Keeper of the Moon

chapter 13



Metropole was bustling with activity. Sailor knew, from having checked the trades on line that morning, that two features were currently shooting there, along with another three TV shows.

Two hefty guys moved a wall-sized flat on wheels across a cobblestone street, and she asked them if they knew where Knock My Socks Off was shooting. One said, “Never heard of it,” which was probably a lie, but whatever. A block later she asked a Goth-type girl she took for an actress or maybe a designer, who said, “Follow me. I’m headed that way.” The Goth girl turned out to be in the accounting department. Sailor considered asking her about Charlotte Messenger, but the chance of the film star being friends with someone in accounting were so remote as to be nonexistent. The Goth pointed to a building marked 51 and then peeled off to a bungalow.

“And...action!”

Sailor heard the words but couldn’t see their source because they were amplified. She stopped so as not to inadvertently walk into a shot.

A few minutes later she heard “And...cut” and resumed walking, circling Building 51 to find the film crew in an alley they’d created behind the huge soundstage.

She’d done her research, so she knew what Giancarlo Ferro looked like. And she’d grown up around movie sets, so she understood the working/not working phenomenon. A movie crew was a huge group, everyone doing different jobs. Someone’s job was to maximize the number of people working at the same time, so that while a shot was being set up by the camera department, actors were in Makeup and Hair, and sets were being constructed for an upcoming scene. Still, at any point there were people who weren’t working. And when someone wasn’t working, they were killing time, which meant they welcomed diversions.

Giancarlo Ferro wasn’t working; he was waiting. It was now or never.

“Excuse me, Mr. Ferro...Giancarlo,” Sailor said, walking right up to him. “My name is Sailor Gryffald. Can I talk to you for just a minute? It’s about Charlotte Messenger.”

It was a risky approach, and the minute the words were out of her mouth she realized how crazy they sounded, how unprepared for this she was. Stupid, stupid.

Giancarlo’s face clouded over. “Who are you? What are you doing on my set?”

“I’m not a journalist or anything.”

“What are you, then?”

“I’m—” She could hardly tell him she was a Keeper; Giancarlo was entirely mortal and unaware he’d been dating an Elven. Saying she was an actress was also not an option. Unemployed actors were Hollywood’s Untouchables. “I have information you might be interested in.” She took off her sunglasses.

He looked at her eyes and blanched. “What’s wrong with you? What are you, some kind of freak?”

“I have a mild version of the illness that killed Charlotte.”

“Get away from me.” He backed away from her, looking around wildly. “Get her away from me! I can’t get sick! I have a film to finish!”

Immediately, three or four people converged on Sailor, crew people with clipboards and headsets, and demonstrating varying degrees of belligerence, either real or for the benefit of their boss. She put up her hands. “All right, all right. I’m not contagious, and I’m not here to make him sick or upset him, I just want to—”

“What’s your name? How did you get on the lot?” a man asked, his voice shrill, and another one yelled, “Security! What the hell kind of preschool operation are you people running here?”

“I’m here because of what killed Charlotte Messenger— Okay, look, never mind, I’m leaving right now,” she said, backing up when the heftiest man there moved forward threateningly. “I don’t want to cause problems.”

But before she could break free of the crowd, a studio security guard had her firmly by the arm and was pulling her away from the alley.

“I’m going, I’m going,” she told him, working to hold on to her temper. “There’s no need to manhandle me. Let go, okay?”

Instead, his grip tightened, and he jerked her hard, making her trip and fall against him. That angered him, and he jerked her again.

But if he was angry, Sailor was livid. “Get your hands off me!” she yelled. “Let go of me!”

Instead of acquiescing, he jerked her a third time, at which point she turned and hit him with a right hook.

He let go.

She was as shocked as he was that she’d actually hit him, especially with a hook, which wasn’t her best shot. Clearly those boxing classes had paid off. The thing she was supposed to do now, she knew from her boxing coach, was to take off running, and she did, but three guards were approaching from different directions, and even with great hamstrings, quadriceps and calves, she had no chance against them.

From somewhere she heard a siren, and she had a bad feeling it was coming for her.

* * *

The jail at the LAPD’s Hollywood Division wasn’t the worst place in the world, Sailor told herself. It wasn’t like Men’s Central, where prisoners were known to die before being charged with anything. And the list of celebrities who had been brought here was illustrious.

Or so she told herself. But what she felt was that she might start screaming any second.

