Keeper of the Dawn

ranks of the Keepers.” Despite her ongoing impudent look, she spoke with gentle amusement. “Mark, please don’t be offended, but I hope you know that now no one can tell me to stay out of any situation where shape-shifting is involved.”

Chapter 4

It was wonderful. Incredible. Exhilarating.

Once she concentrated, shifting was easy—far easier than teleporting. Teleporting meant moving through time and space, while changing simply meant switching appearance.

Admittedly, she was on a bit of a high, and she hadn’t been able to refrain from taunting Mark Valiente.

His expression wasn’t pleasant as he looked at her, shaking his head. “It’s all a big game to you, isn’t it?”

“What?” she asked him.

“Stretch your muscles, test your power. Play bird and fly around the yard. Women are dead, Alessande, and you just want to prove that you’re tougher and stronger and more talented than anyone else.”

She didn’t understand why his disapproval hurt so much.

Unless there was a grain of truth in what he was saying.

“No,” she said, speaking softly, seeking dignity. “I’m trying to learn. You were born a vampire. You grew up nurtured, learning to live in a world where once you would have been seen as nothing more than a bloodthirsty monster. When it came to being Elven, I, too, was taught everything I needed to know. But shifting... This is new to me. No one knows what they can and can’t do until they stretch their muscles, and I’m just trying to test mine. I’m not trying to be bigger or tougher or stronger. I just need to be involved—to help.”

“You need to stay out of this,” he said, and his tone seemed a shade gentler.

“Could you stay out of it?”

“I’m a cop.”

“Why are you a cop? Because you have to be involved. You feel that people need you—and that’s why you do what you do. Unless, of course, you feel a need to exercise your power.”

He looked back at her, studied her, and she was dismayed to realize that he very clearly didn’t like what he saw.

Why? Why did that bother her? She winced inwardly; she’d gotten into this because she knew what she had to do. She had to save Regina. And not just Regina. More women would die if this conspiracy of occult terror wasn’t stopped. And Mark...

Might have saved her life, despite her protestations to the contrary.

He turned to enter the house.

Maybe he had a right to look at her that way. Maybe things wouldn’t have gone so well if he and Brodie hadn’t shown up at the Hildegard mausoleum.

Startled and distraught by being so completely dismissed, Alessande stood at the door for a moment before reentering the house herself.

The Gryffald cousins were seated around the large table in the dining room. Declan Wainwright and Mick Townsend were with them. As Alessande entered, Brodie had just pulled up a chair and Mark Valiente was on his way to join them. She entered and saw that the table had become crowded. For a moment, she thought they weren’t going to make room for her.

Brodie watched her hesitate, stood and grabbed one of the chairs standing by the wall, drawing it up and waiting for her to sit. The minute Alessande had claimed her chair, Barrie spoke up.

“Okay,” she said. She had a pad and pencil because, despite having all the technology she could want, she was still a words-on-paper reporter at heart. “We have two dead women. Both were aspiring actresses—which may or may not mean anything, seeing as a high percentage of the young ladies who come to Hollywood are dreaming of being the next star on the Walk of Fame. But...” She paused, looking over at Mark. “Brodie called earlier and told us that when you went to the old Hildegard Studio, you found a new screenplay by Greg Swayze on one of the soundstages.”

“I checked while you were gone,” Rhiannon said. “They’re going to be casting for the movie starting next week. It’s a historical piece, set in New York in the Five Points area in the 1880s. The lead character is Jane Adams, the daughter of Irish immigrants who is trying to escape the poverty of the Five Points district. She becomes involved with a rich man and realizes he might be a serial killer.”

“It’s not being produced by Alan Hildegard, is it?” Mark asked sharply.

Rhiannon shook her head. “No. It’s being produced by Blue Dove Entertainment. It was started by a couple college kids doing independent documentaries. That was fifteen years ago—they grew slowly but surely, and now they’re at a point where they can compete with the big boys.”

“We need to speak with Swayze and find out if he knew either of the murdered women. It’s very possible that one of them had the copy of the screenplay we found,” Mark said.

“Or that Regina did,” Alessande said.

They all looked at her for a moment, silent.

“I realize it’s been kept out of the media, but how were the two women killed?” she asked. “I know they were kept alive for a long time before their deaths, and the fear they must have lived with until the moment of...” She shuddered, then said, “But I don’t know how they were actually killed.”

“Their throats were slit,” Mark said.

“Clean cuts,” Brodie put it. “Mercifully, they would have died within seconds from blood loss.”

“But they weren’t drained of blood,” Mark said.

“No,” Brodie agreed.

“So,” Sailor said, “they were kidnapped, held—and then, after an indeterminate amount of time, they were murdered, and their bodies were dumped.”

“With any luck Regina is still alive,” Mark said quickly, looking at Alessande. He offered her a hopeful smile.

Maybe he was feeling just a bit badly about the way he had treated her outside, she thought, and smiled at him in return.

“What did you think of Alan Hildegard?” Barrie asked. She’d been scribbling while the others were speaking.

“He seemed indignant that his family’s vault had been desecrated,” Brodie said.

“Did you believe him?” Alessande asked.

“I don’t know,” Mark said. “We met him and his sister Brigitte. They both said they had nothing to do with it and wanted the people who had been there charged, but...they’re shapeshifters. Who knows what you’re really seeing when you meet them.”

Declan cleared his throat. “Shapeshifters aren’t all monsters, you know.”

“Of course not,” Sailor said indignantly.

“But they are capable of putting up a front,” Barrie said, looking at Declan.

“None of us should take offense,” Alessande said. “Humans and Others are equally capable of tremendous goodness and tremendous evil.”

“It’s just that when Others are involved, the evil can be a lot more heinous than anything humans can manage,” Mark said. “I think Brodie and I will have to start fresh in the morning. We need to get every scrap of information we can from the detectives who’ve been handling the women’s cases.”

“I want to go see Antony Brandt—the medical examiner—too,” Brodie told them. “Luckily he was the M.E. on both cases.”

“And he’s a werewolf,” Barrie said. “Thank God for small favors.”

“For now, we should all get some sleep,” Rhiannon said firmly.