Buch lesen: «Darkness Calls»

Darkness Calls
Caridad Piñeiro

To Samantha—

Thank you for understanding about Mom’s quirks

and time away to write, for your support in everything

I do, and for all the love that you give me.

You are the best, and I am very, very proud of you!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 1

His was a life filled only with empty dreams, if one could call those fleeting thoughts in a vampire’s sleepless nights dreams. His existence was without end and ruled by a loneliness that made each day harder to bear than the one before.

High above the crowd, Ryder Latimer smelled the sting of the alcohol as the humans drank and spilled it in copious amounts in their search for oblivion or nirvana. Acrid smoke from cigarettes floated high into the air, and in that hazy cloud were the underlying tones of sweat. Sweat laced with lust, he thought, sniffing the air and detecting the ripe pheromone the humans exuded as they played their pitiful mating rituals.

Scents, he had discovered, were important to a vampire. Musks and other aromas literally brought out the beast in him. He normally avoided the smells, but it was tough to do in a crowd as large as this.

This far up, the sounds of the band and the crowd were garbled. Indistinct. A low buzz, like static, and a heavy thumping vibration from the bass of the music. An insistent lub-dub lub-dub, like the beat of a heart.

Ryder closed his eyes, placed his hands on the metal railing of the catwalk and the vibrations traveled up his arms. He took a deep breath, absorbing the smells. Soaking everything up as if by doing so he could restore a small part of the life he had lost when a strange turn of events during the Civil War had condemned him to this solitary life. It was a fleeting moment, the human scents and sounds racing through him, enervating him as he stood near the ceiling of the club.

In no time, however, Ryder was back to normal, watching like a disinterested deity, bored by the repetition of the activity below. Every night the same scene was replayed. Until tonight.

He had discovered in this morning’s paper that there was some killing going on in that mob of humans. The murderer had struck last week and then a few nights ago. Maybe he would hunt another soon, Ryder thought, glancing down and wondering who might be the next one to be taken. Who might become another trophy for the psycho stalking his club. The papers hadn’t mentioned The Lair, but Ryder had no doubt it was here that the hunt was on.

Ryder had sensed something different in the last few weeks, that unique smell of bloodlust that had made him wonder if another of his kind had come to feed. A club like this would be an excellent place to select a victim and then cull them from the herd.

He looked down once more and he saw her, standing at the edge of the crowd, searching for someone.

It wasn’t possible, he thought as he hurried along the catwalk, keeping the apparition in sight. For nearly a century she’d been in his dreams. Or maybe it was better to describe them as his restless nocturnal musings.

Regardless, Ryder had stopped questioning why the spirit came to him. Sometimes she arrived at times of unrest, the visions she brought portents of things to come. At other times, when the monotony and uncertainty of his existence made him question why to go on, she’d come to soothe his soul and give him the peace he was unable to find elsewhere.

But tonight, she was no longer just an apparition—or was his loneliness deluding him?

He struggled to get a glimpse of her face, but even with his vampire night sight, he still couldn’t be certain his imagination wasn’t getting the best of him.

After all, for more than a century, he had been virtually alone with only a human keeper and his apparition to comfort him. Maybe that was why his mind and eyes were playing games with him tonight. It was just a trick, Ryder told himself, and yet he stood, poised on the edge of the catwalk. Watching. Waiting. Hoping.

The loud, driving beat of the bass pulsed through Diana Reyes’s body, the vibrations pulling at something deep inside her. On stage, a guitarist thrashed around, his arm wildly circling as he strummed chords in sync to the pounding of the band behind him. A spotlight focused on him, picking up the gleam of sweat on his lean torso and the dark, swirling artwork on his upper right arm and shoulders. With a final jump and strum, the song ended, but the band quickly launched into another, its rhythm and violence not much different from the first.

Diana withstood the assault on her eardrums, watching from the periphery of the large crowd. There was a crush of bodies trying to make their way deeper into the space. Beyond them, other patrons lounged at tables along the border of a dance floor that was so packed she wondered how anybody could move to the music.

