Deep Dark Secret (5 page)

A plush Hello Kitty toy winked at me from the store window.

“Well, what do you know?” I gaped at the squat building, which glowed faintly red in the gaudy lights from the restaurant across the street.

It had been years since my first and only visit inside, but nothing had changed in all that time. This was the very place I’d bought the sword I now carried. A strange tingling sensation fanned down my back and urged me forward.

Fueled by a curiosity that almost burned me from the inside, I pushed the door open, and the bell jingled a familiar greeting. The store was thick with the smell of incense, but underneath it was a stench I remembered like the clinging remnants of a bad dream.

“Hello?” I called out.

Heavy footfalls thumped from the back of the store, and once again the feeling of an invisible hand pushed me farther into the store. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the sword itself was ushering me forward.

When the short, round Korean man stepped through the curtains at the back of the room, he blinked his oil-black eyes at me a few times, then his lips parted in a beaming, mostly toothless grin.

The smell of decay was more potent now that he was in the same room as me. I hadn’t gotten confirmation the last time we met, but based on the smell and his strong silent demeanor, I was betting he was an ogre.

“Do you remember me?” I asked, inching forward until I was standing across from him with a glass case filled with weapons between us.

He nodded and pointed excitedly to the sword slung over my shoulders. I could no longer ignore that the simmering tingle on my spine was definitely originating from the blade itself. Though I’d refused to let any of the fae at the club take my sword, I didn’t feel the need to deny his request. The sword had once been his, after all. I slipped the sheath over my head and placed it in his open palms.

As soon as the sword was out of my hands the tingling stopped, as if an electric current had been running through me and the moment I let go of the wire, I stopped being shocked.

Weird
didn’t even start to cover it.

His toothless grin widened, and he bobbed his head excitedly. “You bonded,” he said. His voice was soft and in glaring opposition to what I imagined an ogre should sound like.

“Excuse me?”

“You. The sword. You have spilled much blood with it.” Up and down went his head like a robin digging for worms after rain. “It sings your name now.”

“What?” I wished someone was hearing this with me. Maybe it would make more sense to them.

“You brought it back to life.”

“It’s a
sword
.”

He shook his head. “So much more.” He caressed the weapon with time-worn hands, the skin tissue-paper thin but his fingers still deft and strong. “So much more.”

I reached out for the blade, but when I touched it the whole katana crackled with energy. The ogre dropped it on the glass counter, and we both took a step back. His eyes were wide as he looked from the weapon to me. My own fingers were trembling from the shock.

“What was that?”

The ogre narrowed his black eyes at me. “Has the blood of the dead touched the blade?”

“Uh,
yeah
. Vampire assassin.” I pointed at myself.

“You have tainted fae metal with the blood of the dead?”

“Well the sword didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual.”

“Foolish girl.”

I grabbed the sword, but with only me touching it there was no reaction this time. “What happens to it now that it’s touched undead blood?” Hugging the weapon to my chest, I watched his reaction and didn’t like the darkness that bloomed across his features. “Is it bad?” Judging by how the two fae at the bar had reacted, and the look the ogre was giving me now, I was willing to bed
bad
didn’t start to cover it.

“You have taken something light and fed it with darkness.”

“And?”

“Very unpredictable.”

“Dangerous unpredictable?”

The ogre took a step back from the counter and turned away. “Always danger in darkness, girl.”

Between the white-haired fae at the club, and the ogre’s dark pronouncement, I didn’t exactly feel like hauling the katana around the city with me for the rest of the night. If the fae of New York were all up in arms over my favorite weapon, it was probably for the best I just let the sword sit this one out.

After dropping the sword at home, I still wasn’t ready to face Calliope. The excitement of the evening was thrumming through me, and I needed to clear my head before I let the Oracle bombard me with any dark visions she might have had of my future with the vampires.

