Forsaken by the Others (9 page)

“We will,” Sara promised, me nodding as she pushed me toward the door. “Thank you
for your help!”

“Yes, thanks!”

“Anytime,” Devon said, watching us go with hooded eyes.

Trinity didn’t say anything until Sara and I were both back in the car. She glanced
at us in the rearview, the reflection of red in her eyes hinting at her agitation
with something—maybe us? Or was it the proximity of the White Hat hideout?

“Good to see you’re still alive. Were the White Hats not home, or did you get what
you came for? ”

“We got what we needed,” Sara said, her tone carefully neutral.

Trinity turned her attention ahead, the glitter of crimson no longer visible from
my angle in the backseat. “That’s good. I’m sure Clyde will be thrilled to hear all
about it.” The not-so-veiled threat in what she didn’t say made me glad we’d cut things
short with Devon and Tiny. If Sara and I had hung around much longer, Trinity or Clyde
might have grown suspicious that we were plotting against him. “What’s next on your
agenda, hmm?”

“Can you take us to any of the places where these attacks took place?” I asked.

“You sure that’s what you want? They’ve all been cleaned up, so you won’t see much.”

“Yeah. You never know. You guys might have missed something.”

Trinity made a derisive sound in her throat and started the car. “I sincerely doubt
that, but if that’s what you want, then that’s where we’ll go. Did you have a particular
destination in mind?”

Sara and I looked at each other, then simultaneously shrugged, never mind that Trinity
couldn’t see it. “How about the one in Sun Valley? That’s close to here, isn’t it?”

She made another sound, this time more like a choked laugh. “Interesting choice. Buckle
your seat belts. It won’t take long to get there.”

Though she was right, the area seemed to go from bad to still bad to oh-God-where’s-my-pepper-spray
territory. Graffiti was sprayed on a number of the walls, shards of broken beer bottles
scattered on the blacktop of empty parking lots shone with the glitter of fallen stars,
and most of the windows on the houses and apartments were protected by iron bars—in
some cases, even on the second and third floors.

When Trinity stopped at the side of the road in front of a 24-hour Laundromat, for
a long moment, I wasn’t sure why. Then she tilted her head to look at us, her braid
sliding across the slick leather of the seat.

“Well? What are you waiting for? I don’t want to be here all night. Go take a look.
It happened over there.”

I took a look where she was pointing. There was a sign for a . . .
carnicería?
Whatever that was. Judging by the signs in the window, it must have been the Spanish
term for a deli or butcher shop.

It felt like Trinity’s eyes were boring holes in my back as I slid out of the car
and started walking toward the shop. I was sure she must have known how uncomfortable
she was making me, but she was staying in the car and out of our way. That would have
to be enough.

Sara came around until she was beside me, the two of us moving in tandem as we approached
the shop. The hours posted in the window said it should have been open now, but the
lights were off and a “Closed” sign was visible behind the streaks on the glass front
door. Though I hadn’t made any special effort to breathe through my nose, the scent
of dead things—worse than old, congealed blood,
much
worse—instantly coated my throat and tongue.

Sara stopped as I did, her brow wrinkling with concern. “You okay?”

I coughed and spat, trying to get the taste out. “Cripes, you don’t smell that?”

She sniffed, then lifted her shoulders. “Smells like you’d expect this close to a
butcher shop. Maybe something went bad?”

“Really bad.”

We tried the door on the off chance someone might have left it open, but of course
the thing was locked. Both of us cupped the glass and peered inside, trying to see
past the coat of dust and glare from a nearby streetlight.

There was a dim glow coming from the display case next to the register and from some
fridges in the back with sodas and beer. The track lighting on the ceiling and above
the board behind the counter with prices painted on it was turned off. The racks of
snacks and junk food didn’t seem to be out of order, and aside from some chips in
the paint, what I could see of the flooring, counters, and two tables inside was clean.
If the attack had occurred inside, there was no sign of it from where we were standing.

Still, that smell led me to believe that there was more to see here, something we
hadn’t found yet. Stepping back from the window, I took a few short, sniffling breaths
through my nose, just enough to get a whiff of that decaying stuff again. It wasn’t
coming from the front.

