Ghosts of Atlantis (Immortal Montero Book 3) Read online

  Not quite panicking, I pulled the GPS display for Aliena’s tracker from my pocket. It showed she was moving again, headed northwest, her speed a sedate twenty kilometers per hour.

  “Sebastian? You still there?”

  “Yes. Are you at the scene?” I asked.

  “Just arrived. It’s the same as the Spellman kill, a pile of dust but nothing else burned. Where are you?”

  “Merging onto the 101 at Las Virgenes.”

  “Going anywhere special?”

  A premonition shivered through me. “I guess I am. You want to tell me where?”

  Two black-and-whites, a gray van, and an unmarked Ford sedan sat in front of the address Hamilton had given me. Before exiting the Italia, I checked Aliena’s GPS tracker. She was still moving northwest, floating toward the ocean slowly, like a feather drifting on the wind.

  I clipped my consultant’s badge to my lapel, wondering why she had flown so fast to get here, yet traveled so slowly away.

  The house was a large Tudor-style, burgundy with white trim. A uniform stood outside the front door. I signed the log and snapped on a pair of examination gloves.

  A marble foyer floor led to a dining room where a small, elegant chandelier illuminated a dark oak dining set. The faint aroma of dry autumn leaves hung in the air.

  Hamilton and Elliott stood in the living room near a pile of ashes. A stylish gray dress and black designer pumps lay within it. I couldn’t help but notice there were no undergarments.

  The pale blue carpet around the ‘body’ was scorched black in several places.

  Members of the Scientific Investigation Division moved around the room, setting down numbered markers, preparing to photograph the scene. We stayed out of their way.

  Elliott radiated unhappiness. I couldn’t blame him. If I had been wearing his suit and tie, I would have been desolate.

  He directed his comments at me, as if I were responsible for all that had happened.

  “What the hell is this? Two vics who have no refrigerators and no food in the house. No utensils or dinnerware, no cups or glasses. No coffeemaker, no bottles of water. Both burned to cinders.”

  “This woman certainly lived differently than Spellman,” I said.

  “You think it’s a coincidence that neither of these people had food in their houses?” Elliott asked.

  “If it’s not, what could it possibly mean?”

  “Still want to go with the UFO theory?”

  “Why not? Didn’t your witness say she saw flashing lights?” I couldn’t help pushing the detective’s buttons.

  “You have a mouth, rich boy.”

  “You have a fashion problem, big boy.”

  A woman on the SID team coughed, the sound suspiciously similar to a laugh. Elliott gave her the beady eye.

  “You have a name for this address?” I asked.

  Elliott checked his notebook. “Kristina Cha.”

  Kristina. The beautiful Chinese vampire who had accosted me in Bar Sinister? After the death of Darius, I had little doubt this was the same girl. Aliena had seen me talking to her, but I don’t think she noticed anything untoward. If she had been aware of Kristina’s intention to rip me open and drink my blood, a scratching contest would have ensued. Instead, Aliena had dragged me onto the dance floor, already drunk with whatever poisoned her.

  Drunk! She always acted intoxicated immediately after drinking my blood. Mortal blood did not do that to vampires. Did that mean the poison had been in immortal blood? Perhaps from the other golden aura in the Kirlian photograph?

  “Sebastian,” Hamilton said, “do you know something about these two vics that explains why they have no food or drink in their houses?”

  “I’m not positive,” I said, “but I think this woman, like Spellman, is part of the same group. These people eat a, a specialized diet and…”

  “And what?”

  “Well, they don’t really live in their houses. They are very back-to-nature types.”

  “What?” Hamilton asked. “They sleep outside?”

  “Some of the time.”

  “Christ.”

  “And what do the Flintstones do for a living?” Elliott asked. He lifted a crystal bowl from the dining room table, his gloved hands carefully supporting the object from the bottom. “This looks like expensive stuff.”

  “Most of them are independently wealthy.” Living for centuries allowed the smallest investments to grow immensely. It helped that vampires needed little more than human blood to survive, and that was not something they purchased.

  “Making them weirdos like you,” the big detective said, replacing the bowl. “So, what is this specialized diet of theirs?”

  “Raw protein.”

  “Yeah,” Hamilton said, “you told me once that Aliena and her girlfriends eat that raw stuff. Are you saying Aliena and those other girls sleep outside?”

  “You know Aliena stays at my place.”

  “And her friends?”

  “I am not well acquainted with Aliena’s friends, but yes, it’s possible some of them sleep in, let’s say, natural settings.”

  “Why is it wealthy people get all fucked up?” Elliott peered at an oil painting. “They can eat anything they like, live in beautiful homes and drive fancy cars, but instead they drink carrot juice and sleep in the fucking park.”

  “And now someone’s burning them to death,” Hamilton said. “If these are friends of Aliena’s, aren’t you worried about her?”

  “Very.”

  “But like you say, she does what she wants.”

  “That’s right.” And more’s the pity.

  “We may need to interview some of her friends.”

