by Kym Grosso
She was not aware that she had left Jamaica until she awoke in a dirty hotel room in New Orleans. Her new master sat on a chair next to her and explained she’d been turned into a vampire; she’d be his new slave. While she shook in bed, trying to come to terms with what he was saying, the door burst open, and a man shot a wooden arrow into his chest. The vampire disintegrated on the spot. Assuming Simone was an innocent human, the killer said nothing as he turned and left the building. Simone scrambled out onto the street, but realized she was weak. She had stumbled into the muck and had lain helpless until Kade found her.
During the next few years, Simone had adjusted to life in New Orleans and transformed into a beautiful woman. Her pale skin highlighted her lush, ebony hair. It wasn’t long before Kade and Simone became intimate. He wasn’t in love with her, but he’d been lonely and she was available. He couldn’t risk being involved with a human during those times, so another vampire offered him the companionship he needed. What Kade hadn’t realized was that Simone never gave up practicing Voodoo and had started secretly practicing the dark arts when he was out of town. She knew Annie’s secrets and wanted the power she knew could be hers. It wasn’t until a werewolf, named Tristan, approached him and told him about his missing sister, that Kade found out Simone had evil intentions. Tristan had come for Kade’s help, and an agreement. Tristan would offer peace with the local wolves. In exchange, Kade would get his sister back from Simone.
Kade was horrified to find Simone in the barn that day. She had captured at least ten girls, including Tristan’s sister, and was holding them hostage. The girls were barely alive, cuffed with silver, beaten and naked, hanging on the walls. Infuriated, he commanded Simone to him and shoved her to her knees. While he initially wanted to kill Simone for her crimes, she begged for her life. Granting her mercy, Kade banished her forever from the United States. Forced to leave, Simone went with only a ticket for passage overseas and the clothes on her back. He destroyed her ritualistic objects, her spell books, and all that remained was a burned field where the barn used to stand.
He had nearly forgotten about Simone until Luca told him he had scented her at the Jennings’ scene. If Simone was involved, he knew she would kill Sydney without a second thought. If she was able to capture and torture strong werewolves, like Tristan’s sister, she could easily kill a human. He didn’t know what he could do to convince Sydney of the danger that she faced. He knew he couldn’t stop her from continuing the investigation, but damn if she was going to go out on the streets without him. He had to be serious with her and make her understand that she had to obey his orders in order to work with him. He needed to tell her about Simone.
Sydney tensed at Kade’s remark that he’d punish her. She’d never seen him this angry. Yet his outrage only served to put her on the defensive.
“Newsflash, vampire, I'm not your daughter, nor are you my boss. So, let me make myself clear. I don’t take orders from you. We may be partners for now, but this is my city. I apologize for not calling you, but I figured you’d be…I don’t know…sleeping or whatever it is that vampires do during the day. I figured your office would call you.” She knew she was wrong, but that was the best apology she could cough up at the moment. She was not going to let some guy tell her what to do. There was a murderer killing women on the street. They’d catch the guy and then, next year, it would be a different perp out killing people; that was life in the big city. She was here to catch bad guys, and was not a little girl playing cops and robbers. “How about we just move on? You’re here now, so let’s get to work.”
Kade stared down at her and moved closer. God, he was sexy, but dangerous. Sydney could see his muscles bulging out of his tight black t-shirt. For a minute, she thought about what it would feel like to slip her hands under his shirt and skim her fingertips along the hard ridges of his stomach.
“Sydney, love, I know you know these streets like the back of your hand, but we need to learn to trust each other. There are things you don’t know about. I promise I will tell you everything when we get time, but right now, I need you to give me a little trust. Do not go on calls by yourself. It isn’t good practice anyway, and you know it. Even though we are technically sharing this case, I could easily get you pulled off it if you don’t listen to me. There is a vampire involved in these killings, and possibly another creature with supernatural abilities. I don’t want to push you off the case, but I will if you don’t start cooperating, and that means that I lead the investigation, not you. Most importantly, you go nowhere alone, am I clear?”
