Darkyn - Private Demon Part 24

Working at the Haven was not that much different from the homeless mission John had managed as a priest at St.

Luke's.

The clients were younger, but in most cases no different from the b.u.ms, drunks, prost.i.tutes, and addicts who had lined up outside St. Luke's satellite soup kitchen for hot meals three times each week.

I accepted this position because I felt I could help many of the Haven's clients with the myriad emotional problems that evolved from being young, homeless, and alone in the world. Having personally experienced life on the streets, I also have the unique perspective of having survived it. I would have used this to relate to the children and gain their trust; however, I have been unsuccessful in finding an avenue of communication-

No, that wasn't the truth. He'd tried everything he could think of. Individual and group counseling, formal and informal. Food was always an attention getter, so he tried snacks. He was getting to be a whiz with homemade cereal bars, but the kids at the Haven weren't letting him in. They didn't want to hear his unique perspective. They wanted Cocoa Krispies treats. They couldn't care less what he wanted to do about their myriad emotional problems.

One client had summed it up with devastating succinctness: Who the f.u.c.k are you to be getting in my s.h.i.t, man?

John had sensed the futility of his efforts from the beginning. The older kids would simply walk away. Pure and occasionally some of the younger children would pretend to listen, but they were more interested in getting a handle on him, or getting something out of him. The younger kids wanted protection; Pure wanted John to help her keep her baby, about which she still hadn't told Brian.

The fact that both the Brethren and the Darkyn knew where he was didn't help John settle in at the Haven. He had hardly slept since Cyprien and his man had paid him a visit, and Hurley still made sarcastic remarks about the men he called John's friends.

Are your friends coming over tonight? I'll call the National Guard. Your friends owe me a new meat cleaver; they broke the tip of the blade on my old one when they threw it at you. Hear any death threats from your friends lately?

He hadn't heard anything from the Darkyn, Hightower, or Alexandra, and that was another lead weight around his neck. He wanted to know if his sister had recovered from the attempt on her life, but he couldn't bring himself to find a way to contact her. She was part of Cyprien's world now, as lost to him as he had been to her during the long months he'd spent in prison. John mentally ripped up resignation number thirteen. He couldn't afford to quit his job at the Haven, for obvious reasons. For many reasons, including Pure and her baby.

He was going to save someone, somehow, even if it was simply that single unborn child.

He went to the kitchen, where he had unearthed one of Hurley's old coffeemakers. It was incredible how many layers of brown sludge stains Dougall had built up on the inside of the gla.s.s carafe. John was trying to scrub them away when Sandy, one of the long-term residents, came in to warn him that two cops had arrived and were in the office questioning Hurley.

"Three Bones got cut up downtown," the girl told him. "I bet that's why they're ha.s.sling him. Anyway, they want to talk to you too."

"Three Bones?"

"Skins. You know, skinheads? 'White is right,' all that s.h.i.t? Crazed and confused." Sandy twirled a finger by her temple as a visual aid. "Hurley used to run the Bones."

"Hurley was a gang leader?" John was stunned. The archbishop had said Dougall had been a priest. How could he have possibly been ordained if he'd been a street thug? Even before the present focus on priests' criminal behavior, the Catholic Church had maintained some standards. "You must be mistaken, Sandy."

Sandy snorted. "Why you think he's always going on about sticking with your own color?" She picked at a pimple on the side of her mouth. "Pure's gone, at least."

"Pure left the shelter?"

"Yeah, Decree came last night and took her. They never came back. Maybe they got into it with the boys." The girl examined the dot of pus on her fingernail. "Decree belongs to the Bones. He's, like, second in command now."

John rinsed out the carafe and dried his hands before he walked over to Hurley's office. The shelter manager had his door open and waved John in to join him and the two plain-clothes detectives sitting inside.

"John Keller, my resident counselor," he told the cops. "John, the police would like to know if we have any information or leads on three kids who were knifed to death downtown last night. I was just telling them that we aren't missing any of our gangsters."

One of the detective took out a notepad. "Keller, John. Any middle name?"

"Patrick."

He nodded and scribbled that down. "Where were you between the hours of ten and eleven P.M. last night?"

"I was sleeping in my room. It's in the back of the kitchen." The room Hurley had allocated for John was roughly the same size as his quarters at the rectory at St. Luke's, but it was clean and the kids hadn't yet figured out how to pick the new lock that John had installed on the door.

"Alone?" the other detective asked, his expression bored.

"Yes, alone." John frowned. "May I ask to what these questions pertain?"

"Doesn't he talk beautiful?" Hurley asked one of the cops. "He can do it all f.u.c.king day, too."

"We're trying to establish where everyone was that night, Mr. Keller." The first cop nodded toward Hurley. "Your boss was also sleeping, alone, in his room."

