Her hand shook as it hovered over the keys. I can do this, she told herself. It’s the only way Jamys and I can be together, and I can make something of myself.
Vader dissolved, re-forming into the deeply lined face of a gray-haired man in a beautiful Italian suit.
“Good evening, Padrone Ramas,” Chris said, silently thanking Burke for making her memorize the faces of all the men on the tresoran council. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” Lord, she was already apologizing. Be professional. Show him that you’re already a tresora in attitude if not name. “How may I be of service?”
“The council has deliberated over your request to be granted official status within Suzerain Lucan’s household,” Ramas said. “Is it still your desire to attain the rank of tresora?”
“Yes, sir.” Under the keyboard shelf she crossed her fingers. “I want that more than anything.”
“We appreciate your service to the suzerain, Miss Lang. The letters of recommendation you sent from Mr. Burke and Lady Samantha were most persuasive. Burke indicates that you have successfully completed your training in all aspects of protocol and household management.” He steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “However, attaining the rank of tresora is no small thing. Only a very few humans are trusted with our masters’ secrets and livelihood. Your service would be for the duration of your lifetime, and you would be expected to attend to and protect your lord’s well-being and safety, even at the cost of your own. Once you embark on this path, Miss Lang, there is no turning back or changing your mind. If you have any uncertainty, now is the time to act on it.”
He made it sound as if she was selling herself into slavery, which in a sense she was. “I understand, Padrone, and I don’t have any doubt about this decision. The Darkyn are my family. I’d do anything for them.”
“I am glad to hear it, for the council has decided to set you one final task with which to prove your loyalty and resourcefulness.” He held up a page of parchment filled with calligraphic writing. “The high lord has sent out this summons to every stronghold in the Americas; it will be delivered by private courier to your master within the next several days. In short, it presents a challenge to every Kyn warrior under rule to recover three jewels known as the Emeralds of Eternity. He who delivers the gems to Lord Tremayne is to be given rule of Ireland.”
Chris frowned. Should she tell him that the summons had already arrived, and had nearly started a small war between the garrison and the visitors? Burke had always advised her that whatever happened in the stronghold stayed in the stronghold. “That’s very generous of the high lord.”
“Were these common emeralds, I would agree with you. But these particular jewels are very rare, and quite lethal.” He put down the summons. “While the council appreciates the high lord’s . . . enthusiasm for this treasure hunt he commands, he is unaware of the grievous threat these gems present. Were they to fall into the hands of our enemies, I assure you, their enormous power would be used to exterminate mortal kind. That is something we cannot permit, so your task will be to prevent it.”
What he was saying made no sense to her. “Sir, how can I stop the Kyn from looking for the gems?”
“You cannot,” Ramas agreed. “But you can find the jewels before the Kyn do, and bring them to the council for safekeeping. I am now transmitting all the data we have about the emeralds; we know that they were stolen from Jamaica in the seventeenth century, possibly by pirates.”
“Pirates.” This was just getting more bizarre by the minute. “Right.”
“I suggest you also make use of the extensive research that has been done by Americans on piracy, shipwrecks, and lost treasure troves,” Ramas said. “Of course you cannot tell any of the Darkyn about this, as it could strain relations between the high lord and the council. It could also result in unpleasant repercussions for you.”
“Unpleasant.” Chris loved Lucan, and was pretty sure he liked having her around, but the former master assassin had a very bad temper. He could also make any living thing he touched literally explode. “Yeah.” A sudden flood of resentment surged through her. There was no way she could outwit the Kyn, and when she failed, the council would blow off her petition. “With all due respect, Padrone, I’d like to request another task to prove myself. Any other task.”
“For tresori, no sacrifice is too great, and no task impossible.” He looked down his nose at her. “Find the emeralds before the Kyn do, Miss Lang, and you will be made one of us. Fail, and you will not.”
The monitor went dark.
Chapter 4
Sam borrowed Lucan’s Porsche and drove to the address sent by dispatch, at the same time calling the station to check in with her boss.
“Sounds like a robbery that got ugly,” Captain Garcia told her. “Do you want me to send Massey down to work the scene with you?”
Jonah Massey was one of the newest detectives assigned to homicide, and unlike her boss, he wasn’t one of the Kyn’s human allies. “That’s okay, I’ll use the uniforms for the canvass.” She pulled up and parked behind the medical examiner’s van. “I’m here. I’ll report in as soon as I have something.”
