Always the Vampire (31 page)

“Makes sense. If the worst happens, she can’t reveal what she doesn’t know.” I smiled up at him. “Is your age difference an issue?”

“It doesn’t seem to be. I want her damned desperately.”

“Then be patient. After all these years of waiting, a week or so isn’t a deal breaker. Besides,” I added, bumping his hip as we reached the porch steps, “Cosmil’s giving you all night to impress her.”

He flashed a grin. “I’ve already done that. This’ll be an encore.”

A moment later, when we walked though the cabin door, a bell pinged madly.

“What the hell is that?” Triton asked.

Saber turned from the stainless counter, excitement lighting his eyes.

“The tracing spell got a solid hit. Let’s roll.”

I barely had a chance to see Lia and Cosmil bent over the maps spread on the island counter as Saber hustled us right back out the cabin door. Lynn wasn’t in sight.

“Wait, Saber,” I said as my feet hit the porch. “We need the am—weapons.”

“Got ’em.”

“What about communication?” I asked as we trotted across the yard. “We have a phone glitch out here.”

“Cosmil is taking care of it.”

“But we’re not ready to fight.”

He opened his passenger door and all but shoved me in as Triton climbed in the back. “Let’s find the bastard first, then we’ll see about being ready.”

In seconds, the engine roared, and the SUV tore over the packed earth of Cosmil’s straightened drive toward the state road.

“Where did they find Starrack?” Triton asked, leaning between the seats.

“The outskirts of Hastings.”

I shook my head. “They can’t be more specific?”

Saber handed me his cell. “Call and ask.”

I did, and Lia not only answered, she stayed on the line as we flew past Hastings, then on toward Palatka. The tracking spell may not have been GPS accurate, but she managed to guide us to an abandoned, boarded-up house in a deserted area just off the highway. Saber rocked the SUV to a stop in what was left of a wide gravel-and-weed drive.

“Do you smell the Void?” Cosmil said over the speaker.

I cracked the window and cautiously sniffed.

“I smell something, but it’s not all the Void. Guys, you see anything?”

“We need to investigate on foot, Cosmil,” Saber said. He reached across me to pop the glove compartment and pull out the giant flashlight, then passed it back to Triton.

“Be careful. All of you. Francesca, drain the Void’s energy if you find it. Do not hesitate. Let Saber and Triton handle Starrack. And check in as soon as you can.”

“Got it.”

We piled out of the car and fanned out around the derelict house, Saber with his Glock held in both hands and pointed down, Triton with the flashlight. The scent of the Void hung over the property like a musty shroud, and I reached to sense its essence the way Lia had tried to teach us to find Pandora. I didn’t feel the Void inside or a presence that might be Starrack, but then I hadn’t been able to find Pandora, either. When I sucked energy, I sucked more memory of the Void than the Void itself.

When Saber and Triton circled to the back of the house, I followed to find the exterior door hanging by a single hinge. Pungent odors emanated from the house itself, but the oily Void smell was stronger from the field behind us. Strong enough to make my nostrils itch.

“Guys,” I whispered, tilting my head at the gap in the rotting fence. “The smell gets worse that way.”

Saber hesitated, and I knew he wanted to search the building. I sent the thought,
Later
. He nodded, then led the way through the fence into the high weeds. Keeping two arm spans apart, the three of us walked slowly forward until we’d gone roughly two blocks. I stopped and raised a hand.

“What, Cesca?” Saber whispered.

“The smell is dissipating fast. Do you see or hear anything?”

Triton panned the light over the field in a complete circle, he and Saber peering into the shadows. Nothing moved, except the bugs attracted to the flashlight’s beam.

“Want me to try echolocation?” Triton said softly.

“Can’t hurt,” Saber answered.

I braced myself, but Triton’s clicks and whistles, even a shrill screaming sound, didn’t do a thing but flush a bird from the scrub brush.

“Damn. Cesca, is the scent still fading?”

“Afraid so. Starrack must be dragging the Void around like an ugly puppy.”

“You sense the wizard here now?”

“No, but if he parked the Void somewhere populated, it would smell like an oil slick. The neighbors would be screaming complaints.”

“Good point. Let’s go check out the house.”

Oh, great, another stink hole. Bad as the Void smelled, the sour stench in the house made me wish I had a mask handy. Urine, vomit, booze, unwashed human, and who knew what else. The combination nearly drove me back as we eased inside onto a sticky, cracked linoleum floor. Triton played the flashlight around what had been a kitchen in a happier incarnation. We edged past a sink teetering on skeleton plumbing and through another doorway.

Watch your step
, Saber said in my head, and Triton nodded, too.

Triton panned the bright beam steadily around the room, and I about jumped out of my skin when a raccoon waddled from the far corner. I sent a nudge of “Go” energy, and it took off through a hole in an interior wall just as we heard a distinct and very human moan from our right.

I stayed put while Saber and Triton checked the man curled in a fetal ball, his face mashed into floor. He seemed to be cradling one liquor bottle, laying on another, and more bottles and beer cans littered the floor around him. Saber toed one bottle out of the way as he bent to peer at the form.

“Is he injured?” I asked.

“Just passed out drunk. Cesca, get some gloves and bags for us, and my other flashlight. We’ll check the rest of the house.”

I knew what he meant. The crime-scene evidence supplies he kept in the back of the SUV. Where I’d also find a mask. I sprinted into the relatively fresh air, out to the car, and donned a mask before trotting back inside.

Saber took the second, smaller flashlight and two gloves.

“You’re bagging the booze?” Triton said with a frown. “Why?”

“Most of this stuff is rotgut variety alcohol. Cheap wine, vodka, gin, malt liquor. But look.”

Saber motioned to the debris, and I read several labels. Thunderbird. Mad Dog. 20/20. Then Saber eased another bottle from under the drunk man’s bent legs.

