Anita Blake 24 - Dead Ice (74 page)

He texted that a car was on its way to my location now.

I texted back: “I don’t know if lights & sirens will spook him, or help?”

“I’ll make it a silent run,” he texted.

I trusted his judgment. I went back to talking to the nut job on the phone, and suddenly I knew the voice. Brent had called him a nut job just three days ago during the live feed. My pulse was in my throat, and I had to breathe carefully for it not to show in my voice. “So you’re Manny’s son from a different mother.”

“Yes, did he tell you about me?”

I debated on what to say, and finally chose truth; I didn’t always lie well enough. “No, but I know he was wild when he was young, and Rosita never sowed any wild oats.”

“She looks so dull and ordinary. How could he have chosen her over the Señora?”

“Señora?” I made it a question.

“The Señora—don’t you know who I am, Anita? Don’t you know who my mama was?”

I had one of those moments when things click into place. “Oh holy shit, Dominga Salvador doesn’t have two nephews, she has a nephew and a son. That’s why you called yourself sir, like Señora.”

He laughed. “Very good. Yes, I felt like an outsider all my life. My brother, mother, and father all seemed so ordinary. I got straight A’s, excelled at track, got a scholarship to college, and my brother just failed over and over. I was never like my family, and then I found out why. My mother wasn’t my mother, my father not my father, my brother only my cousin. It was a revelation, Anita, a revelation that changed my life.”

“It’s always good to figure out where you belong,” I said, because I couldn’t think of what to say.

A uniformed officer was coming through the door of the bridal shop. I had my badge visible. I texted, “I’m on phone with kidnapper. Trying to keep him talking.” and showed it to the officer.

He nodded, and used a notepad that Anne brought him to write, “More units en route.”

More cops were coming. I just had to figure out a way to get information out of the kidnapper that would help us locate them. “My mother was dead, but my father wasn’t. He had a nice family; they looked happy.”

I didn’t like him using the past tense. “You came to St. Louis and found Manny, and have been watching him.”

“I saw his daughters and son; by rights they should have been my siblings. I could have been their older brother. I could have helped them, and my papa could have taught me how to raise the dead, but instead he taught you. He taught you everything he was supposed to teach me.”

“It was a job; I’ve taught new animators, too.”

“No!” He shouted it. “Don’t belittle what my father taught you.”

“I’m not belittling it, just saying that Manny and I are work friends. He doesn’t think of me as another daughter.”

“But he taught you, and my mother saw the greatness in you, Anita. I found people who would talk to me about the Señora. They said she wanted you to meet me. Said we’d have powerful babies together.”

“Manny told me that, just like Dominga wanted to have a baby with him, because it would be powerful.”

“And I am powerful.”

“Dominga didn’t tell Manny she got pregnant.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, because I know Manny; if he’d known he had a son he’d have tried to be in your life in some way.”

“He didn’t want me.”

“I swear to you that Manny would have loved you if he had known.” In my head I thought about him describing one of the nephews as just wrong from the beginning, and then I realized the nephew who was “wrong” wasn’t the one Dominga had wanted me to breed with; it was the good nephew.

“He rejected his true power when he left the Señora, and me with it.”

“He described you as a polite, good boy, Max.”

“He mentioned me?”

“Yeah, that the other nephew Artie was a screw-up, but you were great.”

“Arturo fails at everything, he has no ambition.”

“You have plenty of ambition, don’t you, Max?”

“I do, but I go by my full name, Anita. If my father really talked of me, then tell me my real name.”

“Maximiliano,” I said.

He lau ghed again, but it held a brittle edge to it now, as if the sound could break like glass if you hit it too hard. It was the kind of laugh that would eventually start gibbering in corners. I wanted Connie and Tomas away from him before that happened.

“Yes, yes, I am Maximiliano.”

I wanted to ask him what happened with college, and that scholarship? I wanted to know how the good boy, Max, got to be the monster who tortured souls, but I wanted him to keep talking. There were more police now. Anne had pointed out Connie’s car. They’d be looking for clues, and someone in a suit had written on the notepad, “Try to find out where he’s taking them.”

