The Red Heart of Jade (4 page)

“No,” Koni gasped, standing and stepping in front of him. Dean tried to move, to see around his taller body, but Koni pressed his chest against the gun and said, “No, you can’t.”

“Fuck you doing?” Dean said in a low voice.

“Look at him,” Koni said, all cool grace and calm gone from his face. He sounded like he was begging, which was unnatural, bizarre, because Koni was a man who asked for nothing. “Look at his eyes, Dean.”

Dean looked. For a moment, it did not register—it was too strange, too unexpected. But then, the glow. Two pinpricks of light in shadow. Golden. Hot.

“Oh, shit,” Dean said. The man in front of them was a shape-shifter. A fire-starting, got-a-bag-of-bloody-bones, shape-shifter. Dean wanted to pull out his hair. These were the guys the agency was supposed to find and protect—like Koni, like Hari back home. But if a shape-shifter turned murderer?

Nothing has changed. He kills, he pays. He tries to hurt you, hurt back. Those are the rules of the game. Live first, ask questions later.

Dean tried to keep his thoughts black, to go Yoda and push away the fear, the confusion, but the murderer smiled and that was almost enough to stop Dean in his tracks and contemplate jumping off the side of the building. Sharp teeth poked over his thick bottom lip, sharp and long and white, and though his eyes glowed brighter, Dean imagined the light was cut with black, a ghost darkness, bleeding and bleeding like ink against his eye. Dean’s gun grew hot. The man’s smile widened, stretching his mouth wide, stretching and stretching, until the sides of his face bulged with some horrific grimace.

Fuck this
. Dean raised his weapon and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Just clicks. Quiet, deadly, clicks. The metal burned his skin, and though he tried to hold the gun, it seared and reflex took over. He let go. Watched the weapon clatter to the ground. Thought,
I’m so dead
.

“Dead and gone,” said the man softly, speaking for the first time. His voice was thick with teeth, surprisingly gentle. “Ash. Quickened flesh. You should have left me alone. Please. You should have let me be.”

“Stop,” Koni said. “As a brother—”

“Your brotherhood means nothing to me. “ Golden light spilled over the man’s eyes, gold running into darkness down his skin... and in its path, an even brighter whiteness, ridged and hard and gleaming like mother-of-pearl. Scales. Scales were pouring from his fat belly button and pushing outward across his gelatinous body while that hard-lined forehead receded and the meaty jaw jutted far and farther, until Dean felt like Conan the Barbarian in the temple of the Snake King, watching James Earl Jones go
cobra de capello
on his ass, and it was bad—real bad—worse than the creepiest creep-show horror of his childhood nightmares. He could not believe this was happening. He smelled smoke and his skin felt hot, like he was beginning to glow and glow, and he thought of his dream, the fire, and he felt paralyzed with the memory—the first time in his life, unable to move, to think, except to remember what it felt like to burn—

And then Koni was there in front of him, shoving hard, and before he knew it they were both falling backward through the door behind them, tumbling down the stairs. Dean hit the landing hard, but had no time to recover; Koni grabbed the back of his shirt, dragging him down another flight. He could not get his feet under him; his ass got a beating and the air was knocked out of his lungs, along with bits and pieces of skin and maybe some rattled portions of his brain. He held his guns loosely, fingers off the triggers.

“Stop,” he croaked.

“No fucking way,” Koni said, still dragging him. “I’m not going to end up a crispy crow.”

“We need to stop him.”

“Then we need another plan. I’m no kamikaze runner.”

Dean struggled to his feet and leaned against the wall. He gazed up through the stairwell, peering through the narrow space between the railing to the roof. He did not hear anyone coming after them, and glanced at Koni, whose eyes were pinpoints of wild light.

“He’s not following,” Koni said.

“There’s not another way off that roof,” Dean replied, but Koni gave him such a hard look that he felt obligated to once again revise everything he thought he knew about this case.

“Don’t say it,” Dean said. “For God’s sake, man. My brain is going to explode.”

