Buch lesen: «The Guardians», Seite 3

Chapter 3

The crime scene tape was long gone. As a reminder of what had happened, though, dark splotches of dried blood muddied the sidewalk under the pale yellow wash of a nearby streetlight.

Nicole Kidman, movie star, had deserved better. But then, so had the young woman whose life had ended on a dirty city street. Moving about the scene, Kieran searched for the faint energy trace left in the wake of all demons. Not much more than a smudge on the air, it was a key weapon in fighting the beasts. But the scent of it had already dissipated enough that tracking in the usual way would be unfeasible.

So, he took a chance.

Kieran stood on the sidewalk star and opened his mind, reaching blindly for a connection to the demon. Not that a telepathic connection was always possible. Every demon was different—though all provided that faint trace element—each of them had different abilities and weaknesses. This particular demon was slightly telepathic—something that just might help Kieran find it.

He frowned as he concentrated. Snatches of malevolence slapped at him, but nothing complete. Nothing substantial enough to help him in his hunt. But the demon was even older than Kieran, so its ability to evade pursuers wasn’t really surprising.

Just frustrating.

Disgusted, he scanned the area, discounting the cluster of cars with irate drivers cursing at each other as they sat, locked in congestion. The traffic never changed here. Two in the morning or two in the afternoon, the cars would be stacked up bumper to bumper. Idly he thought that the time of horses had been much better. Though he’d been among the first to buy an automobile, he’d missed the companionship of a horse.

A blond hooker walked slowly past him, shooting him a quick, appraising look, then scurried on, limping slightly on sky-high heels. A young man with wild eyes and a scraggly beard handed out flyers inviting passersby to one free drink at a local topless bar and the neon sign across the street from Kieran fluttered like a racing heartbeat.

The demon could be anywhere by now. Could have even left the city in an attempt to escape him. But Kieran didn’t think so.

This particular demon was a creature of habit. It preferred crowded areas, where people were practically stacked on top of one another. And usually, when it found a place, it locked in on it. The last time, in 1888, it had been London, the East End.

Whitechapel. A section of the city so crowded with back alleys and a twisting, sinuous layout of tenements and bolt holes that it had taken Kieran almost five months to track it down.

Just thinking about that time, brought it all back with a rush that filled his mind. The damp fog swirling through filthy, overcrowded streets like gnarled fingers of smoke, coiling around the unwary, holding them fast in the bowels of the city. He could almost smell the greasy stench of bad liquor and the nearby slaughterhouse. The layer of hopelessness and decay that had colored every square foot of Spitalfields.

Five long months he’d spent in that miserable hellhole. He’d tracked the demon relentlessly—not an easy task since the damned thing had changed bodies too damned often. But Kieran had finally caught the vicious bastard. Just like he would this time.

Turning abruptly, Kieran started down Hollywood Boulevard. Even late at night, the sidewalks were crowded. Not so much with the tourists, who usually had enough sense to keep to their hotels, but with the local denizens who reclaimed the street every night.

Teenage runaways, caution in their eyes, grouping together for whatever protection they could find. Homeless men digging for food in trash cans, and the ever present hookers, masking their own fatigue with brittle smiles and halfhearted come-ons.

Here on the streets, no one expected anything from him. No one knew he was actually Kieran MacIntyre, wealthy man with a mysterious background. Here, he was simply known as “Mac.” A solitary man with a hard eye and little patience. Kieran blended into the background, becoming a part of those who wandered in the darkness. Women watched him as he passed and, mostly, other men steered a wide path around him.

“Hey, Mac.”

He stopped, looked to the right and nodded at Howie Jenkins. A Gulf War vet, he kept his Purple Heart proudly attached to a stained gray overcoat he wore religiously, winter and summer. His salt-and-pepper beard hung to his narrow chest, and his blue eyes were filmy with an alcoholic haze.

But despite what his life had come to, Howie still had a soldier’s soul. Making him an excellent fount of information from time to time.

“Howie. How is everything tonight?”

“You know,” the man said, keeping one fist tight on the shopping cart loaded with his worldly belongings. “Same ol’, same ol’.”

“Have you seen anyone new lately?”

Howie laughed, a raw, grating sound that rattled in his chest until he coughed hard enough to hack up a lung. When he finally caught his breath, twin flags of bright red shone on his sunken cheeks. “That’s a good one, Mac. Hell, there’s always somebody new around here. Don’t always last, but they always come.”

