Fury’s Kiss

by Nicola R. White

  “The investigation continues into shots fired outside a bar on Cape Cod Thursday night,” a blonde news anchor said, “alarming locals and tourists alike. Police arrived at Spyder’s Bar and Grill in Hawthorne to find Christos Perris, head of the DeVille construction empire, mortally wounded by a gunshot wound to the head. Perris was airlifted to Massachusetts General Hospital for emergency treatment, where he remains in critical condition. Tara Walker, a waitress at popular Cape Cod restaurant, the Graceful Mermaid, has not been seen since Thursday night and is wanted for questioning in relation to the incident. Police say she may be traveling in the company of a Caucasian male, six feet tall and weighing approximately one hundred and seventy pounds.

  “Also missing from the town of Hawthorne are two women reported to be Ms. Walker’s roommates, a local bartender, and her five-year-old daughter. Authorities are baffled by the number of disappearances, and say that none of the missing persons had any known connection to Perris prior to the incident.”

  The anchor moved on to the next story while I digested what I’d just heard. On the bright side, we were merely wanted for questioning, not for Perris’s murder. But the most important part of the story was that Christos Perris wasn’t dead.

  And now I knew exactly where to find him.

  I looked down at Jackson, checking to see if he’d heard the newscaster’s report, but his breath rose and fell evenly. Sound asleep. I longed to lie down next to him and snuggle into the comforting warmth of his body, but now was my best chance to set out on my own. The newfound closeness that had developed between us had only strengthened my determination to keep him safe, and I moved quietly to gather my clothes up off the floor. They were grimy against my now clean skin, but I ignored my distaste and twisted my hair into a simple bun that concealed its length.

  Finally, I slipped some cash from the pocket of Jackson’s jeans. I took just enough for a one-way bus ticket from New Bedford to Boston, an hour’s drive away, then hesitated and peeled off a few more bills. If I couldn’t get to Perris right away, I might need the cash to hole up somewhere. I pictured Jackson waking up to find me gone and bit my lip, hesitating, but I scribbled a note anyway saying I’d gone out for supplies and would be back soon. If he woke up sooner than I hoped, maybe it would delay him for a while before he came after me.

  I stopped at the door and looked back at the man I loved. I wanted nothing more than to go to him, but I forced myself to turn away. He would be angry and hurt when he woke, but it was for the best.

  “I love you,” I whispered. Then I slipped out the door.

  Chapter 28

  As I stepped out into daylight, my mouth went dry and my palms grew damp, but I kept my head down and tried not to look too anxious as I got a cab to the bus terminal. There, I made sure I was one of the first people on the next bus to Boston. I took a window seat at the back, kept my hat on, and feigned sleep when a chatty, middle-aged woman got on after me. Luckily, she chose a seatmate a few rows up, and the man who sat down next to me was just as happy to ignore me as I was to ignore him. He looked up occasionally from his paperback only to glare his irritation at the talkative woman ahead.

  Once I got to Boston, I made my way to Massachusetts General and walked into the first building I saw, bypassing the information desk in favor of a directory on the wall. I located the Neurosciences Intensive Care Unit, housed in a building on the main campus, and made my way there. Inside, I took the elevator to the floor just below the Neuro ICU and took the stairs up a flight to minimize the chance that someone on the elevator would see and remember me. I had toyed with the idea of trying to get my hands on a pair of extra scrubs, but didn’t want to run the risk that someone would see me and demand to know what I was doing. Or worse, mistake me for staff and ask me to perform some task I had no knowledge of how to do.

  I’d seen a sign downstairs indicating that the ICU had a policy of open visiting hours for family, so I decided to take a look before committing to a course of action. If I was in luck, Perris’s bedside would be temporarily vacant, in which case I would slip in long enough to ensure he would never come after Ruby or me again.

