I pushed myself up in the bed. My back was aching and I wanted to get a better idea of exactly how well I was hooked to the bed and how big of a distance there was from me to the door. I had an IV needle in the left arm, and one of those heart monitor things clipped to my finger. The beeper! Other than that, it was just me, a gown—were they backless in Canada, too?—and my bare feet.
And snow outside.
I could always go to the bathroom, go Wraith, and sieve up through the ceiling and go find Daniel. 'Cause it was freaking me the hell out that he'd left me there in a park. Alone. Defenseless. It…just wasn't like him.
Then again, I wasn't so sure I wanted to keep trusting men when they were so easily swayed by other women.
I wasn't stupid, either—these two had probably already identified Daniel from the description that hostess at the bed–and-breakfast gave them. Which was bad if they connected a wanted criminal with the Society.
Damn. Things were getting worse.
"Excuse me? Why are you people in here?"
The voice was male and commanding, and had only a small hint of an accent. I looked at the door, as did the two of them, and saw an older man with snow-white hair in a white coat. He had a stethoscope around his neck and a very angry look on his face. His mouth looked like an upside-down smile beneath a bushy white mustache.
"Doctor Bergeron," Constable Carter said as he turned to face the doctor. "The victim is awake and we have an investigation."
"You have no right to be in here, because I have not given you permission." Doctor Bergeron stepped into the room. I watched the door start to close just as another hand stopped it. Male. Strong. And attached to—
Nick Shay?!
" Arrêtez interroger ma fiancée ," he said as he stepped in. "Now."
I caught one word in there.
Fiancée?
Chapter Three
The Ghoul Nickolas Shay stepped into the room just behind the doctor. Nick's blond hair had been clipped short over his collar, although a shock of it still hung over his brilliant blue eyes. He was immaculately dressed—and if I wasn't mistaken, it was a Hugo Boss. Navy blue. And perfectly tailored.
Nick's little speech put him firmly in Constable Carter's sights. "And who are you?" Carter asked Nick.
The Ghoul held out his right hand. "Nickolas Shay, attaché to Jason Lawrence of Mephistopheles, Inc."
Mephistopheles, Inc.? WTH?
"Never heard of him or it."
Nick smiled as he lowered his hand after the greeting. "Then we're doing our job right." He looked at me. "You okay?" And that's when I heard the gentle and kind Nick I was used to. His eyes softened when he saw me, and I held out my hand. He was across the room and lowering the railing in a New York minute.
Unlike a Revenant, a Ghoul's hand could be warm. And Nick's was just right. He reached out and touched my cheek. "I'm taking you home."
"Not so fast," Carter said. "This is a criminal investigation into the attack and murder of several couples in the park—"
Nick interrupted, his voice walking all over Constable Carter's without him really raising it. "My fiancée is not dead. She was out walking, enjoying the snow—which she and I see so infrequently in the south of the US. Someone attacked her. Luckily, she survived."
I got it—I mean, I figured out what Nick was doing. He was filling in for Daniel. Which meant that he knew Daniel wasn't around. Or, had Daniel called him and told him he was missing and to get me out of hock? Otherwise, how had they known where I was? Unless the hospital notified the Society?
"Wait…dead couples?" I finally said as I frowned up at Nick.
Mae finally spoke. "Oui. There have been three attacks in zat park. All three were couples. Ze men were killed—their throats slit. And ze women raped, their mouths filled with an item of clothing, and then stabbed and killed."
My body abruptly took on a bit more weight as I sunk into the surprisingly spongy mattress of the hospital bed. Couples attacked in a park. The males with slit throats. The women raped and stabbed and their mouths—
I was sure that in some quantum theory of multiple universes, there was a finite number of ways to kill and rape. But how often were the same methods put into practice in the same way as the man that'd raped and killed me?
And killed Barry in Piedmont Park?
Barry and I had been in the park, at night, after a show at the Shakespeare Tavern. The bastard had slit Barry's throat before he came after me, shoved my socks into my mouth, and raped me. I didn't know he'd stabbed me until later at the hospital, after I'd left my body for the first time since I was a tweener.
