The Voodoo Killings (36 page)

I motioned for him to stop so I could rest awhile against a shop wall. It was a good question. Back to Cameron’s? With my luck, I’d run into Neon stalking the lobby. My place? Neon was one of my goddamn neighbours, but at least I’d be back on home turf. Thanks to a lack of funds to fix the deadbolt, I knew my door was un-pickable.

While I stood there trying to decide, Cameron’s phone rang. He removed it from his pocket and stared at the screen.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s Jayden. My drug dealer.” He answered. “Jayden? What’s up?” Out of reflex, he stepped towards a nearby alley. I swore and started to follow, but my phone chimed too.

“Don’t worry, K. I’ll watch him,” Nate said, and headed after Cameron into the blind alley as I tried to figure out how to silence the ringer on my phone.

Aaron.

I stared at the screen until Cameron reappeared, a perplexed look on his face. He frowned when he realized it was my phone making all the noise.

“Are you going to get that?” he asked.

“Not a chance,” I said. I turned the ringer off and shoved it back in my pocket.

“I want to stop by Jayden’s,” Cameron said.

I shook my head. “An hour ago I’d have been all for it, but not now. I need some rest, and I’m pretty sure you need more brains.”

“But I think something’s wrong,” he said. “Jayden never calls
me—we only ever text. And he never asks me to come over, which he just did.” Cameron shook his head. “He seemed eager.”

Nate snorted. “Your drug dealer’s eager? Big fucking surprise.”

Cameron shot Nate a dirty look. “He’s never been eager. Ever.”

“Cameron, neither of us is in any shape to be dealing with this,” I said.

“Can’t we just stop in and see if he’s okay? It’s practically on the way to your place.”

Practically? I felt my phone buzz with a text message. “Let me see what the hell Aaron wants while I—I don’t know—decide what the hell to do.”

Aaron’s message was to the point:
Kincaid, please call me back
.

Could he not take a goddamn hint? I called him back.

Aaron picked up on the first ring. “Kincaid.” There was relief in his voice. “Where are you?”

“Aaron, what the hell did I tell you?”

“I don’t have time for your identity breakdown. We need to talk.”

My identity breakdown?
“I told you to get yourself another damn practitioner and never call me again.” I hung up. Cameron and Nate were both staring at me.

“All right, where the hell does this dealer of yours live?”

—

Ever get the feeling you made the wrong choice? That’s what I was thinking as I followed Cameron up a warehouse stairwell a few blocks and a bad neighbourhood over from where I lived.

I heard scurrying ahead of us, as if large rats were trying to get out of the way. Bubonic plague, anyone?

I almost bowled into Cameron as he stopped in front of me.

“We’re here,” he said, hand on the second-floor exit door. Given Cameron’s deteriorating appearance, I had a sinking suspicion the smell in the stairwell was Cameron, not rats.

I pushed the door open a crack. The hallway, lit by flickering fluorescents, was deserted.

“Just remember, in and out,” I said.

Cameron nodded. “First a bar, now a visit to my old drug dealer. You realize this makes you the world’s worst sober companion?”

I ignored Cameron and knocked on the door of apartment 251, wondering what the hell I was getting us into.

The door edged open under my knocking. Both the deadbolt and the door handle turn lock had been removed. Anyone could waltz in.

“Does Jayden normally leave the door open?”

Cameron shook his head. “Jayden’s paranoid about locking the door. Obsessively paranoid.”

“Nate?” I said.

“Ahead of you, K.” A grey mist coalesced in front of me and slipped through the crack.

A minute later I felt the cold brush of Nate returning. “K, you’d better get in and see this.”

I pushed the door open and motioned for Cameron to stay close behind.

In contrast to the stained yellow carpets and 1970s wallpaper in the hallway, Jayden’s apartment was white pine floors and sills; minimalist white furniture added to the appeal. I caught the scent of coffee, not burnt yet but close. And something else, a metallic smell…

I stopped in the kitchen doorway, not sure what to make of the violent and visceral sight in front of me. By now I’d seen three Jinn kill sites, but never with the body still fresh.

Cameron swore behind me.

