Blood Hunt (10 page)

As usual around Nick, my mouth ran away with me.

Nick looked from me to Neith, and I realized he wasn't sure she could be trusted. He didn't know who she was. I hadn't told him.

“It's all right,” I said reluctantly. “She's one of us.”

“
Us
?” Nick and Neith asked in unison.

I gave them each a look, one at a time. “Us as in…” Okay, jury was still out on what exactly I was becoming. More gorgon than god, certainly. I gave it up. “Nick, meet Neith. Otherwise known as Athena, Minerva and whoever the hells else she might have been at one time or another.”

“So then, not an insurance investigator?”

“That too,” she said.

“Well then,
you
might be the person I really need.”

It wasn't meant as a sucker punch, and I didn't take it as such. Really.

“This way,” he said. At least he included me in the invitation.

We followed him under the crime scene tape and off to the right toward a tall, skinny guy whose tufts of blond hair made him look a little like a cartoon clown…or Mr. Noodle from
Sesame Street
. He was holding a shoulder-mounted camera and watching footage.

Nick skipped introductions, except to shrug in my general direction and say, “This is the one I told you about. Show her.”

Mr. Noodle, for lack of any other name, looked at me and then at Neith, eyes widening at the sight of her and a “Whoa!” escaping his mouth.

She gave him a smile that seemed a little bit deadly and he swallowed so hard his Adam's apple bobbed like Ernie's rubber ducky in the bath. What
was
it about me and
Sesame Street
right now? I was in the middle of one of the bloodiest crime scenes I'd ever encountered, and… Maybe that was the whole thing. Maybe my brain was trying to protect me by throwing in innocent images to counteract the horror.

“Um, well, here you go,” the tech guy said, hitting some buttons and scrolling back footage.

Neith and I leaned in until we would have been breathing each others' air had we been breathing at all.

The scene that unfurled as Mr. Noodle pressed play was standard enough at first, at least in Hollywood. Traditional chase scene. Cars racing toward the cameraman, one ahead, then the other, swerving, weaving, cutting each other off. Someone—the driver of the boring blue car—was hanging half out the window, shouting at the driver of the hot red sportster, which had half a wedding dress hanging out of it, flapping in the breeze. It was amusing enough…until the face of the driver—Viktor, I realized now—suddenly changed. His head popped back into the car and in the next instant, he was ramming the red roadster, shooting the red car forward, straight toward the fake storefronts.

People screamed. The director hollered.

As if Viktor heard him, the blue car left off ramming the red and veered sharply, right for the camera and everyone behind it. The camera dropped to the ground, but landed at an upward angle, catching running feet and falling bodies. Screams, cries and curses…and above it all, someone yelling as though toward the heavens. Viktor, I realized. It sounded like gibberish to me, but Neith's head cocked, and I knew
she
understood.

“It's…Egyptian,” she said in wonder. “A prayer. One he couldn't possibly know.”

Nick and Mr. Noodle were both watching Neith as if every word that fell from her
lips was pure gold.

“What's he saying?” Nick asked.

“He's offering his deeds in tribute…to Set, the Egyptian god of chaos.”

“Great,” said Nick with a groan.

“You get
all
the best cases,” said Mr. Noodle. He turned to Neith. “I don't suppose you'll need to come back to the lab and work side by side with me to develop a translation.”

“I just might,” she said, but it was Nick she was looking at.

The techie didn't seem to notice. He went on, enthusiasm undampened. “Could this be related to that other case, where the kids came back from Egypt and killed their parents? Maybe there's some crazy kind of possession going around. Something like in the
X-Files
…or
Supernatural
or…”

Neith and I both stared at him, and I couldn't help but notice we wore the exact same expression. It was eerie.

“What?” he asked. “Sheesh, I'm just kidding, unless…don't tell me I'm onto something!”

Neither of us said a word. “I am, aren't I?
Awesome!
”

We neither confirmed nor denied.

Nick grabbed me by the arm and hustled me away from the techie conspiracy theorist. Neith came with us.

“
Why
is Viktor Ramone speaking in some ancient Egyptian dialect and what
does
it have to do with the Roland case?”

Uh oh. There was no way to hold back about the coin now. Nick was going to be pissed.

I braced myself and I told him about the coin. And Set. And Viktor's nightmares.

“And you didn't tell me this before because?”

Nick's eyes were blazing. He was not irritated. Not irked. This was full-on I-will-throw-your-ass-in-jail anger.

“Because,” I said, keeping calm, “it was more use to me than it was to you. If you had it in evidence, I wouldn't be able to track the signal.”

“
Are
you tracking the signal?”

“Not yet, but—”

“Hand it over.”