“Crystal,” Sydney responded, refusing to look him in the eye.
Sydney focused on the body. Arguing with Kade wasn’t going to solve the case. What other similarities are there to the first girl? She pulled another glove on and reached for the girl’s wrist. The dress had long sleeves that fell past her fingers. Sydney gently pulled up the material to see if the girl had marks on her. Sure enough, she had bruises on her wrists, indicating that she’d been bound and then perhaps cut loose after she died. Sydney scanned the site for evidence of cuffs or ropes, anything that may have been discarded in the rush to dump the body.
“Check out her wrists. She was bound, too…just like the other vic. We need to scour every inch of this alley to see if anything else was dumped with the body. Killers are careful, but these guys always make mistakes. We just need to find them.”
As she turned around, Sydney saw the coroner’s van pull up. She waved to Adalee, who walked toward her with kit in tow. “Hey Syd, another vic, I see?”
“Yeah, I can’t be sure but it looks like she’s been drained. The site looks clean, no blood or urine around the body.”
Adalee blew out a breath while she stared down at the dead girl. She glanced at Kade, who was coming over to see her, and then back again at Sydney.
“So listen, trace came in on the wrist fibers from girl one. Get this, looks like the hair was human, also hemp mixed in. So, whatever rope or binding this is, it’s got human hair in it.”
“Do we know who the hair belonged to?” Sydney asked.
“No. But I can tell you that it doesn’t match the vic’s.” Adalee bent down and started working on the body, but kept talking. “And there was something else. We found residue on the body, some kind of oil. Trace came back showing mostly lemongrass. A few other small things, but it definitely was some kind of lemon oil. This case keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“Lemongrass? Maybe it was just some kind of skin cream or lotion? We don’t know it has anything to do with the perp.”
“Well, all I can tell you is that it was only on her forehead, nowhere else on the body.” Adalee spoke to Sydney as she pulled out the body thermometer. “The only time I’ve seen that kind of thing is in the church. You know, like Catholics do with the healing masses.”
“What is it, Kade? You're awfully quiet over there.” Sydney waited for Kade to weigh in on Adalee’s assessment.
“I told you, Sydney. There are forces here that you are not used to fighting.” Kade knelt down to inspect the girl’s face. With a gloved hand, he reached over and carefully pushed a stray hair off her face. He sighed. “Lemongrass oil. Voodoo, Hoodoo. These are all practices which use oil and herbs. Sometimes practitioners create a hybrid of Voodoo, Hoodoo, witchcraft, and black magic. Not all are pure of heart. Some seek power or money, even love.”
“Seems like a sick way to find love.” Sydney shook her head. “Honestly, Kade, this just sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me, but I've seen people kill for all kinds of reasons…even for a pair of damn sneakers.”
“In Hoodoo, there is a substance called Van Van oil.” Kade stood up, his face tightened. “Lemongrass is used to make it. I will need to contact my sources to find out the purposes of the oil, but I assure you the folks who use these tools are serious in their desires. The perp may be anointing the victims.”
“Even if they aren’t purposefully placing the oil there, there could have been some kind of
cross contamination. I agree that we need more information on why someone uses the oil in the first place. It could help with determining a motive. What about the hemp and human hair? Why the hell go through all the trouble of making a rope with human hair when you can just go to Home Depot and get a synthetic rope?”
“Human hair and hemp have uses in witchcraft. My guess is some kind of cord magic, possibly intended to make death more painful. My understanding is that cord magic is not usually used as an actual rope to tie someone. I have heard of it being placed under a victim’s bed, or such. The witch or mage could have used it as part of a ritual while they were binding the girl.”