She had just enough Elven in her to abhor being locked up. Elven were creatures of earth and could not be separated from it for more than a day without growing weak. Three to four days and they died. That was why they hadn’t come to America from their native British Isles until the arrival of transatlantic flight in the 1920s. They were incapable of teleporting over such a vast body of water as the Atlantic, and ships took too long to cross the ocean. In the late 1800s, if the tales were true, there were Elven who tried to sail across the sea, only to experience a yearning for earth so desperate that they threw themselves overboard to reach the ocean floor. Sailor had found those rumors too fantastical because the Elven terror of water was truly pathological. But she was beginning to see how panic could override sanity.

The cops weren’t brutal, not like the Metropole security guards. But neither were they interested in Sailor’s protestations that she was at heart nonviolent and breaking the guard’s nose had been mostly accidental, possibly because people had watched her throw a nice right hook when she had no legitimate business on the set, and the gate guard had no record of her coming through, which suggested trespassing.

So here she sat in a cell. She’d used her one phone call to try Rhiannon, but she’d gotten voice mail. At least the cops had let her try again. She didn’t call Barrie, who would still be doing her GAA interview and didn’t need to be bothered by a cousin in the slammer. Plus, if news of her behavior reached Darius’s ears—which it was pretty much bound to eventually—it would be a disaster. Nor would she call Brodie. He wasn’t quite family, not yet, and she’d blithely disregarded his advice, which would probably irritate him. Instead she called Reggie Maxx, who, God bless him, answered his phone.

“I’m running a bit late for our meeting,” she told him. “And I have a small favor to ask.”

Reggie, God bless him again, said he would spring her ASAP. She congratulated herself on having found the one person in her life willing to help who wouldn’t be either hopping mad at or deeply disappointed in her. She was also grateful that she’d persuaded a kindhearted officer to send someone to rescue Jonquil from the Peugeot.

“What you lookin’ at, bitch?”

The voice came from the cell next to her. A wall separated the cells, so Sailor couldn’t see the speaker. As she was wondering if the question had been rhetorical, it came again. “Bitch! I’m asking you a question! Who you lookin’ at?”

The woman was clearly having a bad day, and Sailor didn’t think this attempt at conversation would improve things. The woman apparently felt otherwise. “I’m askin’ you for the last time, bitch!” she yelled. “What the bitchin’ hell you lookin’ at?”

Sailor sighed. “If you’re talking to me,” she called, “what I’m looking at is a phlegm-colored concrete wall with a steel toilet attached to it. What I’m not looking at is you, which you’d know if you were looking at me, which you aren’t, unless you can see through walls.”

This did not stop the woman from responding, but Sailor put her hands over her ears so it turned into a drone of words, every fourth one being “bitch.” She wanted to teleport in the worst way. Any Elven who found herself jailed faced the primal urge to simply relocate her physical body, and it was a Keeper’s responsibility to bail her out before that happened. Sailor could recall her father getting calls in the middle of the night and running out with his checkbook. Not only did teleporting make the perp a fugitive from justice, but it also alarmed the cops to have people simply vanish from their jail cells. “Bad for business,” her father would say, whenever a Keeper failed in his or her primary objective, which was to hide the very existence of the species. Yet it happened. At any given moment there were several Elven on the lam, and that made things stressful for the community at large.

“Bitch!” The scream penetrated despite Sailor’s hands over her ears. “What you lookin’ at? I’m not asking you again!”

“I would love to believe that,” Sailor yelled back, “but you’re not making it easy.”

The problem with teleportation in her case, in addition to being a bad idea for the usual reasons, was that she wasn’t Elven. The least talented among the Elven could teleport fifty miles; many Keepers couldn’t penetrate a few inches of drywall. She was a prodigy in this respect, but the most she could do was a few miles, and she had to be completely relaxed, which at the moment she was definitely not. For that matter, an Elven wouldn’t be here, because they would have teleported away from Metropole the minute they sensed danger, an impossibility for Sailor, who’d been filled with too much adrenaline.

“Location, location, location,” the woman in the cell yelled. “Shifters aren’t the only shifty ones! Beware the winged ones! Check your messages!”

Sailor blinked. “What did you say?” she called, but now there was only silence.

Okay, she knew what this was about. She was being sent help from beyond. It was just as Merlin had said: spirits used anyone receptive to them as channels. They chose those with few defensive mechanisms: mediums, meditators, children, animals, anyone who was high or had mental problems.

