasn’t a date. But it was something.

  Given free choice in the matter, Strike would’ve gone after the ajaw-makol alone. But since this wasn’t about just him, he relayed Carter’s info to Red-Boar and the others, so they could plan a targeted attack.

  That was when the trouble started.

  ‘‘Absolutely not,’’ Brandt said, jaw tight. He was sitting on the love seat in the center of the great room beside his wife. The other trainees were scattered around the room, and Strike and Red-Boar stood on the raised area near the kitchen entryway. Hannah and Woody, Brandt’s winikin, had taken the twins, leaving the adults to hash things out. Rabbit sat at the back of the room, though Strike didn’t know when he’d come in. With his hoodie pulled low and his ear buds plugged in, the kid looked totally tuned out. But the glitter in his pale eyes beneath the hood suggested he was enjoying the chaos.

  ‘‘Excuse me?’’ Patience turned on her husband, eyes narrowing. ‘‘Strike didn’t ask you to go. He asked me.’’

  Though a flicker of worry revealed that Brandt knew he was treading dangerous ground, he didn’t back down. ‘‘Think about it, hon. You’re not trained. Hell, you just figured out you can make yourself invisible—which, by the way, is very cool. But you don’t have your talent mark yet. What if the ability comes and goes until you get it? Are you willing to risk that? Think about the—’’

  ‘‘Don’t go there,’’ she snapped, cutting him off.

  ‘‘Don’t even bring the boys into it. I can make myself invisible, and I can make whoever touches me invisible. If I can help these two’’—she gestured to Strike and Red-Boar without looking at them—‘‘take care of this mako . . . well, whatever it’s called, then I will. Isn’t that what we’re all here for? To defeat darkness, save the world, all that crap?’’

  ‘‘You’re not doing it,’’ Brandt said, his square jaw locked mule-stubborn.

  ‘‘It’s not your choice,’’ Patience fired back.

  ‘‘Actually,’’ Strike said, raising his voice to carry, ‘‘it’s mine.’’

  The room went silent.

  He bit back a curse. Brandt was right—it was too soon, their talents too unfinished. But if they could kill the ajaw-makol before he got too strong they’d buy themselves more time to train.

  ‘‘Look,’’ Strike said. ‘‘I realize you guys don’t know me. You didn’t know my father, or, hell, even your own parents. You don’t remember how it was before, how things worked. So maybe you think there’s no real reason for you to buy into the power structure our parents lived by. But I’m what you’ve got in the way of a leader.’’ He looked from one to the other of them, ending with Brandt. ‘‘And you’re all I’ve got, so I won’t put any of you in danger unnecessarily. I swear it.’’

  He waited it out, waited to see if any of his new Nightkeepers called him on his father’s choices or asked him whether he would’ve considered the attack on the intersection a necessary danger. Instead they stayed silent, shifting and looking at each other. All but Brandt, who kept staring at Strike as though assessing whether or not to trust him.

  Then, finally, the other man looked away. Glancing at his wife, he murmured, ‘‘Sorry. Neanderthal moment. It’s your call.’’

  Patience didn’t even hesitate. She stood and crossed to Strike. ‘‘When do we leave?’’

  ‘‘Now.’’

  The Survivor2012 compound was situated on a ten-acre hump of dry land surrounded on all sides by the Everglades. Leah’s previous snoops had revealed that the single bridgelike road leading to the so-called retreat was normally guarded by a decent-size security force, along with cameras and heat and motion detectors. Tonight, though, the white-painted wrought-iron gates were wide-open, and a stream of limos and sports cars motored in, straight over the bridge and onward to follow a winding drive past artfully lit reproductions of crumbling Mayan temples.

  At least, she thought they were repros. For all she knew, the freakazoids had bought—or flat-out stol
en— the temples, moved them, and had them reassembled stone by stone. Because rocks could help save the world, you know.

  She pulled up to the circular drive and handed off Peggy Sue to a valet, then joined the line of partygoers headed up to the mansion, where she and Vince had arranged to meet.

  And it was a hell of a mansion, too. Zipacna and his cronies might be freakazoids, but they were well-funded freakazoids. The main house was set high above the swamp on built-up fill contained within a huge stone retaining wall, meaning that visitors had to climb a long, narrow flight of stone steps to reach the door. Presumably there was an easier way up, but Zipacna no doubt wanted his guests to get the full effect.