“But—”

“
Now!
” he said. And just for a moment, it almost seemed that Nick was more than human himself. His anger had weight. His voice echoed off the backlot buildings.

Less than a month ago I'd have given him the coin. We'd have pursued leads together, but now…

“No,” I said. “I need it for tracking…”

“
Tori Karacis
,” Nick said, his voice harder than I'd ever heard it before, “you are under arrest for withholding evidence and for obstruction of justice. You have the right to remain silent—”

Neith hit him. Just a quick jab to the gut, but… I don't know who was more stunned—Nick or me. We both stared at her like people always stared at me…like she'd grown another head, or maybe, just for a change, tentacles.

“Don't be stupid,” she snapped. “You need her and you need me, and we need to find those Roland boys before they infect anyone else.”

Nick didn't so much as blink.

And then a strange smile started to spread across his face and he looked from one of us to the other. “Tell me the truth, you two were separated at birth, weren't you?”

Neith drew herself up, offended. “Considering that I sprung fully formed out of my father's head—at least in Greek myth—I don't see how that's possible.”

“I don't know,” Nick answered. “Makes a lot of sense to me. Together you two equal one big-ass headache.”

I shot him a look, but it was Neith he'd locked eyes with.

“I know a great cure for headaches,” she said, batting her ridiculously long lashes, though not well. More as though her lashes were a fan and she was trying to cool down her entire face.

I rolled my eyes, but no one was paying me any attention.

“Something in your eye?” he asked.

I snorted, and immediately muffled it with my hand. “Can you excuse us a minute?” I asked Nick, grabbing Neith by the arm and pulling her away without waiting for his answer.

“Sure,” he called after us, “just twiddling my thumbs here. No rush. It's not like lives are at stake or anything.”

“
What
are you doing?” I asked Neith.

“Keeping you out of jail,” she snapped. “You're welcome.”

“So all that was, what,
a distraction
?”

“It worked, didn't it?”

“Were you actually trying to flirt…at a crime scene.” Nevermind that I'd gone ten rounds of snark with Nick when we'd first met. There'd been absolutely no eyelash batting…and a helluva lot less blood and guts.

She gave me a sharp glance. “What do you mean
trying
?”

I sighed. I didn't have time to instruct her, even if I was so inclined. “Listen, this is not the time or the place.”

“Warrior goddess,” she said as a reminder. “Life's one big bloody battle after another.”

In other words, this was her version of normal.

“Huh,” I muttered to myself. “Who'd have thought a warrior goddess would have a glass jaw.”

I hadn't really meant her to hear, but in my defense, she
had
gone down like a ton of bricks in that ambulance.

She bristled at that. “I specialize in strategy,” she said. “Not hand-to-hand combat. I'm used to leading, inspiring, not grappling.”

And yet, she'd taken me down quickly enough at Viktor's place. And I had to admit that her trick with swinging in on the ambulance doors was pretty impressive.

I moved right along. “Then why are you here now…down in the trenches?”

“Times change,” she said with a shrug. “No one sacrifices livestock anymore for a favorable outcome to a battle. Modern warfare isn't even about warriors. It's about weapons. Devastation. Who has a finger on what button. Besides, every once in a while you have to get down into the trenches or you lose touch.”

Oddly, I got all that. I could even respect it. “Fine,” I said, “so what now?”

“You let me get back to Nick. He needs me.”

“For translation,” she added at my dubious look. “Or do you think experts in ancient Egyptian grow on trees?”

I didn't comment on that. “Fine. How about if we divide and conquer then. You stay and see if you can translate any more of Viktor's ravings. We can connect up later to compare notes.”

“Divide and conquer, what a lovely notion.”

Meanwhile, I knew I had a statement to give, but I had to get out of there. It was more important than ever that I track down the Roland boys and the rest of those disks before the chaos could spread.

Chapter Ten

I was hurrying back to my car when my cell phone rang. I liberated it from my pocket and checked the screen.

I hadn't even stopped to program my client into my contacts yet, but I was pretty sure I recognized the number. I had that sort of memory.

“Jessica, is everything okay?” I started.

I didn't know why I gave that greeting, exactly. My precog hadn't kicked up, and it wasn't exactly unusual for a client to call for an update so soon. It had been almost a full day, I realized, looking at the angle of the sun. But there was something vulnerable about Jessica that put me in full-on protective mode. I could only imagine how it made her two older brothers feel when they were themselves. I could also imagine that being inspired with abject fear at your former protectors would do a number on you.

“I'm at the police station,” she began, voice quavering as I'd half expected.

“Still?”

“I…it's the only place I feel safe right now. I just heard Viktor Ramone's name, and… Tori, what's going on? No one will tell me.”

I ran through about a million responses in a millisecond. “I'll be right there,” I found myself saying. “Wait for me.”

