Dreamveil A Novel of the Kyndred - PDF Free Download (2024)

Dreamveil by Viehl, Lynn Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Epigraph PART ONE - Chez Soi Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 PART TWO - Chasse Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 PART THREE - Trouvaille Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 PART FOUR - Maison Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Epilogue

Author’s Note French-English Glossary Teaser chapter Dreamveil Praise for the Novels of the Darkyn Stay the Night “Truly transfixing!” —Romantic Times “The best Darkyn novel to date.” —The Romance Reader Twilight Fall “The pace is fast and the characters strong . . . whets the appetite for more.” —Monsters and Critics “Flawed characters are Viehl’s forte, and when you mix in rapidly paced plotting, the story shines with intense and dangerous emotions . . . one highly satisfying read!” —Romantic Times “[An] intelligent and breathtaking addition to the incomparable Darkyn series.” —Fresh Fiction “Viehl scripts an excellent story in Twilight Fall.” —Paranormal Romance “An electrifying addition to this top-notch series . . . a definite must-read.” —Romance Junkies “A really good series . . . excellent.” —Affaire de Coeur Evermore “[F]ull of exciting twists and turns. . . . Viehl tells a self-contained, page-turning story of medieval vampires.” —Publishers Weekly “Dual cases of unexpressed love have kept two potential mates dancing around each other. Add in guilt and remorse and this is a recipe for emotional disaster. Thankfully, Viehl knows just how to liven things up: by adding danger, treachery and betrayal to the mix. Things never run smoothly in the Darkyn world!” —Romantic Times “Lynn Viehl sure knows how to tell a hell of a story.” —Romance Reviews Today “[O]ne of my favorites, if not the favorite, Darkyn book to date.” —Romance Reader at Heart “[A]nother highly satisfying chapter in the Darkyn saga.”

—Vampire Genre Night Lost “Viehl continues to weave an intricate web of intrigue in this contribution to the amazing series. . . . I became completely engrossed in this compelling story. Lynn Viehl had me hooked from the first page . . . exceptional. . . . I definitely recommend this marvelous book.” —Romance Junkies “Fast-paced and fully packed. [Viehl] does an excellent job of world building and provides characters who continue to be explored book by book. You won’t regret spending time in this darkly dangerous and romantic world!” —Romantic Times “Fans of the series will agree that Lynn Viehl is at the top of her game.” —Alternative Worlds Dark Need “An exciting book and a must- read . . . thrilling. . . . What makes the Darkyn novels so compelling is the dichotomy of good and evil. Dark Need has a gritty realism and some frightening and creepy characters that will keep you awake late at night. Balancing the darkness is the searing heat and eroticism that is generated between Samantha and Lucan.” —Vampire Genre Private Demon “Lynn Viehl’s vampire saga began spectacularly in If Angels Burn, and this second novel in the Darkyn series justifies the great beginning. Indeed, it is as splendid if not more than the first one.” —Curled Up with a Good Book “Strong . . . a tense, multifaceted thriller. . . . Fans of Lori Handeland’s ‘Moon’ novels will want to read Lynn Viehl’s delightful tale.” —Midwest Book Review If Angels Burn “Erotic, darker than sin, and better than good chocolate.” —Holly Lisle “This exciting vampire romance is action-packed. . . . The story line contains terrific characters that make the Darkyn seem like a real species. . . . Lynn Viehl writes a fascinating paranormal tale that readers will appreciate with each bite and look forward to sequels.” —The Best Reviews Dreamveil OTHER NOVELS BY LYNN VIEHL Kyndred Series Shadowlight Darkyn Series If Angels Burn Private Demon Dark Need

Night Lost Evermore Twilight Fall Master of Shadows Stay the Night Dreamveil Dreamveil ONYX Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published by Onyx, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. First Printing, June 2010 Copyright © Sheila Kelly, 2010 All rights reserved REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHER’S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the au-

thor’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. eISBN : 978-1-101-18816-3 http://us.penguingroup.com Dreamveil For the greatest chef I’ve ever known and loved— my dad, Tony.

