Circle of Desire (35 page)

I
T WAS THE TYPE OF NIGHT ONLY THE DEAD COULD ENJOY
—as dark as hell, and as warm as the Antarctic. Add to that the bonus of rain that bucketed down, and it was no wonder the streets were deserted.

Well, almost deserted, Sam amended, glancing at the alleyway across the street. An old man in a threadbare coat rummaged through the garbage bins that were lined up behind the Chinese restaurant, filling a plastic bag with God-knows-what. And not five minutes ago, two prostitutes had come knocking on her car’s window, their faces almost blue with cold as they’d tried to convince her to take them for a ride. Their expressions, when she’d flashed her badge, were almost relieved. But then, a warm cellblock was certainly more enticing than trying to ply their trade on a night like this. Had she not been waiting for her partner to turn up, she might have taken them downtown and charged them with soliciting, just to get them off the street and warm again. Prostitution might be legal these days, but it was restricted to certain areas, and this particular street wasn’t one of them.

But she’d had no choice except to let them go with a warning. To say they weren’t happy with this stroke of fortune was an understatement. Obviously, they’d been looking forward to being locked up in a warm cell. And
right now she knew exactly how they felt. Even a cup of the shocking coffee they served at the station house would be heaven right now.

She glanced down at the onboard computer and noted that it was already after three. If her goddamn partner didn’t turn up soon, she was heading home. Why the hell he’d insisted on meeting in this ratty section of the city in the first place was beyond her. It wasn’t even close to their patrol zone.

Sighing, she crossed her arms and glanced out the car’s side window again. A plastic bag tumbled down the road, ghostlike in the darkness. Unease pricked across her skin, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just nerves. After all, it wasn’t every night she got an urgent call from a man who’d been missing for weeks. And it certainly wasn’t every night that she went against department policy and agreed to a secret meeting.

She glanced back to the alley. The old man had disappeared. While she knew he’d probably just moved beyond her line of sight, that vague sense of unease increased. She stared through the rain-washed darkness, watching for some form of movement that would indicate the old man was still there.

Nothing.

And instinct was insisting something was very wrong in that alley.

She rubbed a hand across her eyes and silently cursed her partner’s tardiness. She didn’t need this, not after a fifteen-hour shift—and especially not in a patrol zone that wasn’t hers. Just thinking about the extra paperwork made her head ache.

Still …

She leaned forward and pressed the locator switch. The onboard computer hummed to life, producing a map of the immediate vicinity. The only way out of the alley, besides the entrance she could see, was via a fire escape on the building that housed the Chinese restaurant. She stabbed
a finger at the screen and the computer immediately listed other occupants. The top two floors were empty, but the second floor was rented to an R. C. Clarke.

She frowned again. The name rang a bell, though she didn’t know why. She pressed the screen a second time, but the computer had no additional information. For several seconds, she blindly watched the rain race down the glass. It was very wet out there. But the sooner she got out and investigated, the sooner she could get back to the relative warmth of this icebox they had the cheek to call a squad car.

With a slight grimace, she opened the glove compartment and retrieved her wristcom. In reality, it wasn’t just a communications unit, but more a two-inch-wide minicomputer capable of doing just about everything but make coffee. She wasn’t supposed to be using it after hours, but there was no way she was going into that alley without it. Not when unease sat like a lead weight in her belly. If things went wrong, she wanted an electronic record of everything that happened.

After fastening the unit onto her wrist, she flicked the Record button, checked that it was working, then collected her gun and climbed out of the car. As the door automatically locked behind her, she zipped up her jacket and eyed the dark alley. It was quite possible that this was some sort of setup. In the last few weeks, five detectives had disappeared, one of them Jack, her partner. And while he’d finally contacted her earlier this evening, it was extremely odd that he’d called neither headquarters nor Suzy, his wife. She knew, because she’d checked.

It worried her.

And it was what held her still, even as the drenching rain sluiced off her coat and soaked through her boots. Jack loved Suzy more than life itself, and there was no way he’d contact Sam before he contacted his wife.

Though the fact that he had would only add fuel to Suzy’s almost obsessive jealousy. Suzy had always resented Jack’s
closeness to his partner, and while Sam respected Jack’s relationship with his wife, she’d never warmed to the woman.

The wind lifted her hair and wrapped icy fingers around her neck. She shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold. Suddenly, the night felt very wrong.

Which was crazy. It was probably just the cold, the rain, and her severe need for sleep. If Jack hadn’t made an appearance by the time she checked the alley, she was going home. She didn’t need to be involved in another of his stupid games, in the dead of the night, after a very long shift. If he wanted to talk to her, he could do so during the day. He knew where she lived—and knew he was welcome there anytime. She clipped the gun to her belt. Its familiar weight offered a sense of comfort from the unease that still stirred through her as she walked across the road.

The rain eased a little as she entered the alley, but the wind danced through the darkness with a forlorn moan that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She hesitated, her gaze skating across the shadows. The old man’s possessions were strewn across the ground near the garbage bins. They amounted to little more than a few old books, a couple of credit cards, and the scraps of food he’d ferreted out of the bin.

She bent and picked up the cards. The names on them were all different—Joseph Ryan, Tom King, Jake George. Obviously, the old guy had not been above a little credit fraud. She dropped the cards, then stepped across the books and cautiously walked deeper into the alley. The darkness was blanket-heavy, but her eyes slowly adjusted. Shapes loomed through the ink of night. On the right-hand side of the alley, a dozen or so large boxes were stacked haphazardly against a graffiti-covered wall, and to her left was the fire escape that zigzagged up the restaurant wall.

She walked past the rusted metal ladder, then stopped. With the full force of the wind blocked by the buildings on either side, the smells that permeated the alley came into
their own. Rotting rubbish, puddles of stale water, and the faintest hint of human excrement all combined into a stomach-churning stench. She shuddered and tried breathing through her mouth rather than her nose, but it didn’t help much.