“Did you hear me?” the woman called. “Listen to your message!”

“I am listening to the message,” Sailor called back. “If only I could understand the message.” This was what she found maddening about the spirit world: it was never straightforward, never “Here are this week’s winning lotto numbers.” No, it was all real-estate clichés and “beware the winged ones.” And people wondered why ghosts got such a bad rap.

Okay, so what would happen next? What was the penalty for assaulting someone? How could she afford a lawyer? What on earth was the matter with her? These things never happened to Rhiannon or Barrie. They had adventures, they did good Keeper work, they were great people and they stayed out of jail. The only smart thing she’d done was leave her dagger in the car.

“Quit lookin’ at me, bitch! Just quit it!”

“Listen up!” Sailor called. “I’m doing my best to make lemonade out of lemons over here, but I am just about done being chipper, so if you want to have a screaming contest, bring it on because I am the queen of catharsis. I went to a top-tier acting school, I played Medea—who murdered her children and fed them to her husband for dinner—I can scream for eight shows a week without even straining my voice, and if—”

The door opened. Sailor stopped screaming and jumped up, praying it was Reggie coming to rescue her.

Instead, it was Declan Wainwright.

* * *

Declan nearly laughed, watching Sailor go from hopeful to shocked, apprehensive and finally sheepish, all in the course of thirty seconds.

She wisely kept quiet as the police went through the release procedure, probably gauging his mood. When she’d last seen him, he realized, he’d been bloody angry, but his fair-mindedness had long since reasserted itself. Sailor was who she was: impulsive, occasionally reckless, a rule breaker. It was part of her charm. But he was hypervigilant on the subject of drugs; his mother, whom he had loved with the wholehearted devotion of a ten-year-old, had died of an overdose. She hadn’t meant to, but she was dead nevertheless, leaving him with the knowledge that he must never fall in love with a woman with a drug problem.

But Sailor didn’t have a drug problem. He knew it as soon as he’d calmed down. She had a pathogen problem. And a crisis requiring her to burn the candle at both ends. Síúlacht was to the Elven what a triple espresso was to a mortal. Or a couple of triple espressos.

But she hadn’t told him about it, and that had pissed him off.

Once outside the Hollywood station, she headed for a skinny stretch of grass and took off her shoes and socks, letting her feet sink into it. The sky was overcast and she looked up and breathed deeply. A squad car pulled up, and a policeman hopped out and opened the back door. Jonquil, his leash flying behind him, bounded over to them, knocking Sailor onto the grass in his enthusiasm. She thanked the cop and retrieved her keys, then hugged Jonquil. Finally she stood and for the first time looked at Declan.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome. Come on, I’m parked the next block up.”

She fell in beside him but kept a bit of distance. “How did you find me?” she asked.

“Reggie Maxx. He didn’t have the cash to bail you out.”

She threw him a sideways glance. “Why would Reggie call you?”

“He and I are doing some business together. He knows I’m a friend of yours, and knows I have money.”

She went back to not quite looking at him. They headed toward Hollywood Boulevard with Jonquil now between them in the manner of a chaperone. “I’ll pay you back,” she said.

“Why? You plan on skipping bail?”

That got a smile out of her. But she was being uncharacteristically quiet.

“How bad was it for you, being locked up?” he asked.

“You mean the Elven aspect of it? Bad. But I don’t suppose anyone loves jail.”

“But you didn’t teleport out. You must have wanted to. So that took discipline.”

Sailor shrugged. “It would have been stupid. And getting arrested used up my quota of stupid for the day. For the week, in fact. Actually, getting my friend Julio killed—”

“Sailor.” He touched her shoulder and could feel her resistance, but she let him stop her, facing him there on the sidewalk. Jonquil, looking up at them, sat.

“What?” she asked.

“We all have our time to die. Julio’s was three o’clock this morning. Yes, you can let that bury you in guilt and grief. Or you can accept that it’s part of life as a Keeper and move on. And maybe save someone else from dying.”

“I am moving on.”

“You’re taking crazy risks. Breaking the nose of a security guard.”

“That wasn’t a risk. That was just me getting mad. He was physically restraining me.” She looked pointedly at his hand on her arm.

He smiled and let go. They reached his car a minute later and with difficulty persuaded Jonquil to squeeze into a space not intended for a human, let alone a large dog. Sailor told him where she’d parked the Peugeot, and he pulled into midday traffic. “I talked to Brodie twenty minutes ago,” he told her. “They lifted prints off your car that match prints found in Gina Santoro’s trailer.”

