Darkyn - Private Demon Part 5

Hal's voice became part of the drone of the engine as Jamys stared out into the night. They would be in Chicago soon, and he would have to do more than point at maps and grunt if he was to find Thierry.

I'm coming. Father.

Hal was the seventh human Jamys had met since leaving New Orleans. The first day of his journey, Jamys had concerned himself only with getting some distance from Cyprien and the jardin. In America, crossing a distance he could manage; remaining undiscovered, hunting and feeding, and finding shelter for the coming day proved quite a challenge.

Jamys knew he had to be careful in this country, so unlike France, his homeland. He'd also had his doubts about walking among humanity so openly again. He didn't trust humans. He didn't trust anyone anymore.

Did Thierry feel like this? Was that why he had run away?

His father had to know he was being hunted. Thierry knew Michael Cyprien; knew he would discover the missing file on Luisa Lopez. Without question, he would know that Cyprien would trace Thierry's movements from New Orleans north. Why Cyprien was hunting him, Thierry might not understand. There were other reasons Jamys had decided to go to Chicago. Jamys had to reach his father before Cyprien did, or many more Darkyn would die. He was also not sure what Cyprien intended to do to his father if he captured him.

Surely an archer did not pry a shaft from a wounded lion only to draw a bow against him anew.

His father and Michael Cyprien had been friends since they were boys. Thierry often told tales about how they had trained and fought and taken their vows together. They had gone to Castle Pilgrim to hold the last of the Holy Land against the heretics. They had even died and risen to walk as Darkyn within days of each other.

Cyprien cannot kill him if he cannot find him. Jamys didn't need the Darkyn to get Thierry out of the country. With his talent, he could use humans.

"You follow baseball, son?" Hal asked him, and this time gave him an anxious look that indicated a need for an answer.

Jamys shook his head. He found modern athletic compet.i.tions pale, pathetic imitations of true sport.

"I'm a Cubbies man, myself," Hal told him, and went on to explain why for the next thirty minutes.

Jamys knew his father was likely mad, as everyone said, and that made him dangerous. Still, his father's body was healed, and he was free; perhaps that would help him come back to his senses. Then Cyprien would not have to put him back into the cell in the floor, or keep him in copper chains, or "decide what to do with him."

Fear for Thierry traveled with Jamys, a cloak that was sometimes light, sometimes smothering.

His father's madness was as much Jamys's fault as it was Angelica's. Part of him could still not stomach the fact that his mother had turned against his father and their kind. Even when he had heard her promising to hunt another Darkyn for the Brethren, Jamys had been paralyzed with disbelief, sure that it was some horrible jest. But to preserve her own miserable skin, his mother had sent him, his father, and the rest of the Durands to die slowly in the secret dungeons of the Brethren.

How many other Kyn had his mother handed over to be tortured by the Brethren? Why, when Jamys had learned she intended to hurt more of their kind, had he not warned his father?

"My cousin follows the Red Sox, the poor sumb.i.t.c.h," Hal was saying. "One year he got so agitated, he carried the TV out in the yard and put a sledge to it."

Jamys was glad his mother was dead. Seeing her decapitated by Cyprien's sygkenis, Alexandra Keller, had made part of this wretched situation right again. The human doctor had done so much for them. Now it was his turn. He would save his father, and redeem Thierry and himself in the eyes of the Kyn.

Hal's car was a wide, comfortable luxury sedan. After that first, long night of walking, Jamys had used cargo trucks that occupied the roads every hour of the day as his central means of transportation. He climbed onto the top of the first at an all-night diner just outside Baton Rouge.

When the trucker pulled off the road to sleep for several hours, Jamys had climbed down and used l'attrait to discover the driver's route. Later, just before the truck turned west, he got off and walked until he found another truck, another driver who had stopped on the side of the road to sleep.

