She lowered her eyelids and shot me a red-eyed glare, then turned to Hamilton. Her gaze traveled him leisurely, a half-smile curving her lips: the epicure tucking in her napkin as she examined the Cordon bleu feast. “Are all detectives so handsome, or is it only in Hollywood?”
“I have wondered the same about the gorgeous women,” Hamilton replied, innocently adding special spices to himself. I could have warned him, but to what purpose?
“You are too kind, Mr. Hamilton.”
“Please call me Steve.”
“No,” I interrupted the lamb, “please call him Lieutenant Hamilton. If you’ll excuse us a moment?” I asked him.
I took a few steps away. Rachella followed, stood close. Impatience edged the boredom in her voice. “Are you done playing detective, Sebastian? I want to talk to you. Alone.”
“Behave yourself, and right now. You leave Hamilton alone.”
“You’re giving me orders?” she purred. “God, I love when men talk to me like that! Keep going.”
“Do you know where Aliena is?”
“Why would I care about that?”
“Do you know someone named Kristina?”
“So.” Hands on hips. “You’re not done playing detective.”
“Hamilton and I just came from the residence of Kristina Cha. We found a pile of ashes in her living room.”
“What? The same way you found Darius?”
“Yes. Did you know her?”
“We haven’t talked in a long time,” she said.
“Do you know if she knew Darius?”
“Rumors about them being together have been circulating since the new year.”
“Was she gay?”
“I know she likes women, but I don’t know if that’s all.”
Which meant they could have been dating. Then why the snub at the execution? Was that Cha ending the affair? If she was Morgan’s partner, Cha may have wanted only to get close to Darius to try to find out where the ring was being hidden.
“Rachella, whatever is happening could affect you, too. We need to know what’s going on.”
“Then you should keep an eye on me. I only want an hour of your time.” She pressed into my arm, ran a hand through my hair. “I had a naughty dream this evening and you were in me.”
“I said behave yourself.” Her sentence had conjured an image that distracted me for a moment. “I can’t come out to play right now.”
Hamilton listened, his eyes focused on the back of Rachella’s dress.
Rachella glanced at her watch. “Your place at ten. If you disappoint me, I shall be very upset.” She ran an icy wet tongue over my ear, waved to Hamilton, strode to her Ferrari, and rocketed away with a chirp of rubber.
I returned to Hamilton, impatient to leave.
“Did I hear her say Spellman and Cha were together?” he asked.
“That’s right. So now we know the relationship between our two victims.”
“Was it a romantic relationship?” he said. “Or was Cha using Darius, pumping him for information on the Apollo Ring and where they were hiding it?”
“Good question.”
“Rachella knows Aliena?” he asked. “So she’s part of the group associated with this magical ring?”
“Yes.”
“Could she be the next target?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you don’t know where Aliena is?”
“There’s nothing unusual about that.” That was true, but tonight was different.
“How many people are in this group?”
“Millions, around the world. This is centered on the Apollo Ring, somehow. As far as I know, Rachella has no special connection to it.”
“Does Aliena?”
“No. Last night was the first time she had ever heard of it, same as me.”
“But something’s bothering you about her.”
“Yes,” I said. “I promise to tell you more after I see her.”
“What about that girl?” he said, gesturing in the direction Rachella had gone. “Aren’t you going to be busy?”
“Rachella loves to do what she shouldn’t.”
“And she wants to do you, big-time. You know I hate you, right?”
“Trust me, you would not want to spend the night with Rachella.” I chirped the locks on the Italia.
Hamilton picked up the donut box. “Sebastian. You have got to stop saying shit like that if you’re not going to give me a damn good explanation. If I wouldn’t want to spend the night with a hotass like Rachella, put me in my freakin’ grave. All of Aliena’s friends are guaposa mami chulas but you tell me to stay away from them.”
We climbed into the car. “That’s because they’re all the same.”
“Rachella also eats raw food and sleeps outside?”
“I don’t know where she sleeps, but yes, probably. Look, Rachella may be gorgeous, but that girl is trouble with a capital tee.”
“Hey, we all have our troubles,” he said, snapping his seatbelt into place. “Somehow, it figures yours’d look like that. Mutha. That girl looks like she would do things to a man he never dreamed.”
Not even in his scariest nightmares.
Chapter 37
Saturday, February 14, 8:23 p.m.
After I dropped Hamilton at the station and promised to call him by ten, I drove a few blocks along Sylmar, turned down a side street and pulled to the curb.
GPS tracker in hand, I scanned the details of Aliena’s earlier progress. According to the satellite info, the exact location of her destination had been Kristina’s home. It also displayed the time-date stamp for her arrival: six twenty-eight. Just a few minutes before the neighbor’s disturbance call had come into the Van Nuys station.
I switched back to the live screen. The green dot floated along at ten kilometers per hour, location Calabasas, heading northwest, toward Malibu.
I leaned back and considered this information, watching a small dust devil swirl briefly in the headlights. Using Occam’s razor as a guide, there wasn’t much to contemplate. Though inexplicable, the evidence pointed to one obvious conclusion.
My darling Aliena had murdered Kristina Cha.