  That, or he enjoyed watching them struggle with the stairs in their fancy clothes.

  Leah knew she was getting the eye from a couple of male guests in their penguin suits as she headed up. She didn’t need the double takes to tell her she looked good in one hell of a little black dress, with her hair swept up in a twist, and the wink of small—but real—diamonds at her ears, throat, and wrist.

  She didn’t need the looks. But they didn’t hurt, either.

  Feeling her confidence kick on the hit of female power—enough, anyway, to override the small voice in the back of her head that said this was a waste of time and she should’ve stayed home—she made it to the top and headed toward the house, which was sort of a Robinson Crusoe-meets-Frank Lloyd Wright amalgam of tree house and modern. Dodging knots of people doing the handshake-and-air-kiss thing out front, she headed through the front door.

  A tall, half-naked man moved to block her path.

  He was wearing sandals and some sort of loincloth contraption, and had a winged croc inked across his smoothly shaved—and extremely well defined—chest. He had a black stone knife stuck through his rope belt— a prop? an artifact? she wasn’t sure—and wore a circlet of bluish white stone around his upper arm. His head was shaved bald except for a long topknot that was encircled at his scalp by a graduated stack of wooden rings that maxed him out at a good seven feet tall, and he was, incongruously, wearing a pair of designer sunglasses and an earpiece. Secret service gone pre-Columbian.

  Leah stumbled back a pace in surprise, and the incoming partiers backed up behind her in a logjam of black and white.

  ‘‘Do you think they’re real?’’ she heard someone whisper.

  Before Leah could figure out exactly what ‘‘they’’ were, the guy held out a hand. ‘‘Ticket.’’

  Well, shit. Laughing inwardly at herself—what else had she expected, a blood sacrifice?—she handed it over and moved past him.

  She hadn’t been involved in executing either of the search warrants, so this was the first time she’d been inside the house where Matty had spent a good chunk of his last few months on earth. So she gave herself a moment to look around.

  The space was wide and open, and the walls were done up with carved plaster—at least, she hoped it was plaster—reliefs that looked like they’d been copied straight off one of the big ruins, scenes of flat-faced men playing a ball game and then being killed, their heads cut from their bodies and gouts of blood coming from the neck stumps and turning to snakes. Lovely. The room itself was packed with minor celebs, local politicos, and various members of the rich and aimless, all dressed in versions of black and white, with a daring splash of red here and there. The 2012ers were unmistakable, wearing the same loincloth-and-topknot deal as the guy at the door—in the case of the women, with the addition of a stretchy band covering their nipples.

  Very tasteful, Leah thought. Not. But at the same time, she couldn’t really blame the 2012ers for pandering to the entertainment value. Miami’s elite were notoriously easy to bore.

  Music played in the background, almost below the level of hearing, a complicated drumbeat that got inside her, echoing in her chest and in the floor beneath her feet. There weren’t any of the REPENT NOW! and THE END IS NEAR! posters she’d halfway expected to see based on what she understood of the Survivor2012 doctrine, which appeared to be an amalgam of the militant us-against-the -world propaganda favored by garden-variety anarchists, plus the time-frame incentive provided by their 2012 D-day and the promise that the cult members were going to lead the coming age.

  Given all that, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find recruiters working the room, and a signup table at the back. Instead, the decor actually came off as sort of restful and interesting—or she thought it would have if it hadn’t been for the crowd. Or, rather, her awareness of the men.

  She pretended she was scanning the scene, not looking for anyone in particular, but she knew damn well that was a crock. She was looking for him, for the warrior she’d dreamed of. The one she told herself couldn’t possibly exist.

  Yet she looked for him in the crowd.

  There were plenty of wannabes in the assembled group, men who caught her scan and tried to intercept. Under normal circumstances, she might’ve even given one or two of them a chance to impress her. But tonight she glanced past in search of cobalt blue eyes, dark, shoulder-length hair, and a jawline beard, and felt a beat of disappointment when she came up empty. Which was just stupid, because he was a fantasy. But still.

  ‘‘Focus,’’ she told herself. ‘‘Be a cop.’’