It was dark in the club, nearly pitch-black in spots. Overhead, dangling from an irregular maze of catwalks, wires and ropes, was an assortment of lighting equipment and mirrored balls that shot off erratic spots of light to create a jarring visual display on the dance floor. The only steady sources of illumination were those directed at the stage and at the long metallic bar along the side of the building. The bar was bathed in red spotlights, making the metal of its stainless-steel surface gleam as if coated in blood.

Apropos given that two women had lost their lives here…or at least commenced their journeys to death in this place. Those deaths were the reason FBI agent Diana Reyes had offered to go undercover. Her profile of the killer indicated this was the place where he’d selected his victims. And Diana was his type.

The two victims she had seen in the morgue days earlier had been young and pretty until the killer had gotten to them. His sociopathic handiwork suggested he was someone who liked inflicting pain. Someone who knew how to make it last. The medical examiner had implied that at some point, the victims may have passed into a “no pain” zone, courtesy of the adrenaline coursing through their bodies.

Diana absentmindedly nodded and rubbed at the ridge of scar along her own rib cage. She had firsthand knowledge of just what someone could do when her body shut down from an excess of physical and mental pain. She had crawled to her father, cradled him in her arms and tried to stop the bleeding from the bullet that had ripped into his chest, courtesy of a gang’s drive-by shooting. Futilely, she had pressed her hand against the wound, watching his blood leak between her fingers as he died in her arms. It wasn’t until after his death that she realized she had also been hit.

Diana was certain that for these victims, the killer had made the pain a real living thing. And at the end, she thought with a shudder, the two women had likely realized death was close at hand.

She intended to put an end to the killer’s spree. She threaded her way through the crowd, in search of her partner and hoping to become visible to the murderer.

Her investigation had confirmed that both victims had planned to come to this establishment on the nights they were killed. Even before eliminating known acquaintances as suspects, Diana was certain she had a serial killer on her hands. One who would likely strike again, and soon. The second girl had been murdered only a week after the first. Tonight’s surveillance should give Diana a feel for the place before she intensified the investigation with more equipment and personnel.

The mark on her hand—the red bat used as proof that IDs had been checked and the entrance fee paid—confirmed that the victims had in fact been here. She traced the edges of the design with her hand, thinking how it marked her in another way—as prey.

A touch came against the bare skin at the small of her back. She turned and faced David, her partner. Like the others in the club, he was dressed in black, from his jacket and T-shirt to his jeans, but with his blond, prep-school looks, it was hard for him to seem tough. Even the scruffy beard he’d grown did little to help. It was barely a peach fuzz on his boyish face.

He grinned and moved his hand. Her backless halter exposed her right shoulder blade, and he traced the edges of the tattoo there. “Nice touch. Both the shirt and the tattoo. Shame it’ll wash off,” he said, and Diana didn’t correct him.

The tattoo was a very real reminder of a moment of thoughtlessness, courtesy of a night of too much drinking. She’d only been nineteen at the time and trying to recover from the heartache of a long-term relationship that had gone sour. Her younger brother had offered to help her get over it. After many a foul-tasting tequila shooter, it had seemed appropriate to commemorate her stupidity with a tattoo. She had chosen a dagger poised upright over a heart, symbolic of the pain she suffered and hoped to guard against in the future. She had been too drunk to realize the knot of pain she carried inside her had everything to do with her father and nothing to do with the cheating boyfriend.

She kept the tattoo to remind her not to act recklessly, though she battled her impulse to be rash more often than she liked.

The knife and dagger on her shoulder was just one of the thousands of designs in the sea of bodies adorned with art and swathed in leather, chains and denim. The three earrings piercing her one ear coupled with the two on the other was a minimalist statement in this rough-looking crowd.