His was a face I'd never forget.
Carter was looking at me. So was Nick. "Show her."
Mae reached inside of a case or something she had to the left of the chair and produced a piece of paper. "Zis is a suspect sketch given to us by a witnesses who saw zis man fleeing zee park." She handed it to me. "Do you recognize him?"
I reached out with a shaking hand and took the paper. Nick sat with me, keeping his hand tightly wrapped around my other one and watching my face.
My gaze locked on the sketch.
Watching all those forensic and investigative shows on TruTV and HLN, I'd always wondered how they identified anyone from those crazy, Wooly Willy-looking sketches.
I didn't have to wonder anymore. It was him. There were inconsistencies in the eyes and the nose. But the eyes…the eyes and the way they sat over his long face.
It was him.
The guy in the park that night. The one grunting over me under the lights as Barry bled to death beside me.
But that wasn't why I was starting to lose it.
Not by a long shot.
"Zoë?" Nick leaned in close. "Honey, talk to me. Do you know him?"
I was nodding before he even finished asking.
"Is he the one who attacked you in the park?" Carter asked.
I shook my head, and then I nodded. I hadn't realized my cheeks were wet until Nick was shoving tissues into the hand he'd been holding.
That man had attacked me, but not this time. I looked directly into Nick's eyes, but couldn't speak. I couldn't tell these people the truth of what else I'd seen in that drawing. The stylized mark along the man's left cheek.
The mark of a Power.
And it wasn't that this rapist and murderer had been recruited by a Virtue to fight.
It was that I remembered the mark.
I'd stared at it that night as that man ripped and tore me apart.
It was too much, and I felt overwhelmed.
I'd been raped, and murdered, by a Power, over ten years ago. And if what I'd learned was true, a Virtue, a being of Ethereal essence had controlled that Power.
The mark…was my dad's.
Chapter Four
I think…since that night…I hadn't really stopped to consider everything that'd happened to me. The years I spent using my ability to slip out of my body seemed like happy ones. The years before then were…more of a blur. I didn't know back then that my mom had placed a spell on me. Hell, I didn't even know she was a witch. At the age of twelve, I was using a different first letter to go with the –itch part.
She'd done this to keep me hidden from others—namely her own uncle, Domas.
I believe she knew my dad was dead when they made love the night they conceived me. I also believe she loved him, and wanted to give him the child he'd always wanted. And she had.
Me.
But when he disappeared, when he left on my fourth birthday and never came back, I think it broke her heart more than it broke my own. The realization that he'd chosen his new life over her. And me.
And then it became her obsession to keep me away from them.
Until that night.
I'd lived in what I believed was relative obscurity until the night I witnessed TC murder William Tanaka. The First Born—an unknown entity to me at that time—had changed me.
And I had changed him.
All
that time, the Society had their little puppet watching me.
Rhonda Orly.
She'd betrayed me then, and then she'd betrayed me again after I forgave her, and taken the man I loved with no thought to my feelings. Or his.
None of this prepared me for the nausea, the sheer anger and hatred that pulsed through ever fiber of what the hell I was experiencing at that moment when I realized the disgusting betrayal of my own father.
This was worse than locking me in that damn egg.
He'd sacrificed my soul on the altar of his selfishness. He'd used one of his Powers…to rape and kill his own daughter?
"Zoë?"
"Miss Martinique?"
Nick's voice. Constable Carter's voice. They were all background noise mingling with the hum of energy around me. I was close…so close to shifting. To exposing what I really was at that moment. To break out and hunt down that bastard in the Ethereal Plane. And when I found him, I would—
"Ow!"
I grabbed at my upper arm and refocused on Nick. He'd pinched me!
Not. Now.
!!!
I heard him in my head. Or I was hoping it was him. It sounded like him. All I did was glare until he reached up and reminded me of the tissues I'd been clutching in my hand. I wiped my face and stared at him. I didn't nod, but he knew I got it.
No Wraithing out. Not now.
