Keeper of the Shadows

chapter 20



Barrie wasn’t sure how long she was curled up on the couch, crying. She might have slept. She might have dreamed. It felt like her whole life was over and the only thing that was keeping her breathing was the warm, furry presence of the little cat nestled on top of her.

When her phone buzzed she thought through her dull gray haze that it was the alarm clock, and she couldn’t for the life of her remember any appointment she had, or anything in the outside world to live for, for that matter.

Then she reached out and felt the phone. The screen read Blocked Caller. It wasn’t Mick, then, so she answered it, a dry-mouthed hello.

“Is this the Keeper?”

The voice on the other end was familiar, but so hoarse she could barely make it out.

“Yes...who is—”

“He came to me tonight.”

Barrie realized with a jolt that it was DJ on the other end of the line. His voice was slurred, and there was a strange intensity behind it.

“Who did?” she managed.

“Johnny. I woke up, and he was standing in my room.”

She was awake now, trying to process what she was hearing. A dream? Or a ghost? Or could it possibly have been Mick? She was reeling, not knowing what to think.

“You have to help me.” DJ was babbling now. He sounded terrified. “What does he want? What do I do?”

Barrie sat up and tried to focus herself and him. “What did he do? What did he say to you?”

“He said I was next.”

She felt a cold chill run through her whole body.

“He said Travis is dead. Murdered. Hung up like the werewolf from Otherworld.”

Barrie’s mind was racing. The only way DJ could have known that was if Johnny really had come to him. Or if DJ had been there to see Travis Branson dead. Or killed him himself...

Or if Mick was there impersonating Johnny, a voice she didn’t want to hear said inside her head.

The actor was speaking on the line. “And he said—he said he talked to you and you could explain.”

All right, there was no way DJ could have known they’d had a séance and talked to Johnny. That made his story much more plausible. Beyond that...DJ was a movie star and a vampire, but at the moment he sounded like a terrified teenager.

Things were so weird already, it was entirely possible that Johnny had visited DJ. She felt responsible, as if she’d opened a door.

And then that implacable voice inside her said, But Mick could have done it, too. He’s the only one besides Sailor and Rhiannon who knows we had a séance tonight.

She squeezed her eyes closed to shut out the voice. “Are you alone?” she asked the actor.

“I can’t find Brad,” he said, and his voice was shaking. “He’s not in his room.”

Not that Brad would be much good, anyway, Barrie thought.

“I’m calling the police now,” she told him. “A detective who’s an Other, Brodie McKay. You can trust him. But right now you need to lock yourself away somewhere with a weapon, do you understand?”

The actor didn’t answer.

“DJ?” she said sharply into the phone.

The line had gone dead.

Barrie redialed frantically, but the call went straight to voice mail. She stood with the phone in her hand, paralyzed, then she spoke firmly and authoritatively, for anyone who might listen to the call. “Do what I told you. We’re coming right now. The police will be there any minute.”

She punched off and hit Brodie’s number, praying he would pick up. She was elated to hear his golden Elven voice. “Barrie. Is something wrong?”

“I just got a call from DJ,” she said in a rush. “We have to get over there right now. He thinks someone is in his house and coming after him, and I just lost phone contact with him.”

There was a short silence. “Are you sure this is for real?” he asked warily.

She thought of DJ’s terrified voice...and reminded herself that he was an award-winning actor.

“Brodie, I’m not sure of anything,” she said desperately. “But he did say that Johnny’s ghost had come to him to warn him, and he knew that we’d had a séance and summoned Johnny. I think it’s for real.”

Brodie’s voice was tense but calm. “I’m teleporting straight there, then. Do not go there, Barrie, do you hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you,” she said automatically.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll call you from the house as soon as I arrive.”

“Brodie, be careful,” she said, but he’d already hung up.

Barrie jumped up from the couch in a frenzy of anxiety and confusion. What was going on? Had the ghost of Johnny really visited DJ to warn him of danger? Was the killer about to try to kill one of the few remaining witnesses to Johnny Love’s murder?

Or was DJ trying to lure her back to his place to finish the job he’d started that afternoon? In which case, had she just put Brodie in mortal danger by sending him to the lair of a killer vampire?

She felt a jolt of adrenaline and fear at the thought. Elven could teleport and reach a location within seconds; it was one of their innate skills. The great danger was that teleporting weakened them. Once he’d teleported, Brodie would be in no shape to confront a crazed vampire.

And there was another horrifying possibility, the one that inner voice kept nudging her toward. Was Mick once again playing Johnny, appearing to DJ as Johnny for nefarious purposes of his own?

All the various possibilities were almost too much for her to bear. But at least she knew she wasn’t thinking entirely rationally.

I need help. I need Rhiannon and Sailor.

She grabbed her phone to call Rhiannon—and saw that she had recent texts from both her cousins, both marked with their code for “urgent.” She hadn’t been answering her phone for hours while she was with Mick.

She quickly read through the texts in increasing disbelief.

