Keeper of the Dawn

Chapter 9

For someone who was so stoned, Digger could move.

Luckily Alessande could outrun almost anyone, including other Elven, simply because she loved to run and did it often.

But he had a head start.

Even so, she had no trouble chasing him down and overtaking him in the alley where she and Mark had transformed, and she certainly had no trouble tackling him to the ground. As she straddled him, he raised his arms over his face screaming, “Don’t hurt me! Please, don’t hurt me!”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Digger.”

He screamed again, like a baby, or a cat with its tail caught in a door.

“Digger! I am not going to hurt you!”

He began to whimper.

“Listen to me. Get it through your head that I’m not going to hurt you—but you are going to answer some questions.”

“What? What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Those pills you sold us the other night. Where did you get them? That man—”

“What, are you stupid?”

“All right, maybe I am going to hurt you.”

“No, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—stop! You saw the man. The man who attacked me. That was the man who was giving me the pills to sell. Where the hell did you come from anyway? Oh, man, I’m so messed up.”

“Digger, I need to know about the man.”

“What’s to know? He came down to the streets and found me—said he had the best stuff, stuff no one else had. He said I could walk away a rich man just by being selective, by finding couples to sell the stuff to. I mean, people didn’t come back for more, not until you two, but no one wanted their money back, either. He’s the one who knew about the stuff, honest. I was just trying to make a buck. I’m a salesman, that’s all.”

“Who is he, Digger?”

He opened his mouth to answer, and then his eyes suddenly went huge.

Alessande tried to turn around—to see what Digger had seen.

But even as she realized there was someone, something, behind her, she felt the air move, felt something heavy slam against her skull. For a moment she fought the dizziness that seized her. But the dust motes before her eyes began to dance, and, when she keeled over, she was dimly aware of Digger’s scream as it faded away.

* * *

“Alessande!”

As Mark stood and shouted her name, Brodie came running down the street toward him.

“What the hell’s going on?” Brodie asked. He looked at Jimmy, lying facedown on the sidewalk. “Who’s that, and what happened to him?”

“It’s Jimmy—the Hildegard butler. He took something before I could stop him. Cyanide, maybe. Call an ambulance—I’m going to find Alessande. Did you pass her?” he asked Brodie frantically.

Brodie shook his head. “No, but go. I’ve got this.”

Mark tore off in the direction he recalled seeing Digger take, hoping Alessande had followed the dealer.

He almost passed the alley, but some instinct told him not to.

Where did a man run when he was terrified of the cops?

Into the shadows.

He turned on a dime and raced into the alley.

Time seemed to stop when he saw her; his body was paralyzed, his heart in his throat. She was lying, blond hair tumbled all around her, on the dirty pavement of the alley near a Dumpster.

Digger was there, too, flat on the ground in a pool of blood.

He raced to Alessande’s side, falling to his knees. Even as fear numbed him, he reached for her, and she groaned softly.

“Alessande!”

Carefully, he cradled her in his arms. Her eyes opened to meet his, as blue-green, as large, as engulfing, as the sea. He felt life return to his limbs.

“Alessande,” he said again.

“Mark!” she cried. Then she turned and saw Digger, and a gasp of horror escaped her. “Oh, Mark, I failed... I was... I should have seen what was coming, I should have saved him. Oh, God, I should have—” She broke off, a soft choking sound escaping her.

“Alessande, stop, there was no saving Digger any more than I could stop Jimmy from taking that pill,” he said firmly.

“Jimmy?” She looked at him vaguely.

“Jimmy—the man who attacked Digger—was the Hildegards’ butler.”

She blinked. “The Hildegards’ butler?” she said hesitantly.

“Sit still. I need to call an ambulance.”

He heard the sound of sirens and realized Brodie had called in Jimmy’s death.

“No ambulance,” she said. “Please.”

“But you’re hurt.”

“I want to get out of here. Take me back to the House of the Rising Sun. I can heal myself. And I can’t bear to go to the police station again, trying to say what I need to say but holding back so anyone who’s not an Other won’t hear.”

