J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (24 page)

Paul looked into the face of the goddess from the subway platform. “It’s gone,” she said. “I banished it. You’re safe now, but we need to get off this train.”

She helped him struggle to his feet as the train pulled into a station. He had the presence of mind to grab the bundle with his gun as she dragged him onto a busy and crowded station platform. She stopped and turned to him as people rushed past them to get on the train. “Why did it manifest here? You didn’t summon it. I would’ve sensed that.”

Standing there, staring at her, with their lives dependent upon clear, unfettered thinking, all he could think of was that she was one of the most exotic creatures he’d ever looked upon. The trench coat had spilled open, and like a schoolboy he stole a glance at her breasts, and an inviting bit of cleavage there. Her dress was made of a thin fabric that hugged her figure closely, almost as if she was standing there naked before him. He could see the shape of her breasts clearly, her nipples protruding visibly through the material. They were medium sized breasts that stood up like those on a young teenage girl, and Paul imagined caressing them, running his tongue up and down her—

It took a conscious effort to tear his eyes away from her breasts.

She looked into his eyes and frowned with concern. “You’re still stunned, aren’t you? I’m sorry. There was no time to protect you from the side effects of my spell. We have to get out of here.”

She took his hand, led him toward the exit, and he followed without question. After all, she’d rescued him from one of those monsters.

They emerged from the Powell Street Station into a busy San Francisco night, with a line of tourists trailing more than a block up Powel Street in the hope of taking a ride on the famous trolley. Still holding his hand tightly she hailed a cab on Market Street. She let go of his hand as she climbed into the cab. He hesitated, standing beside the open cab door, wondering if it was really wise to go with this stranger to some unknown location. He leaned in, and as she turned to face him,
blink
  . . .

He’d seen something in her face, though he wasn’t sure what. As doubts began to leak into his thoughts he asked her, “Where’re we going?”

She said, “To my apartment. It’s warded. You’ll be safe there.”

“But I don’t really know you,” he said, his apprehension growing.

“I saved your life, and I can protect you.” She sounded almost hurt at the thought he might not trust her, and as she spoke she reached out and touched his cheek.

It was almost a caress, and where her fingers touched his face he felt a slight tingle. He felt guilty at the hurt in her voice as he considered her words carefully. She had saved his life, rescued him from one of those bat-thing monsters. She took his hand, touched it to her own cheek. “You can trust me,” she whispered.

Yes, he could trust her.

He climbed into the cab beside her and his doubts fluttered away like butterflies lost in the night.

When Katherine and her father returned to his house, Colleen was seated in a wingback chair in his study. And when Katherine saw that Paul was absent she hoped he was in the bathroom, or getting a drink, or resting, or something. She wanted to hear anything but that Colleen had failed to rescue him. “Where’s Paul?” she demanded.

Colleen shook her head and Katherine’s heart lurched. “I missed him,” Colleen said. “But the good news is he’d already escaped on his own.”

“Damn!” McGowan swore as he poured whiskey into three glasses. “He’s in too much danger to be out on his own.” He handed each of them a glass and sat down behind his desk. “What happened? Tell me about it.”

Colleen took a sip of whiskey, then said, “As you predicted, Vasily took most of his hoodlums with him to your rendezvous. With the exception of Alexei, there were no practitioners present, just thugs. And Alexei was in no shape to do anything but whimper piteously.”

Colleen described spelling the guards at the door, then skulking through the warehouse to the room in the back. She described the room in detail, along with the blood-encrusted food processor. “I think Alexei intended to torture Paul, but got a taste of his own medicine instead.”

Katherine’s anger grew with every word. “Those fucking Russians are maniacs.”

McGowan added, “Dangerous maniacs.” He looked at Colleen pointedly and frowned. “You’re leaving something out.”

She looked down into her drink, swirled it a bit and refused to meet his eyes.

He persisted. “I’ve known you long enough to recognize when you’re holding something back.”

Colleen took another sip of whiskey; her hand was shaking, the whiskey in the glass trembling ever so slightly, and Katherine could see she was stalling for time. Clearly, her father was right, but McGowan’s phone started ringing, rescuing her from having to answer. It was his private line, so with a quick apology to the two women he answered it.

He listened for a second then said, “What can I do for you, Vasily?”

McGowan cringed, pulled the handset a few inches away from his ear, and even Katherine, standing on the other side of the small room, could hear the faint sounds of the Russian’s angry shouts.

McGowan shouted into the handset, “Calm down, damn it, and speak so I can understand you. I don’t speak Russian.”

The sounds of the angry Russian disappeared; McGowan pressed the handset to his ear and listened intently. After a few seconds he said, “I don’t believe it.”