Koni shut his eyes. “He’s a dragon, Dean. That means he can fly.”

Dean, still holding his gun, pressed the edge of his palm against his forehead. His brain felt like it was leaking through his eyes.

“A dragon,” he muttered. “Fuck. Do you know him?”

“I have a friend in California named Susie. You know her?”

“Don’t give me that. You guys are supposed to be almost extinct.”

“Which means we don’t exactly get around to throwing block parties for each other,” Koni snapped. “The only reason I know that man up there is a dragon is because of the kind of shift he was going through.”

Dean fought down a shudder. “Please don’t tell me this is typical behavior.”

“It’s not. And I would never have imagined it if I hadn’t see it with my own eyes. The murders are bad enough, but I smelled the blood on him, Dean. I could smell it from that bag. He’s let the beast take over. He’s gone into the animal. Forgotten his humanity.”

“Or maybe it’s the opposite,” Dean said grimly. “Maybe he’s more human than animal. Or maybe I don’t give a shit. Either way, he’s fucked up.”

“And he’ll take all of us down with him. He didn’t care who saw him shift on that rooftop. A
dragon
, and he didn’t care. Shit. They’re supposed to be the levelheaded ones. And if he did fly off this building... “ Koni stopped, raking his hands through his hair. “Do you know how serious that is?”

“Yeah. “ Dean knew all too well. All of them survived on secrets. Staying out of the public eye, never drawing attention: There was safety in that.

But now one of the shifters was a mass murderer, and Dean had discovered why he burned his victims down to ash: to hide the signs of feeding.

And some of those people were alive when he started chewing.

“The latest victim is just a few floors down,” he said, swallowing hard, trying not to puke. “Practically a neighbor to that other guy I came to investigate. The scene will be fresh. I need to be there.”

“And if he comes back?”

“We fight,” Dean said. “Or run. Whichever comes first.”

They moved quickly down the stairs, listening hard for the tread of pursuit, and on the fourth floor entered a narrow hall. Flickering fluorescent lights hurt Dean’s eyes, and the air was hot, sticky. He heard television sets, loud voices, children crying, and smelled grease, smoke. For a moment the smell turned his stomach; it reminded him too much of his cooking chest, the cooking body in his vision, the bag of blood and parts. Vegetarianism was definitely in his future.

The victim lived at the end of the hall. His door stood ajar. Koni pushed it open.

The room was dark inside. The ceilings were low. There were no bars over the windows, but the glass was dirty. Plants covered the sill. The ceiling fan turned. Dean smelled garlic. He shifted his vision, revealing a network of energy as he walked through the lines, turning and turning. He felt the echoes of a hard death, the presence of darkness, hunger, fire. A great black stain covered the floor of the living room. Ash. Dean almost opened himself to more vibrations, more of the victim’s story, but he thought about fire—and truly, at the moment, he had no stomach for it.

Nothing of the murderer came to him, though. He even stood by the window, step for step where the shape-shifter had lingered, and found nothing.

Doesn’t make sense
, he thought, reaching under his shirt to holster his gun.
It’s like the man is dead
.

Or self-contained. He had certainly seen energy when looking at the shape-shifter face-to-face. Twisted, fucked-up energy. But was it possible that some people did not leave traces, or that they could throw up walls around themselves, holding in everything that was part of them? What would that take? How was it possible?

Dean shook off his questions. He was not ready for them, and most certainly did not want to contemplate any fatal flaws in his abilities. His clairvoyancy, his occasional ability to see the present and fragments of the past, all depended on the leavings of the living. Without that, he was as mind-blind as any regular person. Which was not a happy prospect.

Some of the trails inside the apartment belonged to people other than the victim. Dean followed them briefly, and found himself in two different locations: a grassy area outside a building that looked like a concrete strainer, followed by a golden cascade of light and marble, leather chairs, and a large statue of Buddha, set inside a wall that was remarkably familiar.