  Do we really have to…to kill him? I hesitated to say the words, even to Alecto, but I came out with them anyway. I couldn’t shake the weird, morbid thought that murder was like sex in a way—if you were going to do it, you should be able to talk about it. If he’s brain dead, wouldn’t it be just as well to leave him the way he is? Hester said he needed to make a conscious choice to jump to a new body. No chance of that if he’s never conscious again.

  It is your choice, Alecto said. You must live with your decision. But what if he does recover?

  I wrung my hands as I paced around the stairwell landing. Could I really live with myself if I killed someone—even someone as evil as Christos Perris? But on the other hand, what if he did recover some day and come after Ruby or someone else I loved? There was no good option.

  I pulled at the end of my braid, which had come untucked from my hat, and made up my mind to get a look at Perris. First things first, I would scope things out like I’d planned. Then I could make a decision about what to do. I emerged from the stairwell onto the Neuro ICU and turned a corner to find a reception desk front and center, blocking my path. The nurse manning the desk smiled as I approached.

  “Can I help you?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, about to make something up, when I saw another woman approaching. The tasteful silk dress and intricate gold pendant she wore screamed expensive, and she had the same golden good looks as Christos Perris. I swallowed hard. She had to be the sister, Elena, and she was headed my way.

  “Sorry,” I told the nurse. “I think I’m on the wrong floor.” I turned and headed back toward the stairwell. Maybe I’d try the scrubs, after all.

  Elena Perris followed me around the corner. “Tara Walker?”

  Shit. Of course she knew who I was. It was no secret that I was wanted for questioning in relation to her brother’s shooting. I sped up.

  “Tara, stop! Please!”

  No freaking way. I increased my pace, hoping the nurse hadn’t already picked up the phone to dial security. It was bad enough that Elena was chasing after me, calling my name all over the place. I yanked open the door to the stairwell and started down, taking the steps two at a time.

  “Stop, please! I need your help,” she called down after me.

  Yeah, right. Like I needed a room with bars on the windows. I kept going.

  “I have no one else.” Something in her voice stopped me. She sounded like she meant it.

  I paused, studying the woman on the landing above. Was she for real? Maybe she was just trying to distract me long enough for the police to arrive. Or maybe she was as bad as her brother.

  “Please,” Elena begged. “You must help me. There’s no one else who can face him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Come. I’ll show you.” She gestured back toward the door I’d just come from. “My brother’s body is here, but his mind…Well, you’ll see for yourself.”

  I hesitated. Could I trust her? I flexed the mental muscle that turned on my sixth sense and took a look at the golden-haired beauty. Unlike her brother, who had been as liberal with sin as he was with expensive cologne, Elena was clean. She had a small amount of blood staining her fingertips, but no more than I associated with a little white lie here, a bit of gossip there. Being the ‘Virgin Heiress’ must not have left much time or freedom to get her hands dirty.

  Things may not be as they seem, Alecto warned me, but I followed Elena up the stairs anyway. There seemed to be no other way to get a look at Christos. Besides, Elena’s hands were clean and there was no hint of a lie in the air.

  “Is everything OK, Ms. Perris?” the nurse asked when we returned.

  “Yes, thank you.” Elena smiled at her graciously. “My cousin was just overwhelmed by all the medical equipment. She has never been to intensive care before, and is squeamish about h
ospitals.”

  I did my best to look embarrassed, rather than poised for flight. It must have worked, because the nurse didn’t ask any more questions, just nodded and turned to answer the phone. Elena led me into a room to the right of the nurse’s station, where Christos lay on a hospital bed. His head was swathed in bandages and he was hooked up to machines that looked capable of monitoring every bodily function I could think of, and some that I couldn’t. Elena sat by his bedside and took his hand.

  “This is what’s left of my brother.” She looked up at me. “The doctors have done everything they can to save him, but he was already brain dead when he got here. They’ve told me to say my good-byes.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss. But what happened to your brother wasn’t my fault. There are things about him you don’t know.”

