Or the mists of illusion.
Maybe one of them will talktell us something we can use, Brodie said. Even he was breathing hard.
Maybe, Mark agreed. But they both knew they had failed. Whoever was at the head of this mess wasnt one of the human beings lying cuffed on the floor and waiting to be taken to the station.
But the head of this particular operation was a shapeshifter. And they had missed him.
Or her.
The woman... She cant be dead.... They needed her alive, Mark said, stepping over a cuffed man to reach the tomb of Sebastian Hildegard.
He lifted her carefully. Blond hair fell around her shoulders, revealing her face.
He nearly froze.
Hed already seen her tonight.
Hed never seen her in the flesh before, but...
She had been the woman in his daydream, the bride at his blood wedding....
Alive? Brodie asked him anxiously.
Her eyes opened, and she stared at Mark. They were sea-green and beautiful, and she looked disoriented.
Then she screamed and began to fight him, and she was damned good at it, belting him in the jaw and raking her nails across his face in fury. She stood on her own now; she seemed to have the strength of a thousand demons.
Hey!
Brodie came to his aid, catching her arms. Were the cops! Were here to save you.
As Brodie spoke, they heard sirens in the night; his call for the bus, to haul those they had caught to lockup, was being answered.
The young woman blinked. She inhaled, staring at Mark. He realized suddenly that she wasnt human; she was Other. She was Elven.
Brodie whispered, My God Elven, just as Mark thought it. But then, to Marks amazement, Brodie added a name. Alessande Salisbrooke!
Maybe it was natural that Brodie knew her; he was Elven, too.
She spun and looked at Brodie, and let out a sigh of relief. Brodie. I didnt realize
She stopped midsentence and stared at Mark, heat and anger emanating from her. Vampire, she said. And youre a cop?
Yeah, Im a cop, he said. She studied him as if hed done something wrong, or as if his being a vampire was anathema to her. He felt his temper rising. Yes, I am a vampire, he said angrily. Im the vampire who just saved your ass. He was shaken. He didnt usually strike out because a panicked victim fought him.
But...
Hed seen her in his vision. Seen her with a ribbon of blood coming from her throat...
At a wedding.
Their wedding.
That was certainly never going to happen.
Saved me? she exclaimed. Vampire idiot. You ruined everything.
Chapter 1
Seriously, Sailor Gryffald said, what were you thinking, Alessande? Sailor continued to pace while Alessande sat.
After a stop at the police station, Brodie and Mark had dropped Alessande off with Sailor and had gone straight to Pandoras Box, since Brodie had been anxious to see Rhiannon, the canyons vampire Keeperand his fiancée. Alessande was glad to be alone with Sailor and free to talk.
Sailor continued, Those monsters were about to sacrifice you. Believe me, you helped save my life, so I know how competent you are, but no one knows what kind of evil you were really up against, if I understand what youre saying correctly.
Alessande winced. She really shouldnt have been so angry with that vampire copafter all, he had been trying to save her. But, in her own opinion, she had been prepared. Ready. And she was suspicious of vampires and...
No, she shouldnt have snapped at him.
I had to be taken captive, Alessande explained wearily. It was the only way for me to get in there and find out whats going on, whos behind the cult and the deaths. There was more to her logicand her desperation to get at the truthbut at this moment she wasnt ready to completely explain herself, not even to Sailor Ann Gryffald.
But...youre Elven, Sailor said sternly. In the world of the Others, Sailor was the Keeper of the Elven community in the L.A. Valley. Youre an ancient!
No one liked to be reminded of her age, Alessande thought, arching a brow at Sailor.
No one liked to be reminded of her age, Alessande thought, arching a brow at Sailor.
Sorry, Sailor said. She and her two Gryffald cousinsRhiannon and Barriewere new to the Keeper job, but all three had already been tested under fire. Alessande knew that because shed been involved with helping Sailor find her way.
Theyd met when Alessande had carried Sailor into her home after Sailor had been attacked during the recent so-called Celebrity Virus plague.
Seriously, Sailor went on. I cant tell you how proud I am of so many in the Elven community, but were not considered the...the toughest of the Others. Alessande, you create potions, youre a healer. You live alone.... Youre practically a hermit.
Gee, thanks, Alessande said.
Im not trying to offend you, and you know it. You brew the best tea in the countrymaybe in the world. Youre like a beacon of caring and wisdom. But youre gentle. And you could have been up against were-creatures, vampires and God knows what elsenot to mention very vicious human beings. How did you intend to save yourself in that situation? Sailor demanded.
