Читать книгу Daughter of the Blood - Nancy Holder - Страница 11

New York

T he moon was a flickering, low-watt streetlamp threatening to go out any second. Sirens roared in the New York City jungle of burned-out tenements and rusted cars. Bottom-dwelling predators—dealers, pimps, ’kickers and gangbangers glided through the misery and poverty of the urban landscape surrounded by snowdrifts, garbage and needles.

It was the last hour of third watch, the end of Izzy DeMarco’s very first shift as an NYPD rookie. She and her field training officer, Patrolman Juan Torres, were escorting Sauvage, a young goth from Brooklyn, to her boyfriend’s place. The building was not very nice, but at least the graffiti on the bricks was random and crude, lacking the trademark tags claiming the building for some gang. Gang territory was worse news than basic low-rent squalor.

Sauvage had promised to stay here until the department located Izzy’s former coworker, Julius Esposito, and took him into custody. Sauvage had witnessed Esposito, who had worked with Izzy in the property room, shaking down a corner boy—a street dealer—for money and contraband. She hadn’t seen him commit murder, but Esposito was also wanted in connection with the possible homicide of Detective First Grade Jason Attebury, also of the Two-Seven.

Detective Pat Kittrell—what should Izzy call him, her lover? her boyfriend?—had argued that Izzy needed protective custody of her own. Although he had no concrete evidence to back up his case, Pat was sure Esposito was the shooter who had taken aim at Izzy’s father in a burning tenement fire—and missed. If he wanted one DeMarco dead, he might want two. Pat was furious when Izzy was assigned to escort Sauvage to a so-called safehouse, and he had half a mind to go to Captain Clancy and tell her so.

Torn between feeling flattered and patronized, Izzy had demanded that Pat stand down and back way off. The last thing she needed was a gold shield lecturing her boss about how to use a new hire.

I’m a cop. Finally. And I sure as hell knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

Besides, Sauvage had declared that Izzy was the only person in New York whom she trusted. With white makeup, black eyes and scarlet lips, costumed in her evil Tinkerbell finery—black-and-red bustier, lacy skirt and leggings topped by a pea coat, with combat boots sticking out underneath—Sauvage cut an exotic figure beside Izzy, who had on her brand-new NYPD blues. Izzy wore no makeup, and her riot of black corkscrew curls were knotted regulation-style, poking out from the back of her hat. Dark brows, flashing chestnut eyes, and unconcealed freckles danced across her small nose—Izzy had never aspired to fashion-model looks, but some men—okay, Pat—said she was a natural beauty. She didn’t know about that. But she did look exactly as she had imagined she would look in her uniform, and she was very proud.

“Okay, so where is your boyfriend?” Torres thundered at Sauvage as the three stamped their chilly feet on the stoop of the building. Izzy blew on her hands. She had forgotten her gloves. Torres had not. He was bundled up against the night air, and he had a few extra pounds of his own to keep himself warm. And onion breath. Their vehicle reeked of it.

Huffing, Sauvage jabbed the buzzer repeatedly with her blood-red fingernail. About ten minutes ago, back in the squad car, Sauvage had let her boyfriend, Ruthven, know they were on their way, and he’d assured her that he was in the apartment cooking her a big bowl of brown rice and veggies—with a supply of her favorite clove cigarettes at the ready.

“I don’t know why he’s not answering,” Sauvage muttered. “He is so dead.”

Let’s hope not, Izzy thought, a chill clenching her gut, but she remained silent.

From his jacket pocket, Torres handed Sauvage his cell phone and said, “Call him and tell him to get this door open ASAP.”

Sauvage obeyed, punching in numbers. She waited a moment, then looked up from the cell phone and said, “It’s not making any noise.”

Izzy’s anxiety level increased. She turned her head, surveying the street, tilting back her head as she scanned the grimy windows. A few of them had been boarded over.

“Try mine,” Izzy offered, pulling her Nokia out of her dark-blue coat and handing it to Sauvage. Meanwhile, Torres was depressing buttons on his cell phone as he exhaled his stinky onion breath, which curled like smoke around his face.

Sauvage took Izzy’s phone, punched in the number and murmured, “C’mon, c’mon” under her breath. She closed her kohl-rimmed eyes and pursed her blood-red lips as if she were trying to send her boyfriend a message via ESP.