“That’s not much of a surprise, is it?”

“Not to us,” he said. “But now every Other in law enforcement knows about the car bomb and that it’s connected to the celebrity deaths, which means every Other in the general population knows, too. There’s a spate of emergency Council meetings coming up today. Everyone but your Council, presumably, because you met just yesterday. Rhiannon’s already at hers, and I need to be at mine in half an hour, along with Barrie. We’re going to be devising a contingency plan in case the Elven turn against us.”

Sailor stared at him. “Is that likely to happen?”

“It could. The clues are pointing to a shifter. The first attack on you—”

“—could have been a vamp. It could easily have been a bat that clawed me.”

“But the killer wasn’t a vamp,” Declan pointed out. “So shifter’s a good theory. It would explain how one guy could get onto three closed movie sets, for one thing, and seduce four women.”

Sailor shook her head. “Listen, I figured this out. He didn’t have to seduce them, he only had to buy them a drink. And then he spiked it and let the Scarlet Pathogen do the rest, making him irresistible to them. I really believe that’s what happened, that the effect was that intense. So in the case of Charlotte and Gina, he could have offered them a drink on the set at the end of the workday. Right? Gina was found dead in her trailer.”

“Charlotte wasn’t.”

“No, but her Mercedes was left at the location. So maybe she had just enough champagne to get into his car with him after work. It wouldn’t take a shifter to pull that off.”

“Charlotte wouldn’t be swilling champagne at work with a grip.”

“No, but look, here’s what I noticed when I was on the lot at Metropole. It’s a closed environment. There’s a social hierarchy, but it’s a safe location. All the riffraff, the fans, the paparazzi, they’re kept out by security—it was the same on Technical Black. Anyone on the set is there because they belong, they’re part of the team. Charlotte’s guard would have been down. Gina’s, too. Charlotte might not drink with a grip, but she wouldn’t think twice about accepting a glass of champagne from one. Or from a sound guy, or even a production assistant. Also, they’d have wrapped by then. There’s a reason they call the last shot of the day the martini shot. It would have been the most natural thing in the world to have a glass of champagne as she’s changing out of wardrobe. And when she finishes, there’s the guy who gave it to her standing outside her trailer, saying, ‘Come on, I know a place we can watch the sun set.’ By then the effects of the pathogen are kicking in, hard, and she thinks, ‘Yeah, why not?’”

She was right, he thought. He could picture Charlotte doing just that. “And with the other two victims, it would have been even easier.”

Sailor nodded. “Much easier. If they met on the set and were standing around talking, they would have agreed to meet up with him at a bar later. Simple. Ariel’s roommate told us as much. The only problem is, this theory opens up the field rather than eliminate anyone, so we’re back to square one. What I should do is sit down with cast and crew lists and compare all three films—Ariel’s included—and look for common denominators.”

“All right. Meanwhile,” Declan said, “our theory notwithstanding, the rumors are flying and shifters are the favorite suspects. At any point the Elven could take things into their own hands.”

They’d reached the Peugeot, and he pulled into a loading zone and turned off the engine.

She got out of the car and, with his help, coaxed Jonquil to follow, her mood subdued. She would, he knew, understand the seriousness of the situation. Peacekeeping in the Otherworld was a priority among the Keepers, but they were far outnumbered by their constituents, many of whom distrusted the other species.

She looked up at the overcast sky, then at Declan. “So we have a killer on the loose and the possibility of secondary violence. Which do we address first?”

“We have another issue to address,” he said, moving to her. “The killer is targeting you.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” She regarded him steadily, eyes green as glass, with only flecks of scarlet in the irises. She was so lovely. Even weary and tormented, she was as desirable to him as... His gaze traveled down her neck and stopped.

“Did I give you that last night?” he asked, touching the red spot in the corner between her neck and shoulder.

She pulled on the neckline of her T-shirt, as if to cover the spot. “No. A were gave me that. This morning.”

It was like someone had whacked him with a baseball bat. “Are you trying to drive me bloody crazy?” he asked.

“Hey, it’s not like I— It wasn’t a date. It was a sticky situation, but I handled it.”

“Who was he?”

“Don’t.” She shook her head, and he could see it in her eyes, the memory of something frightening. “Leave it. We have real problems to deal with. This isn’t one of them.”