"It was nighttime," Hurley said. "People do sleep at night."

The questions continued, with the detectives asking for information on known gang members staying at the Haven. Hurley joked and shrugged when they asked for names. John didn't know the residents well enough to contribute any useful information.

The bored detective caught a yawn with his hand. "You're sure you have no records on Roland Riegler, Gary O'Donnell, or Lawrence Kunde?"

"I'll check my files again, Officer," Hurley offered, "but they still won't be there."

"Call us if they materialize unexpectedly," the first cop said, handing Hurley a business card. He glanced up at John.

"Have you anything to add?"

John shook his head. After the detectives left, Hurley dropped the cop's card into his trash can. "a.s.sholes."

"Why did they come here?" John went over to help himself to Hurley's coffee while it was still in liquid form. After the questioning, he felt he deserved it.

"Sandy didn't tell all?" Hurley clucked his tongue. "The kids who got stabbed are members of my old street gang, the Bones."

John turned around. "You were a skinhead? Before or after you became a priest?"

"Before." The shelter manager laughed. "Man, I couldn't wait to be a skinhead. Anything to give me an excuse to shave this s.h.i.t off." He shook back his dreadlocks with the practiced aplomb of a bombsh.e.l.l blonde. "I'm not saying it was a good choice. I had the usual s.h.i.tty childhood. My mom took off, and my dad took it out on me. I started living wherever I could, and fell in with the Bones. They didn't care about my hair or clothes, and they made me proud to be poof, white, and stupid. Took a couple of years of ducking drive-bys, getting n.a.z.i tattoos and marching with the tri- Ks, but I outgrew the Bones and the movement. Same thing with the priesthood. I'm more into Pilates now."

"I can't imagine you as a priest, but I have no problem picturing you as a white supremacist," John said blandly. "I don't know why. Perhaps it's the holdover vocabulary."

Hurley's grin faded. "I take in little s.h.i.ts like the Bones seven days a week, Oreo, but in case you haven't noticed, I take the rest of the rainbow too. Sure, I used to Sieg Heil with the best of them, but I got over it."

"You still don't think the races should mix," John pointed out. "And you're very forthright with your att.i.tude."

"That's because the mixed kids are the ones who suffer. They don't know what they are; they don't belong anywhere, and no one wants them. So yeah, I don't think we should f.u.c.k around with Nature's palette. I thought the Catholics would understand, but they didn't. That doesn't make me a n.a.z.i, you know, and at least I can sleep at night."

John stiffened. "Meaning?"

"How long you been pa.s.sing yourself off as lily white, man? Not going out in the sun so you don't get too dark, am I right? Keep your hair short so no one spots the kink? Talking like you eat Shakespeare and s.h.i.t Susanna Clarke?"

Hurley made a disgusted sound. "You might think you're better than me because you keep your prejudice inside, but we're the same." He produced a nasty smile. "The only difference is, I'm white on both sides, in and out."

John started composing resignation number fourteen as he left Hurley's office. To Whom It May Concern. A racist Irishman has just made me aware that I am as bigoted as he is. Please excuse me from working with people of different skin colors until I can achieve an att.i.tude adjustment. I do not wish to be a n.a.z.i.

"Entschuldigen Sie."

John looked up at into the dark eyes of the man who had come to the shelter with Cyprien. He backed up slowly.

"Einen moment, bitte." The man drew a knife and let John see it. Then he pointed toward the front of the building.

"Come with me. To the car. Now, please, and quiet."

John couldn't risk having the man chase him or cut him up inside the building. Not in front of the children. Once he was on the street he could run, lure him away from the Haven.

"Yes." He walked like a robot toward his imminent death.

The vampire didn't turn to ash when they walked outside into the bright sunlight, but he did don a pair of trendy sungla.s.ses. He sheathed his knife and pointed to a long, dark limousine waiting at the end of the street. "Go to the car."

"Go to h.e.l.l." John took off in the opposite direction.

He'd always been a good runner. Carrying things up and down the Haven's stairs had toned his legs, and fear provided excellent impetus. John hadn't hit his top speed, though, when a big hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and spun him around.

"The car is this way," the vampire said through clenched teeth. "You will go now, please."

John went, marched to the limousine by the bigger man as if he were a truant child. The vampire didn't let go of him even when he opened the door to the back of the limo.

Alexandra Keller, her left arm in a sling, leaned out. "It's me, big brother. Get in." The vampire helped John with the latter, a little too forcefully, and he ended up sprawled facedown on the leather seat opposite Alex.

"Thank you, Falco," she said to the vampire before he closed the door and went to the driver's seat. "Sorry about that. He's, um, enthusiastic."

