The thought of a psychopath in possession of the Chaos card sent chills up and down my spine. If he was stronger now than he had been back when he’d wiped out those vampires, my odds of stopping him were significantly lower than before. Rattled by what I’d learned, I tore through the club and left via the back exit, readying myself to find that hotel.
Chapter 16
By the time I’d gotten outside and maneuvered through the crowd of clumsy drunks, I’d already begun to persuade myself not to continue this investigation. Danger lurked around every corner and my chances of dying were greater than my chances of success. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do my job – it was simply impossible. Victor Kronin was already a far stronger mage than I was, and he was gaining more power each time he killed. How the hell was I supposed to combat that?
With Link still cradled in my arms, I leaned over to protect his battered body and crossed the street. I figured I should get him to safety, let him rest up and see how he fared tomorrow morning. Poor guy had faced his worst nightmares tonight. Then again, I guess we both had.
As I approached the street corner, a familiar figure stepped out from an alley. He took my arm in a firm hand and led me into the cover of darkness. I was far too stunned to react. Dumbstruck, I simply let myself get taken by him.
When a wave of light from the road flashed across his face, I exhaled with relief. “Jason.” His name came out in a gasp. “You made it.”
“Barely.” He turned his face to the side, where a beam of light from the street shone through and illuminated a deep, scarlet scratch on his cheek. It consisted of three lines, each an identical width apart. Claw marks.
“Oh, crap.” I felt responsible. Sure, I had done my best in leading one of his attackers away, but I should have gone back to him. I should have done more. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? I mean, does it hurt?”
“It’ll heal.”
“I’m so sorry I left you.”
“It was worth it. I want my brother’s killer off the street. No. I want him dead. Look, come with me…” He tilted his head, signaling me deeper into the alley.
I followed, unquestioning.
“What did you find out from the vampires?”
“Ah.” I lowered my head. “I’ll be no use against those toothy monsters. They’ve already been attacked, and it looks like they’ve come out the other side of it just fine. That’s all I can tell you without–”
A horde of drunks passed the mouth of the alley, yelling and shoving each other. We remained quiet, concealing ourselves in the shadows until they passed. Two young girls came running behind them to catch up, and finally, we were left in peace.
Jason leaned in close, whispering softly into my ear. The warmth of his breath made me shiver. “There was already an attack? What happened?”
“I only know that a mage wiped them out at Hale’s Hotel.”
“I think I know the place.”
I nodded, my heart rate increasing rapidly. “Good for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It just means that if you want to check it out, you’re welcome to.” I began to walk away, getting a head start before he could stop me. “But I think I’m out. Even if I had help from your pack, I don’t think we could pull this off.”
Jason hurried to my side, tightly gripping my arm and stopping me before I could make my escape. “You’re out? No, I don’t accept that. You’re a Cardkeeper for God’s sake. It’s your responsibility to–”
“It’s my responsibility to guard the cards,” I snapped, feeling horrible when I made him sulk. “I failed. Everyone at the Vault failed. There was an unfortunate security breach and now we’re all going to hell in a hand basket. Okay? We don’t all have self-healing flesh and a ton of muscle.”
Jason stared at me blankly… and then began to smile.
“What could possibly be funny about this?” I snapped.
“Just… I have both of those things, but you even kicked my ass once or twice. You need to give yourself more credit for your strengths. Lena told me about the last Keeper – your predecessor. Apparently he didn’t have a scratch on you in terms of guts or power.”
I snorted a laugh. “Am I supposed to feel special?”
“No, but you have a right to know that you’re one of the better ones.” Jason looked quickly to the end of the alley, licked his lips and then returned his gaze to me. “Look, I don’t know all that much about you, but I know you’re braver than you think you are. I’m asking to help you, Keira. Even if you want to drop out at the last minute, just let me help you find this Victor guy. After that… well, he’s ours.”
I happily considered the offer. It might have been just the escape I’d been looking for – a chance to flee from the danger without appearing to give up like some coward. I could find Victor and just send the werewolves his way. Then again, I would be putting Jason in danger. There wasn’t a hope in hell that he would survive in a fight with Victor Kronin. It hit me then: whatever I did next, I was screwed.
“How about it?” he pressed.
Avoiding eye contact, I turned and made my way back toward the street. “I’m going home,” I said, knowing full well that I would regret my next words. “Meet me at my apartment tomorrow; 1802 Drexel Avenue. And bring a suit.”
Jason said nothing, but I swore I could feel him grinning. I supposed having a werewolf as a partner couldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Even if Victor wiped us out, at least I wouldn’t die completely alone.
Chapter 17
I left the apartment in the morning, wearing a ridiculous black skirt and a wrinkled white blouse to go with it. The plan was to go into the hotel posing as police officers and see what we could dig up. Sadly, I looked more like a cheap stripper in a traffic cop’s uniform. Best-case scenario: I would get a fifty-dollar bill slipped into my cleavage. At least I wouldn’t come home empty-handed.
“You ready to go?” Jason asked, shivering. He stood outside in a classy suit. His facial wounds were already healing, and only three faint lines remained across his cheek and eye. Even with that, he looked handsome.