Dreamveil re·com·bi·nant (rē-kŏm′bə-nənt) 1. An organism or cell in which genetic recombination has taken place. 2. Material produced by genetic engineering.1 3. Literally hundreds of millions of experiments . . . have been carried out in the last 30 years without incident. No documented hazard to public health has been attributable to the applications of recombinant DNA technology. Moreover, the concern of some that moving DNA among species would breach customary breeding barriers and have profound effects on natural evolutionary processes has substantially disappeared as the science revealed that such exchanges occur in nature. —Paul Berg, 1980 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry2 Dreamveil

PART ONE Chez Soi OCFS-7065A (10/1998) NEW YORK STATE OFFICE OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES AGENCY REPORTING FORM FOR ABANDONMENT OF UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN/ TRANSFER TO PROTECTIVE CARE Case type: Protective Was SCR called? No Was an SCR report registered? No MPR? None—unknown Date of Abandonment: September 29, 1998 CIN#: To be assigned Date of Birth: Unknown; estimated 1987-1988 Sex: Female Race: Caucasian Name of Child: Unknown (temporarily designated YJF) Agency or individual having legal custody: Unknown Address: YJF picked up by police at undisclosed location on Lower East Side List any witnesses: None Physical description: Height 4’8”, weight 51 pounds; cropped dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, pale skin. Distinguishing marks: Child has permanent animal tattoos on both inner forearms. Describe the details and circ*mstance regarding child’s abandonment: Police responded to complaint from local merchant of unsupervised child digging through trash, found and took YJF into custody. YJF transferred to DCS case worker Patterson and transported to hospital for standard medical evaluation (see attached ER assessment and admissions forms). Attending physician reported YJF in fair physical condition, with minor bruises and lacerations to the extremities, signs of malnutrition, mild hypothermia, and moderate dehydration. Blood work negative for HIV, Hep-B, toxins. Admitted for 24-hour observation and treatment; discharged into DCS custody on September 30, 1998. Interview: YJF appears lucid and cognitive, responds appropriately to verbal prompts, speaks English without an accent. Claims near-total memory impairment (unsubstantiated). Eats very well. Shows no obvious signs of mental or physical impairment other than those previously mentioned. Reason(s) for Placement into Protective Custody: YJF shows aversion to physical contact of any kind; measured severely underweight (>2%) for height/age on CDC 2 to 20 years: Girls Weightforage grid. Observed by CW hiding food in clothing. Based on behavior, CW believes child has

been neglected and/or starved for some time prior to abandonment. Additional comments to supplement the above information or to clarify the child’s situation, condition, prognosis, etc.: YJF attempted to bargain with CW several times to gain unsupervised access to building exits; may be runaway risk. Recommendations: Transfer to foster care and follow up with psych evaluation and pediatric exam in one week. Signed W. J. Patterson Sr. Senior Case Worker Department of Children’s Services New York City New York August 18, 1998 Manhattan, New York “Lah-nah.” The slam of the door down the hall told Lana that her foster father was home. The thick, uneven tone of his voice warned her that he was drunk again. The thud of his footsteps, uneven and heavy, made it clear that he was coming to get her. If he found her awake, he’d make her do it again. “Hide in the closet,” a voice whispered from beneath her bed. “No.” Lana’s hands shook as she pulled the quilt up to her neck and held it there. She was ready for him. “Be quiet. Don’t say anything.” A movement made her turn her head, and she saw the dim smear of Jimmy’s small face in the darkness. His brown eyes looked like holes burned through a bedsheet, reminding her that she wasn’t the only one who was scared. “It’ll be okay, Jimmy.” She jumped as the bedroom door flung open and hit the inside wall. Bits of plaster fell from the edges of an old hole made a little larger by the impact of the doorknob; it crackled as it pelted the floor. Backlit by the hallway lights, her dad cast a wide, block-shaped shadow across Lana’s bed. He stood there for a minute, wavering, taking another drink from the bottle he carried before he let it drop to the floor. As he came across the carpet the soles of his shoes scraped against the plush fibers. Don’t shake. Don’t move. Don’t touch him. Lana felt his wide, damp palm press against her forehead, and pretended to stir rather than flinch. The hardest part was keeping her breathing slow and steady, as if she was really asleep, while she fought the other feelings. They crawled under her skin like bugs, itching to get out and do their work. Touch him touch him touch him touch him tou— “Lanie. Baby.” Whiskey-soaked breath puffed against her face. “You ’wake?” Lana mumbled something and turned over on her side, clutching the stuffed bear she slept with against her pounding heart. She could feel her dad swaying over her, watching her, deciding what he would do. It depended on how drunk he was. Some nights he’d remember how it was before, when her mom was alive and they were a real family, and he’d leave her alone. Other nights . . .

