Captive Spirit (17 page)

The waiting area had been small, almost cramped, but Patterson’s work space was expansive. It didn’t have any big windows, which made it darker than she would have liked, and a little stuffy. The whole place smelled like musty books and lemon furniture oil, except for Reese Patterson. He smelled like very expensive cologne, applied in excess, likely not just on his thick neck. His suit was silk, probably Armani, black with gray highlights like his thick hair, but the tailoring made him look like an out-of-shape linebacker. He was leaning against the front of his huge cherry desk, his eyes glued to Dio, who was seated in one of the two chairs closest to the desk, right next to Duncan Sharp.

After another broken banister and three more screaming matches, Dio and Camille had finally agreed on a black patent leather designer skirt—short—with a stylish black halter top and amazing little Italian heels. The outfit turned Dio’s already svelte figure into runway tall and gorgeous, and the red beads Camille picked out added just the right splash of wild to undo the man. Bela, Andy, and Camille wore much calmer business slacks and blouses, and they were seated on a leather couch along a side wall, with a full view of the whole scene.

“A couple of detectives came by a couple of weeks back,” Patterson said without ever taking his gaze off Dio, “but they weren’t nearly as lovely as you are. They were from a numbered precinct, not a special unit. Occult Crimes, huh?”

Dio nodded.

Patterson’s face colored a deeper shade of pink at her attention. “You think Katrina’s murder had something to do with the occult?”

Duncan shifted the badge hanging around his neck to cover the bulge of the dinar beneath his black T-shirt. They had introduced themselves with his credentials and let Patterson assume that the Sibyls were police officers, too. Not that he had been inclined to care, once he got a good look at Dio.

“The killing had ritualistic elements,” Duncan said. “Similar to some crimes we’ve been tracking in Miami, Atlanta, Charleston, Washington, and Philadelphia.”

Patterson offered Dio a mint from a bowl on his desk. “Somebody landed on the coast, and now they’re working their way north?”

“Maybe.” Dio selected a pink candy, pulling it slowly from the bowl, then using her teeth to tear the plastic.

Bela glanced at Andy, whose expression said,
Yeah, that moving-up-the-coast thing’s got merit
. She made a note on her pad that Bela could read from her vantage point.
Check crime orgs with Miami ties
.

“If Dio does that again with the candy, Patterson might fall off his desk,” Camille whispered. She was keeping herself on alert for anything weird or unusual. She had some daggers and a couple of Dio’s African throwing knives tucked inside the waist of her jeans, just in case. When Bela looked at her, she shook her head once, and Bela knew that she didn’t sense any elemental energy here, either.

Dio folded both hands and leaned forward, making the most of her cleavage. “Did Ms. Drake have any ties to splinter religious groups or cults?”

The red beads around her neck moved up and down on her chest as she spoke, and Patterson was mesmerized. “What, you mean friends into crystals and incense and spells?” he asked Dio’s boobs. “Nah. Katrina was a Presbyterian. Went to Central every Sunday—you know, the big Gothic-looking church over on Park Avenue.”

“How about her husband or her brother?” Duncan’s question was smooth and careful, slipped between Dio leaning back and Dio crossing her legs.

Patterson glanced in Duncan’s direction before going right back to appraising Dio. “You know I can’t go there. Merin Alsace and Jeremiah Drake are still very much alive, and very much my clients, at least until the will’s through probate.” He gave Dio a wink. “But no, not that I’m aware of. Just between me and you pretty ladies, and, uh, you, Detective Sharp, Jeremiah and Merin, they’re a couple of puss—er, what I’m trying to say is, they’re not the murdering types. Don’t have the intestinal fortitude for anything violent.”

Dio let her foot bob up and down a few times, showing off her bare, tanned calf to perfect effect. “What about hiring other people to do their dirty work?”

“Just don’t see it.” Patterson’s head was bobbing with her leg, but he caught himself and settled back to some semblance of a professional demeanor. “Not those two.”