“Nope,” she announced, shaking her head and holding the phone out to Izzy. “It doesn’t work, either.”

Izzy listened to the dead air and frowned.

Torres said, “I just called in. I’m not getting anything. Let’s go to pagers.”

They whipped them out. Nothing.

Torres announced, “I’m going to the car.”

He jogged about ten feet down the block to their squad car. After about half a minute, he was out of the car and looking in the trunk.

He came back with their twelve-gauge shotgun.

“Hijo de puta ,” he groused. “Computer’s out. Radio phone’s not working, either.”

“How can that be?” Sauvage asked, sounding frightened. “You guys are the police. Your stuff is always supposed to work.”

A frisson shot up Izzy’s spine. This all seemed familiar in a way she could not define. The cold, the phones not working…

“I think we should get out of here,” she said. “Let’s take Sauvage to the precinct.”

“No, we can’t go,” Sauvage fretted, hunching her shoulders. She tapped the column of nameplates and jabbed the same button. “He’s here. We can buzz someone else who lives here and get them to let us in.” She ran her finger up and down the list. “Here’s a cool one—Linda Wilcox.”

“No,” Torres said. “It’s his place or we’re not going in.”

Izzy thought about arguing. Maybe something had happened to Ruthven. Something bad. Maybe it was happening right now. Ten—make that fifteen—minutes ago, he had been cooking something for his girlfriend to eat. Izzy sincerely doubted he’d left to go buy some more zucchini.

“I’m going across the street to call for backup,” Torres said.

There was a little mom-and-pop convenience store across the street, signs in the window for Colt 45, cigarettes and lotto tickets.

“Let’s go together,” Izzy suggested. “Something is seriously wrong.”

He said, “I’m only going across the street. You two should keep trying the buzzer.”

Then he split, taking full advantage of the lull in the oncoming traffic to jaywalk between parked cars.

Uneasy and cold, Izzy checked her watch again. Forty-eight minutes to go. She knew that Big Vince, her father, was counting each minute, too, waiting for her call to assure him that she had come through her first tour safe and sound. A veteran patrol officer, Big Vince hated that she had become a cop, which was exactly what she had predicted. He wanted his little girl safe and protected from the cold, harsh world, not out in it protecting others.

As soon as this detail was over, she’d phone Big Vince and assure him that he could go back to bed. Then she’d meet up with Pat, debrief, celebrate. Pat Kittrell, a detective second grade in the NYPD, was the man who had helped her fulfill her dream of becoming a cop. Encouraged her, supported her, even helped her overcome her phobia of guns.

He had bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate. They’d go to his place, pop the cork, toast…and then they would make love. As on edge as she was, her body became energized with the thought of his hands on her body, of how it felt when they started the dance. She could smell his musky scent, feel the smoothness of his lips, hear his voice whispering her name in her ear just before he slid into her warm and willing body.

“What is taking him, like, forever?” Sauvage asked Izzy, jolting her out of her reverie. Sauvage tap-danced against the pavement in her combat boots. “I don’t like this.”

Izzy didn’t either like it, either.

“Let’s check the store,” she said to Sauvage.

“Be careful of the ice,” Sauvage cautioned her, as she herself slipped and slid, grabbing Izzy’s hand.

When they reached the crosswalk, Izzy reached out to depress the pedestrian signal. As soon as she touched it, the streetlight above them flickered a few times and went out, casting them in relative darkness.

“What the—?” Sauvage muttered, gazing upward.

In the same instant, a black panel truck roared around the corner on the same side of the street as the convenience store and squealed up to the curb. Izzy yanked Sauvage back, hard. The front bumper missed Sauvage’s left knee by inches.

Izzy aimed her weapon as the passenger door burst open and a dark silhouette leaped out. She recognized the pomaded hair—Julius Esposito—just as he lunged at her and slammed something against her arm. There was a sharp, painful jolt.

Taser.

Her vision fragmented into gray, shiny dots and there was a scream out in the world or maybe that was the nerves in her ears going haywire. She began to convulse, and she hit the icy sidewalk hard, her arms and legs twitching. For a few forevers, everything shorted out. Then as she swam back, her head began to throb.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought.

