Triquetra

by Marguerite Labbe

  Chapter 5

  THE AIR weighed down on us with the humid promise of scorching heat to come as Kristair and I jogged through the steely light of dawn. We had skipped our run the day before, and I was not about to do that twice, despite how much I hated rising at this hour. Still, it was the best time to jog. Later on, it would be brutal, and I couldn’t let my conditioning slip, not when training camp was starting in a few weeks.

  Kristair insisted on going with me every morning, pushing himself hard. I think he worried he was going to lose his edge or something. Or get fat and lazy now that he was human. My man had issues. Still, I wasn’t about to argue. The company kept me from cheating, and I loved watching him run. He made it seem effortless with his fluid lope. I’d asked him about it one time and he’d told me his people hadn’t used horses if they wanted to get somewhere—they had run or walked.

  Knowing my lover, he’d do that instead of getting into a car any day. That probably would explain his aversion to anything with wheels too. In some ways, Kristair was just stuck in the past.

  “Mind if we take a detour?” Kristair said, jogging in place as we waited by a light. I shook my head, and he took the lead as we crossed the street. Half a mile later, as we headed deeper into the heart of Pittsburgh, I wished I’d asked more questions. Where the hell did that bald-headed freak think he was going?

  Then the reek of stale smoke assailed my nose, and I knew damn well where we were headed. The street had a hushed quality about it, as if the high-rises themselves were cowering back in fear. Of course, that could have been my own overworked imagination.

  Still, a shiver of foreboding went through me as we neared the building where the vampire had been killed. The ground out in front was littered with bits of broken police tape, ground ash, and charred bits of something I didn’t even want to think about. I groaned as I slowed to a walk to cool down. “What are we doing here, Kristair? Last fucking thing I want to see before breakfast is what’s left of a dead body, or where a dead body has been. Or anything to do with murder and mutilation.”

  “I figured you’d rather look at it now, before others start crawling all over it again, than going last night in the dark or me going by myself.” Kristair gave me a wry smile. “I’m trying to remember my promise.”

  “Sneaky bastard,” I grumbled. I had no damn argument against that little bit of logic. Absently, I stretched as I stared at the destructive scene in front of us. “I have no idea where to even begin.” We had to be out of our fucking minds to get involved in this, promise or no promise.

  Kristair crouched down next to an oblong length of the ground that had been marked around with a string. I inched closer, the hair on the back of my neck stirring. “You think the dude was aware? I mean, if he’d had that knife in his heart, he was paralyzed, right? Wouldn’t be able to scream or nothing.”

  “Oh no, there was screaming.” Kristair crouched down and brushed his fingers over the scorched ground, his expression more enigmatic than usual. “The kind of screaming one does when sanity has snapped and one knows that there is no hope. It was beyond agony.”

  I grimaced and hunkered down next to him. “I thought you weren’t psychic anymore.”

  “Everyone is sensitive in some manner or another. You mean you can’t feel that? As if the earth itself is crying out?”

  A finger of sensation brushed across my awareness, and I firmly shut it out. “No, and I’m damn glad I can’t.” The last thing I needed was to relive a bloodsucker’s last moments in the sun. “I can imagine you’re extra sensitive to it, given the circumstances.”

  “You mean my nightmares?” Kristair’s glance was cool and unruffled. How much of it was an act? He’d known this dude for years at least, if not decades.

  “Sorta, you think they’re connected at all? Seems to me you’d have lots of things your subconscious could fuck with while you’re asleep, lots of bad memories, but this has been the one thing bugging you since you came back.”

  “If it is, I can’t figure out why.” Kristair rose with a sigh, looking around at the scene again. “The police picked over it pretty well. I doubt we’ll find anything they haven’t bagged for evidence.”

  Frowning, I stood up too. “I suppose I could call Aderson and Kuykedal again. I don’t know if they’d be willing to say anything two days in a row. Maybe if I give them some info in exchange. You think Ussier would mind?”