Witches? Mages? Vampires? Sydney suddenly felt like a fish out of water. This was exactly why she hated to deal with the supernatural. She was not part of that world. But a killer was a killer no matter how they did it or who they were. She had learned long ago that evil was not exclusively a supernatural phenomenon. Sydney contemplated turning the entire case over to Kade. She’d be done and could resume fighting normal, everyday human crime. But already the faces of these poor girls were ingrained in her mind, and she felt a duty to find their killers so they could be at peace. Besides, Sydney was too far into this case to simply turn it over to Kade. What she wouldn’t admit was that she was too far into Kade to let him go.
“Ada, Kade, I don’t see any tattoos on this girl’s face. The other vic had them. You think maybe Jennings didn’t get a chance to finish his work on her?”
“Maybe Jennings did the tattoo on her breast? And did the other tattoos post mortem? He could have been a human slave to whomever is killing these girls, but he wasn’t the mage, and there definitely is magic here. I can feel it…there are remnants of it all around. But even though there are signs of magic, I am certain a vampire is behind these killings.”
“Kade, Sydney…what the hell is this?” Both Kade and Sydney snapped their heads around to see what Adalee was talking about. They both knelt down and watched Adalee cradle the girl’s chin in her left hand, while with her right she took out a long pair of tweezers. “There is something in here. Syd, flashlight please.”
Sydney grabbed her flashlight, flipped it on and shined the light down the girl’s throat. Kade reached around to lift the girl’s head and helped to keep the mouth open so Adalee could work. Slowly she reached in and pulled the tweezers back out. “It looks like maybe a small scroll or a piece of paper?”
Kade held out his gloved hand and took it from her. The object was a red paper, folded into a five-sided star, a pentagram. He carefully unfolded it.
“Looks like someone’s been practicing witchy origami. There’s writing on it. Let me see.” Sydney leaned in close to Kade, attempting to get a better view of the object. As her shoulder brushed his chest, the heat of his body enveloped her. Her nipples tightened in response. She needed to get this case finished soon before she lost her mind from lust. Hello? Crime scene. Dead body. Sydney pulled her thoughts back into focus and read the note.
Written in black ink, there were only four words. 'You will be mine'. As she leaned toward the note, she smelled the faintest hint of cinnamon. She turned her head, her eyes locked on Kade’s.
“You will be mine? What kind of note is that? Kade, do you smell that?” She knew he had super vamp senses. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination.
“Cinnamon? Yes, I smell it. It’s a common ingredient in witchcraft, probably infused into the ink.” Kade tried to keep a poker face as Sydney read the words. Simone. He had banished her from the country and from his bed. He would never be hers no matter whom she killed. Kade’s protective nature urged him to take Sydney right then and there and lock her up to protect her from this evil woman. He knew that he had to tell Sydney. He needed to find a way to share with her what was happening so he could get her off the case without completely pissing her off. If he could get her alone, he could tell her everything. “I have to consult with a few people about what we found. I have a witch on retainer back home. Let’s get the scene cleaned and then we can go back to my place and make some calls, together.”
“All right, let’s get the scene wrapped up,” she agreed. “The faster we get this done, the sooner we can call this witch of yours.”
Kade felt an enormous relief as she acquiesced. She was finally beginning to trust him, and they were starting to work as a team. He was acutely aware of the intense sexual connection growing between them, one that he wanted to explore as soon as he knew she was safe from Simone. Sydney was turning him inside out, and he suspected she was destined to be his, and not just for a night. Kade wanted to make love to her until she screamed his name in ecstasy. He wanted her to know that with every cell of her being, she was his.
For now, he needed to keep his feelings hidden. It was hard enough keeping his hands off of her every time he saw her, let alone torturing himself with thoughts of what would happen in the future. If Simone was indeed after him, she would see Sydney as competition to be eliminated. He would not let her be harmed, even if that meant taking her off the case. Better she hate him than end up dead.
Several hours passed before everyone had left the scene. Sydney continued inspecting the area as Kade called Luca. She carefully paced the perimeter of the alley, hoping she’d find something the killer left. A cold breeze swept across her neck, causing her to shiver. She looked back at Kade, who seemed unfazed, as if he hadn’t felt it. She didn’t think they were expecting rain tonight, but it was common to get thunderstorms in the summer.