Hal, whose job was to a.s.sess damages to property his employer insured, had pulled off into the parking lot of an all- night restaurant to grab a quick meal before continuing on the next leg of his 'route.' Jamys had intercepted him on the way back to his car and used his talent to convince him to give him a ride.

He could convince any human of anything simply by touching them and thinking what he wanted them to believe.

Jamys was only sorry that his talent didn't work on the Kyn.

During the trip north, Jamys had learned that Hal was one of the rare humans who were completely content with his situation. He enjoyed his life without guilt, shame, or a need for more than he had. His desires were limited to drinking a great deal of ale, obtaining the signature of a famous pitcher, and having s.e.x with two identical twin human females at once.

Aside from the "twins" scenario, which Jamys thought rather odd, he envied Hal. Hal's mother was still alive, and judging by how reverently he spoke of her, was much beloved by Hal and his six brothers and sister. He would wager Hal's mother had never maimed and killed Hal's family, friends, or employers.

"You look sick, boy," Hal said. "You want me to pull over for a bit?"

Jamys placed his hand on Hal's neck. I am not sick. He couldn't erase Hal's memory as Michael could, but he could plant any suggestion in the human male's mind. He wished he could talk to him this way. To say something like: I am worried about my father. A man who was his friend is chasing him.

"Some friend," Hal said, reacting as if Jamys had spoken out loud.

You can hear me like this?

"Sure." Hal gave him an amiable grin. "So what's the story on this guy after your dad?"

He is a great strategist. Jamys didn't think Cyprien was evil, but he was not sure how becoming seigneur had changed his father's friend. The type who makes plans atop designs within schemes.

"Your dad and him couldn't talk out whatever p.i.s.sed him off?"

Maybe that was why Cyprien was pursuing him; Thierry had nearly killed his sygkenis. Jamys remembered how Thierry had reacted once when his uncle Gabriel had simply shouted at his mother. He made a bad mistake. A great insult.

Or perhaps now that he was the American seigneur, Cyprien had set aside all thoughts of friendship. As their leader, he might see Thierry only as a Darkyn gone insane-one of the most dangerous creatures on the face of the earth.

Hal frowned. "Can't your dad just apologize, make it up to him?"

It may be too late for that. Cyprien would send men capable of killing Jamys's father who would find Thierry before him. It would take many of the best hunters; his father was fast and lethal. What if Thierry wanted to die? What if he died before Jamys could reach him?

Jamys was angry with Cyprien, too. If he had wanted Thierry dead, why had he let him escape from New Orleans?

Why had he not killed him there, quickly, cleanly, mercifully? Was this some penance he wished Thierry to make for being oblivious to Angelica's crimes? Where was the justice in this?

"Coming up on Chi-town, my friend," Hal said. "Where do you want me to drop you?"

Jamys saw a cl.u.s.ter of small houses beyond the interstate, within walking distance of the city. He would need to make some preparations before he hunted Thierry. That is where I wish to go, Hal.

"You got it," the man said, shifting over to the exit-ramp lane.

Ten minutes later, Hal was driving off to meet with his waitress in Fort Wayne, and Jamys was walking down a suburban street, checking the small s.p.a.ces between the houses. He soon found what he was looking for.

A bath first, to mask his scent.

Jamys checked the windows of the house before he leaped over the closed gate and walked across the yard to the dark oval of water. Now as he set aside his satchel and descended fully clothed into the chlorinated water, he plotted his next move.

Cyprien might a.s.sume Thierry was acting out of madness, but Jamys thought his father's journey had been one of his saner decisions. Luisa Lopez had not been the victim of a random attack. Alexandra had talked about Luisa, and he knew, as Thierry likely did, that she had been tortured. Cyprien and Alexandra had not yet realized that Luisa's injuries were consistent with an interrogation by the Brethren.

During his captivity, Jamys had been witness to the monks doing the same to his father's tresora. Familiar as he was with the delights of the rack, the strappado, and the whip, there was no mistaking the wounds they had left on the human girl.

