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

by Harley Jane Kozak

  “Yes.”

  “Use it if you have to.”

  “I will.”

  Alessande handed her the car keys, then put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Close your eyes.” She made the sign of the tree on the hollow of Sailor’s neck, tracing the symbol with a fingertip, as Darius himself had once done when he’d initiated Sailor as a Keeper. Then she whispered an incantation in Gaelic, calling forth from the astral plane a quality that would be needed for the journey ahead. A gift.

  “Protection?” Sailor said, opening her eyes.

  Alessande shook her head. “Courage. So you will do what needs to be done.”

  * * *

  Reggie called as Sailor was crossing Coldwater Canyon. “Kelly Ellory’s memorial service just finished. Finally,” he said. “Everyone who ever knew her got up to speak. And half of them are actors she repped, so for them, it was like an audition. Captive audience, microphone—God save me from actors. No offense.”

  “I hardly remember what it is to be an actor,” Sailor said. “Three days of being a hard-core Keeper has fried my brain. Listen, was there a man there named—” she hesitated, then thought, What the hell? No time to work out codes “—Joshua LeRonde? An assistant to Darius Simonides.”

  “Black hair, goatee, very thin?” Reggie asked. “He read a statement from Darius, who wasn’t there.”

  “Darius wasn’t there because death is no reason to postpone business. Look, new plan. I’m actually heading to Malibu to meet Darius. It looks as if Joshua could be...the guy. If he is, we can’t let him slip away.”

  “He’s the guy?” Reggie asked. “Are you serious?”

  “He fits the profile. He could have convinced Ariel that he could make her a star, he’s welcomed onto movie sets, he knew Charlotte, Kelly and Gina.”

  “The same can be said for Darius,” Reggie pointed out.

  “I’ll deal with Darius.”

  “‘Deal with Darius’? God, you’re confident.”

  “I’m just talking to him, I’m not trying to take him down. Meanwhile, can you get to GAA and see if Joshua’s there?”

  “Okay, but most of the guests from the memorial are heading to Kelly’s parents’ house for the after-party. Or whatever that’s called.”

  “Alessande could go to the Ellorys’,” Sailor said. “I’ve got her car, but she could teleport. I bet Joshua goes back to work, though. Darius would expect him to cover the office, not squander his time at a post-funeral party. So that’s where you should be, ready to bring him in. But not till we get confirmation.”

  “I’m still worried about you. But okay, I’ve got the Ellorys’ address, so I’ll call Alessande. Give me the number. Your cell signal will get patchy as you near Malibu.”

  Which was just as well, Sailor thought, because she was losing battery power on her phone. She turned it off, wondering where Declan was and longing to see him. Even the knowledge that he and Alessande were lovers seemed less important than it had twenty minutes earlier. She liked Alessande, so hate wasn’t an option, but she couldn’t control her jealousy. She would simply persuade them both to give each other up, in the event they were still sleeping together. How, she had no idea. She would work that out later.

  She felt for the knife around her waist, and then turned off the radio and did a kind of meditation that her father had taught her, an internal readying for the challenge ahead of her. She had never confronted someone as powerful as Darius Simonides. Next to him, Charles Highsmith was a teddy bear. And she hadn’t done such a great job confronting Highsmith, either, she realized. But she had to give this her best shot. A lot depended on it.

  When she reached Pacific Coast Highway, she felt the approaching panic that always came with proximity to the ocean. She reminded herself to breathe deeply, and kept breathing as she pulled into the parking lot at Geoffrey’s restaurant, with its spectacular view of the water.

  And saw Declan.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “This,” he said, taking her in his arms. Behind her, the valet was driving off in her car and the people coming out of the restaurant had to squeeze to get by, but so what? For a moment she was suddenly, sublimely, happy.