“That’s ouzo,” Triton said. “And it’s one of the more expensive brands.”

“That’s why I’m bagging the booze. Remember when Lia mentioned Starrack’s drinking?”

“She didn’t mention ouzo,” I said.

“Yeah, but the ouzo is the anomaly in this mix. The booze that doesn’t fit the pattern here. If Starrack was this guy’s drinking buddy, maybe he left enough of his DNA on one of these bottles for Lia and Cosmil to refine their spell.”

“I suppose,” I said as I held out a bag for the ouzo bottle, then another for the 20/20. “But surely Starrack wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave bottles for us to find.”

“He might’ve if he left in a hurry,” Triton said. “Or if he was buzzed enough not to notice this guy was laying on it.”

“For now, it’s a lead,” Saber said, and bagged four more samples. “Let’s get back to see if it means anything more.”

“Wait, we’re just leaving this guy here? Don’t you want to question him later?”

Saber sighed. “Honey, I doubt he knows his own name half the time, and he’ll just be passed out here or somewhere else tomorrow night.”

“I-it’s just so sad.”

“Then I’ll phone the cops. What to do with him will be their call.”

 

 

When Saber opened the sacks to place the liquor bottles on Cosmil’s island counter, the stale, sour smell overwhelmed the herbal scent of the cabin. Lynn coughed from her cross-legged perch on the sofa, and I fought a gag.

Lia paled as she gazed at the bottle of ouzo. “Merde, I should have remembered.”

“So the ouzo means something to you?” Saber demanded.

She sat hard on the bar stool Cosmil had conjured earlier and gulped. “Starrack had a great weakness for ouzo. He loved all things Greek.”

Lia looked past me, past all of us in the room. Her expression a little wistful, a lot rueful, she shook her head.

“It was a very long time ago. In my youth, I spent a great deal of time with Starrack.”

I took a quick peek into her mind and my jaw dropped. “You mean you
dated
the psycho?”

“Far worse, I’m afraid. I married him.”

You could’ve heard dragonfly wings beat in the profound silence.

“You were married,” I said slowly, “to public enemy number one?”

“Handfasted, actually, but it amounts to the same thing.”

“When was this? And why the
hell
are you just telling us?”

Cosmil moved protectively closer. “Lia’s past with Starrack has nothing to do with the present, Francesca. I resent your implication that it does.”

“Past and present are colliding, Cosmil, and I resent being kept in the dark. You told me you wouldn’t withhold information.”

“Please, both of you stop. It was not Cosmil’s story to share, Cesca, and I have not shirked my duties to you, to any of you, because of my past association. But I’ll give you the short version now.”

She paused and glanced up at Cosmil. He gave her a subtle nod.

“I first met Cosmil and Starrack many years ago. We even trained together with the same master on and off. Starrack and I became involved. For twenty years, we lived all over Europe, but I finally had enough of his philandering and his self-centered ways. I left him, and I’ve not seen or heard from him since the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 when I fled my country.”

“You chose the wrong brother, didn’t you?” I said softly.

“I did. I hope to correct that error now.”

Cosmil smiled and pheromones flared. Gads, love certainly wafted in the shanty-house air. Triton and Lynn. Cosmil and Lia. No wonder Pandora hadn’t been hanging around inside as much as I’d expected. But that didn’t absolve Lia of withholding information.

“Lia, if you knew Starrack that well, you must know something more about him beyond his being a Grecophile and ouzo drinker.”

“Think back,” Saber said. “Did he have any habits we could use to track him? Fascinations or compulsions? Did he ever use an alias?”

“No aliases that I knew of. He was compulsive about his ouzo, although he wouldn’t pay for a bottle if he didn’t have to.”

“You mean he’d steal the liquor?” Triton asked, he and Lynn joining us at the island.

“By bespelling shopkeepers, yes. Stealing ouzo and anything else he wanted was a game to him.”

“That’s good information,” Saber said. “I’ll contact the liquor stores in area. Show them the sketch and see if they’re missing stock.”

“Even if they have Starrack on security cameras, that won’t tell us where he’s staying.” I turned to Lia. “What about the COA’s records? Don’t you keep a database of supernaturals and where they live? Please, we need to find him before he kills again.”

Lia shook her head. “That’s what doesn’t fit. The murders. Starrack was a con man. He delighted in playing people, not in killing them.”

“He must’ve diversified since then,” Triton said darkly, “and not in a good way.”

“I’ll make a call to the Council records department,” Lia promised, “but you must understand that it is early morning in France. On a Saturday at that. And research will take time.”

“Time we don’t have,” Triton muttered.

Lynn cleared her throat. “Isn’t the St. Augustine Greek Festival being held soon? If this Starrack guy is a Grecophile, maybe he’d show up there, and you could catch him.”

Fear punched my stomach so hard and fast, I almost doubled over. “Oh, no. No, no, no. We can’t confront Starrack at the festival.”

“Why not?” Triton snapped. “It’s a perfectly reasonable suggestion.”

“But Maggie and Neil are taking the wedding party to the festival after the wedding rehearsal next Friday. If Starrack is there, they’ll all be in danger.”

“Then get her to change her plans.”

“Triton, I’ve already tried. Neil took Maggie to the Greek festival on their first date, and she wants the last date before they marry to be at this one. It’s a sentimental journey. She won’t budge.”

“That’s so sweet,” Lynn said.

“The festival may be our best chance of putting an end to Starrack,” Triton insisted.

I wheeled to plead with Saber. “We can’t put Maggie and Neil at risk.”

“Just hold on, both of you. You’re jumping to conclusions. First, we don’t know that Starrack would bother to attend a local festival. Second, even if he were to attend, he has no way of knowing about the wedding party’s plans.”