The Otherside had exploded, coating the kitchen walls and linoleum floor. The body was laid out face up with arms and legs spread. He’d probably been knocked unconscious first, considering there were no rope or ligature marks that I could see.

“This one is different from the others,” I said.

“It’s violent,” Nate said, and shook his head. “It looks like it belongs on my side of the barrier.”

Using my sleeve, I flipped on the light to get a better look. Jayden
was lying in a pool of water that also contained traces of Otherside. Unlike at the other murder scenes, this water had blood in it.

I stepped closer, careful to avoid the water, and crouched down. His grey sweatshirt was soaked with blood. Wrapping my hand in my sleeve, I reached for the hem of his shirt so I could see what had happened to his chest.

Cameron hissed a warning. “There’s someone else here.”

Nate whispered, “K, I checked, I swear—”

All three of us heard the creak of the floorboards. I made it into the living room in time to see Neon coming out of the bedroom. She frowned when she saw me, then a sneer spread across her face.

“You’re a lot faster than I thought.”

“I’m running into you everywhere, aren’t I?”

Neon bolted for the door.

Athletic I’m not. Never have been. So I fight dirty. I stuck my foot out and she hit the floor face first.

Neon snarled and pushed herself up in one fluid motion, a knife suddenly in her hand. I braced, hoping I could keep her the hell away from Cameron and my own flesh.

Neon torqued her head towards the window as if listening then darted towards me, knife first. I jumped back, but instead of pushing her advantage, she bolted past me and out the apartment door.

“What the—?” She’d had me here, unarmed, yet she’d been more concerned about getting away. I headed to the window. “Nate, Cameron, do you hear anything?”

Nate said, “Alarms in the distance.”

This time of night,
not
hearing sirens would have been out of the ordinary. Still…

Cameron went back into the kitchen and crouched over Jayden’s body. “If we had of gotten here sooner…”

I knelt beside him, careful to keep my knees out of the bloodstained water. “He’d still be dead, Cameron. He was dead before she made him call us.”

I lifted the sweatshirt. As a general rule I’m not one to ruin a crime scene, but I had to see what had been done to his chest. The
Jinn bindings had been carved straight into his flesh while he was still alive, then flooded with Otherside. From the traces left in the wounds, it looked as though the killer had got further this time; in all the other bodies, the bindings had been reduced to shrapnel. But it made no sense. Cameron’s drug dealer hadn’t been a practitioner. He hadn’t even been part of the paranormal community.

Unless that had never been the point. Maybe the fact that Jayden had been connected to Cameron was the point. The murder wasn’t one of the Jinn experiments. It was meant to draw attention to me and Cameron.

I felt the cold before Nate burst into the room. “K, hurry up! Cops out front and coming into the building.”

Shit. “Cameron, what’s the best way out of here? Cameron?”

He was staring at the carvings on Jayden’s chest. I grabbed his arm.

“There is nothing we could have done and there’s nothing you can do for him now, especially if the cops find out you’re a zombie. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“The bathroom window,” he said. “Jayden kept a rope in there for emergencies. It’s only a two-storey drop and the alley’s out of sight.”

“Go.
Now
,” I added when he didn’t move.

I ran to the bedroom. What had Neon been doing in here?

On the dresser for the world to see was a bag of sage and a mirror. There was even a piece of chalk and a bindings book. The mirror hadn’t been set, and the chalk was wrong for using with sage. Even so…

I flipped the book open. Rudimentary bindings. On the back was a stamp from the Pike Market practitioners shop.

“What?” Nate said, peering over my shoulder.

I held up the book. “Nate, she planted this. We’re being set up.”

We both heard the heavy steps coming up the stairwell. Nate swore. “K, get after Cameron.”

“Nate, you aren’t a poltergeist, you can barely hold a game controller—”

“For once in your goddamn life, will you trust me? Get down that rope and out of the alley fast. Go as far as First at least before doubling back to your place.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Lead them on one hell of a goose chase.” He picked up the only object on the dresser that had any weight to it, a black eight ball, and hefted it in his hand. “Always wanted to throw one of these,” he said.

I winced. I didn’t want to think how much Otherside he’d burn through doing that.

