Between (17 page)

No neighbors anywhere in sight. The last he’d seen was about half a mile back—a single-wide trailer, the yard a morass of discarded furniture and rusting appliances. The place had been disturbingly evocative of his own childhood, enough so that if he hadn’t been looking for Vivian he might have turned in to investigate.

But time pressed, and with every minute, every hour, more of his dreams surfaced to conscious memory and his apprehension grew. Jehenna figured in some of them, powerful, ruthless. Battles, wars, hand-to-hand combat. And always the dragons. He shifted from a fast walk to a jog, resisting
the urge to break into a full-on dash. He had a distance to go; pacing mattered.

When at last he reached a driveway leading off to the right, he was breathing hard and having doubts that he was in the right place. The mailbox, hand-lettered
MAYLOR
in permanent marker, gave him his second wind, and he picked up speed. The driveway was nothing more than two rough tracks made by tires, with grass growing between. A windbreak of poplars screened him from the main road.

Half a mile, maybe, and he came out into an open graveled yard, hemmed in by a grove of evergreen trees. A raven flew up at his approach, cronking loudly as it passed overhead, wings audibly whistling through the air. A car was parked in the yard. Not George’s car, Zee was pretty sure. Not a cop car, either. This was a shark-gray Lexus, still screaming showroom despite the fresh layer of dust.

Nobody in the vehicle. Nobody in sight anywhere on the property. Which meant that whoever belonged to the car was in the cabin, despite the yellow crime-scene tape draped across the steps to the deck, undisturbed.

Zee wished for his gun and his knives. Stupid to head unarmed into a situation like this. The witch could be in there, or somebody equally unpleasant. He picked up a branch from the yard, hefted it, chose one that was stouter.

The door was unlocked, although it stuck and he had to yank hard, stumbling off balance when the friction released and it swung open. An invasive, heavy stench of iron and rot struck his nostrils. Blood. A pool of it congealed on the kitchen floor, busy with flies. A kitchen chair lay overturned beside it. Blood splattered the walls, the ceiling.

There were footprints in the blood, two sets. Both small, women or children. One person, wearing shoes, had walked around the kitchen, careless of either blood or footprints. Another person, barefoot, had walked into the middle of the largest pool of blood and had not walked out. Four small, perfectly square marks right next to these footprints. Chair legs.

Zee’s eyes narrowed. The feet with the shoes had been
everywhere. If Vivian was here somewhere, she had company. He stood still, listening, looking.

A sitting room shared the same space as the kitchen. A reclining chair, a television and stereo. The floor was split wood, polished smooth by years of scrubbing rather than any particular process of sanding and sealing. An open door across the sitting room revealed a bedroom. Drawers pulled out and dumped on the floor. Mattress and pillows slashed. Same story in the bathroom. Another door opened into a small room that held a couple of chairs, a sagging sofa, a coffee table with a stack of books and magazines. It looked more like a waiting room than anything else.

This room was intact. And sitting on the old sofa, his startled gaze registering Zee’s appearance, sat a man who matched the Lexus in the yard. Tall and dark, with eyes of an unusual shade of green. Impeccably groomed hair and a tailored suit that hadn’t come off any rack. A suit like that should fit smoothly without wrinkle or bulge; the slight unevenness on the left meant a concealed weapon in a shoulder holster. Zee’s hand tightened a little on the stick.

“Where is she?”

“She who?” Cool insolence in the eyes, one leg crossed over the other.

“Vivian. Where is she?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Zee held himself in the doorway while his senses registered all of the details. The open door at his back. Another door across the small chamber, green with a brass knob. Long, deep scars marring the paint. A dark brown area rug on the floor, concealing the possibility of bloody footprints.

The man got to his feet. Zee stood poised, watching the hands. He would have to be quick if the stranger went for a gun. But the hands went into the pants pockets instead, casual, lord of the manor. “Supposing you tell me who you are and what the hell you are talking about?”

Zee took a deep breath, expelled it slowly through his teeth, and took a guess. “I’m a friend of Vivian’s. You must be Jared.”

Bingo. A tightening of the jaw, a shift in posture from lordly to defensive. Zee pushed on. “Look, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but her apartment has been totally torn apart. She’s not answering her cell. Is she with you?”

“I certainly don’t see her here anywhere. Do you?” The tone, still insolent, held an undertone of fury. Good. He could use that.

“What about in there?” Zee nodded at the green door.

“Locked. Look—I appreciate your concern, but if she was going to turn to anybody, it would be me and not some casual acquaintance. Why don’t you just head back home—”

“What are you doing here?” Zee’s sharp eyes had caught sight of an edge of white paper protruding from beneath a magazine. Jared’s right hand had rested protectively on top of this. The left was loosely curled into a fist, concealing something.

“Not that I have to answer to you—but as her attorney, I sort of have a right to be here—”

“Nobody has a right to be here besides the cops. Crime scene. We’re both out of line on that. I don’t suppose you noticed the footprints in the kitchen?”

Jared’s nose wrinkled. “I spent as little time as possible in there.”

“And here you calmly sit. Maybe you did something to her. Trashed her apartment looking for something. Came here and repeated the search.”

“That’s insane.”

“Is it? Show me what you have in your hand.”

Zee was primed and ready. Jared went for his gun but never got close before the stick struck him across the knuckles, sending the gun skittering across the floor. In a heartbeat Zee had a strangle lock around his throat. “Both hands, out where I can see them.”

Jared raised his hands, the left still clenched.

“Now, open your fist.”

“Fuck off. It’s none of your business.”

Zee tightened his grip, shifting pressure to the carotids, blocking off blood from the brain.

