The Colour of Death (38 page)

Nevertheless, Fox had stirred up all of his old unresolved emotions.  However much he wanted to dismiss the psychiatrist’s words, Fox had perfectly articulated his anger at being sidelined by the Seer after sacrificing everything to the Great Work.  The shrink seemed to understand him better than his own father did — better perhaps than he understood himself.  Kaidan had always believed it was a great honor and privilege to execute his father’s plan.  Being the Seer’s son and right-hand man had not only defined his life but also justified everything his father had demanded of him.  Every deed for the Seer, no matter how steeped in blood, served a higher purpose which transcended banal morality.  Moreover, Kaidan was his heir, the future.  So to be told that his half-sister, who had done and sacrificed nothing, was suddenly the Seer’s shining new hope for the Great Work was hard to bear.

As Kaidan made his way to his father’s quarters, he wrestled with his confused feelings.  He felt angry and bitter, but not with Sorcha.  How could he be angry with his half-sister when she wanted no part in their father’s work?  All he knew with any certainty was that he needed to speak with her before tonight.

By the time Kaidan entered her room, Sorcha was trying to reconcile the jigsaw of her shattered memories and half-remembered flashes of her half-brother as a child with the killer he had become.  She turned to look at him.  “Kaidan, were we close as children?”

He sat on the chair by the bed with his hands on his knees.  “They say we were born within hours of each other.  After my mother died of pre-eclampsia your mother nursed me as her own.  She was the only mother I knew.  They called us the violet twins.”

She tried to imagine this killer as an innocent child.  “Did we look out for each other?”

Kaidan nodded.  “We used to hide together from our father when he was in one of his rages.  And you dressed my wounds when he beat me.”

“Did he beat you a lot?”

A shrug.  “The Seer has very high expectations.”

“What about my mother —
our
mother?  Did she protect you?”

“I think she tried but she had her hands full protecting you.  And there wasn’t much she could do.  Our father’s the Seer.  Everyone worships him.  No one defies the Seer.”  He frowned, remembering something.  “Apart from you.  You were fearless.  You sometimes protected me.”  A smile creased his lips and for a moment Kaidan looked almost animated.  “One time I had a nosebleed over one of the Seer’s books so you cut your finger and told him you’d go the pages bloody.  You knew he’d beat me for it but figured he’d leave you alone.”

“Why?”

“You were invisible.  You were a girl.  He never asked anything of you.  I think that’s why you defied him.  To get his attention.  As I grew up, our mother spent time with you, while the Seer focused on me.  I was his great hope.  The violet son.  The future.”

She remembered the death echo in the tower and shuddered.  “Why did he kill our mother, Kaidan?”

He looked down.  “You’ll have to ask him.”

“What happened, Kaidan?  How did that child I’m remembering become a killer?  What happened to you?”

He stiffened and crossed his arms.  “I did my duty.  That’s what happened.  Everything I’ve done has been for the Great Work.”

“For the Seer?”

“Of course, whatever he asked of me.”

“What about me?”  A shiver of fear ran through her.  “Was I involved in the killings?”

He looked at her for a long while.  Then he shook his head.  “No.”  She felt her legs sag, relieved to absolve her past self of her family’s monstrous sins.  “You were lucky,” Kaidan said.  “As a girl you had it easy.  I was the one he molded.  I was the one he put to work in the slaughterhouse when I was seven to harden me up.  I was the one he forced to kill a man when I’d barely turned twelve.  From you he expected nothing.  Until now.”

“Did I
know
about the killings?”

Again he paused.  And again he shook his head.  “No one, except the Seer’s inner circle, knows about the sacrifices in the tower.  You only found out about them on the day you ran away.”

“Is that why I ran away?”  She studied his face and tried to read his blank eyes.  “Or did something else happen?”

He looked down at his feet and clasped his hands together.  “That won’t happen again.  I’ve promised the Seer I won’t fail this time.  Tonight I’ll do my duty.”

Fear surged through her.  “Do what duty?  Kill me?  Is that why my father’s involving me now?  Because he needs a violet death echo?”

He looked up at her and a spark flared between his blank eyes — a spark she couldn’t read.  “It’s strange.  Dr. Fox thought the same thing but I’d never kill you, Sorcha.  I couldn’t.  The Seer has other plans for you.”  He paused.  “For us.”

