The Voodoo Killings (34 page)

“So where are we meeting this girlfriend of yours, Cameron?” I shouted over the noise.

“Her name is Sybil. And we’ll bump into her eventually.”

“I thought you said you called her?”

“Texted. And she didn’t get back to me exactly. She’ll be here, though,” Cameron said.

At the top of the stairs I felt the first bead of sweat run down my neck. There were people, a lot of people spilling out of the doorway and crowding around the landing. Strobe lights mixed with the LEDs, and that somehow made the music louder. How was that even possible? I grabbed a free spot on the wall and closed my eyes as I tried to push the noise back.

I opened my eyes in time to see Cameron duck through the doorway and disappear into the strobe light mess.

Shit. I wiped another bead of cold sweat from my forehead and dove in after him.

The room was packed, and the lights bombarded the dance floor, competing with the music for my attention. A woman brushed up against me and I jumped, startled by the touch.

Cameron was suddenly in front of me. He was saying something. I watched his mouth, trying to focus. I felt hands grab my arms and I gasped again. What was he saying? I stared at him, trying to make out the words.

It was my name. He was calling my name.

Shit…

I reached out to grab the sleeves of Cameron’s jacket and closed my eyes. It was too much for me, I’d been using so much Otherside I’d burned my senses raw.

The noises got louder, sharper, demanding my attention.

Come on, Kincaid, you’ve done this before: shut it down. Slowly I began to peel the stimuli off my raw senses.

“What the fuck is going on?” I heard Cameron say, clearly this time.

I opened my eyes. “I’m just really tired. Lights are killer on an Otherside hangover.”

Cold air brushed my ear. “Yeah?” Nate whispered. “Then why the hell haven’t I ever seen you react this way before, K? I’m starting to think this is a real bad idea.”

Cameron let go of me, but he didn’t look convinced.

“Seriously, Cameron, I’m okay. The lights and noise caught me off guard, that’s all. We’ll look for Sybil then get the hell out.”

Cameron glanced around the bar and I watched his nostrils flare as he sniffed the air. He stopped when he realized what he was doing. Being in a place this packed with people couldn’t be good for him either.

“Find Sybil and get the hell out,” he repeated, and began pushing his way towards the bar. I followed close on his heels, acutely aware from the sideways glances just how out of place I was. I zipped up my jacket to hide my Led Zeppelin concert T.

More beads of sweat ran down the small of my back. No wonder I never came to places like this.

“Do you see Sybil?” I asked when we reached the bar, the quietest place in here, thank god.

Cameron shook his head. “Not yet, and she’s not answering my texts. We need to walk around.”

Yeah, not with my head like this. I scanned the room and spotted a free table with a decent view of the bar on the outskirts of the dance floor. “We can watch for her from there,” I said, pointing to the table.

“We won’t find her sitting down.”

I gritted my teeth. “All right, we’ll walk around.” I braced my shattered nerves against everything this place offered up, and followed him.

It took two laps for Cameron to finally spot her. “There,” he said, pointing to a table set in a private alcove.

Unlike the rest of us, Sybil looked exactly as she did in her photographs. Then again, that’s probably why she was a model. She was dressed in a strapless black dress, her blond hair draped over one shoulder. Just looking at the dress made me shiver.

At that moment she turned and spotted Cameron. Disbelief, shock and anger passed across her features before she smiled to mask them. She said something to a friend before getting up and striding towards us.

“I told you she wouldn’t be happy to see me,” Cameron said. “She doesn’t like surprises.”

She stopped inches in front of him and planted her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought we agreed not to see each other anymore.”

There’d been nothing in his personal correspondence mentioning a breakup with Sybil. From the look on his face, Cameron had no recollection of it either. He recovered fast, though. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything when I texted you that I’d stop by?”

“Because I thought you’d get the hint when I didn’t text you back.”

Even shooting daggers with her eyes, she was still gorgeous. Hunh—pretty even when you didn’t want to be. Somehow that struck me as more of a curse than most people would figure.

“And who the hell is she?” Sybil said, nodding in my direction. She took in my face, hair, outfit—or lack thereof. “If this is some attempt to make me jealous, it’s a pitiful one.”