Sara followed me as I alternately sniffed and gagged. The looks she was giving me
made me wonder just how weird my expression must have been. I couldn’t help the way
my nose scrunched up, my eyes watered, or how my mouth was twisting, like I had bitten
into a not-quite-ripe lemon. Whatever was giving off that odor was
rank.
Like bad meat in a plastic bag under the summer sun, left to bake until it burst.

There was a light illuminating the side of the building between the Laundromat and
the
carnicería.
Roaches scuttled out of our path and disappeared into crevices as we moved closer
to the source of that smell. It appeared to be coming from close to the Dumpster flush
against the wall, next to an exit from the butcher shop.

I couldn’t get any closer. My nose had started running, and my eyes were watering
so badly that I could barely see. Taking her cue from the wave of my hand in the general
direction of the trash, Sara kept going while I turned away to retch by the sidewalk.

When I managed to lift my head and blink the worst of the sting from my eyes, I saw
some of the people in the Laundromat giving me dirty looks as they sorted their colors
and folded their undies. Awesome.

Scrubbing the back of my hand against my mouth, I turned, watching as Sara crouched
and poked at something on the ground. With her bare hands? Yuck.

Suddenly, she rose, almost tipping over her high-heeled boots. Once she regained her
balance, she strode back to my side in a hurry.

Once she reached me, she didn’t look at me, placing her hands just under her ribs
and taking a deep breath. She stared at, but I had the suspicion did not see, the
used car lot across the street.

“Your nose didn’t lie. There’s a piece of zombie back there. I think it’s a finger.”

Oh, God.

“It moved when I touched it.”

Oh,
God.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Though I felt like making like Sir Robin in that
Holy Grail
movie, now wasn’t the time to run away. “We can’t leave without knowing what else
happened here. Maybe someone in that Laundromat saw something. Which way did they
go when they left? How did they get here? There’s got to be something more that we
haven’t found yet.”

She nodded, but did not look particularly enthusiastic. We headed to the Laundromat,
the people inside who hadn’t thought much of my behavior suddenly quite studious in
their folding activities. One guy grabbed the remainder of his laundry in his arms
and fled out the door opposite the one we were entering. He probably knew something,
but I wasn’t in the mood to chase unwilling witnesses.

We went toward a lady leaning over the lower half of a Dutch door, watching one of
the TVs playing from a wall mount across the room. She barely looked in our direction
when Sara and I stopped in front of her.

“Excuse me,” I said, giving her a little wave. “Hi, there. Can we ask you a few questions?”

She tore her attention off the TV and looked me up and down.
“No hablo Inglés.”
Back to the TV.

Sara wasn’t deterred. She shot off some Spanish in rapid fire, and the older woman
looked at her with surprise. They jabbered back and forth a bit, the lady becoming
agitated before long. There were a lot of hand gestures and grabbing at the little
gold cross around her neck.

After tonight, I was going to invest in a Spanish-English dictionary.

I gave Sara a pat on the back to indicate she should keep on with it while I moved
to interview some of the other people hanging around.

There wasn’t much more to be learned from the others. Everyone I asked either didn’t
speak English, hadn’t been around that night, or had only heard, not seen, what had
happened. The noises they described were pretty par for the course considering it
had been a zombie attack. Moans, groans, and screams had sent most of them diving
for cover or calling the cops. They didn’t know what had made the noises, but they
assumed it was shady business involving Others.

Sara startled me a few minutes later with a hand on my shoulder. The guy I was talking
to eyeballed her cleavage like he hadn’t just been involved in what I considered to
be a serious discussion about whether zombies that shamble versus the ones that run
are more dangerous. He’d seen some of the ones that had attacked the vampires in the
alley, though he had no recollection about where they’d come from or how they had
left. Must have been some of that mage “fade” mojo, no doubt.

“I’ve got something. Let’s go,” Sara whispered.

I waved a good-bye to the guy, who failed to return the gesture. He was too busy gawking
over Sara, who didn’t appear to notice his attention.

She kept her mouth shut until we were outside, slowing down a bit to mutter her findings
to me under her breath before we returned to the car. “Looks like that mage knows
how to cover his tracks. Rosalie said she saw the guy, looked right at him in fact,
and that he tried to cast a black enchant on her to make her forget. Her family is
a line of magic users, though, so she just pretended it worked and hid before he could
figure out his spell didn’t work.