  Kristair pursed his lips and tugged on his chin. “I trust your discretion. They already know about vampires. If you let them in on it being a vampire matter, they might be more forthcoming. I think we should also pay a visit to Alette Dupree. There had to have been a connection between all of the victims and she’s just paranoid enough to see it all.”

  “Don’t you think Ussier’s done that already? She’s a creepy bitch.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I had the weird sensation we were being watched, and for one terrified instant, I thought she somehow had managed to hear me and had taken offense. But Kristair had spun around, too, staring intently at each window facing us from the high-rise.

  To my horror, he took off at a dead run toward the building. “Kristair!” He didn’t pause or glance back as he burst through the front doors. Son of a bitch! I took off after him, more intent on biting a piece out of him than finding whomever he was chasing.

  I caught up with him in the lobby just as he was about to disappear into the fire escape and grabbed his arm. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I snarled.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Someone is watching us. You felt it too; I saw it on your face.”

  “Doesn’t mean we have to go barreling in there. What if they’re armed? We don’t have anything on us.”

  Kristair’s brows snapped together in a ferocious glare. “You aren’t suggesting that we walk away, are you?”

  “No.” I opened the stairwell door and slipped ahead of him. “Just let’s move more quietly, okay?”

  Kristair snorted and followed so silently that only my sense of him behind me told me he was there. Showoff. We paused at the first landing, and Kristair brushed his fingertips against the door. After my nod, he opened it cautiously. The hallway was empty, apartments stretching out to either side in silent rows.

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered under my breath. “If it is somebody, they won’t be in the hallway, they’d be in an apartment, and how are we going to tell which one? And even if we do, we cannot start busting in doors. We’ll end up arrested ourselves. That would be a fine beginning to my career.”

  “I may not have ever personally visited Bedwyr’s apartment, but trust me, we’ll know which is his at a glance.” Kristair made his way up another flight of stairs with the quick, silent grace of a predator. He peered through the door and then grunted in satisfaction. “There, see.”

  I glanced over his shoulder at the apartment door covered in police tape. Damn him for being so smart. At least he wasn’t one to gloat about it. “Just wonderful,” I muttered. “Now how are we supposed to get in?”

  “I thought you knew how to pick locks.”

  “For crying out loud, Kristair, I don’t carry tools for that shit in my jogging shorts.” I stared at the door, another chill running through me. “This shit gives me the fucking heebie-jeebies.”

  “I thought you were going to work on your language.”

  “Fuck you.” I glared at my lover, who had a slight smile on his lips and an avid glint in his eyes. “Ass. You’re enjoying this.”

  “What’s there not to enjoy? This is rather invigorating.” The hallway was clear, and Kristair eased out. I grabbed his wrist just before he tried the door to the apartment.

  “You have fingerprints now, babe.” I took the hem of my shirt and tried the knob. To my surprised dismay, it twisted and opened without a hitch. Fuck, there was no stopping Kristair now. “Try not to touch anything.”

  “Calm down, Jacob. It’s not like I’m in any police database.”

  “Let’s keep it th
at way.”

  Kristair cocked his head, listening intently. “I think whoever was here is gone now.” He drifted over to the window and glanced down right at the spot where we’d been standing moments before.

  “Saw us coming and skedaddled.” I started looking around the room. It seemed ordinary enough to me, cluttered with knickknacks and Playboy magazines. The kitchen was empty, the fridge unplugged. Yeah, this was a bloodsucker’s den, alright.

  “I don’t like the sound of that at all. It implies that whoever this is may know us and know what we’re about,” Kristair said with a thoughtful frown.

  “You just had to say it, didn’t you.” I stopped to glare at him. Ugh, I really hated feeling like I was being watched. My skin was still crawling.

  “Say what?” Kristair poked his head into the bedroom, and his voice turned grim. “At least Bedwyr had a chance to put up a fight.”