  She fit perfectly against his chest. He was bigger than she was by just the right margin, six-one or two to her five-ten and a half. Already she was becoming familiar with his dimensions, the strength of his arms, the muscles of his back, his warmth. Her hands found their way under his shirt, crisscrossing at his waist. He couldn’t possibly fit this well, feel this good, with Alessande or anyone else on the planet.

  He stopped kissing her and pulled back. She was about to ask about Alessande, but the look he gave her was so intense she couldn’t catch her breath.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked. “I planted a cell phone in Barrie’s car—if you’re going to freak out, now’s the time, and make it quick—and it told me the car’s been at Mystic Café all afternoon. So I called Mystic Café, then Reggie, then Alessande. And now I find you here. Alone.”

  “You and these cell phones,” she said. “Do you buy them in bulk?”

  “Sailor, I know about the Elven Circle. I know they’re planning a hostage-taking.”

  She blinked. “Alessande told you? What about sacred oaths and secrecy?”

  “I saw it coming. Rumors have been flying for days.”

  “They didn’t fly by me. It was a complete shock.”

  “We’re not letting it happen. It would set off a frenzy of counterattacks, shapeshifters would take Elven prisoners in reprisal or kill them outright. There are shifters out there just waiting for an excuse to settle old scores, and the vamps are worse. We need to intervene.”

  “I know.”

  “The problem is, it’s Friday so half of L.A. is headed out of town for the weekend. Barrie’s at the coroner’s office, trying to get Tony Brandt to release the autopsy reports among the Others, proving the killer isn’t a vamp. That may at least postpone tonight’s plan.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “But don’t count on it. They looked at the marks on my chest and decided it was a bat. I think their minds are made up. What about Rhiannon?”

  “She’s halfway to Palm Springs to find a vamp named Zoltan, and I’m heading to Santa Barbara to see an influential family of shifters. All of them have strong ties to the Elven and a lot of influence, and they may be able to stop this. I want you to come with me.”

  “To do what?”

  He only looked at her.

  “To stay safe?” she asked. “Declan, tell me you’re kidding.”

  “Your car blew up twelve hours ago.”

  “Be serious. The only sure way to avert this war is to find the killer. That’s what I’m doing. I’m following the trail, and it’s taken me to Darius. And his assistant.”

  “If the assistant is the killer, you’ll need proof of it to stop the hostage-taking.”

  “Then I’ll get proof.”

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  “No, this isn’t the time for the buddy system. Darius may say things to me he wouldn’t divulge with you there. If things pan out here, Alessande and Reggie are nearby, and Brodie’s a phone call away. But you need to go to Santa Barbara, because if my plan doesn’t work, yours has to.” She tugged on his hand. “You know I’m right, and we can’t spend time arguing. Go.”

  He looked at her, and she let him see in her eyes the determination she felt. She released his hand, but he captured hers and held on to it. “Okay,” he said. “Tell Darius what’s being planned, this coalition. If anyone can exercise some useful influence, it’s him. He’s not taking Rhiannon’s calls, but apparently he took yours. That’s the first thing. Here’s the second.”

  From his pocket he produced a key, which he pressed into her hand. “My beach house is four miles north of here. The address is right here on the keychain. When you finish talking to Darius, go there and wait for me. If Joshua
LeRonde is the killer, I will help you take him down. Don’t go after him without me.”

  “I...can’t.” Sailor shook her head. “A beach house?” The mere thought caused her chest to constrict. Bad enough to be here at Geoffrey’s, which was high above the surf. To be actually on the beach...

  Declan touched her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You’re doing fine right now, and my place is no worse than this. I’m not asking you to go swimming. Just go to the house, park in the driveway and lock yourself in. It’s the safest place I know. Call me as soon as you’re inside and I’ll be there within twenty minutes. My business in Santa Barbara won’t take long.”

  Sailor stared. “You can’t get from Malibu to Santa Barbara and back in under three hours, not on a Friday afternoon.”

  “I’m not driving. I’m flying.”

  “In what? A helicopter?”

  “I can shift, Sailor. I’ll become a bird.”