  I wondered if they expected me to provide them with addresses.

  “Can you help us with that?” Elliott asked.

  “I have no idea where they live, or how to get in touch with them.” At least that was the truth.

  “What about meeting places?” Hamilton asked.

  “Yes, they have them,” I said, thinking of 49, “but always in a different location known only to insiders. Also, they don’t meet on any kind of schedule.”

  Both detectives focused on me. Elliott recorded everything in his notepad.

  “Names?” Hamilton asked.

  “First names only.”

  “Why all the secrecy?”

  “They are serious about privacy,” I told him. Secret organizations existed in every major city in the US. The anonymity of their memberships was a legal right.

  “Do they do anything illegal when they get together?” Elliott asked.

  “You don’t really expect me to answer that.” And he had no right to ask.

  “Will you know if they meet again, and where?” Hamilton said.

  “Probably.”

  “If not, could you ask Aliena for us?”

  “Sure.”

  Two SID techs knelt next to the clothes. Filter masks covered the lower half of their faces. Elliott, Hamilton and I moved closer. One of the techs bagged the dress and shoes, lifting each item with care so the powdery material remained inside the garments. The second scooped the remaining ashes into a separate bag, then produced a sterile, single-use vacuum cleaner shaped like an electric toothbrush to capture the last particles.

  Near them, an end table sat with one object on top of it: a champagne-flute-shaped wireless computer speaker. It pointed at a blank section of wall.

  “I don’t get it,” Elliott continued. “How does a person burn up, but their clothes survive? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Were the remains uniformly ash?” I asked the tech who had scooped up the debris. “No bones or fragments?”

  “That’s right, sir,” she said. “We only recovered dust.”

  “Find any jewelry?” I asked, thinking of the ring she had worn with the trident inside three circles.

  “Not on the floor.”

  Elliott took the tablet she handed him and signed it. “Okay, thanks. You done in here?” />
  “Yes, sir.”

  We waited while the SID team assembled their equipment and filed out of the room.

  “Have you found a phone?” I asked Elliott.

  “No.”

  “The neighbor who called this in,” I said. “Did she see anyone?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “She thinks she saw a blonde woman leaving the scene. Same as naked boy at the Spellman kill. It was dark, though, so she’s not sure, and the woman just suddenly disappeared.”

  “Also just like Connolly,” I commented.

  “I noticed.”

  “Any other neighbors who saw this?”

  Elliot looked at the ceiling. “Well you know, now that we have you here helping us, I might as well go supervise that.” He glanced at Hamilton before leaving.

  Hamilton and I wandered into the master bath. We picked through mascara brushes, lipstick tubes, and other assorted products for face and hair, all of them spread out on the counter in front of a large mirror. I picked up a small gold tube, removed the top and twisted the bottom. A bright red stick poked up.

  Hamilton looked around. “No toilet paper. Two towels. A box of tissues. What’s this?” He leaned down to a small trash can, pulled out a clear plastic cap. “Painting? No smell of paint. Ah,” he said, pulling a flattened box out of the can. “Hair coloring.”

  “What color?”

  He peered at the front panel. “Pixie pink.”

  He replaced the cap and box, slid the shower door back, stepped inside. “At least this looks used,” he said, voice echoing.

  We returned to the living room.

  “What’s happening here?” Hamilton asked in a low voice.

  Could I tell Hamilton what I knew? The symbol on Kristina’s ring connected her to Darius, but I couldn’t understand how. My first thought normally would have been that they were lovers. That didn’t work in this case since Darius was a man.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He opened a door leading to the back yard and motioned me outside. I stepped past him into cool air. A large swimming pool glistened in the early dusk. Two tall elms stood on either side of the yard, their fallen leaves rustling along the ground, pushed by the chill breeze.

  Hamilton closed the door. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “No.”

  “Let me rephrase. Do you know more than you’re telling me?”

  “Not much.”

  “If I’m unofficial, will you share?”

  “As much as I can.”

  “That’s a fucked answer, Sebastian. Fucked up. It’s also obstruction, but I won’t go there. Just talk to me, okay? I can’t believe I even have to ask, man.”

  Wind rippled the surface of the swimming pool, creating a wavering reflection of the crescent moon. All the emotional aspects of my life were colliding. Hamilton was reaching out to me. The danger signals flared in my mind. A point of no return approached.

  Who was I kidding? I already loved everything about Hamilton. So I was lost again, beholden to a mortal, destined to mourn his passing.

  How much could I reveal? The existence of vampires? Not yet. The Apollo Ring? Hamilton knew real magical objects existed. But telling him about the ring would be difficult without mentioning its current caretakers, and the circumstances leading to my knowledge of it. And what about me? Could I tell him about my unique nature?

  I took the path of least resistance. “Whoever killed Spellman may have used a special object to incinerate him.”

  He thought about that. “That sacred ring you told me about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen this object?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t tell me you saw this thing kill someone the way Spellman and Cha were killed.”

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  He tilted his head back, regarded the heavens. “Why me?”

