Guardian (The Protectors Series) (7 page)

To pass the time, she could catch up on e-mail, research outlandish online news stories to see if anything similar to their case turned up, and maybe even explore the town of Wayfarer a bit. Stefan’s restrictions included a ban on driving, but Mitchell had offered Mel a ride into town.

The motel clerk had recommended Serenity’s Rainbow Java Spot on Burke, the main street. Cinda, Mel remembered with a pang, had loved the place’s funky atmosphere. They had planned to come here together so Cinda could show it to Mel.

There were plenty of empty parking spaces and no meters or posted time limits. Wayfarer had serious small-town-itis. The clean sidewalks and the two-story brick and wood frame buildings, many with green, blue, or dark red awnings over the sidewalk, gave the place a welcoming look. No wonder Cinda’d liked it here.

Unfortunately, one of the spaces was occupied by a blue sedan with the
National Investigator
’s logo on the door. Across the street sat a white van with a Jacksonville, Florida, TV station logo on it. Mel scowled. She’d better hurry inside before any of the press spotted her.

As she reached the coffee shop’s glass door, her cell rang.
Dave Wade
, the caller ID read. Excellent. Mel punched
accept
to take the call. “Hey, Dave. What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking about this case you’re on. It’s a strange one.”

“On that we agree.”

Mel pushed through the door and into a dazzling realm of light and color. Sunlight coming in the big front window glinted off crystals of varied sizes and shapes suspended from the ceiling. Rainbows ranging in length from an inch to nearly a foot splashed across the cream-colored walls. Mel blinked.

“Mel? Wray!” came from her cell phone.

“Uh, sorry. I was distracted. What did you say?” She sidestepped the young, blond woman bent over a book at her table.

“I said, and this is for your ears only, a buddy in Seattle tells me you’re on the short list for the job out there, so keep the woo-woo profile as low as possible.”

“I’m investigating a possible serial killer.” Lowering her voice, she turned away from the rest of the room. “How is that bad?”

“Your name’s in the tabloids. The special agent in charge for the new unit hates that kind of publicity.”

“Hell. I could probably thank Ms. Jilly Persistence from the
National Investigator
for that.”

Mel passed a thirtyish brunette sipping coffee in a booth near the counter. The woman’s eyes were unfocused and dreamy as she absently jiggled a baby seat with an infant in it.

“What’s the latest?” Mel asked. “Do they think Elvis came back and did this?”

The young mother raised her head at the mention of Elvis. Mel ignored her and walked past the end of the counter, away from everyone. She perched on the edge of an overstuffed, brown leather armchair, adding, “He’s about the only candidate nobody’s suggested yet.”

“I’m not up on the details. Sorry.” Dave paused. “I called mainly because I heard Seattle’s going to start interviewing soon. Thought you’d want to know.”

“I appreciate that.” Seattle was starting a new, cutting-edge program combining computer-based analysis and fieldwork. Its success could fast-track participating agents, and Mel wanted to be one of them. At the moment, though, what mattered more was that her stint in the criminal division gave her the experience to handle Cinda’s case. If Stefan ever let her go back to work.

He hadn’t said anything about coming by her room tonight. That was good.

She and Dave signed off. Mel glanced around the shop.

Besides the guy behind the counter, the only man among the half-dozen customers was gray-haired and wiry, enjoying a mug of something while he marked some papers in a booth by the back exit. Even with the gaudy crystal decorations, the place had a quiet, restful air.

Mel ordered a latte and eyed the crystals hanging from the ceiling. The shapes varied from discs to hexagons, all glowing in the sunlight. If half of what the New Agers like her mom claimed about crystals and energy was true, either Mel could charge her laptop without plugging it in or there was way too much interference in here for the computer to work.

She took her fancy coffee and settled into an armchair by the plate-glass window. Crystals dangled in the window and over the chair, too, but they looked securely fastened, unlikely to fall and bonk her. She opened the laptop and booted up. As expected, it showed no effects attributable to crystal-related hocus-pocus.

News of supposed vampire, alien, shape-shifter, or Elvis sightings would be a reasonable place to start. Frowning, she pulled up the Google home page.

The bell over the door jingled. A woman in Birkenstock sandals, a loose, magenta tunic, and jeans walked in. Turning to hold the door, she revealed a neat, gray braid hanging halfway down her back. Through the door behind her came the largest golden retriever Mel had ever seen. The dog’s head was bigger than a bowling ball.