She was right, he realized.

“You didn’t see who attacked you?” he asked.

She shook her head and looked over at Digger.

“Don’t,” he told her. “It was fast. Looks like they knocked you out of the way and killed him quickly.”

“I have to get out of here.”

“Can you teleport? Do you have the strength?” He could hear the ambulance and backup cop cars blaring their way down the street.

She nodded.

“Get to Castle House. Barrie and Mick should be there. Go quickly—and then lie down and heal.”

“I will,” she promised him.

She took his face in her hands and kissed him quickly, then disappeared.

And even there, in the presence of death, he felt her warmth, her touch, lingering on his lips.

* * *

Alessande materialized in the dining room of Castle House almost on top of Barrie. She and Mick had gone into research mode; they had old newspapers and spreadsheets fanned out on the table next to their laptop computers.

“Alessande!” Barrie cried. “Oh, no, look at you—you’re bleeding.”

“Just a little bang on the head,” Alessande said. “I’m fine, really.”

She wasn’t, though, and she knew it. She was shaking. She’d been afraid she would lose it in the middle of teleporting, that she would wind up in molecular pieces somewhere, or simply flat on her back in the middle of the freeway, a semi bearing down on her.

Mick walked over, took hold of her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

She nodded and quickly explained what had happened, rubbing the knot at the back of her head and already feeling the pain subside.

“The butler,” Barrie mused. “Someone else for us to investigate. Now sit down. I’ll brew some tea and then tell you what Mick and I have discovered. The public record is full of information if you know where to look.”

“Yes, sit,” Mick told her, pulling out a chair. He lifted her hair to inspect the damage. “Glutton for punishment,” he told her.

“No, just so intent on trying to get information that I didn’t hear someone coming up behind me. I should have suspected that Digger’s attacker might not have come alone.”

Just then Barrie returned with a silver tea service and three cups. Mick repeated what Alessande had told him as Barrie poured the tea.

“Mark and Brodie are going to be hurting when they get back,” Barrie said.

“Why?” Alessande asked.

“Wolfie—sorry, that’s just my nickname for Lieutenant Edwards—is going to ream the two of them out. More deaths are not going to look good for the LAPD—especially when one of them’s connected to a family as prominent as the Hildegards.”

“But that’s not their fault,” Alessande said indignantly.

“Don’t worry,” Mick said reassuringly. “Brodie and Mark have both weathered worse. It’s no easy task, being an Other and a cop, but they’ve done it for a lot of years. They’ll be fine.”

“Drink some tea—that always helps any situation,” Barrie said. “Then take a hot shower. By the time you’re done, the rest of the crew should be back, and we can explain what we found out once, instead of five or six times.”

“But now I’m curious,” Alessande protested.

“We have a few more connections to make, so give us time, okay?” Barrie said.

Alessande had to admit that she did feel scraped up and filthy. As if she’d been rolling in an alley.

Well, she had been.

“All right—I’ll be back down in a little while.” She finished off her cup of tea in a swallow, feeling it fill her with strength as it always did.

Then she stood and headed for the stairs to the second level of Castle House and her comfortable guest room.

Stepping into a shower was wonderful.

She only wished that...

She wished that Mark was with her.

As the hot water washed over her, she marveled at how quickly things could change. But she also found herself thinking about her strange dream again, her dream of a wedding in which everything was beautiful...

...until the blood started to flow, as rich a crimson as the velvet runner that covered the aisle to the altar.

And the memory made her shiver, despite the hot water cascading over her.

* * *

Mark was grateful to work with a partner like Brodie.

While he stood there in the alley receiving a good reaming-out from Lieutenant Edwards, Brodie was at his side, even though Mark had made it plain that Brodie had arrived on the scene after Jimmy had offed himself and Digger had been murdered.

“Let me get this straight. You were waiting to see what Digger was going to do—where he was going to get more of the drug?” Edwards said.

“Yes,” Mark replied.