  She laughed, a bleak sound amid the hissing of the machines that breathed for her brother. “I know more than you can imagine. This body is all that is left of my brother, but he was lost to me long before that bullet ever entered his skull.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The man you met was not my brother, Christos. He was our great-grandfather, Spiro Perris.”

  “Are you saying your brother was possessed by your great-grandfather?”

  Elena wiped tears from her eyes and nodded. “Yes, that’s it exactly. I know how crazy it sounds, but you of all people must be able to understand.”

  “What do you mean, me of all people?” Just how much did she know about me?

  “Spiro has an oracle, a little boy who can see things that are going to happen. The boy told him you were a Fury and that you would come for him. So Spiro went after you first.”

  “How is this possible? Assuming I even believe what you’re saying.”

  “Why should I lie?” She gestured to the lifeless body on the bed. “My brother died years ago. What’s lying here is an empty shell. Spiro took my brother’s body when we were very young, and I’ve been living under his thumb ever since. He killed our parents so that he would inherit early, as Christos.”

  “Why would he let you live?”

  Elena gestured angrily at her expensive clothing, her beautiful face. “He collects pretty things, and I’m one of them. He likes to have power over me. But you’re different…he fears you.”

  “If he’s not in there,” I nodded at the body. “Where is he?”

  “We have a cousin. Dimitris. He was next in line to take over the company, if something happened to Christos. Spiro has taken his body, I’m sure of it.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “I’m certain he’ll come to me tonight. Spiro is never able to stay away for long. He would miss seeing the fear in my eyes too much.”

  She gave me directions to a house in Boston’s expensive Beacon Hill neighborhood, with instructions to be there around ten, and I left the ICU. I felt guilty leaving the shattered heiress there with the shell that used to be her brother, but I needed to recoup my strength and find a place to pass the rest of the day in safety. My last encounter with Spiro had been eye opening, to say the least, and I didn’t intend to meet him again with anything less than full strength at my disposal.

  As I stepped out of the stairwell and onto the ground floor of the hospital, though, I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with Special Agent Ethan Graves.

  “Surprise, surprise,” I muttered. The man was like a bad penny, always turning up where he was least wanted. “How is it you always seem to know just where the action is?”

  “Call it a hunch.” He stood easily with his hands in his pockets, unruffled by the flow of people around us.

  “Does that hunch go by the name of Spiro Perris?”

  “It’s interesting you would say that, since Spiro Perris died thirty years ago. And if he hadn’t, he’d be pretty old to be mixed up in all this.”

  “I hear he’s young at heart. But you would know, wouldn’t you? I know who you really work for, that you were the shooter at the track. Didn’t it bother you, trying to kill a little girl?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What happened at the track?”

  “Don’t play dumb. If you weren’t working for Perris, how did you know to be at Spyder’s two nights ago?”

  “Somebody told me where to be, but it wasn’t Perris. I got a call from a very concerned young man who said you were in trouble. He wouldn’t give me a last name, but he went by Nicky.”

  Hope flared inside me. If Graves was telling the truth, he was a valuable ally, not the enemy I’d taken him for. But could I really believe he’d been tipped off by Spiro’s oracle, rather than the killer himself?

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  He shrugged. “You don’t. But if I wanted to, I could have had half a dozen cops on you with guns drawn ten minutes ago.”

  “You knew I was here the whole time?” I couldn’t fathom how he’d sneaked up on me without attracting my notice. Agent Graves was even more unusual than he’d first appeared.

  “I’ve been staking out Christos Perris’s room for the past three days. I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

  “So now you’ve got me. What next?”

  He changed the subject, leaving me more confused than ever. “You know, that Dewey kid’s got a lot of potential. Heart’s in the right place. He’ll be a good cop someday if he learns not to tell tales out of school.”

  “Yeah, Dewey’s great, but what does he have to do with anything?”

