Hearts of Darkness (15 page)
Read Hearts of Darkness Online
Authors: Kira Brady
Kayla grudgingly admitted he had a point. She had seen the news reports. Worse than fictional Gotham. What could a bunch of half-crooked cops do against so much bloodshed?
“I do my best with what I got, Ms. Friday,” Cortez said stiffly. “You people don't hear about the ones we do save. The young girls in shipping containers we intercept before they disappear into the underground brothels. The perps so hyped up on drugs they got superhuman strength. For every one that slips through the cracks, we take down five more. But you only pay attention to the one that got away.”
“I know. You do a great job. Thank you,” she said. A hostile Cortez could quickly turn into an unhelpful one.
He led the way to the Pump and Boiler Houses. More rusty towers flanked the buildings to the right. “We found your sister in here.” The field light overhead sputtered and died, casting the industrial towers in gloom. He pulled a heavy flashlight out of his waist holder and switched it on. “I'll tell you the truth: it looked like she was fleeing something. There were signs of a struggle. Scratches on her arms and neck, though my partner thought they were self-inflictedâ”
A shadow passed in the doorway of the Pump House, the silhouette of a woman. There and gone in the blink of an eye.
Cortez froze with one hand on his holster. “Who's there?”
No one answered. There was no sound but the soft splash of water against the bulkhead and the whine of the wind through the towers.
“I saw it too,” Kayla whispered.
“Probably just a park-goer, but you never know. You stay here. I wouldn't want your boyfriend on my caseâ”
“He's not mine,” she insisted. She wasn't eager to follow Cortez. She didn't want to be left alone in the mist, but Hart hadn't returned. She didn't have much choice. “I'll be fine,” she said, more to herself than Cortez.
“Sure, sure,” Cortez said.
She heard a muffled clang. There was definitely someoneâor somethingâout there.
“Hello in there? This is a crime scene. You need to leave.” Cortez drew his weapon and, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, ducked under the yellow police tape, entered the building and disappeared behind a fire engine red boiler.
Minutes ticked by, but it felt like hours. A few drops of water fell from the sky onto Kayla's face, startling her. “There's nothing to be afraid of.” Maybe if she ignored the fear creeping up her spine it would go away. She turned Hart's spyglass over in her hand. A nightlight, he'd said. She held it to her eye and adjusted the small gears until her vision came into focus. Still, it was a little blurry. Lights and shadows played over the machinery of the park. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to see.
A groan slid through the air. A scream should have been more alarming, but somehow that groan packed more terror.
“Cortez?” It was too quiet. “Hart?” She looked around for Hart, but there was no sign of him. She called out again, but no one answered. If Cortez was injured, she could help. If Cortez was in danger, she couldn't. If this were a horror movie, this is where the heroine would stupidly leave the house to investigate the strange noise outside. So many ifs.
Her instincts said to wait, but her inner nurse said, “Get off your butt and go help the man.” If he was injured, every second counted. She tried calling again.
Nothing.
Crap.
This was the moment that defined a person. It wasn't enough to have the skills to save a life; you had to have the guts to act. She held up Hart's spyglass one more time and peered into the Pump House. More flickering light was visible through the glass, but what did it mean? Pocketing it, she entered the doorway and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Cortez probably hadn't heard her. Any minute now he would step back into view with a smile on his face and an all-clear. Nothing to be frightened of.
“Cortez?” she called. Her voice echoed tinnily against the silent steel structures.
Still nothing.
The shed was a mausoleum of a bygone industrial age. The machines were silent sentries, fashioning aisles and rows the length of the building. The air felt heavy with dust and disuse, yet somehow alive. She could almost imagine energy crackling around her. She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.
Up ahead, a light bounced off a series of brass pipes. She circled around a massive boiler and found Cortez standing in the center of the aisle, flashlight hanging limply at his side, his back to her. He didn't move, didn't seem to hear Kayla coming up behind him.
“Detective Cortez.” She reached out and touched the man on the shoulder.
