The District (18 page)

She placed the second call and left the same message on her mom’s machine. She cradled the phone in her palm, passing it back and forth. “I’m sorry, Eric. I can’t go out to dinner now.”

“You have to eat something.” He reached for the plastic menu on the nightstand. “Let’s do room service again.”

“Where could she be?”

“We’ll give her another hour, and then we’ll call the San Miguel P.D. to check on her. Better yet, I’ll have my brother the chief call. I’m sure the chief of police for Crestview has some pull with the San Miguel P.D. I’ll call him right now.”

He tried his cell first and left a message. Then he called the station.

He listened to a recording about calling 911 for an emergency, and then a human voice came on the line. “Crestview Police Department, can I help you?”

“Is Chief Brody in? This is his brother Eric.”

“One moment, sir.” There was a thirty second pause, and then she came back on the line. “He’ll be right with you.”

“Thanks.”

He waited another few minutes before his brother’s voice came over the line. “Hey, Eric. What’s up?”

“I need a favor, Ryan.”

“No small talk? Must be important. What do you need?”

“Christina’s mother lives in San Miguel and she hasn’t answered her phone in—hours. She’s elderly, and Christina’s worried about her.”

“Christina? I thought...”

“Don’t ask. Can you contact someone over in San Miguel to facilitate this?”

“Sure. Does this mean you and Christina are getting back together?”

“Don’t ask. Give the San Miguel P.D. my number and ask them to call me after they do a safety check.”

“Sure and don’t be a stranger.”

“Thanks.” He pocketed his phone. “Ryan’s on it.”

She closed her eyes. “I’m worried. Remember when we met Darius? He wouldn’t shake my hand.”

“He was pretty wound up that day.”

“Maybe he didn’t want contact with me. Maybe he was afraid I’d read him.”

“Can you do that?”

“Not really, but I’m sure Vivi filled his head with exaggerations of my power.”

“So Vivi’s not really your sister.”

“I guess not. I’m surprised that Dad knew all along and still mentored her. I mean, what would be the point?”

“Maybe,” Eric replied as he traced a pattern on the window with his fingertip, “he thought she was his daughter at first and by the time he found out, the blood didn’t matter anymore.”

“But the blood does matter—it matters to Darius Cole.” Christina chewed on a fingernail. “Eric, Libby must’ve known about me and Vivi. She told us she traced family trees. Darius got the information from her and then killed her when he thought she was going to tell us.”

Eric shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from pummeling the wall. “That must’ve been him at the coven meeting the other night. We were worried about him seeing us, but he must’ve been even more worried about us spotting him there.”

“I was face-to-face with him. How could I not know?” She clasped her hands to her chest. “His cologne—I smelled it when I climbed the tree overlooking the site of Nora’s murder. It’s him. Vivi’s right.”

Someone knocked on the door and called out, “Room service.”

Christina dug her hands in her hair and took a spin around the room. “I can’t eat. Why hasn’t Mom called yet?”

Eric opened the door and ushered in the waiter with the room service cart. After he signed off on the check, he lifted a silver dome from one of the plates, and the smell of roast chicken wafting from the tray didn’t make his mouth water.

He clanged the lid back down and took a sip of water instead. “Sit down and eat, Christina.”

She stopped her nervous pacing and skewered him with her dark gaze. “Can you?”

He downed the rest of the water and wished for something stronger. When his cell phone buzzed in his pocket, he dropped the glass. He answered and tapped the speaker. “Agent Brody.”

“Agent Brody, this is Chief Picard with the San Miguel P.D. Mrs. Sandoval is fine...”

Christina released a noisy sigh and sagged against the credenza.

“But was tied up and—the little girl is gone.”

Chapter Seventeen

A fury, hot and potent, burned in Eric’s chest and he slammed his fist against the wall as Christina sank to the floor.

The chief continued, and Eric had to close his eyes to focus on his words. “Mrs. Sandoval didn’t see her attacker. He came at her from behind and knocked her over the head. When she came to, she was tied up and her granddaughter was gone. My officers are canvasing the area and we have our crime scene techs on the way for fingerprinting.”