  I followed him back into the bedroom, staring at the chaos. Sheets lay in a tangled puddle on the floor, the nightstand overturned, blackout curtain ripped off the wall, an ugly dark rust stain on the wall. “If our vamp got in a good hit, anyone with a fresh injury might be a good place to start.”

  Kristair made a noncommittal sound, studying the room intently, gaze methodically sweeping every inch. “I think this is pointing more and more to someone leaking information.”

  “I think you’re paranoid. But if you’re not, that’s nice and convenient, all we have to do then is find out who the idiot is and let Ussier deal with him. His last moments are bound to be very, very uncomfortable.” I nudged a boot out of my way with my toe and crouched down to glance under the bed. “Picking up any more psychic hoodoo?”

  “Not a glimmer. Whoever was here is long gone now, and any traces below are locked in the spot where he died.” Kristair peered into the bathroom; then he opened the closet door. “Doesn’t even look like the killer looked in here at all. Maybe it was just an execution,” he said as I walked back out into the hallway.

  I glanced through the last door in the hall and let out a whistle. The room had once contained a computer and several bookshelves, but that had all been destroyed. “Kristair, you gotta see this.”

  The burned-out husk of the computer sat on the desk, monitor cracked from the intense heat. The shelves were covered in sooty ash, but not one burn mark scarred the wood surface of either the shelves or the desk. “What the hell could do that?” I demanded, pointing at the desk and the piles of ash around the room. Soot marred the wall, but again, not one burn past the books. The hard drive was smashed in and melted, little bits of plastic fused to the floor. There would be no data recovery from that mess.

  Kristair examined the destruction, his lips pursed. “Well, it’s definitely not the strange accelerant the media’s been talking about. If I had to hazard a guess just from looking at this, given that we’re dealing with a vampire hunter, I’d say magic of some kind has been used.”

  “Fucking figures,” I swore. “What now?”

  Kristair clasped my shoulder in a gentle rub. “Now we go home. I’ll look through my library today to see if I can discover anything about such fires and you talk with your cop friends. Then tonight, we’ll go by Alette’s club and see what we can dig up there.”

  “Sounds like a game plan to me.”

  “THIS IS the second time in as many days you’ve pestered me about this case. Don’t you have a training camp to get ready for?” I followed Aderson back into the file room and shut the door as he continued talking. “Look, kid, my partner’s got money riding on you this season. He’ll throw you in lockup if you disappoint him.”

  That gave me pause, and I grinned. “Really. I thought ole Kuykedal would’ve bet against me.”

  “He was tempted, believe me, but he’s too much of a diehard Steelers fan to do that.” Aderson stuffed the file in a drawer and turned back to me, lowering his voice. “You don’t want to get mixed up in this shit. Go play football, forget that this whole other world exists. You were lucky enough to escape it once, don’t get dragged back in.”

  “It’s too late for that.” I sobered up and moved closer to him. “If I promise to share what I know, off the record, will you answer my questions?”

  “Just tell me why you need to know first.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, trying to figure out the best way of saying it without giving too much up. “After my protector was gone, some guys helped me out, saved my ass. They called in the favor.”

  Aderson was quiet for a long moment. Then he pulled on his long nose. I noticed his hair was even more steely gray than the last time we had seen each other. “So all the victims are vampires.”

  I couldn’t see any harm in admitting it. “Yeah, for right now that’s the only connection we’ve got.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Was there anything recovered from the latest victim’s office? Books, flash drives, anything like that?”

  “There was nothing left to recover. We bagged a laptop, but don’t even think about asking to take a look at it, because you can’t. It’s not even open for discussion.”

  “Fine, I won’t, then.” Maybe Kristair would have some ideas getting around that. “Was it fried too?”

  “To a crispy critter. Our best techs are looking to see if they can recover anything. I’ve suspected that whatever was behind these murders is paranormal, and you’ve confirmed it, so I doubt they’ll find anything.”

  “You’ve got the wrong people working for you. What about with the other victims, same M.O.?”