  She stared. “Are you serious?”

  He nodded. “I’m very good. I’ll show you sometime. You’ll like it.” He kissed her quickly, stopping her questions. “Promise me,” he said, “that you’ll go from here to the beach house and nowhere else.”

  A phrase popped into her head. The one who can fly is not to be trusted. But it couldn’t mean Declan.

  “Promise?” he said.

  “Promise me,” she countered, “that you’ll be back for me as fast as you can.”

  “I promise,” he said.

  “Then so do I.”

  Chapter 15

  Sailor found Darius at an inside table in the Waterfall Room, for which she was grateful. She was sure that the only reason she was keeping her ocean aversion at bay—so to speak—was the bracing effect of having been with Declan for those few minutes. Even then, she’d had a whole building between her and the ocean view. Sitting outside would be tough.

  Darius had a pile of contracts in front of him. He looked up as she approached and then stood. And they say chivalry is dead, she thought. Her godfather might be a cold bastard, capable of all manner of ruthless behavior, but nothing interfered with his manners. He pulled out her chair and then took his seat again.

  “Well?” he said.

  Might as well dive right in, she thought, before she lost her nerve. “Last month your assistant, Joshua LeRonde, had in his possession a vial of the pathogen I’m infected with.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  She was taken aback. “This isn’t news to you?”

  Darius leaned back in his chair. The blue of his dress shirt accentuated the pale perfection of his skin, his sharp cheekbones, his aquiline nose. “It is, in fact. Perhaps you’d care to share the source of this story.”

  Sailor took a deep breath. “Catrienne Dumarais. She called it—the Scarlet Pathogen—by another name.”

  “Shúile scarióideach.”

  “Yes.”

  He stood. “Let’s take a walk.”

  She felt a sinking in the pit of her stomach. “No, I—”

  “Not on the beach, my dear,” he said, putting his contracts into a briefcase. “I won’t torture you. But I’ve been in this restaurant quite long enough for one day. Packaging a film is tedious work. This particular director likes to eat while doing business. I kept his martinis coming and was able to talk him into some things that he would not have agreed to sober.”

  As he talked, he was leading her out of the restaurant so smoothly that she had no room to protest further. When they passed the maître d’, Darius handed the man his briefcase. She wondered if he’d paid his bill earlier, or if he was so famous that he got to just wander off, like a pope or a president, not bothering with the mundane details of life.

  He guided her down a series of steps that led not to the beach, which was some distance away, but to a residential road crowded with small, and no doubt expensive, houses. Walking here was less anxiety-producing than sitting high up in Geoffrey’s, with its panoramic views. The sea smell was sharp and the surf disturbingly loud, but the latter would make audio surveillance difficult, and that, Sailor guessed, was the point of the exercise.

  “This vial of shúile scarióideach to which you refer,” Darius said without preamble, “surfaced recently. It was, in fact, buried treasure. Do you recall the Malibu fires of 2007?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “A house off Malibu Canyon Road burned to the ground. The owners, disheartened, left town. Last winter the property was sold. As the debris was cleared away, a fireproof safe was discovered, itself an antique, although not nearly as old as what it contained. I imagine the previous owners had no knowledge it was buried on their property. I learned of this discovery, I’m sorry to say, too late to acquire the safe or its contents.”

  “How did you learn of it?”

  “My assistant, Joshua, has a cousin. Like Joshua, a shifter, but one of some...renown.”

  “A breugair?”

  He smiled. “Very good. Joshua’s cousin found it necessary to leave Los Angeles a year or two ago, but he returned last month and did a job for client. He borrowed Joshua’s car to do it. When Joshua learned the nature of the job, he thought it might interest me. He was right. At that point I did some investigating and learned a bit more.”

  “From?”

  “An antiquities dealer who had examined the safe and its contents. A discreet man, but upon hearing that his own persona had been, shall we say, borrowed by the breugair, he became irritated and then...less discreet.”