Twenty feet away the alley came to a dead end, blocked by a wall at least fifteen feet high. Unless the old guy had springs for legs, or wings hidden under his threadbare coat—both of which were certainly possible in this day and age—there was no way he could have gotten over it. She glanced across to the boxes. It didn’t make any sense for him to be hiding there, either—especially when he’d abandoned his belongings to do so. Most street people clung to their few possessions with a ferocity only death could shatter. Besides, the rain had turned the boxes into a sodden mass that would have collapsed with the slightest touch.

Which left only the fire escape.

She glanced up. Moisture dripped from above, splattering across her face. She wiped it away with her palm, then frowned and glanced down. Why did the rain suddenly feel warm?

In her heart, she knew the answer to that question even as it crossed her mind. Grimly, she pressed a small switch on her wristcom. Light flared from the unit—a pale yellow that glowed uneasily against the darkness. She raised her arm and shined the light on the metal walkway above her.

As she thought, it wasn’t rain dripping down from the fire escape, but blood. But there wasn’t a body—or, at least, not one that she could see from where she stood.

For a moment, she considered contacting headquarters about a possible homicide. But Jack had asked her to come here alone, had specifically asked her not to contact them. She didn’t understand why and, in the end, she didn’t really care. He’d been her partner for close to five years, and she trusted him more than she trusted the boneheads and politicians back at headquarters.

Wiping her palm down her thigh, she reached back for her gun. Then slowly, cautiously, she began to climb.

Three flights up she found the old man. He’d been thrown against the far edge of the landing, his body a broken and bloody mass that barely resembled anything human. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Death was never easy. In her ten years on the force, she’d come across many of its faces, yet it still had the power to shock her.

Especially when it was as gruesome as this.

The old man’s eyes were wide with fear, his mouth locked in a scream that would never be heard. His flesh had been stripped from his face, leaving a bloody mass of raw veins and muscle. No vampire had done this. In fact, none of the nonhuman species currently on record were capable of an act like this.

She took another deep breath, then knelt by the old man’s side and felt his neck. No pulse, as expected, but his skin was still very warm. The murderer had to be close.

Really close.

Metal creaked above her. Her pulse rate zooming, she grabbed her gun and twisted around, sights aimed at the landing above her. Nothing moved. No one came down the stairs. The wind moaned loudly, but nothing else could be heard beyond the harsh echo of her breathing.

Cautiously, she rose and walked back to the ladder. One more flight and she’d reach the roof. Whoever—or whatever—had done that to the old man might still be up there.

She had to call for backup. There was no other choice, not in a situation like this. Pressing the communication switch, she waited for a response and quickly asked for help. The closest unit was seven minutes away.

Her gaze went back to the landing above her and she bit her lip. Was there anyone up there? Was Jack up there? Or was this all some sort of weird setup? No, she thought. He wouldn’t do that to her. And it had been him on the com-link. Her security system had identified his voice. So the
fact that the old man had been murdered at the same time she was supposed to have met her partner had to be coincidence.

But where was Jack?

She glanced down at her wristcom. It was twenty-nine minutes past three. It wasn’t unusual for him to be late. In the five years she’d known him, he’d managed to be on time only for his wedding.

Maybe he was here. Maybe he was a victim of the creature who’d destroyed the old man.

Panic surged at the thought. God, she couldn’t risk the wait for backup, not when Jack’s life might be at stake. She had to go on. She had to try to find him. If the department decided to discipline her for leaving a crime scene, then so be it. As long as she found her partner safe and sound, she didn’t really give a damn.

As she reached the top landing, the full force of the wind hit her, thrusting her back a step before she regained her balance. Shivering, she dragged her coat zipper all the way up her neck, but it didn’t stop the rain from getting past the collar and trickling down her back.

“This is great, just great,” she muttered, wiping the water from her eyes—a totally useless gesture, given the conditions.

Visibility was practically zero. If there was someone up here with her, all they had to do was remain still and she’d never even see them. With a final, regretful glance back to the fire escape, she moved forward. After a dozen steps, a dark, boxlike shape loomed out of the grayness. Stairs to the rooms below, presumably.

She found a door and tested it cautiously. The handle turned. With her back to the wall and her gun raised, she pushed the door open and listened for any sign of movement. Still nothing.

Yet instinct told her the murderer had to be inside. There was nowhere else he could be, nowhere else he really could have come from. Unless, of course, he could fly. But if he
could fly, why would he have used the fire escape? Why wouldn’t he have just dragged the old man’s body down to the end of the alley rather than up the stairs, then flown away?

No, he was here, down those stairs, somewhere.

She switched the com unit’s light back on, then crossed her wrists, holding the gun and light to one side of her body as she edged forward.

The light gleamed off the metal stairs and puddled against the deeper darkness of the room. Three steps down, she halted again, listening. The silence was so intense it felt as if she could reach out and touch it. With unease growing like a weight in her stomach, she frowned and edged down the remaining steps.

In the small circle of light she could see several stacks of chairs lined up against the wall. Beyond that were the vague shapes of upturned tables. Obviously, someone was using the empty floor as a storage facility. She moved across to the first stack of chairs and stopped again.

Something hit her—an invisible force that came out of the darkness to slam her back against the wall. Her breath left in a whoosh of air, and for several heartbeats, she saw stars. Then her senses seemed to explode outward. Just for an instant, the darkness became something that was real, something that had flavor and taste and body. And then she realized that it did have bodies, and that she was sensing its inhabitants through every pore and fiber of her being. As if, in that one moment, she inhabited the skins of the beings out there in the shadows, learning their secrets, feeling their thoughts.