Keeper of the Moon (The Keepers: L.A.)

by Harley Jane Kozak

  Unless it was the thought of seeing Declan at any moment that was raising her temperature.

  The band was tuning up, an unwashed quartet wearing chain mail, but Declan wasn’t anywhere nearby, so she climbed a spiral steel staircase to a cavernous green room furnished with cubist sofas, where one couple openly snorted cocaine and a trio of uncertain gender engaged in some act of sex. No Declan there, either.

  But she noticed something. Her vision was sharper than usual, colors more vibrant and people more attractive. It had happened at work, too, now that she thought about it. Not all night, not consistently, but in waves. Similar to what she’d experienced when she’d awakened in Alessande’s house. Once she’d taken the síúlacht she couldn’t recall it happening anymore. Until now. So maybe it was a symptom that the síúlacht suppressed, and maybe now the síúlacht was wearing off.

  She descended to the basement, a different scene altogether, with its own bar and two poker games in progress. She asked a cocktail waitress where she might find Declan Wainwright, and the woman nodded toward a corner.

  Sailor saw the back of his head, his black tousled hair, and then her heart did a fluttery thing and her bravado started to slip. Not good. She needed confidence if she hoped to be taken seriously. Unless she could get her game on, this wouldn’t work.

  A restroom was to her right, and Sailor slipped in. It was stark and dark, illuminated by floating votive candles, on the assumption that no one wanted to see herself clearly at this hour of the night. Sailor leaned in to stare at her flickering reflection, giving herself the equivalent of a half-time locker-room talk. “I know that in Hollywood terms Declan Wainwright is a rock star and you’re at the bottom of the food chain. But in Otherworld terms, you’re both Keepers. And that’s why—”

  Three women entered the bathroom, two heading for the stalls, one stationing herself at the adjoining sink. Sailor glanced at her: nightclub-chic, exotic clothes. Great. Here she was in her cheap uniform with her crazy eyes, talking to herself.

  “Be careful, sister,” the woman said.

  Sailor looked at her, startled. The woman was applying lipstick, her face close to the mirror. She paused, pressed her lips together to blot them, then said, “The one who can fly through the air, he is not to be trusted. Nor can you trust your own kind.”

  “Excuse me?” Sailor said.

  The woman shrugged, still looking at herself in the mirror. “I’m a messenger. I hear words, I repeat them. Does the message mean something to you?”

  An image of the winged creature flashed through Sailor’s mind. “Yes, I think so. But who are you?”

  “I just said. A channeler, okay? I hear messages. Usually from the dead. Not always. Runs in the family. Kind of a drag. Anyhow...” With a last look at herself, she turned to go.

  “Wait,” Sailor said. “Can you tell me more?”

  The woman sighed, then looked up and to the left, as if listening. “‘Location, location, location,’” she said. “Mean anything to you?”

  “No. Anything else?” Sailor asked.

  “No, that’s pretty much it.”

  “You can’t elaborate on this message?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, can you tell me who’s sending it?”

  The woman looked up and to the left again. “Okay, this is kinda weird, but did you ever see the movie Ginger Girl? That’s who she looks like. Ginger Girl.”

  “Gina Santoro.”

  “That’s the actress? Yeah, okay. Her. But is she even dead?”

  “Yes,” Sailor said, “she’s dead.”

  The messenger left the ladies’ room, and Sailor turned back to the mirror. Gina Santoro, a star so out of her league they would never have socialized in life, had taken the trouble to seek her out in death. To hell with Declan Wainwright and his club and his wealth and his status, Sailor told herself. I’ve got a job to do, and he’s going to help me.

  She straightened her collar, made sure her bandage was in place and went out to face him.

  * * *

  Declan was on his laptop but looked up at her approach.

  “Is this a good time?” she asked.

  He held up an index finger and continued to focus on his computer screen, watching what looked to Sailor like the sizzle reel of a very young jazz band. The song ended, and he shut the computer with a snap. He turned to face Sailor, flipping his chair around so that he was straddling it.