Cortez turned, slowly, awkwardly, as if his limbs weren't quite coordinated with his brain. He stared at Kayla blankly.
And she knew that something was hideously wrong.
Chapter 7
Cortez's eyes were dead. Lifeless, and yet hungry. As if that made any sense. Christ, the man looked like he was in a waking coma. The edges of his mouth unfurled. There was a whole lot of scary in that smile. She swallowed.
“Kayla,” he said.
Detective Jake Cortez had never called her by her first name.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Cortez didn't blink. “Come with me.” His voice was different. Hissing. Breathy.
Then he spasmed. Groaned. His hands came up to his neck, scratching, clawing, trying to peel off his skin. “Get it out!” he cried, his voice normal once again. Angry red grooves appeared on his neck and face. Blood beneath his fingernails.
Kayla rushed to help him. “Stop hurting yourself. Stop it!”
He flicked her off like an ant, and she tumbled to the floor. The concrete scraped her palms and knees.
“I can tassste your fear, sssissster,” he hissed. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.
This wasn't Detective Cortez. Something else peered out at her. Kayla licked her lips. “Who are you? What have you done to Detective Cortez?”
His eyes popped open so wide the whites showed all around. His legs moved, awkwardly, as if pulled by strings of an invisible puppeteer.
He had called her
sister
.
sister
.
“Desi?” Kayla crawled backward. Desi wouldn't hurt her.
He lurched forward.
She flipped to her feet and bolted toward the entrance. The semi-aisles had turned into a maze. She tripped over a lever and slid on a steel plate in the floor. Dead ends all around her. She glanced back and saw the creature reaching for her. Grabbing the spoke of a giant wheel, she let momentum swing her around the corner. Not fast enough. Hands gripped her legs. She clung to the wheel as she was yanked back. The cold metal cut into her skin. Her shoulder joints stretched painfully. No letting go. She kicked and felt her foot connect with a sickening snap.
The creature hissed and raked its claws down her leg. Her sweatpants ripped.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help, Hart!” The deserted shed soaked it up, played it back. No one could hear her. The creature squeezed, and pain radiated up her leg. Oh, Lord. Her eyes watered. Its grip was an iron vise, cutting off circulation to her foot, crushing the delicate bones until the verge of breaking.
Her sweaty hands slipped free of the wheel. The world flipped. Gravity pulled at her head, her body suspended in air. The monster clutched her ankle and shook her upside down. Her hands raked the ground, but there was nothing to grab on to. She could only hang like meat in a butcher's rack. Helpless.
“Desi,” she pleaded, “if you're in there, if you can hear me, please, let me go.”
The thing didn't answer. It dragged her as it marched back down the aisle. Its limbs were becoming more coordinated, as if with practice it was learning to use Cortez's ligaments and muscles. Kayla's head thumped against a brass pipe. Her vision blurred as pain shot through her skull. Something wet ran down her hairline.
This was it. Twenty-five years of planning, saving, reasoning. All for nothing. Meticulous. Rational. Practical. She'd always been proud when those words were applied to her, but suddenly they lacked heat. She'd missed out, always playing it safe.
She should have kissed Hart when she had the chance.
The creature stopped at a giant engine. She closed her eyes and immediately sensed a blackness reaching toward her. It seemed to be attracted by her helplessness. Shadows rippled within Cortez's body, down his arm to where he gripped her ankle. They pulsed against her skin, slimy and tainted.
Hart's medallion still hung from her neck. It banged against her forehead as she was jostled upside down. Now it heated. Light sparkled through it, like a thousand tiny stars. Reacting instinctively, she pulled at that light and reached deep inside herself to find more. A light that
was
her. Soul or essence or life force, she wasn't sure. She only knew that she couldn't let the blackness overtake her.
was
her. Soul or essence or life force, she wasn't sure. She only knew that she couldn't let the blackness overtake her.
She grabbed hold of that light and pushed against the shadows with all her might. The creature startled. It stumbled, and they fell together, hitting the metal pipes that fed the engine on the way down. She grabbed a pipe and felt skin scrape away. Her blood splattered the floor.