I wrote back, “How?”

He made some suggestions and I tried. “So where are you, Connie, and Tomas going tonight?”

“Why, so the police can find them in time?”

I did not like his “find them in time” at all. “I can’t meet you for that coffee date if I don’t know where you are.”

He was quiet for a few breaths. I thought I heard someone else make a noise. It was all I could do not to ask if it was Connie, but I didn’t want him to know I could hear anything over the phone. I was afraid he’d hang up.

The detective in the suit wrote, “Do not agree to meet with him!”

I turned away from him. If he’d give me a location I could find him and find the kids. Manny’s kids. Connie was almost my age, but she was still his kid.

The detective grabbed my arm and waved the note in my face. I jerked free of his hand and waved my badge back at him. “You said it yourself, Maximiliano; the Señora, your mother, wanted you and me to hook up. I’ve seen your zombies, they’re amazing. We could do amazing, scary stuff together.”

“I’m not crazy, or stupid, Anita.” He sounded angry now.

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t. You think I’m crazy like my real mama.”

“I thought she was evil, more than crazy,” I said.

He laughed then. “That was honest.”

“Meet with me, Maximiliano, and I will be so honest it’ll blow you away.”

“Oh, we’re here,” he said. The engine on the car turned off. I heard the door open on his car, and I think I heard him step on gravel. I know I heard someone trying to scream through a gag. It sounded like a woman. “You can both scream for me, Consuela. She was my fiancée once, but she left me. Now she’s mine forever.”

Connie was doing her best to scream through whatever was on her mouth, duct tape he’d said. Whatever she was seeing was scaring the hell out of her.

“I’ve got to go, Anita, my sister is being difficult, but before the sun comes up she’ll be easy, because she’ll do exactly what I tell her to do. Thanks to you I lost a lot of money, but Consuela will be perfect for a client who wanted his own slave. He doesn’t even have to be here for the ceremony, he just needs to hold the bottle that contains her soul, like a magic ring for a genie.”

My mouth was dry, but I said, “How did you get around the fact that murdered zombies attack their murderers?”

“The soul, Anita, the personality; people are so conflicted about violence. Pure zombies aren’t conflicted at all, but add the soul back in and they’re just as fucked up as the rest of us. I’m going to sell my sister to a very rich man as his slave forever. I don’t know if I’ll just kill my brother, or cripple him. Either way, my father will never forget me again.”

“Maximiliano, don’t do this, don’t hurt them.”

“Would you let me fuck you to save them, Anita?”

“Sure,” I said.

He laughed again, and I heard Connie making helpless noises through the gag. It sounded like he was dragging her over gravel and then weeds, or something. “I’ve got to go, Anita, I have people to kill, souls to steal. You know I haven’t found a buyer for a teenage boy, but I’m betting that one that was completely obedient to the customer’s every whim, well, the right person would pay handsomely for that, don’t you think, Anita?”

“I’m not joking, Maximiliano. Let’s hook up. Let’s fuck, just like your mother wanted.”

“Rumor says you killed the Señora, is that true, Anita?”

“Never believe the rumors,” I said.

“Oh, I hope they are true, because if they are then I’ll give you a chance to see which of us is more powerful.”

“More powerful how? How do we prove that?”

“First, find me before I finish the ceremony and there’s no sister left to save, though maybe I’ll fuck her first, before I kill her; that would give you more time to find me.”

I fought the urge to threaten him, and tried for calm. “This is your last chance to do what the Señora wanted you to do, Maximiliano.”

“I saw the videos from Colorado, Anita. More than giving my mama powerful grandchildren, I want to see which of us is the better necromancer.”

“Fine, let’s go, let’s do it, just tell me where you are.”

“Think about what I want, Anita, and you’ll know there are only a limited number of places I could have driven in this amount of time that will give us the arena to test ourselves.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“If you don’t figure it out, then I kill them, sell at least her, and leave town a very rich man. I’ll set up shop in a country that is a little friendlier to me and doesn’t have extradition with America.”

“Maximiliano, tell me how you do it. How do you capture the soul?”