Bela had a sense that Patterson might be a bit of a pervert for blondes, but otherwise he wasn’t some slick, smooth legal operator. Kind of basic, just a normal guy. His presence reminded her of how normal Katrina Drake had seemed in her photos.

“Has the will been read yet?” Dio asked.

“Saturday, four o’ clock, but it’s private. Invitation only. I can see to it that you get copies of all the documents, Ms.—”

“Allard,” Dio supplied, with a smile so phony Bela almost laughed out loud. “But you can called me Dio. It’s short for Dionysia.”

“Dionysia. That’s beautiful.” The man grinned, making his square face a lot more appealing. “Don’t think there will be any problem getting you what you want, since the boys are all about finding out who killed Katrina. And pretty as you are, Dio, I think I’ve said about all I should for today.”

“We’ll want to interview Mr. Drake and Mr. Alsace,” Duncan said as he stood, folding his small notepad and sliding it into his jeans pocket.

“Call me with a date, time, and place, and I’ll have them there.” Patterson finally gave Duncan the acknowledgment of eye contact. “Like I said, they’re willing to give their full cooperation. Both of them are torn up over this, and burying Katrina, that’s not enough closure. They want some justice …”

Patterson trailed off when his eyes landed on the coin peeking from behind Duncan’s badge. The color drained straight out of his cheeks, and his posture shifted from relaxed to tense in the space of two heartbeats.

Dio got to her feet without rushing, but Bela saw worry in the tight lines of her face. Camille came to attention, too, and her palms drifted toward the knives in her waistband.

Bela did what she could to check things out with her earth energy, but they were several stories up, and she had more trouble sensing anything at this height.

“Nothing,” Andy said where only Bela and Camille could hear her. “He’s freaking out a little, but there’s no weird energy.”

“Detective, may I ask how you came by that chain and coin you’re wearing?” Patterson was obviously trying to keep his voice even, but he wasn’t doing such a good job.

Duncan squared his stance so that he was facing the lawyer directly, crowding him back against the desk like he was ready to throw a punch if he needed to. “A friend gave it to me. Why?”

Reese Patterson didn’t react to Duncan’s semiaggressive move because he was too fixated on the coin. “Was that friend by any chance John Cole?”

At this, Dio twitched, pressing her palms against the sides of her short leather skirt, right where her knives would have been if she was in battle gear. Camille and Andy stood, and Andy’s sleeves got damp in a hurry. Bela got up, too, more slowly, trying not to attract attention. Her throat went dry, and she accepted a dagger Camille palmed over to her.

Duncan was the only one of them who completely kept his cool. He eased back from Patterson and gave the man some room, a friendly smile on his face the whole time. “Did you know John?”

“I did.” Patterson didn’t volunteer more information. He turned to his desk and picked up a sticky pad and a pen, then faced Duncan again. “Could you give me a number to reach him? He hasn’t been answering his cell.”

Bela had a moment of feeling sorry for the lawyer, just in case he was actually Cole’s friend.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Patterson.” Duncan’s smile faded away completely, and his look of sorrow was genuine and heart-tugging. “John’s dead. He was killed in DUMBO nearly a month ago.”

Bela hadn’t thought Reese Patterson could lose any more color, but she was wrong. He went positively pasty, and his shoulders rounded as he lowered the pad and pen, and his head, too. That kind of surprise and spontaneous unhappiness couldn’t be faked to Sibyl senses, not even by a seasoned actor. Bela breathed in at the same time Camille and Andy did, fighting the palpable wave of sadness and confusion that swept across the room.

“That—that was Cole who died?” Patterson’s question was barely audible. When he raised his head, his eyes were wide and moist. “I heard about the killing on the news, but I never thought … I never imagined … do you know who did it?”

“Absolutely,” Duncan told him, obviously watching the man for more reaction to his certainty, but there wasn’t any. “We’ve got them in our sights. Just have to root them out of their hiding place, and we’ll have that murder all wrapped up.”