It took her a while to wrap her right hand around the grip of her revolver and get to her feet. Her left ankle hurt worse than her head. Bad sprain.

The car was long gone, but Esposito was two blocks ahead of her, dragging Sauvage on foot down the street. She was shrieking and batting at him. Esposito didn’t pay her the slightest attention. Neither did the solitary man staggering drunkenly past them in a pair of earmuffs over a do-rag and a black Mets jacket.

Izzy shouted, “Stop! Police! Torres! Torres, get out here!”

Esposito was hustling out of her kill zone—too far away to shoot. And she might hit Sauvage or Mets.

She was surprised that Esposito had taken Sauvage.

Why didn’t he drag her into the truck and tell his wheelman to take off? Obviously, he wants me to follow him.

Great.

Her best bet was to sic her uninjured partner on him. The mom-and-pop loomed across the street like a journey of a thousand miles. It took her a supreme effort to walk, but she put her pain on hold as she started across the street. She was still holding her gun, but she let her arm drop to her side, concealing it from view.

A bell on the front door of the shop tinkled as she rushed inside. The store smelled of tobacco and floor cleaner, and the clerk, a short Asian man, leaned over the counter at the front and pointed toward the opposite end of the store.

He said, “He go into the alley.”

“Did he use your phone?” she asked, as she made her way down an aisle of canned lychee nuts and Japanese rice crackers. She spread her thumb and forefinger and held them against the side of her face like a phone. “Did he call the police?”

“No call,” the man informed her, shaking his head. “No working.” He held up his white portable unit as if to corroborate his testimony, and shrugged apologetically.

Why aren’t the phones working? What is going on?

“Try again. Call 911! Tell them officers are in pursuit, on foot. Perp armed and dangerous. And tell ’em all the radios are jammed up down here.”

“It no working,” the man insisted.

“Keep trying!” she bellowed.

She burst through the back door into the alley. There were Dumpsters and trash cans, but no Torres.

She whirled in a circle, shouting, “Torres! Damn it! Where are you?”

There was no answer.

Figuring he’d circled back around, she flew back through the store and burst outside again.

No Torres there, either.

Damn it, she thought.

Esposito had put a lot of distance between himself and her. Alone, without backup, she hobbled through East Harlem, one of the more impoverished neighborhoods in all of New York City. Fifth Avenue to the East River, Ninety-Sixth to One Hundred and Fifteenth Street. Night was a heavy lead weight slung across her shoulders, a sudden dumping of snow flurries slowing her pace as surely as the pain freezing up her ankle.

Esposito maintained at least a fifty-yard lead, despite the fact that he was dragging Sauvage and she was fighting him every step. The young goth’s black combat boots kept scooting out from underneath her on the icy sidewalk; now he was screaming at her over his shoulder and brandishing his gun. Izzy wondered how long Sauvage would be able to struggle. Beneath her pea coat, her black-and-red bustier must be constricting her breathing, and her skirts were wrapped around her legs like a shroud.

A handful of curious street people—“skels” in police parlance—materialized on door stoops and alley entrances to watch the excitement. She wondered if she should tell one of them to call for help. Probably the better course was for them not to know that she needed help.

She kept going.

Then a voice inside her head said, You need to hustle. You’re on point. She’s going to die.

And you’ll be next .

Izzy jerked, hard, and nearly fell. She knew that voice. It had whispered to her in her nightmares for over a decade, speaking in riddles, promising death. She’d gone to see a shrink about it; her father wanted her to talk to their priest.

But I’m awake, she thought. I’m awake and I’m hearing it.

She took her attention off Esposito and looked all around herself—at shadows and the icy falling snow.

“Who’s there?” she called.

Allez, vite, it told her. French, which she did not speak. But which she seemed to understand, if her dreams were any indication of her linguistic abilities. For the voice often spoke to her in French. And sometimes she woke herself up, responding aloud, also in French.

Hurry. Stop him. Or they’ll die. And it will be your fault .

Then a gun went off. Izzy ducked behind a row of newspaper dispensers. She felt no compression of air, heard no impact, no telltale ping of a casing. Had someone taken a potshot at her? More important, would they take another? Was that the deal—Esposito would lure her into the line of fire and someone else would gun her down?