Something about the way he said it and the way he looked at her heightened her unease.  “What about Nathan?  What’s going to happen to him?”

“Why?  What’s he to you?”

“I owe him everything.”

Kaidan’s eyes narrowed.  He looked almost jealous.  “Does he know how you feel about him?  It’s obvious he cares for you.”

“Why’s it obvious he cares for me?” she said, before she could stop herself.

“Because he came for you.  Because he’s risked his life for you,” Kaidan said, his unblinking eyes studying her.  “Because he’s going to die for you.”

Chapter 58

Chief of Detectives Karl Jordache didn’t like things he couldn’t understand.  He had become a detective to solve crimes and eliminate reasonable doubt.  However, since reading Nathan Fox’s clinically detailed notes on Sorcha’s death-echo synaesthesia and Professor Samantha Quail’s paper on archaeosonics, he had been neck-deep in doubt — reasonable and unreasonable.  Talking with Fox’s aunt yesterday had only increased his concern that Fox could be right about the killer being part of the Indigo Family and spiked his guilt for letting his friend go alone into the remote unknown, without back-up.

This morning he had been tied up in meetings with the district attorney but at lunch he had flown out to the stud farm in Sacramento to talk with Connor Delaney about his brother’s cult.  Now, as he stood in the main house watching Connor’s daughter riding one of the horses in the paddock he remembered the pathologist’s reports on the first and last victims.  Both bodies contained traces of ketamine:  an anesthetic drug popular in veterinary medicine, particularly for tranquilizing horses.

“You ever use ketamine on the horses?”

“We used to,” said Connor.  “Now it’s mainly Rompun.”

“You said your brother was a trained veterinarian, who also breeds horses in his cult.”

“Yes.”

“So he’d know who to get hold of ketamine and how best to use it?”

“Sure he would,” Connor Delaney said.  “What’s this about?  Dr. Fox said my brother had come to reclaim a patient from his cult.  Said she’d got amnesia or something and wanted to make sure she’d be safe going back with him.  He didn’t say anything about ketamine.”

“Did he ask you about your brother’s synaesthesia?”

“I told him the
mothú
has been in our family for centuries and my brother’s got a pretty intense form of it — in fact he claimed to have most forms of it.  That’s why the Indigo Family embraced him and made him their leader.  Where are you going with this?”

Jordache told him about the murders.  ‘Dr. Fox believed that whoever committed the murders also had a pretty intense form of synaesthesia and was part of the cult.”

Connor looked horrified.  “You think my brother had something to do with them?”

“He wasn’t in Portland when the homicides were committed.  But someone from his cult — someone with a rare form of synaesthesia and access to ketamine — may have been.  Fox was concerned the killer was after his patient who was also very synaesthesic.”  He paused.  “Did he tell you who she was?”

“No.”

“Sorcha was Regan’s daughter.  Your niece.”

Connor opened his mouth in shock.  His daughter?  How old?”

“Young.  Early twenties tops.”

“You say she’s very synaesthesic.”

“Very, according to Fox.”

Connor thought for a moment.  “She could be one of the violet twins.  I remember seeing them once, toward the end of our legal battle with Regan.  Aurora claimed both had auras even purer than their father.”

“Twins?”

They were actually half-brother and half-sister born at about the same time.  Something happened to the boy’s mother and Aurora adopted him.  The girl was a real sweetie, although Regan seemed only to notice the boy, who he shouted at a lot.  Strange kid, big for his age and clumsy.  Oh yeah, he had some sort of problem.  What did Aurora call it?  Some long medical name beginning with a T.  Whatever, it made the poor bastard smell funny.”

Jordache leaned forward.  “Smell of what?”

“Weird, like something had died.”  Jordache’s surprise must have shown on his face because Connor frowned.  “What is it?”

“Witnesses said the killer smelled of death.”

Connor said nothing for a moment, then muttered a heartfelt ‘shit’ and went into the kitchen.  He returned with a calendar.  “What was Sorcha doing in Portland?  Had she run away from the cult?”

“That’s what Fox was trying to find out.”

“But Regan came for her?  Wanted her back?”

“Of course.  She was his daughter.”

Connor shook his head and studied the calendar.  “You don’t know my brother.  He doesn’t think like you or me.  The only reason he’d have left the safety of his settlement and come to Portland to reclaim her was if she — or her aura — were valuable to him and his Great Work.”