Patterson took this in, rubbing the back of his neck with one thick-fingered hand. A few moments later, he had hold of himself enough to ask, “Do you know if John Cole had a will?”

Bela’s eyebrows shot up, and she saw similar looks on the faces of her sister Sibyls. What the hell would that matter? John Cole was a retired soldier and active federal agent, not some Wall Street billionaire.

“No, I wouldn’t have a—” Duncan paused, and Bela saw the telltale flicker of black in his winter-gray eyes as Cole’s spirit communicated with him. “Yes, actually, he did have one drawn up.” Surprise was evident in Duncan’s every word, but he played it off well enough after coughing a few times. “Now that I’m thinking about it, he did mention taking care of that. It’s with Bestro and Perman, on Broadway, if memory serves.”

Patterson wrote that down, again without explaining his reasons for asking, and Duncan didn’t seem inclined to press the issue. His expression had turned angry and uncomfortable, and Bela thought those emotions were probably directed at Cole.

“Thank you.” Patterson put down his pad and pen, and offered Duncan his hand.

Duncan shook it as Patterson said, “Let me know when you lock up the assholes who killed John. I want to be sure no one
I
know agrees to defend the bastards.” He glanced at Dio. “Sorry for my language, Ms. Allard.”

Ms. Allard
. Back to respect now, another testament to Patterson’s genuine reaction to the news of John Cole’s death. Bela would have predicted just about anything from this little interview, except what they got. Few answers, and a lot more questions.

And Duncan Sharp, looking almost as shook up as Reese Patterson.

All of Duncan’s energy seemed to be focusing somewhere else, like his mind had forgotten how to keep everything in his body running like it should.

The minute they closed Patterson’s office door behind them and stepped into the building’s long hallway, Bela stopped and turned to Duncan. “Are you okay?”

Duncan said nothing as Bela’s quad surrounded him. His color was draining away, and he was starting to resemble last week’s Duncan instead of this week’s healthier version.

“This was a bad idea,” Camille said. “We shouldn’t have let him do this. That new head of the OCU hasn’t even given permission—”

“Oh, fuck Jack Blackmore, Camille.” Dio popped Duncan with a spurt of wind, driving his chin up and lifting his face. “Duncan’s got weeks to live. Maybe just days. He chooses what risks he takes, not us.”

“And sure as hell not that ex-Army jackass who doesn’t understand that we aren’t his good little soldiers,” Andy added.

Weeks to live
. That took Bela’s breath.
Days …

No.

Too much. She couldn’t hear that right now. Couldn’t even think it.

Duncan’s eyes flickered from gray to black, and he swayed on his feet.

Bela’s every fiber flared with alarm, giving her power a quick charge despite their distance from the earth below. She pressed her hands into Duncan’s shoulders, holding him up and feeding him a dose of earth energy for strength.

“Something’s happening inside him, Bela.” Andy sounded distressed now. “Something different. I can sense it. We have to get him back to the brownstone now.”

“The townhouse is closer.” Camille’s voice was stronger than usual, and a tiny whiff of smoke followed her as she jogged down the hallway toward the elevator. “I’ll send a signal to the Mothers to be ready.”

Dio doubled her wind, using the force to keep Duncan from crashing to the carpeted floor.

“Move.” Bela caught one of Duncan’s arms as Andy grabbed the one with the cast, just above his elbow. Together, they half walked, half fell toward the elevator Camille was holding.

(18)

Duncan knew his legs weren’t working right. For a few seconds, he stopped hearing, stopped seeing, stopped smelling. The world shifted to gray, then black as he threw every ounce of his energy behind finding John Cole’s essence inside his thoughts and getting some damned answers.

“Talk to me,” he said to John. “Damn it, you talk to me, or we won’t live to see tomorrow.”

Some part of his mind was aware of Bela and Andy holding his arms to keep him from falling. Were they in an elevator? No. Stumbling out of one. Dio’s air energy lifted part of his weight and Camille knocked open doors and got them out of Reese Patterson’s office building.

