Industrial Magic

Unnatural-Born Killer

The Fairfield wasn't nearly as opulent as the Boyds' hotel, though I suspected the price was still at least double what we were paying. It had that kind of graciously understated atmosphere that doesn't come at an understated price. Stephen St. Cloud's room was on the third floor. When the elevator was slow in coming, we took the stairs.

We emerged at the far end of a quiet corridor. At the opposite end, a dark-haired man in his twenties lounged by the elevators. He didn't glance over until we stopped outside Stephen's room. Then he did a double take, and strode toward us, glowering.

"Good morning, Tony," Lucas said.

"What the hell are you doing-"

"My father sent me. Have you been able to get into Stephen's room yet?"

"Not unless I can walk through walls. We need a locksmith."

"No," I said. "You just need a witch."

I cast my top-level unlock spell. The last words were still leaving my mouth as Cassandra reached for the door handle. When I finished, she pushed it open and walked inside, leaving us in the hall.

"No deadbolt or chain," I said, checking the lock mechanism as I walked through. "Gotta love these card-locks. Any witch could walk right in."

Cassandra strode from the living area into the bedroom. We'd barely made it out of the front hall when Cassandra walked from the bedroom and brushed past us on her way to the door again.

"I have it," she said. "Let's go."

"Guess that means he's not here," I said. "I don't see any signs of a struggle, so he seems to have left on his own. Tony? Any idea where he might have gone?"

Tony glanced at me, then turned to Lucas.

"What?" I said. "Is my voice pitched outside a sorcerer's range? Lucas, please, interpret."

"Do you know where Stephen might be?" Lucas asked.

"Out grabbing breakfast, I guess. Everyone else left to search for Tyler, and Step was bitching about being left behind. He hates being treated like a child."

"So he pulled a snit fit and took off," I said. "Very mature. Please tell me he has a bodyguard with him."

"Does he have a bodyguard?" Lucas interpreted for the invisible witch.

"Uh, yeah," Tony said. "Me."

We stared at him.

Tony shrugged. "Well, his dad needed Step's regular guard to help in the search, so he told me to watch him, make sure he stayed in his room."

"Which you did admirably," I said.

Tony glared at me. "He's eighteen, an adult. I don't know what all the fuss is about. If you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"Don't worry," I called after him as he stalked off. "We'll find Stephen ourselves. But thanks for offering to help us look."

Cassandra popped her head back through the doorway. "Are you two coming?"

In the few seconds it took us to reach the door, she'd made it to the elevator and pushed the button. A minute later we were heading for the main lobby. Cassandra paused partway there, head turning from side to side, eyes narrowing. I don't understand how vampires track people, and I've never dared ask Cassandra. All I know is that it's not by scent, yet it's like tracking by scent in that they pick it up at the source and the trail fades over time.

Cassandra wheeled and strode back down the hall. I looked at Lucas, shrugged, and hurried to catch up. As she shoved past a middle-aged couple, the man muttered an epithet after her. Not stopping, she glanced over her shoulder, eyes meeting his. The man looked away fast, his arm going around his wife's waist as he picked up their pace.

Cassandra veered into a side hall. I turned the corner as she pushed a door clearly marked EMERGENCY EXIT. Before I could call a warning, she flung the door open. Sunlight flooded in, momentarily blinding me. I braced for the alarms, but none came.

Cassandra walked though, letting the door swing shut behind her. Lucas grabbed it before it hit me. We stepped outside. When the sun-blindness cleared, I found myself at the edge of a half-filled parking lot.

"Damn," I murmured. "You can't track him if he took a car."

Ignoring me, Cassandra marched into the parking lot. From the front of the building came the squeal of tires peeling into the lot.

"The search team?" I asked Lucas.

"I doubt they'd make their arrival so obvious, but they should be here by now. I should fill them in. Will you be all right?"

"I'll get a speed-walk workout," I said. "But I'll be fine. You go on."

I went after Cassandra. She'd stopped about twenty feet from the door.

"Can you-?" I began.

She started off again, darting between two minivans. I sighed and broke into a jog. She moved fast, taking a roughly diagonal path across the parking lot, weaving around cars. When I stepped behind her, she wheeled so fast I jumped back. Her eyes narrowed, and I was preparing a retort when I noticed her gaze was fixed somewhere behind me. I turned but saw nothing.

"Someone's here," she said.

In a hotel parking lot, that didn't strike me as strange, but before I could say so, she strode past me and backtracked a row. Then she stopped and surveyed the lot.

"Maybe we should-" I began.

She disappeared between two cars. I looked around. Beyond the distant road noise, the lot was still and quiet. I cast a sensing spell. Nothing. Not even Cassandra, who should have been within range. Damned spell. I really needed more practice.