  “Because I like working with you.”

  He gave a hollow laugh. “That makes me feel better. Did you witness a murder?”

  “It was not a murder.”

  “Goddammit. You can’t put me in this position, man.”

  “You asked me to share,” I reminded him. “It was an execution.”

  “You need a jury trial for capital punishment in California.”

  “It was not a murder.”

  “Are you telling me there are three deaths related to this case?”

  “I have no reason to believe they are connected, but it’s possible.”

  “And you did see someone killed by this…what is it, anyway?”

  “It’s called the Apollo Ring. And yes, I did.”

  “Why do you call it an execution?”

  “I can’t give you the details—because I don’t know them all—but the woman was apparently a murderer.”

  He gave me a contemplative look. “Did you kill her?”

  “No.”

  “But you know who did.”

  “Yes, of course, though not his name or where to find him. He’s a monk.”

  He shook his head. I sympathized. What I had told him made me an accessory to homicide. And since he knew no due process had led to the death, the killing was certainly illegal.

  “Is this monk also one of these raw-food, sleep-outside people?”

  “He’s associated with them, but I doubt the monks keep the ring outside.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “In the Malibu Creek forest, not too far from my house.”

  “Well, I suppose I should look on the bright side,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “No body will turn up.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Is there anything else you can give me?”

  I decided to tell him my theory—as yet unproven—about the champagne flute-shaped speakers found in the homes of both victims. “Did you notice the small wireless speaker in the living room? It’s exactly the same as the one on Spellman’s desk.” I pointed.

  He looked through the window. “What about it?”

  “I think it’s the device used to activate these portals.”

  “Wait a minute. You think this woman was also traveling to the other dimension?”

  “It would appear so, unless I’m wrong about what that speaker does.”

  “And since you don’t know why Spellman was traveling to the other side, you don’t know why this woman was, either.”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” If Cha had been traveling to Morgan’s side, she was undoubtedly the woman to whom Darius referred in his journal, the one helping Morgan. If that was the case, I wondered why Morgan had killed her.

  “I don’t have a guess,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “I think I met this girl last night. At a club called Bar Sinister. I was with Aliena at the time.”

  “You met her.”

  It wasn’t hard to understand what he was thinking. Everything seemed to revolve around Aliena and me.

  “Yes. She was wearing a ring. It had the same design as Spellman’s medallion.”

  “What? The trident inside the three circles?”

  “The very same.”

  “You think she was from Atlantis?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “But she may have journeyed there.”

  “How was she connected to our first vic?”

  “No idea.”

  How well had Darius known Kristina? Their houses were less than a mile apart. They wore jewelry with the Atlantis insignia. They spoke at Carmen’s execution as if they knew one another. Both of their homes contained an identical wireless speaker pointed at a blank wall.

  With all of that in common, it seemed there should be an obvious connection between the two, but I was damned if I could see it.

  Cha had no computer, which meant the speaker was activated by a different kind of signal. A cellular phone.

  “Have you given me everything?”

  “At this execution, Spellman spoke to Cha.”

  “The
two vics talked to each other.”

  “Yes.”

  “Friendly?” he asked.

  “They stood too far away from me to hear them, but it did look like Cha snubbed him and walked away while he was still talking. I didn’t see them talk to each other again.”

  A gust blew a small pile of leaves into the pool. They rippled the surface and floated across the curve of the lunar reflection. Glancing at my watch, I said, “I really have to go.”

  “Okay. Drop me at the station on the way? We could stop for a donut.”

  Chapter 36

  Saturday, February 14, 7:32 p.m.

  Dunkin’ Donuts fronted Ventura Boulevard. Hamilton and I stood on the sidewalk, munching apple fritters and sipping coffee, the big pink box with the rest of the assortment sitting on one of the little white tables in front of the shop.

  “Is Aliena involved in this?” he asked, watching the traffic passing in both directions.

  “I think so.”

  “You think so? Why don’t you ask her?”

  “She’s not answering her phone. And she’s not herself right now.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Anything I can help with?” Hamilton said.

  “I appreciate that,” I told him. “If there’s anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “Where are you going after you drop me?”

  “Home. If she comes to my place, I need to be there.”

  We looked up as a white Ferrari F12 roared up with a distinctive whine and jammed to a halt at the curb. Rachella climbed out, a silver bandage mini-dress pasted on her, her beige high heels clicking on the pavement. Several cars honked as she stepped around the back of the sports car.

  “Whoa,” Hamilton said.

  The auburn-haired vampire glided toward us, the short, reflective sheath filled with shifting shadows, the neckline nowhere near her neck.

  “I thought that was you,” she said, fixing me with her emerald gaze. This was not a chance meeting. She had located me by smell. Rachella knew an opportunity when she saw one. Aliena’s amnesia had made her aggressive.

  “Hello,” I said, keeping my stare above her shoulders, knowing it would frustrate her. “Rachella, may I introduce you to LAPD Detective Steven Hamilton?”