But that was her fault. She’d been afraid; she’d lost control. If she hadn’t, he would never have found out. “Tomorrow night, baby.” Damp lips pressed against her ear before his rough voice crooned, “You’ll be a good girl and do it again for Daddy, won’t you?” Bile inched up her throat. If he kissed her mouth, she would puke in his face. But he couldn’t reach her mouth, not without losing his precarious balance and falling on top of her, so he straightened, shuffling back a step. “Tomorrow night,” he repeated. Lana waited and listened as her dad shuffled from the room and the door banged shut. She heard the faint sounds of keys being pulled out and the creak of another door as it opened and closed. She didn’t open her eyes until she heard the very last sound, the bell, and then she eased out of her bed and tiptoed over to put her ear to the door. Only after several minutes of silence did she know it was safe. Jimmy sat up from his hiding place as she went to the closet and took out the backpack hidden behind the boxes of shoes. Her hands shook too much to unbutton her pajama top, so she pulled it over her head, revealing the T-shirt she wore beneath it. “You can’t run away,” Jimmy said, careful to keep his voice low. “He’ll call them. They’ll find you. They’ll make you come back.” “No.” She opened a bureau drawer and grabbed a handful of socks. They didn’t know about what she could do; he would never tell them. “I’m not ever coming back.” She’d stolen a little money every week from the cash box kept in the kitchen, and while forty dollars and sixty-eight cents wouldn’t take her far, it would have to be enough. She couldn’t do it again. Not ever. “What about me?” Jimmy’s voice climbed a panicky octave. “You can’t leave me behind. He’ll know that I helped you.” Her dad had a terrible temper, but while her mom had been alive he’d managed to keep it under control. He’d even been like a father to Lana, in a distant, indifferent way. She knew the only reason her parents had adopted her was that they couldn’t have kids of their own, and her mother had wanted a little girl to love. Then things had changed, and her mom had stopped sleeping and started reading the Bible all day, carrying it with her everywhere, ignoring Lana and her dad until that last terrible night. The slashing knife. You hellspawn. The fiery pain punching into her back. You demon. Every word screamed. Lana’s dad had never been the same after the funeral. He wouldn’t talk to the police or anyone. He locked himself in her mom’s room and drank. Whenever he came out, it was only to get more whiskey. Lana tried to speak to him and he hit her, knocking her into a wall. You did this. She was right about you. “He’s gonna be really mad,” Jimmy was saying. “Call your mom after I leave and tell her that my dad hit you,” Lana told him as she shoved some underwear into her pack. “Show her those bruises on your back you got from falling out of the tree. She’ll believe you.” Jimmy’s mother, who shared custody of him with his father, had already complained to her ex- husband about Lana’s dad and how much he frightened Jimmy. The last time she’d come by on an unannounced visit she’d found Lana’s dad sleeping on the floor in the hall with a mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and she’d warned Jimmy’s father that she would go back to court and have the

judge give her full custody. Jimmy had heard everything. “But what if he comes to get me before my mom gets here?” Jimmy persisted. “He’ll kill me.” “He won’t.” Lana shouldered her backpack and went over to kneel by the bed. Before she could say a single word Jimmy had her in a stranglehold hug. “I don’t want you to go.” She rubbed her hand carefully over his sore back. He’d been a good friend to her. “It’ll be okay, Jimmy. You like living with your mom better anyway.” “My mom would help you, Lana.” He pulled back, running his sleeve under his nose and blinking fiercely. “Maybe you could come and live with us. We could ask her. She likes you.” “My dad would find out, and you know what he would do to her.” Lana gently removed his clinging arms from around her neck, and looked into his tear-filled eyes. “I’ve got to go now.” She kissed his forehead. “Don’t be afraid. Just hide until your mom comes.” She left Jimmy sobbing soundlessly into the side of her bed, and slipped out of the bedroom. After listening once more, she crossed the hall and crept out to the stairwell. She could see the front door from there, and the new locks her dad had installed a month ago, which required a key to open from either side. Fortunately everyone in the house had a copy, and Jimmy had been able to slip his father’s from his key ring and bring it to her. Lana clutched it in her fist as she moved toward the stairs. In a few minutes she’d be downstairs and out the door, and she’d be free. No more sleepless nights, no more hiding from her dad, no more fear. No more Lana, either. She’d already picked out her new name, thanks to an old movie and a map of North Carolina. She didn’t know how exactly yet, but she was going to find her real parents and call them. When she told them what had happened to her, they’d be sorry and come and get her right away. They had to. A low chuckle behind her made Lana freeze. “I knew you were faking it,” her dad said against the back of her neck. As Lana swung around, she saw Jimmy standing just behind her father. He was holding his baseball bat. “You let her go.” Her father turned, his fist rising, and then Jimmy swung the bat, knocking it into the side of his head with a solid thunk. Lana bit back a scream as her father reeled into the wall and slid down it to sit on the floor, his head sagging against one shoulder. Jimmy lowered the bat and looked at her as tears streaked his face. “Now you can get away. Go. Hurry.” Dreamveil