“True enough,” Kieran muttered, letting his narrowed gaze sweep the street again before shifting back to Howie. “This one would be different, though. He’d stick to the shadows. Watching women.”

There was no way to know what this demon would look like now. It could manifest in this dimension, but mostly, it chose to inhabit the body of a willing mortal. And God knew there were plenty of evil souls in L.A. for the demon to choose from. As in Whitechapel, the demon could slide from body to body, always changing its shape and appearance in an attempt to elude the Guardian assigned to track it.

One thing would not change, however—this demon’s lust for blood and its preference for killing women.

Howie laughed again until he wheezed. “Well, we all watch the women, man.”

“Not like him.”

Something quick and intelligent flashed in Howie’s rheumy eyes briefly. Lips tight, he asked, “He the one got that little girl early this morning?”

“That’s him.”

“We know what he looks like?”

“No.” Damn it. The demon could be anyone. It took on and cast off identities with every kill. That’s why there’d been so many different “eye witness” reports on Jack the Ripper. Some had seen an older man, tall. Others swore he was a short man of not more than thirty. Scotland Yard had discounted all of them. Only Kieran had known that every witness was telling the absolute truth.

Idly pushing and pulling his shopping cart, Howie turned a look on the street and frowned when one of the hookers draped herself over the opened window of an SUV. He nodded in her direction. “Girls like Heather there, ought to be warned.”

“You can try,” Kieran muttered, knowing that warnings were never taken seriously. Even those who should know better were always convinced that nothing would happen to them. Hell, he’d done his best to convince Julie Carpenter that she might be in danger and all he’d accomplished was making her scared of him.

Not that he gave a good damn, he assured himself.

Still, thoughts of her brought a buzz to his veins and an ache to his groin. In those few stolen moments, she’d gotten to him. A couple of kisses, a quick grope, and those big green eyes and she’d infiltrated his mind.

“Nah,” Howie was saying now as Heather climbed into the car with her latest customer. “They won’t listen.”

“Probably not.”

“You’re huntin’ this guy?”

“Yeah,” Kieran said softly. “I am.”

“Then you’ll get ’im.”

He would. But in Whitechapel, five women had had to die miserable deaths before Kieran had caught up to the demon. And if it hadn’t enjoyed itself so much with its last victim, Mary Kelly, giving Kieran enough time to track the scent of blood and fear…

“Keep your eyes open for me,” he said abruptly and reached into his pocket for the wad of bills he kept ready. Peeling off a fifty, he handed it over and watched it disappear in a wink into Howie’s coat pocket. “If you see something, contact me.”

“Always do, Mac,” the older man said, already starting down the street, looking for cans and bottles, “always do.”

Kieran watched him go, thinking briefly of all the old soldiers he’d known over the centuries. No matter their circumstance, there was always a core of steel to be counted on. And for this hunt, he would need all the steel he could find.

It felt the Guardian’s frustration. His anger. And it smiled.

A dark, gleeful joy rose up inside it and the demon held it close, savoring the rush of anticipation. The world had changed much in the last century. Though some things remained the same. It lifted its hands and idly studied them. This mortal it inhabited was young. Strong. The man’s soul had been as dark as any it had ever encountered and the demon smiled. It was always so easy to find a willing partner.

Swallowing the mortal’s will was simple enough. And so would learning anew how to become a part of humanity. Mortals had advanced much in the last century, but the hungers were still there. And it would feed on those hungers until the city itself wept for mercy.

The beast would slide into the shadows that reached out for the unwary. Become a part of that darkness. It would learn. And kill. And this time, it would not be stopped.

This time, it would defeat the Guardian sent to cage it once more.

Wondrous, to be matching wits with its enemy again. Satisfying to know it had already outmaneuvered MacIntyre. It had left the party earlier, just long enough to lead the Guardian away from the selected prey.

And while MacIntyre roamed the streets, the demon returned to the bright lights and the pulsing music.

To the woman who would die before sunrise.

Julie sat up all night.

Kieran MacIntyre, rich, gorgeous…crazy wouldn’t leave her mind. Thoughts of him kept stirring up feelings she really didn’t want to examine too closely even while her brain kept trying to warn her off. A gazillionaire recluse who came with his own sword?

Just didn’t make sense. A few months ago, she’d dug into MacIntyre’s life, learning as much about him as she could before beginning her efforts at gaining an interview with him. And nowhere in any of her research had anyone mentioned that the great man himself might just be a real wacko.

