Lucan (The Lucan Trilogy Book 1)

by M. D. Archer

  “Okay,” I say, still wondering what they meant when they said it’s definitely possible.

  Were they talking about me?

  Chapter 21

  Mom is waiting for me in the living room—crossed arms, tapping foot, impatient expression. Without speaking, she walks up to me, strokes the side of my face, and then not so subtly pushes my eyelid up with her thumb, checking out the state of my eyes.

  “Mom! Cut it out. What are you doing?”

  “Mike, can you come down? Tamzin is home,” she shouts up the stairs.

  Oh good. A team parenting event.

  “What’s going on with you at the moment? The hours you keep, your mood swings. And your weight…”

  She is so clearly mentally checking items off a list. If I looked at her browser history, I’m sure I would find a search for something along the lines of how to tell whether your kid is on drugs.

  “Mike!” she calls again.

  I’m starting to feel cornered. “Sorry, but I gotta go.”

  “You just got home. Where are you going?”

  “Just out, meeting a friend.”

  “Tamzin?”

  “I’m meeting Chris. Whatever, it’s none of your business.”

  Mom’s eyes narrow. “You are my daughter. Everything is my business.”

  “Hardly.” I try again to edge away. Adrenaline courses through my body, infusing my muscles with extra power, readying them for action. Worse, anger builds deep in my belly.

  “Tamzin.” Dad has finally come down the stairs. The warning in his tone is an unfamiliar sound, but there is no mistaking it.

  “What is your problem?” I challenge, daring Mom to admit what she suspects. “Why are you being so intense? All I did was walk in the door.”

  “I’m calling Dana,” Mom says out of nowhere.

  “What? Why? Anyway, she’s just left for the airport.”

  “Kat, this isn’t Dana’s fault.” Dad steps in. “I understand why you feel that, but I don’t think it will help bringing her into it.”

  “You can’t tell me that this doesn’t scream of Dana’s influence.”

  Mom is right, Dana is involved, just not in any way that Mom could conceive of, or that Dana could ever admit.

  Just as Mom gets out her phone, the doorbell rings. I think I’ve been saved by the proverbial bell, but when I see who she brings back with her, I realize how wrong I am.

  Detective Parsons.

  “Hello, Miss Walker. Nice to see you again,” he says, sealing my fate.

  “Again?” Mom’s face hardens.

  “Can we sit down? We have a few things to discuss.”

  “Yes, Detective.” Mom’s face is like cement.

  Should I bolt? It won’t solve the problem, but it would buy me some time. But I already ran away from him once, and look what happened. If I do it again, then he’s definitely going to put me at the top of his suspect list.

  Unless I’m already there.

  Detective Parsons sits down across from me. The top of his head looks even patchier than last time, his hair thinning at an alarming rate. I can smell the exhaustion on him, and I feel a twinge of pity. He must be getting heat for this, pressure to solve this case, but he doesn’t stand a chance. Not with a Lucan psychopath on the loose.

  As Parsons explains the night of April 4th to Mom and Dad, it’s like I’m having an out-of-body experience. Hearing it like this, it sounds so bad. When we get to the bit about how I can’t remember properly what happened, Mom rounds on me.

  “How can you be so irresponsible? To get yourself in that state!”

  “Mom—”

  “No, I don’t want to hear it. Tamzin, you are out of control—”

  “Kat.” Dad places a gentle but cautionary hand on Mom’s arm. “Let’s focus on the detective’s questions for now,” he says calmly, but worry pulses from him like a laser show. And I get it. Without knowing all the details, from their perspective, it would seem like I came very close to a grisly death.

  Maybe I did.

  “I also want to ask you about the night of April 2nd,” Parsons says, and my stomach sinks.

  “Tamzin’s birthday,” Mom says immediately.

  Parsons casts a knowing look at me. Well, well. Another coincidence, I guess.

  You can hear sarcasm even in someone’s thoughts.

  “As you probably know, there have been a series of homicides in the city recently, and we believe the first victim was taken that night,” Parsons explains.