Chapter 1 Five years hadn’t altered much of Rowan Dietrich or New York City. The kid who had carried everything she owned in a backpack when she had left for Georgia still owned little more than the clothes on her back. She’d found friends, people who were as damaged and screwed up as she was, but the two most important had really been searching for each other, and now they were together and complete. They would have gladly gone on being her surrogate family, but she’d wanted more than that, more than they could ever give. Leaving them behind hurt, but Rowan knew she’d done the right thing. If destiny did exist, she thought as she removed her helmet, being alone seemed to be hers.

November had iced the roads with slush and frozen puddles, and forced her to keep her speed minimal as she retreated to the alleys. A few hours earlier she might have smelled what passed as a festive fragrance here: roasted nuts hawked by sidewalk vendors too fat or too poor to care about standing out in the cold. After midnight, the vendors trudged home while the dampness of the river crept east. The unlovely, clammy fumes of the Hudson blended with the perennial sour reek of car exhaust, garbage, and decades of grime exuded by the streets. Not even Pittsburgh, one of the dirtiest cities Rowan had ever seen, stank like New York. Something small with patchy fur and a long tail skittered across the road ahead of her. It might have been a very small, ratty-looking cat, or a very large, catty-looking rat. This was a stupid idea. Sometimes she’d smelled as vile as the streets, back when she’d been a homeless runaway. Living in the bowels of the greatest city on earth didn’t include regular bathroom privileges or ample opportunities to keep up her personal hygiene. No matter how often she’d washed, she’d soaked up the acrid, sour odor of the city until she thought she’d never be clean again. Sometimes it had been so bad she’d wondered if every night the city lifted some giant invisible leg and pissed on her while she slept. Really stupid. As for the sights, the Big Apple appeared exactly as she remembered it, a soulless gray and black labyrinth of concrete and steel, as cold in electric light as in the wells of shadow, as indifferent to her as she’d be to an ant. As she hooked her helmet to the lock she’d installed at the back of her seat, she wondered why the passing years hadn’t shrunk the city into something smaller and less intimidating. Surely any minute she’d start feeling at least a twinge of fond nostalgia for the place where she’d spent the worst times of her young life. It wasn’t happening. She’d come back home unwanted and alone, and the city still didn’t care. Realizing nothing had changed didn’t chill her; resentment boiled in her chest. Screw the Apple. Her life had been polluted long enough by rage and fear of the things that had happened to her in this place without her permission. She’d come here to free herself of the past and finally face her fear. She would not be beaten into the pavement again by it. Well? What’s it going to be? She hadn’t been thinking about doing this when she’d left the interstate. She’d taken the exit thinking she’d just drive to the river, stop there, and have a look at the city from one of the docks. She’d reminded herself of all the excellent reasons why she had to stay on the Jersey side of the Hudson, and then she was driving through the Lincoln Tunnel and uptown into the theater district, her visor up, her eyes searching. For what, she didn’t know. She’d left nothing behind but her innocence and two graves. Three, she corrected herself as some cold part of her brain did the math. The sisters are dead, and the old man is, too. There’s no one left who knows who or where or what I am. In a few hours the Upper West Side would be choked with people and traffic, but in the predawn hours Rowan saw only a few cabs and patrol cars on the road, and some delivery trucks parked with their flashers on as they were being unloaded. Seeing the crates of produce and flowers being stacked on the hand trucks and wheeled into the groceries and restaurants made her stomach twist. When she’d been desperate, she’d stolen food off the back of some delivery trucks; seeing all that unguarded bounty still made her feel hungry—and ashamed. Quickly she rode past a couple of pricey restaurants she didn’t recognize. The leather bomber jacket that had kept her warm during the long, icy ride now felt smothering.