Again McGowan was silent for several seconds, then said, “I still don’t believe it.”

He listened further for quite some time, then said good-bye and hung up. He closed his eyes, put his face in his hands and rubbed at his temples tiredly. “Karpov says Conklin fed on Alexei, fed like a demon.”

Katherine couldn’t believe her ears. “That’s insane,” she shouted. “Those Russians are just pissed off, and looking for some excuse.”

McGowan spoke tiredly, “Karpov may be a sociopath, and a brutal, homicidal thug, but he’s a powerful practitioner and he knows his stuff. He says he left Alexei alone with Paul, with Paul tied in a chair, that Paul miraculously escaped and Alexei is exhibiting all the symptoms of a demon feeding. And Alexei says it was young Conklin who fed on him. Karpov’s a lying shit, but he’s not lying about that. It may not be true, but he certainly believes it is.”

Katherine wanted to be calm about this and lower her voice, but the fact that her father might believe this garbage angered her no end. “Maybe something fed on Alexei, but it couldn’t have been Paul.” She looked to Colleen for support. “What about you? Do you believe any of this crap?”

Colleen hesitated, and that she would do so frightened Katherine no end. “I’m sorry, child,” Colleen said. “Just after I first entered the warehouse I sensed something akin to a demon-feeding, and it triggered certain protective spells I’d prepared to warn me of such an occurrence.” She looked at McGowan. “But it didn’t trigger them fully, old man. And if a demon had fed, it would have.”

McGowan stared into his drink and swirled it about for a long moment. “We’re going to have to move more carefully with Conklin. If he’s a demon, or perhaps just possessed by one, then he’ll be a serious danger to us all. We need to confine him to protect ourselves, and to do that we need to find him. Any thoughts on that?”

Colleen said something, but Katherine had turned her attention inward. The locator spell she’d concocted from their saliva and hair was less than twenty-four hours old, was still strongly active and would remain so for at least another week before it weakened and dissipated. She could find Paul with only a little effort. And while her father meant well, he didn’t know Paul the way she did, really didn’t understand him at all, might choose to kill him in a misguided effort to protect everyone else.

No, she’d find Paul on her own, and help him learn to protect himself. That was the only possible course of action.

Chapter 16: Obsession

Belinda held tightly to the young man’s hand. She’d learned quickly his arcane abilities were stronger than most, and he apparently had some natural resistance to many of her spells. But that resistance faded quickly when her flesh touched his.

In front of her apartment building she let go of him briefly to pay the cabbie. She was relieved to see her control faded more slowly this time, that holding his hand for the entire ride had apparently had some small cumulative effect. She was careful to get out of the cab first, so she was waiting for him as he stepped out. She took his hand immediately and led him up the steps at the front of her building.

She saw her control begin to slip slightly as she searched for the keys in her purse. But she found them, and quickly grasped his hand as she unlocked the front door. She didn’t let go of him as they made their way up to her second floor walkup.

Once inside her apartment, inside her wards, she relaxed a bit. She’d lived here for several years, lived here when not living in her master’s mansion, and the place was imprinted with her power. In here she didn’t need to maintain physical contact with him at all times.

“You’re safe here,” she told him as she got him seated at the small table in her kitchen. “I’ll make some tea, herbal tea. It’ll help calm you, help you sleep.”

“Am I really safe?” he asked.

She almost felt sorry for him. His face was drawn, his eyes haunted like prey in the den of a large predator. “Yes,” she said as she put a kettle of water on the stove. “I’ve built these wards up over a period of years. And I’ve specifically warded each mirror. Nothing can manifest within these walls unless I allow it.”

He raised his own hands and looked at them doubtfully. He was spattered with blood, and he had bruises on his face and a deep gash on his forehead that had been stitched up.

She sat down opposite him, took his hands in hers. “The blood?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Well, some bruises and cuts and scrapes, but the worst is more than a week old and starting to heal.”

“The blood,” she asked again. “Whose?”

He shrugged. “This Russian bastard, looks a lot like Joe Stalin.”

He launched into his story, and as he spoke she knew the spells she’d cast upon him added an element of confusion to his thoughts, more so because he was such a strong practitioner. A mundane mortal, or a weaker practitioner, might not question his own senses, would probably accept the illusions and glamour she wrapped about him without a second thought. But with the strength this young man possessed, had he created proper wards he would’ve been immune to her manipulations, would’ve detected them and known her for what she was. Instead he sat here wholly unwarded, and with such arcane strength at work there was a piece of him, buried quiet deeply, that knew something was wrong and it confused him. So until she had full control, she’d have to be on the lookout for any signs of resistance.