Constable Carter cleared his throat. "Miss Martinique—was this or wasn't this the man who attacked you?"
I took in a deep breath before I answered him. "I never saw his face. So, I don't know if that's him."
"But joo have see him before, oui?" Mae said as she took the piece of paper back from me. I'd nearly crumbled into a paper wad. She straightened it out on her lap.
Do I tell them? The truth? Did they already know about my own rape? It'd been easy for Daniel and Detective Joe Halloran to find the report—why not these guys? They knew about my mom, and about the Society. Funny they didn't bring up the fact she'd been a burlesque dancer. They usually loved that.
Nick turned and looked at the doctor. "Doctor Bergeron, is it possible to have the constables seen out? I'm sure they can continue their investigations at another time? My fiancé is obviously upset, and it is my opinion that her health is much more important than their case at the moment."
A sly smile pulled at the doctor's lips and he stepped back. "Constables, I must ask you to leave, and conduct your business at a later time."
"I'm afraid you have no authority," Carter said, and stepped closer to the bed. "It's obvious Miss Martinique has seen this man. And I intend to find out where."
I'd only seen Nick in action a handful of times. As a Ghoul, he possessed a lot of strengths and a few powers given to him by Mephistopheles' Abysmal blood. He winked at me before he stood and got in Carter's face. I mean they were face-to-face. And Nick wasn't a small man.
Carter was pretty tall, too.
Nothing was said, and Mae finally stood. She came to her partner's shoulder, which meant she'd be shorter than me. She looked from Nick to Carter and then back again. "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"
Carter stepped back and looked at Mae. He had a slight dreamy quality to his stare, but other than that he seemed fine. "Nothing, Mae. We can come back later." He nodded to the doctor and left the room.
Mae gave Nick a wide berth as she picked up her case and followed her partner.
Doctor Bergeron gave a soft chuckle as he stepped up to the bed. "I have been waiting on someone to do that to that damn prick for three years. Ever since he made constable, he's been a horse's ass." He smiled then. "Ms. Martinique, you 'ave no visible bruising or marks on your body. Luckily, the man they are looking for didn't get to joo. Or my colleague Monsieur Lambert would be examining joo. But…" He checked the folder he'd kept tucked into the crook of his arm. "Your blood is dangerously anemic. Have you suffered any drastic blood loss recently?"
I shook my head, dismissing Daniel's little version of a pop and drop with my veins. Usually I don't lie very well. But I was mad beyond my own ability to control. "No. I'm anemic."
"Oui. You 'ave a pre-existing condition. I would like for you to stay another twenty-four hours so that we can stabilize—"
"No." I shook my head and sat up as I yanked the heart monitor off my finger and started to remove the tape from my arm where the IV was held in place. "I want to leave. Now."
"Wait, wait, wait." The doctor reached out and grabbed my wrist. "Please allow me to call a nurse so that you can be properly discharged?"
I agreed. I was pretty used to taking tubes out of my arms, but I liked this Bergeron. After he left to find a nurse, I pulled my knees up into my chest to and wrapped my skinny-ass arms around them. I wasn't holding it together very well.
Nick sat down beside me again and held me. All of me. He waited while I had myself a good old-fashioned cry. At some point during my tirade, the nurse came in and shut the machines off, removed the IV, and placed a Band-Aid over the little hole.
I'd had the ugly-cry so I knew I looked bad. Swollen eyes, lips, face. I started hiccupping.
Great.
Nick never asked me what it was I'd seen, or why I was so upset. Not while I had my pity-party or even while I dressed in the clothes he'd brought me, although he had turned away to give me privacy. I didn't want him to leave. I didn't want to be alone in that room.
Finally, when I had on the jeans, sweater, boots, and jacket—although sans underwear 'cause I just didn't want any—I folded the bag up. "Nick…"
He turned and gave me a slight bow. So very…adorable. "Zoë." He came near and looked me up and down. "The Old Man's getting good at picking sizes."
"I didn't know you were calling Mephistopheles that now." Old Man was the name Jason, the First Born's host, usually called him.