“You'll tell me what's going on?” she asked.

“Among other things.”

I tried to remind myself I was her P.I., not her caretaker, but the memo didn't take. I drove over to the station knowing I was going to drag her away from there, get food into her, convince her she couldn't stay. There had to be someone who could look after her while her brothers were on the loose.
Somewhere
she could go…

The drive took me longer than I'd have liked, but I saw Jessica as soon as I stepped inside. She watched the door as if she was waiting for Godot, cell phone clenched in her hand. She spotted me as soon as I entered and raced up. She looked like she wanted to hug me, but stopped just short. “Oh, Tori, oh thank God. What's going on?”

The desk sergeant watched us with something between bemusement and exasperation. “You can't block the door,” he said.

I took her by the elbow and maneuvered her back out onto the street. She looked terrified. “Have you eaten?” I asked.

“No, but—”

She probably weighed about a hundred and ten pounds dripping wet. She couldn't afford to miss many meals.

“Come on,” I said, hand still on her elbow, aiming her down the street at a diner I knew existed but had never patronized.

It was a diner near a cop shop. That was all I needed to know to make certain assumptions—heavy on starches and proteins, better than even chance at drinkable coffee.

She dug her heels in after just a few steps, and I was forced to either stop or manhandle her along, and I wasn't inclined to do that.

“Tell me what's going on or I'm not going another step.”

I glanced around. We were completely exposed standing out on the street. Sure, there were a hundred or so cops just steps away, but it wasn't like they were forming a phalanx around us. If anything happened, they'd come running, but it would be too late.

“You asked about Viktor Ramone. Your brothers…infected him somehow with their crazy. He lost it today on-set and…” How did I put this delicately? “Ran his stunt car into another car. And then into a cameraman. There were fatalities.”

She gasped, her hand going to her mouth and then falling away. “But…how?”

“I'd feel a lot better if we could talk about this off the street.”

She looked around and seemed to cringe in on herself at that, as if to make a smaller target. But it got her moving again. One foot in front of the other.

I put myself between her and the street so that I was on one side of her with buildings on the other. It wasn't far, and my precog wasn't kicking up any kind of warning, but…better safe than sorry.

We made it to the diner, and I ushered her in ahead of me, but then zagged around her so that I could lead the way to a booth in the back, where I could sit facing the rest of the place. She automatically sat across from me, and we both took a menu that had been left in a wire rack with various condiments. She stared at hers, unseeing. I wasn't hungry. Not with all I'd seen, but I'd take the coffee. I didn't think my day was going to end any time soon. I should probably try to eat something, if only to insulate my stomach against all the acidity.

The waitress arrived, smelling like she'd just come in from a cigarette break, which didn't do wonders for my appetite. Still, I ordered coffee and fries. Jessica tried to wave her away without ordering, but I wasn't having any of that. “You serve breakfast all day?” I asked.

The waitress agreed that they did. “Give her a grand slam…or whatever your equivalent is.”

“I'm vegan,” Jessica protested.

I checked myself before my eyes could roll. “Don't worry, honey,” she said, “we've got something for that.” And she walked away without saying what it might be.

“You get that a lot?” I asked.

“That's actually one of the better responses,” she said. “Worst is, ‘You mean like Spock?'”

“Isn't that
Vulcan
?”

“Exactly.”

She gave a fleeting smile, and then fixed me with a hard look, as though she was about to grill me. “I want details on what happened with Viktor and what you've learned so far.”

“You do realize that every second I spend updating you, I'm not out doing my job?”

“You have to eat sometime, right? And, besides, I'm going out of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to go.”

“What about the friend you stayed with last night?”

“I don't want to put her in danger. Ian and Richie know all my friends, and…look, I know people can track phones. Mom and Dad put some kind of GPS or whatever on Ian and Richie's phones when they started staying out and getting into trouble, even before the trip. I'm afraid.”

A cup of coffee landed in front of me then, a little sloshing over onto the saucer. Jessica ended up with a sweating glass of water, and the waitress walked away before she could ask for anything else, although it seemed the furthest thing from her mind.

“Did you tell the police about the tracer on their phones?”

“Of course.”

If the police hadn't tracked them by now one way or another, it likely meant the boys had turned off or disabled their phones…yet when Jessica had come to the office this morning, she'd mentioned her brothers weren't answering. She'd never said anything about her calls going right to voicemail, as they would have done if the phones had been off. They could have since died or whatever, but…

Just in case, I had to ask. “Have you heard anything from your brothers? Have they responded to your calls? Texts? Anything?”

“No,” she said. “I'm almost afraid…”

“Did you leave them messages? What have you said to them so far?”

