Deadly Descendant (15 page)

“How’s Jamaal?” I asked instead, hoping Anderson would let me change the subject. Jamaal was the only one who hadn’t come to see me, and I hoped that didn’t mean Anderson had evicted him for his lack of self-control at the cemetery.

“He’s … struggling.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I never should have sent him to spend several hours in a cemetery.” Anderson might not have felt particularly guilty about breaking my neck, but the look on his face said that this he felt guilty about. “It gave the death magic too much power, until Jamaal couldn’t control it, no matter how hard he tried.”

I was still mad at Anderson for what he’d done, but I didn’t see that he had any reason to feel bad about sending Jamaal to the cemetery with me. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

Anderson shook his head. “I’ve never known that to happen before, but Jamaal is the only descendant of Kali I’ve ever spent any significant time with.”

“If you didn’t know he’d react that way, then you couldn’t have known it was a bad idea to send him to
the cemetery. If you’re going to beat yourself up about something, at least do it about something you could have changed. Like, say, breaking my neck.”

He gave me a reproachful look but failed to pick up the gauntlet I’d thrown down again. “I
should
have known. Should have at least considered the possibility. He was stabilizing, but now …” His voice trailed off, and the look in his eyes was troubled.

I sighed. “If you’re going to toss blame around, toss some my way. I noticed that Jamaal was acting strange, but I didn’t do anything. Hell, throw some blame Jamaal’s way, too, because he
knew
something was wrong long before his control snapped. He could have fessed up and gotten out of there before things went to hell.”

A small smile played around the corners of Anderson’s mouth. “Oh, I’m not taking all the blame, don’t worry. I’m not holding you responsible, because you aren’t experienced enough to have guessed what his loss of control meant. Also, you never in a million years would have been able to talk him into leaving. He
is
an alpha male, you know.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“You’re right that Jamaal should have recognized he was having a problem and how dangerous the problem was. He’s been spending his time in the basement ever since, though I’m inclined to release him now that you’re back with us.”

In one of the makeshift prison cells, he meant. Not that those cells could hold Jamaal, unless he allowed himself to be held. At least Anderson hadn’t imposed a
more draconian penalty, as he had the last time Jamaal had lost it.

I wasn’t able to stifle a yawn. Amazing what dying and then coming back to life can do for your energy level.

“You should get some more rest,” Anderson said as he rose to his feet. “You’ll feel much better tomorrow, as long as you don’t overtax yourself tonight.”

“What about the case?”

Anderson had already turned for the door on the assumption that the conversation was over, but I wasn’t about to let him go that easily.

“We can talk some more tomorrow,” he said.

“What have you found out about the victim? I assume you had Leo do some digging while I was gone.”

He turned back toward me with a quelling look. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Today is Wednesday, right?”

He nodded cautiously, as if afraid of agreeing with me.

“That means we have two days before the killer strikes again. We don’t have time to wait until I’m all better.”

“You’re in no shape to work right now.”

Another yawn forced its way up my throat, no matter how hard I tried to stop it. Not the best way to convince Anderson I was fit for duty.

I could have argued with him some more, could have tried to insist he let me work. But in the end, I didn’t need his permission. The data I needed was no
doubt either on my laptop or at least available from it. All I needed was for Anderson to go away, and then I could do what I pleased.

“Fine,” I said with a huff, pulling back the covers and sliding into bed. “I’ll sleep. But I’m getting to work the moment the sun rises tomorrow, so make sure Leo sends me anything he’s dug up.”

Anderson raised an eyebrow. I doubt he was used to being given orders. But he didn’t call me on it, instead issuing a murmured “good night” and slipping out of the room. I suspected he might be hovering outside the bedroom door waiting to make sure I did as I was told, so I lay down and turned off the light. I even closed my eyes, in case he did a Columbo and came back into the room for “one more thing.” And that was a mistake.

When I next awoke, it was after midnight. Someone had
left a plastic-wrapped sandwich, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water on my bedside table. I guessed that was my dinner, though whoever had left it probably hadn’t counted on it sitting there that long before I got to it. I was ravenous, and I couldn’t die of food poisoning, so I stuffed down the sandwich and the bag of chips in about sixty seconds.

I opened the bottle of water and washed down the remaining salty goodness of the chips, then slid out of bed and gave a tentative stretch. I still felt weak, and despite the six hours or so of sleep I’d just gotten, I had the feeling if I let myself fall back into bed, I’d be out for the rest of the night. Still, I felt a whole lot better than I had for a while, and I was all too aware of the
clock ticking. If I couldn’t track down the killer before Friday night, someone else was going to die horribly.

What we were going to do if and when I tracked down the killer was a whole other question. How do you capture someone who’s immortal and has a pack of rabid phantom jackals at his beck and call? Sure, I was back from the dead, but I was not at all up for another face-to-face with those damn jackals.

I told myself not to think about that part, then made my way into my sitting room. I debated going downstairs to get a cup of coffee while my laptop was booting up but decided against it. I was definitely still pretty washed out, and while I was sure I could make it down the stairs, making it back up afterward might be a challenge.

Despite his distaste for being given orders by a worker bee like me, Anderson had obviously talked to Leo, because there were a bunch of new emails waiting in my in-box. The first one I opened purported to be about the latest victim, and though I honestly wasn’t sure what I could hope to learn, my instincts told me it was important.

My mind wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. I had read all the way through Leo’s dossier, learning more than I wanted to know about the victim’s life, before something finally struck me. I minimized the email so that only the victim’s picture was visible, then fished through the rest of my emails and brought up pictures of the previous two identified victims.