Cinda’d said her friend Hettie had a big golden. Mel watched over her cup as the woman ordered a black coffee with “a you-know-what,” jerking her head toward the beast sitting at her side with his head cocked, ears up, and eyes alert, “and a peach strudel.”

The young man behind the counter said, “I’ll have that strudel warmed in just a minute, Miss Hettie. Bring it to you with the you-know-what for himself, there.”

Miss Hettie
. There couldn’t be two women with such an unusual name in a town this small, certainly not two who owned ginormous golden retrievers. This woman looked younger than the seventy-odd years Mel had expected, though. As the woman accepted her coffee, the dog gave a slight, impatient whine.

Miss Hettie sighed. “You know better,” she told the dog. “You get your snack in a bit.”

“Miss Hettie.” The clerk hesitated. “I was so sorry when I heard about Miss Cinda. We’re all going to miss her.”

Pain flashed in the woman’s eyes. Fatigue swept over her face, dispelling the illusion of youth. “Yes,” she said in a low voice of tight control, “we are, Brian. Thank you.”

When she reached for her wallet, the young man said, “Oh, no, ma’am, today’s on the house.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

Such thoughtfulness was one of the good things about small-town life.

Mel watched Miss Hettie lead her dog to a table by the window, where crystal-spawned rainbows played over her cup, her hands, and the dog’s head. The young man hadn’t asked about heating the bun, so he’d already known she wanted it warmed, and he’d understood her coded reference to the dog’s treat. She was obviously a regular.

Like Cinda
, Mel thought with another stab of guilt.

Miss Hettie was also Cinda’s friend. She might have useful information. Of course, she might resent Mel’s failure to get her butt down here before it was too late.

Mel’s throat tightened. She forced herself to take a swallow of coffee that did nothing to ease the tension. Hell, this Miss Hettie couldn’t say anything Mel hadn’t already said to herself.

Cinda’s home had been a haven for Mel. When she’d asked her dad for advice about the bullying, he’d blown her off. Lily, Mel’s older sister, had told her to “toughen up.” Now they couldn’t understand why Mel rarely came back to Essex. Only Cinda had understood. And Stefan. His empathy had been a big part of his appeal.

Mel rubbed her aching forehead. She should’ve been here for Cinda the way Cinda had always been there for her.

Miss Hettie and her dog studied the sparse traffic on the street outside. The clerk brought her order and handed a small, bone-shaped treat to the dog. The retriever gulped his treat, snuffled up the crumbs he’d scattered, and turned his attention to a couple of sparrows squabbling over a crumb on the sidewalk.

Mel closed her laptop, squelching the urban dweller’s reluctance to leave it in the chair. She could keep an eye on it from six feet away, and there was hardly a crowd here to conceal a theft. She set her coffee on the table by the chair. Carrying it over to the other table would imply that she expected to sit, and she had probably already offended this woman enough by failing Cinda.

She was stalling. Obsessing about coffee, for God’s sake.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked to Miss Hettie’s table. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

Miss Hettie didn’t seem to hear at first. Just as Mel was about to speak again, the older woman’s brown eyes rose. Keen intelligence sparked in their depths behind gold-framed trifocals. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I’m—”

“Camellia Wray,” the woman said softly. As Mel tried not to wince at the sound of her full name on a stranger’s lips, Miss Hettie’s glance sharpened. “I recognize you from your picture at Cinda’s. Sit down.”

“Thank you.” Mel angled the chair so she could watch her laptop. “I heard the clerk say your name. I know you were a friend of Cinda’s.”

Miss Hettie nodded. “I figured I’d meet you this week. Just not like this.” She let out a heavy sigh and shook her head.

“I was looking forward to it.” Mel’s nerves felt as tight as piano wire. “Considering Cinda lived here more than six months, I’d hoped to be here sooner. I wish I had been.”

“I’m sure you do. Just like I wish I’d bought her a damned gun and insisted she learn to use it.”

A gun? Advocated by this woman who looked like an aging peace-and-love hippie? Only years of practice questioning witnesses kept Mel’s expression bland.

The dog butted against Mel’s hip. Absently, she stroked his thick, soft coat.