I found myself well out of my way for the second time that evening, wandering into Central Park, which was a favorite place for me to clear my mind. If I happened to stumble across a wayward creepy-crawly while I was here, well…Sig couldn’t really get mad at me if trouble found
me
, could he? I wasn’t exactly going looking for it if I was just taking a nighttime stroll. Holden thought I was spending the evening working with Keaty, so I was free to wander without my vampire shadow. Truthfully, my former warden was a little slack on his bodyguard duties. He knew I could take care of myself.

It was only nine o’clock, but the park was empty and deathly still in the frigid February air. We’d finally gotten snow on Christmas Day, and now a crystalline fog of ice clung to everything that held still too long. The towering giant of the Museum of Natural History looked like it had been dusted with sugar, glittering benignly in the light of the half moon.

The sound of shattering glass, however, was not part of the winter ambiance I’d set out to find.

I stopped walking and looked around. Considering I’d just been thinking about trouble finding me, it felt like Sig might pop out at any second and shout
A-ha! I knew you were up to no good
. It was hard not to feel like this was some kind of test.

There was more glass breaking, but no alarms sounded. I didn’t think that was possible in a museum as highly protected as the AMNH. Where were the guards? The alarm bells? I surveyed the back entrance of the museum like an invitation I was afraid to accept.

If the entire night staff of a museum were murdered by monsters, it probably wouldn’t bode too well for the reputation of paranormal creatures everywhere. Really, I was doing the council a giant favor by preemptively putting a stopper on what might be a huge scandal.

At least that was what I told myself as I traipsed down the steps to the recessed doors most commonly used for school field trips and tour groups. I pressed my face to the glass, my breath fogging up the space closest to my mouth. Inside, the giant Native American canoe loomed overhead, but the heavy wooden doors leading into the hall of the Pacific Coast Peoples were closed.

All the glass doors at this entrance were still locked, and none were shattered, so the breaking glass had either come from inside the museum—as I suspected—or overhead. Jogging back up the stairs, I surveyed the rows of windows on the upper floors of the museum.

Decades earlier, a pretty-boy con artist named Jack Murphy, or Murph the Surf, had used those windows as an access point to the museum and managed to steal the priceless Star of India sapphire. I had no interest in fencing precious gems, but if someone had broken into the museum tonight, those windows were their most likely point of entrance.

Doing a visual assessment of each window, I was about ready to admit I was wrong when I noticed one on the third floor open a tiny crack more than the others. Being that it was February, I somehow doubted a curator had left it ajar for the fresh air.

So now came the fun part—I got to scale a fucking building.

Call it dumb luck—my favorite kind—but I’d had the inadvertent foresight to wear boots without a heel tonight. They also had a sturdy grip, because the city streets were remarkably icy of late, and I wasn’t immune to wipeouts no matter how good my reflexes were. A slick sidewalk had a way of making anybody its bitch.

With my bag slung across my chest, I marched up the outer stairwell and looked for the path of least resistance. Ten minutes later I was precariously balanced on a teensy stone outcropping under the open window. My jeans were torn at the knee, and I’d invented a fun new string of profanities I hoped I’d be able to recall later.

Let me be the first to say, I will never make a good cat burglar.

The window squealed at me with exaggerated protest as I pushed it open. Inside, I found myself in someone’s cluttered office. Judging by the skeletons behind glass and all the books jammed haphazardly on the shelves, this particular curator studied reptiles. Or tiny dragons. It was hard to tell. The room smelled of Old Spice and leather.

I’d expected to hear more commotion from the inside of the museum, but the silence was so complete it felt thick and suffocating. In the hallway outside the office it was more of the same, just a quietness so complete it made my ears ring. That was more worrisome than the crashing glass, because it meant there were no usual human night watch noises. I didn’t spend much time breaking and entering in city landmarks, but I was a night person, and I knew the way places like this operated.

To minimize the sound of my footfalls on the slick stairs, I did something school children everywhere would have killed to do and slid down the marble banister from the third floor to the second. I had to do it in two parts thanks to the midlevel landing, and it wasn’t nearly as fun as I’d hoped. The thrill was ruined by the expectation I might find a dead body any second.

