Keeper of the Night (The Keepers: L.A.) Read online

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeaaaah, I hate Hollywood,

  And I hate actors, too.

  If anyone disagreed with her lyrics, they didn’t say so. No one was really listening, anyway. And maybe that was the point. Easy music in the background while the coffee, tea, latte, mocha and chai drinkers enjoyed their conversations.

  Polite applause followed the song. Rhiannon looked down, not wanting the audience to see her roll her eyes.

  At ten o’clock Hugh asked her to announce that the café was closed for the night. She was shutting her guitar case when one of the coffee drinkers came up to her, offering her a twenty. Surprised by the amount of the tip, she looked at him more closely and realized that he was Mac Brodie, the actor who had been covered in fake blood earlier.

  She looked at the twenty but didn’t touch it, then looked back into his eyes.

  Elven, she realized.

  Six foot five, she thought, judging that he stood a good seven inches over her own respectable five feet ten inches. And he had the telltale signs: golden hair streaked with platinum, eyes of a curious blue-green that was almost lime. And, of course, the lean, sleekly muscled physique.

  She lowered her head again, shaking it. “Elven,” she murmured. “It’s all right. You did ruin my night, but that’s okay.” She made a point of not looking directly at him. Elven could read minds, but most of them had to have locked eye contact, so looking away made it possible to block the intrusion. And, luckily, the process was hard on them, so they didn’t indulge in it frivolously.

  “Keeper,” he said, drawing out the word. “And new to the job, of course. Sorry. I saw that look of panic on your face. I’m assuming you’re here for the bloodsuckers?”

  She stiffened. In Savannah she’d been a fledgling vampire Keeper, apprenticing with an old family friend who’d kept the city peacefully coexisting for years, but she’d always known that one day she would take her father’s place in L.A.

  As she’d told Hugh, this had all been so sudden. There hadn’t been a warning, no “Tie up your affairs, you’re needed in six months” —or even three months, or one. The World Council had been chosen, and in two weeks a core group of some of the country’s wisest Keepers was gone and their replacements moved into their new positions. And there was no such thing as calling the Hague for help. No Keeper business could ever be discussed by cell phone, since in the day and age they lived in, anything could be recorded or traced.

  So the new Keepers were simply yanked and resettled, and the hell with their past lives.

  “Yes, of course, Keeper for the bloodsuckers,” Mac said, his tone low.

  “Some of my best friends are bloodsuckers,” she said sweetly, looking quickly around. She’d been about to chastise him for speaking so openly, but the clientele was gone and the workers were cleaning the kitchen, well out of earshot. Of course, he might know exactly what she was thinking even without her saying it aloud. Some Elven were capable of telepathy even without eye contact, so she braced her mind against him. In fact, she knew she was playing a brutal game. It cost an Elven dearly to mind-read, especially without locking gazes, but it cost the target a great deal of strength to block the mind probe, as well.

  There were a lot of Others in L.A. County. One thing they all did was keep the secret that they were...unusual. It was the key to survival—for all them. History had taught them that when people feared any group, that group was in trouble.

  “Same here,” he told her. “I’m fond of a lot of vampires.”

  She stared at him for a moment. He was undeniably gorgeous. Like a sun god or some such thing. And he undoubtedly knew that Elven usually got their way, because they were born with grace and charm—not to mention the ability to teleport, or, as they defined it, move at the speed of light.

  She was annoyed. She had no desire to be hit on by an Elven actor, of all things, but she didn’t want to fight, either. All she wanted was to make her point. “I don’t want money from a struggling actor,” she said. “You don’t need to feel guilty. I’m fine. I work because, Keeper or not, I still have to pay the bills. But Hugh gives me a salary, so go do some more promo stunts. I’m fine.”

  “You’re more than fine,” he said quietly. “And I’m truly sorry that we ruined the evening for you.” He offered her his hand. “I’m Mac. Mac Brodie.”

  She hesitated and then accepted his hand. “Rhiannon. Rhiannon Gryffald.

  “It’s a pleasure, Miss Gryffald. And am I right?” he asked her.

  “About?”

  “The vampires?”

  “Are you asking me so that you could avoid me if I were Keeper of the Elven?”

  “Hey, we Elven have spent centuries keeping the peace because we’re strong, sure of ourselves, some might say arrogant—” he smiled “—and we can talk almost anyone into almost anything. I’m asking you out of pure curiosity,” he told her. “And because I’m trying to make casual conversation—and amends. I really am sorry.”

  Rhiannon waved a hand in the air. “I told you, it’s all right. However, it has been a long day, and I would like to go home now.”

  “No nightcap with me, eh?” he asked.

  He was smiling at her again. And like all his kind, he had charm to spare.

  That’s why the Elven fared so well in Hollywood. They were almost universally good looking. Tall, and perfectly built. They were made for the world of acting.

  She realized, looking at him, that he was exceptionally godlike. She was surprised, actually, that he bothered with small theater at all. He would have been great in a Greek classic, a Viking movie or a sword and sorcery fantasy. He was lean, but she knew that he was strong—and would look amazing without a shirt.