Suddenly, a large timber wolf sailed over her and slammed into the creature. His black fur stood on end. A white stripe ran between his ears and down his neck. Hart had come for her. She'd never seen him shift before, but she knew it was him.
The Wolf growled and snapped its jaws over Cortez's arm. The thing in Cortez's body roared. It swept its other arm around the Wolf's throat and squeezed. The two rolled across the aisle, locked in combat.
Kayla crawled out of the way. Her leg burned. She was pretty sure it was broken.
The Wolf ripped out a chunk of skin, spraying his muzzle and the front of Cortez's uniform with dark red blood. By all logic, the human should have fallen easily under the Wolf's attack, but Cortez was no longer fully human. The thing possessing his body seemed to grow stronger on the pain. She imagined it would keep fighting until the Wolf severed every ligament, effectively cutting the strings of its puppet.
A shot rang out and the Wolf stumbled. Somehow Cortez had managed to shoot his gun while partially holstered. Hart whimpered in pain, but dove again at Cortez, this time knocking the gun away. The weapon ricocheted off the engine and spun toward Kayla, stopping inches from her outstretched fingertips.
She pushed forward and grabbed it. A gun. She didn't know how to shoot a gun. It shouldn't be hardâjust aim and pull the trigger, right? Sweat dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision. The Wolf was in the way. Locked together, they moved too quickly. Blood flowed from the Wolf's foreleg, leaving a trail crisscrossing the aisle.
She abhorred violence. She aimed. The gun shook in her hand. Her finger squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
She was almost dizzy with relief. She hadn't shot Hart or Cortez. Hadn't taken anyone's life, aptrgangr, werewolf, or whatever.
The Wolf tore out Cortez's throat. The fight was over in an instant. Blood coated the cement floor. Blood dripped from the brass boiler. Blood ran in rivulets down the pipes that fed the engine.
She wanted to vomit.
The Wolf collapsed in a pool of blood. She crawled forward until she could see his chest rise and fall in shallow breaths. Pain made her eyesight fuzzy. She thought she saw a firefly alight on his nose, then another and another until he glowed. The glow flowed up his muzzle and fell down his back, a golden wave that dissolved fur and fang and left sun-kissed skin in its wake.
When the glow faded, sprawled on the floor lay a thoroughly masculine, completely naked, gorgeously familiar man. His skin was rosy from cold and exertion. The gold armbands did nothing for modesty. If anything, they accentuated the godlike perfection of his muscled physique.
“See anything you like?” Hart growled. His eyes were closed, but a smirk lurked in the corner of his mouth.
Kayla had to swallow twice before her voice would work. “What took you so long?”
He scowled, but instead of a snappy comeback he launched himself. One moment he was on the ground, and the next he was on top of her. His large, hot body pressed her into the floor. His hungry lips descended on hers, tasting of mint and pine.
She couldn't help herself. She needed reassurance that he was alive and whole. Her fingers searched for injuries, but all they found were the chiseled muscle and taut skin of his back. Adrenaline rushed through her veins, relief and madness all coiled together. The world narrowed to touch and taste. His tongue in her mouth. Mint and pine. His calloused hands on her breasts. Kneading and wanting. His leg pressing open her thighs. Wet heat and tingling need. The hard masculine part of him settled firmly there, where the heat centered, where the wanting built, like a puzzle piece falling into place.
Touch me
, she thought. She stroked his arms. Her fingers slid over those strange gold armbands that never seemed to leave him, even when he Changed. His left arm was wet and sticky. He jerked his arm away.
, she thought. She stroked his arms. Her fingers slid over those strange gold armbands that never seemed to leave him, even when he Changed. His left arm was wet and sticky. He jerked his arm away.
“You've been shot,” she said, guilt swamping the heat in her belly. How could she forget he was injured? He made her lose all sense. Her own aches and pains rushed back to her. “I'm so sorry. You shouldn't let me maul you like this. You must be in terrible pain.”