One of them was lean and athletic-looking, and had olive skin with dark hair and a beard and mustache.
Just like the latest victim. The other was clean-shaven, although he did have olive skin. I also remembered that he was the one whose picture in the newspaper was obviously at least a decade out of date.

I searched Google for a more recent photo and found one in no time. And wouldn’t you know it, he had the black beard and mustache, too. He wasn’t as athletic-looking as the other two, but he was certainly lean—to the point of looking unhealthy.

I only had three victims to go on, since the first was still unidentified, but the resemblance couldn’t be a coincidence. Lean, dark hair, olive skin, beard and mustache … all three bore more than a passing resemblance to Konstantin.

And that meant Phoebe was lying when she told us the Olympians had no idea why the killer was hunting in D.C.

The attacks were personal—and aimed at Konstantin.

And that meant Konstantin knew damn well who the killer was.

I sat back in
my chair and stared at the three photos on my computer screen, wondering if I could be making something out of nothing.

No, I didn’t think so.

Who was this guy? What did he have against Konstantin? And why had Phoebe and Cyrus lied about it? The obvious conclusion was that they were hiding something—no doubt on Konstantin’s orders—but I had no clue what.

I didn’t have answers to any of these questions, and I knew that the next logical step was to have a heart-to-heart with Konstantin. Maybe now that the jig was up, he’d be more forthcoming about what was going on. He might not care how many people Dogboy killed, but he
did
want him stopped. I couldn’t help wondering if Phoebe’s “vision” had been any more truthful than anything else she’d told us. Was Konstantin really trying to keep the killer from being
captured by the government, or was he just using us to clean up his mess?

I wanted to question Konstantin right away, but I knew better than to think that was an option. I wasn’t getting an interview with him at nearly two in the morning. Not that I believed I was capable of getting the truth out of Konstantin, anyway. I had no leverage over him, no way to make him talk to me if he didn’t want to—which I already knew he wouldn’t.

Anderson, however, might be able to manage it. He planned to kill Konstantin someday, and they both knew it. Unless Konstantin was clinically insane, he had to be at least somewhat afraid of Anderson, even if he’d never admit it.

I briefly debated venturing into Anderson’s wing to wake him up and get him on it right away, but there was no point in it. Anderson wasn’t going to be able to get hold of Konstantin at this hour any more than I could. Besides, waking Anderson meant waking Emma, and that struck me as a bad idea.

I knew I should go back to bed and get some more sleep. I was far from fully recovered. But as drained as my body felt, I no longer felt sleepy, and I was afraid that if I lay down and closed my eyes without instantly falling asleep, I’d end up lying there remembering the suffocating darkness of death.

Even letting my mind brush against the memory made me shudder.

I didn’t think there was much else I could do to help the case along at this point, but I needed to keep my mind occupied. I decided to brave the rigors of the
stairs after all. Despite the old-fashioned formality of the mansion, there was a fairly comfortable den/media room on the first floor, and I figured I could either find something bearable to watch on cable or I could pop in a movie. Something mindless enough not to require much energy but engaging enough to absorb my attention and keep me from thinking.

I stopped by the kitchen first to make some coffee, then found myself having to sit down to rest before I could manage the trek from the kitchen to the den. Anderson had told me I should feel much better tomorrow, but at my current rate of recovery, I doubted I’d be at a hundred percent. Of course, my refusal to crawl back into bed and sleep the rest of the night probably wasn’t helping, but there was no way I was climbing all the way back to my room on the third floor now.

Carrying a travel mug of coffee, because with my shaky legs I was afraid I’d spill with a regular mug, I made my slow and steady way to the den. I didn’t bother turning lights on as I went, so I noticed the flickering glow emanating from the den as soon as I stepped into the hallway. There was a faint murmur of voices in the background, but it was the TV, rather than a bunch of people. Either someone had forgotten to turn the TV off before going to bed, or I wasn’t the only one up at this ungodly hour.

I was doing exactly what Anderson had warned me not to do: overtaxing myself. My legs felt like overcooked spaghetti, and there was no way they were carrying me back up to my room, no matter how much
I didn’t want company. Putting my hand against the wall for a little extra support, I continued down the hall until I could see into the den.

The den was about as masculine as you could imagine, with a pool table dominating one half of the room while a huge flat-screen TV with all the fixings dominated the other. A dartboard hung on one wall—well away from the precious TV—and the furniture was dark wood and leather. The only obviously feminine touch in the room was on the built-in bookshelves, where Maggie kept her collection of romance novels. In a relatively good-natured battle of wills, Maggie liked to pull out the books with the most lurid covers—classics from the seventies and eighties were a favorite—and prop them on the shelves facing out. Whenever she left the room, someone always tucked the books back into their places, spines out.

The guys had been remiss in their duties, because there was a nice collection of covers facing out, including a couple of more modern erotic romances, which featured naked guys discreetly blocking their best features from view. It made me smile. Maybe she’d finally worn the guys down. Or maybe everyone had better things to do than fight the battle of the sexes.

I didn’t see anyone in the room at first. The program on the TV was a nature show about penguins, but the sound was so low I couldn’t make out what the narrator was saying.

Fighting the fatigue, which was getting worse with each step I took, I set my sights on the couch, planning to collapse there. It wasn’t until I’d put my hand on the
back of the couch and started to move around it that I realized I wasn’t alone after all.

Jamaal was slouched so low the top of his head hadn’t shown over the back of the couch. Considering he was about six foot three, that was a lot of slouching. He was wearing a wife-beater and a pair of faded jeans, his bare feet propped on the coffee table. He was facing the TV, but there was a blank look in his eyes that said he wasn’t actually watching it. He was spaced out enough that he didn’t even seem to have heard me enter.