  “And told you what?” Sailor asked.

  “Inside the safe were six vials, and inside the vials, as you learned, was the shúile scarióideach. The Scarlet Pathogen.”

  “Why would anyone do that? Save samples of a deadly disease?”

  “Why does one save anything? Historical value, scientific research, a feeling it could come in handy one day. I myself have a little stash of the shúile scarióideach. To continue, six vials were sold to a collector. There was, in the box, room for two more, and there were signs that they had been recently removed.”

  “Presumably by the murderer?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Who then hired Joshua’s cousin to authenticate the vial.”

  She stopped. “Darius, can we dispense with the suspense? Do you know who the murderer is or don’t you?”

  “I do not.”

  “The collector who bought the other six, couldn’t it be him?”

  “That would be your colleague, Charles Highsmith, and no, it couldn’t.”

  “Highsmith?” Sailor exclaimed. “My God. And why couldn’t it be him?”

  Darius raised an eyebrow. “Motive?”

  She recalled Alessande’s words. “Create a crisis and then exploit it for his own advancement,” she said.

  Darius shook his head. “Too risky, too uncertain and far too bloody. Not his style. He’s too antiseptic, a man with a need to control every aspect of his well-ordered little world. Also, during the time of Gina’s murder, he was in my company, along with hundreds of others, watching Gustavo Dudamel conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Finally, Highsmith has nothing to do with the film industry. It’s not a natural pool for him to swim in.”

  Sailor nodded. “And the night I was attacked, he was at Hollywood Bowl.”

  “Oh, the killer you’re looking for isn’t the same person who attacked you, my dear.”

  “How can you know?”

  “Because that was me.”

  Sailor stopped walking, took a ragged breath and stared at him. She had a rare impulse to cry, which she did not give in to. When she found her voice, she whispered, “Why, Darius?”

  “A wakeup call.”

  “What—what do you mean?”

  “You were a substandard Keeper. Almost an embarrassment. And your father had asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  She could feel herself blushing, recognizing the truth of what he said. “And you think assault was what he had in mind?”

  “I’m a vampire, not a life coach. Y
our father knows my methods are...effective. And you’ve come a long way in a few days. I knew you wouldn’t be harmed by the shúile scarióideach. I was around in the eighteenth century. Quite a few Keepers contracted it with no more lasting effects than those from the common cold. But I thought it might get your attention.”

  “It did.”

  “And brought you, in turn, to the attention of others. I plucked you from the cheap seats and put you front and center, in the middle of this crisis. You may thank me later.”

  She didn’t feel grateful, she felt betrayed—by a man she considered a surrogate father. “But I was in danger. I still am. A killer is after me. A friend of mine died because of that.”

  “Because of your investigation, not because of the Scarlet Pathogen. It’s because you’re stepping on toes, you’re coming too close, you’re a threat. And isn’t that the job? Someone thinks you’re dangerous to him. That’s to your credit.”

  “You could have been straight with me, Darius.”

  “It’s not my way, child. Don’t attribute to others your own morality. Such naïveté can be fatal. You want to be an effective Keeper? Trust less.”

  I don’t think I’ll trust you again, Darius, she thought but she didn’t make the mistake of saying so. She had no time. The light was changing. It was subtle but unmistakable, the sun starting its slow descent toward the horizon. And clouds were gathering, threatening rain. She took a deep breath. “So you attacked me in the shape of a bat?”

  He nodded.

  “Some Elven have decided the killer is either vampire or shifter, based on that—based on a false premise.”

  He looked at her quizzically. “And are they now planning a hostage-taking?”

  “How did you know?”

  “It’s the Old Way. And I am old.”

  “Then you have to tell them, Darius, because they’ll listen to you, that the killer and my attacker are not the same, so it might be anyone at all, any Other, and not necessarily a shifter.”

  “It very likely is a shifter,” he told her. “I can’t fault the Elven reasoning, although I find their faith in the Old Way childish.”