Aliena’s dot continued to approach my house. If her progress remained steady, I would arrive before her. Of course, there was no way to know if we were headed to the same place.
I had made an error when I told Hamilton the Apollo Ring may have been responsible for the murders. If Aliena had killed Kristina with the Apollo Ring, how had she acquired it? According to Marcus, the monks kept the Ring under constant observation. Another problem was the scorch marks. They had been present at Spellman’s murder as well. I had seen the Apollo Ring in action and knew it fired a concentrated beam that left no burns on the ground.
I parked the car and palmed my way into the house, my mind percolating.
Another problem with Aliena as Kristina’s killer was the lack of a motive. If Aliena had seen the sexy Chinese vampire talking to me in Bar Sinister, she would likely have joined us to find out what Kristina wanted with me—not burn the woman to cinders the following evening.
That some operation was in motion—one targeting Aliena—I had no doubt. I had many obviously important facts, but none of the evidence connected in a meaningful way.
Witnesses at both burnings had identified a blonde woman leaving the scene. When Kristina was reduced to her basic carbon elements, GPS tracking put Aliena in the same room with her.
If Aliena didn’t murder Kristina, she must have witnessed it.
A shadow crossed the patio. The glass doors slid open and Aliena stepped inside. Her eyes darted around as if searching the corners of the living room for enemies. She didn’t look in my direction. She appeared to have been in a fight, her hair mussed, clothes askew.
“Sebastian?”
“Yes, I’m here.” I wasn’t sure if I should ask her about eating and running three hours ago.
Instead of looking at me, she tilted her head back, a
movement I’d never seen her make before. “Oh, I feel strange. Something happened, something terrible, but I…I can’t remember.”
She lowered her gaze to my face. I read confusion and fear in her eyes. She moved toward me unseeingly, bumping against me after two steps. The wandering ghosts of her hands landed on my shoulders. I stood at arm’s length, unsure if I should support her lest she consider my behavior too friendly.
Her eyes focused. The heat from her hands radiated through my jacket and cotton shirt.
“Did you see a woman’s face this time? Perhaps a Chinese woman?”
I grimaced as her hands clenched me painfully.
“I don’t know,” she wailed softly. “Someone was screaming, and someone else was laughing, but that light had come again, the star, and I couldn’t move, even though I was so scared and wanted to run away. I’m not sure but I think I killed someone. A vampire. But it wasn’t real…it was a nightmare...”
Shock froze me. She had confessed to the murder of Kristina Cha.
Though she baked me as if I was the pot and she the kiln, I wanted to pull her close. Perhaps sensing this, she stepped back.
“Do you know a Chinese vampire named Kristina?” I asked.
“I—I don’t think so.”
“Do you know where you’ve just been?”
“Where? I’m not . . . ” She sobbed. “I can’t remember!”
“Do you remember seeing me earlier tonight? Drinking from me?”
She wasn’t listening. She had fallen to staring at her hands, holding them out and turning them over. As far as I could tell, there was nothing different about them.
“Aliena, are y—”
She jumped at the sound of my voice, as if she had forgotten I was there.
“Aliena?”
“Do you really love me?” she asked, a desperate note in her voice, her customary expression of cool control replaced by wide-eyed panic.
“More than my life,” I answered, anguished that her memory had regressed, but thankful she still remembered me and knew my feelings for her. Those may have been the only reasons she came to me. “You are the reason I breathe, my darling.”
She reached a fumbling hand into her jacket pocket. “You gave me this ring,” she said, slipping it onto her finger. Her eyes de-focused. Pinpricks of blood dotted her cheeks. She placed the back of her hand to her forehead. “Oh, I feel so hot.” The hand fell limply to her side, the back smeared with blood. “Oh, no, no more dreams . . . ” Her eyelids fluttered. “Help me, please . . . ”
I lunged and caught her lifeless body.
Chapter 38
Saturday, February 14, 8:44 p.m.
Lowering Aliena to the carpet, I knelt beside her, sick with apprehension. Placing my hand to her forehead, I quickly pulled it away. She was burning up again, her normally arctic flesh a desert broil.
I scooped her into my arms and sped to her room. Carrying her was akin to cradling an open blast furnace. The heat radiating from her wrung sweat from my brow despite my body’s attempts to compensate.
I tossed her on the bed and carefully removed her clothes, hoping she wasn’t hot enough to set the quilt on fire. Blood sweat smeared her skin as before.
In the bathroom, I soaked a hand cloth in cold water, risked a look into the mirror above the sink. I did not like the haunted expression of the man I saw there.
Returning to Aliena’s inert body, I began scrubbing the blood off her. It took four trips before her body was clear. By the time I had finished, her skin had cooled.
Once again, I performed a thorough inspection of every inch of her body under the lights. Separated toes and fingers. Probed delicately. Inspected ears, nose, and throat with a penlight. Stymied, I sat back. I could find no evidence of an injection, no scratch, no piercing of her skin to indicate someone had administered a foreign agent.
And although I had ruled out the Apollo Ring, I checked her fingers anyway. They showed no scar or burn to indicate she had worn the radioactive bauble. Now that I thought about it, how would she know the incantation to make it work, anyway?