“Then this guy walks up to Digger and tries to kill him—and when you manage to stop him, he kills himself?”

“Yes.”

“And then Digger ran into an alley and got murdered by someone else?” Edwards’s tone was growing increasingly skeptical.

“Yes.”

“So now they’re both dead.”

Mark nodded.

“Who killed Digger?” Edwards asked.

“I don’t know,” Mark admitted.

“Lieutenant, you know as well as we do that it could have been anyone,” Brodie interjected. “Jimmy was obviously acting on behalf of someone else. He came to check up on Digger and found out he’d been selling to Mark—a cop. Whoever is employing him—and we can’t be one hundred percent sure that’s the Hildegards, even though they’re certainly the most likely suspects—had Jimmy’s complete loyalty or abject fear. He chose to die an agonizing death rather than face his employer and admit to failure.”

“Which suggests an Other,” Mark said.

“Maybe not—don’t kid yourself. Human beings could teach the Others a lot about torture and cruelty,” Edwards said softly. He shook his head, looking from Mark to Brodie. “This is getting worse by the minute. With these two deaths on top of the murdered women, the entire area is going to go into a panic any minute.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Brodie said dryly. “Neither of these men was anyone important. Their deaths will likely go unnoticed, especially Digger’s. We just have to hope the Hildegards don’t raise a stink about Jimmy.”

“Do you assume, Detective,” Edwards asked indignantly, “that I care any less about the unknowns in this city than the biggest mogul?”

“No, of course not,” Brodie said.

“He means that he doesn’t think the media will go mad the way they do whenever a celebrity dies,” Mark said quickly.

“Get out of my face right now, you two,” Edwards said. “Get back to the station and get your paperwork filled out. The crime scene unit is on the job, and with luck whoever killed Digger will have left some kind of a clue.” He lowered his voice again. “At least they were both human,” he muttered. “And a human life is as important as the life of an Other, but at least as far as the autopsies go we won’t have to make sure that—”

“No, Lieutenant, think about it,” Mark interrupted. “We know all these deaths are connected. Please, try to make sure that Antony Brandt gets assigned the autopsies.”

Edwards looked as if he was about to implode, explode—or transform involuntarily into a fully massive, growling, snarling werewolf. “I’ll do my best,” he finally said.

“And we need a search warrant,” Mark said.

“For?”

“Come on, Lieutenant. Jimmy worked for the Hildegard family. I’ll bet you cash money that he lived in that mansion, along with working there. That’s enough to get us a warrant.”

“You’d better find something,” Edwards warned.

“We will.”

“Go. Paperwork.”

They left together; by then, the street and the alley were roped off with crime scene tape, and the forensics units were busy examining the area. The medical examiner on duty wasn’t Brandt, but he was a good man who would make all the notes at the scene, file an initial report on cause and time of death, and then see that the bodies were brought to the morgue.

They could still hope that Brandt would get the autopsies.

“You don’t have to deal with the paperwork,” Mark told Brodie. “You weren’t there, really. You can get back to the house if you want.”

“I was first on the scene after you,” Brodie said. “Besides, it will be quicker if I help. Two pencil-pushers are better than one, and we both need to get back to the House of the Rising Sun and figure out where all this puts us.”

“Thanks,” Mark told him.

Brodie was right; between them, they finished everything that had to be written up within twenty minutes. Then they headed for home base.

“Alessande was all right, wasn’t she?” Brodie asked as they drove.

Mark nodded. “It was scary, though.” He looked at Brodie. “Whoever it was took her completely by surprise. They could have killed her, but they didn’t. What do you think that means?”

“Maybe they thought she was dead. Or maybe it was the screenwriter. He’s infatuated with her. Maybe he’s in on what’s happening but he couldn’t bring himself to kill Alessande. Not that I mean to disturb you in any way,” Brodie added, a smile to his voice.

Were his feelings for Alessande so obvious?

Yes, apparently, at least to Brodie. And probably the rest of the group.

“I wish it were that simple,” Mark said.