“He’s young, early twenties maybe, and wears stylish clothes. Pale skin, dark brown
hair, tall and skinny. She didn’t get close enough to see his eye color, but she did
spot a tattoo of a pentagram on his palm when he was casting at her. The zombies were
brought here and taken away in a U-Haul, driven by a second man she didn’t see very
well and couldn’t describe.”

“Not bad,” I said. “Don’t suppose she happened to catch the license plate, too?”

Sara smirked, moving around to the other side of the car. “Sadly, no. She did say
the truck had a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on the side, so that narrows it
down—slightly.”

For a moment, I thought we might have the case in the bag—but then I groaned and slapped
my palm on the roof. “Shit, no. We can’t call their home office to ask about rentals
without using our PI license. Or call the cops and ask them to do the legwork for
us. Damn.”

“Maybe not,” Sara replied, getting in and leaning across the seat to continue, “but
I’m sure Clyde has connections, and we know enough to narrow down the search. With
the guy’s description, and knowing about the truck, we should have enough info that
Clyde could figure out who it was more rapidly than we could.”

Trinity tapped her nails on the steering wheel, not bothering to look back at us as
I slid in beside Sara and buckled up. She took off almost as soon as the “click” of
the seat belt locking sounded. “I take it you two found something?”

“Yeah,” Sara said. “We’ll tell Clyde when we get back. I don’t like repeating myself.”

Trinity didn’t say anything, the plastic covering the steering wheel squeaking under
her fingers. Touchy.

I sincerely hoped Clyde would appreciate the work we had done and what we had found
out for him. Hopefully he’d consider it enough and wouldn’t expect us to continue
digging.

But knowing my luck, and considering the vampire’s behavior thus far, whatever we
did for him would never be enough.

“That’s a good start,” Clyde said to Sara as she finished telling him about what she
had learned from the lady at the Laundromat, “but I need you to
find
him.”

Clyde’s expression had remained stony as we each told him what we had found out. I
noted a brief clenching of his jaw as he took in the details about the necromancer
when Sara described him, but otherwise, there was no sign that the vampire was in
the least affected by what we had to say. Though it was a tell, I wasn’t sure what
it meant yet. He either already knew who the mage was, or he had a suspicion confirmed.
Regardless, it just meant he hadn’t told us everything, which was something I already
knew.

Sara shifted in her seat, a sign she was uncomfortable. It was a small miracle she’d
been able to get as much information as she had out of that woman. Clyde probably
didn’t realize we’d struck what was the private investigator’s equivalent of a gold
vein, or maybe he just didn’t care.

I wasn’t all that surprised. Trinity had led us straight to Clyde as soon as we returned.
The room we were in now was one we had passed through the first night on our way to
see him. Well-lit and without the strobes, it was almost homey. There were numerous
overstuffed chairs and couches, and the artwork on the walls, which hadn’t been there
the night of the S&M-themed party, was of fields and horses and English countryside
scenes.

He had placed himself in the center of it all, sprawled on a leather couch that matched
the red silk-screen wallpaper. Fabian was seated on the other end with one leg thrown
casually over the other.

Once again, Clyde wasn’t wearing a shirt, only this time he had on stone-washed jeans
that weren’t so tight that nothing was left to the imagination. His followers—minions—whatever
they were—had taken seats around him, some of them taking notes, others on the phone
or tapping away on laptops, and a couple on the floor in front of Clyde, touching
him and probably giving him the occasional compliment to stroke his ego. Or something
else. Who knew, right?

I couldn’t help but wonder if every time he arranged to see us, he prepared in advance
to pose in such a way that he would look devastating. If I hadn’t seen Royce do much
the same every now and then, I might have been more impressed, but his posturing was
getting old very fast.

As much as I wanted to call him on it, and ask him why he didn’t just use whatever
connections he must have in the LAPD to track the necromancer down, it didn’t seem
like a good time to push him. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask, but I already knew how
he was going to answer.