  “So you made it. Good,” he said, and gave her his full attention. “What have you got?” he said with a beckoning motion.

  She studied him. He was friendlier than he’d been two hours earlier. Not so scary. Okay, he was a little scary. Mostly because he had the most astonishing face. High cheekbones. Piercing eyes. Blue. Cool blue in a hot face. Good grief, he was handsome. “What have you got?” she asked.

  “Information on Gina Santoro and Charlotte Messenger. That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, giving herself a mental shake. “But how exclusive is your information? Because mine is quite exclusive, and I’m not trading it for something I can see on Entertainment Tonight.”

  “I can do better than that. But let’s start with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you approached me.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” She felt as if she were burning up. “By the way, is it hot in here? Do you have the heat on?”

  He was looking at her intently. Barrie’s annoying contact lenses made his blue eyes loom large. Very nice eyes they were, too. “The heat?” he asked. “It’s summer, and this is a nightclub. Hot, sweaty bodies and so forth. So, no. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes, never mind. Here’s the story. I was attacked.” She told him, in a few words, what had happened. Surprisingly, he expressed no surprise. And maybe she was getting better at telling the story, because he asked no questions except “Who else have you told?”

  “Charles Highsmith.”

  That did surprise him. His eyebrows shot up. “In person?”

  “No, I texted him,” she said, deadpan. No good Keeper communicated Other business by phone, and certainly not by email or text.

  “Cheeky.” Declan smiled. “So you’ve been busy. And how did Charles Highsmith respond?”

  “He told me to go home, get some sleep and keep my mouth shut.”

  “I see you follow orders well,” he said drily.

  “Yes, it’s a talent of mine. So now Highsmith’s called a Council meeting for tomorrow. A closed one, not the usual social gathering they invite everyone and their dog to. So he’s taking this seriously. Okay, that’s quite a bit that I’ve told you. So, your turn. What do the cops know?”

  “You’ve got a cop in the family,” he said. “Brodie McKay. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Because for one thing, Brodie’s not the kind to blab about police business. Possibly my cousin Rhiannon could get it out of him, because she’s sleeping with him, but I’m not. For another thing, he’s Elven, so it would take him about four minutes in my company to psychically download everything that’s in my head and in return give me only what he thinks I should know. Not that he’s not a great guy,” she added. “But he thinks of me as a little sister.”

  I won’t have that problem, he was thinking. She read the thought in his eyes and nearly gasped. What did he mean by that?

  Aloud, he said, “You’ve told no one else?”

  She flashed on her cousins but decided to dodge the question. “Secrets carry energy. Stories told too often lose their energy. You can tell a shopworn one when you hear it, can’t you?”

  “I can.”

  “So,” she repeated, “your turn. What do the cops know?”

  “DNA tests showed that Gina Santoro and Charlotte Messenger shared a sexual partner.”

  “Wow. Who’s your informant?” she asked.

  “A shifter at LAPD,” Declan said.

  “Name?”

  He smiled. “Let’s leave that out for now.” />
  So he would share news but not a news source, Sailor thought. Interesting. “What about the other two victims?”

  “They’re testing them,” he said, “but the results haven’t come back.”

  “Okay, so this guy Gina and Charlotte hooked up with—it was a guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the sex consensual?”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “The crime scenes were apparently messy, but whether it was rape or highly energetic foreplay, they’re not saying.”

  Energetic foreplay? Did he have to be talking like this? With his accent? Coming out of his mouth, the word foreplay actually constituted foreplay. “Crime scenes?” she asked. “That implies homicide. The deaths haven’t yet been ruled homicides.”

  “True.”

  “But they will be shortly.”

  “Right again.”

  “Oh. You know that already.” She was a bit disappointed that she hadn’t reached a conclusion ahead of him. “Anything else they can tell from the DNA besides gender?” Sailor asked. “Race?”

  He nodded. “Caucasian. And something else—the man was Other.”