But why would the monsters brutalize Luisa? From the way Alexandra had described her, she was barely more than a child. She did not serve among the tresori. What could she have done to attract their vicious attention?

The water around him turned darker as the water lifted days of dirt and dust from his skin and garments. When satisfied that he had soaked off the worst, Jamys surfaced and climbed out. A potbellied man in a flannel bathrobe stood on the deck. He looked angry, and seized Jamys by the arm.

"What are you doing in here?"

I needed a bath, he told the man. You have a very nice pond.

Jamys's scent enveloped them, and the man's eyes turned dreamy, "it's a pool."

I have probably muddied it. Jamys pulled some of the paper money he carried-wet now, like his clothes-and offered it to the man. When he didn't take it, he pressed the soaked bills into his hand and added a suggestion. Use this to have it cleaned "You took a bath." The man sounded like a sleepwalker who had been roused too quickly. "In my pool."

I was very dirty. Jamys looked around him but saw no one else. I am leaving your property now. I will not return. You should not summon the police. You should forget I was here.

"Thank you."

Jamys caught the man as he pitched forward and eased him the rest of the way to the deck. Some humans could not bear too much exposure to his talent and fainted like this. He put a hand on the pudgy neck to check his pulse, and then tucked the money into the man's front pocket before he jumped back over the fence.

Now to find shelter.

Farther down the street Jamys began seeing the same colorful paper stapled to every signpost and telephone pole, and stopped to see if he could make out what it said. There was a picture of a badly dressed boy and girl on it.

RUNAWAYS-NEED A PLACE TO STAY? DON'T GET LOST ON THE STREETS-FIND SHELTER AT THE.

HAVEN.

"Cops are all over it." A foot nudged him. "You hear me, Bri? They found him."

Brian Calloway looked at Blaze. He'd told the other boy a million times to call him by his gang name, Decree, but when Blaze got the shakes he still forgot. "So? They wanted him found."

"So I'm just saying." Blaze, whose real name was Troy Ogilvie, paced like a hungry dog. "Raze knows we chiseled the little gink, right? You called him."

"I called him, and he was real happy about it." Decree settled back in the red-and-brown-plaid armchair he and the other boys had s.n.a.t.c.hed from the back of a moving van in the middle of being unloaded. "Said the money'd be coming in a couple days."

"A couple of days?" Blaze looked ready to puke.

Decree knew the other boy was an addict, but he'd thought money from the last job would have tided him over.

"I've got cash if you need a loan."

"That's good. That's great." Blaze scrubbed a hand over his mouth and chin. "So I ditched the truck in n.i.g.g.e.rtown, like you told me to. We gonna ever buy one?"

"Raze says we can't be throwing around a lot of money. Cops see one of us driving a brand-new ride, they're gonna pop us." Which Blaze should have remembered; they'd all been there when Raze had explained their new direction.

Two more boys came in, ducking under the roll-down door of the storage bay. One of them held up a six-pack of beer, a trophy of success.

"Bring that s.h.i.t over here." Decree pulled on his T-shirt and felt his scalp. Three days of stubble p.r.i.c.kled against his palm. d.a.m.n, it grew back fast; he'd have to get Pure to shave him next time he went to sec her.

"They had his parents on the news," one of the boys said as he pa.s.sed around the beers. "Little f.u.c.k's father was a white man. Guess his d.i.c.k's too small for anything but gink p.u.s.s.y."

More boys came into the storage bay. Some brought beer, others subs, chips, and candy. All had clean-shaven heads and wore a uniform of black jeans and T-shirts, combat boots and bomber jackets. Most had elaborate tattoos and piercings. Two or three of the older boys wore white suspenders instead of belts, with names written in indelible marker on the straps.

Someone switched on a boom box while the beer and food were shared. Decree listened as the others egged one another about the job. As the night came on, the noise level died down, and by unspoken agreement the boys formed a circle around Decree and the armchair.