She inched cautiously around the dispensers and started back up the street. Her mother’s gold filigree crucifix was wedged between her breasts, flattened by her brand-new Kevlar bulletproof vest. The facing on her polyester shirt itched against her sensitive skin. She was uncomfortable and she was scared and she was mad as hell.

She had no idea how she crossed the next block without being hit by oncoming traffic, but she did it. Then she saw Esposito and Sauvage at the end of the block, racing catty-corner to a high-rise tenement. On the upper floors, flames shot from blown-out windows, licking and curling at the pitted exterior. Smoke billowed like wavy hair from the roof.

Esposito darted inside.

She got to the curb and raced into the building, yelling “Fire!” She limp-ran past the long row of tenants’ brown metal mailboxes and raced down the carpeted hall. There was no smoke yet, and she smelled garbage, marijuana and urine.

“Fire! Call 911!” she bellowed, pounding her fist on the nearest door. She lurched past the cracked, peeling wall to the next door. “Fire! Get out now! Leave the building! The building’s on fire!”

Through an open door to her right, watery light blinked above a wooden staircase topped with an Art Deco rail. She stopped, cocking her head, and detected a distant shuffling noise—rapid footfalls on wood.

She gripped the rail with her left hand and pulled herself up the stairs, her Medusa pointed toward the ceiling. Her ankle screamed in protest.

At the second-story landing, she tried the doorknob that led into the hallway. It was locked. She didn’t know if that meant Esposito had gone in that way and locked it after himself, and she debated for an instant—force the door open, or go up another story?

She decided to stick with the stairway. If he wanted her to follow him, he wouldn’t throw obstacles in her path. He’d make it easy for her.

Just like Torres made it easy for him to attack me. Is he in on it? Where is he now?

Maybe Esposito’s objective was to make sure she died in the fire. Something about that tugged at her. Dying by fire. Dying in fire. That had something to do with her. With her heritage.

What heritage? I’m a second-generation cop and my brains have been scrambled by a stun gun, she thought. I don’t know anyone who’s died in a fire. I don’t even know any firefighters.

As she climbed, she heard people screaming, and she smelled thick, oily smoke. The fire was traveling rapidly to the lower floors.

On the third floor, the hallway door hung ajar. Beyond it, the hall lights were dim, smoke curling around the sconce directly across from her. Then she looked down and noticed a three-inch piece of black lace—from Sauvage’s skirt?—draped across the transom.

Izzy painfully bent down, picked it up and examined it. Had to be. The more important question was, was it Sauvage or Esposito who had left it there for her to find? Maybe Esposito was hiding behind that open door right now, waiting to blow her head off.

Her scalp prickled. Extending her Medusa with both hands, she kicked open the door and darted into the hallway, sweeping a circle. The hallway was filling with smoke. Apartment doors slammed open as the frightened occupants spilled out of their homes. They began running toward the front of the building—toward an elevator, Izzy feared—a very, very bad thing to do in a fire.

Breaking whatever cover she had left, Izzy shouted, “Stairs! Here!” and made broad gestures to get their attention. The three or four closest to her hurried over, and she waggled the flashlight toward the stairs, bellowing, “Move it! Get out now! Go down the stairs and go across the street! Call 911 when you get outside!”

If their phones would work.

She lurched toward the back. As the terrified civilians swarmed past her, she yelled, “This is the police! Stay calm! Walk to the stairs!”

As she moved in deeper, curls of smoke rolled toward her in waves. She snatched off her hat with her left hand and waved it in front of herself, trying to keep her vision clear. A tiny, wizened man with walnut-hued skin ran past her with a barking Chihuahua in his arms.

“Po-lice!” he yelled, smiling at Izzy. “Po-lice done come! Hallelujah!”

“Take the stairs,” she told him, gesturing behind herself. “Don’t take the elevator.”

He gave her a wink and said, “Oui, ma guardienne. Merci. ”

Izzy jerked. What the hell? That seemed familiar too, being called ma guardienne . Part of her life.

She realized with a start that she had seen this hallway before, too. She looked to the left and spotted the fire extinguisher, just as she’d expected to see it in that location. There was the deep, jagged crack in the wall.

Her heart skipped beats as she remembered when and where she had seen it before:

In her vision in the restaurant.