  Just like my own assailant, she thought. “Really? DNA shows that?”

  “Not at your average crime lab. Obviously. But Antony Brandt sent a sample to a lab in Denver, run by a vampire. The vamps love genetic studies.”

  “So what kind of Other was he?” she asked.

  “That could take weeks to determine. Right now they can’t even say if he’s species or Keeper.”

  “What do you mean ‘Keeper’?” Sailor asked. “Being a Keeper shows up in DNA?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait. You’re saying my blood—and yours, for that matter—is different from normal humans?”

  Declan raised an eyebrow. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “Why? You and I have abilities the average human would consider magical. It’s a fraction of what our species can do, but even so—”

  “Are you kidding?” Sailor felt her voice rising and brought it back down. “Charlotte, Gina, Brodie, any Elven you can name could be in Nome, Alaska, in four seconds. Without breaking a sweat. I’ve trained like an athlete my whole life and I can teleport only a mile or two. If I don’t work on it every day, I can’t get across the street. You can’t even compare the two.”

  “Calm down, love,” he said. “Why is this so upsetting to you?”

  That shut her up. He’d called her love. For the second time that night. It was just a figure of speech to him, some Brit thing, but for a moment she couldn’t find her voice. She looked away from him to see if the visual thing was still happening, where everything and everyone looked intense and attractive. But the rest of the room looked normal.

  Which meant her reaction to him had nothing to do with the Scarlet Pathogen.

  “It’s true that you and I have to work at our abilities,” he said, his face softening. “But a human could work her whole life and still not teleport off a barstool. It’s not in her. But it’s in you, Sailor. In your blood. Why does that bother you?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It’s the whole Keeper thing. I’m used to thinking of it as this little idiosyncrasy, like having perfect pitch or a photographic memory or some kind of athletic ability. Not something that defines me.”

  He was looking at her with great interest, she realized. Even...kindness. “Take out those contact lenses,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I want to see your eyes.”

  Sailor felt another wave of heat go through her. She felt suddenly shy, reluctant to let him see the alarming color of her irises or what they might reveal. Without the contact lenses, she would be strangely vulnerable. And at close range, under this kind of scrutiny, could she mask her thoughts?

  “Afraid?” he asked.

  The magic word. “No,” she said, “I’m not.” She took out one lens but wasn’t sure where to put it. Declan moved to the bar, going behind it to fill a shot glass with water. She followed him, staying on the customer side. “Drop it in,” he said, then gave her a second glass for the other one. “Sorry I haven’t got any saline solution for you.” The bartender looked their way but left them alone. Declan leaned across the bar, getting into Sailor’s space, into her face. She held her ground, feeling reckless. Feeling excited at being this close to him. Eight inches closer and they could kiss.

  Could he tell how much she would like that?

  His hand came up, and he touched her cheekbone gently. She nearly jumped at the heat of his fingertips. “Your eyes,” he said. “The color isn’t scarlet, it’s paler than that. And it’s not constant, it fades and intensifies.”

  “I feel it,” she whispered. “It’s going on inside me, as well. I can feel what you’re describing.”

  “I want you to see my doctor tonight. She’s a shifter, and I trust her. I need to know what’s traveling through your bloodstream. I need to understand this pathogen.”

  And just like that, the spell was broken. The thought of being examined by a physician, with Declan Wainwright watching, was not appealing in the least. Talk about vulnerable. Paper gown, harsh overhead lights, unflattering angles. Not at all erotic.

  “Yeah, let’s hold off on that one,” she said, blinking and straightening away from him. “I’ve got things to do. I’ll be happy to see your doctor tomorrow, though.”

  “Sorry, Sailor.” Declan moved to let himself out from behind the bar. “Tomorrow you can see Highsmith’s doctor. Tonight you’re seeing mine. C’mon. I’ll drive.”

  “Wow. You’re a little bossy, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Character flaw.”