The club appeared to be what their sources had described: a place for those who liked to play on the edge—although neither of the two victims’ lifestyles hinted at anything other than flirtation with dangerous elements. She was familiar with the allure of places such as this. In the year after her father’s death, she and her brother had spent many a night in bars with a hard edge. It had been her way of rebelling against a bureaucracy that had allowed her father to be killed by people who had passed through the criminal justice system only to be released onto the streets. She’d snubbed her nose at the time she had spent conforming and striving to be good when none of it really mattered. Bullets didn’t differentiate between good or bad. They were equal-opportunity killers.

She had let the anger and hatred take hold of her after her father’s senseless death. In that dark place of anything goes, she had given in to her pain. She had lost herself in alcohol and dances with nameless partners.

It was only after waking one morning to find herself facedown on the floor, with her eighteen-year-old brother passed out beside her from his own overindulgence, that she realized they were heading to oblivion. In her wallowing, she had dragged him down, as well. She had reached deep inside, where she still believed good could be rewarded, and she’d found the strength to take control of her life and to help her younger brother get on his feet.

She had survived, but that need for the dark side had never really left her. She had sensed it coming back to life the moment she’d walked back into this bar. It had almost felt like…home.

Maybe that was the allure for the victims and their hunter—the loss of restraint and identity that an ambience such as this provided. Perhaps the freedom of this place made the victims careless and the killer secure enough to hunt and lure his prey.

Diana inclined her head toward her partner and pointed her finger in the direction of the bar. It was time to mingle and act as if they belonged. Time for her to become bait, which might be impossible in a crowd this size, even though she fit the profile of the killer’s tastes. He liked them young and flashy. Both women had been dressed provocatively, in clothes similar to what she now wore. The problem was that many young women in the club were similarly dressed. From a talk with the victims’ friends, Diana knew that both of the women had been outgoing and liked to dance, often with more than one man. She intended to do the same and hopefully set herself apart from the crowd.

With David following her, she began to thread her way through the mass of people and over to the bar, but something made her stop. A presence? Someone watching? She paused, carefully looking around, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Writing off her unease to a case of jitters, she continued onward through the crowd.

Chapter 2

As they neared the bar, Diana glanced at the menu of drinks posted along the wall. What looked like the mummified remains of bats were affixed along the top edge. The uppermost section of the wall above held hundreds of bats hanging down, their bodies huddled tight together. Beyond that, there was nothing but the vague shapes and outlines of equipment high against a dark ceiling.

Diana looked back at the menu. All of the drinks’ names dealt with the imbibing of blood, the imagined traits of bats, or the ever-popular rituals for transforming into mythical demons or monsters. The Blind as a Bat offered oblivion after only one drink due to a large amount of 151 proof rum. Maiden’s Gift was a creamy concoction with Cherry Heering and other liqueurs. Vamp Venom was a variation of a Bloody Mary but laced with hot sauce for that extra burn.

She chuckled. The list was quite tongue in cheek, as if the inventor had thought the patrons somewhat silly in their dark fascinations.

Above the specials, in red letters embellished with dripping blood, was the name of the club: The Lair. Unfortunately, the crimson of the letters against the white of the chalkboard and the gleaming steel of the bar’s surface were too much a reminder of the victims she’d seen in the morgue—and of the fact that someone didn’t think this was all in the spirit of fun.

From beside her, David raised his hand to draw the attention of the bartender, who was dressed in a white T-shirt turned pale pink by the red lights. He scurried back and forth behind the bar, pouring and blending drinks, grabbing the money waved in the air by those fortunate enough to have snagged him. The bartender came over as they sidled up to some clear spaces at the bar.

“What can I get you?” he said, eyeing her and sparing only a quick glance at David.

“A sloe slayer screw,” she said, and smiled at the young man, who grinned back at her. He was cute and quite muscular, probably a wanna-be actor.

“You sure that’s what you want?” he asked, reaching for a glass from the racks suspended above the bar.

Diana leaned on the metal surface and gave him her most seductive grin. “That depends,” she teased. She had his complete attention.