As she moved further away from Kade, she heard laughing. A conversation? She couldn’t be certain, but it sounded like a woman’s voice. Sydney waved over to Kade, getting his attention and pointed down the small covered tunnel that ran between two of the row homes.
Sydney covered her nose as the stench of trickling, stagnant water hit her. The odor was overpowering; urine, rotted food, feces. Struggling to see where she was walking in the darkness, she dug in her vest to find her flashlight. Her fingers touched its metal casing and flipped the switch. A woman’s laughter cackled in the distance. As if she was frozen, Sydney watched in awe as a small orb of light appeared about twenty feet away from her, floating in the air like a tuft of feathers. It flashed, instantly replaced by an apparition.
A ghostly woman with a beautiful face and long flowing black hair hovered in the cramped, dank alley. Sydney could hardly believe what she was seeing. While the woman seemed to have the outline of a body, there were no feet, only a long, red dress that stopped a foot off the ground. The woman began to laugh maniacally as she glared at Sydney. The laugh died into deadly silence as the woman’s lips straightened into a tight line.
Sydney had dealt with enough women to know that this one was aggressive; there was no mistaking a bitch on wheels. Ghost or no ghost, she had no intention of letting any woman frighten her off the street. Sydney quickly reached for her gun. She had no idea what killed ghosts but she wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Kade! Could use a little help down here!”
“He! Is! Mine!” the ghost shrieked.
In a flash, the spectral woman flew toward Sydney, and she fired off a round. Dodging the apparition, she fell into the gritty, wet alleyway and everything went black. She fumbled for her broken flashlight, her heart racing. She felt Kade pick her up off the ground and promptly wrapped her arms around his neck, allowing him to carry her out of the tunnel.
“I’m good. Really, you can put me down. I just fell, that’s all. She’s gone,” she said, aware that she was enjoying him picking her up a little too much. She blew out a breath as Kade gently let go of her legs, placed her upright and pulled out of the embrace.
“Sydney, are you sure you’re okay? I heard you scream for me. And then I heard a shot. What happened down there? I sensed no one. No humans. No supernaturals. Wait, who do you mean, she?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Really? A floating ghost woman and my vampire sees nothing? Doubt crept into her mind. “I have to tell you…it's go
ing to sound crazy. I heard voices, a woman. She was laughing. In the tunnel, there was just this small light and then it turned into this ghost She was beautiful, with long black hair, and then she seemed like she wanted to attack me. That’s when I called for you…and then she screamed, ‘He is mine,’ and rushed me, and that's when I got off a shot. Do bullets even kill ghosts? All I know is she missed me and then I fell down. And shit!” Sydney looked down at her clothes. She was covered in slimy, malodorous water. “Look at me! Ewwww. This is so gross…I gotta get home and take a shower. What the hell was that thing back there, anyway?”
“Wait, Sydney. Let me see you and make sure you are okay,” Kade said, checking her for injuries. There was no blood and she appeared uninjured as she claimed.
“I’m fine. Really, I just fell when that…that ‘woman’ flew at me. I'm telling you, Kade, I didn’t really believe in ghosts before tonight. But that was no person. I don’t know what the hell it was.” Sydney shook her head in frustration.
While Sydney may have been surprised by her spectral experience, Kade was shocked at her description. It was Simone. But how had she transported herself as an apparition? Magic? Someone or something was helping her. He had to get Sydney home and away from this place.
On the ride back to Kade’s brownstone, they told Luca what had happened in the alley. Kade knew that though he didn’t mention Simone by name, Luca would know from Sydney’s description exactly who had visited them in the alley.
“I want you to locate Ilsbeth,” Kade told Luca. Ilsbeth was a local witch from the French Quarter. She was cagey at times and not always easy to deal with, but she and Kade had been allies for several years. He could not claim they were close friends, but she could be trusted.