Late-afternoon sunlight hit his face like a hot fist, and the smell of bus exhaust made him cough.

Let it go, Duncan
. John sounded distant. Restrained.

“The hell I will.” If Duncan could have ripped the voice straight out of his brain, thrown it on the sidewalk, and shot it three times, he would have done so without hesitation. The muscles in his neck got so tight he wondered if they actually might snap. “All that crap you fed me back at the brownstone—
what I know, you know, Duncan
—that’s bullshit!”

“He’s not talking to us.” Bela’s voice drifted to him, seemingly across a desert as wide as any in his Afghanistan memories. “Look at his eyes.”

“Camille, help them hold Duncan up,” Dio said. “I’m getting the SUV.”

More hands on him now, these smaller, on his back, surprisingly strong, and too hot. His shirt smoldered, singing the skin on his shoulders.

John’s essence reacted to the touch, shifting backward and forward. Coming. Going. Duncan couldn’t think. Couldn’t process anything.

A new sort of fire blazed through the covered wounds on Duncan’s neck, chest, and shoulder. Christ, it felt like they were rupturing. Starting to bleed. The blood smelled like sugar mixed with ammonia, and the stench made him want to hurl. The dinar on his neck vibrated, seemed to send out energy, some kind of bright, pushing power, but it wasn’t enough to touch the pain.

Calm down
. John’s tone shifted from distant to desperate.
I can’t handle everything at once
.

“Quit playing games with me, John. You tell me why you have a will, right fucking now.”

An engine revved. Brakes squealed. A car door opened.

Duncan felt himself moving again, but he kept his focus on interrogating the frigging ghost in his head. “You tell me why you made a will here, in New York City—and what the hell does Reese Patterson know about it?”

I always file a will in the city where I’m working
. John sounded sincere, and Duncan knew he meant what he said—but Duncan also knew John wasn’t telling the whole truth. He was sitting down now. Doors slammed shut, and they lurched forward as horns honked.

“Lies by omission are still lies, and you’re lying.” Duncan wanted to punch the side of his own head, but he was still sane enough to understand that wouldn’t help anything. “Can’t hide, sinner. Don’t even try to run.”

Sensations bounced at Duncan, bits and pieces, nothing intact.

“Is he losing it?” Camille, beside him on a car seat, shoving his shoulder to keep him upright …

“Why’s he talking about sinners?” Dio, swerving left, hitting her horn …

“He’s bleeding. Hurry.” Bela’s hands on his other arm, supporting him …

John Cole wasn’t answering.

“Can’t hide, sinner,” Duncan said again, and shoved his knuckles against his temples until he saw stars. Maybe if he looked hard enough, he’d find John right there, in the spots floating across his vision.

“It’s a spiritual.” That was Andy, from the front seat. “I think Sharp’s into music, and maybe John Cole is, too. ‘Can’t Hide, Sinner’ is a song title. Old stuff, blues and gospel—spirituals came before all that, from slaves trying to survive working in the fields. A lot of projects have been launched to catalogue and preserve that kind of music.”

“Why did you even make a last will and testament, John?” Duncan wasn’t giving up, even if it killed him here and now.

A sigh echoed through his consciousness, passing as fast as the buildings outside the SUV. Evening was coming on, so lights began to mark the rushing landscape, winking and blinking in long strings of white.

Then John said,
Katrina wanted me to
.

“Katrina wanted … ?
Un
believable.” Duncan let his hands fall to his lap, wondering what the hell he had done, letting John into his head and letting him stay there. The slashes on his neck cracked and bubbled, then became a weeping, itching, cooking misery, but he couldn’t do a damned thing about any of that. Air whistled through his teeth as he fought to keep himself conscious and on the job, and sweat broke across his forehead and neck.

“Don’t do this now, Duncan.” Bela’s plea sounded desperate, and it hurt Duncan worse than his wounds to hear her in pain. He couldn’t stop, though. No way. After years in law enforcement, Duncan knew what it felt like to have his grimy paws on one of the keys that unlocks a case. This was a piece of a puzzle, and snapping it into place might bring everything into focus.