I was going to teleport, Alessande said, indignantly.
You cant teleport when youre unconscious, Sailor argued.
Alessande shook her head, desperately wanting to deny the seriousness of the situation, but the truth was she knew she might have gotten herself into troubleserious troubleand she should be grateful to the cops who had come to her rescue. She had just gotten it into her head lately that she had to be more proactive in protecting all Othersalong with the human race. And that, of course, was because of Regina, because shed been forced to see firsthand once again what could happen to the young and innocentespecially the young and innocent among the Elven.
Like the rest of the world, L.A. was filled with all manner of creatures most of humanity knew about only because of legendand movies. Creatures that most humans didnt even believe in. Keeperslike the Gryffald cousinswere human beings, but...more. They had special powers aligned with those of the particular paranormal race they were tasked with protecting, and were generally born into longtime Keeper families. They bore special identifying birthmarks. It was as if their role had been predetermined by a divine power.
There were areas in the world where the Other races seldom desired to live...too hard to blend in, not enough for them to do.
L.A., however, was a haven for Others. Because it was a movie town, monsters and strange creatures abounded on-screen and, frankly, offscreen, given how many...unique individuals tended to migrate there. As a place to hide in plain sight, nothing filled the bill like Hollywood. That meant that the area was densely populated by Others, so there had to be a commensurately large number of Keepers.
Elven, like Alessande, were fairly recent arrivals in the New World; they were creatures of the earth. Ocean voyagesthat much time away from trees, from the rich soilwould have killed them. Alessande had only left the Old World herself when transatlantic flight started to become commonplace.
She was an ancient, one hundred six years old, though she knew she appearedin the human worldto be about thirty. Shed seen a great deal of the wickedness the world had to offerwickedness dealt out by both human beings and Others.
Despite everything shed encountered, everything she had lived through, she had chosen to heal, to advise.
But, damn it, she was an ancient! She should have been able to overcome whatever drug had been given to her.
Shed been aware of everything as it had been going on, and to some degree she had been able to fight the drug, though she had feigned complete passivity.
But...they had drugged her, and it had definitely affected her. Would she have been able to escape at the last second?
Now she was at the Gryffald family estate, a small collection of historic homes on a nice little hill in Laurel Canyon, collectively named the House of the Rising Sun. Sailors home was the main residence, and it was called Castle House, while on either side were the guesthouses: Gwydions Cave, where Barrie lived, and Pandoras Box, where Rhiannon made her home. When their fathers, Keepers all, had been called away on international business, the cousinsSailor, Rhiannon and Barriehad been thrown into a game that was ages old, though mostly new to them, since they hadnt expected to take their places as Keepers for years to come, yet the land had been deemed for Keepers for decades. The property had originally belonged to a magician billed as Merlin, real name Ivan Schwartz, who had been helped by the Gryffald cousins grandfather. Schwartz had added the guesthouses to his estate so that the Keepers could live on his property if they chose. Before he died, Ivan had sold the estate to the Gryffald family for such a pittance that for all intents and purposes it had actually been a gift.
Of course, it came with a catch. Merlin was still around, haunting whichever house he chose. He was a very polite ghost, often extremely helpful, and totally respectful of the inhabitants privacy, so in actuality he was a perfect tenant.
At the moment, though, Alessande was glad he wasnt haunting Castle House.
Keepers had watched over various communities of Others at least since the ancient days, before accepted magic had ended and the world had become a place where the unusual was feared and anyone different, even if they were human, was considered an enemy to be burned at the stake or otherwise destroyed. Because the cousins fathers had been considered some of the wisest and most effective Keepers in the world, they had been called up to help form a council so that Others around the world would have guidanceand lawsto help them all live productive lives without attracting the kind of notice that would lead to a return of the bad old days.
Every Otherfrom the gnomes and leprechauns to the were-folk, vampires and shapeshifterslived by the Code of Silence, keeping the very existence of the Otherworld secret from humanity. The Code was broken only occasionally and for very special human beings. Even the rashest Others, those with little respect for laws of any kind, upheld the Code, because the Code meant survival. Without it, they could all be doomed. While many in the Other community had powers that made them far stronger and far more lethal than human beings, the human population of the world was larger by perhaps 99 percent, and therefore the Others were vulnerable to persecution and death should their existence ever come to light.