Nate chimed in at my ear. “Whoa, that was low. Want me to ice her?”

“Not now, Nate,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Sybil—” Cameron started. But she didn’t let him finish.

“I’m not sure whether you’re trying to make me feel jealous or sorry for you. I mean,
look
at her.”

“Um, yeah, ouch,” I said. “Don’t mind me—I’m just the sober companion.”

That got me a second look. Her anger and contempt evaporated.

She turned back to Cameron, and in a softer voice said, “Look, I’m glad if you’re getting help, but it doesn’t change my mind. I’m still not going to see you.” She turned to walk away but shot me one last glance over her shoulder. “Good luck,” she said, nodding at Cameron. “You’ll need it.”

Cameron called after her, “Wait, Sybil. Why?”

Sybil kept walking straight for the bar. Cameron started after her, but I stepped in his way. He just about tripped over me. “Cameron, not a good idea right now.”

“I don’t remember anything. I never thought there was a problem.” His voice carried a cold edge. As I stared up into his face, I could see he was on the edge of a freak-out. A zombie freak-out.

Shit.

Cameron grabbed one of my wrists. “Kincaid, I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything.” His grip tightened and pain shot up my arm.

“Cameron—”

He looked right through me as he searched the faces around us. Anger, despair, fear…Okay, he was still here, but he was losing control fast.

Clenching my teeth against the ever-increasing pain in my wrist, I managed, “I can’t help you if you don’t let go of me.”

He glanced down, as if shocked to see he was hanging on so hard. He let go and took a step back.

I rubbed my wrist. Cameron looked shaken. To be honest, so was I; this was the second close call in a very short time frame. Fresh zombies do better with a task to complete. I decided to give Cameron one. “Are you steady enough to go get yourself a water at the other bar and make it back here? To this exact spot?” I didn’t need him staring at Sybil while I tried talking to her.

Confusion passed over Cameron’s face. I took his hand and gently pinched his skin. It took a full second to settle back. “You’re parched. You need water. As soon as you finish a glass, we’ll get you the hell out of here.”

“What about jogging my memory?” he said, sounding lost.

“It’s not worth risking you going off the rails. We’ll figure out something tomorrow with Max.”

Cameron nodded.

Nate whispered by my ear, “I’ll follow him, K, and let you know if things go belly up. Not that it’ll help much—you’ll probably hear the screaming first.”

I nodded. “Try to make sure he doesn’t come back while I’m talking to Sybil.”

I watched until Cameron was speaking to the bartender, then took a deep breath and headed over to Sybil, the only person in the entire club who knew what the hell Cameron had been doing last Thursday night. She was still at the bar, and still thankfully on her own. I tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me. Sybil?”

Surprise flitted across her face, followed closely by irritation. I almost retreated right there and then. Come on, rudimentary social skills, don’t fail me now. I said, “Can I have a seat?”

She frowned, but nodded at the adjacent stool. “Cameron should have told you we broke up. To be honest, I’m happy he’s finally getting professional help.” She took a sip of her drink. “I’m not upset with Cameron, just tired of the bullshit. The drugs, the stupidity, the lies. I only saw him last Thursday to tell him it was over in person. I didn’t want to say that sort of thing over the phone.”

I don’t know what exactly I’d pictured from her photos: mean, nasty, vindictive, acutely aware of the effect her appearance had on people? Composed, calm and sympathetic hadn’t made the list. And I’m the one who can’t stand people who judge me by my cover.

She didn’t even really seem that angry, more disappointed. Kind of the way Aaron had looked at me lately…

I decided to go a route I don’t normally take: the truth.

“Look, Cameron didn’t mean to upset you, either. He’s got amnesia: he can’t remember a damn thing from last week. As part of his”—shit, what would a real sober companion say?—“therapy,” I went with, “I’m trying to help him piece together what happened.”

Sybil’s face flooded with concern. “I hope he wasn’t in an accident.”

I shook my head. “We figure it’s due to his recreational activities.” Nice phrase, Kincaid, very professional. “I was hoping that you could tell me what happened when you saw him the last time. We’re trying to piece together what he’s missing.”