  Then again, he’d announced that the play was going to turn into a major movie. Maybe he was sticking with it for the stardom it might bring.

  “No nightcap,” she said. “I’m simply ready to go home.”

  “Perhaps you’ll consider letting me buy you that apology another time?”

  “Doubtful,” she assured him.

  He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “Well, be that as it may, you really should come see the show.”

  “Thank you, but I really don’t enjoy a mockery being made of my—my charges,” she told him.

  He leaned closer to her, and the teasing, flirty smile left his face. He almost appeared to be a different person: older, more confident and deadly serious.

  “No, you really should come see the show,” he said. “My number is on the card, Miss Gryffald. And I’m sure you know L.A. well enough to find the theater.”

  He turned and walked out the door, nearly brushing the frame with the top of golden head.

  Puzzled, she watched him go.

  Hugh appeared just then. “Still here? I’m impressed,” he said.

  “I’m leaving, I’m leaving,” she told him.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. And be on time.”

  The man could be extremely aggravating. Werewolf Keepers were often like that, she had discovered. But then, the more experienced a Keeper was, the more he or she often took on the characteristics of a charge to a greater or lesser degree. She suspected that Hugh could become a wolf at the drop of a hat.

  With her precious Fender in hand, she left the café. She heard Hugh locking the door behind her.

  She headed to the ten-year-old Volvo that her uncle had left for her use, set her guitar in the trunk and started off down the street. Her song really hadn’t been half bad. “Hollywood, oh, I hate Hollywood,” she sang as she drove.

  * * *

  Brodie nodded to the attendant on duty and proceeded down the hallway of the morgue, past rooms where dozens of bodies in various stages of investigation were stored.

  That was one thing about L.A. that wasn’t so good. The city was huge, and the number of people who died on the streets, many of them nameless and unknown, was high. Possibly even sadder were the ones whose names were known—but whose deaths went by unnoticed an
d unmourned.

  Of course, the morgue also housed the remains of people who were known and loved—but who had died under circumstances that ranged from suspicious to outright violent.

  That night, however, he passed by the autopsy rooms, remembering all too clearly the one he’d entered when he was sixteen, a room filled with corpse after corpse wrapped in plastic shrouds—so many dead. His father had arranged it after discovering that Mac had left a party after drinking. Luckily he had only creamed the garage door. But it might have been a person, and his father had made sure he knew what the consequences could have been.

  He reached a door marked Dr. Anthony Brandt, Senior Pathologist.

  Tony undoubtedly knew that he was coming. Tony knew a lot. He had an amazing sense of smell that had served him well as a medical examiner. He could smell most poisons a mile away.

  Before Brodie could tap on the door, Tony had answered it. “I was expecting you tonight,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “We’ve gotten another body that I think belongs to your killer.”

  “Where did he leave his mark this time?” Brodie asked.

  Tony just looked at him, ignoring the question. “You still doing the show?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  “I saw that the cast included a Mac Brodie. That’s you, I’m assuming. Not much of an alias,” Tony said.

  “None of the other actors actually know me. Being Mac Brodie instead of Brodie McKay works all right—if anyone looks me up, the captain has made sure that they’ll find my online résumé and all the right information. Makes it easier if someone who does know me calls me either Mac or Brodie.”

  Tony mused on that for a minute. “You’re not the only one going by a stage name, are you? I noticed a Jack Hunter in the credits.”

  Brodie shrugged. “You’re right—that’s Hunter Jackson. Obviously the cast and crew know who he really is—they’re just sworn to secrecy.”

  “So he is the well-known director?”

  “Yes. The play is his baby, really. He found the script and decided to produce it, then sell the film rights. The play was written by a friend of his, our stage manager. Name’s Joe Carrie. Nice guy, about forty—and definitely human.”

  “So you don’t think he’s our murderer?” Tony asked.

  Brodie shook his head. “No, and there’s no proof the killer’s even involved with the play itself. He could just be a theater buff. But the play does seem a solid place to start, at least. So, anyway, what makes you think our killer is responsible for this corpse?”

  “Exsanguination, for one thing.”

  Tony was an interesting guy; he looked like what you would expect a werewolf to look like in human form. He was big and muscular, with broad shoulders and an equally broad chest. He had a head full of thick, curly light brown hair, and when he was on vacation, he grew a beard that would do Santa proud.

  “And?”

  “There’s never anything obvious about the marks he leaves behind, but this time it looks like they’re on the thigh. This is one clever vampire. He makes sure that he disposes of the bodies in a way that will lead to the most decay and deterioration in the shortest time.”

  “Want to show me the body?” Brodie asked.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Tony led the way down the hall to one of the autopsy rooms.

  It was a large room, big enough for several autopsies to take place at one time. Now, however, the room was quiet and dim, and only a single body lay on a gurney on the far side of the room.

  Strange, Brodie thought. He was Elven, although the Elven were pretty damned close to human in a lot of ways, maybe more human than they wanted to be. And he was a detective, often working undercover in some of the grittiest neighborhoods of a tough town where bluebloods crossed paths with derelict drug dealers. But despite both those things, he’d never gotten over the strange sensations that nearly overwhelmed him at an autopsy. Life—flesh and blood—reduced to sterile equipment and the smell of chemicals on the air. The organs that sustained life ripped from the body to be held and weighed and studied. It was just somehow...wrong, despite the fact that the work done here was some of the most important that could be done for the dead and the living both.