“So you don’t think that Greg Swayze is part of the plot?” Brodie confirmed.

Mark thought about the question for a minute. “I think he’s just what he seems to be. A screenwriter with a script in production and a crush on a beautiful woman. I don’t think he killed Digger.”

“Then who?”

“Hopefully we’ll know more once we see Declan. He’ll be able to tell us if any of the Hildegards or the film crew left when we did, or if they all stayed. If they left, it’s telling.”

“Even if they didn’t leave, the Hildegards are rich. They might have an army out there ready to do their bidding,” Brodie reminded him.

“I know. But let’s see what we can get. At least we’ll be able to search the Hildegard mansion—and maybe we’ll luck out and find Regina Johnson,” Mark said.

* * *

When they got to the House of the Rising Sun estate, they found that Declan, Sailor and Rhiannon had all come home, and the entire group was gathered around the dining room table of Castle House. Barrie and Mick had their computers out, along with a mass of newspapers and charts.

Mark instantly looked for and found Alessande, who had showered and changed into a casual black knit halter dress that clung to her body in all the right ways. Her hair fell around her face like skeins of molten gold. And her eyes were blue-green and clear when she looked at him and smiled.

“Not even a headache,” she assured him.

Brodie took a seat at the table and immediately turned to Declan and Sailor. “The Hildegards and the film people—when did they leave the Snake Pit?”

“The minute Alessande left, Greg Swayze said something to the others at his table and left,” Sailor said. “And the Hildegards were right behind him.”

“And the film people left a few minutes later,” Declan added.

“If the film people hung out even a little while longer, they probably didn’t have time to get in on the action,” Mark said. “But the Hildegards... And I discounted Swayze earlier, but maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“Hey, we’ve come up with some interesting information here,” Barrie announced.

“We’re all ears,” Mark assured her, smiling.

“Okay, Alan Hildegard really does produce pictures for the cable channel Horrific. He’s incorporated,” Mick Townsend told them. “His parent corporation is called Hildegard Enterprises. But Hildegard has a number of smaller subsidiaries, and one of those is called Dynamic Dough.”

“Dynamic Dough?” Alessande repeated.

“Dough—yes, I assume as in money,” Barrie said. “Dynamic Dough arranges motion picture financing, and through them Alan Hildegard helps finance a lot of films for both the big studios and the small independents.”

“So was he in on the financing when Blue Dove Entertainment decided to do Death in the Bowery?” Alessande asked. “I thought that Blue Dove Entertainment was legitimate.”

“They are, but you know how when you see a movie it says ‘produced by’ several times, or they give credit to a few coproducers or executive producers or associate producers? Sometimes you get a producer credit just for providing money. Sometimes you get it because you legitimately did the work to get the money, hire the director, the rest of the crew...putting it all together,” Barrie said. “We know that Hildegard couldn’t afford to option the script himself but is still associated with the movie. Specifically, we found out that Death in the Bowery was going to require a higher budget than Blue Dove Entertainment was willing to risk on its own—despite the fact that our screenwriter is Hollywood’s current golden boy. They wanted to go with a fresh face for the heroine, but they wanted to hire a big name, the kind of name that can carry a picture, for the villain. For that kind of star power, they were going to need a big budget—plus they wanted to hire huge talent behind the scenes, like Katrina Manville to do the costumes. And the sets for a historic piece can be almost as pricey as for an action flick where you’re blowing cars up every minute.”

“So, if he was telling the truth at all,” Mark said, “Alan Hildegard was smitten by Death in the Bowery and the brilliance of the screenwriter—and the fact that his last movie made a small fortune. Alan was probably thinking that with a real box office draw and some money behind the production, they could rake in the millions. He knows that he can’t bankroll something like that on his own and the Horrific channel won’t be interested, so he puts a treatment together and goes to someone over at Blue Dove Entertainment, promising that he’ll pull together some of the money so they won’t have to shoulder the whole risk.”

“So Blue Dove gets involved,” Sailor went on. “They start the hiring process, bringing in a noted director and casting director—and probably contacting whatever name they want for the villain.”