Jared’s arms and legs flailed in an uncoordinated, frantic attempt at escape before his face slackened and his muscles went loose. Zee released the pressure. He wasn’t going to take the chance of killing somebody Vivian might love.

Easy enough now to open the fingers. A small crystal globe rolled and hit the floor with a chiming sound.

Zee stood long, looking at the man, and then the globe. Thinking, drawing conclusions.

Under the concealing magazine he found a copy of George Maylor’s last will and testament. It was possible that Vivian had given Jared a copy to look over. He couldn’t have been the one to ransack the apartment, because Zee would have seen him come and go. But Jehenna could have given it to him. That and the crystal. Which meant he was working with her and treacherous.

Half-expecting to find some mysterious key, Zee rifled through the unconscious man’s pockets. Then his socks, his shoes. He found a ring of very ordinary keys—car, house, maybe office. A wallet with credit cards, money, ID. A small velvet box containing a diamond ring.

The ring made his heart skip a beat, but he told himself there was hope as long as the ring was in the box and not on Vivian’s finger.

Jared moaned and stirred, his eyes flickering open. It took a moment for the fear to register. Zee did nothing to put him at ease. He picked Jared’s gun up off the floor. Removed the cartridge to check the ammo, slammed it back into place.

“Taurus .22,” he said. “Tends to jam. Hard to aim. Effective enough at close range.”

“Vivian won’t thank you for killing me,” Jared managed. His voice cracked a little, and he swallowed hard.

Zee allowed himself a grin. “She might, once she finds out you’ve taken a bribe from Jehenna.” He realized, all at once, that he had come to some conclusions about things.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But Jared’s eyes shifted away as he spoke. His left hand clenched convulsively, and when he found it empty his eyes narrowed into hate. He sat up. “Give it back.”

“Hey, I don’t have it. Wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. I would suggest to you that you let it be.”

“She gave it to me. It’s mine.”

“Look, buddy, you’re in trouble you haven’t begun to comprehend. So is Vivian. If you love her at all, you will let the shiny thing go, get out of here, and call the cops.” He paused for a minute to think, then added, “Forget the ‘if you love her’ part. There is no
if
. No choice involved.”

“I want what’s mine.”

“No, you don’t. You really don’t.” Zee gestured with the pistol. “Out the door and into your car. Go call the cops.”

“And if I don’t?”

Zee clicked off the safety.

Jared’s eyes had been darting around the room. They locked on something in the corner, a small round object that shone with refracted colors, and he flung himself down onto hands and knees in that direction. Zee clocked him at the base of the skull with the barrel of the gun, and he slumped forward on his face, unconscious.

T
he green door was impervious to violence. After several full-body blows that nearly dislocated his shoulder, Zee tried kicks at the level of the lock set, but this also accomplished nothing. The credit card trick not only failed, but something sizzled and popped when he made the attempt, and the card broke into three jagged pieces.

He forced himself to stop, think, breathe. The gashes in the door were evidence enough, without his own frenzied efforts, that it wouldn’t open to force. Someone else had tried and failed. He didn’t have lock picks and doubted that they would work if he did. George had done something to seal it.

Maybe there was a window he could get through. He made his way back through the cabin, past the blood in the kitchen, and paused on the porch, wary. The Lexus was gone.

Zee had dragged Jared’s unconscious body outside, shoved it into the car, put the keys in the ignition, and then locked the front door of the cabin to keep him out. It appeared the idiot had come to his senses. Which meant there would be police heading this way as soon as he could find cell phone service.

As Zee made a circuit all around the cabin, looking for
windows, a logic problem presented itself. Not only were there no windows, there simply wasn’t space for anything more than the rooms he’d already seen. Logically, there could be nothing behind the green door.

A shed out back turned up a sledgehammer. Zee packed it back into the cabin and swung it at the recalcitrant door with all of his strength. The shock reverberated through his body, clattering his teeth together. The hammer left a mark in the green paint, but not so much as a dent in the door. Again and again he struck: until his body was soaked with sweat, until his breath came harsh and difficult in his throat, until his arms quivered and refused to strike another blow.

He leaned his forehead against the closed door between his hands, palms open against the unyielding wood.

“Vivian!”

Silence, except for the sound of his own heart beating to the rhythm of defeat.

Exhausted, he slumped onto the couch and reviewed the events of the last twenty-four hours.
Warlord—seek Excalibur.
Riddles and games, games and riddles, like some sort of carnival show. The age-old myth of the magic sword.

Idly, he rifled through the stack of books, hoping the distraction might jar something loose from his subconscious. The old man had eclectic tastes—
The Fellowship of the Ring
,
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
,
The Fugitive
—one by one he sorted through the books, then stopped with a crumbling paperback in his hands. It was old, the edges of the pages yellowed and brittle, the binding broken. A picture of a knight on horseback adorned the cover.
Les Légendes Arthuriennes
.

Zee vaguely remembered reading this years ago, but his memory was fuzzy about where the stories fit into the grand scheme of Arthurian legends. He flipped through the pages, looking for bits about Excalibur. His French was rusty; the book was thick. The clock ticked the seconds of his freedom away. Once the cops showed up, there was no chance of solving the puzzle, no hope of helping Vivian. He had no doubt there would be sufficient evidence to arrest him, and
with the old man dead and Vivian missing, there would be nobody to bail him out. Not this time.

Zee set to work methodically. Where would an old man hide a clue in a book? He checked for dog-ears, scanning all of the loose pages for any sort of markings. Nothing. He held the book by the disintegrating spine and shook it. No bits of paper drifted out.

He got up and paced, thoughts churning. Somewhere in the book there must be a clue. A code, maybe, something unforgettable about the plot that should trigger an association.