  She moved to the table to collect her purse. “Not that I don’t enjoy the attention, as the only live victim of a rare disease—but no doctor tonight. I’m tired, I’m badly dressed, and I have to go home and walk my dog. Do you have pets?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, you wouldn’t—” To her annoyance, she found herself wobbly on her feet. Immediately Declan was at her side, his strong hands grasping her shoulders, and she had to admit, there were worse places to be than in the hands of Declan “Dreamy Eyes” Wainwright. But then one of his hands found the back of her neck. She had just the briefest moment of panic as he squeezed a bit tighter than was comfortable, and she could think of only one reason someone would do that.

  And then she felt herself falling a long way down.

  Chapter 5

  It wasn’t the first time someone had passed out in the Snake Pit. People had even died there. So there was a protocol for it, and when Declan saw Benjamin, his bartender, heading for the register, he knew it was to press a button on the security panel and alert his bouncer, a muscular hulk capable of hauling away passed-out sumo wrestlers. But his bouncer was Elven. Too susceptible to the Scarlet Pathogen to risk touching Sailor.

  And to his surprise, Declan realized he didn’t want anyone else’s hands on Sailor Gryffald.

  “It’s okay,” he called to Benjamin. “I’ve got this.”

  He’d held on to her as she went limp and grasped her by the rib cage. Then he readjusted his grip and picked her up. She was long-limbed and tall, not easy to haul around, but he was happy to do it. Holding her in his arms felt natural. One thigh beneath its black silk stocking showed red scratches from having been dragged down the hillside that afternoon. Her arm, too, had scrapes. And there was the bandage on her chest that he himself had put there hours ago. He felt a rush of some emotion he couldn’t put a name to.

  And one he could: regret. He hadn’t planned to render her unconscious. But the opportunity had arisen, and he’d taken it, his need to get her to a doctor overriding civility.

  His bouncer was at his post at the door. When he saw his boss, he made a move to help, but Declan told him sharply to step back. “She’s not feeling well,” he said. It wouldn’t take the large Elven long to figure out what was going on. Everyone was talking about the Scarlet Pathogen,
and he knew Sailor Gryffald was a Keeper. He would start to connect the dots. There would be no keeping any of this secret for long.

  One of his busboys—a leprechaun—was in the alley, emptying bottles into the Dumpster. Declan had him help get Sailor into his Lamborghini Aventador. She was stirring now, making moaning sounds, and he only hoped she wasn’t going to throw up when she regained consciousness. His feelings for her were complicated, but the way he felt about the car’s upholstery was not.

  Kimberly Krabill’s office on Beverly was only minutes away, and by the time they arrived, Sailor’s eyes were open. “Where are we?” she mumbled, letting him help her out of the car.

  “Someplace nice,” he assured her.

  Krabill buzzed them into the building and met them as they got off the elevator. She was blonde, cheerful and, like most shifters, of indeterminate age. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, which made her look nothing like a physician, and she told Sailor to call her Kimberly and then worked a little glamour, altering her own voice and her facial features until they both resembled Sailor’s. She was not quite shifting, merely inspiring trust by suggesting a woman who Declan assumed to be Sailor’s mother. It worked. Sailor went willingly into the inner room and onto the exam table, her focus on Kimberly. He was noticing how strongly Elven Sailor was, how many of the species’ characteristics she had. Most Elven had little use for hospitals or doctors, being such gifted healers themselves. But Kimberly was no ordinary doctor, as Sailor would soon figure out, if she hadn’t already.

  “All right, sweetie,” Kimberly said, peering at her eyes. “Let’s see what’s going on here. Sailor’s a pretty name. I’ve always wanted to meet you. I know your uncle Owen. Good man.”

  “Yes,” Sailor agreed. “But it’s been suggested that I not try to cash in on the relationship.”

  Declan smiled. She was recovering her wits quickly enough.

  Kimberly took Sailor’s vital signs, pronounced her temperature normal and her blood pressure good, then put a stethoscope to her chest. She listened for a bit, and then took out a pocket flashlight and shone it into her eyes. “So interesting,” she said.