  Aderson glanced at the door and lowered his voice even more. “They were all killed in the same way. Some of them also had books and computers destroyed, but not all of them.”

  I gave him an assessing glance, trying to rectify the smooth, lawyer image with a man who understood there was so much more going on around us than the mundane world most lived in. The two images didn’t mesh. “What happens to cases like this, ones that don’t involve humans? Is there some special department for the weird?”

  “You watch too much TV, kid. Eventually they get thrown in the cold case files and we move on. Most people don’t even want to admit that there’s anything like this going on. If you’re smart, you keep it to yourself, or else you’ll end up in a nuthouse.”

  “How’d you and Kuykedal find out about vamps?” I asked, knowing I should mind my own damned business, but curiosity compelled me.

  Aderson’s face went stony, and he drew himself up. “That’s a story for a bottle of whisky. Anything else you want to tell me that you dug up?”

  Now that only whetted my curiosity. “Nothing yet, going to meet with someone tonight who might be able to tell me about the victims, see if there was anything else they had in common other than being a vampire.”

  Aderson pushed his glasses up on his nose and shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re not dead yet, but you’re really asking for it. Concentrate on football and leave it alone.”

  “I wish I could, man, I really do.” I sighed and wondered what Kristair was doing at that moment. Probably sitting in his library. “Got anything else for me? Anything left behind at all the scenes or something?”

  “Nothing other than the knives, and there is nothing remarkable about them. You can buy them at any Wal-Mart in the country.”

  I chewed on my knuckle, trying to decide whether or not to tell him about our unseen watcher, and then shook my head. The last thing Aderson needed to know was that I’d gone into a crime scene unasked again. “Okay, I’d better get to the gym. If I get anything else, I’ll let you know, and you do the same, okay?”

  “Kuykedal won’t like it,” Aderson grunted.

  “I’m sure I’ll hear all about it from him.”

  Chapter 6

  THE LONESOME cry of a saxophone spilled from the double doors out onto Carson Street. The row of old brick buildings between the Monongahela River and the railroad tracks had been renovated into pubs, restaurants, and trendy clubs, tur
ning the south side of Pittsburgh into one of the top hang-out spots. Not that I’d ever been inclined to spend much time here.

  Jacob grabbed a sports coat out of the trunk of his Camaro and slid it on despite the oppressive heat blanketing the city. I frowned at the leather holster now concealed at the small of Jacob’s back. “Must you carry that thing?”

  “I’m not walking into a vampire club unarmed. And until this shit is over and done with, I’m carrying.” He gave me a speculative glance as we waited for a clear space to cross the street, and I shook my head against the suggestion I knew was coming.

  “Don’t.”

  “I really wish you’d let me teach you how to shoot,” Jacob said, ignoring my request.

  I suppressed a shudder of distaste at the thought. “For the last time, and I won’t be saying this again, I have absolutely no interest in learning how to use such a graceless weapon.”

  “I never thought the day would come when you said you weren’t interested in learning. You have to have something to defend yourself with. You can’t go around with a war club or a sword for god’s sake,” Jacob snapped under his breath, grabbing my hand as we dashed across the street between the traffic.

  “Trust me,” I assured him.

  “You’re really pushing it, babe.”

  Alette’s club stood on the east end of the row. A wrought iron trellis comprised of musical notes instead of the usual stylized swirls meant to represent leaves or vines supported a balcony. A few clubgoers stood up there, sipping drinks or smoking cigarettes with the windows wide open to catch the music. The name of the club, Midnight Whispers, was emblazoned in blue neon script over the establishment.

  A couple of beautiful young men stood outside on the sidewalk, checking IDs and taking the cover charge. One of them with spiky dark hair and smoky eyes motioned us forward ahead of the other people waiting to come in. He was one of Alette’s pets, no doubt about that, and not for the first time, I wished I’d been able to come up with a reason to keep Jacob away from her. Not that she’d have tried to interfere with another vampire’s interest, at least not when she was lucid.