“Cinda didn’t like guns,” Mel said quietly. “And she could be stubborn.”

She’d wanted Mel to be more stubborn, to pursue the music she loved, but she’d understood and accepted Mel’s choice of law enforcement. Only to have Mel delay coming when Cinda needed the skills that came with that career.
Hell
.

Miss Hettie shot her a bitter glance. “I don’t have a particular fondness for guns, either, outside of hunting, but they’re almighty useful sometimes. Peace and love and sunshine don’t rule the world yet.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

“I don’t suppose you would, Special Agent.” Miss Hettie’s lips tightened, and she glared out at the street. Her chest rose and fell in a long, deep breath. “I expect you’ve seen your share of the world’s darkness.”

With an extra dose of it night before last. Mel pushed away the image of Cinda’s dead face. “Why did you want her to have a firearm?”

“She heard things. Thought she saw things out of the corner of her eye, but she’d look and find nothing there.”

“She mentioned that. But she also said she might be overly imaginative.”

Miss Hettie snorted. “Typical Southern woman of the old school. We downplay it when we ask anybody for anything. No right to impose, you know.”

“I do know.” Mel let her fingers slide into the big dog’s ruff, the warm fur soft but not comforting. “I should’ve seen through that.”

“Woulda, shoulda, coulda.” Miss Hettie shook her head. “She tell you she felt like she was being watched when she was out in the yard some nights? Or that one time she thought, just for a second, she saw somebody with purple eyes lookin’ in her window?”

“No,” Mel said, feeling sick. “No, she didn’t.”

If she had, Mel would’ve been more worried, more afraid of a definite menace. Or a deterioration in Cinda’s faculties. Either way, she would’ve been down here sooner. Maybe in time.

“As I told Sheriff Burton, there’s Cinda’s
shoulda
,” Miss Hettie said. “She should’ve reported what she saw.” Studying Mel, she added, “So now you blame yourself. Think you ought to’ve been here sooner, taken it more seriously.”

“Yes.” The word echoed with the bitter pain gouging Mel’s soul.

“There’s a lot of that goin’ around. Strange things happen around that swamp. Have for centuries, and not all of ’em are harmless.”

A chill rippled over Mel’s arms. Defying the eerie sensation, she lifted her chin. She couldn’t let this town’s fondness for the supernatural, or a resident’s belief in it, derail an investigation. “The sheriff’s deputy mentioned Wiccans. Maybe that’s who Cinda thought she saw.”

Hettie shook her head. “They wouldn’t hurt anybody. Not our local ones, anyway. The
Oracle
says you’re giving our local officers a hand?” When Mel nodded, the older woman added, “You ask questions out around the swamp, you’ll hear a lot of strange stories.”

The other woman’s soft tones made Mel’s skin prickle. Crap, what was wrong with her? “Most strange stories have a logical, if occasionally sick, explanation. Cinda’s murder will, too.”

Miss Hettie pursed her lips. After a moment, she said, “I hope you’re right.”

“I’m confident.” Mel smiled. But a tremor of uneasiness ran down her spine.

S
tefan leaned back from the microscope and rubbed his gritty eyes. He’d been staring into the viewer too long.

Standing, he rolled his shoulders to work out the knots from leaning over the counter. Late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the lab’s high windows above him. He took a couple of backward steps to stand in the light and boost his power.

Gleaming workstations lined the long room’s walls. An island in the middle held stations for Bunsen burners, a centrifuge, spectrometers, and several instruments for analysis of DNA, plus some specialized equipment that Stefan had designed to measure venom levels in both mage and human blood. The door to his left led into a cold room. The Collegium had state-of-the-art equipment, but none of it had done him any good.

Maybe that was because he wasn’t at top efficiency. Mel’s face kept drifting across his mind.

Now she was heartsick with grief, in need of some friendly support, and she didn’t want anything to do with him.

Stefan blew out a hard breath. He needed to stop rehashing things that were long past.

Maybe a change of scene would help get him back on track. He’d planned to check on Javy, anyway.

The lab’s automatic doors
shushed
apart as he strolled toward them and closed behind him with the same sound.

He was alone in the hall. The quarantine suite at the end of the floor was currently empty, for which he was grateful. The lab director was off for the day, and no one else had offices up here.

Still mulling the problem, he took the elevator down to the second floor and the infirmary.