  Tony pulled down the sheet that covered the victim, and Brodie stared first at the face, his jaw hardening.

  “You’ve seen him before?”

  Brodie nodded. “It’s hard to tell, really, the body is so decomposed. But I think I recognize him. I think he was at the first performance of the show.”

  “Any idea who he is?” Tony asked.

  “No, he was just a face in the crowd. Second row center. Have you gotten a hit off dental records? What about fingerprints?”

  “Look at the hands,” Tony told him, pulling the sheet down farther.

  Brodie did, and he felt his stomach lurch sharply, even though he’d expected the scene that met his eyes.

  The killer had chopped off the fingers.

  Tony nodded toward the body. “Just like the other two. And here’s what I found—you’ll need that magnifier there.” He pointed.

  Brodie picked up the small magnifying glass that Tony had indicated, then walked down to join Tony by the foot of the gurney. Tony slipped on gloves and moved the thigh. The skin was mottled and bruised looking.

  “No lividity?” Brodie asked.

  “The discoloration and bloating you see are because he was dumped in a pond out by one of those housing projects they never finished off Laurel Canyon—suspiciously near your theater,” Tony said. “But use the magnifying glass and check out his thigh. There are marks. They’re tiny, and they’re practically buried in swollen flesh, but they’re there. And, of course, the body was pretty much drained of blood. There is a slash at the throat, but despite the damage and decay, I believe it was postmortem.”

  Despite his feelings about autopsy and corpses, Brodie donned gloves, shifted the dead man’s leg and peered through the microscope, searching for the telltale marks, then looked up at Tony.

  “Third body in two weeks with the same marks and same method of disposal,” Tony said.

  “And I know I’ve seen this one at the theater,” Brodie said wearily.

  “And the killer dumped them all close to that theater,” Tony told him. “Your captain seems to have been on the mark.”

  Brodie nodded. “Yeah, without his insight the victims might have fallen on to the big pile of cold cases, with no leads to go on. The captain is...a smart guy.”

  “Guess that means you stay undercover,” Tony said. “Too bad L.A.’s three best Keepers have been called to council. This is one hell of a mess.”

  Brodie thought about the stunning young auburn-haired woman with the big green eyes he had seen at the café. She’d rushed to what she thought was a crime scene like a bat out of hell. She’d been ready, he thought. But she wasn’t ready enough. She loved her music too much. In a way, he understood. It was difficult to realize that you could—had to—lead a normal life, then let it all go to hell when necessary.

  He wished to hell that Piers Gryffald, Rhiannon’s father and the previous Keeper of the Canyon vampires, was still there.

  But he wasn’t.

  And the body count was rising.

  * * *

  Driving in L.A. was not like driving in Savannah. People in Savannah moved at a far more human pace. Everyone in L.A. was in a hurry, which seemed strange, because often they were hurrying just to go sit in a coffee shop and while away their time, hoping to make the right connection. Some hopefuls still believed that they could be “discovered” in an ice cream parlor, and God knew, in Hollywood, anything could happen, even if the statistics weren’t in their favor.

  At least coming home—to the house that had been her old summer home and was now her permanent base—was appealing. She had to admit, she loved the exquisite old property where she lived with Sailor and Barrie. Each of them had her own house on the estate—the compound, real
ly—that had been left to their grandfather, Rhys Gryffald, by the great Merlin, magician extraordinaire, real name Ivan Schwartz.

  Somehow during his younger years, Merlin had learned about the Keepers. He’d longed to be one, but only those born in the bloodline, born with the telltale birthmark indicating what they were destined to become—werewolf Keeper, vampire Keeper, shapeshifter Keeper and so on—could inherit the role. Since he couldn’t be a Keeper, Ivan did the next best thing: he befriended one. In fact, he had become such good friends with Rhiannon’s grandfather that he had first built him a house on the property, opposite the guesthouse that already existed, and then, on his death, Merlin had willed the entire compound to him.

  Good old Ivan. He had loved them all so much that he had never actually left.

  The House of the Rising Sun, the main house, loomed above her as she drove along the canyon road, and she had to admit, it was magnificent. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known the house all her life. Her grandparents had three sons—her father and her two uncles—and her dad had been mentored by a Keeper in Savannah, which had turned out to be a very good thing, since he’d fallen in love with her mother, a musical director for a Savannah theater. But then he’d returned to L.A. and assumed responsibility for the Canyon vampires—and she shouldn’t have had to take over for another zillion years, give or take. She had grown up in Savannah, where her mother had kept her job, and her father had traveled back and forth on a regular basis. Despite the distance, her parents enjoyed one of the best marriages she had ever seen. And she’d grown close with her L.A. family, because she’d spent summers and most holidays there at the House of the Rising Sun. Sailor had always lived in the House of the Rising Sun itself, except for her acting stint in New York.