Hart gave a wry smile. “Must have slipped my mind.” He rested his forehead against hers for a moment. His breath came as fast as her own. The sky peeked through a hole in the roof of the shed. He slowly pushed himself up and achingly stood, naked and proud in the gray light.
She looked away, face hot. She didn't have to see his face to know he was laughing at her. It was too late for modesty after she'd had her hands all over his naked skin. Her hand rose nervously to the medallion around her neck. It had broken in two. “Hart, I'm so sorry!” She held the pieces up to him. “It saved me.”
“Don't worry about it.” He waved off her concern, but his fingers tightened around the twin pieces when she handed them back. “Just some old thing of my mom's.”
“I'm sorry,” she said again, knowing it was inadequate.
He shrugged. “But I want my Deadglass back.”
She pulled the spyglass out of her pocket and handed it over. “What's it for?”
“Lets you see the dead. Didn't I tell you to use it?”
“I did. I didn't see anything.”
“No river of light? No looming shadows?”
“But what does that tell me?”
“It's the Aether. Takes some practice to read the currents, I guess.” He glanced at the Deadglass and then down to his naked body. He had nowhere to put it. “On second thought, hold it for me a bit longer, will ya?” He offered her his good hand. His left forearm showed an angry red tear where the bullet had shot clean through the muscle. Otherwise, he seemed
extremely
healthy.
extremely
healthy.
Her body was another story. Her foot hung at a crooked angle. Deep scratches ran up her exposed leg.
“I don't know if I can stand,” she admitted. “My ankle.”
He growled low in his throat and swept her up in his arms.
“Don't! You'll hurt yourself.”
“Save it, babe.” He started down the aisle, but something about the engine caught her eye.
“Stop. Look at the blood.” She pointed to the engine, where splattered blood ran over the burnished metal. It didn't drip toward the ground, as it should. The droplets separated and spread, against gravity, coating the sides and lingering in grooves carved into the thick metal. Scripting across the engine like a ghostly fountain pen, a message emerged:
K-9881
. The last number was half formed, as if the writer had been interrupted.
K-9881
. The last number was half formed, as if the writer had been interrupted.
“Blood will out,” she murmured.
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“It looks familiar, but I can't place it.”
“Think harder.” Hart set her on the ground. “Memorize it.” He strode to Cortez's body and tore the uniform off. Using it as a rag, he scrubbed the blood off the engine. The writing disappeared as if it had never been.
He swung her back into his arms, and she settled against his naked chest.
Again
. Her brain worried that this position was becoming all too familiar. Her body purred, happy to rub against him like a cat in the sun. She glanced back at the corpse. “What about Cortez?”
Again
. Her brain worried that this position was becoming all too familiar. Her body purred, happy to rub against him like a cat in the sun. She glanced back at the corpse. “What about Cortez?”
“He knew the risks.”
“The police will find our fingerprints.”
“No, they won't. Norgard owns enough of them. They'll find a rabid dog attack, nothing more. We've a real problem with rabid animals in this city.”
Party to manslaughter, obstruction of justice, police bribery. Kayla was on a roll. She hardly recognized herself. The straitlaced nurse had been left far behind. Maybe she'd fallen out of the plane on the ride here.
Hart carried her to his car, set her down, and opened the trunk where he'd stashed his clothes. Now that she wasn't pressed against his naked chest, she had a great view of the rest of him. She caught his grin and forced herself to stop staring. “Who knew you were such an exhibitionist?”
“What's to be embarrassed about? This is the way the Lady made me. A hundred percent natural.”
“Lovely,” she said, tongue in cheek.
“Thank you.” He winked at her.
Her face burned scarlet. “How do your clothes stay together when you Change?”
“I took them off before I Changed, to search for clues. The beast has a better nose. Didn't want to miss anything.” He dressed more slowly than strictly necessary, covering all that beautiful skin inch by inch. She felt a strange sense of disappointment.
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