  From her new sense of perspective on the whole Survivor 2012 thing—i.e., maybe Zipacna wasn’t actually the serial killer who’d murdered Matty—she could maybe see what’d attracted her brother to the group. Matty’s fiancée had broken their engagement for unknown reasons—at least, Leah didn’t know what they were, and hadn’t pressed nearly as much as she should have. His programming job had been in jeopardy due to corporate restructuring and hints of trouble at work. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d left a job under suspicion, either. He and Leah had been diametric opposites—she was truth and justice, where he’d liked to cut corners and find the easy money, though he’d stayed out of actual legal trouble. He’d always been a bit of a follower, too, and once Cheryl had left him, he’d been in need of a leader, and some peace. He’d bumped into Zipacna at some club or another, and they’d gotten into a conversation that’d ended with an invite to the very mansion she was standing in now.

  A few weeks before Matty’s death, he’d said Survivor 2012 had made him feel like he was a part of something. At the time, she’d mocked the Zipacna shtick and offered to make her brother a tinfoil hat. After his murder, she’d focused on the group of nutbags he’d joined, needing to blame someone else. Now she wished she could take back the mockery, wished she could go back in time and really listen to her brother. Wished she’d pushed him more, helped him more.

  If she had, he wouldn’t have needed to turn to a group like this for a sense of family support . . . and he might not’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time during the equinox.

  ‘‘A penny for your thoughts,’’ a man said from directly behind Leah.

  She stiffened, then relaxed as she identified the voice. Turning and dredging up a smile, she said, ‘‘Hey, Vince. Just getting my bearings.’’

  The programmer was wearing a tux as uninspired as his penny-for-your-thoughts line, and his medium-brown hair was brushed neatly—and uninspiringly—flat in defiance of its usual haphazard nonstyle. His eyes were a bland hazel, his smile unassuming as he said, ‘‘I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would after the other day.’’

  They’d gotten into it on the phone a few days earlier, when she’d told him her suspicions were moving away from Survivor2012. Vince had been so fervent in his insistance that Zipacna was the Calendar Killer that Leah had started to wonder if he had another agenda altogether, one that she’d gotten caught up in because she’d needed someone other than herself to blame over Matty’s loss.

  ‘‘I’m here,’’ she said noncommittally. ‘‘You said you wanted to show me something.’’

  She was already regretting having come. Should’ve broken it off the other day, she thought. Her grief had moved past the point where she
needed to lean on Vince as a connection to her brother. But as she’d started to ease away he’d gotten clingy, suggesting he wasn’t there yet. So she’d decided to stick it out a few more weeks or months, figuring she owed him a little longer in the lean-on-me department.

  Besides, his background check had come back whistle-clean and he didn’t register on her cop creep-o-meter. He was just a guy who’d lost a friend, and was looking for someone to blame. Unlike her, though, he didn’t seem to be moving past his conviction that Zipacna was the serial killer responsible for Matty’s death. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘‘Matt told me about a special room where they perform their rituals.’’ Vince’s throat worked. ‘‘I want to check it out.’’

  ‘‘It was included in the last warrant,’’ Leah argued. ‘‘They didn’t find anything.’’

  Actually, that wasn’t precisely true. The crime scene folk had said the room was a mosaic of semen stains, vaginal contributions, and blood—but the former weren’t illegal, and the latter hadn’t been substantial enough to suggest exsanguination, but instead had been consistent with the smaller ritual bloodlettings the members of Survivor 2012 readily admitted engaging in.

  ‘‘Humor me?’’ Vince’s expression went sheepish. ‘‘Look, I know you’re losing steam on this, and I understand. I really do. It’s just . . . I don’t know. I’m not ready to let go yet. I need something . . . more.’’

  Because she could relate, and because she figured it’d give their nonrelationship enough closure that she could walk away without feeling too much like a bitch, she nodded. ‘‘Okay. Let’s go.’’

  Keeping an eye out for security—half-naked or otherwise—they worked their way across the main room to an offshoot hallway, passing a glossy sign that told them they were headed into the Temple of Wisdom. Said temple proved to be a series of small classrooms furnished with tables and chairs, and flat-screen TVs running documentaries. There were a few partygoers in each room, and Leah slowed down enough to catch snippets of the narration as she and Vince passed.