“If I burn fuel for nothing, I’m going to haunt you until you go nuts. Get out of here!” he said, and headed towards the front door with the eight ball. “Hey, asshole! Get a load of this!” I heard a crack as the eight ball hit the wall. Yelling and barked orders carried from outside the door as Nate whooped down the hallway.

I ran to the bathroom and lowered myself down the rope.

—

Cameron wasn’t complaining, but he was starting to move with the jerking motions of a zombie going through rigor mortis—basically, starvation. I’d made two calls and left two messages, one for Lee Ling and one for Max, both relating the same thing; “I know who’s behind the killings and we have a problem.”

I thought about calling Aaron and almost dialed twice. But the last time I’d seen him, he’d been having drinks with the killer. My mind told me there was no way Aaron was involved, that he couldn’t know, but my gut wouldn’t let me make the call. What was I supposed to tell him? By the way, you know that girl I accosted in front of you at Club 9? Your new informant? Yeah, she just lured me to a Jinn murder scene and fled while I was crouched over the body: she tried to frame me. Even
if
he believed me, Aaron’s hands would still be tied.

When we reached the alley behind my building, I let out a sigh of relief. No cop cars, no Aaron…

“We’ve got brains upstairs and I’ll see if I can patch up that wound. If I sew it shut until Max can fix it in the morning, you should feel better, at least.”

I heard something behind us and stopped. I searched the lamplit stretch, then pushed my Otherside sight—thank you, Gideon—to see if I could pick up a ghost. Nothing.

But there came the scrape again. I motioned for Cameron to stand behind me.

“Nate?” I whispered.

“No, not Nate, it’s me.” Aaron stepped under the street light.

“Jesus, Aaron, don’t sneak up on me like that. How long have you been standing there waiting for me?”

He shrugged. “Awhile. Just wanted to make sure you got home all right. Where’s Nate?”

I kept a straight face. “On the Otherside or stalking his ex would be my guess. Want me to call him so you can ask?”

Aaron shook his head.

Neon must have called him…and told him what? That she just happened to be walking by a murder scene and saw me run out of a building? Or that she had been standing innocently in a dead man’s apartment when I barged in?

“Aaron, I’m tired and I need to get Cameron settled in.”

“I told Morgan about your Jinn theory,” he said. I bristled, but he carried on. “She disagrees. She thinks it’s a practitioner using a ritual to make it easier to use Otherside. To avoid the sweats and nausea.”

I didn’t know what to say for a moment. Of all the dreamt-up garbage. She probably hadn’t known I knew about the Jinn until Aaron told her. All she’d figured I’d known about was Cameron, and how the hell his state played into the Jinn killings was beyond me at this point. Now she’d upped the ante, and it was Aaron’s fault. If I hadn’t managed to get out of the building, I would have been found at the scene in possession of a zombie. Even
if
Aaron had been on my side, he’d have had to question me….

She was good.

“Aaron, I studied for two years with Maximillian Odu, one of the most respected voodoo priests in North America. I’ve also probably helped solve more murder cases than any other practitioner in the Northwest, including Canada. Morgan works at a hobby shop. I’m
not convinced she can set a mirror properly. You’ve already got my notes and my analysis. In my professional opinion, Morgan is taking you for an idiot. Is there anything else?”

“She offered information,” Aaron said.

“Yeah, and I’d start asking why.” I turned away from him and unlocked the back door. Aaron stopped me and I felt Cameron tense beside me. I waved Cameron through. I could still handle this.

“You’re not telling me something,” Aaron said.

“And you’re being a self-righteous asshole.” How long had it taken me to go from love interest to suspect? A matter of hours? Less?

“Kincaid, I trust you. I’ve always trusted you, but you need to help me make sense of what the hell is going on. Please.”

That was like a slap in the face, as if he literally had said,
Whatever happens after this is on you, not me
.

But there was a pleading in his eyes and that
please
. I closed my eyes. Did I really want to keep this to myself? How was that turning out for me? Another person was dead by the Jinn killer, that’s how. I was out of my depth. When I opened my eyes, I’d just about made up my mind to tell Aaron everything.

And I might have if I hadn’t noticed the flash of Otherside in Aaron’s sedan. I narrowed my eyes as Neon stepped out.

How had she caught up with him so quickly? How could he be so blind?