Darkyn - Private Demon Part 2

Jaus wondered how much of that they had left together. Gregor had served as his tresora for seven decades, ever since losing his parents to the n.a.z.i occupation of Austria. Tresori pledged to serve the jardin until death, but at a certain age retirement usually became a necessity. Had the time come so soon?

Jaus paused and rested a hand on the old man's shoulder. The scent of camellias filled the night air. "Why have you not seen your doctor?"

"My doctor wears braces on his teeth," Sacher said mildly. "I am not quite sure he has finished pa.s.sing through p.u.b.erty yet. Such things do not inspire my faith in his judgment." He glanced down at Jaus's hand. "You had only but to ask, master."

"Forgive me. I worry about you." Jaus removed his hand to input the pa.s.s code on the entry door's keypad, releasing the electronic lock. One of the four bodyguards escorting them opened the door while two took position on either side of it. "It is a pity Cyprien's leech remains with him in New Orleans. She is a gifted healer."

"That woman." Gregor sighed and shook his head. "She frightens me more than the doctor with braces." He checked his watch. "I will have Wilhelm come in and attend to his schoolwork now. I hope his head is clear enough to cope with calculus, for mine, I fear, will never be." With a bow, the elderly servant left Jaus.

Valentin walked through the cool white lights and stark shadows of his home. He had commissioned three different construction firms to demolish the decrepit eighteenth-century mansion that had formerly occupied the lakefront property and had Derabend Hall built to his own exact specifications. The loss of the historic landmark house at first scandalized the city along with his wealthy neighbors, until its replacement rose from the ashes. Derabend Hall, a towering castle of black granite and gray slate, dominated the landscape. The finished product caused Valentin to be hailed as an architectural renegade and visionary by Chicago's elite.

No one realized he had simply reproduced a modern version of his family's fortress in the Austrian Tirol. The original, Schloss Jaus, had long vanished, reduced to ruins by Napoleon's forces and then dust by succeeding wars and time.

Bright colors, cheerful patterns, and most of the clutter of the modern world annoyed Jaus, so he commissioned an interior design firm to furnish his new home sparingly in solid black, white, and silver. One of the designers published photographs of Derabend Hall's stark rooms, which set off a minimalist, colorless trend in interior design that swept the nation. It was then that Jaus stopped employing humans outside the jardin to indulge his preferences, as the exposure made his already nervous jardin rather paranoid.

The only color indulgence Jaus permitted himself was the midnight blue used in his bedroom and office. The latter was a large and efficient works.p.a.ce with the very latest in information processing and storage technology. His computer database, a prototype designed personally for him by a billionaire software mogul, collected data from a hundred different sources for a.n.a.lysis, and could track the whereabouts and activities of anyone he chose to monitor.

Information was the shield of the modern man. The more one possessed, the better protected one fought.

Jaus pulled up his mainframe screen at the same time he picked up his phone and connected to the line that had been placed on hold. "Seigneur Cyprien, this is an unexpected honor."

"Suzerain Jaus, the honor is mine," Michael said, "but time, alas, is not."

"We shall move directly to business, then." Jaus sat down in his favorite leather chair. "How may I serve, my lord?"

"One of Jofferoin's scouts spotted Thierry Durand in Memphis six days ago. The scout tried to track him, but lost him in Copley Square." Michael paused. "Evidently he is using the homeless and unfortunate as camouflage."

Jaus remembered Cyprien's description of the injuries inflicted on Durand by the Brethren, an organization of former priests who had been hunting, torturing, and killing the Darkyn since they first became vrykolakas. "He is still in such a condition? I had thought Dr. Keller's treatment successful."

"She repaired the damage to his body, but not that inflicted upon his mind," Michael told him. "Thierry came to clarity briefly when he discovered, as we did, that Angelica was the traitor among us. I fear his wife's betrayal may have since finished what the Brethren started."

"If he can use cover and evade a tracker, then he is not completely mad." Jaus pulled up a map of the United States and drew a line from the city of New Orleans to Memphis. The direction was unmistakable. "You believe he travels here, to Chicago."

"When Thierry left New Orleans, he took with him the file of data that you collected on the men who attacked Alexandra's patient, Ms. Lopez," Michael said. "He perhaps seeks vengeance."

Jaus, who had fought alongside Thierry Durand more times than he could count, sighed. "He never would tolerate anyone who threatened or harmed a female. Even in the times when swine were regarded as more valuable than women. I've always admired that about him."