“His what?”

Connor didn’t answer, just looked up from the calendar and gazed at his young daughter riding one of the beautiful horses in the paddock.  She waved at them and both men waved back.  Connor’s face was pale.  “Shit,” he said again.

“What?”

“If you want to protect my niece and help Dr. Fox, it’s not just her half-brother you need to worry about.  Tonight’s a full moon, what Regan’s cult calls Esbat.  If I’m right — and I hope to God I’m not — then you’ve got till midnight, the witching hour, to save them both.”  He checked his watch.  “That only leaves a few hours.”

“What do you hope you’re not right about?”

When Connor told him, Jordache’s first reaction was disbelief.  “You’ve got to be kidding?”

“Like I said, I hope I’m wrong.”

Jordache thought of Sorcha, not much older than his own daughters, and how he had dismissed Fox’s fears, letting his friend go after her alone and unprotected.  Fox wasn’t even a cop, for Christ’s sake, just a goddamn shrink.  What chance did he have against a killer?  Jordache felt sick.  As he picked up his phone and rushed out to the car he hoped Connor Delaney was wrong.  God, he hoped he was wrong.

Chapter 59

Fox knew he had nothing to lose when Kaidan returned to the preparation suite and placed a pile of items on the table.  For the last few hours he had tried not to think about what Regan Delaney had in store for Sorcha and him tonight.  In particular he’d tried not to think of the silver silk wrist ties and braided cords — which he now realized were garrotes — strewn casually on the piles of white linen in the corner.

Instead he had tried to focus on his last conversation with Kaidan and review all he could remember of the killings in Portland.  Just as it was all beginning to fall into place, Kaidan had brought in the pile of items.  It wasn’t the bag of toiletries and towel, the worn but freshly laundered thick white robe or the scuffed sandals that confirmed his worst fears, but the strange headpiece designed to cover the mouth and the band of silk Fox suspected was a gag.  He could sense he was now on Death Row, hours from his execution.  As Kaidan laid the paraphernalia on the table he quickly slipped the headpiece and gag into his pocket as if he hadn’t intended Fox to see them yet.  He pointed at the toiletries and robe.  “You need to shower and wear these for the ceremony.”

Fox couldn’t help staring at Kaidan’s pocket.  “Why?”

“It’s what the pathfinders willingly wear,” Kaidan said as if speaking to a difficult child.

“They willingly wear a gag?”

A shrug.  “Even the most devoted can sometimes lose their nerve.  A gag protects their dignity by guaranteeing they don’t disgrace themselves should their resolve falter.”

“Do the Indigo Family know the Pathfinders are gagged?”

“If you can’t or won’t wear what’s required, the Watchers and Wives will
help
you.  They appreciate what a great honor it is and envy the opportunity you’ve been given.”

“If any of them want to take my place, they’re more than welcome to it.”

“They haven’t been chosen,” Kaidan said.  “It’s not their time.”

Fox patted the pile.  “I’ll prepare myself but I want to talk about you first.”  Kaidan stiffened.  “I know what you were trying to do in Portland.  I know what
‘Serve the demon, save the angel’
means.”

He shook his head.  “That’s in the past.”

“But it could affect your future — and Sorcha’s.”

“I don’t care,” said Kaidan.  But he made no attempt to leave so Fox tried to do what he’d done many times before; explain to a killer why he had killed.  Only this time Fox’s own life depended on it.

“When did your father start brutalizing you?  I’m guessing you were just a boy.  He did a good job.  He conditioned you to obey him totally.  How many people have you killed for him in the tower?”  Kaidan said nothing, just stared back.  “You’ve lost count, I guess.  Judging from the bones in the forest and the ledger, it’s included men, women and children.  You’ve always rationalized these terrible deeds, of course, by telling yourself they were for a greater good.  For the Seer and the Great Work.

“Then your father began to involve Sorcha and you hated that.  It confused you and made you feel worthless.  You thought you felt bad because your father had undervalued your contribution and your sacrifice.  And I thought that too, at first.  I thought you hated Sorcha, were jealous of her, and wanted to kill her so you could retake your place at the center of the Seer’s plans.  But now I realize that wasn’t true.  That wasn’t true at all.”