Strong emotions welled up in him: protectiveness toward her, rage at her unknown assailant. “I should have left you in jail,” he said. “At least you’d be safe there.”

“I wouldn’t have lasted. I would have teleported. Listen, Declan.” She stopped and took his hands in hers. “I’m sorry about last night. That I didn’t tell you about taking the síúlacht. I wanted to go on that film set after work. And even more, I wanted to be with you. To do exactly what we ended up doing, which we couldn’t have done if I’d been dead asleep. So I don’t regret taking it, but I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Okay?”

He thought of how she’d looked, naked, lying beneath him. He didn’t regret it, either. “Okay,” he said.

“And I was mad at you, too, for tracking me. Seriously mad. Only now, in the light of day, it doesn’t seem so important. But I have to keep investigating, just like you. I won’t go anywhere else alone. But I’m not sitting around waiting, either. You’re going to have to live with that.”

“When this is all over,” he said, taking her car keys from her, “we’ll talk about what we can and can’t live with. For now, okay. Stick close to Reggie, who’s big enough to discourage anyone who wants to harm you. Now stand back.” He pressed the alarm fob, unlocking the doors.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Starting this car. Move back, would you?” He got in.

“Oh, so in case there are any bombs in there I can watch you blow up?” she said. “Like hell I will.”

He could feel his temper fraying. “Will you for once just do something I ask without a fight?”

“When you ask something reasonable, yes,” she said. “But if you plan to blow yourself up in my cousin’s car, I’m going with you.”

Whether that indicated affection or sheer stubbornness, he had no idea. “And you’ll sacrifice your dog, as well?”

“Good point,” she said. She picked up a rock from the ground and threw it. Her form wasn’t bad, and it went sailing down the block, with Jonquil taking off after it at a run. “Go on, start the car,” she said, leaning against the driver’s door. “Quick.”

The Peugeot rumbled to life. It did not blow up. Declan stepped out and held the door open for her. “Go meet Reggie. And stay with him—or someone else you trust—until my meeting’s done. I don’t want you alone until I see you again. Call it autocratic, call it what you want, but that’s my condition. Promise me.”

Sailor snapped her fingers, beckoning Jonquil, who came running and bounded past her into the car. “I promise,” she said, and then surprised Declan with a quick kiss on the mouth.

He was calmer now. Part of it was the kiss. Mostly it was that he’d stuck another cell phone under the Peugeot’s front seat. Wherever this car went, he would know about it.

* * *

Sailor found Reggie on the terrace of the Mystic Café having a cappuccino and chatting up the waitress. He looked reassuringly normal, with his freckled face and baseball cap, and reassuringly muscled, should they run into trouble. Also reassuring was that she once again had the knife. After a quick word with the proprietor, Hugh Hammond, she brought Reggie a to-go cup. “Sorry to be pushy,” she said, “but we’re in a hurry.”

They decided to take Reggie’s Lexus, leaving both the Peugeot and Jonquil at the Mystic Café. Hugh Hammond was an old family friend and Canyon Keeper of the were, half the clientele were Others and everyone knew Jonquil. Hard to plant a car bomb in full view of a dozen latte drinkers. Jonquil established himself near the door, turned in circles a few times and prepared for a long afternoon of intensive napping.

Sailor filled in Reggie on what she and Declan had learned in the preceding twenty-four hours.

“You weren’t supposed to research any of that, you know,” Reggie said with a grin. “You went way outside your district. Shows an alarming degree of initiative. Good job.”

Her cell phone rang and she answered, after a glance at the screen, “Hello, Declan.”

“Hello, love. Where are you?”

There it was again, that word he said so easily, making her heart skip a beat. Stop it, she told herself. It doesn’t mean what you want it to mean.

“Reggie’s Lexus, en route to Alessande’s. Are you checking up on me?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Figured. Have you heard of an Elven woman named Catrienne Dumarais?”

“No. Hey, I have to go. I’ll check in again. Remember your promise.”

“I will.” She hung up and turned to Reggie. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Catrienne Dumarais?”

Reggie shook his head. “No. Should I have?”

“She’s a member of some renegade group called the Ancients, who reportedly know about the Scarlet Pathogen. She lives somewhere in the canyons. Possibly Lost Hills, which would be your district.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Those canyons are full of Elven, no one even knows how many. I can probably find her. I have boxes of records in my Malibu office.”

“What kind of records?”

“Old passenger manifests. Airplane lists going back to World War II. The Elven are pack rats. They save everything.”