"As have I." The seigneur's voice changed. "He must be taken, Val. Taken alive and brought back to New Orleans. I will send you a supply of the drug Alexandra has developed. It will render him helpless."

"The Saracens attempted to do the same, many times. Do you remember it?" Jaus sat back and rubbed his eyes.

"They always sought to capture the largest and strongest of us on the battlefield. How often did we watch Durand cut them down where they stood?"

"I cannot say."

"He was like a scythe through new wheat." Jaus gazed at the only photo in his room, a snapshot framed in crystal.

It was the only photo that existed of Valentin Jaus. In it, he sat in a rocking chair, with a dark-haired toddler sleeping in his arms. "He will do the same to the police, or anyone who tries to drug him."

"Agreed, but we are the only ones who can stop him. The tranquilizer will help."

Jaus didn't have confidence in Cyprien's leech or her drugs, but with the proper precautions, he might lure Durand into a trap. "It will be as you wish."

"Use whatever you need. If it is mine to give, you have but to ask." Cyprien sounded rushed now. "I must go, old friend, but keep me apprised of the situation. Adieu."

Jaus hung up the phone and called in one of his guards. "Have Falco report to me as soon as he is finished with the men." When the guard left, he picked up the phone and called the newest of the American suzerains, one whose council he trusted as much as Michael Cyprien's. It was the only thing, however, he trusted about him.

"It is Jaus. I need some advice." He explained the situation. "You brought him out of Dublin. How will it be?"

"I had to swaddle Durand in copper chains simply to remove him from the Brethren's playroom. They'd broken his legs, crushed his feet, and cooked him in more than a few places, and still he tried to tear off my head." Lucan, High Lord Tremayne's former chief a.s.sa.s.sin as well as Michael Cyprien's oldest adversary, smothered a yawn. "We have all seen the magnificent work performed by Cyprien's lovely little surgeon. Durand will now be very healthy, very strong-and mad as Monte Cristo."

"Yes."

"You need no advice from me, Valentin," Lucan said. "You already know what you must do. Kill him."

Jema stopped at a pay phone to call the coroner's office, and after receiving the details sat for a few minutes, debating whether to return to Shaw House or continue on to her night job. Meryl would be in bed now, and Dr. Bradford never waited up for her. The usual confrontation would be delayed until the morning, when her mother would interrogate her over the breakfast table.

Where were you? Meryl often checked with the museum to learn when Jema had left, so she wouldn't be able to answer that one honestly. How late did you arrive home? That would have to be tailored to match Jema's first response.

Have you no consideration for the feelings of others? That would be her cue to apologize for causing her mother to worry, which would not satisfy Meryl, but was still expected.

Jema wished she could tell Meryl about her secret life. I work for the coroner's office, Mother. I process crime scenes at night.

I collect and identify unusual trace evidence. I make reports to the police. In a way, I help them catch the killers.

Meryl's reaction would certainly be swift, negative, and inescapable. You're a Shaw. Shaws do not work for anyone.

Feeling disgusted with herself, Jema drove downtown to the crime scene, a private courtyard park maintained for the residents of an exclusive condominium. Showing her ID helped her past the uniformed officers securing the perimeter, but it didn't impress the homicide detective supervising the forensics team.

"Shaw? You took your sweet time getting here." Detective Stephen Newberry held out a hand for her ID. His bland face and spare, narrow frame might have belonged to an English teacher, but the hard blue eyes were all cop. "Get caught in rush hour?"

"I just got home from my day job, Detective," she said, handing him the badge issued to her by the coroner's office.

He studied it with an insulting thoroughness. "I came here as soon as I received and confirmed the page." After an internal debate of no more than ten or fifteen minutes, she amended silently. "We've been waiting twenty minutes for you," Newberry told her. His short, copper hair drained the color from his pale face, while the deeply etched lines around his eyes and mouth added ten years to his age. "Maybe you could drive a little faster next time. I'll mention it to your boss."

"I'm an independent consultant contracted by the coroner's office, Detective, not a county employee," Jema said as she put on protective shoe covers and the plastic garment shroud that would keep her from depositing fibers near the body. "If you want to get me in trouble, you'll have to speak with the owner of Shaw Museum. Would you like my mother's telephone number?"

"That's okay. I've got too much foot in my mouth right now." Newberry escorted her through the gauntlet of forensic techs and crime scene investigators until they reached the body. "You already worked a few of these, right?"