  Dad’s face has gone gray. “And you think Tamzin is somehow connected?”

  “The facts indicate that yes, she is connected to all three, even if only tenuously, but there is a connection here. I just don’t know what it is. Yet.”

  “Her birthday happening to be the same day of the first… is not a connection. It’s a coincidence.” Dad’s voice has an edge that belies his otherwise calm exterior.

  “There seems to be a lot of those coincidences with regard to your daughter.”

  Without moving, Parsons manages to put air quotes around coincidences.

  “But it’s not possible. What are you suggesting?” Mom says.

  “Where were you all that night?” Parsons remains relaxed as the tension and hostility in the room grows. Mom draws herself up haughtily like this is nothing but an irritating inconvenience, but I can see through the act. She’s worried.

  “We had a family dinner.”

  “What time?”

  “We got to the restaurant just after eight and got home just before ten.”

  “All of you?” Parsons casts his eyes to me.

  “No, I stayed out with Dana for a while after that,” I say. “I got home before midnight and went to bed.”

  “I was still awake when she came in,” Dad adds. “It was about 11:30 p.m.”

  Parsons scribbles something in his notebook. “Can I have the name of the restaurant and your sister’s full name and address please?”

  Dad looks shocked. Mom nods, gives the information to him, then sits back in the chair looking tired.

  “She’s on her way to the airport right now though, a two-week trip to London.”

  Parsons nods, but keeps writing.

  “You don’t actually think Tamzin has anything to do with this, do you?” Dad says.

  Maybe I should be arguing my case, but all I can think is that this means Dana will know I’m connected to all three murders, and she’ll probably tell Vincent, and then I’ll be in trouble, again. I huddle further back into the couch. As Parsons makes more notes, I tune into his mental traffic.

  Even if her alibi checks out, she’s somehow connected to these murders. I can feel it.

  Chapter 22

  When I was ten years old, Daniel Foster, the ringleader of our little gang of neighborhood kids, told me that I couldn’t ride down the hill with no brakes because I was a girl.

  When Mom heard about the dare through the Mom network, she expressly forbade me to do it. So I waited until a Saturday she was working and Dad was preoccupied in the garage, and then I marched to the top of the mount with a little army of onlookers. It was a success—bloody nose, knees, and elbows aside—and I showed Daniel, I showed everyone, that the only person that decided what I could do was me.

  With Vincent’s lecture still ringing in my ears, Nikolai’s more subtle encouragements to follow the rules, and Parsons’s unexpected visit, possibly specifically designed to make my life difficult, I’ve been reconnected with my defiant ten-year-old self. There is a serial killer in the city, and I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I can’t watch while some loony tune creates a connect-the-dots puzzle that leads directly to me. So I have a plan, a pretty good one, I think. I’m going to find out what Parsons knows, put it together with what I know, and with my Lucan skills I’m going to find this guy before he kills anyone else.

  The day after Parsons’s visit, Mom stayed home with me all day, monitoring my every move, even following me to the bathroom to liste
n outside—a new low in our relationship. The next day she went out in the morning then returned in the afternoon to “work from home.” This morning Mom and Dad both left for work with a pointed “see you tonight” from Mom, so my hours of impassioned but logical argument last night had gotten through to them, but I think it was my offer to take a drug test that sealed the deal. Tomorrow I’ll probably have to pee on a stick, but today I’ve been left to my own devices.

  Perched on a park bench just outside the city precinct with large sunglasses and my hair tucked into a cap, I look pretty suspect, but I don’t have a choice. I don’t want Parsons to recognize me.

  I have to wait an hour before he arrives, taking small determined steps up the concrete stairway to the front doors of the station. Concentrating hard, I’m able to zero in on his thoughts and keep track of his movements, even inside the precinct. He is, unsurprisingly, thinking about the Crawler. He doesn’t go over the clues they have—that would have been super convenient—but he does review the details of the victims, looking for common threads.