"Seems fitting, I think. I like Jason. He was a good choice." He frowned. "What was it in that picture that frightened you so badly, Zoë? You did recognize him, but you and I know you were in that park because of Daniel, not the man in that picture."
"We were in that park because of a trio of Powers that attacked us," I said in Daniel's defense. I'd noted the slight hint of resentment in Nick's voice. Which was new. "Daniel was wounded and lost blood. He had to heal."
"Then it's true—he did drink from you." Nick lowered his shoulders. "We thought Azrael was wrong. We hoped he was."
I knew what he was hinting at. I'd had the same worry when he'd needed blood. Even Inanna had doubts at the time. "Did it change him? Do you know for sure? I wasn't sure…about him drinking from me. Mephistopheles had said once that my blood was different, like Dags's—" I stopped. Damn it. Why was it that saying his name was still so damn painful? I took in a quick breath. "But I've fed Jason before with no side effects."
Nick seemed to understand. "True, but the First Borns are pretty sure your blood's properties have been altered since your physical stay in the Abysmal Plane. Jason's body is already well advanced into the state of Revenant, but Daniel's body isn't, and with Inanna present inside of his very DNA, Mephistopheles is certain if he drank, then it had worked some sort of change. Inanna's not answering any of the First Borns' calls. And Daniel hasn't been seen."
Without a brush, I didn't have a way to untangle my hair. And I needed something physical to do besides pace. I started running my fingers through it so I could somehow braid it back from my face. "How did you know where to come?"
"Azrael and Geist contacted Nona. All they said at first was you'd been attacked by Powers and needed help. Then, while on the plane, I got the message from Jason that there was a possibility Daniel drank from you." He came closer and, to my surprise, produced a brush from his coat. "Let me do that. I used to…brush Romina's hair. And I can braid."
Romina. The host Mephistopheles had bonded with when Nickolas fell in love.
"Where's Jason?" I sat on the bed as he brushed my hair and deftly got out some of the snarls my mom loved to complain about. "Did you come alone?"
I turned abruptly, Nick pulling my hair. "Recuperating? What happened? Is he okay?"
"He and Umayma will be okay—"
"Umayma? What the hell happened?"
Nick pursed his lips and lowered his arms. I turned to face him, my hair half braided.
"Zoë…Rhonda attacked Manuel. Jason took Dags off the Society grounds and Manuel intervened to keep Rhonda occupied. But then she—it—the Dominion that's Shadowing her—locked Morgan's soul in one of those Soul Cages—"
I held up my hand, my brain unable to process any of this. "Whoa…start over. Rhonda is being Shadowed by a Dominion? Shadowed? You mean possessed?"
"No. Shadowed."
"Not the same thing?"
"In this case, no." He licked his lips. "Manuel and Morgan sensed it. It's not inside of her, per se, but it's hovering over her. Joe and Nona suspect it's hiding in her Orbital Veil."
I knew what that was. Rhonda had copied the spell to access her own Veil from the Grimoire before she'd fused it to Dags's soul. "Yeah, that's that pocket of space she makes things disappear in. How did a Dominion get in there? I didn't even know it was possible."
Nick shifted. He looked uncomfortable.
"What is it?"
"The Dominion that's there is the one you and Manuel fought after Christmas. The one called Zacharel."
"What?" Any tears I had left evaporated. I sat straight up and felt like I'd missed a shitload of episodes. "But—he was locked in the dungeon, wasn't he? I didn't think Ethereal possessed human bodies."
"Dungeon?" Nick laughed softly. "Yes. He was in the brig, but just the shell. Dominions can possess bodies when they want to touch the physical or when they need to physically interact. To manifest takes a lot of energy. He'd slipped out of that body after he was held there—"
"And slipped into her Veil." Being possessed absolves the possessed victim of responsibility—as with Daniel. I couldn't blame him for the deaths he'd caused because of my Horror. "So…this Dominion used her to attack a Revenant? And not just any Revenant—but the one that helped defeat him in that club?"
Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 Page 2