"Yes." Jema smiled a little. "I was initially consulted by the Chicago coroner's office when an importer was found murdered. The killer had stabbed him to death with what appeared to be an ancient Spartan dagger. I identified the weapon as a fake, but I also found an archaic Greek symbol traced in the blood near the body. That led to the arrest of a well-known collector. Apparently the importer sold him several fakes."

"Being able to identify old blades doesn't get you a job with the coroner's office," Newberry said.

"No, but having a degree in forensic science and being willing to work part-time at night does." She stopped as she saw the victim.

The nude body of a man lay facedown on the brown gra.s.s. The back of the head bore a depression wound so severe it had distorted the entire skull, and the rest of the body showed signs of an extended, ruthless beating.

Jema dealt with death on a daily basis while cataloging artifacts, many of which were funerary objects found in graves and tombs. Yet the dried, brittle femur of a n.o.bleman's household retainer, ritually sacrificed a thousand years before the birth of Christ, did not in any way compare to seeing the brutalized body of a man who had been alive only a few hours ago.

It was real. It was hideous. It could not be reasoned away.

"I'm told constant exposure eventually enables one to maintain an emotional distance," she said, clenching her hands in her pockets. "How long does that take?"

"About fifty years, give or take a couple of decades," Newberry said, his mouth tight. "It helps if you drink."

Jema pulled on a pair of latex gloves and removed a paper evidence bag from her packet. The detective stayed back as she first walked around the body, and then paused and looked intently at the gra.s.s and soil. "There isn't enough blood. He probably wasn't killed here."

"That was our take." Newberry gestured toward a number of small evidence flags planted in a patch of soil three feet from the body. "No footprints from the tire tracks. Maybe dumped from the back of a pickup truck that came through the maintenance entrance." He sounded vaguely surprised, as if he hadn't expected her observation.

"Did he work or live near here?" Jema knew murders were often committed close to or inside the victim's place of employment or home.

"He managed a convenience store six blocks over." Newberry came closer. "His night-shift clerk was the last one to see him alive, two days ago. He left the store at ten p.m. and never made it home."

"The body landed faceup; it was turned over." Jema pointed to patches of soil on the back and legs. "They wanted him facedown for some reason." She crouched and used a pair of tweezers to extract a minute amount of short brown hair from the tangle of gra.s.s near the still right foot. "This could be animal hair. Anyone walking a dog through here tonight?"

"No. The building doesn't allow pets. We'll double-check when we canva.s.s the building, see if anyone's been breaking the rules." Newberry took the evidence bag from her, marked it, and handed it off to a waiting tech, to whom he said, "If the photographer's through, let's get some guys over here to lift and bag him."

Jema eyed the arrangement of the limbs, the condition of the fingernails, and the patches of scalp showing through the thick dark hair. "He fought back while he could, but he was tied up at some point. The marks on his wrists indicate they used rope or cord." As the technicians flipped him, Jema looked at the victim's face. It was Asian, young, and badly swollen and lacerated. "Dear G.o.d."

A knife had been used to carve a swastika into the victim's face. The cuts were so deep that bone showed through.

Light flashed as the scene photographer snapped several stills of the victim's facial wounds. Newberry got on his cell phone and began to pace as he reported to his superiors. Jema concentrated on inspecting the front of the body, but her eyes kept straying to the terrible symbol that had been cut across the young man's face.

"You finished?" the detective asked her after finishing his call.

"Almost." She found bits of tissue in the gra.s.s and carefully retrieved them to give to one of the techs. "I'd check it against the wounds on the inside of his mouth."

Now Newberry looked dumbfounded. "How do you know that?"

"The teeth marks present on the outer lip. He bit it repeatedly, and probably did the same to his tongue and the sides of his cheeks. He was trying not to scream." She bent down and removed a few more hairs from the front of the man's battered chest. "These match what I found in the gra.s.s, but they aren't dog or cat hair; they're too coa.r.s.e and thick, almost like wool."

"We'll send them to the FBI labs," Newberry said, although he didn't sound happy about it. "They should tell us something in a week or two."

"I know a local anthropologist who specializes in identifying faunal remains. She can compare these to her database and determine what species they are, as well as run DNA," Jema offered. "The turnaround would be a day, maybe two."

The detective looked at the body. "I'll clear it with my captain first. If we use your expert, we'll need copies of all the reports, and the samples will have to be returned to the SOC unit." Detective Newberry handed her a clipboard with a form, which she signed, showing that she had been present at the crime scene. "You said he tore up his mouth, trying not to scream. Why?"

