Trail of Dead (36 page)

“Beautiful view,” I commented, although it was hard to make out much in the dark besides the flash of white water in the breaking waves.

“It is.”

“Kind of a long commute, though.”

“True.”

I turned around to face the house, leaning my elbows against the rails and turning my head to look at him. “Dashiell gave me your address, in case you were wondering. He knows that I’m here.”

Hayne frowned. “Miss Bernard, you say that like you think I’m going to murder you.”

I shrugged casually. “Just letting you know.”

“I see.” He looked back out at the ocean. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked calmly. Which I suppose was a lot more polite than “What the fuck are you doing at my house at two a.m.,” which would have been my reaction.

“I’ve been on this case,” I began, “and I don’t know how much you already know about it, but it’s kept me awfully busy the last few days. I had this little thought sometimes, though, at the back of my mind, and every time I tried to chase it down it just escaped me. Then today I realized it was actually a question.” I looked at him and waited until he turned his head to meet my eyes. “How did Olivia and Mallory know where to find the Book of Mirrors?”

Hayne flinched. It was small, but it was there. He looked away again, without speaking. That was okay. I could do the talking for both of us. “After all,” I said, “Mallory was never really part of Kirsten’s society. And I doubt Kirsten told any of her witches about a secret that big, because that’s just not what leaders do. You don’t give the governor of Hawaii the code to the nuclear weapons stash, for crying out loud. But if you had to be traveling back and forth to San Diego and you had to explain your absence to, say, a spouse…”

“Miss Bernard,” Hayne said, and then sighed. There was a long silence, and we stared at the ocean some more.

When Hayne showed no signs of speaking again, I said, “Okay, I’ll keep going. At the same time, I couldn’t help noticing the scars on your wrists.” Automatically, Hayne turned his hands palms-up, looking down toward the old puncture wounds. I couldn’t see them in the dark, but maybe he could. “It didn’t seem like Dashiell’s
style to feed off his daytime security guy, not when he has regular volunteers for that. But I figured, what the hell, maybe he does it to keep you in line or something.

“If that were the case, though, why are those scars so old? Why wouldn’t he still be feeding off you? There’s more than one bite there, so it wasn’t just some weird initiation ritual or something. You were fed on, a bunch of times, a while ago. And not by Dashiell.”

When he still didn’t speak, I opted for a more direct route. “Tell me, Hayne: Why did you and Kirsten split up?”

After a beat, Hayne finally answered me. “It wasn’t Dashiell, though I imagine that’s what anyone would think. He’s a lot of things, but he knew I was in love with her, and he didn’t stand in our way. She met him because of me—that’s how she was able to campaign for the witches to have rights, to share a cleaner, all of that.” His voice had a tinge of pride.

“It was Kirsten who eventually…she just couldn’t accept that I trusted Dashiell, that I wasn’t worried that he’d kill me or feed from me.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “I knew that he pressed me sometimes, you know? I’d overhear a phone call, or he’d have secret guests over, or whatever, and he’d take the memory from me. It didn’t bother me, but it drove Kirsten crazy. She offered me a way to protect myself, protect my mind from him, but I refused.” He shrugged. “Eventually it came down to a choice. I loved her, but…anyway.”

“And the bites?” I prompted.

He sighed heavily. “Yes, the bites. We split up, and she eventually got remarried. I was in a rough place. I let my guard down. And then Albert asked me for a favor, just delivering some package to his friend on my way home from work, at sunset. No big deal.” Hayne stared down at his hands, miserable. “Olivia didn’t take all of it, all of the memory. I was there too long for that. And I think she and Mallory enjoyed having me know that I’d given up
secrets—I knew some of Kirsten’s and some of Dashiell’s, you see. If I’d said anything to Dashiell about it…”

“Didn’t Dashiell see the marks?”

He nodded. “I told him I’d met a lady vampire at one of Gregory’s parties and things got out of hand. I was so messed up about Kirsten, still, that it made a lot of sense.”

Gregory was a creepy, powerful vampire who threw weekly parties for the vampire hangers-on. I had to agree, it was a great place to go for some recreational self-destruction.

Hayne went quiet for a few minutes, and I let him stew.

“You’re going to tell him now, aren’t you,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “He’s gotta know that Olivia and the witch know things.”

“They’re dead, Hayne,” I said. “Both of them. And Albert was killed too. There’s no one left to know what you told them.”

He stared at me without blinking, for so long that I was beginning to worry. Finally, he said, “And?”

I looked at him levelly. “And Dashiell and Kirsten aren’t stupid. When the dust settles it may occur to them to ask questions. For now, though, I’m planning to keep it to myself.”

He eyed me warily. “In exchange for what?”

I shrugged. “You’ve seen
The Godfather
, Hayne, you know the drill. ‘Someday I may call upon you for a favor’ and all that. You owe me one.”

“I won’t betray any confidences,” he said stubbornly. “Not again.”

I shook my head and stepped off the porch. “Hayne, my man,” I said over my shoulder, “I wouldn’t ask you to.”

By the time I left the little beach house, I was so tired my bones felt rubbery, and the morphine had completely worn off. I hurt everywhere, and it seemed like too much trouble to try to remember any of the specific injuries. My night still wasn’t over, though, not yet. There was one more thing I had to do, and it couldn’t wait.

I called ahead, and Will met me at the front door of Hair of the Dog. He looked exhausted, but still smiled at me the way he always does, part pleasure at being human again and part general good cheer at seeing me. I followed him through the bar and toward the back hallway.