  “He’s just a little too loose in the gums, is all,” Graves continued. “For instance, he shouldn’t have told you I was investigating the New England Slasher. But he did keep his mouth shut about the fact that there have been similar attacks going back as far as the 1920s. And it’s definitely a good thing Officer Randolph didn’t tell you we had it pegged for a family legacy.”

  “So you’re telling me you’ve been investigating the Perris family, not working for them?”

  “The thing that really gives me hope for Officer Randolph,” he went on, “is that he’s supervised by his uncle, Chief Randolph. You ever see that man’s filing room? I tell you, it’s a beautiful thing. The man keeps every fingerprint he ever made. Even from grade school field trips.”

  He paused to let his comment sink in, and now I saw where he was going with this little digression. He’d finally found a way to match me to the print I’d left on Miller’s body. I tensed, ready for fight or flight, but Graves surprised me again.

  “The funny thing is, I can’t for the life of me find that partial we pulled off Miller’s body. It must be the only piece of evidence that’s ever gone missing from Chief Randolph’s files.”

  “What?” I stared dumbly as he turned to walk away. He was letting me go. Finally, I found my voice again. “Hey!” He looked back. “Thanks.”

  He brushed off my thanks with a wave and kept on going. I had a feeling the hunt for me and Jackson was about to substantially ease off. Still, it didn’t pay to be careless, so I settled my ball cap more firmly on my head as I left the hospital.

  Outside, I stopped at a corner store to grab a pre-packaged cinnamon roll that passed for breakfast, and checked the receipt for the time. Nearly noon. Plenty of time to go hunting before my appointment with Spiro and Elena. The smart thing to do would be to find a dark bar in a bad part of town, but it seemed a shame to waste what might be the last July afternoon I’d ever see. Alecto hissed her displeasure with my imprudence, so I offered a compromise—I would avoid going anywhere that would require too much individual interaction. In exchange, I got a couple hours of freedom before holing up for the day.

  Grudgingly, she agreed, and I headed for the Boston Public Garden where I could people watch in anonymity and avoid having to speak with anyone directly. As an added benefit, I could sit on a bench and watch potential targets come and go.

  I covered the mile between Massachusetts General and the Garden quickly, and found a shaded bench facing the large bronze statue of George Washington that
presided over the west side of the park. Not wanting to tarnish the idyllic scene in front of me before I had to, I sat there for almost an hour before I blinked my sixth sense into view.

  Immediately, the park took on a more sinister dimension. The telltale signs of the park goers’ sins came into focus, and I felt like the main character in an Edgar Allan Poe story. Tourists and Bostonians alike strolled past, never pausing to think that the grandfather they passed might be guilty of some crime, or that the well-dressed businesswoman who strode by was haunted by some dark secret.

  But I knew. No one was totally innocent, not even the toddler who stumbled past in pursuit of a pigeon. I watched, fascinated, as he ignored his mother’s command not to chase the birds and a faint stain bloomed on his hands. When his attention wandered and his minor sin was forgotten, the stain faded.

  Next, I eyed an elderly man watching his granddaughter turn somersaults on the grass. The blood on his hands was fresh—something weighed heavily on his conscience—and I decided to investigate further. Conditioned by horror stories in the media, my gaze shifted to the granddaughter, but when I got close enough to touch him, I found I had been wrong to jump to conclusions of child abuse.

  “Excuse me. Did you drop this?” I held out a five dollar bill as an excuse and reached out to touch the man’s arm.

  Flash. I saw a woman he loved—his wife—living in an institution. She was well cared for physically, but confused and unable to understand where she was or why he never came to visit. I felt the man’s guilt at leaving her there, unable to cope with watching her slowly slip away, and I was sorry there was nothing I could do. But my business was vengeance, not absolution.

  Alecto stopped me before I walked away. We can help this man.

  How? My abilities were limited to messing with his mind or inflicting physical damage. I didn’t see how that would help anything.