He leaned close, the drink and the glass in his hand forgotten. “And what does it depend on, sweetheart?”

“Is it the slayer who’s slow, or the screw?” she said loudly enough to make a few heads turn and look in her direction.

“Make that two diet Cokes,” David said immediately, slinging an arm around her shoulder.

The bartender shot David a look of annoyance, then turned to Diana for confirmation.

Diana glanced at David and shrugged. “Two diet Cokes it is.” The bartender gave them a perturbed huff, as if he didn’t appreciate being pulled into whatever game they were playing.

When he returned with the drinks, he slammed them on the counter, and despite David’s presence, or maybe because of it, he leaned on the counter and favored Diana with a broad grin. “It’s not too late. Sloe gin is just waiting to be slayed.” He dropped his voice and lowered his head until it was almost touching hers. In a voice he must have rehearsed hundreds of times in acting class and with a wink that broadcast his invitation, he said, “And who doesn’t enjoy a good screw?”

David glared at him, took the two glasses and tossed a ten onto the bar. The bartender finally walked away, and Diana raised an eyebrow at her partner and the beverage he handed her. “I think I could have handled the sloe slayer screw and remembered to check out that bartender’s background when we return to the office.” Despite her comment about the drink, she took a quick sip and appreciated the cool of the liquid as it traveled down her throat.

“Got to keep levelheaded, Di,” he said, his words tinged with both concern and reproach. It was so in keeping with his straitlaced personality that she had to bite back a laugh.

He might be dressed like the rest of the crowd, down to a small silver hoop and ear cuff in one ear, but beneath the rough clothes he was still the restrained partner she had come to rely on during the last four years. David was everything she wasn’t and vice versa, which balanced their partnership perfectly. Her rashness, his calm. Her mind, which bounced all over in reaching conclusions, and his step-by-step way of solving things. Go figure, she thought with a shrug, and turned her attention to the dance floor.

Having gulped down a good portion of his drink, David chewed on an ice cube and faced the crowd. He motioned to the crush of bodies with the hand that held the glass. “Wanna dance?”

She leaned close to him and whispered in the ear without the earpiece, “Want to check out the wire so we know you can call for help?” She had on a small earpiece, the only way she could be wired, thanks to her clothes. Her low-rise black leather slacks were tight-fitting, and also precluded the use of her customary pants holster. Her gun, a small Glock 26, was strapped into place on her ankle, hidden by the slight flare of the pants leg. Not the best place for her weapon, but the only possible one.

David, luckily, had on his holster, and a traditional wire beneath the black leather jacket he wore. She was comfortable with that and wanted her partner to stay relatively near in case her equipment failed or she couldn’t reach her weapon in time.

He chuckled and buried his face against her short-cropped hair. Placing a hand at her waist as he spoke in low tones into the wire, David made it seem to anyone watching that they were lovers sharing an intimate moment.

Only Diana knew better as she heard the echo in her right ear and met his blue-eyed gaze. She slowly nodded, confirming that the wire was working and that the other FBI agents and NYPD personnel in the crowd and outside in the van would be aware of what was happening.

Faking a laugh, she ran her hand along the edge of his cheek and strolled away from him. He followed for a moment, then grabbed her hard, turning her around. She resisted, yanked her arm away and launched into the fight they had rehearsed earlier, trying to draw attention. They exchanged a few heated words and a last little tug of war as she pulled free of David’s grasp and headed for the mobbed dance floor.

Ryder lost sight of her and backtracked along the catwalks until he located her once more. She was pulling away from a handsome blond man, her strides angry as she moved toward the dance floor. Was she intent on losing her partner and finding another?

There was no doubt now she was the woman in his dreams. The resemblance was…eerie.

Her hair was sleek and cropped close to her head, displaying the long, elegant column of her throat and the fine lines of her collarbones. He was too far away to see the color of her eyes, but he could tell they were almond-shaped and exotic, her most compelling feature. Her nose was straight and slim. Her mouth full, with mobile lips. A defined, stubborn chin hinted at her determination. She wasn’t classically pretty, but all the elements combined were intriguing. Possibly beautiful.