“What was Katrina Drake to you, John? And you better not start lying again.”

She was a friend. If you’ll tell Camille to hold the dinar, you won’t have to repeat all this later. I think she’ll be able to hear me
.

Duncan reached out, gently took the fire Sibyl’s hand, and moved it to the coin. She didn’t struggle against him, and he could see in her eyes that she trusted him, at least enough to try what he needed her to try.

“Translate,” he said. “Please? If it doesn’t hurt you.”

“Wait, Camille,” Bela’s fingers played across Duncan’s good arm, and her earth energy scraped his skin as she reached out to her sister Sibyl to stop her. “We don’t know that much about the coin’s properties.”

“It’s okay.” That spark flickered in Camille’s eyes again, and Duncan felt an answering flicker of relief from John—and his own mind, too. “Since it’s projective like the mirrors, I should be able to interact with it.”

When Bela didn’t respond, Camille’s strength seemed to build. “I can handle the dinar. At least let me try.”

Bela hesitated, then gave in with a quick, sharp nod.

Camille lifted the coin away from Duncan’s neck, and when the gold lost contact with his skin, he groaned from the surge of pain along his wounds. The slashes seemed to be expanding. Creeping up, down, left and right. He was like a battle map, and the demon infection was planting flags everywhere it could.

“Duncan, please.” Bela’s sweet voice prodded at him again. He knew she was imploring him to protect himself, but he couldn’t do that, not at the expense of protecting her and her quad.

“This might be the way we find the demons,” he told her, then had to shift his attention back to John’s essence in his mind before the bastard got away.

“Let him do this, Bela.” Andy was talking like a cop now, respecting Duncan and what he was pursuing. He felt grateful for her support. “He’s a police officer, a detective with a lot of experience. He knows what he’s doing—and when it has to be done.”

Bela’s hiss of frustration was intense. “It’s hurting him.”

“Honey, that infection’s way past hurting. It’s killing him.” Andy’s tone was almost apologetic, but firm, too. “We need to know whatever he can tell us, or the Rakshasa will take down a lot more people, starting with us.”

This time Bela didn’t argue back, but Duncan had a sense of her wordless seething.

Camille’s knuckles shoved against Duncan’s chest as she held the dinar, and Bela sat beside Duncan, stiff and silent. He knew if he lived through their little SUV ride, he’d owe her an apology for worrying her like this.

“What was Katrina Drake to you?” Duncan demanded of John again as New York City blurred outside the SUV’s windows. “And don’t give me that
friend
crap.”

Camille’s hand twitched, and the coin vibrated.

Duncan had a strange image of computers in the old dialup Internet days, negotiating to find a connection. There was static. Some whistling in his head. A groaning, shuddering vibration shook him from inside out.

Then—

I came here to help her when she reached out for a bodyguard with paranormal experience
. John spoke, and Camille spoke at the same time. It was her voice, yet Duncan could hear John’s resonance somewhere in her words, or maybe it was just the vibrations from his own mind.
Katrina turned out to be a special, gentle woman, but we were just friends. Nothing else
.

“Fuck me,” Andy said, turning to stare into the backseat. “That’s just creepy, Camille.”

“No shit.” Dio must have taken her foot off the gas, because the SUV slowed, then jumped forward again.

Duncan ignored the movement and side chatter as much as he could, and kept after John. “Are you why Katrina was divorcing her husband?”

No
.

Duncan waited, but John-Camille didn’t say anything else.

“Damn it, John, you’re trying my patience.”

Another sigh stirred through his thoughts, as if John felt guilty about saying any of this.

“Go on,” Camille urged in just her voice, as if she heard the same sigh. “We need to hear this.” She patted Duncan’s knee with her free hand, only he had a sense she didn’t realize she was touching him at all. She was speaking to John. Trying to reach John—

And once again, John seemed to respond to her touch, and now to her encouragement.