“Ana took her girlfriend back to my place,” he explained as we went. Will had been busy since I’d left: the bodies, glass, and blood were gone, and the floor was still slick with cleaner. It was a little funny that everyone was cleaning up crime scenes today except for me. “I turned a spare bedroom into a secure room for my wolves a few years ago. Lydia will be safe there.”

“Has he woken up yet?” I asked.

Will shook his head. “I check on him every few minutes. The wolfberry is long gone from his system, according to Matthias, but I think he’s still sleeping off the aftereffects from the sedatives.” We arrived at the door to the little janitorial closet, and Will unceremoniously flipped the light switch.

Eli was laid out on the cot, dressed in a clean-looking pair of sweatpants that had been cut off at the knees, and nothing else. The room was warm, and he didn’t even stir when the light went on. I concentrated on my radius. I knew how Eli’s magic felt better than anyone, and the sense of wrongness had vanished.

“Is it okay if I stay with him tonight?” I asked Will.

He nodded immediately. “Of course.” He checked his watch. “If you’re here, I’m going to go home and catch a couple of hours of sleep. I’ll come in an hour or so before opening to finish the cleanup.” He looked up. “But, Scarlett, call me if you need
anything
. Or if he wakes up and wants to talk. Don’t hesitate, seriously.”

I nodded dully. I was already shrugging out of my jacket. Will waved and took off, turning off all the other lights as he went. I went
over and closed the door, but left the lights on, in case one of us had nightmares. I untied my Chuck Taylors and took them off too.

The cot that Will kept in the janitor’s closet wasn’t very big, but I did the best I could to shove Eli over and make room for myself. Instead of lying down, however, I sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, looking at Eli. Expressions danced across his face in his sleep, and I felt a little guilty when it reminded me of a dog kicking its legs as it dreamed. When I was sure I was calm and relaxed, I closed my eyes.

And this time, when I called, the circle was
there
. No searching, no grasping at edges. I was immediately relieved—some part of me had worried I’d need to be high to do it again. Then I concentrated, not on the circle, but on Eli and his magic, the magic that bonded to his blood and made him a werewolf. It was blocked from him while he was in my radius, but it wasn’t blocked from
me
. It was there, waiting for Eli to move away from me. Or, I finally realized, waiting for me to do something with it.

I called the magic to me. Or at least, that’s the best way I can describe it. I called the magic past the part of my radius where it was waiting, closer and closer until I could feel it come into
me
. I held it for a moment, in perfect balance, and there was potential there, potential to do…something? It wasn’t important. Instead, I let Eli’s magic dissolve slowly, bit by bit like sand through my fingers, until it was gone. When I finally opened my eyes, Eli no longer pulsed with magic.

I couldn’t bring any of Olivia’s victims back to life, including the people Eli had killed. I couldn’t save him from that memory, either, or the knowledge that he had taken lives. But I could give him this gift instead: the promise that it could never, ever happen to him again.

Because he was human.

I checked my nose, but there was no blood this time. And I managed to curl up against Eli’s side before I blacked out, which
was definitely progress. My last thought before sleep wasn’t of Jesse, or Eli, or the things that had happened between both of them and myself in the past week. No, even though I knew it was temporary, even though I knew there would be much to face the next day, my last thought was of peace.

During the writing and editing of this book I spent months in bed with hyperemesis gravidarum and other fun pregnancy ailments, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my friends and family who provided vital support, help, and love while I was sick. I especially want to extend my gratitude to my parents, my forgiving and often saintlike husband, and my elder daughter, who will hopefully not be scarred by the months of excessive television privileges. All my love to Molly, who was born perfect anyway, and who is definitely
not
named after the vampire in this book. I promise.

I don’t live in Los Angeles anymore, so I definitely owe a big thank you to Tracy Tong, who served as my LA advisor on this book especially. She’s the person I can count on to know what parts of the city wouldn’t have graffiti and what brands of dresses Olivia might have worn. Thank you to my old friend Brian Frederick, who probably didn’t attend medical school just to answer my bizarre questions, but who was always gracious enough to answer them anyway, and to author Lori Devoti, whose class at the UW-Madison School of Continuing Studies was a major contributor to the structure and first chapter of this book. I can’t tell you how much your support means to me.

Thank you to my sister Elizabeth, who was always around with compliments when I doubted myself most, and who was willing to contribute her marketing and graphic design expertise despite
my inability to pay for it. Much appreciation to Kari Harms, who enlightened me on how Candy Land could be an excellent party theme, and Krista Ewbank, who suggested that an abandoned theater might be a good place to cast some dark magic. Thank you, also, to my followers and friends on Facebook and Twitter, who remind me every day of why it’s so much fun to write books.

Finally, I owe many thanks, once again, to my hardworking team: Alex Carr and Patrick McGee at 47North, my editor Jeff VanderMeer, my agent Jacquie Flynn, and my copy editor Deb for her outstanding attention to detail. Someday I will get a version of Microsoft Word that isn’t almost a decade old, and I’ll have fewer typos, I promise.

Photograph © Tyler Lane, 2011

Melissa F. Olson was born and raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and studied film and literature at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. After graduation, and a brief stint bouncing around the Hollywood studio system, Melissa moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where she eventually acquired a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, a husband, a mortgage, two kids, and two comically oversize dogs—not at all in that order. She is the author of
Dead Spots
.