Even in the darkness of the club, she radiated tanned healthiness. As she danced with another young man, a flush worked over her cheeks. The enticing amount of skin displayed by the small bib halter she wore glistened with her perspiration. The halter was a deep red that served her well, accenting the color of her dark brown hair and creamy skin.

She moved fluidly, gracefully, her body lithe and full of strength—a mortal warrior. One who would age unless death claimed her before her time. His throat constricted as he thought of all the people he had lost over the length of his existence.

He drove that fear away and returned his attention to the woman on the floor below. Her body was toned, but curvy. She moved well-shaped hips, and her unbound breasts swayed against the fabric of her shirt. Desire raced along his nerve endings. He hardened as what was left of the human in him remembered all too well the sweetness of a woman and craved her the way the demon inside hungered for blood.

As she worked her way toward the stage, through the crush of bodies on the dance floor, he hurried along the network of catwalks, stepping over wires, jumping from one shaky walk to another so he would not lose sight of her. The flashing lights of the club made it difficult, hurting his sensitive eyes.

Forcing himself to concentrate, he honed in on her. She seemed to be searching for someone. Maybe the blond man she had left earlier? Maybe she was realizing the folly of trying to find him in this group of misfits.

Or maybe she was looking for someone new, excited by the prospect of danger and to what it might lead. An unfortunate end, Ryder thought, thinking of the two other girls before her and how they had misjudged someone in the crowd.

She reached the edge of the dance floor and he was nearly straight above her, behind one of the spotlights illuminating the stage. The heat from the lamp was nearly unbearable, yet he stood there, anyway, watching from behind the safety of its light. Anyone looking up would be blinded by its intensity.

She raised her arms and ran her hands through the short strands of her hair. A slight breeze plastered the halter top to her damp body, outlining every curve. Her scent teased his nostrils, the air from outside blowing up and across the length of the room. She had a clean scent. She wore no fragrance. He closed his eyes, breathed deeper, and the animal in him memorized the smell.

When he looked down once more, she was on the move, heading toward the source of that fresh air—an open door by the stage entrance that led to a long deserted alley behind the club.

While he normally didn’t get involved with the patrons in the bar, tonight would be different, for he had to follow her. And as he did so, he called himself a fool a thousand times over. He was certain she was a woman he would come to love and, like all the others in his interminable life, come to lose.

Humans after all, were born to die.

Logic. Reason. They were the cornerstones of her profession. Diana used them every day to solve the cases she was assigned. But sometimes there was intuition and a gut instinct that ran contrary to what logic or reason told her.

Like the feeling she was having right now that had raised the hackles on the back of her neck. An almost preternatural sense of something not quite right. It was stronger than the feeling she’d had before, when she first entered the club. So strong that she knew someone was watching. She looked around and, seeing nothing, glanced upward.

Above her, the catwalks and wires swayed. The movement was too great to be caused by the breeze. Someone had been there. The killer maybe? The high tangle of metal and cables provided a perfect observation deck.

She examined the area, but the glare of the spotlights made it impossible to see much besides the barely discernible lines and curves of the infrastructure close to the ceiling. When she lowered her gaze, the brightness of the lights left spots in her eyes, making it difficult for her to pick out anyone in the crowd who might be paying a little too much interest.

She blinked a few times, closed her eyes and experienced a kaleidoscope of color behind her eyelids. When she opened her eyes again, the sensation of being watched had passed. Still, she searched the crowd, hoping to meet a gaze or see a face that would trigger the feeling again.

Across the way, David was scoping out the crowd. For a brief moment their gazes connected across the length of the club. She motioned to him, pointing to where she was headed, and spoke softly to confirm it, hoping the wire would pick up her voice over the noise of the band and the crowd. In her ear, she heard David acknowledge her words and saw him nod. He would make his way across eventually.