“Clyde,” I said, quickly amending my words after seeing his expression, “Mr. Seabreeze,
we don’t have access to our resources out here, and we can’t use our PI licenses or
announce our presence to local authorities. It would defeat the purpose of our coming
here. Is there anyway you can ask the police to look into this with the information
we gave you? We’ve got a getaway vehicle description—a rented van. With that kind
of information, they’d probably find this guy a lot faster than we can.”

“I don’t want the police involved in my affairs. There’s little they can do against
a magical menace like a necromancer. If they were to find him first, they would inevitably
die, and thus draw more bad press down on Others. I can’t allow it.”

His answer cemented my earlier theory that he knew who was behind this. From all I
knew about him, he loved being in the spotlight, and he would undoubtedly have jumped
on the opportunity to come across as the “victim” of some kind of hate crime if the
culprit had been human instead of Other. This was something deeply personal, an affront
to Clyde’s power structure and tenuous hold on this city.

I needed to get in touch with Royce as soon as possible and see if we could come back
to New York or if there was somewhere else we could go. This place was more dangerous
than where we’d been, if not in the same way, if Clyde was bringing down this kind
of heat on himself.

As much as I wanted to come back with a smart-ass reply, I put on my best professional
face and tone, bearing in mind that pissing him off would be unwise. “Okay. I’m not
saying this to make you upset, but do you realize we have no way of following the
leads we were able to scrounge up? It’s a dead end.”

His blue eyes gleamed, and I detected a hint of fang in his humorless smile as he
leaned closer to me. “Really? No, Ms. Waynest, it hadn’t occurred to me.”

His sarcasm was really unnecessary. It took every last shred of willpower I had to
keep from saying something snarky in return.

“I chose to use you for your investigative skills. If you are too incompetent to do
the job, I’m sure you can find someone else to take you in.”

“No,” Sara said, stepping forward. Some of the other vampires in the room leaned in,
their own eyes taking on a touch of red. “No, we’ll figure it out. We’re just going
to need more time.”

Fabian rose from his seat beside Clyde, his eyes sliding over us in a way that nearly
felt like fingers crawling over my skin. Creepy. I got the idea this was the first
time he felt like we might be bringing something useful to the table, and that he
also didn’t like it. There was something about the aura he was projecting that made
me wonder what his stakes were in this.

“You’ve discovered much in a short period of time. I think perhaps you underestimate
what you can do for us. Find the boy, and you will be suitably rewarded. ”

Clyde shot Fabian a look that I interpreted as “shut the hell up.” He then sat up
and rested his elbows on his knees, giving Sara and me a smile that might have been
endearing if he had kept his fangs to himself. “Continue your search as long as necessary.
Use any of my resources you need to—but stay away from the local police. You wouldn’t
want to be discovered and extradited back to New York, now, would you?”

Sara and I both shook our heads.

“Good. Give Trinity the details. I will see if I can have one of my people find out
who rented that van and what the reported destination was supposed to be, though I
am not sure the information will help you much. You two keep doing what you’re doing.
You’re on the right track.”

Interesting. Clyde (and maybe Fabian?) had to know more than he was saying, but clearly
wasn’t going to tell us what that was. At this point, I suspected he didn’t want to
find out
who
was killing his people—he already had that information and wasn’t of a mind to share—he
just wanted to know
where they were.
Maybe to test how good we were at our jobs, too.

If we found the necromancer, I had little doubt Clyde would try to kill the guy, but
I also wondered what had started this mess and why they were both working so hard
to fight each other while going unnoticed. The mage was covering his tracks, and Clyde
didn’t want the cops involved. For Fabian to be here, I had the feeling something
big was going on that meant Clyde had bitten off more than he could chew, and he needed
the help of an older, more experienced vampire to make the Big Bad go away.

As for why they were so hell-bent on keeping things secret, it was possible old habits
died hard. Others had kept their existence secret for hundreds, if not thousands,
of years. The decade or so that had passed since Rohrik Donovan and the Moonwalker
pack had revealed that werewolves and vampires and magi and who knew what all were
living alongside humanity wasn’t nearly long enough for most people to get used to
it. The bulk of the supernatural community—the ones who had been around before their
big reveal to the bulk of society—might have been experts at hiding their inter-Other
wars from people, but somehow that didn’t seem like a good enough reason.