“And,” Rhiannon theorized, “Alan now has a semiofficial reason for having and sharing the screenplay. Because he needs tall beautiful blondes to be sacrificed, he uses the screenplay to find them.”

“Maybe he makes a point of looking for them at the House of Illusion because it’s so close to the old family studio,” Alessande suggested.

“Yes, he meets them, gets the screenplay into their hands and suggests that he can help them with a reading in preparation for their auditions—they just have to meet him at the old studio,” Barrie said.

“This is definitely a decent working theory,” Mark said. “Who would want to bring back a Hildegard more than another Hildegard? And we know that the priest conducting the ceremony in that tomb was an Other. Someone who could disappear—and a shifter could easily turn into a gnat and vanish.”

“Maybe we’ll find something concrete tomorrow,” Brodie said.

“Tomorrow?” Rhiannon asked. “Where?”

Mark told her, “Because of the Jimmy connection, we’re going to get a search warrant.”

“Alan Hildegard—whether he killed Digger or not—will know what happened by morning. Won’t he expect you to show up?” Alessande asked.

“Maybe. And maybe he’ll think himself so high and mighty that nothing will stick. I’m sure he intends to disavow anything to do with Jimmy. The guy was a servant—nothing more,” Brodie said. “That’s the Hildegard way of thinking.”

Mark looked at Alessande. “I’m not sure you should have coffee with Greg Swayze tomorrow. This is getting too dangerous. You’ve been attacked twice now.”

“We’re going to have coffee at the Mystic Café,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll make sure I’m working,” Rhiannon said firmly.

“And Sailor and I can go have a coffee ourselves—not to mention the place is owned by that old werewolf Keeper Hugh Drummond,” Declan said. “We’ll keep an eye on things, Mark. I promise.”

He was pretty sure they were all amused at his overprotectiveness. He supposed it was obvious that there was something going on between him and Alessande. Had Charlaine Hildegard figured that out, too? Did it even matter to her, since she was only playing with him anyway?

Why hadn’t that gooey-eyed screenwriter figured it out yet? he wondered.

Rhiannon yawned. “Whatever’s happening tomorrow, we have to get some sleep tonight.”

“Mick and I are out of here,” Barrie said, then paused. “We’ll leave the computers here, though, and consider Castle House the command center for this...situation.”

Rhiannon was already standing, ready to walk back to Pandora’s Box.

Brodie turned to Mark. “You coming with?” he asked.

“I thought I’d hang here. Not that I don’t have tremendous faith in all the protective spells and things around the property, but I would hate to see Alessande attacked twice in one night.”

“Yeah, sure,” Brodie said, his lips twitching.

Actually, Mark realized, they all looked at one another, lips twitching. But Alessande didn’t protest.

He was staying.

* * *

It had been a long day; a painfully long day. But the minute they closed the door of the guest room, Alessande was in his arms with a warmth and need so erotic and evocative that before he knew it, he was stripping off his clothes, desperately eager to feel her naked length against him. His arousal was as acute as if he was sixteen again.

They tangled together, lay together, marveled together, as only new lovers could do. Everything was still unique, and touching her, feeling her touch, created a world of wonder. The caress of her lips running down his naked flesh was pure bliss. Hunger ripped through him in jagged streaks as she teased him with her mouth, her hands. At last they merged in a frenzy of movement, desperate and arousing, urgent, until it felt as if his blood were simmering while his heart hammered and his very being seemed about to explode. After they climaxed, he lay beside her, still feeling a sense of wonder that, even after making love, he couldn’t bear to move away from her.

Elven, he reminded himself.

“Vampire,” she said softly, offering him a small smile.

And he smiled in return, pulling her closer. “Elven,” he said.

“Vampires are known for being the most skilled and fiery lovers,” she said.

“And Elven beauty is known to mesmerize and leave those touched by it in awe,” he reminded her.

“Oh, come on,” she teased, stroking his face. “When we met, you thought I was an absolute bitch.”