“Yo,” he said to Koni. “You said I was followed from the hotel? Think those guys could be any relation to the dead fellow here?”

“What makes you ask?”

“Because someone came through here a day or two ago, and now that same person is sitting all fat and pretty in the lobby of my hotel.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless there’s more going on here than we realize. The media said the murder victims weren’t related, right? Maybe they were wrong. “ He turned off his inner sight, and the world reasserted itself; light poured through the window, outlining a sofa and television, a small table. A single chair sat in the center of the room. Dean caught the faint scent of something metallic. He walked out of the living room into the bedroom, checking out the messy covers, the tossed remote control, all the books lining the mantel behind the bed. There was a closet, and inside, Dean rummaged around. His knuckles hit a metal box. He lowered his shields and saw—

—
a figure wrapped in shadows and a hard mouth whispering, “You know what you have to do, you know the risks if you do not, because if the Book is revealed, if the Book comes to flesh and he finds it now”
—

The voice broke off, as did the connection. Dean tried to reestablish the link, but he got nothing, and found himself wishing he was a better retro-cog, a stronger psychometrist instead of just a clairvoyant. So much was lost in his visions, so much left incomplete.

From the other room, Koni said his name. Dean picked up the metal box, carrying it under his arm. The shape-shifter stood by the chair. He held up a small notebook thick with words, the white pages splashed with blood. Very familiar. The murderer had been reading it.

“Names of the other victims,” Koni said. “And a few extras, maybe people who haven’t died yet. It’s all there, along with some pictures.”

Dean set down the metal box. It was locked, but he hammered the bolt with the butt of his gun. It fell off. He opened the lid. Inside lay a gun.

“Huh,” Dean said, and took the paperwork. It was true—all the names on the list were those who had been murdered. Names, addresses, phone numbers. Written in English, not Chinese.

Beneath it all, he felt something glossy. A photograph. He pulled it out for a look and saw a candid moment of a woman, sitting at a chair in a coffee shop.

Dean’s knees buckled. He hit the floor hard, barely noticing Koni’s low shout, the pain radiating up his legs. All he could do was stare at the picture, stare and stare at the woman gazing somewhere distant with serious dark eyes. Lovely familiar eyes.

Dean shook his head, tearing away his gaze, staring at the floor. It could not be. It was impossible. He thought, quite seriously, that he might be having a stroke.

“Dean. “ Koni crouched beside him. “Man, what is it?”

He shook his head, unable to speak. Hands shaking, he turned the photograph over. There was a piece of paper attached, and on it was a name and location.

Mirabelle Lee. Far Eastern Hotel. Room 2850. 9 p. m., lobby.

Dean closed his eyes, shutting out the world. He felt the locket against his skin, his burning skin, and he tasted the name written on the paper, rolling it in his mouth. Mirabelle Lee. Mirabelle. Miri.

No
, he thought.
No, don’t do this to yourself
.

Because it was probably just another woman with the same name. It happened. It also happened that complete strangers sometimes resembled each other; as in, were perfect twins, right down to a beauty spot on the edge of the chin, the shape of the mouth, the turn of the head. Twins in spirit, like the one shining from those eyes in the picture—eyes that Dean saw every night in his dreams.

Right. Typical. Just coincidence.

Dean ran. He heard Koni shout his name, heard him try to follow, but Dean did not wait. He barreled from the apartment, down the stairs, out the building into the slick night. He did not look for dragons, or the men who had been following him; he did not look for anything at all as he sprinted through moving traffic, battling crowds and heat and his own raging heart, relying only on instinct to guide him back to the hotel—
my hotel
—as his mind fought with the photograph in his back pocket, the name on the paper clipped to the glossy picture.

Impossible
, Dean told himself. It had to be. That girl was dead. Her heart had stopped beneath his hands. No energy, no trail, no connection—and God, he had looked. Twenty years he had spent searching for a thread, even though it was crazy, because all he wanted was a ghost, some line up to heaven. One more word, another glance, that sweet, sweet, smile.