She'd said too much, "it's only an observation, and I could be wrong."

"But?"

"I worked with a number of Asian college students on summer internships at the museum. One dropped the end of a heavy crate on his foot and broke three toes, and yet he didn't make a sound." She watched the morgue orderlies lower the victim into an open body bag. "Some Asian cultures consider a show of pain demeaning."

"They beat him to death, but he bites through his lip to keep from crying out, because that's worse?" Newberry sounded incredulous.

Jema tried not to flinch as the morgue body bag was zipped shut. "If you knew you were going to die, Detective, wouldn't you hold on to whatever pride you could?"

"I'd rather shout and get someone's attention, so I didn't have to die. Not like this." Detective Newberry gave her a narrow look. "You talk about death like you've got some kind of personal experience."

She would, soon enough. "The dead are my business."

Chapter 3.

Thierry Durand knew he was mad. His derangement didn't frighten him. It made a place in the world for him, and gave him purpose. No battle was ever won by wholly sane men. Every great family had a bat or two in the attics; every village had an idiot. He had never been defeated by anything, not the Saracens, not the Brethren, not the crazy woman he had loved. He would not surrender to madness.

Surviving it...

He thrust a hand under the shredded remains of his shirt. Blood no longer oozed from the wounds in his belly and ribs, but they were not closing. They were too many and too close together. If he did not wish his insides to spill out and drag along the street, he would have to hunt.

Hunt, when he was the hunted.

He had put enough distance between him and the dead thief to feel relatively safer, but he could not roam this part of the city covered in blood and garbage. The whirling red and blue lights of police ears had sent him into the shadows of this alley to hide, and within a few moments there were more. That was when he discovered the alley had no exit, and he was trapped. As he braced himself against one wall, prepared to defend himself, the police sped past. It took a moment for him to understand that he was not their object.

Once the street cleared, Thierry edged down the wall to have a look. The black-and-white cars, lights still flashing, had congregated outside one of the tall, elegant buildings on the opposite end of the street. It had to be a serious crime for so many to come, but they were not here for him. Some of the patrolmen were setting up barricades, others walking up and down the street to speak to the humans who were coming out of other buildings.

If he stepped out of the alley, he would be seen. They would not question him. They would see him covered in gore and filth, and they would try to take him. Or shoot him. He couldn't risk being challenged by humans, not in his present state.

He would have to wait until they had gone.

Thierry settled behind a stack of flattened paper boxes and watched the rats as the light drove them to find sanctuary. That was what he truly needed now: a house or place of business where he could wash, rest, and not be seen by human eyes. But here, in Chicago, the people of the city lived like every day would be their last, never opening their doors, never unlocking their windows.

The city was a fist, squeezed too tightly against him.

Light-headed and cold, Thierry closed his eyes and put a protective arm over his belly. With his other hand he drew his dagger. His hand felt empty without the blade, and he could never rest unless he held it ready. He had owned many daggers during his long life, but this one was special to him. It had been a gift from Tremayne, who had shown him how to use it two hundred years ago, after Thierry and Michael had helped him escape Rome.

If you are taken and there is no hope of escape, thrust it here. Thierry could still feel the brush of Tremayne's distorted hand on the back of his neck. One quick stroke, to cut through. It is the same as losing your head.

Thierry would have done so when the Brethren had come for him in France, but he had been sleeping with his wife, Angelica, and that was the only time he went naked of clothes and weapons.

She had known this. She had told them.

Coming to Chicago and hunting the men who had harmed Luisa Lopez had kept him from drowning in his madness. He could read English and had understood what had happened to the girl as soon as he had opened the file.

Luisa had been tortured by the Brethren. Cyprien would not know this; he had not witnessed the s.a.d.i.s.tic ways the monks worked on humans. Thierry had. So he had set out on the journey, certain that this would serve as his penance for attacking Alexandra, who had only tried to help him, and to pay back the Brethren, who had destroyed his life as well as his body.

A light-colored convertible drew parallel to the alley and parked across the street from it rather than going farther down to the crime scene. His attention sharpened when he saw the human female who stepped out alone in the dark.

She was young, thin, and dark, a little cat of a woman. From the way she moved, she was out of her territory, alert for danger. She had her gaze fixed on the police lights, however, and was ignoring everything else around her.

Like him.