Sybil drained her glass. “Of course I’ll help. I just hope it has nothing to do with me calling things off.” Not that killers don’t lie, but Sybil sure wasn’t coming across as the homicidal ex-girlfriend.

“I’m thinking it has more to do with what he was taking.”

“I met Cameron twice last week. On Monday night I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. He took it as well as could be expected. We’d already agreed to be seen here together, on Thursday, so we came as planned and had our photographs taken….” She frowned, as if remembering something unpleasant.

“Was there anything odd about that night? How was Cameron behaving?”

Sybil chewed her bottom lip. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but a woman followed Cameron around for most of the night. I thought it was because we weren’t together much, and maybe she picked up on an opportunity. Pretty, dressed nicely. But she was very persistent, and she was about the last person Cameron wanted to talk to. At one point they had words.”

“Do you know what they were arguing about?”

Sybil shook her head. “I wasn’t close enough to hear, and Cameron left shortly after that.”

So Cameron had got into a fight with a groupie.

“Do you remember anything more about what the woman looked like?” If I got a good-enough description, I might be able to get Aaron or Sarah to run a check for me.

She nodded. “She was slim, and wore an expensive dress. Cameron’s type. Which was why I was surprised he wasn’t interested. Except for the pink hair.”

A chill ran down my spine. What were the chances of two pink-haired women being so interested in Cameron?

I thanked Sybil and she gave me her number in case anything else came up. Cameron had really screwed himself over by screwing it up with this woman, not that I’d ever tell him that….Speaking of Cameron, he was still at the other end of the bar, talking to people. Normal. I headed for him, then stopped dead. Was that Aaron sitting at one of the tables? I strained to see past the dancers. It couldn’t be Aaron. He didn’t hang out at places like this.

I felt a tug at my elbow, and turned.

“Ms. Kincaid Strange, I presume?” It was an older man, late forties or early fifties, with close-cropped white hair and a lean physique. He smiled, showing perfect teeth, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Samuel Richan, Cameron’s art dealer. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, and what’s more, how did he know who I was?

I got over my shock as fast as my Otherside hangover and frayed nerves allowed. “Mr. Richan—”

The corner of his eye twitched when I addressed him by name. “Samuel is fine,” he said, the smile never dropping. He extended a hand and I reluctantly shook it, catching a glimpse of the scars running along the backs of his hands and wrists. It was all I could do not to pull back.

He said, “Pleasure to meet you, Kincaid. May I call you that?”

A shiver travelled up my spine. “I prefer Ms. Strange, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Indulge me,” he said.

Now I knew why Richan had been so damned successful predicting art trends over the years. I’d seen scars like the ones on his wrists only once before: on a soothsayer Max had introduced me to.

Soothsaying sounds pretty harmless, and that’s the treatment it gets in popular culture. Trust me, it’s about as far from harmless as a shark is from a goldfish. Just like practitioners and mediums, soothsayers bind Otherside and talk to ghosts. It’s rare, but every now and then a ghost gets confused and starts jumping through time, a bit like getting on and off the train without knowing your stop. If you could find one of these ghosts and convince it to add direction to the nonsensical time jumps, well, you had one hell of a fortune teller. Provided, that is, you could get the ghost to come back. That’s where the scars come in. Soothsayers bind ghosts. It’s an unpleasant business that turns the ghosts into little more than vapid shells, one of the reasons Nate tried so hard to stay under the radar. To my mind, soothsaying is the closest thing the paranormal community has to black arts.

Shit, where the hell
was
Nate? He wouldn’t be much use to a soothsayer, but he was worth his living weight in gold to his old bandmates and a few record companies.

Richan stepped close and leaned down to my ear. “Please don’t tell Cameron I was here. I have no wish to see him. I have a general distaste for the undead.” He gave me another wide smile and sent another shiver through me, then added, “I assure you I have no more than a passing interest in you or your ghost. I was just curious.”

I glanced down at his scars and chose my next words carefully. “And what would you know about Cameron’s new state?”

He shrugged. “One day Cameron was an artist of some renown, the next day he was not. I didn’t quite believe Miranda when she told me, as she can be quite scattered. That was why I had to come see for myself.”