Blood Kin (23 page)

“We could always go play tourist and ask,” I ventured.

“True,” Rhys agreed. “Maybe we can get close enough to tell what’s in there.”

What, not who.

I walked around Ernie in the wheelchair and Marla of the twirling scarf, who were now counting spare change and muttering something about getting a coffee and something to eat.

My brother took my arm as we crossed the street to join the crowd. I stepped onto the sidewalk and around a small pale man who was trying to video the goings-on while his wife and children stood beside him, all of them whispering in embarrassment for him to stop. Rhys and
I exchanged an amused look and stepped onto the curb. I stopped suddenly and Rhys stopped with me.

“What on earth—?” He whispered the words so low that I had to strain to hear them. I knew why, though. The feeling was unmistakable. Mere yards away, inside the empty space that had once, according to signage, been Mosel’s Mercantile—the storefront just a few doors down from the hostel—the raw
scentfeelglow
of power throbbed. The abandoned store’s windows, through dirty, weren’t boarded over like so many other closed shops. The pulse of raw energy I could see through the filthy glass was so intense I could barely make out the police and forensics technicians bustling around inside. Bright lamps of some sort illuminated the scene, but the figures paled to ghosts obscured by energy that seemed ready to burst out of its confines.

My knees buckled and Rhys caught me before I fell to the ground. Power arced through me, singing its energy, a burst of light so strong my vision whited out. I fought to catch a breath as the power lanced every muscle, stifled my autonomic system. The touch of my brother’s hands reverberated through me, two points of pressure magnified. I wrenched myself away and dropped to my hands and knees panting as everything slowly came back to normal.

The heightened buzz of conversation pierced my awareness. “What happened … is she all right … call 999 …”

“Miss, are you well?” “Keira, you okay?”

The deep voice of one of the police officers battled the sound of my brother’s concern. I waved them both off and struggled to my feet, grasping for Rhys’ arm to steady myself. “I’m fine, I’m okay,” I said. “Thank you, officer, I felt dizzy and stumbled.”

“There’s a walk-in clinic close by,” the police officer said. “Perhaps you should—”

“Thank you, Dean.” Another voice cut in. Gareth pushed through the now closer crowd. “I’ll take care of this. She happens to be a relative. Can you and Samuels see if you can handle …?” He motioned to the people surrounding us.

“Right away, sir,” answered Dean. “Samuels, your assistance, if you please.” A second police officer joined the first and they both began asking the crowd to please disperse. They were so damned polite. When I’d first visited Canada as an adult, I’d been determined that the myth of the polite Canadian was just that. Funny thing is, I kept being proven wrong. Even here, in a tense situation, polite cop attitude rather than rude cop every time.

“Keira, why don’t we go sit down?” Gareth came closer and reached to help support me. “May I?” he asked before he took my arm. I nodded and began to laugh, a ragged sound that even to my own ears sounded off.

Rhys and Gareth helped me to a nearby bench. I loved the fact that throughout the city, one could come across benches on the sidewalk, meant for nothing else but sitting and relaxing.

“You sit tight, Keira,” Rhys said. “I’ll walk over to the Tim’s and get you a coffee. Gareth?”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” he said. “Thanks … Dad.” Gareth grinned at Rhys, who rolled his eyes and trotted away.

“You okay, then?”

“I’m all right, really,” I protested. “That was … unexpected.”

“You can say that again,” Gareth agreed. “That power
signature wasn’t there a few hours ago when I was investigating the hostel deaths.”

I took a deep breath of the clean air. I always loved how the air in this city had no real urban scent—buses ran on compressed natural gas or electricity, so there were no diesel fumes to taint the air. City workers kept the place tidier than one could expect from a city this size.

“When were you last at the scene, Gareth?” I asked. “Or have you been here since we saw you?”

“I left not long after you did for about an hour or so,” he said. “Went back to the police station to pick up some paperwork. I intended to stop at the condo and perhaps catch some rest, but then I got word that another body had been found.”

“What, wait—
another
one?” I grabbed his arm. “You mean this isn’t the same one from before?”

“No, and the weird thing is, they looked a lot alike.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“First guy was human, definitely,” he said, keeping his voice low so neither passersby nor fellow law enforcement officers would hear if they wandered too close.