No, there was something deeply personal going on. But what?

The investigative part of me was itching to twist Clyde’s arm to work more out of
him, but it wasn’t the time. Sara and I excused ourselves, and Trinity escorted us
back to the guest house. If I was ever going to deliver that package of Analie’s,
we’d need to figure out a way to travel without our babysitter. Maybe tomorrow I would
see about having Clyde let us take the car without a driver. It was unlikely he’d
allow it, but we could always ask.

Trinity hovered in the door once we were inside, frowning at us. I raised a brow in
question.

“You two should be careful.”

Sara smirked, tossing her purse on the first step and leaning against the banister.
“We’re doing our best, but I have the feeling your boss doesn’t care. You know something
we don’t?”

Trinity backed out of the door, lowering her head. I wondered if she was trying to
keep what she was saying from being picked up by the security camera, or if she actually
felt bad about how Clyde was treating us.

“You’re doing better than I thought you would,” she said. “Still, it’s worse than
you know. I can’t tell you, he’d—I just can’t. But trust me when I say you don’t want
to be around when he finds out where this necromancer is staying. It’ll be bad—for
all of us.”

With that, she turned on her heel and fled. We didn’t even get a chance to tell her
the details about the van.

“What is it about vampires and cryptic statements? Is it physically impossible for
them to say what’s on their minds?” Sara asked.

I laughed. “Yeah, something like that. You should have seen Royce when he finally
admitted that he was hiding things from me. Never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“Yeah, well, you almost didn’t. How are you feeling, anyway? Arnold told me he’s still
trying to find out what’s going on with you.”

That made me cringe. I hadn’t thought Arnold would talk to Sara about my problems,
but I shouldn’t have been too surprised. They were dating, after all.

Sara must have gathered that she’d hit a sore spot. She clapped me on the back and
then started up the stairs. “Don’t worry too much. Once we get out of here, I’m sure
Arnold will find a cure.”

Being reminded of the illness didn’t make me feel much better. Though Sara had sat
with me while I was spitting out that black crud in the bathroom, I wasn’t sure exactly
how much she knew about what was wrong with me. I didn’t want to face the idea that
I was part lycanthrope or part vampire or whatever I might be. It had to pass. Whatever
it was, it
had
to work its way out eventually. The pain had lessened, and I wasn’t growing fur in
weird places. It
had
to be working its way out of my system.

Lowering my head and rubbing my fingertips over my eyes, I did my best to put it all
away in the back of my head. Worrying about the infection on top of what Clyde was
hiding, where we were going to turn for clues now that we had to follow what was essentially
a dead end, and what was going to happen if Sara and I blew the lid on where the necromancer
was hiding, was just one problem too many. Oh, and let us not forget that I was obligated
to figure out how to get Analie’s package to a bunch of werewolves that
might
eat me if I showed up smelling like vampires.

If I could, I’d avoid thinking about the infection the entire time I was here, and
maybe even after I got back to New York.

Denial. Not just a river in Egypt.

Those pleasant thoughts in mind, I trudged up the stairs after Sara, wishing I could
call my mom and dad and see how they were doing. My dad might not speak to me, but
my mom—maybe she wasn’t biased against me for being involved with Others. Not to mention
my brothers. Mikey hadn’t seemed surprised or upset by my involvement with the Others
and had even offered to represent me in court if it came down to that. It was good
having a lawyer in the family.

Damien, on the other hand, had probably found out from the papers if my dad hadn’t
told him first. I would have to find another disposable phone, or maybe see about
borrowing one from somebody outside of Clyde’s retinue to see how they were doing.
Not knowing was killing me, and even with Royce’s assurances that he’d been doing
what he could to take care of them—discreetly—in my absence, it didn’t make it any
easier to cope with not having heard my mother’s voice in over a month.

As I changed my clothes and crawled into bed, I had to fight the urge to cry. Someday
this would all be over. I could hug my mom again. I could tease Damien about his crappy
taste in movies, and Mike about never getting married.

I could tell Dad what an asshole he was for trying to disown me, and then show him
that I wasn’t so different from the little girl whose bruised knees he had kissed
better.

It was a long, lonely time before I finally managed to get to sleep.