“How did you come to have these records?”

“I inherited tons of stuff from the Coastal Keeper before me. If this Elven woman came to America in the regular way, legitimately—”

“As opposed to?”

“Some of them teleported right past the immigration authorities. If they did that, then they had to get identity papers, drivers’ licenses, Social Security numbers. Not all of them, but those wanting to work and become citizens. My predecessor ran that operation for them, out of Topanga. I have a house there with all his forgery equipment.”

“Good grief, how many houses do you have?”

He laughed. “I flip them. It’s a lot of work for not a lot of profit. I’m no Charles Highsmith.”

“Thank God. Okay, searching through documents is plan B, because that could take a while, right? Plan A is an Elven woman named Alessande. That’s where I’m directing you now—I have a strong hunch I’m supposed to talk to her. She has a symbol hanging in her house, a tree that forms a circle. The symbol of the Ancients.”

“Your dad must know hundreds of Elven. Surely one of them would—”

“No, his friends are civilized types. Assimilated. Not the sort to whip up a batch of síúlacht from stuff lying around their front yards.” Sailor indicated the road ahead. “Make a left when we get to Mulholland. So, what did you find?”

“Same rumors you’ve heard. The Déithe in Carbon Canyon say this disease made the rounds in Europe in the eighteenth century. Tough to find Elven who lived through it because they’d have to be really old and living in Paris or Berlin when it hit. But the theory is, someone kept a sample of the pathogen all these years, and now they’re unleashing it.”

“Sounds pretty sci-fi,” she said, “but okay. The thing is, why? I mean, there have to be easier ways to kill someone.”

He took the indicated left on Mulholland. “How hard is it to work with? Do we know? It’s gotta have something going for it if he’s gotten away with murder four times.”

“Good point.” She pointed to a turnout on the right side of the road. “Park there.”

She led the way on foot toward Alessande’s, then hesitated. “Here’s where I was attacked,” she said. “Give me a moment, okay?”

She stood in the spot, knowing the earth could retain the energy of the things that occurred there. But curiously, no sense of trauma or even danger emanated from the patch of ground. She had a memory of it, but there was no more evil associated with this spot than with the kind of fall she’d sometimes taken while jogging through the woods, resulting in bruised and bloody knees.

“Come on,” she told Reggie, pointing to the cabin. “It’s just ahead.”

Alessande greeted them as though expecting them. Which, given the radar the Elven had about the earth and those walking on it nearby—earthsense, they called it—was probably the case. Sailor introduced Reggie, then wondered if she’d been summoned, if the impulse to see Alessande had been planted in her mind by the Elven woman herself.

“Yes,” Alessande said, looking Sailor in the eyes. “I did summon you. I would have called, but I didn’t have your number.” She turned to Reggie. “Sailor and I have a meeting to attend, and you, I’m afraid, will not be welcome. They won’t want Sailor, either, but in her case I’m not giving them a choice.”

“Okay,” Reggie said. “Then I’ll leave her in your hands. You two look like you can defend yourselves.”

“Where will you be?” Sailor asked.

“The Kelly Ellory memorial. Forest Lawn’s ten minutes away. I’ll get there early and talk to people who knew her. I’ll call you when it’s over.” He turned to Alessande. “I promised Declan Wainwright I wouldn’t leave her alone. Promise me the same?”

“Yes.”

Sailor was feeling as passed around as a library book, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Alessande wasn’t in a communicative mood, either. They drove her Volkswagen two miles along Mulholland, past Coldwater and then up a long steep drive to a house that had several cars parked in front.

Alessande led the way around back to a trail that led to a clearing. Two dozen people were gathered there around a fire pit. A fine rain had begun to fall, and a fire would have been welcoming, but the pit was nothing but ashes, the remnants of Beltane. Nor was there welcome in the faces that turned to them. Many were openly hostile.

And they were all Elven. A male Rath came forward but did not attempt to shake her hand. “I’m Dalazar. You’re the Keeper.”

“What’s she doing here?” a woman demanded, palpable anger in her voice.

“She’s the one,” Alessande said. “I thought you should see for yourself. Sailor, take off your sunglasses.”

Sailor did so, then watched the crowd back up as though she’d pulled out a sword. “For the love of God,” a man called out, “get her out of here.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” another man said, and walked over to Sailor for a better look. “You won’t catch it from looking at her, or even touching her.”