Welcome home, Rowan. Here, have a little panic attack to go along with your sniveling. A garbage truck passed her, splashing her left leg with gray slush. And f*ck you. At the next traffic light she stopped, braced her boots against the road, unzipped, and stripped. As she tied the jacket by the sleeves around her waist, she saw that sweat had soaked the two shirts she wore beneath it. A faint blue glow showed around the edges of her sleeves, and the skin of her inner arms crawled. If anyone had touched her in that moment, she wouldn’t have been able to control herself. Something was wrong, and the cause wasn’t her ugly memories of the city. She scanned the surrounding area until she spotted a small group of Latino kids tagging a building under construction across the street. Stylized letters spelled out Neva B Tha Same in jailhouse jumpsuit orange and radiation-warning yellow. Other, equally artistic graffiti riddled the bare cinderblock walls around them. On her side of the road there was no graffiti. Not a single tag, gang sign, or rap sentiment anywhere on the brick walls between the barred windows and grate-covered doors, all of which belonged to some upscale place. White letters on the dark brown canopy over the main entrance spelled out a single name in elegant script: D’Anges. Angelic? For the angels? Rowan wasn’t sure. Outside the terms used in gourmet cookbooks and magazines, her French sucked. Red light turned to green, but she didn’t ride on, and the sound of her engine finally drew the attention of the graffiti artists to her presence. The boys turned en masse to hoot, whistle, and call out sexual invitations while palming their crotches. The ultimate thug accolade. Relaxing a little, Rowan studied them. She knew from experience that teenage boys were often the most dangerous predators walking the streets, but something told her this bunch were mostly gab and grab. “Sí ’mana.” The oldest boy, resplendent in his oversize football jersey and carpenter jeans, sauntered over. “I like your ride.” Rowan checked his hands, which were grimy and speckled across the knuckles with yellow backspray, but otherwise empty. No knives, no guns, no bricks, no tricks. “Thanks.” “Muy melaza.” His eyes ate up her bike before squinting at her. “You take me around the block?” So he could dump her ass and deliver her machine to his cousin’s chop shop? “Another time, maybe.” “Coño.” He glanced back to smirk at the encouraging catcalls from his friends, and then shuffled closer. “So what you waiting here for? You need directions or something, mami?” She noticed he bypassed ogling her tit* to check out her ignition. So that’s the plan. “Do I look lost to you, hijo?” “Mira.” Beautiful white teeth flashed against his dark face. “Maybe I take you somewhere, huh?” As he reached to snatch her keys, she caught his wrist and jerked him closer. He wasn’t expecting that, but she needed his body to block her from his friends’ view. The leather sleeves encasing her forearms rippled as she looked into his eyes and saw the tiny reflection of her own face blur and change. Inside Rowan’s belly, a burst of heat solidified and began to expand. At the same time a stream of images and words poured into her mind. Ruthlessly she searched through them until she found what she needed. “You’re being a bad boy, Juanito.” “¡Alábalo que vive!” The boy’s eyes flew wide, until she could see the whites all around the dark irises. “Rosamada? Es tu?”

“Sí.” She didn’t know enough Spanish to command him in that language, but now that all he saw was the face of the girl he loved, he probably wouldn’t notice. “It’s too late for you to be out, ’Nito. Say good-bye to your friends and go home now.” Juanito nodded, tugging something from his neck and dropping it into her lap. “For you. You wear it for me, Rosa.” Rowan had to root between her thighs until she felt the metal links and retrieved the heavy chain. A gleaming, solid-silver crucifix hung from it. “Why are you giving me your ice?” He looked past her. “Enero.” Without another word, he turned and trotted back to his friends. Once upon a time Rowan had been a Catholic, so the cross didn’t give her the creeps. Seeing Juanito and his friends make the sign of the cross and kiss their thumb knuckles before they scattered did. She looked over her shoulder, but didn’t see anyone or anything but the dark windows of the restaurant. What the hell had spooked them? Rowan grabbed her helmet and pulled it back on. Enough was enough. In another day or two she’d reach Boston, where she’d been promised a good job and a cheap apartment. She’d never been there before, but she was ready to make a fresh start. If it didn’t work out, she’d hit the road again and move on. There was always another place, another job, another chance. All she had to do first was break a promise. The one she’d sworn she never would. The threadbare, moth-eaten blanket of winter night, which covered little and protected nothing, had effectively emptied out the alleys. When temperatures dropped, the usual residents deserted their dismal crate and cardboard-box niches. Sleeping outside when the mercury sank below twenty was an automatic sentence of death by hypothermia, so like the rats and strays, the homeless retreated to the relative safety of the subway tunnels, abandoned cars and condemned buildings, where the cold couldn’t kill them. Two minutes before she laid down her bike, Rowan felt better about her bizarre impulse to come home one last time. There was no one to see her, and nothing to get in her way. She’d cruise through her old haunts on the way to the cemetery, then ride up through the Bronx and head north before the sun rose. She rounded a corner and turned down the alley behind it when something hit her from behind. Her bike lurched forward, and she looked back, expecting to see a car that had crowded too close. The street behind her stood empty. Rowan glanced down at her tank, which she’d just filled up in Pittsburgh. If she’d gotten some bad gas it would have acted up long before now. The bike wasn’t at fault; she’d felt the impact. Something had hit her. Cold sweat popped out on the back of her neck as she accelerated, the thrum of the engine muted by the pounding in her ears. He knows I’m here, the terrified kid in her head whispered. The old man. He’s coming after me. Fear-blind as she was, Rowan never saw what blew out her front tire. One moment she was speeding through the shadows and the next she was clinging to the grips as the bike went into a wild skid. Dimly she heard something else blow as the bike tilted, and then she was sliding sideways, the world turning on its head and the front end of a car rushing at her face. In the instant before the crash, Rowan remembered why she’d promised herself that she would never come back to the city. She’d always feared that if she ever returned to New York, she’d die here. And now she would.

