Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [70]
“No bother,” said Victor. “I was waiting for Valerie to come home so she can assist me in a working.” He checked a watch on a chain, tarnished like everything else about the Blackburns’ home. “Where is she?”
Something ugly twisted in the back of my mind, that instinct for bad that cops develop after any time in the field. “When did she leave? Where did she go?”
Victor tucked the watch away. “She went shopping, I believe. One of the bodyguards, Calvin, was with her.”
“Calvin has a cell phone?”
Victor nodded.
“Call him.” What kind of father let his daughter wander around in the middle of a gang war? Unbidden, the image of Vincent’s body jumped into my mind and I pulped my temples with my fingers to make it go away. Valerie wasn’t dead yet. I hoped.
“No answer,” said Victor, setting down a rotary phone. “You don’t think…”
I grabbed him by the elbow and headed for the stairs. “Let’s go.”
Victor balked against me. He was strong for a man who looked like death’s door, but I was stronger. “You don’t have to involve yourself, Detective,” he said as we speed-walked down the creaky wooden stairwell. “This is between me and the O’Hallorans.”
“I’m not doing this for you, you stupid old man,” I said, shouldering open the door to the lobby. “I’m just not in the habit of letting innocent people die.”
“How white-knight of you,” he murmured. I turned a glare on him.
“Like you’d know anything about that.” I was fishing for the Fairlane’s keys with my free hand, the sharp air of the outside scratching at my face.
“What did you do, Detective, to inspire this headlong urge to champion the helpless?” Victor asked. I stopped and faced him. My memory, already hyperactive from returning to Ghosttown and seeing Blackburn, exploded with a vision of bloody screams and torn flesh, more sounds and scents than sight, blurry and soaked in red.
Victor hissed and I knew my eyes had gone gold. “Do you really want to know?” I whispered.
He considered for a moment and then shrugged. “At the moment, I am grateful to accept your help in finding my daughter.”
“Good,” I said shortly, blinking away the were from my vision. No one knew about Joshua and that first full moon except for Sunny and Dmitri. Even they didn’t know the whole truth. In a way, killing Alistair Duncan during the phase had been a blessing, because the memory of his blood and screams covered up something older and darker that I tried to bury deep down, where even my dreams couldn’t find it.
My key was in the Fairlane’s door when I saw the man staggering down the sidewalk toward us, dragging himself like a Romero zombie. I put my right hand on my gun, holding it down at my side in a neutral position. This was Ghosttown, after all—jumping to conclusions about someone’s creepiness rarely stood you in good stead.
Victor solved my dilemma for me by rushing forward to catch the man before he fell. “Calvin!” he shouted. It wasn’t a shout of concern, more like one a sweatshop owner might give if a worker dropped dead during the height of holiday shopping.
I ran over and got Calvin onto his back. He was shaking and his pupils were pinpoint, bloody spittle around his mouth. “Shit. He’s in shock.” I dashed back to the Fairlane and popped the trunk, got a blanket and threw it over poor Calvin, who had started to wheeze like a set of defective bagpipes. “Lift his feet,” I snapped at Victor. I stuck my fingers down Calvin’s gullet to check for airway obstructions, and jerked back when I felt his throat clamp down around the digit.
“What’s wrong?” Victor demanded.
“He’s dying,” I said shortly. Victor shook Calvin’s legs.
“Where’s Valerie? Where’s my daughter?”
Calvin’s eyes rolled toward us as his limbs began the tachy twitch of flesh deprived of oxygen. “They…” he gasped out. “Have her. Have … Valerie.”
“You’re not dying!” Victor shouted, dropping Calvin’s legs and grabbing him by the hair. “You failed! You don’t get to escape that easily!”
I sat back on my heels as Calvin’s last breath wuffed out. “Too late, Victor.”
“Damn him!” He let Calvin’s head drop back to the pavement.