“You’d think that would have been worthy of at least a footnote or two,” she muttered, gaze darting around her room—every light she had was on and blazing, chasing off any hint of a shadow. “But apparently not.”

No mention of craziness. She frowned, remembering that in all her research there really hadn’t been much of anything mentioned. No one seemed to know much about the man who lived in a veritable fortress high in the Hollywood Hills. Oh, there was plenty of information about the charities he’d supported over the years. About the endowments he’d made to inner city foundations and women’s shelters.

But there’d been nothing on his background. Who he really was. Where he’d come from. He’d only been in L.A. for ten years, and yet, nowhere was there a note of where he’d been before coming to California.

Why?

Had all previous reporters been too afraid of him to dig too deeply?

Remembering the flash of something dangerous in his icy-blue eyes, Julie could understand that. But at the same time, she had to wonder how Kieran MacIntyre had managed to intimidate all the press. Frowning, she thought of the sword he kept at his side and realized that maybe it wasn’t all intimidation. Maybe he just dispensed with reporters who got too close or weren’t scared enough to back off.

“Oh, that’s a lovely thought,” she mumbled, shaken.

Her eyes felt gritty, her stomach was twisted into knots and her brain hadn’t stopped racing all night. Arms wrapped around her up-drawn knees, she heard Kieran’s voice over and over again in her mind. She saw his eyes, those pale blue depths that seemed to stare right through her. And she tasted his kiss on her lips.

Everything he’d said replayed over and over again in her mind. Fear warred with desire and lost miserably. She had no proof he was dangerous. After all, he hadn’t killed her. And he’d had plenty of time to.

“Great,” she whispered. “Just the quality a woman should look for in a man. ‘Hey, he hasn’t killed me yet.’ Yeah. My hero.”

Outside her room, the night crawled past. The party carried on for hours, music, laughter and shouts subtly invading her room at the back of the house. And despite being irritated by the rumble of sound, she was also grateful for it. At least she didn’t have to be alone in a silent house with nothing but her own crazed thoughts for company. At least she knew there were other people nearby.

And when the party finally ended, she knew that Alicia and Katie were there in the house with her. She wasn’t alone.

Staring blankly while her mind raced, she waited hours for the dawn to streak the sky outside her window. Rocking in place, she watched the night slowly, inevitably, fade. And when those first pale colors deepened into scarlet and violet, she drew her first easy breath.

“Idiot,” she muttered, safe now in daylight, apart from the intangible fears that had clawed at her for hours. She crawled stiffly out of bed, and switched off the bedside lamp and the overhead light that had burned throughout the long night.

She’d spent the night terrified—all because of a great kisser with a hell of an act and a sword he probably carried for compensation. He’d scared her, given her dire warnings and despite all of that, nothing had happened.

She hadn’t been threatened.

She’d simply been had.

“Does he just enjoy playing night marauder? Suckering some idiot woman into buying that man of the night routine?” She pushed her hair out of her face, letting her temper kick in—being mad, much better than being scared. “Does he get his jollies by scaring somebody then disappearing?”

Julie’s voice echoed hollowly in her room and didn’t give her an ounce of satisfaction. Because despite the fact that nothing had happened to her, that she felt like an idiot for locking herself up and staying awake all night—a part of her still believed that Kieran hadn’t been playing games.

“Which means what exactly?” Frowning, she muttered an answer to her own question. “It means that you’re talking to yourself. Not a good sign. If you don’t watch it, girl, you’ll be as crazy as he is.”

Groaning slightly as her cramped muscles screamed in silent protest, she stretched, wincing, then stumbled toward the bathroom. As the day began, she stood under a steaming hot shower, hoping the stinging spray would wash what was left of her fears away.

But even as she dried off and smoothed on the jasmine-scented body lotion she habitually splurged on, Kieran’s face drifted through her mind again. She closed her eyes and felt his hands on her arms, his mouth on hers, the hard ridges and planes of his body pressed against hers. And something inside her quickened into an eager gallop. Obviously it had been way too long.

“Oh for God’s sake.”

Grumbling, she pushed his memory away, determined to not let him influence her day as he had her night. Fear had kept her company for hours. She’d jolted at every sound, kept her gaze fixed on her locked door and hadn’t even relaxed when the party finally wound down and the house settled into silence.