“So I do not salt the eggplant or the zucchini,” Bernard said, “or cook in separate pots. Chef, this is America, not Nice. Everything here, it is quick. No one could tell a difference.” Jean-Marc Dansant turned away from his sous-chef, mainly to keep from throttling him. “I could tell.” “The fat woman no complain, or send it back. She no care.” Bernard threw out his hands in his favorite gesture, a combination of frustration and helplessness. “It was fine. The best. . . .” He paused as he groped for the correct English, but failed. “The best courgettes à la niçoise I make.” “Naturellement.” He removed his white jacket and tossed it in the laundry bin. “The problem, Bernard, is that she ordered ratatouille.” “Je m’en fiche.” His sous-chef stalked out the back door. A few moments later the sound of squealing brakes and crashing metal came from the alley. Dansant didn’t feel alarmed by the noise. No doubt his sous-chef had knocked over the garbage bins with his car again. Bernard in a temper was nothing if not predictable. After inspecting the immaculate kitchen for the last time, Dansant shut off the light switches and went out into the alley to survey the mess. He expected the smell of garbage, and the sight of it spread from one side of the alley to the other. He did not expect to see a motorcycle lying on the ground in front of Bernard’s Volvo, or his souschef standing over a tall, skinny boy whose leather garments appeared badly scuffed. Then the biker removed his helmet, and under a mop of disheveled dark curls was revealed the thin, furious face of a dark-eyed, pale young woman. In profile she was all angular bone and creamy white skin; the stately line of her nose at odds with the decadent contours of her mouth and the stubborn set of her jaw. “Bernard.” He spoke sharply to cut off the sous-chef’s stream of obscenities in their native language. His voice drew the girl’s attention for a moment, and he saw that her lashes were like her hair, black, thick and curly. They framed eyes that seemed too dark to be so bright. She stiffened as if bracing herself for more trouble, and then saw his face. Whatever she saw made her body change, and she shifted on her feet, moving as if she meant to come to him. Dansant understood; the feelings rising inside him made nothing in that moment more important than going to her. “Did you knock her down?” he asked Bernard without looking at him. “Non. She crash into my car.” He stabbed a finger at the motorcycle. “Look at the bumper, the grille. They are ruin.” He turned his finger on the girl. “You pay for this.” Bernard had to repeat his demand for payment twice more before the girl heard him and turned to face him. “The hell I will. You shouldn’t be parked out here in the dark. It’s illegal and dangerous.” Hearing her speak made Dansant’s situation worse. The girl’s low voice had a faint rasp to it, and brushed against his ears like silk cord. Silk, yes, that would suit her more than her boyish leather. He imagined wrapping her in yards of scarlet and gold, weaving it around the length of her torso, coiling it along her long limbs, knotting it so that her hands were bound to his, and everywhere he touched her she would feel twice, on her body and against her slim fingers. . . . Never had he thought such things about a woman, Dansant thought, appalled. Not even with those he planned to seduce. How could she do this to him, this girl? She’d barely glanced at him, and he was ready to grab her and drag her inside and lay her out on the closest flat surface. He breathed in deeply, hoping the stench of the alley would clear his head, but smelled a familiar, coppery scent. At last he saw more than her eyes, her face. Her gloves were in shreds, and both of

