Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 (2 page)

I used to go out of body, or OOB, even
before that touch. But after it happened, I discovered that my
astral self liked to suck the life out of living people. I cut a
few tethered ghosts and sent them on their way—or I hope I did. And
I learned I had one hell of a yell—a Scream that could flay the
skin right off of a cow.

It could also shoot the essence of an
Abysmal Symbiont right back to the Abysmal Plane.

But things got wonky after I
accidentally set off a spell meant to close down that power. It'd
been hidden in my mother's house/shop in Little Five Points, a
spell she'd used on me when I hit puberty so that I wouldn't slip
out of my body and go bar hopping, I suppose. Back then, the
pressure of keeping my power capped off just created an over-sexed
libido and a need to wear high heels. Years later, after my
nineteenth birthday, my boyfriend and I were attacked in Piedmont
Park. He was killed, and I was raped and stabbed. It was enough of
a trauma that it broke the spell, and I slipped out of my body for
the first time I could remember.

Barry Stephens died that night and I
was reborn into something I didn't understand.

And recently, it's been
hinted that the rapist had been
hired
to do what he did to break the
spell and force me out of my body, as was my birthright.

But when I accidentally activated the
spell again, the pressure building inside of me created what I
learned was a Horror, a personification of my Abysmal side. And
that part of me possessed my ex-lover at the time, Detective Daniel
Frasier.

He killed a lot of people—but only
because he was forced to…by me.

And when I took that part of myself
back and Daniel was free of it, his mind couldn't accept what he'd
done. He'd escaped and tried to kill me, but shot his police
captain instead. They committed him to an institution in another
state.

So much happened then…too much to
core-dump anymore. And I really want to open my eyes.

At first the images were bleary,
fuzzy, black-and-white. The usual. Oh, I'd become an old hat at
this. I cleared my throat—no tubes this time. But I felt stiff. My
muscles were sore as I tried to shift.

"
Mademoiselle
…." came a soft feminine
voice. "Jus' rest eazee,
oui
? You're okay and you're safe
'ere."

Safe? Safe from what? And why did she
sound French?

Oh—then I remembered.

Montreal. Quebec. Canada.

Daniel.

He'd been hurt and he'd had to feed.
And I'd been the Hot Pocket of the night. I cleared my throat.
"….where?"

"Montreal Zheneral Hospitol," she said
in that soft accent. "Joo were found in ze park. Joo were
attacked?"

Found in the park? That
asshole
left
me
there? But why did he leave? I had a vague memory of sensing Azrael
nearby, the previous First Born who gave me the touch that turned
me into a Wraith. He wore the Throne of the Phantasm now, the
leader of the Abysmal Plane. And he was a friend.

Kinda. There was a lover factor in
there somewhere—but in a way I still didn't quite
understand.

I think the jury's still out on ole
TC. Trench Coat. My old name for him. I blinked a few more times
and finally focused on a small, thin face with large brown eyes and
bobbed hair. It was dark brown and tucked under her pointed chin.
She sat to my right, just past a railing of bars (why do they put
bars on beds in hospitals? Do people actually roll off?). She wore
a dark coat and an orange scarf. It looked fuzzy and soft to
touch.

Okay. Not a nurse. A man came into the
room just then, through a door behind the woman. When he stood
behind her, I could just make out his face. Much wider, blond,
short hair, and light-colored eyes. His cheeks were red and
slightly chapped. He wore a darker scarf, but a coat of a similar
color. "You two aren't nurses or doctors, are you?"

"No," the man said as he stepped to
the left of the woman. "I'm Constable Alfred Carter." He didn't
have the really cool French accent she did. In fact, he sounded
like American Midwest. That kind of…non-accent accent. Like news
announcers on television. He gestured to the woman. "This is
Constable Mae Theotokos."

I smiled at both of them. Constable. I
assumed that was like Canadian for officer or something. "I'm Zoë
Martinique."

"We know," Constable Carter said. He
reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet with his
credentials. They were very different than the Atlanta Police
Department ones, but then, those were the only official badges I'd
ever seen. After he replaced the wallet, he pulled out a smart
phone and tapped the surface. "You reside in Atlanta, Georgia," he
said, then rattled off my address (my new one!), my phone number,
bank, my social security number…and then he really freaked the hell
out of me. "And you are the daughter of one Nona Martinique, CEO of
the Ishmael Society."

I just blinked at him. I didn't know
what to say except, "What did I do?"

Mae smiled and leaned
forward. "No, no, no." I loved the way she said
no
! She sounded like Sophie did
in
The Da Vinci Code
movie. "Iz nothing like that. Your…condition when found was
much like that of three other women, all attacked in
Plateau du Mont-Royal
.
Except for there was no gentleman with you and no sign of rape.
Yet, ze hostess at ze bed-and-breakfast you were staying in,
Auberge de la Fontaine,
said you were there with a young man?"

I wasn't sure if Plateau du Mont-Royal
was the same place we'd been fighting in, and I sure as hell didn't
want to alert them to the fact we'd been fighting at all. They
obviously knew where I'd been staying—mom had booked us in under
the Society's account. But they didn't have Daniel's
name.

"Uh…" What was I going to say? I
couldn't tell them I was with Daniel Frasier. He was still wanted
for the murders in Atlanta, including that of Captain Kenneth
Cooper of the Atlanta Police Department.

Quick—who could I use? I ran through
the list of guys I knew at the Society. None of them really looked
like Daniel. Not really. Daniel was…he was beautiful. And I'd loved
him.

Still did in a way, and if it hadn't
have been for—

And that's when I did it. Something I
hadn't done in several days.