Now she had to get dressed, drop in at the paper and pick up the notes in her desk. She had an interview scheduled with Selene—no last name—hairdresser to the stars. Making a face, she shook her head and reminded herself that these fluff pieces paid well and were usually picked up by the AP.

Didn’t take her long to climb into what she privately thought of as her “uniform.” Black pants, white shirt, black jacket and black boots. Not exactly a fashion plate, but the photographer assigned to her wouldn’t be taking shots of her.

Julie gathered up her briefcase, made sure she had her mini tape recorder, a fresh steno pad and at least three pens with her. Then she swallowed the last vestiges of her nighttime nerves, stepped out of her room and closed the door behind her.

Her boot heels clicked musically on the floor as she walked into the kitchen and stopped dead. It looked like a small nuke had been detonated nearby. Dirty glasses, empty food platters and wadded up napkins littered the counter. A shattered wineglass was splintered across the floor and a curtain rod hung drunkenly from only one hook.

“What the hell?” She took a step, listened to the crunch of glass beneath her foot and winced, stepping wide of the mess and walking along the edge of the room toward the swinging doors.

She pushed the door into the living room open wide and expelled one long, disgusted sigh. The damage in here was even worse than the kitchen. Remnants of what must have been a beaut of a party were scattered throughout the living room and connected dining room. Sofa cushions were half on the hardwood floor, someone’s discarded shirt draped across the coffee table, empty arms hanging over the edge and a bowl of chips lay on its side, its contents spread out and crushed into oily oblivion.

Stale cigarette smoke hung like blue fog in the room and the smell fought for precedence over the stink of spilled liquor. Only a few minutes ago, she’d been grateful for her housemates. Now she wanted to kick both of them.

Shaking her head, Julie shoved empty glasses aside and laid her briefcase onto the dining room table. She crossed the room, opened up two of the windows and then, still muttering dire threats, walked into the living room, and stomped across the littered floor to the French doors leading to a tiny, walled patio.

“God, Alicia,” she muttered darkly, as her right foot slipped in a puddle of congealing guacamole, “couldn’t you at least have picked up the garbage before crashing?”

But, knowing her housemate, Julie figured Alicia had hooked up with some guy at the party and decided to put off clearing the rubble for as long as possible. Alicia wasn’t exactly known as Ms. Clean. And Katie wasn’t much better, though she would at least feel guilty for leaving the mess.

Julie turned the latch on the brass doorknob, flung open the French doors to air the house out and took a deep breath of fresh morning air. Irritation simmered inside as she noticed Alicia, stretched out on one of the two cushioned chaise lounges, her face turned away from the house and toward the rising sun.

Still wearing her party clothes, right down to the ridiculously high heels she’d spent a fortune on, she’d obviously stretched out to relax the night before and had fallen asleep.

Shaking her head, Julie started across the flagstone patio and accidentally kicked an empty beer bottle, sending it skittering across the stone and into the bushes lining the wall. She sighed as it clinked against the bricks.

“Alicia,” she started, frowning at a swarm of ants climbing a tiny mountain of dried onion dip splattered on the patio. The last of her fear drained away under a rising tide of disgust. “Damn it, Alicia, the house is a wreck and I’m not cleaning it this time.”

Usually straightening up after parties fell to Julie simply because she was the only one who couldn’t live with the mess. Kate and Alicia’s slob tolerance level was way higher than her own.

Still Alicia hadn’t moved. Hell, she didn’t even stir and Julie’s temper spiked up a notch or two. “Hello?” she snapped. “Don’t you have an audition this morning?”

Her friend didn’t even flinch.

“God.” Julie blew out a breath, came up behind the other woman and reaching down, grabbed Alicia’s shoulder and gave her a shake. “You could sleep through a bomb blast, couldn’t you?”

Alicia slowly tipped to one side, her blond hair falling in a sleek arc, sliding down until her head hung over the edge of the chaise. A bloody mockery of a smile ringed the base of her neck.

Julie took an instinctive step back as she stared into her housemate’s wide, staring, empty eyes.

The bright, cheerful sunlight showcased the river of blood that had soaked into the blue flowered cushion beneath Alicia’s body. Birds screeched and tittered from the trees. A car whizzed down the street, its engine roaring.

And on the tiny patio, shielded from its neighbors, Julie felt the world tilt out from under her feet. She took a breath and released it in a scream.

She was still screaming when the first squad car arrived.