“Come and watch,” and then he said something harsh in Spanish. “The boy has undone his bonds and found the trunk release. Stupid boy.” The gunshot was so loud I was deaf in one ear for a minute.

“Fuck, what did you do?”

“He ran, what else could I do, Anita?”

Connie was screaming as loud and long as she could through the gag. He wasn’t worried about the noise; fuck!

“If Tomas dies, you die. If you touch Connie, I will cut your dick off and gag you with it.”

“Oh, sticks and stones, Anita, sticks and stones.”

“Tell me where you are, you son of a bitch, and I’ll prove to you that I never make an idle threat.”

“Find me, and then we’ll see who raises what.” The phone went dead.

I screamed my rage loud and wordless. If he’d been in front of me in that moment I’d have killed him, cops or no cops.

I
HAD TO
call Manny and tell him about Connie and Tomas. I started with just them being hostages, without going into details. I figured him knowing he had a long-lost son with Dominga Salvador could wait until his kids were safe, or until I saw him in person. Some things you don’t want to try to explain over the phone.

“I need you to talk to the phone company and waive your rights to the phone records, so we don’t have to get a warrant for them to use Tomas’s phone’s GPS to locate him and Connie.”

“We’re still paying for Connie’s phone, too. Does that help?”

“Shit yes, I know he has her phone, because I was talking on it.” I turned to Sergeant Hudson, who wasn’t much bigger than I was, with a neat dark mustache to match the hair hidden under his helmet. He was the smallest man on his unit now, but they all still acted as if he were about eight feet tall and would hurt them if they fucked up. Hudson and I weren’t buddies, but we respected each other, and I’ll take respect over being liked any day of the week. He let me train with his team once a month to keep me from screwing up too badly. That he let me near his men at all was the compliment. He talked to all his guys like that.

“Manny, the father, is paying for his daughter’s phone; if he waives his rights we don’t need a warrant for the GPS records.”

“Great, did you hear that?” He spoke into a phone that he’d been using to try to get the GPS location for either of the kids’ phones. They wanted to help, but legally we needed a warrant . . . but Manny could waive his rights since it was his account and not Connie’s.

It took us holding the phones next to each other and Manny giving some account information, but it was done. Hudson listened to his end of the phone for a few seconds. “They’ll call us back in ten minutes tops with the phone’s location.”

“Perfect,” I said, “now just one more warrant in hand and we’re good to go.”

“Anita, what’s happening?” Manny asked on my phone. I told him.

“While we wait for the GPS I need to ask your voodoo expertise.”

“I can’t think, Anita.”

“How complicated would the spell be to capture a soul? I mean, how long would it take?”

“I only know the theory of the spell; I had left her long before she came up with that piece of evil.”

“I know, but you know way more voodoo than I do, Manny. I need to know a time frame, and I need to know it now.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Anita?”

“Dominga’s nephew Max is the bad guy. He’s taken over where Dominga left off on the zombie slaves.”

“Why did he take Connie and Tomas?”

“I think Tomas was incidental, wrong place, wrong time.”

“Oh God, oh God, you think he’s going to do that to Connie.”

“He’s threatening it.”

“Why? Why after all this time?”

“How much time do we have to find her? I need you to think, Manny.”

“My kids are missing.”

“And the more information we have, the better the odds for bringing them back safe and sound.”

“All right, all right, if he has to make a container to house the soul, it will take weeks.”

“Assume he has a container.”

“He’ll have to draw symbols, verve, and if he’s a true believer he’ll have to persuade the loa to ride him, or to ride the victim.”

“I don’t think he’s a true believer,” I said.

“An hour, maybe. You say he had verve all over his altar area like

Dominga did.”

“Yes,” I said.

“He’ll be careful to draw the verve then, because Dominga believed very much that the symbols helped call power and protect her. If he draws all the symbology, then at least an hour, maybe a little more. Does that help?”

“Yes, it does.”

“I’m on my way to the bridal shop now.”

“Go to Rosita, stay with her.”

“No.”

“All right, but I may roll out before you get here if we have a target.”