The door to Javy’s room stood ajar. He was about to tap on it when his cell rang. Tugging it out of his pocket, he glanced at it. Will. That might mean news. Stefan swiped his finger over the screen. “Hey.”

“I’m in the medical lab. You better get up here fast. One of your experiments is going apeshit.”

“Apeshit, how? I just left there.” Stefan ran for the stairs. Shoving open the door, rushing into the red glare of sunset coming through the landing window, he said, “Describe it.”

“A glass beaker by the microscopes is vibrating. The liquid in it’s churning. There’s a broken slide on the floor with more of that crap spilling off it.”

Stefan’s long legs took the stairs three at a time. He passed the third floor landing. “Don’t touch it.”

“What am I, stupid? I put a shield around it.”

“Good. I’m coming up. What’re you doing there, anyway?”

“I was looking for you. Now it’s pushing against my barrier. Hell, Stefan, what is that shit?”

“Extremely strong venom.” He hit the fourth-floor door and shoved through at a run. Seconds later, he squeezed between the parting lab doors before they were fully open.

Will stood six feet from the far corner, watching the shield glowing silver around that area. He glanced at Stefan. “That stuff look purple to you?”

Stefan stopped at Will’s side. He tilted his head at the same angle as his friend’s and looked through the glow. “Yes.”

He and Will traded an
oh, fuck
glance. Normal ghoul venom was brown, as this sample had been when Stefan left the lab a few minutes ago. Purple eyes, and possibly purple-tinted venom, implied the presence of Void demons. If they were somehow mixing their blood with ghouls’, the world was in serious trouble.

“Since there aren’t supposed to be any Void demons on Earth, I guess your buddy Jonas will be all over this,” Stefan said.

“He loves a mystery.” Will frowned. “You know, the beaker started moving around sunset. It eased up as the sun dropped farther below the horizon.”

“And ghouls are stronger at night. That could be it, a response to the sunset.”

The last hint of sunlight dimmed and vanished on the ceiling above them. The fluid stopped churning. The beaker stilled.

“Wait,” Stefan said. “Let’s be sure it’s through doing whatever before you drop the shield.”

“Any progress today?” Will asked.

“No, damn it. Despite all this equipment, I couldn’t pin down the way the venom in this latest victim differs from the usual. The cells are bigger, sure, but that doesn’t account for the difference in the smell and toxicity. Or explain the bizarre pattern of these ghoul-inflicted wounds over the nerve junctions.”

Liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, the usual methods for studying acids in bile and its cousin, venom, had let him down this time. “If the ghouls are going for livers,” Stefan added, “the most obvious reason is something to do with the bile.”

“You’d think so.” Frowning, Will said, “Maybe it’s something magical, something to do with the purple eyes. Before you ask, I e-mailed Jonas, but I got nothin’ so far.”

“Join the club.” Stefan peered through the shield’s glow. The beaker looked different. “What the hell? Let me through.”

Will dropped the shield. When Stefan grabbed the beaker, the glass felt warm. “There’s more of this than I started with. If it’s doing this in a beaker, I’d better find out what it’s doing in Wiley Boone’s bloodstream.”

When Stefan reached Boone’s room, a little over an hour later, the thin, gray-haired man shifted restlessly in the bed. His eyes were closed, his skin flushed as though from fever. He looked much the same as he had when Stefan scried him to check his condition before leaving the Collegium.

As a consulting physician brought in by his regular doctor, Stefan had every right to be there. Working magic on him was a different matter, and it unfortunately appeared to be necessary. Again.

Stefan had retrieved Boone’s chart from the nurses’ station. He laid it on the bed table and dropped the messenger bag that held his magical supplies on the floor by the bed. The best way to treat Boone secretly was to put him to sleep and hold him there, but it crossed an important line. Stefan had done it before and would do it again if he needed to.

He laid a hand over Boone’s eyes and whispered,
“Dormi,”
feeding power into the word.

The command to sleep took effect immediately. Cleansing Boone’s blood required concentration Stefan couldn’t spare to hide himself. He’d just have to hope no one came in while he was working. Doctors could get away with a lot, but burning candles and applying herbal poultices were not part of Mundane treatment protocols.