I stood on tiptoes. Sunlight glinted off Cassandra's auburn hair as it bobbed between the cars. As I headed toward her, I heard the soft fall of footsteps behind me. I slowed, but didn't turn. Instead I glanced at my reflection in the side of an SUV. The gap behind me was empty.

I was turning my attention back to Cassandra when a shadow flickered past, the metal side of the SUV darkening for a split second. I whirled, casting my sensing spell as I turned. This time the spell caught something, but farther off, to my left. At the same moment I heard the clack of women's shoes to my right and the equally purposeful footfalls of the person approaching from my left. On my right, the footsteps stopped as Cassandra emerged from between two cars.

"There you are," she said. "You have to keep up, Paige. I can't be-"

I turned left. Again, it was who I expected. Lucas covered the distance between us, expression blocked by the sun.

"Strange," I said to Cassandra. "I sensed Lucas, but not you."

She frowned.

"With my spell, I mean. It didn't pick you up."

"Yes, well, your spells aren't exactly foolproof, Paige."

"Or it could be the whole undead thing, I guess."

Her lips tightened. "Now, don't you start on that, too. I am not…"

As she spoke, I saw Lucas's face and my gut tightened. I didn't hear the rest of what Cassandra said.

"They found him, didn't they?" I said.

Lucas nodded, and I knew they hadn't found Stephen alive.

Stephen had been killed in his car, shot in the temple, then placed in the reclined driver's seat, with sunglasses on and a ball cap pulled down to cover his wound. To anyone walking past, it would look as if he was dozing in his car. Odd, but not alarming.

I told Lucas that I'd had the feeling I was being followed. Cassandra concurred, and Lucas deployed the team to search the lot while we stayed with the body. If I hadn't said anything, would Cassandra have mentioned her suspicions? I doubted it, yet not because I thought she'd intentionally prevent us from finding the killer. Why would she? She didn't care. And that, really, was the crux to understanding Cassandra. She didn't care.

An hour later, the team concluded that the killer was gone. I'd have liked to stay, to hear their findings, but it's difficult enough to conduct a clandestine crime-scene investigation in a hotel parking lot without having onlookers.

"You've been quiet," Lucas murmured as we headed for our car.

"Thinking."

When I didn't go on, he said, "Share?"

I motioned that I'd discuss it in the car. I waited until we were on the highway before speaking. I told myself I was collecting my thoughts, but I think I was waiting to see whether Cassandra would speak first. She didn't.

"He's a hunter," I said. "He strikes fast, leaves the bodies where he killed them, uses the most convenient method, and changes plans if things get complicated. An experienced killer."

"Yes, as Esus said-" Lucas began.

He noticed I'd directed my comment to Cassandra, and stopped. She continued staring out the side window. Either she was ignoring me, which wouldn't be surprising, or I'd drawn the wrong conclusion, which, given my track record of late, wouldn't be surprising either.

"He's an expert stalker, too," I said. "Dana never heard him coming. Joey didn't have any warning. Even a druid god didn't hear him attack. I'm sure he was following me in the parking lot, but I only heard the odd footfall, saw one flash of movement. And I couldn't pick him up with my sensing spell."

Lucas glanced across his shoulder at me. "So you're suggesting that Esus may have been mistaken, that our killer may indeed be noncorporeal, a demon or another entity."

"I wouldn't call it a demon," I said. "Though some may argue the point. The kind of entity I'm thinking of lives right here in our world. The killer took down a two-hundred-plus-pound trained bodyguard. Felled him like a tree. That doesn't happen by jabbing him in the back with a hypodermic. He'd still have had a moment or two to fight. This kind of killer has a special way to incapacitate his victims. But so far, he's only used it twice-on Dana and this guard. That's why both had neck injuries. To cover the marks. Marks that are very difficult to detect, but ones that I'm sure every Cabal autopsy looks for."

"A vampire bite," Lucas said.

Cassandra nodded. "That would be my interpretation as well."

I bit back the urge to scream, "And when the hell were you going to say so?"

Lucas turned into our hotel parking lot. "The only problem with that scenario is that. I can't imagine what grudge a vampire could possibly bear against a Cabal."

"I'm sure you couldn't," Cassandra murmured.

Lucas's eyes flickered to the rearview mirror. "No, Cassandra, I can't. But if you can, perhaps you could tell us."

For a moment, she said nothing. Then she sighed, as if put upon once again to explain the obvious.

"Cabals will have nothing to do with vampires," she said.

"Precisely," Lucas said. "They have a strict policy against dealing with either werewolves or vampires, which is why I can't imagine…" He stopped, then looked through the mirror at Cassandra. "Or, perhaps, that is not so much the argument against such a possibility as for it."

"For money and power, the Cabals are the biggest game in town," I said. "Maybe someone's tired of being kept off the playing field."