I thought of Dags.

Darren "Dags" McConnell. The man I
loved. The man I'd believed I was going to marry.

The man my best friend stole from
me.

"Ms. Martinique?" Constable Carter
said, pulling me out of my downward spiral.

I blinked several times and looked up
at him. "I—am I okay? Can I go?"

"Not until you tell us who it was you
were with. It's very important to us, Ms. Martinique. The
description we've received from the night hostess there is
questionable."

I pushed myself up in the bed. My back
was aching and I wanted to get a better idea of exactly how well I
was hooked to the bed and how big of a distance there was from me
to the door. I had an IV needle in the left arm, and one of those
heart monitor things clipped to my finger. The beeper! Other than
that, it was just me, a gown—were they backless in Canada, too?—and
my bare feet.

And snow outside.

I could always go to the bathroom, go
Wraith, and sieve up through the ceiling and go find Daniel. 'Cause
it was freaking me the hell out that he'd left me there in a park.
Alone. Defenseless. It…just wasn't like him.

Then again, I wasn't so sure I wanted
to keep trusting men when they were so easily swayed by other
women.

I wasn't stupid, either—these two had
probably already identified Daniel from the description that
hostess at the bed–and-breakfast gave them. Which was bad if they
connected a wanted criminal with the Society.

Damn. Things were getting
worse.

"Excuse me? Why are you people in
here?"

The voice was male and commanding, and
had only a small hint of an accent. I looked at the door, as did
the two of them, and saw an older man with snow-white hair in a
white coat. He had a stethoscope around his neck and a very angry
look on his face. His mouth looked like an upside-down smile
beneath a bushy white mustache.

"Doctor Bergeron," Constable Carter
said as he turned to face the doctor. "The victim is awake and we
have an investigation."

"You have no right to be in here,
because I have not given you permission." Doctor Bergeron stepped
into the room. I watched the door start to close just as another
hand stopped it. Male. Strong. And attached to—

Nick Shay?!

"
Arrêtez interroger ma fiancée
," he
said as he stepped in. "Now."

I caught one word in there.

Fiancée?

Chapter Three

The Ghoul Nickolas Shay stepped into
the room just behind the doctor. Nick's blond hair had been clipped
short over his collar, although a shock of it still hung over his
brilliant blue eyes. He was immaculately dressed—and if I wasn't
mistaken, it was a Hugo Boss. Navy blue. And perfectly
tailored.

Nick's little speech put him firmly in
Constable Carter's sights. "And who are you?" Carter asked
Nick.

The Ghoul held out his right hand.
"Nickolas Shay, attaché to Jason Lawrence of Mephistopheles,
Inc."

Mephistopheles, Inc.? WTH?

"Never heard of him or it."

Nick smiled as he lowered his hand
after the greeting. "Then we're doing our job right." He looked at
me. "You okay?" And that's when I heard the gentle and kind Nick I
was used to. His eyes softened when he saw me, and I held out my
hand. He was across the room and lowering the railing in a New York
minute.

Unlike a Revenant, a Ghoul's hand
could be warm. And Nick's was just right. He reached out and
touched my cheek. "I'm taking you home."

"Not so fast," Carter said. "This is a
criminal investigation into the attack and murder of several
couples in the park—"

Nick interrupted, his voice walking
all over Constable Carter's without him really raising it. "My
fiancée is not dead. She was out walking, enjoying the snow—which
she and I see so infrequently in the south of the US. Someone
attacked her. Luckily, she survived."

I got it—I mean, I figured out what
Nick was doing. He was filling in for Daniel. Which meant that he
knew Daniel wasn't around. Or, had Daniel called him and told him
he was missing and to get me out of hock? Otherwise, how had they
known where I was? Unless the hospital notified the
Society?

"Wait…dead couples?" I finally said as
I frowned up at Nick.

Mae finally spoke.
"
Oui
. There have
been three attacks in zat park. All three were couples. Ze men were
killed—their throats slit. And ze women raped, their mouths filled
with an item of clothing, and then stabbed and killed."

My body abruptly took on a bit more
weight as I sunk into the surprisingly spongy mattress of the
hospital bed. Couples attacked in a park. The males with slit
throats. The women raped and stabbed and their mouths—

I was sure that in some quantum theory
of multiple universes, there was a finite number of ways to kill
and rape. But how often were the same methods put into practice in
the same way as the man that'd raped and killed me?

And killed Barry in Piedmont
Park?

Barry and I had been in the park, at
night, after a show at the Shakespeare Tavern. The bastard had slit
Barry's throat before he came after me, shoved my socks into my
mouth, and raped me. I didn't know he'd stabbed me until later at
the hospital, after I'd left my body for the first time since I was
a tweener.

His was a face I'd never
forget.

Carter was looking at me. So was Nick.
"Show her."

Mae reached inside of a case or
something she had to the left of the chair and produced a piece of
paper. "Zis is a suspect sketch given to us by a witnesses who saw
zis man fleeing zee park." She handed it to me. "Do you recognize
him?"

I reached out with a shaking hand and
took the paper. Nick sat with me, keeping his hand tightly wrapped
around my other one and watching my face.

My gaze locked on the
sketch.

Watching all those forensic and
investigative shows on TruTV and HLN, I'd always wondered how they
identified anyone from those crazy, Wooly Willy-looking
sketches.

I didn't have to wonder
anymore. It was
him
. There were inconsistencies in the eyes and the nose. But the
eyes…the eyes and the way they sat over his long face.

It was
him
.

The guy in the park that night. The
one grunting over me under the lights as Barry bled to death beside
me.