  I learn that the most recent one was Annalise Chan. She’d been in the city less than a year. I also find out that she was reported missing during my first official full moon. Parsons is trying hard to determine how the Crawler is choosing his victims, but he has no idea.

  I know the answer. It’s me.

  All of this is related to me Becoming Lucan. I just don’t know why. It makes me all the more determined to find this Crawler psycho.

  When Parsons leaves the precinct, I follow him. He’s in his car and I’m on foot, but I have a firm hold on his scent and he has lunchtime traffic to slow him down. After only fifteen minutes, he stops in front of a row of townhouses. I think he might be going to interview someone, but when he checks the letterbox I realize this is where he lives. From across the road and obscured by a lamppost, I watch and wait. He emerges a few minutes later with a plastic bag containing two white containers. I smile to myself. Leftovers for lunch.

  He jumps back into his car and pulls out, but on a whim I don’t follow him. Instead, I cross the road to his house, nestled in the middle of a row, and then go around to the back, hoping there will be second floor balconies. I’m in luck. Checking quickly that no one is watching, I spring up and hoist myself up over the rail. The sliding door has been left unlocked. I don’t entertain the possibility that Parsons lives with someone—not only is his scent the only one here, but everything about him says bachelor.

  I do a quick circuit of the house. It’s cluttered, like his office, but surprisingly clean. His kitchen looks like it’s fresh out of the packet, and his oven, I’m almost certain, has never been used. Back in the living room, my hunch that he’s the type of guy who brings his work home pays off. One of the piles of paper and crap has a definite kind of home office shape to it, so that’s where I focus my attention.

  There are no manila files here, but there are handwritten notes strewn around the desk. Notes to himself, products of his brainstorming. I go through each one, picking them up, reading them and then replacing them in their spot before moving to the next—just in case he is one of those people that lives in organized chaos. Finally, I find something useful.

  Accent.

  It’s scrawled on a notepad. Underneath is a phone number but no indication of what the number is for. Holding my breath, I get out my phone and dial.

  “Antique weaponry, armor and the rest,” a cheerful voice says.

  I hang up, my heart racing. I know from the media reports—not to mention having seen two of the victims—that the Crawler’s weapon of choice is a knife.

  I tap the notepad. So maybe Parsons traced the knife back to that store. Maybe the victim’s wounds indicate a specific type of knife, one that is only available from a few places. Maybe someone remembered selling the knife. And maybe the buyer had a distinctive voice.

  Detective Parsons thinks the Crawler has an accent.

  With a rush of excitement, I realize this is a real clue. A Lucan with an accent. That narrows it down, doesn’t it? But how, I wonder. The Crawler is hardly going to be part of the Consillium community. He must be a Rogue who drifted into town recently.

  I leave Parsons’s apartment deep in thought. What should I do with this clue? Take it straight to Vincent? But that would mean admitting I’ve ignored his orders.

  No. I’m going to follow this lead. How? I’m not totally sure. All I know is that I’m going to find this guy and I’m going to stop him.

  TONIGHT, WHEN I sneak out of the house, I know I’m pushing my luck to its absolute limits, but I have to. Even without my disobedient instincts, I need to run. I have days of idleness to burn off, my muscles feeling stagnant and unused even after such a short time. I’ve exercised in my room and in the backyard, but it isn’t the same as running at top speed through the streets. And on top of that, I now have Crawler clue tension to get rid of.

  I take my normal route along Lakeshore Drive, hoping that Nikolai might be around, but there isn’t even a hint of his presence, so I turn back to the city and go to visit Ruby at Barracuda. The bouncer lets me in in my workout gear because it’s a quiet night and I promise I’m not staying long. Plus, my outfit is head-to-toe black spandex, so he didn’t complain too hard.

  “Tam!” Ruby nearly knocks me over with her hug. “Oh my God. So much drama recently! Are you okay? I’m surprised your parents let you go out… or…?”

  “Um.”