At lunch she had watched her father as if by remote camera, only it was all in her mind. He was on a detail, walking along this exact same corridor—also during a fire. She had been sitting in a deli blocks away, but she had seen him as clearly as if she’d been there with him. She had known someone in the hall was raising a gun and taking aim, and she had shouted, “Hit the floor! ”

In her head.

And Big Vince had heard her in his head, and obeyed. The shooter had missed, and her father had lived to tell the tale, labeling it a miracle from heaven.

Big Vince wasn’t here now, but if the rest of the vision held true, there was a perp hiding at a hallway intersection off to her right, his gun pointed at her skull—and she was certain now that it had been Esposito, and that he had lured her here so he could enact the same ritual execution he’d planned for her father.

She dove to the floor and rolled onto her side, aiming her gun at the appropriate angle, aware that there was no safety on a revolver, and the last thing she wanted to do was shoot an innocent bystander.

There! She saw movement…seconds before the sconce in the wall above her head went out. Now the intersection plunged into darkness, but she still knew there was definitely someone there.

She drew another breath, keeping her arms outstretched. Her muscles began to quiver with fatigue. Her Medusa was heavy, fully loaded with six cartridges in the cylinder…

No, there are five , the voice said in her head. You used it, remember?

She blinked. She hadn’t used it. If she had, she’d be facing hours of paperwork and at least a couple of Internal Affairs interviews. Discharging a weapon while on duty was a huge deal.

Despite the darkness, she glanced downward, in the direction of her gun. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in sheer terror as little sparks wicked off her hands.

I’m on fire! she thought, as she rolled over on her side. But she wasn’t in any pain. The sparks multiplied. She was glowing .

Then the light vanished, and she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. Maybe it was some kind of taser aftereffect.

A voice called, “Iz?” as a tall, rangy figure stepped from the smoke and shadows, into the light of the central corridor.

It was Pat. He was holding both a flashlight and a gun—a .357 Magnum. His deep-green eyes glittered in the soft yellow light that burnished the planes and hollows of his face.

“Jesus, Iz.” He set down the flashlight as he gathered her up with his left arm. “When I heard it was Esposito…”

“I’m okay,” she said as he laced his fingers through hers, easing her to her feet as he swept the area with his gun. “I don’t know where Torres is. Did he call it in?”

“Must have,” he said. “Captain Clancy told me to get my butt over here. She didn’t need to tell me twice.”

Her leg buckled as she put weight on her injured ankle, and he kept her from falling, his face creasing with concern.

“I’m okay,” she said again, then realized that she had to be honest about her injury. They were on a mission. She confessed, “My ankle’s sprained. It hurts.”

“You stay here, then,” he ordered her as he retrieved his flashlight and clicked it off—a wise precaution, one she would have taken herself.

“No way,” she insisted, coughing as the smoke seeped back into her lungs. “I think he took her toward the back.”

He gazed at her and shook his head. “Don’t go all Jane Wayne on me, Officer. I’m getting you out of here.”

“He wants me to follow him. If I don’t take the bait, he might shoot her,” she argued.

With the stern expression of a detective who could make hardened gangbangers break down and cry after ten minutes in an interview room, Pat said, “You’re out, Iz. I’m on it.”

Coughing harder, she fanned the smoke away from them both with her hat.

“She’s on my watch,” Izzy insisted. “I’m thinking the fire escape. Let’s go.”

As she stepped forward, there was a loud ripping noise overhead. She gazed up, just as an enormous section of the ceiling dislodged and crashed to the floor. The impact threw her into Pat’s arms and he dragged her along the hallway as another section cracked free and smashed inches from her back.

An illuminated Exit sign buzzed and winked about ten feet ahead of them. Pat reached it first and pressed his hand on the metal door beneath it.

“It’s cool,” he reported. Meaning that there was no fire on the other side. Then he yanked it open.

Their feet clanged on metal; they had reached the fire escape, a metal rectangle from which ladderlike stairs angled upward and downward. Reflexively, they both looked up. Far above them, flames danced on the roof.

Then an eerie purplish-black light bloomed from below and streaked toward them like a missile. They both dropped to the floor of the fire escape; as it bobbed dangerously, the black light exploded against the open door and tore it off its hinges.

Bricks broke and flew outward; Pat threw himself on top of Izzy and bellowed, “Cover your head!”