“Those two men from earlier, Rodney and John, they’d seen him before. You talked to them, right?”

“I did, but the dead man in the hostel wasn’t the man they’d seen before, though I could see the resemblance. Both were tall and blond and dressed in similar clothing, but the hostel guy was just a musician passing through. He and a couple of his friends got into a drinking game and well, let’s just say their judgment was less than stellar. I turned that case back over to Vancouver PD. It’s no longer considered a suspicious death, but we’re going ahead with the coroner’s inquiry just in case.” He ran a hand through his close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. To the un-Clan
eye, my nephew looked nothing like his fathers (neither Rhys nor Ianto was sure who was the biological sire, but since they were identical twins, the genes were the same); his brown hair, high cheekbones and deep brown eyes definitely came from his mother. The twinkle in his eye and sense of humor: all paternal.

“Then this victim—?”

“A dead Sidhe, I think,” he said. “The power’s definitely Sidhe-flavored. Dark but with a golden tinge.”

“You see power as colors?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you did weather,” I said.

“I do. Weather sense is tied to energies in the atmosphere. I see energies as bands of color.”

“Fascinating.”

“I guess you’ll be doing much the same soon, eh, auntie?” He grinned at me. “Soon as you learn, that is.”

“True.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “Where the hell is my brother with those coffees?”

“Tim Hortons is pretty busy this time of day,” Gareth replied. “People grabbing a last-minute coffee on their way somewhere.”

I looked around, realizing that as we’d been speaking, the weather had cleared a smidgen—the ubiquitous mist giving way to overcast skies with no precipitation—and the number of ambulatory bodies passing us had increased. Downtown was reawakening, as the nighttime crowd replaced the office workers. And in the midst of all this dull normality, someone was killing with magickal power.

“I
THINK KEIRA
should go in there with you,” argued Rhys. He’d returned with two extra-large coffees, loaded with cream and sugar, and a box of Timbits. Gareth was getting ready to go back to the crime scene, now nearly blessedly free of spectators as the two police officers had taken their directive from the RCMP inspector to heart. They’d stationed a third man to patrol the perimeter of the taped-off crime scene and ask pedestrians—politely, of course—to please cross to the other side of the street.

Buses filled with evening commuters punctuated the traffic. A few cyclists sped by on the bike path as we crossed the street, heading back to the no longer empty storefront. I paused a moment before stepping off the sidewalk.

“You going to be okay?” Rhys asked, hovering protectively to my right.

I nodded. “Extra shielding, no glamour to interfere, I’ll be fine.” I hoped. I could still feel the energy buildup, even this far away—less debilitating, but insistent. I was beginning to wish I’d chucked my nerves and contrariness and gone straight on to the enclave like a good Kelly heir.

Gareth took the lead and motioned us under the crime-scene tape. “They’re with me, Bob,” he said to the police officer at the perimeter. The man nodded and let us pass without comment.

The other two officers were inside the entryway, overseeing what looked to be a forensics team. “They almost done, Samuels?” Gareth asked.

Samuels, the taller of the two, nodded and gestured to a small woman in a white coverall packing up some gear. “Dr. Woo just finished, Inspector.”

“Maggie, good to see you again.” Gareth greeted her with a smile and a warm handshake.

“Been a while, Gareth. Thought you were in Ontario.”

“I was, yeah,” he replied. “Came back to North Van a couple of weeks ago. Got called here for this.”

The coroner studied him, a perplexed look on her face. “For some homeless guys? The Horsemen investigating that? Autopsies aren’t even done yet on the first couple of them. Why’d you get called in already?”

“I know it sounds odd,” Gareth answered, “but the PD asked for help; too many dead in too short a time. This can’t all be due to malnutrition, old age or too much alcohol.”

“This one sure isn’t,” she said. “Blunt-force trauma, some stab wounds. Not so sure of time of death, body temp’s all wonky.” She looked at Rhys and me. “Who’s the company?”

“Dr. Margaret Woo, coroner, meet Rhys and Keira Kelly.”

Dr. Woo’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “You brought your relatives to a crime scene?”

“Rhys is an investigator in his own right, Mags,” Gareth said.