She leaned forward carefully, purposefully giving him a better view down her dress. She smiled warmly at him and said, “My name’s Belinda.”

He smiled back, and she could see he was warming to her. “Paul,” he said. “Paul Conklin.”

It was imperative she move quickly to make him hers. Physical contact was the key, and she was good at physical contact with handsome young men, oh so very good.

Paul told Belinda an edited version of recent events. He told her about the Russians and McGowan and Colleen shooting up his apartment, and how they and the demon had hunted him down at the hospital. She was most interested to know what, or who, had drawn him and Katherine into the Netherworld, but he couldn’t help her there. He didn’t tell her about the chimera-like appearance of the big hoodoo demon, nor that it kept calling him
Dragon-stink
. That fact had bothered Katherine’s father no end, and some instinct warned him to be cautious with that information. Nor did he tell her he’d looked into its eyes and somehow escaped. He pleaded ignorance, honestly so, about how he and Katherine had returned from the Netherworld. He told her of the abduction to Faerie, though he was vague about his escape, didn’t mention the little people, and she didn’t ask. He told her about the demon that trashed Katherine’s home, and how the Russians had captured them both. And he gave her a slightly fictitious version of how he’d escaped from good old Joe Stalin. He wasn’t about to admit to anyone he’d fed on a demon, then fed on that Russian bastard. He really didn’t feel guilty about either.

He edited the entire story quite carefully, not because he didn’t trust this beautiful, exotic witch. In fact he found he trusted her more and more as time went by. No, it wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but more that he’d learned a considerable amount of caution in recent days.

“You’ve actually been to the Netherworld,” she said with a touch of awe in her voice. “What’s it like? Not that I ever want to go there.”

He described the chaotic and hellish world that seemed to be a counterpoint to their own existence. “It’s like the city, but not like it, like a destroyed or corrupted version of the city.”

A wave of exhaustion washed over him and a wide-open yawn forced its way up out of his throat. She stood, walked around the table and put a hand on his shoulder. He could smell her perfume as she said, “You’re tired. Can’t blame you after the week you’ve had. It’s time for bed.”

He almost hoped that was an invitation as she turned and walked away, and he watched the sway of her hips as she crossed the living room. With the trench coat hung in a closet, the dress, while it covered her completely from shoulders to just above her knees, clung to her so intimately it still left the impression she was almost completely naked.

She disappeared into her bedroom, returned a moment later with some blankets and a pillow, and dropped them on the couch in the living room. “You can take the couch,” she said. “You’ll be safe here tonight. Believe me. I know how to protect you.”

She turned toward her bedroom, called over her shoulder, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Again he watched the sway of her hips as she disappeared into the bedroom, watched her go longingly, regretfully.

Paul didn’t really sleep. He lay awake for quite some time and couldn’t get Belinda out of his mind. He tried to think of something else but it took a decidedly conscious effort to do so, and each time he started to drift toward sleep, as he relaxed and the conscious effort waned, thoughts of her returned to him and he found himself picturing her hips, her breasts, her eyes and her lips  . . . then he’d snap back to full wakefulness, and try again to focus on something else.

When he did finally drift off to sleep she haunted his dreams. She wore a diaphanous gown of some sort that hid everything while tempting him with the ever-present hope he might see more. She drifted in and out of the shadows around him, and every time he reached for her she wasn’t there. He finally awoke with a demanding erection.

He didn’t understand what was happening to him. He’d never been so completely obsessive like this, not even in high school when he was trying to get laid for the first time.

He sat up, walked into the kitchen and looked at the clock on the stove. It had been less than an hour since he’d first lain down on the couch. As he returned to the couch he noticed Belinda hadn’t closed her bedroom door, and a faint glow emanated from her bedroom as if she still had a small lamp on. He sat down on the couch again, couldn’t stop thinking of the open bedroom door. She hadn’t invited him to her bed, but she hadn’t exactly pushed him away either. Several times that evening she’d caressed his cheek almost like a lover, and each time he’d felt a slight tingle as if there was some unusual attraction between them. He wondered now if she felt drawn to him as he felt drawn to her. He closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands, wanted to go to her, to touch her, to learn the taste of her lips, the taste of her skin, the taste of her entire body.

He lowered his hands from his face and opened his eyes. Somehow, without realizing it, he’d crossed the room and now stood in the doorway to her bedroom. A small bedside lamp cast a wan light over the bed where Belinda lay propped up by a wall of pillows, dressed in the diaphanous thing from his dreams. She wore shadows like other people wore clothing, and though the lamp didn’t flicker the shadows appeared to dance about her.