She was busy shredding the napkin in front of her into little tiny pieces and failed to meet my eyes. “I asked them what they'd done and why. I cried, asked them to turn themselves in.”

I thought a second before responding. “Try them again. Call them. E-mail them. Leave messages on all their social media. Even if they've tossed their old numbers, they might access webmail or other things. Tell them you're sorry you jumped to conclusions. That you know they couldn't have done it. That you want to help.”

“But—”

“You don't have to believe it. Just say it. We want them to make contact. Arrange a meeting.”

Her hands paused in their shredding, and she shrank back into her seat. “I can't,” she whispered.

“Don't worry. I wouldn't let you go alone. You'd have plenty of backup. We'd catch them and stop them before anyone else gets hurt.”

“You really think it will work?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Jessica picked up the phone she'd put face up on the table and, with shaky hands, started to type.

The waitress arrived at that moment with two plates, one easily identifiable as fries. The other full of something that looked like scrambled eggs if all the color had been leached out of them and then added back in the form of tomatoes and green peppers. “Tofu scramble,” she announced, placing it in front of Jessica. There was butterless toast on the side. “Jam's on the table.”

She turned to go when Jessica shot out a hand and connected with her wrist. The waitress turned back, trying to turn irritation into a smile.

“An orange juice,” Jessica said timidly. “Please.”

She nodded, pulled her wrist free and headed toward the kitchen.

Jessica put down her phone to pick up her fork, looking to me apologetically. “I'll send more in a second. I…suddenly, I'm feeling shaky. I think I needed this.”

She forked a bite into her mouth, and I watched to see her reaction. It seemed to go down just fine, and I reached for my own fries, which were salted to within an inch of their lives, just the way I liked them.

The coffee clashed, but to hell with it. Coffee and carbs were two of my favorite food groups. I let them battle it out.

I let Jessica get a few bites into her meal before I started again, “So, about getting you some place safe—”

“Can't I stay with you?” she cut in.

I stared. “I was thinking more along the lines of a hotel. A nice one. With security.”

“But…” She put her fork down, which I'd been afraid of, and started to tear up, which I should have seen coming, but apparently my precog didn't consider tears much of a threat. “But it's not like security will be at my door. Ian and Richie got to Mom and Dad. They got to Viktor. They can get to me.”

“They were living in the same house as your parents, and Viktor let them in.”

“The hotel's a public place. I'd have to go out some time for food and they could grab me. Or I could order in and they could pretend to be room service. Or put something in my food. Or…”

She seemed to run out of ideas, though not fear. That shone in her eyes along with the tears. Jessica was flat out terrified. She'd been sheltered all her life, and now she'd lost her family and her shelter in one fell swoop.

“Please,” she said. “I'll pay you double. Whatever you want. Just…please don't send me somewhere to die.”

Holy melodrama, Batman.

“Eat,” I said.

“But—”

“Eat. I'll take you to my place for tonight,” I said, instantly regretting it. “But I can't watch you twenty-four/seven. I have to be out hunting your brothers. So tomorrow, you look into a bodyguard and a hotel, yes?”

She sniffled and used her shredded napkin to wipe the tears out of her eyes. She didn't seem able to speak yet, so she just nodded. “Thank you,” she said finally, voice quiet and husky.

She picked up her fork again and started to eat. She was halfway through when the waitress arrived with her orange juice and a check, never asking if we wanted anything else. So, of course, I asked for another coffee. She eyed mine, still half full, huffed and went away. I'd drained my cup by the time she came back with the coffee pot, but I didn't really have any urge for that second cup. I doctored it anyway out of habit.

“And the toast,” I told Jessica, when she was about to push her plate away.

Jessica gave me a sad smile. “Yes, Mom.”

Then she seemed to realize what she'd said, and the tears sprang up once again. It wasn't long before snot joined the tears. Her shredded napkin wasn't going to do the trick, so I gave her mine, only slightly the worse for fry grease. She blew her nose loudly. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed the check. I'd expense the meal later. It would be on her bill. But for now… I took some cash out of my wallet and laid it down.

Instead of sliding immediately out of the booth, Jessica took up one of the pieces of toast and started spreading it with strawberry jelly. I saw a couple of tears hit as she spread and wondered if the salt would add to the flavor. Oh, bad me. No cookie. Probably I needed sensitivity training.

Or another french fry.

Two pieces of somewhat soggy toast and half her glass of orange juice later, we got out of there. Jessica had her car but didn't want to take it, so we left it in the garage where she'd parked and took mine. A text came in as I started it up, and I checked it before pulling out of my spot.

Apollo:
Where R U?

I texted him back,
Headed home.

His reply came almost instantaneous.
Meet U there.

But someone else beat him to it.