Sam showed her ID to the patrolman before she ducked under the tape and entered the brightly lit shop. The coppery, sewer-pipe smell of death washed over her as she approached the slight, balding man crouching next to a body sprawled on the expensive carpeting in front of an empty, smashed display case. “What have you got, Evan?”
“Dead guy, multiple contusions, broken bones, stab wounds, impact wounds, defensive wounds, you name it.” The medical examiner straightened and shook his head. “Your basic fucking mess.”
Sam inspected the body. “Any of them cause of death?”
“Pending autopsy, my bet is exsanguination. Throat’s been slashed from ear to ear. Liver temp puts time of death around seven p.m.” He frowned down at the battered body. “Not as much blood as you’d expect. The perp worked on him somewhere else; maybe sliced him there and then dumped the body here.”
Sam pulled on a pair of latex gloves and removed a wallet from the dead man’s front trouser pocket. “The ID reads Noel Coburn, sixty-eight.” She looked up at the small, chiseled golden letters mounted on the wall behind the trashed, empty display cases that spelled out COBURN FINE JEWELERS. “He’s probably the owner.”
“Robbery is checking on it,” Tenderson said. “The killer cleaned out the place. He even emptied the safe in the office.”
“No keys.” Sam stood up and gestured for one of the patrolmen standing watch at the entrance. When he came to her, she bagged the wallet and handed it to him. “Ask dispatch to send a unit to the address on the license. This guy may try to hit the victim’s house, too.”
Sam performed a brief walk-through of the rest of the shop. Coburn’s office had been wrecked, and the floor-to-ceiling vault at the far end stood open. Inside she found empty storage racks and ten large wooden shipping crates filled with straw.
Sam spotted a small, strangely shaped plastic knob on the floor and bent to pick it up. “A trigger guard.” She bagged it before she went to the crates. Becoming Darkyn had turbocharged her senses; her nose was particularly sensitive to smells most humans couldn’t detect. She picked up a few pieces of the straw and sniffed them, instantly detecting very faint odors of oil and burnt gunpowder.
“Detective.” Tenderson appeared outside the vault. “You’d better take another look at the body before we remove it.”
Sam dropped the straw and walked out of the vault. “Did you find something else?”
The ME grimaced. “No, it’s what’s missing.”
Out in the showroom the body of Noel Coburn had been rolled over, displaying the ragged remains of his jacket, which had been pulled away from his back on either side. Raw muscle and bone, scored by deep, jagged grooves, gleamed from neck to waist.
“Holy shit.” Sam walked around the body. “Where’s his skin?”
“It’s not here. About half the muscle is gone, too.” Tenderson came to stand beside her, looking down at the pitiful sight. “It’s almost like the perp ran a lawn mower over him. And it gets worse.”
Sam stared at him. “How?”
“I’ll have to confirm with histamine tests, but from the appearance of these wounds they’re antemortem.” Tenderson stepped back as two of his techs arrived with a gurney for the body. “He was alive when this was done to him, Sam.”
Now Sam spotted the deep scarlet abrasions around the wrists. “Ligature marks. He was restrained for a long time.” As the body was moved, something lodged in the shoulder blade caught her eye. “Hang on a second, guys. Evan, you got some tweezers?”
The ME handed her a pair, and she used them to extract a broken piece of barbed, rusty metal from the victim’s tissue. She stood and held it up, studying it. “Looks like the end of an old hook.” She passed it to Tenderson.
“Too big for fish. Meat hook, maybe.” He bagged it. “I’ll have the lab run it against the database of weapons for comparison, but this”—he gestured at the victim’s mutilated back—“wasn’t done with a hook. He was subjected to prolonged torture by something that ground his back into hamburger.”
“But what?” Sam murmured. “And why?”
* * *
Once Sam left the homicide scene, she drove to headquarters, where she found an enormous bouquet of four dozen roses in a beribboned crystal vase sitting on her desk. At first glance she thought the blooms were black, but on closer inspection she saw they were a deep dark red.
“What’s the occasion, Brown?” Jonah Massey called from his desk. “Anniversary, birthday, or smoking-hot first date?”
“None of the above.” Sam inspected the fragrant blooms for the card but found none. “They probably aren’t even for me.”