“How do you know?” someone else asked.

“Because I’ve read the texts. And because Alessande here treated her after the incident, and she’s healthy enough. Keeper, where were you clawed?” When she indicated her chest, he asked, “Would you mind showing me?”

She unbuttoned three buttons and let him see the scratch marks.

“I brought her to the Elven Circle today,” Alessande said, “because she’s the living symbol of the disease.”

“Why do we need a living symbol?” a woman asked. “We have four dead ones.”

“Yes, but this one’s a Keeper, Saoirse. By some standards, that’s mortal. You can’t look at her, at the color of her eyes, and then write this off as an Elven problem. She is not just our liaison in the outer world, but she is also the best chance we have of making our case to those who will vilify us for what we’re about to do.”

“What are you about to do?” Sailor asked.

“You’re talking public relations,” a woman said. “Not appropriate for an Elven Circle.”

This Elven Circle, Sailor realized, was a far cry from the Keeper Council. There was no cocktail chatter here, no smiling. The lack of social facades was unsettling.

“This Keeper’s a child,” a man added. “Who’s going to listen to her? Highsmith?”

“Highsmith doesn’t speak for the entire Council. Yet,” Alessande replied. “And if we’re not to be outcasts, we need a Keeper on our side or no one will stand with us.”

The woman named Saoirse said, “You’re missing the point. It is to avoid war that we’re taking this step, Alessande. It’s the Old Way.”

“The Old Way,” said Alessande, “worked in the old country. I’m not confident it can work here, Saoirse.”

“Already decided upon,” Saoirse said.

“May I ask,” Sailor said, “are you the Ancients?”

Someone snorted in derision.

“We’re a coalition of all tribes, all sects,” the man called Dalazar said. “The Ancients keep to themselves. They want nothing to do with governing.”

“What is the Old Way?” Sailor asked. “And what is the plan?”

Dead silence ensued. Sailor looked around the circle, seeing distrust on their faces, each face more physically beautiful than the one before. Déith, Rath, Cyffarwydd...

Saoirse spoke up. “She can’t know. She would give the plan away.”

“The plan,” a Cyffarwydd man spoke up, “does not depend upon secrecy.”

“It better not,” said a Rath woman dressed for motorcycle riding in a leather jacket. She addressed Sailor. “Does Charles Highsmith know what happened to you? And the manner of it?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’ll be expecting this plan,” the woman said. “Highsmith knows the Old Ways. He has in his possession treaties dating back to the Middle Ages. I’ve seen them. Our proposal has a long history of efficacy.”

“It hasn’t been used since the 1940s,” Dalazar said. “And never in America.”

Sailor couldn’t contain her impatience and asked again, “What is it? What’s the plan?”

“Tell her,” Alessande said. “Try to sell her on it.”

“All right,” Dalazar said. “Four Elven are dead. Deliberately poisoned. The perpetrator is a vampire or shifter, which we know from the attack on you. So we take four hostage—two vampires, two shifters. We hold them for three nights and three days. If the killer comes forward or is brought to us, the hostages go free. If not, we execute them in place of the killer and there’s an end to it.”

Sailor stared. “That’s—” She was at a loss for words.

“Barbaric?” Alessande asked. “Yes.”

“Not as barbaric as war,” Saoirse said. “In three days we are done and honor-bound to walk away. Case closed.”

“First,” Sailor said, finding her voice, “the killer is not a vampire. The DNA proves that.”

“Not to me,” Dalazar said. “Those claw marks look like the work of a bat. In any case, the shifters and vamps will be strongly motivated to find the killer among them. You’d be surprised at how well it works.”

“No,” Sailor said. “I’d be surprised if there’s not an all-out attack on the Elven in retaliation. These are vampires you’re talking about. Shapeshifters. Dalazar’s right. This isn’t the old country, it’s the Wild West, and I can see every kind of Other rising up against you. It’s madness. It’s not justified morally or practically. It’s—”

“A life for a life,” Saoirse said. “It’s entirely practical, and it’s been around for centuries. What’s the alternative? Wait around for the human criminal justice system to function properly?”

“I don’t know about the justice system,” Sailor said, “but I can tell you that there are mortals and every other species working on this case, grieving for those dead women, determined to find their killer. Please don’t do this. Don’t kill four innocents. Even to avoid an all-out war, even if it worked, it’s deplorable. We’ll lose every friend, every scrap of goodwill we ever had.” She was breathing fast, feeling desperate.