  Ruby grins. She lives on her own in a tiny studio apartment downtown, but she ran away from home when she Became, so she totally gets the need to sneak out. With a grin, she scoops ice into a tall tumbler, adding a double shot of vodka, cranberry juice, and a wedge of lime. She pauses, her attention directed at a door to the left of the bar, presumably listening to what the manager is doing, and then pushes the glass over to me.

  “Thanks.” I take a seat on the swivel stool at the end of the counter and sip my drink through the straw. “Yum. Hey, could you grab me a large water too? I ran here.”

  “Sure. So what’s up?”

  Generic house music throbs from the speaker system. Small clusters of people huddle in corners or at tables, chatting over the music, bobbing their heads halfheartedly. The dancefloor is empty. It’s still early.

  “Do you know what happened with that Rogue who showed up at Red Door?”

  “No.” She shrugs, placing a large glass of water in front of me. “I just let the Consillium handle that stuff. They’ll probably just send him on his way with a warning. But they will do whatever is needed, whatever is best.”

  For a free spirit, Ruby has a surprisingly unquestioning loyalty to the Consillium. Isn’t she curious about what happened?

  We chat for a while, Ruby leaving me intermittently to flirt outrageously with each one of her customers while swiftly and expertly mixing their drinks. I think I know why the manager forgives her liberal interpretation of the work schedule.

  “Want another one?” She gestures at my empty glass.

  I shake my head. “Just another water, thanks.”

  “Hey, that’s crazy that you found the latest Crawler victim.” Ruby fills up my glass with the extendable hose. “And that he might be Lucan.”

  “It wasn’t the best afternoon I’ve ever had.”

  “I bet it’s some Rogue,” Ruby says, her eyes flashing with anger. “Those poor girls.” All of a sudden, Ruby’s eyes fill with tears. “They didn’t do anything, and he just keeps...” She shakes her head. “Vincent will sort it out.”

  The sound of a credit card tapping on the bar draws Ruby away for a moment, leaving me to think. Vincent probably could sort it out, if he had all the information that is. If he knew it’s a Rogue with an accent who seems to be trying to link me to his victims. Ruby is right, it doesn’t seem like the Crawler is going to stop, and I should be trying to help the Consillium catch him. The Consillium probably keeps track of Rogues, somehow, and they could probably narrow it down a lot. I have to tell them, even
if it means I get in trouble.

  With a tension in my shoulders that is equally guilt and dread, I stand up and wave goodbye to Ruby.

  “Hey, I’m going to take off. See you later.”

  “Okay, babe. Have a good night.”

  THERE’S NOT EVEN a hint of either Vincent or Nikolai in the area, so I jog the few blocks to The Public House. I’m told that Vincent is out picking up supplies. Next stop is Red Door.

  “Hey, Miles. Is Nikolai here? Have you seen him tonight?”

  “Sorry, Tam. No, not tonight.”

  “Okay, thanks anyway.” I turn to leave.

  “Not coming in? The DJ is good.”

  “Thanks, Miles, another night.”

  Damn, I should have brought my phone with me.

  Ambling down the street as I weigh up my options, I’m suddenly struck by a powerful sense. It’s not quite a scent; it’s more like a trace.

  The Crawler is here.

  At least he was.

  It’s like he left me a message in the ether. The source is amorphous, but the message is crystal clear. He’s about to do something bad. For a split second, I feel a strange pull, then an image pops into my head. A street sign. And then I understand what’s happening. He’s sending me clues about where his next victim is.

  The sign said Porter’s Avenue, which is not far from here. I start to run. When I get there, I get another image. The corner of Marshall Street and Barrington Avenue. A surge of nausea threatens to overcome me. I know where she is. Barrington Park. I break into a sprint. From twenty feet away, a figure—sitting against a park bench—becomes visible. I think I’m too late. Panting even though I’m not out of breath, I reach her and throw myself to the ground in front of her, grazing my knees. I can’t hear a heartbeat, but I check her pulse anyway, and this is why I don’t notice the flashing lights until it’s too late.

  “Police. Freeze.”

  Chapter 23

  Parsons sits back, taps his notepad, and repeats his question. “Why were you there?”