I nearly giggled aloud at this extremely unlikely lie. My brother was only an “investigator” by dint of his ability to shapeshift into some sort of canine or lupine form, which upped his sense of smell, which, I was pretty sure, was one of the reasons Gareth had
brought us to the scene. Gareth’s talent didn’t lend itself to investigating crimes. I sincerely doubted that the Coroner’s Office would agree that his ability qualified him as an investigator of any type.

“Whatever,” she said. “It’s your crime scene now. There are some … unusual aspects to this one. But I’ll let you take a look yourself. I’ll text you when my initial report is ready. Or call me if you want to discuss anything. Otherwise, check back in later. My guys will wait outside. Let them know when they can take the body.”

Unusual aspects?

“Of course.” Gareth nodded at her. “Take care, Maggie; no offense, but let’s hope I don’t need to see much more of you while I’m here.”

“Oh, I think we’ll be chatting again quite soon.” A slightly bemused look flitted across her face before being replaced with a professional smile. “Rhys, Keira, a pleasure.” Dr. Woo nodded to each of us and hefted her kit on her shoulder.

“Likewise,” I murmured back. Gareth said nothing. Was he taken aback by her reference to unusual aspects, too?

The petite doctor exited the building, leaving the dead body to we three Kellys.

T
HE DEAD
man—Sidhe, whatever—lay on the floor, atop some sort of bedroll. A long rectangular wooden case with rounded ends lay next to him, broken and empty; the empty space inside looked as if it had once carried a flute. The man was tall, perhaps even as tall as Tucker, and slender in the way Sidhe often are. Long blond hair was now dyed red-brown with crusting blood. A small,
festively beribboned braid lay across his face; the rest of his hair was loose and spread out across the floor. Skin so pale beneath the bloodstains, it was almost translucent. He was clad in a leather vest over a green flowing shirt, soft leather breeches tucked into knee-high brown leather boots. The shirt was torn in several places—the knife wounds, I supposed. Every piece of clothing was soaked in blood. A snake-shaped pendant of green jade hung from a leather thong hung around his neck. A silver band on his right ring finger was the only other piece of jewelry.

I could barely look at the ruin of what was once his face. It was no longer recognizable, but one hazel-brown eye peeked out, still open in death.

“He has no papers, no passport, no ID.” Gareth spoke quietly.

“Looks like someone tried to rob him,” I heard myself saying in a flat tone. I seemed to have gone into some sort of analytical mode, shields tight and hardened against the power I still felt thrumming against my skin. It hadn’t decreased any in the time we’d been standing there.

“Yes, that’s what young Dean said earlier,” Gareth said in a low voice. “He texted me some details before the crime scene investigators got here. He was first on the scene.”

“If it was robbery, then why leave a silver ring and what might be a valuable pendant?” asked Rhys.

“Good question, Dad. Dean wondered the same thing.”

“There’s a lot of blood,” I said. “Rhys?”

My brother crossed the room and squatted down close to the body. His sense of smell would be less precise in
human form, but would still be better than mine …

Wait, I kept forgetting my new abilities. Maybe I could tell, too. I approached my brother, intending to help him. Before I got even one step closer, an arm blocked my way.

“Do not even go there,” Gareth said.

“What? I was going to—”

“Help Rhys out?” He smiled briefly. “I could tell exactly what you were going to do. You remembered you have the Talent now and were going to see what you sensed, right?”

I narrowed my eyes at him and frowned. “How did you—”

“I’m a cop, aunt,” he said. “I saw the look on your face.”

“But why did you stop me?”

“Because, Keira,” Rhys replied as he rejoined us. “Not an hour ago, you were brought to your knees by whatever power surrounds this body. Do you really think it would be a good idea to concentrate on anything other than keeping your shields in place?”

“Okay, one point to the twin,” I said. “Did you find anything?”

“Most of the blood isn’t his,” Rhys said.

“It’s not?” Both Gareth and I spoke at once.

“It’s primarily human. The stab wounds, the blow to the head—looks like they were postmortem. Very little blood from those locations.”

“That changes everything,” Gareth said.

“How so?” I asked.

“If those wounds were postmortem, and the blood isn’t his, Keira, then why on earth is a Sidhe bard dead?”