On the second floor I paused and listened. I was braced for more silence, but instead I was rewarded with a muffled creaking, then a loud crash. Someone swore, and for once it wasn’t me.

Entering the Hall of Marine Life from the second-floor doors, I caught my breath when I saw the massive blue whale suspended from the ceiling grinning at me with its huge, passive mouth. For a moment I forgot my purpose in being here and was struck dumb by the giant creature that appeared to be floating in the dimmed light of the hall. My life was so clouded with ugly, evil, unpleasant things it was easy to forget what real beauty looked like.

A sigh eased from my lips.

On the topic of evil, unpleasant things, the pitter-patter of fleeing footsteps sounded from behind the doors on the other end of the hall.

“Son of a bitch.” I slammed my palm against the metal railing meant to keep visitors from tumbling into the viewing room below.

Once I reached the corridor, the echoing footfalls were not going towards a traditional exit, as I’d expected, but had moved up to the third floor. I took off at a run, taking the stairs two at a time since I couldn’t exactly slide back
up
the railings. I passed several now-open office doors that had definitely been closed when I’d broken in less than half an hour earlier.

At first I didn’t see a trend to which doors had been opened. They seemed to be selected at random. A geologist. A gemologist. Another geo—oh, so they weren’t so random after all. Could this be as simple as a jewel heist? Sure, the museum was lousy with priceless gemstones, but wouldn’t stealing a shipment from the diamond district be way less risky than trying to get away with something out of the museum’s collection?

And if the haul was all that mattered, why check the offices? The good stuff was in the exhibit halls and overflow storage.

At the end of the hall, where the next corner led back to the main visitor corridors, another door clicked open. I hadn’t heard anyone in the hall, or seen anyone move, and yet there was someone up ahead of me I shouldn’t have been able to miss. More scuffling noises and another cuss. I was close enough now I could tell my quarry was female.

A girl cat burglar? I couldn’t decide if I was impressed by her moxie or disgusted by the cliche.

I crept towards the office with my back to the wall. The shuffling sounds gave way to the distinctive rustle of papers and another bout of breaking glass. What the hell was this girl after? When I was right next to the door, I finally drew my gun, which I’d picked up at home to replace the katana. Up until then I was only chasing ghostly noises. Now that I was about to come face-to-face with whatever was in the office, I wanted to be prepared.

Just having the SIG 9mm in my hands made me feel calmer, dulling the anxious excitement of potential violence. Loading a bullet might be too obvious given how quiet the museum was, so I’d have to wait until I knew who I was facing before I went ahead and chambered a round.

I sucked in a breath, then nudged the door wide open with the toe of my boot, raising my gun at the same time. The stink of rotten eggs wafted out. The curator must have left an egg-salad sandwich in his desk a little too long. With senses as heightened as mine, the smell was so noxious I gagged.

Shifting my weight so it was balanced between both feet, I rested my thumbs parallel on the butt of the gun, fingers staying light so I could quickly load a bullet and fire if the need arose.

When I stepped into the room I started to say something, but I was so startled my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and refused to form words. A young woman stood behind a big wooden desk with her back to me, smashing the panes in a display case that had been built on the wall in between two large bookshelves. She was riffling around, oblivious to the shards of glass scraping up her hands, and judging by her swearing, she wasn’t finding what she was looking for.

She didn’t look like any burglar I’d ever seen. I couldn’t make out the finer details through the darkness, but she was one of the most unassuming criminals to ever cross my path. Slightly pudgy, with a boring shoulder-length haircut and a wardrobe that screamed
dorm
, this girl would have been more at home in a classroom than breaking into a museum.

She hadn’t noticed me when I toed the door open, but when I stepped closer, my boots crunched on fallen debris from the desk, and she spun around, still clutching bits of rock from the display case.

My snide remarks froze in their tracks.