Eric exchanged more information with Chief Picard, giving him Darius Cole as a possible suspect. The chief assured him they’d have the SFPD check out Cole’s apartment in the city. When he hung up, he joined Christina on the floor.

She sobbed against his chest. “He’s not going to be waiting for the police at his apartment. He has our little girl. He’s going to take her blood, just like the others. She’s third-generation legacy of one of the most powerful brujos in the coven.”

And a second-generation victim of kidnapping.
He’d failed Noah Beckett, and now he’d failed Kendall. He didn’t deserve to be a father.

Christina clung to him. “We have to find Cole. We have to save Kendall. You were right. It’s all about power and he wants to take hers.”

His heart thundered in his chest. He’d just found his daughter, and he wasn’t about to let some brujo-wannabe steal her away from him.

Adrenaline surged through his body and he rose to his feet, bringing Christina with him. He placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a little shake, as much for his benefit as for hers. “Think. What does he want with Kendall?”

She sniffled, but her jaw formed a hard line. “He wants her blood. He wants the power that a third-generation legacy will give him.”

He released her and drew his hand across his mouth. “The other legacy victims—Olivia, Juarez, Liz and Nora—they weren’t enough for him. He was determined to get the blood of the most powerful brujo in that coven—your father.”

“Right. He thought he’d start with Vivi, and then found out about me. Maybe he figured the half-diluted blood of Octavio Sandoval was good enough, but when he discovered that I was an only child and that I had an only child, he wanted to improve his chances.”

“How else could he improve his chances? He’ll want to make sure this time.”

“By following the old rituals.” She dashed a tear from her cheek. “He obviously knows more about this stuff than I do.”

With his fingertips buzzing, he grabbed Christina again. “And where’s the best place to perform those ancient rituals and when?”

Her eyes widened. “The old union hall in The Haight—at the witching hour.”

* * *

T
HE
H
AIGHT
-A
SHBURY
DISTRICT
—the event that marked his life forever began here and it would end here.

Christina parked the car down the block from the union hall. They took side streets so they could approach the old building from the back. A few homeless people stirred in their makeshift beds in doorways and on city benches, but nobody disturbed them.

A lone car huddled against the chain-link fence that wound its way behind the union hall property. Had that been where Darius parked his car the night he attacked Christina?

She must’ve had the same thought as she jerked her thumb at the vehicle.

Eric slipped wire cutters from his jacket and quickly pinched a succession of links on the fence to create a hole. He held up his hand to Christina as he crawled through first.

She joined him on the other side, and he pulled her against the wall of the building where Uma had sent her looking for the restroom.

They flattened themselves against the building and edged around the corner. The high windows of the union hall were dark, but Eric’s nostrils flared at the smell of smoke.

Grabbing his belt loop, Christina pressed her lips to his ear. “I smell fire.”

He nodded and scoped out the building.

He hadn’t called in the cops. He couldn’t afford to take orders from anyone this time, couldn’t afford to lose his daughter like he’d lost Noah. He’d do this his way.

Drawing his weapon, he hunched forward and darted from tree to planter across the quad, Christina hot on his heels.

They confronted the double doors into the hall, firmly closed. Eric pressed his hand against the cool metal of the door, but it didn’t budge.

He stepped back and surveyed the building. A tree nestled against the building, its branches lookout posts into the high windows that ringed the hall.

He nudged Christina and pointed up at the tree.

She got it. She knew what they had to do. No waiting around. No surrounding the building waiting for law enforcement. No talking to the kidnapper as he held Noah...Kendall.

Eric boosted Christina into the tree first. She held on to a branch and walked up the trunk, sure-footed in her running shoes.

Holstering his gun, he followed her into the reaches of the tree until she stopped right above him. She cupped her hand around her mouth and hissed down at him, “Fire.”

He pulled himself up beside her and peered through the murky window. A light flickered on the floor of the hall, and then he saw a dark shape emerge from the front of the room—a man carrying a child.

Drawing his weapon, he nodded to Christina. “I’m going in. We can’t wait.”

He wouldn’t wait.