Katrina was divorcing her husband because her stepson was out of control
. John was tense. Past frustrated. But this did feel like the truth.
Drugs. Punching holes in the wall. Stealing cars. Walker Drake was a mess, and Jeremiah wouldn’t do anything to stop his son from ruling the house. Katrina couldn’t take it anymore
.

“How violent was Walker Drake?” That question came from Bela, and Duncan thought it was a good one.

Walker’s a punk coward, not a murderer—and he’s still just a kid. Just turned seventeen
. Duncan felt his fist flex, and knew he didn’t do it. John-Camille’s voice suggested that John would really like to give the brat a working-over.
That little fuck wouldn’t have the first clue how to locate a group of demons, much less bargain with them. The day Katrina died, he and his latest squeeze were five kinds of stoned, and useless to the universe
.

Dio executed a smooth left turn, and from the front seat, Andy asked, “How can you be sure Walker was so clueless about hiring hit-kitties?”

John’s husky bark of a laugh sounded odd coming from Camille’s mouth.
To find demons without an intermediary
,
Walker would need elemental talent. Trust me, Duncan, you have more elemental talent in your little toenail than Walker or Jeremiah Drake will ever have
.

“Stop telling me to trust you, John.” Duncan wished he could get hold of the spirit hiding in his mind and shake the shit out of it. “How did Katrina know she’d been targeted by something supernatural?”

This made John pause.

The SUV hit a pothole and banged around. Dio said something unkind about another driver’s mother, and a new kind of power surged into Duncan from the spot where Camille had her hand on his leg. It was hot. Burning. Uncomfortable to him, and almost as painful as the wounds bleeding through his bandages onto his T-shirt. He wanted to pull away from Camille, but he didn’t have to. Bela’s hand joined Camille, and the fiery blast got tempered by Bela’s cool, calming energy.

John, however, seemed to respond to the fire.

Katrina had instincts. Not really powers or talents, just … hunches that usually turned out to be true, but her religious beliefs drove her to ignore them
. Even through Camille’s translating voice, Duncan heard a wistful sadness in John’s report.
She had some nightmares so vivid she couldn’t ignore them, and she called the number the ASI keeps in most major newspapers, buried in the classifieds, advertising security services for people under supernatural threat
.

Duncan’s understanding of the case files he’d been working before the murder increased, and a lot of things started coming clear. “A classified ad. That’s why you’ve been moving from city to city. That’s how you knew where to go.”

Yes. The Rakshasa have been heading up the East Coast. The ads and ad responses were the best way we could figure to keep tabs on them, since they never stayed anywhere very long. Then I started to realize Strada had a pattern
about whom he likes to murder. He started taking contracts on females only. Women with some beauty, and some innocence
.

“The demon has his preferences,” Bela muttered, then shivered.

Duncan shared her revulsion, and hoped he’d get his moment with Strada in the very near future.

Most of the calls we get on the Namast Security line are total horseshit
, John-Camille said.
But when ground ops checked Katrina out, she matched Strada’s little profile. The type of woman that bastard loves to hunt and kill. So I met with her, and she hired me to protect her a couple of months ago
.

John broke off again, and Duncan experienced rushes of guilt and regret, of self-loathing and rage that weren’t his own. With the lurching course of the SUV and the weird partial light of dusk, it was enough to make him carsick, because the feelings were all too familiar. They jerked up memories of the war, of soldiers and buddies he failed. Of missions that went bad, and situations so FUBAR he couldn’t do anything to right them.

He thought he got it, and maybe understood why John was holding back. “If you were supposed to be protecting Katrina Drake from the Rakshasa, and you cared about her, then why weren’t you with her when they came to kill her?”

Oh, yeah.

That was the million-dollar question.

John’s essence snapped backward in Duncan’s mind like Duncan had cracked him right in the jaw.

Camille let out a shocked little, “Eeep!” She dropped the dinar against Duncan’s chest, then grabbed it again as Duncan’s world grayed from the energy it took to seize hold of John’s disappearing energy.