“And the Keeper Council, those purveyors of goodwill?” Saoirse said. “What’s your Council doing to bring the killer to justice?”

Sailor looked around at the clear-eyed Elven, and knew that if there was ever a crowd to lie to, this wasn’t it. “Very little. Yet. But I promise you—”

“Thank you,” Dalazar said, interrupting her. “You are earnest, and your passion is evident. But the decision of the tribal leaders has been made. It passed by a slim majority, but it was made with the intention to avoid war.”

“What about the Elven who weren’t here or didn’t vote yes?” Sailor asked. “You don’t speak for them any more than my Council speaks for me.”

Dalazar held up his hand. “The decision’s been made.”

“When does it happen?” Sailor asked.

“It’s taboo to take a hostage on a holy day or for three nights beyond. Tuesday was Beltane. At moonrise tonight we act.”

“Tonight?” Sailor asked, stunned. “Are you saying that unless the killer is found by— What time does the moon rise? Eight o’clock?”

“Three minutes past eight,” Saoirse replied.

Sailor looked around the circle. “At three minutes past eight, you kidnap four people?”

“Unless the killer is found,” Dalazar replied.

Sailor glanced at Alessande. “Then with all due respect, I’m leaving.”

“Keeper,” Saoirse said, “I advise you to keep your mouth shut. No good will come of sounding an alarm. We’ll still get our hostages, but you’ll make enemies of us, and your days as a Keeper will be finished.”

Sailor faced the Rath woman. “I’ve got better things to do than feed the rumor mill.” She turned to Alessande. “Coming?”

Alessande nodded. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“Five hours and thirty-three minutes,” Sailor said, hurrying to Alessande’s car, heedless of the wild rosebushes along the path. “In the time it takes to fly from New York to L.A. this species I’m bound to protect will commit an act of war. How long have you known about this?”

“They decided this morning. I didn’t know they planned to act tonight.”

“I should appeal to my Keeper Council,” Sailor said. “Get them mobilized.”

“No,” Alessande said firmly. “Highsmith won’t stop this, he’ll use it. He’ll declare a state of emergency, then say the Council needs a formal leader, a single voice to negotiate on its behalf.”

“If he can avert this crisis, he can stick a crown on his head and call himself King Charles for all I care.”

“But he won’t avert it. You’re not listening.” Alessande walked faster. “If hostages are taken and he stages a rescue attempt, he’s seen as a strong leader. If the hostages are killed, it’s war, and there are always those who profit from war. Either way, he takes control, and once he has the Council, he’ll never let it go.”

Sailor stopped as they reached the car. “You’re saying Highsmith would throw four innocent people under the bus to instigate a war and profit from it?”

Alessande turned to face her. “Highsmith’s playing a different game than you are. You want to stop this? Find the killer.”

It sounded impossible, but Sailor couldn’t see that they had a choice. “Okay. Catrienne Dumarais,” she said. “Do you know that name? Do you know how to find her? Or any of the Ancients?”

Alessande looked at her curiously. “Yes, I’ve heard the name. No, I don’t know how to find her or her cohorts.”

Sailor glanced back toward the house. “Would any of them know?”

“They won’t help us.”

“Then I have no idea what to do.”

Alessande gave her a slow smile. “In that case, you will be open to magic.”

* * *

They walked a quarter mile or so until they were out of sight of the house and the Elven Circle, then found a tree that looked good to Sailor—a melaleuca, according to Alessande. Its trunk was huge, but the bark was soft and peeling. They stood on opposite sides of the tree, literally hugging it, their hands meeting on either side. Sailor was impatient and very skeptical, but Alessande assured her that nothing would come to them until they were calm and had emptied their minds.

They closed their eyes. Sailor had tried meditation many times, but without any real success. It took a minute before she could relax sufficiently to hear things like the buzzing of a fly, the chirping of birds, the very distant sound of an airplane, or to notice Alessande’s cool hands, the bark pressed against her face, the smell of imminent rain.

And then, as clear as if someone had whispered into her ear, came the words.

Listen to your message.

Sailor’s eyes sprang open. Alessande’s eyes opened, too. “Did you hear it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sailor said. She didn’t know which was more thrilling, that she’d heard the voice herself or that she finally understood, because of the exact inflection, what it meant.

She took out her cell phone, hit the voice mail icon and found the saved message she knew was the one she needed. It was from Justine Freud, who had left a number.

Sailor called it.