her knees showed, scratched and bloodied, through tears in her trousers. Here she was hurt, in pain, and all he’d thought of was having her for his pleasure. He was no better than the idiot berating her. “I work here,” Bernard was telling her. “I park here every night. Bah.” He pulled out his wallet and offered her an insurance card. “You give me yours.” “I’m not responsible. Someone hit me from behind.” The girl ignored the card, hobbled slowly to where the motorcycle lay beside the car and crouched down. She ran her hand over one misshapen tire, then the other. “Damn it, they’re both blown.” “Miss. Miss.” When she didn’t respond, Bernard stalked over to her. “We call the insurance; let them say who pay.” She bent over to look under the car. “I don’t have any.” His sous-chef did the same. “What do you say?” “Insurance.” She stood, bracing one hand against the hood of the Volvo to steady herself. “I don’t carry any on my bike.” “So now I must pay for everything. Such convenience for you.” Bernard straightened and took out his mobile. “I call police now.” “Wait a minute.” She gave Bernard her full attention. “There’s no need to get the police involved. We can work this out between the two of us.” She tried to sound more amicable, but for the first time Dansant caught a glimpse of fear in her eyes, and moved quickly over to stand beside her. “I am French,” Bernard informed her before Dansant could say a word. “No stupid. I know your game. You crash into my car on purpose, force me give you money.” “No, Bernard,” Dansant told him. “Clearly it was an accident.” And if the man didn’t soon shut up, Dansant was almost certain he was going to beat him senseless. His sous-chef folded his arms. “She is scumming me.” “Scamming,” she corrected. “And no, I’m not doing that. Look, this was an accident, that’s all. Why don’t we just call it even and walk away?” “You ruin my car. You have no insurance. You are no walking away.” Bernard began to dial. “Écrase.” Dansant took out his wallet, eyed the car, and removed a handful of hundreds, which he put in the sous-chef’s soft hand. “This will pay for the damages, plus two weeks’ pay.” “Chef.” Bernard frowned at the money. “I do not need my pay tonight.” “Yes, you do. You’re fired. Adieu, Bernard.” Dansant turned to the girl, who stared at him with visible disbelief. Over Bernard’s sputtering, he said, “You are hurt, but I can help you. Come with me.” “I’ll be fine, thanks.” She seemed genuinely unconcerned about her injuries. “Who are you?” “Jean-Marc Dansant. I own this restaurant. Come, mademoiselle.” He took her arm, and when she pulled back he gestured at her knees. “Look, there, you are bleeding. I have a first-aid kit inside.” “My name is Rowan.” She turned her head. “My bike—” “It cannot be taken, not as it is now,” he assured her. Rowan stared at the hand on her arm and then into his eyes. “Why are you doing this? You don’t know me.” She is afraid—of me? “Oui.” He didn’t have the words to tell her, not yet. Not when he didn’t understand what was pulling him to her. Whatever it was, he could not let it vanish into the night. He released her as he

tried to think of something to say. “It is the kindness of a stranger, yes?” “Not something I usually depend on.” Rowan looked down at herself and sighed. “But I do need to clean up.” He clenched his teeth as images of his hands undressing her and washing her filled his mind. “Then come inside with me, please.” He offered her his hand this time, and after a long, silent moment, she took it. “Jamais dans ma vie,” Bernard called after them as Dansant guided her through the kitchen door and into the restaurant. “You be sorry you fire me. I am best sous-chef in—” Fortunately the heavy steel door cut off the rest of what he shouted. “Wait, please.” Dansant left her by the long prep table and retrieved the first-aid kit from the dry storage room. When he returned she had stripped off her jacket and the shreds of her gloves, and was washing her hands at the rinsing sink beside the industrial dishwasher. Under a black T-shirt she wore a long- sleeved white thermal shirt, the cuffs of which were stained red with blood. For the first time he realized how very tall she was—only an inch or two shorter than he was—and how perfectly her long body would fit to his. He’d never made love to a woman who matched him physically. Nor would he if he left her standing and bleeding in his kitchen while he indulged in such fantasies. “Let me see,” he said as he put the kit on the sideboard. “They’re not too bad. My gloves took the worst of it.” She showed him her grazed, reddened palms before looking down. “My knees are a mess, though.” Dansant pulled an empty crate over by the table. “Sit here.” She didn’t move. “Thanks, but I think I can do this by myself.” Dansant removed some gauze pads and a small bottle of peroxide from the kit. “You are still shaken, ma mûre.” She limped over to the crate and perched on it. “So are you usually this kind to strangers?” Before he could answer, she added, “I’m not going to sue, if that’s what you’re worried about.” That she thought of herself as a stranger to him was perplexing. From the moment he’d seen her face, he’d known her. Not who she was, or why she had come to him now, but everything that mattered between a man and a woman. All he had to do was be patient, and wait for her to give herself over to him. Then he would show her that they were meant to be together. Doesn’t she feel it? “I do not worry about this.” He knelt before her to inspect the damage to her knees. “There is debris in the wounds. From the ground.” He would need scissors to cut away her trouser legs. “I must remove it.” As soon as he put his hand on her leg, Rowan stiffened. “I don’t think so.” He glanced up. “You do not like to be touched.” “Oh, sometimes I like it fine.” She stared at his mouth before lifting her eyes to his, and he saw a glimmer of heat and longing. “It’s the stranger part I have trouble with.” “So do I.” More than he could ever tell her. “Perhaps just for tonight, we should think we are friends.” “Friends.” She seemed amused by this, but leaned back on her elbows. “All right, Dansant. Do whatever you want.” Dreamveil