I felt like an asshole for making him wait outside my apartment building. I wasn’t ready to let him see my home just yet, so I’d just left him out in the cold as a casualty to foolish pride. Besides, I didn’t want an entire pack of werewolves knowing which floor I lived on.
“I’m ready.” I closed the main door to the building, feeling a wave of guilt for leaving Link behind. I wasn’t sure why – I knew he loved to be tucked away from all the danger. It might even have been that he was milking it, though I understood why. Poor little guy had been through enough already.
Jason and I walked up the street until he pushed the button on his car key. The lights blinked on a beautiful black Mercedes, and there was a clunking sound as it unlocked. Surprised, I looked to Jason and awaited an explanation. All I got was a blank stare.
“What?” he said, opening the passenger-side door for me.
“Where did you get the car?” I asked, snuggling down in the comfortable leather seat.
“Same place I got these.” He threw a couple of black wallets into my lap and closed the door. When he walked around the car and climbed in behind the wheel, he grinned like he’d just won first place. “Go on, take a look.”
I opened up the wallets both at once, and looked down in amazement. In each hand was a detective’s badge, One of them was silver and star-shaped, and the ID above it read: Homicide Detective Sarah Albright. The woman in the photo looked a little like me, but only if you squinted your eyes.
The other badge was bronze in color, and had San Francisco Police printed into the metal. The ID photo looked nothing like Jason. Not even close. “You do realize that one of these is from San Francisco?”
Jason nodded, firing up the car’s engine and pulling out onto the quiet, frosty road. “Just give it a quick flash and hope they don’t ask to inspect it. Should be fine.”
I
uttered a small laugh. “Where did you even get these?”
“A friend owed me a favor.”
“Uh-huh.” For the sake of comparison, I held the photo up beside his face. There must have been around twenty years difference between him and the cop. Not only that, but Jason’s skin was far darker, and his eyes were infinitely more enticing. The man in the photo, however, just looked rugged but kind. “All right.”
We sat in silence for the rest of the journey. An awkward hour passed by until we arrived at a vast, brightly colored building with stained glass. Smoke billowed from a chimney up top, and hedges lined the quarter-mile long driveway. A gaunt man in a red coat stood with his hands cupped in front of him. When we got out, he welcomed us to the hotel and took our keys, parking the Mercedes somewhere round the back of the building.
“Well then,” Jason said, holding out his arm. “Shall we?”
I fed my arm through his and he escorted me through to the reception area, a grand hall with a high ceiling and a desk, which sat just inside the door. I shivered as I drank in the stony architecture, even though it wasn’t cold inside.
“May I help you?” asked a smartly dressed woman from behind the desk. Her blonde hair and blue eyes gave her a European vibe, but there was no accent in her voice to support that theory. Just plain old Midwestern.
Jason took the lead, flashing his badge and introducing us as Chicago detectives. I stood close to him, showing my badge just as he said my name, but tried to stay quiet and let him take control of the situation. “We’d like to talk to the manager about the disturbance that occurred here a few nights ago.”
The woman hesitated, and then shook her head. “I’m afraid Mr. Lincoln isn’t here at this time, and I’m not sure where he is. If you like, I would be happy to give you his cell number.” She opened up her books and ran her finger down the page, stopping near the bottom. “Here it is.”
The cell phone number was useless. We needed to get inside right now. “Pardon me,” I said, leaning in. “Do you have a restroom I could use?” I kept my voice firm, stifling my lack of confidence beneath blunt pronunciation.
“Of course. If you follow me–”
“Just point me in the right direction, thanks.”
The front desk clerk looked offended, but quickly adjusted her expression so as not to be rude. It was obvious that she had worked in the hospitality industry for quite some time – anyone else would have addressed their suspicions.
I followed her directions and took off down a hallway, shooting Jason a wink as I rounded the corner. Hopefully he would keep her busy while I snooped around. But I didn’t have to go far – a suspicious character exited a room and stopped right in front of me.
“Oh, my apologies,” he said, trying to get around me.
I tried to catch a glimpse of his nametag as he passed, and could have sworn it’d said Manager. Of course, it was possible that I had misread it – he came across as far too scruffy to work in an establishment like this, much less be the man in charge. But I guess his messy gray hair meant nothing, because as I scanned down his body, I saw a pressed suit with gold cufflinks.
Against my better judgment, I decided to go out on a whim by calling: “Mr. Lincoln.”
To my surprise, the man stopped walking and looked over his shoulder at me. His lips parted as if he wanted to speak, and then his eyes scrutinized me, taking in my cheap but professional appearance. If he thought I was a cop, his reaction told me he was crooked.
But then the strangest thing happened.
He dropped his book to the floor, and turned to run down the corridor.
Lucky for me, he was as slow as he was old. I caught up to him quickly, groping his shoulder and pushing him against a nearby wall. Scaring the elderly wasn’t my best move, but sometimes the extreme was necessary. “I need to talk to you.”
The man squirmed in front of me, shutting his eyes tight and knocking his head from side to side. “Please, I don’t want any part of it. Just take whatever else you need and leave me alone. I won’t tell anyone!”