He saw a faint glint in her eyes, realized they were open and looking at him. He crossed the room carefully, trying to think of what to say, ready to turn and leave at the slightest hint he wasn’t welcome. But instead she raised her arms and opened them to him, and she spoke in a throaty whisper. “I’ve been waiting for you, Paul. I think this was meant to be.”

He leaned down over her, lowered himself into her arms and their lips met. She tasted like a dark, exotic fruit, and he could feel her breasts pressed against his chest. He lowered his head, kissed her nipples and she cried out passionately.

They rolled over so she was now on top of him, both of them tangled in the sheets. The black cascade of her tightly curled hair enveloped him and they kissed again, their tongues darting back and forth. He hadn’t made love to a woman since Suzanna had died, and for a moment he felt a pang of guilt that he’d betray Suzanna with this gorgeous creature. But as Belinda pressed her body against his, any thoughts of Suzanna and any guilt he might feel drifted away in a dark cloud of passion and desire.

The obsession spell had worked magnificently. Paul had come to her and didn’t even realize he had no choice in the matter. Physical contact was what Belinda needed to truly enspell him, touch to touch, skin to skin, flesh to flesh. With their bodies entwined and driven by an uncontrollable desire spawned by her spells, this would be physical contact to an extreme, and with her body she’d eventually enslave him.

She rolled over on top of him, opened her legs and gave into him completely, and as he entered her a wave of passion flooded through her. She gasped, a purely spontaneous cry that escaped from her lips without any volition on her part. So she decided to forget her manipulations this night and enjoy the moment, to drown in the pleasures of this man’s body. There would be plenty of time later to peel open his soul, layer by layer. She’d unlock the chains to his spirit one piece at a time, then truss him up and present him to her master, a gift bound by the strings of her witchcraft.

After her rescue from the Russians, Katherine spent the night at her father’s place, auspiciously because the demon had trashed her home and it was temporarily unlivable. But she had an ulterior motive she didn’t reveal to her father or Colleen: she knew Paul had returned to the city and wasn’t far away.

The matched locator charms she’d spelled into her hair and his, the little trinkets concocted from their mixed saliva and hair, gave her a sense of direction and distance to Paul. But she needed privacy and time and concentration to activate them and bring them to full strength. And she certainly wasn’t going to reveal to her father and Colleen that she’d created a way to locate Paul, not if they were going to use it to hunt him down and kill him. So, not until she left her father’s study that night, could she properly trigger the charms.

From her father she knew Karpov’s warehouse was south of the city, so Paul had started out there. But by the time she was alone in her old bedroom in her father’s house, shortly after midnight, and could properly activate the charms, she learned Paul had returned to the city. She couldn’t take a map and point to his location—it wasn’t that accurate of a sense—but she knew he was back in the city and not far from her, something she dare not reveal to her father and Colleen. He’d escaped from the Russians, was safe for the time being, so she decided to bide her time, get a good night’s sleep and find him in the morning, though the charms were so strong at this point that even while sleeping she was conscious of him as if he was in her dreams. And then about two in the morning she slammed awake as he disappeared from her senses altogether.

The charms themselves were linked by arcane forces, so even if he was dead that shouldn’t happen. If someone removed the charm by shaving his head, that could account for the complete loss of contact. But with a charm that was melded into his hair the way she’d done, they’d have to completely shave his head,. And while there were plenty of Russian thugs out trying to kill him, they certainly wouldn’t know she’d spelled such a charm into his hair—not even he knew that—so she didn’t think any of them would stop to shave his head first. No, the only thing she could think of was that he must’ve entered the strongly warded home of a powerful practitioner. Such wards would easily block the oh-so-tenuous connection between the two charms.

At least she could take some comfort from the fact the link wouldn’t trigger such wards, wouldn’t warn their master of the charm’s existence. The charms were wholly passive, so they were completely undetectable unless one knew to look for them, and knew exactly what to look for.

So where was Paul?

She’d slept poorly that first night at her father’s place, awakened repeatedly and sat up in bed, tried to will the charms to relink, to give her some inkling of his whereabouts. But she’d come up with nothing. She’d even had moments where she’d begun to wonder if he’d been killed, had to think it through logically to convince herself he probably wasn’t dead. She could only hope that that conclusion wasn’t wishful thinking. If her father didn’t have doubts about Paul’s humanity, didn’t think Paul was possibly a demon, wasn’t ready to kill him because of that, she’d consult him. She’d describe the charms and how she’d made them, and let him reassure her that Paul wasn’t dead. That’s what fathers were for. They reassured you when you were terrified. And that was the first time Katherine realized she was terrified for this nice guy that had come into her life. She put that thought out of her mind.