There had been an emergency Keeper call, a report of an Elven and a vampire in an armed standoff with human hostages. Both Rhiannon and Sailor had been summoned in response to the crisis.

“What the hell is happening tonight?” Barrie muttered. “It’s not even a full moon.” Then she read carefully through the texts again with increasing suspicion. What really were the chances that there would be a joint Elven/vampire emergency happening tonight along with everything else? There was something fishy about it. In fact, the whole situation smelled.

She punched Rhiannon’s number and got routed straight to voice mail.

“It’s me,” she blurted into the phone. “Where are you? I think that crisis call you two got was a trick. Be careful, and call me as soon as you get this.”

She called Sailor and got her voice mail, too, and left the same message. Then she checked her own messages and was dismayed to see that Brodie hadn’t called her yet.

But he said he’d call as soon as he was at the house.

What’s happening?

She called Brodie herself, but again got nothing but voice mail.

She threw the phone down on the couch and paced the living room, biting her nails.

Okay. Okay. I’m going to get in the car, and I’m going to drive toward Brentwood. Then at least I’ll be close by if Brodie needs help.

She couldn’t just sit there waiting to see what was happening. At least driving was doing something.

She picked up the phone again and ran for her bedroom to dress.

* * *

She wasn’t speeding—exactly—but it was after 3:00 a.m., and she made pretty good time on the 101 to the 405 toward Brentwood. Every minute that ticked by made her more nervous. It had been almost a half hour since she’d talked to Brodie, and he still hadn’t called her back. Teleporting was instant, that was the whole point, so he must have been at DJ’s house for all that time.

“What’s happening?” she muttered aloud.

And she couldn’t keep her mind off the really worrisome thing: that teleporting left an Elven very weak.

What if he’d been ambushed?

They were dealing with a killer of three people, possibly four.

Barrie grew increasingly agitated as she thought about it. Rhiannon would never forgive her if anything happened to Brodie. No, that wasn’t true, but Rhiannon would never recover if anything happened to Brodie, which was even worse.

The phone trilled on the seat, and she snatched it up, answering without regard to the California Safe Driving Act.

“Brodie!” she said breathlessly.

There was a slight silence, and then Mick’s voice. “Not exactly.”

“Oh,” she said, conflicted. “I’m sorry, I really do need some time—”

“Barrie, listen. I’m at DJ’s estate, but there’s something wrong. The house is empty, the gate and the front door are standing wide open and—”

“What are you doing there?” she demanded, feeling another spike of adrenaline. Things were moving too fast, and she didn’t understand what it all meant.

“I came to talk to DJ. After what you said...I realized that he—that the two of us may be the only ones besides the killer who really know anything about what happened to Johnny. And that it’s time for us to talk it through, all of it—and figure out exactly what did happen, before someone else gets killed. Only now I’m afraid I might be too late.”

She felt a wave of fear for him. “You have to get out of there.”

“I can’t do that. Something’s obviously going down. DJ might be in trouble....”

“Mick, no....” she said desperately.

“Barrie, I have to. What else can I do?”

“No! Wait—”

But he’d already disconnected.

“Damn it.” She threw the phone back on the seat beside her and pressed her foot to the gas. She was going to kill him. Unless someone else did it first.

* * *

Mick was right. As Barrie drove up the winding road toward DJ’s estate, the huge metal gates were standing open, an eerie sight in the moonlight, and the guardhouse was empty.

Even more alarming, the house was completely dark as she drove up the circular drive. Mick’s Bentley was in front of the stairs. There was no sign of Brodie.

And at the top of the sweep of steps the front door was standing wide open, a black hole into the house.

“This is so not good,” she murmured as she stared up at it through the windshield. She stopped the car and just looked. The mansion was imposing enough during the day. At night, under the moon, it was Vlad’s castle for sure.

A man...no, two men she loved might be inside, possibly in great danger. Brodie... She’d admired him, and respected him, but in the past twenty minutes she’d realized that she loved him. He was going to be family, and that was how she thought of him. He would come to her rescue in any circumstance, and she was fully ready to come to his.

And Mick...Mick was more complicated. As intimate as they’d been, she still didn’t know him at all. She had a sense she could be more intimate with him than with anyone she’d ever known, the kind of intimate she’d barely dared to dream about.

And if he turned out to be a killer, she was in real trouble, because she loved him. She loved him. And that meant she had to go in.

She looked up at the Gothic, towering front of the house, biting her nails.

She knew it would be lethal to try entering without camouflage, and she wavered between invisibility and some other form. Either way she would be vulnerable to detection by an Other but safer than if she did nothing.

She decided on invisibility because it was easier for her to hold for longer. She killed the overhead light in the car and opened the door, then sat in the dark and breathed, focusing her awareness on her astral body, the energetic field that surrounded every living creature, and brought it into focus so that spirit force field concealed her physical body. She breathed in and out for prolonged minutes and then looked down at herself and saw nothing.

It’s showtime, she thought grimly.