What the hell is he talking about?
I tried to play along, squeezing information out of him without letting on that I knew nothing. I leaned in close, letting my heavy breath intimidate him. “My boss sent me to find out how many there were.”
“H-How many what?” he asked, finally opening his eyes.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Lincoln. How many vampires died in this place?”
“What? I-I don’t know.”
For a split second, I thought he truly knew nothing about magic or vampires. There was even room for the plausibility that we had the wrong hotel, and boy, would that embarrass me. But when I let him go and he sagged to the marble floor, wheezing, he said something that simply blew me away.
“It was a lot, all right?” His weak voice shook and his frail hands trembled as he held them out in surrender. Never had a man looked more spooked. “But that one man – the magician with the purple card – he walked away from it all with a smile on his face.”
Chapter 18
This old man knew something, and I wasn’t about to let him run away. Beside us was a door, and although I had no idea where it led to, I shoved him inside while trying not to be too rough. I needed answers, but I wasn’t a bully.
The door slammed shut as we entered a long, classy dining room with circular tables positioned symmetrically throughout. Soft dinner music echoed gently from speakers at the far end, while everything else gleamed and glittered. I was starting to see how this hotel managed to keep its doors open.
I helped Mr. Lincoln to his feet, made sure he was okay, then pulled out a chair for him to sit in. It was partially for my own benefit – I was more likely to intimidate if I towered over him with my questions.
“Tell me more about this magician,” I said, perching my butt on the edge of a table.
Lincoln slowly recovered his breath, planting his hands on his knees as he leaned into them. “Oh yes, yes,” he said, while his chins shook like jelly. “The man with all the magic.”
The door swung open, startling us both, but I relaxed when I saw Jason enter the room. He pushed the door closed and leaned into the doorframe, hands stuffed into his pockets.
“W-Who is this?” Mr. Lincoln asked.
“My partner,” I said sharply. “Never mind him. Tell me what happened.”
Mr. Lincoln buried his face in his hands. “What can I say? They hired out the function room – the vampires did – and we were hosting a ceremony for them.”
“What kind of ceremony?”
“I couldn’t tell you. Their representative requested that we only set up some food and then wait outside the door should we be needed. But I heard… I heard a lot of bizarre noises from the other side of that door. A lot of… chanting.” Mr. Lincoln rubbed his eyes, clearly summoning a bad memory. It almost made me feel bad for him.
“And the magician? Tell me what he looked like.”
“Uh… Perhaps six-feet tall.” He demonstrated with a quivering hand. “Late-fifties. Only a little hair on top and… those eyes – bright blue. Sparkling, in fact. Something looked cruel about him. From the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew that there was something sinister going on inside his head.”
Those old feelings of dread resurfaced. I shot a look to Jason and nodded my head, getting a nod in return. It was our way of confirming that this magician – sparkle-eyed and sinister – fit the description of Victor Kronin.
“This banquet room was where the murders took place?”
Lincoln sat back then, and looked desperately into my eyes. “M-Murders? No, miss. These weren’t murders – it was a massacre with glowing light. I would have called it a war, had the vampires had a chance to fight back.”
Massacre? Glowing light? I’d heard enough.
“Take us to the room,” I demanded.
“Please don’t make me go back in there.”
I flashed my police badge. He was seeing it for the fir
st time, and although I couldn’t be sure if he believed I was a cop, he believed enough to know that we weren’t your normal, everyday people. “Do you want to get charged with obstruction of justice? Take us to the banquet room, and do it quickly.”
Mr. Lincoln stood and fumbled with the keychain hooked onto his belt loop. The metal rattled and clanged as his shaking hands struggled to pick out the correct key. When he found it and slipped it off the chain, he hurried out into the corridor.
Jason and I followed closely behind him, keeping a watchful eye on him to ensure that he didn’t try to get away. He was certainly the type, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d tried. At the end of the day, he was just another unsuspecting mortal, suckered into witnessing a conflict between two creatures of the underworld. He was as much a victim as the vampires were.
“This the manager?” Jason asked in a hushed whisper as we ascended the stairs.
I nodded. “How did you get past the receptionist?”
“Just… charm.”
“You charmed her?”
“Well, I don’t know how you would say it, but yes, I charmed her.”
Shaking the image of him leaning into the receptionist’s ear, I continued to follow in silence until we came to a stop on the top floor, by a large double door. There was a pane of glass in each one, but they were both covered with patches of foil tape.
“This is it,” Mr. Lincoln said, sliding the key into the lock after three shaky attempts.
My heart raced, sending a rush of blood to my head as he put a hand on the doorknob. “Wait,” I said, and tried to make it seem as if it were more for his wellbeing than my own fear. “I won’t make you go in here, but could you do us a favor?”
Mr. Lincoln looked confused as well as nervous. “Yes?”
“Go and grab your ledger. I want to know the name of the person who rented this room.” I knew that it would probably be Edgar George, but if it kept Mr. Lincoln from guiding our tour, I didn’t mind sending him on that errand.
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