"We did good," he told them. "Raze is real happy with us. Cops don't know what the f.u.c.k, as usual."

The boys, some of whom were already a little drunk, laughed and jabbed each other Decree held up a hand for silence.

"We gotta keep it level now. No showing on the street. You go home, go to work, go to school. Like nothing happened. Anyone pops you, you know the number and story." He looked at Blaze, who was rocking a little.

"Questions?"

Bull, a thick-bodied jock wish bruised hands, caught his eve. "When's the next hit?"

"Raze'll phone it in. He says these guys are good for steady work." Decree saw Blaze, who looked ready to puke, shake his head at the offer of a beer. There was always someone who couldn't handle the fallout "Okay, that wraps it.

Be out here on Friday, and bring your working clothes."

The boys picked up their cans and garbage, dropping them into an open barrel on their way out. When Blaze went to leave, Decree stopped him. "Hang out for a minute, man. I got something for you."

Blaze licked his dry lips. "Something good?"

Decree checked his watch. "Yeah, a delivery. Should be here any minute."

"That's great, man." Blaze circled the bay restlessly. "I was telling my old lady, Jude, how great this gig is. She's been b.i.t.c.hing and complaining, you know?"

"You tell her about the job?" Decree asked.

"No, man, I wouldn't." Blaze shook his head. "She can't keep her yap shut: tells her mom everything. I didn't even tell her I was back in with the boys. Her mom'd call the cops."

Decree heard steps outside the bay. "That's good, Blaze. Business is better without the b.i.t.c.hes getting involved."

"Hey, you got a little on you, man?" Blaze released a wretched chuckle. "I'm truly squeezed."

"I got a stash outside in my ride. Hang here." He walked out and pulled on his jacket. Nights were getting cold and long; he'd have to steal something warmer soon. For him and for Pure.

Raze came out of nowhere, as usual. The first time he'd done it, Decree had nearly pa.s.sed out. Now he was used to Raze's magic tricks, or he told himself he was. His b.a.l.l.s still shrank a little every time he looked into those eyes. Raze had the unblinking black eyes of a cobra, ready to strike.

Tonight they weren't frightening, only intent. "All went well?"

"The boys are tight, but I think Blaze has been talking to his b.i.t.c.h and her mom. He gets chatty when he runs dry." Decree nodded toward the bay. "I told him I'd give him a little."

Raze smiled, and that was worse than looking into his empty eyes. "Let me."

Father John Keller had grown up on the streets of Chicago. For a number of years he had also lived on them, a time he considered his primary education. The Department of Children and Families had eventually caught up with John and his young sister, Alexandra, and placed them in foster care with the Kellers, a wealthy, kind couple with no children of their own who had eventually been able to adopt John and Alex. John had gladly exchanged his freedom for a home and a life of security for Alex, but he had never forgotten the lessons the streets had taught him.

The street kid inside John hadn't wanted to come back to Chicago.

John had spent the last six months in limbo, moving through a series of cheap hotels and using up what little savings he had while he'd tried to decide what to do. The money had run out faster than his doubts and fears. He had used the last of it to return to the city of his birth with only one clear purpose: to officially leave the priesthood and confront his mentor, Archbishop August Hightower. Hightower had to answer for the events that had finished John as a priest and caused the slaughter of a hundred more just like him.

That decision John had debated long and hard, for the bishop had played a significant part in what had happened in New Orleans, and was still a member of the Les Freres de la Lumiere, the Brethren of the Light. He might throw John back to the wolves rather than tell him why these things had happened. Hightower also knew about the s.a.d.i.s.tic practices the order of former Catholic priests used to pursue their mission. The bishop had been the one to show a videotape of them to John.

The Brethren's mission, Hightower had claimed, was to prevail in a centuries-long struggle against another secret society of vampirelike demons called the Darkyn.