Almost reluctantly, I set my hand flat on her stomach. Was something inside her, perhaps one of Morgan’s Ghosts of Atlantis? I couldn’t detect anything skin-to-skin.
I slipped her between the sheets and pulled the blankets to her throat. Rose-tinted spots and smears stained her white coverlet.
Sitting next to her, I placed my hand on her forehead. Her skin felt cool and dry. She had recovered from an earlier bout of fever, so would likely regain consciousness again. That did not make me feel much better. The last time she had awakened from this comatose state, she had not recognized me.
Her leather jacket lay at my feet. When I picked it up, it felt unusually heavy. A phone occupied each of the side pockets. One I recognized as Aliena’s. Before setting hers on the bedside table, I scanned the call record. Her last outgoing call was to Marcus the previous night, and her only incoming calls were the two I had placed, both unanswered.
Her moon tarot card rested in the jacket’s inside pocket. I took it.
I examined the second phone. Slim and silver, it was heftier than a standard cell, and had no product badging—just like Spellman’s computer. Tapping it on, it took me several moments to figure out the symbols on the display. Finally, I tapped one, found the directory. The first entry was “Atlantis.” The number had eighteen digits and would apparently also sync with a nearby device.
That confirmed it was Darius’s phone. He had said he would get it to me. Which meant he must have planted it on Aliena before his murder. That was cutting things extremely fine.
Aliena’s predicament was the same as what had happened to Carmen. And the vampire Council had decided to execute Carmen as a result. Dread filled me as I pictured Aliena locked in that unholy cabinet, the final white-hot hoop sealing her mouth before the head priest blasted her to dust with the Apollo Ring.
Shaking off the horrible vision, I focused on the number for Atlantis. The link to the external device—did that refer to the champagne-flute-shaped wireless speakers? I accessed his past calls. In the last five days, Spellman had called the number twice a day, at roughly the same times. Keeping his history displayed, I speed-dialed Preston.
“Yeah?”
“What would it take to activate the portal in Spellman’s place?”
“Who knows? Maybe a physical trigger, or a computer command.”
“How about a cellular transmission?” I asked.
“That might work, but the volume of information necessary would require a higher bandwidth than we currently use for RF transmissions.”
“What if it synced with an amplifier?”
“Are you on to something?” Preston asked.
“Pull up the page in Spellman’s computer that looked like a log, with two columns of numbers.”
“Got it.”
“You said the second column consisted of six numbers broken into pairs, and that they probably represented times.”
“Yes, it’s pretty obvious,” he said. “The first pair never goes above 23, the second and third never exceed 59.”
“Read the last five entries to me.”
I scanned Spellman’s phone as Preston recited the numbers. All five of them matched the times Darius had dialed the number for Atlantis.
“Have you figured out what they mean?” Preston asked.
“I think they’re the times Spellman opened the portal to the other dimension.”
“Makes sense, but why do you think that’s right?”
“I have his cell phone. The numbers from his computer match the times of calls he made in the last five days. The number is headed Atlantis.”
“A cell phone?” he said.
“Well, it looks like a phone. There are no product symbols or maker’s name on it. No writing at all, in fact. And it’s thicker and heavier than any cell I’ve seen. Could it open the doorway?”
“I wouldn’t know until I tested it.”
&nbs
p; “Okay. Anything else you can tell me about these interdimensional tunnels?”
“Lots. A powerful machine creates the hyperdimensional environment, so the doorways would be in specific locations.”
“Like Spellman’s office.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Who knows? There could be a dozen things.”
“Give me some examples, please,” I said.
“We don’t know anything about Spellman,” he began. “Was he from our reality or a different one? Was there something special about him that allowed him to travel between the dimensions? Could one of us safely travel to the other side and back? Would the germs and diseases be the same? Does the doorway convert us in some way so that we are in phase with the other dimension? If not, is there a time limit to how long we can remain? Will the physical layout of the planet be the same? Logic says yes, but until someone has made the trip, we just don’t know. Are versions of ourselves there? If so, what would happen if we met our doubles? Those are off the top of my head,” he continued, “but I could keep going for quite a while. And it’s possible the things I’ve mentioned don’t come into play at all.”
“I see.”
“If you’ve found Spellman’s phone, bring it in so we can analyze it.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up the phone now. “Okay, send a runner, but I want you to do the inspection.”
“Sloane is our expert on cellular—”
“No. You do it, and keep it on the QT. And I want the phone back immediately.”
“All right.”
“How’s the decryption of Spellman’s journal coming?” I asked.
“We cracked the algorithms over five minutes ago, but the data recovery is slow. Just finished the first page.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Not sure. This hard drive is configured unlike any I’ve ever seen. Spellman clearly wrote his own software, including the OS. Very sophisticated. This document behaved as if it knew it had been exposed and tried to stop decryption. This dude was some kind of genius.”
Set a thief to catch a thief. Of course, Spellman had centuries of practical knowledge and experience on his side versus Preston’s three decades. That didn’t stop me from needling the man.
Ghosts of Atlantis (Immortal Montero Book 3) Page 20