He made a quick chart note about checking Boone’s bandages and taking his pulse, then peeled back the gown to bare the dressing on the right shoulder. Mel’s timely arrival at Boone’s house had spared him a wound over the liver, but the sets of five punctures around the right shoulder and at the base of the spine had bled freely. Odd that the ghoul hadn’t taken blood, as Lucinda Baldwin’s killer had, but maybe Mel’s intervention had also prevented that.

The shoulder dressing looked fresh, but the faint ammonia tang of venom hovered in the air. Stefan set the bandages, tape, herbal poultices, and lavender candle he’d brought on the bed table. Then he lit the candle, triggering the healing magic in its scent.

Only after Boone had inhaled the fragrant smoke for a full minute did Stefan gently remove the tape and gauze over his shoulder wounds. “You’re going to be okay, Wiley,” he said softly. “I won’t let you down.”

Thick, brown venom stained the bandages and bubbled from the four punctures. The one on the back was probably the same.

Weaving magic into an herbal plaster, Stefan laid it over the wound. It would draw the venom to the surface. Too bad he couldn’t play music without someone hearing. He’d grown adept at using it to speed healing.

He worked quickly, replacing the stained bandages with poultices over the single puncture on the back of the shoulder and the five at the base of the spine. The pungent reek of ammonia grew ever stronger as venom saturated the bandages. So damned much of it, soaking through the herbs and into the gauze backing.

Three times, Stefan changed the poultices, murmuring reassurances to the sleeping man. The third time, the stain was smaller, the scent weaker.

Progress. At last.

He stared at the plastic bag full of discarded, bloody poultices. Drawing the venom out without also removing at least a little blood wasn’t possible, and a wounded patient could spare only so much. The dirty bandages probably contained about a pint, with more venom still in Boone’s system. Only traces of the vile stuff were coming out now, but would sundown tomorrow spur it to lethal levels again?

Stefan studied the man’s thin, lined face. He looked pale but less jaundiced. He was resting easily, not twitching or shifting in the magically imposed slumber. A quick magical scan showed vitals within normal limits.

So far, so good, but Stefan’s gut said taking much more blood would be dangerous. He’d learned to listen to his instincts.

With ordinary venom, Boone would be able to recover at this point. Trusting that, in the circumstances, felt dicey.

Stefan stretched his cramped neck. He’d bent over the bed too long, with more yet to do.

After a moment’s thought, he changed the herbal plasters for fresh bandages identical to those he’d removed on arrival. Mage power could destroy trace venom in minute amounts. It was also safer than drawing more blood.

Stefan snuffed the lavender candle. It had countered the venom stench as well as easing Boone’s sleep, but he needed to have the magical tools put away and be ready to go when he finished. Purging Boone’s blood would leave Stefan too low on power to hide his tools behind a magical screen if anyone came in.

“Okay, Wiley,” he said softly, “Let’s hope this works.”

Laying one hand over the front punctures and sliding the other under Boone’s body to the edge of the wounds on the man’s lower back, Stefan murmured,
“sanere,”
the command to be healed, and streamed healing magic into his fingers. From there, he fed it into Boone’s body, empowering the man’s antibodies, visualizing venom cells shriveling, polluted blood coming clean.

Minutes dragged by. The venom diminished so slowly, he felt as though it were vanishing molecule by molecule. Cramps knotted Stefan’s shoulders. Gritting his teeth, he poured in more power. Unfortunately, his reserves were already low from drawing out the massive amounts of venom.

Maybe this would’ve worked better in the morning, when all things ghoul were weaker. Unfortunately, the hospital was a lot busier in the mornings.

Next time he tried something this draining, he’d bring someone along to share power. Drawing from his surroundings to recharge was a delicate process in a hospital, with sick and weak people all around.

Sweat formed on his upper lip. He scrubbed his mouth against his sleeve. No way was he quitting now, not when he could feel the tide turning.

At last, his magical senses caught no trace of venom in the man’s blood. Stefan sniffed at Boone’s shoulder. No trace there, either. Maybe this really had worked. Just a couple of seconds more to be sure.

Someone tapped on the door. Stefan sealed the opening he’d created in Wiley’s energy field and jerked his hands clear as Mel walked into the room.

For one stupid instant, his heart lifted. Then he realized…
Busted
.

Oh, hell
.

“Stefan?” Her eyes widened in a surprised, almost pleased expression, but it vanished in an instant. Frowning, she asked, “What are you doing?”