“You were a little rude about having your life saved.”

“I did think I had it covered,” she said.

He chuckled and stroked her hair. “It was a life well worth saving,” he told her, a slight tremor in his voice. “And there was the oddest thing....”

“What?” she asked, rising on one elbow to search his eyes.

“I was dreaming—or daydreaming—about you right before we met.”

“Really?” she asked, then bit her lower lip and looked downward for a moment. “That’s bizarre. But...confession. I had a dream about you, too. It was wicked and erotic.”

He grinned at that, touching her face with wonder. Then he grew serious. What he had envisioned had not been good.

Her eyes widened as she watched him. “Did you dream of something...strange?”

He thought about lying to her. They were still so deep in all this. Then he decided he had to tell her the truth. “The night we saved you at the Hildegard tomb, I had dozed off earlier in the car while we waiting, and I dreamed that I was at a wedding. My wedding. I heard the music, and I saw Brodie...all kinds of people. We were in a church, and I knew that I was insanely in love, ready to get married, looking forward to getting married...and everything was beautiful. There was a red velvet runner up the aisle, leading to the altar. I looked toward the altar and there was a woman lying on it, my bride, and suddenly the runner was blood and the woman had been killed, her throat sliced....”

“And the woman was me?” she asked.

“I thought so, but...who can really tell in a daydream?”

She let out a soft, tremulous sigh, but her voice was strong. “Before...before I had my very erotic dream about you, I had the same dream you just described.”

“What?” He rose up on an elbow, facing her on the bed.

“It was terrifying.”

He pulled her back into his arms, trembling as he lay down with her again. “They were just dreams,” he said. “But...I think that, being what we are...maybe our dreams mean something. Maybe there was a reason why I saw you right before I met you.”

She moved away from him, shaking off his hand when he touched her shoulder. Sleek and beautiful, she rose and walked to the window, moving the drapes aside to look down on the lawn below.

“Maybe it means we’re supposed to stay away from one another,” she said.

For a moment he froze where he lay.

Maybe she was right.

Yet he couldn’t accept that. He stood and walked over to her, setting his hands on her shoulders and pulling her back against him. “I can’t believe that,” he told her, whispering into her hair. The spun magic of the golden strands teased his lips. He’d never felt anything as intensely as he felt this need to be with her, to know that she lived and breathed in the world.

She turned into his arms, looking up at him. “I won’t believe it,” she said passionately.

He touched a lock of her hair, mesmerized, humbled, as he smoothed it back. “After tonight...”

“Tonight I wasn’t ready. I’ll never let that happen again, Mark, I swear it. But I can’t step aside now. You know I can’t. The birthmark that denotes my destiny...the things I’ve discovered I can do... I am meant to be a Keeper. I can’t walk away from that, and you know it. You can’t protect me all the time or from everything. You have to see the truth of that, Mark...please.”

He smiled. “Brodie still watches out for Rhiannon, and you couldn’t convince him not to.”

“And she watches out for him, as well. We all have to have each others’ backs, Mark. It’s part of being who and what we are.”

He wanted to deny her words. He wished that she was sensible and prudent and willing to stay safely hidden away at Castle House until they found the root of the evil plaguing them now.

And then he realized that she wouldn’t be the golden spitfire who had so swiftly commandeered his flesh and blood and soul if she were that woman.

He nodded slowly. “But we make a pact. No one goes running off alone for any reason, and we share everything we learn.”

“Deal,” she told him.

He cupped her head in his hands and tenderly kissed her lips. For a moment something shimmered between them that went far beyond the physical.

She returned the kiss. And then the kiss deepened and was joined by touching. And kissing went from lips to flesh and touching abounded. They stumbled a bit, holding on to one another as they crashed back down upon the bed, their bodies already entwined. They laughed at their own clumsiness, kissed and stroked....

And made love again.

Finally they lay together, fell asleep, and when Mark woke to the hint of daylight that teased through the drapes, he realized that he had not dreamed, he had merely held tightly to a dream all through the night.