A fragment of brick pelted her forearm. She heard a shower of pieces ringing against the metal floor. Pat grunted.

“Are you hurt?” she cried.

“No, I’m okay.” He gripped her shoulders. “Stay down. Here comes another one.”

“What’s going on?” she demanded, trying to jerk up her head. But Pat was in the way.

“It’s Le Fils,” he said into her ear. His breath was moist and warm. “Esposito’s down there, too. They’re attacking, and they have Sauvage.”

“Le Fils?” Izzy suddenly felt very dizzy. The world canted left, right, as if the fire escape had pulled from the building and was swinging freely. Le Fils, Le Fils…

It was all there, in an instant. Everything they were doing right now could not be happening. If Le Fils was down there, they could not be in New York. And she had never told Pat about Le Fils. Le Fils du Diable—the Son of the Devil—was the king vampire of New Orleans, terrorizing both Gifted and Ungifted alike. She hadn’t known about Le Fils until the day she had left New York…

Oh, my God. I left New York. I never went to the Police Academy. I’m not NYPD.

She felt another wave of vertigo.

The floor beneath them was not metal. It was wood. As Pat shifted his weight, she lifted her swirling head and saw men in tuxedos and women in gowns rushing past the two of them. A leathery creature in a hood bobbed past. It had been at the dinner, when Jean-Marc had presented her to the family.

Jean-Marc…where is Jean-Marc?

Another explosion rocked the floor. She smelled smoke. She heard screaming.

“Let me up,” she woozily ordered Pat.

“No, stay down, darlin’,” he told her. Pat’s face was backlit by a shimmering curtain of blue. The curtain darkened with purple; then another bolt of purple-black burst through and hit the white wooden wall behind them. “He’s attacking.”

He already did attack. Le Fils and his accomplice, Julius Esposito the voodoo bokor, attacked us last night. Here, in New Orleans. Why is it happening again? This is more than a dream. Is this a vision?

With a burst of strength born of determination, she forced his weight off her body and slowly got to her feet.

Surrounded by familiar faces, some standing still as white light poured from their palms, others rushing through the chaos, she and Pat stood on the verandah of the de Bouvard mansion on the outskirts of the bayou—her blood family’s home for nearly three hundred years. She was not wearing her police uniform, but the white satin gown embroidered with flames on the bodice she had worn at her presentation.

The flame-shaped brand in her left palm glowed and pulsed, and she remembered the rest: she was no longer simply Izzy DeMarco; she was Isabella Celestina DeMarco de Bouvard, the daughter of the flames. Her biological mother, Marianne, the guardienne and titular protector of this House, lay downstairs in a coma.

And this was her battle.

Around her neck, Izzy wore protective talismans: the rose quartz necklace Sauvage had given her, and the chicken-foot gris-gris of Andre the werewolf.

Andre…Jean-Marc… She looked for the Cajun werewolf and Jean-Marc, the passionate magic user who had tracked her down and brought her here from New York. The men who should be here. She searched the throng for Sange, the elegant vampire. She saw none of them.

She reached out a hand to Pat and said, “You’re not supposed to be here. You need to go inside.”

“No way,” he replied. Then his sea-green eyes widened and his lips parted in a silent grimace. Silently, he sank to his knees and fell forward, hard, onto his face.

The back of his jacket was shredded, and blood gushed from an entry wound.

“Oh, my God, Pat!” she cried. She placed one hand over the other and pushed to stem the geyser of blood. It was spraying her face. Pat’s blood was spraying her face!

“Officer down!” she yelled. “Officer down! I need assistance!”

No one seemed to hear her. Nor even see her.

You’re on point, said the voice inside her head. Get up and kill Esposito. Do it. Now. Or others will die, and this House will fall.

In a daze, Izzy stared down at Pat. His head was twisted to one side; his eyes were fluttering shut, and his face was a deathly white.

“This isn’t happening,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening!”

But it was happening.

Do it.

“I’m not leaving him,” she said aloud, putting her arms around his broad shoulders. He was gasping like a beached sea creature. His lips were cyanotic.

Shoot Esposito or everyone will die.

“I won’t leave you,” Izzy promised Pat, as she burst into hoarse, wild wails. “Pat! I won’t leave you!”