She pressed through the bodies, shooting a glare at one young man who groped her as she inched past. Continuing onward, she finally reached the open door and the cool current of air she had savored earlier. There was a bouncer by the exit, sitting in a chair tilted far back on two spindly legs. She was surprised the metal chair could hold his weight.

Walking to the door, she stopped and he stared up at her, his gaze sharp and questioning. “Ya leave this way, ya gotta get back in line,” he said with a growl, obviously annoyed.

Diana shrugged. Getting back in the line wasn’t a problem. She was here to see and be seen. While the bulk and attitude of the bouncer might put off many, it might not have been enough to discourage the two victims or the killer who had followed them.

She exited through the door into the chill of the alley. It had rained while she was inside. The dark stone walls and cobblestones glistened with wet, and water had puddled in various spots. The sky was dark with heavy clouds that obscured a half moon.

Goose bumps erupted on her skin from the sudden change in temperature. She rubbed at her arms and glanced at the back section of the blind alley. The shadows were strong, and unlike the area leading to the street, there were no lights.

With the lack of moonlight, it would be easy for someone to hide there, waiting. And yet, with no way out, they’d have to take the victims past the bouncer at the open door or the crowd at the far end of the alley. Unless the alley had a back way out.

She took a step toward the darkness, keeping the wall of the building behind her so as not to be surprised. She had gone deep into the alley, but had not yet reached the end when the eerie sensation from before returned. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, as did those on her arms. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, a colder, deeper silhouette took shape a few feet in front of her.

It was a man. She squinted, but it was too dark to see his face even though he stood close. Too close for her to pull out her weapon. It was a true Mexican standoff, the two of them considering each other in the dim light, neither one speaking. In her ear, the running comments of various agents crackled and she tried not to let them distract her.

A few feet away, a small spot of moonlight appeared as the wind drove the clouds away. If the man across from her would only move that short distance, it might give her the answers she needed. “Step into the light,” she said, striving for a tone of authority despite the situation, hoping David and the others would hear.

The seconds of silence stretched out after her command and then came his short bark of a laugh. “And why would I want to do that?” he asked, his low voice gravelly, as if it had been a long time since he had used it. There was a trace of an accent. Southern, she thought. Louisiana, she confirmed as he issued his own determined instructions.

“Darlin’, if you have a lick of sense, you’ll turn right around and head back into the club.”

He surprised her with his tone of concern. She couldn’t take that statement at face value as the others might have done, turning their backs on this man and then finding themselves…

It was likely David would be here within minutes. His instructions were to keep her in sight, and he had known where she was heading. But she couldn’t wait for her partner. If this was the man, a delay might prove fatal and she had no intention of ending her life in an alley that stank of stale urine.

“Step into the light where I can see you and I’ll go,” she said calmly, not trusting that he would listen. Preparing for what she would do if he didn’t.

“Do you think—”

“You’re a fool?” she finished for him.

He expelled a harsh breath and challenged, “I’m not the fool who’s running around with a killer loose.” Despite his comment, there was resignation in his voice, as if he, too, recognized that there was little either of them could do. She wasn’t surprised therefore when he said, “On three, we both move where we can see each other.”

“On three.” She counted down. As promised, she took the few steps to her right, mirroring his movement.

As they both reached the safety of the light, she detected a note of surprise in his features before he carefully schooled them. He had a severe yet handsome face. His eyes were a flat, unholy black against the dark of the night. They were intense, unblinking. Soulless, she thought for a moment, but then abruptly, as her gaze finally met his, there was a moment of connection. Within her, there was a sudden strange sense of…recognition. She berated herself silently for letting her imagination get the better of her.

“Satisfied?” he asked, his voice still husky. He stood mere feet away, a commanding presence. Tall and strong-bodied, he was dressed all in black, like most of the crowd inside. Only, on him, it was more than just a color. It was an aura of dangerous energy that made her take a step back.