John pushed himself up and looked at his sister. "Why didn't you just call?"

"I tried. The line's always busy. I didn't think you wanted me to show up asking for you at your job."

There were definite changes in the six months since he'd last spoken to her. Alexandra's hair, a curly mane of dark brown, was pulled up and away from her face and twisted in an elegant style. She wore a dress, something he couldn't remember her doing since high school, and the understated burgundy silk made the solid gold chain around her throat gleam. No makeup, not that Alexandra had ever needed any. She looked better, happier.

John let the indignation and pleasure over what he saw fight inside him until she said, "You look like s.h.i.t, John.

What's with this beard?"

He touched the short hair covering the lower half of his face before he remembered that he and his sister weren't on the same side any longer. They weren't even the same species. "What's with sending the Terminator to abduct me?" he countered.

"This isn't an abduction. We use drugs when we kidnap people." She used one hand to fasten her seat belt. "This is just a ride around the block and a chat."

"Cyprien told me that you'd been hurt." He nodded toward her shoulder. "Why is your arm in a sling? I thought you healed instantly."

"That's the reason for the chat." She gave her sling a wry look. "All things dark and spooky aren't exactly going according to plan. My mutation is different than theirs was."

"Your mutation." John knew his sister had read a lot of comic books when she was younger, but he never expected to hear her talking as if she were part of one. "Did Professor X tell you that, or Batman?"

Alexandra laughed. "Good one, Johnny." She leaned over and pressed an intercom b.u.t.ton. "Park it somewhere, will you, Falco? Thanks."

She waited until the vampire had stopped the limousine on a side street by an abandoned building before she picked up her medical case from the floor. "The main reason I came to see you, John, was to ask for a favor."

He eyed the case. He had never understood his sister's calling any more than she had understood his. "What is it?"

"I need a little blood from you."

He flinched, revolted. "You couldn't get it from someone else?"

She frowned and then it dawned on her. "I'm not going to drink it, John. For G.o.d's sake. You're my brother." She made it sound as if he'd asked her to have s.e.x with him. "I need a blood sample to run some tests."

"Ask someone else."

"I'm researching the cause of the Kyn's condition, and since I'm the only one who's survived the contagion in five centuries, my blood is integral," she said. "I don't have any samples of my own prior to infection, so yours is the next best thing."

He imagined his sister turning other humans into vampires. "Is this so you can infect other people? Do you expect me to help you?"

"No. I'm going to find a cure. You can help with that."

"A cure. For vampirism."

"The Darkyn are vampires only in the sense that they have fangs, are nocturnal, and live on human blood," she told him. "They heal faster. They're stronger." She started to say something else, and then changed her mind. "That's about it."

He rolled a hand over the sore spot on the back of his neck where Falco had grabbed it. "That is the textbook definition of a vampire, Alexandra."

"Look, big brother." Her voice acquired an edge. "All I'm asking for is a sample. One vial of blood. Then I'll go away and you can go back and save kiddie souls and make excuses to G.o.d." "I'm not a priest any longer." He looked down at his hands. They were rough and red from the hours he'd spent on his knees, scrubbing floors instead of praying. "I only made it official when I came back into town, but I left the church seven months ago."

"I'm sorry." And she was, when John had expected her to cheer. "I wish I could go back and change what happened in New Orleans. There are so many things I would do differently. So many bodyguards I would hire. Only time travel isn't one of the perks."

John studied her face, and then began slowly rolling up his sleeve.

A smile curved her lips. "Thank you."

He looked away again as she inserted the needle into his vein. "Cyprien. Does he treat you well?"

"As well as your average G.o.ddess. Why, I don't know. The man could have anyone he wants. I think he's had anyone he wants for the last seven centuries. Christ, I hate being part of a trend." She removed the tube of blood and drew the needle from his arm.

"You love him."

She nodded. "Sometimes that's the hardest part of this thing. Loving him, trying to work it out. Having fangs and drinking blood is the no-brainer stuff. I know you won't believe this, but Michael is a good man." Alex pocketed the blood sample and smiled. "When we get back to New Orleans-"

John never heard Alex's plans. A ball of fire smashed through the side window, soaking the seats around him and Alexandra with gasoline, and then blanketing them in flames.

How could you be so careless? Who allows you to do such things?

If I were your husband, you wouldn't leave our bedchamber. You'd be too tired to walk.

Jema opened her eyes. A dull pain throbbed on the side of her head. She reached up and felt a square of gauze taped over the spot. Another time she would have panicked, but now she lay quietly, a.s.sessing what she felt. Her memory began with being attacked and beaten in an alley by the museum. It ended with Dr. Bradford carrying her into the house. Daniel had not been her savior last night, however.

He saved me. Thierry. The golden-eyed demon.