He bent his leg at the knee and then thrust his foot forward, his heavy motorcycle boot crashing through the window. He dropped through the jagged glass, grabbing the cord from the blinds and swinging into the building like a clumsy Tarzan.

The man inside the hall yelled and stumbled back, but not far enough.

By the time Eric staggered to his feet, shaking broken glass from his hair, Darius Cole had regained his footing and had a limp Kendall tucked beneath one arm—a knife to her throat.

Christina screamed as she hit the wall, dropping the cord and falling to her knees. “Leave my daughter alone.”

Cole growled, his dark mouth a slash across his pale face. “How did you find me here?”

Jumping up, Christina sneered. “It wasn’t through witchcraft. Where else would you go to perform your whacked-out ritual?”

“Whacked-out ritual?” Cole spit into the fire. “You would say that—you who have everything and chose to throw it all away.”

At least the man’s forward progress toward the fire with Kendall had halted.

Eric waved his gun. “Why those victims?”

“You’re here.” Cole eyed the weapon. “You must know about legacy. Those others were second-generation legacy, and that’s what saved you in the end, Christina.”

“You attacked me here?” She’d dropped her gun in the fall through the window and glanced at it on the floor.

“My friend, Denise, helped me lure you outside.”

“You mean Uma?”

“You didn’t expect her to tell you her real name, did you?”

Eric took a step toward the fire. “And the car? Was that you, too?”

“That was just a warning, a way to frighten you away from the case. What good would your blood have done me spilling out in the street?”

“W-when did you figure out my daughter was third generation legacy?”

“When I broke into that stupid old woman’s store and stole her research on the coven families. Vivi wasn’t even related to Octavio Sandoval.”

Eric shuffled closer until the heat from the flame warmed his face. “What do you hope to accomplish from killing a child and drinking her blood?”

Christina let out a whimper.

“You have no idea, do you, Agent Brody? You have no clue about the power
Los Brujos de Invierno
have. It might surprise you to learn about this city’s rich and powerful having that blood running through their veins.” He lifted Kendall with one arm, the knife poised above her. “This blood.”

“If you touch her with that knife, I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

“You can’t.” The knife gleamed in the firelight. “I already have the blood. It’s coursing through me. You can’t harm me. Now drop the weapon or I slit her throat right now.” He pressed the silver blade to Kendall’s neck.

Christina shouted, “Eric!”

Did she want him to drop it or not? Didn’t matter.

Cole was insane, and he thought he was invincible—a dangerous combination. There would be no reasoning with him. No talking.

Eric’s muscles coiled. He held out his gun and dropped it. As soon as Cole moved the knife to his side, Eric jumped across the fire. He tackled Cole, who raised his knife once again.

Eric ripped Kendall from the madman’s grasp just as the blade came down, grazing Eric’s arm.

Christina swooped in and yanked Kendall away from the two bodies grappling on the floor, their hands warring for the knife.

“Christina, my weapon!”

With a final burst of energy, Cole threw him off and then rolled into the fire. It caught his hair first, fueled by the oil he used to slick it back.

He wailed and then began chanting gibberish.

Next the flames leaped up to the cloth hanging from the table. Whatever Cole had in those containers exploded. And his chanting continued.

“Get her out! Get Kendall out!” Eric stumbled to his feet, his gaze darting around the room for something to use on the fire.

Another small explosion rocked the room, and Christina called from the double doors, “Get out, Eric. The whole room’s going up in flames.”

He choked and ran for the fresh air. Before following Christina outside, he glanced over his shoulder at Darius Cole writhing in the fire, his mouth still moving.

He slammed the door.

They ran across the quad and Eric pulled out his cell phone to call 911.

They clambered through the hole in the fence and ran back toward the street. Christina had Kendall clasped to her chest.

When they stopped at the corner, Eric held out his arms for Kendall. “Is she okay? Did that maniac hurt her?”

“I—I think she’s just drugged, and she’s coming out of it.” She transferred Kendal from her arms to his. “You did it, Eric. You saved our daughter—your daughter.”

He looked down into Kendall’s sweet, innocent face and knew he’d never leave her, never let any harm come to her. He was a father, and he’d saved himself, too.