Chapter 2 Rowan wasn’t sure how she went from thinking her life was over while laying down her bike in a dark alley to sitting on a crate in a restaurant kitchen and watching the top of Jean- Marc Dansant’s head. She had an excellent vantage point, however, as he knelt in front of her, one hand wrapped around her calf while he examined the ugly wounds on her knees. Why couldn’t we do this when I’m not torn up and bleeding? His black hair, long enough to merit a ponytail, had begun to escape the band at the back of his neck, and strands of it fell around his face in poetic disarray. She spent a long time looking at his hair, concentrating on it as if it were the most important thing in the world. Only when her eyes began to burn did she remember to blink, and then she fell right back into staring. After some time had passed, Rowan shook off her uncharacteristic fascination with his mop. As she did, she felt a peculiar disorientation, as if time had stopped while she’d forgotten where she was, and what she was doing. What’s wrong with me? Evidently she’d hit her head harder than she’d thought during the crash, and it had turned her into a semizombie. She knew what she should have been thinking of: what to do next, how to get out of this, this restaurant, this accident, this city—this whole mess. Someone had hit her from behind. She’d come close to smearing herself like a bug all over the grille of a Volvo. She’d survived, only to strand herself in the last place on earth she wanted to be stranded. Idiot that she was, she’d also let Dansant—a bona fide stranger—pay for the damage she’d caused, and then had followed him inside his restaurant. Now she was letting him touch her, take care of her, like they were best friends. Sitting there and doing nothing, like it was nothing. Like she couldn’t think for herself anymore. But she was thinking now, just one thing, over and over. God, he’s so damn pretty. It seemed Dansant had come into the world with all the luxury upgrades: golden, flawless skin, strong jaw, stunning mouth, perfect nose, sculpted cheekbones, heavenly blue eyes, smooth arched brows. Rowan had never thought much of handsome men—too in love with their own reflections, most of them—but Dansant seemed almost too beautiful to be human, much less a regular guy. She kept trying to find a flaw somewhere; something that would make him seem less celestial. She didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t succeeding. Maybe it was those angel eyes of his, she thought as she breathed in. His eyes were as morning-sky blue as his hair was midnight black, which was the only peculiarity. Men with Dansant’s dark coloring usually came with all-matching accessories. From where she sat she could smell flowers, spices, and heat, but couldn’t decide if it was coming from his hair, his body, or the restaurant’s kitchen. Or all three. The floral fragrance seemed hauntingly familiar, too, although the exact name of it eluded her. If that’s what he’s using as aftershave, he’s been shopping in the wrong cologne department. That could also be why it didn’t offend Rowan’s nose like other guy cologne, although it seemed to be everywhere: on him, in the air, all around her—even on her clothes. She couldn’t remember ever seeing this restaurant, even when she’d lived in New York, but for the first time since crossing the river, she felt as if she’d come home. In fact, she couldn’t remember feeling as comfortable and protected as she did in this moment. “Ow.” Fresh pain shot through her throbbing thigh, abruptly sending the alarming amount of happy bullsh*t she was thinking straight out of her head. “f*ck, that hurt.”

He glanced up, something she was sure he hadn’t done once since she’d given him permission to have his way with her skinned knees. Was that disapproval she saw? Probably; she had a mouth like a truck driver’s. “Sorry about the language.” “Vous êtes tout excusé. That one, it was deep.” He showed her a nasty- looking, bloody splinter before pitching it into the trash can beside them and going back to work. Jacqueminot. That was what she was smelling. It had seemed so familiar because the woman who had saved her life had grown it in her garden. It might explain why she felt so at ease with Dansant; the scent brought back memories of the only place she had ever considered her home. “Do you live near here?” he asked as he dampened a square of gauze with some water from a brown bottle. “No, I don’t”—she took in a sharp breath as he began cleaning the blood from her knee—“live in the city,” she said as she exhaled. A burning, fizzing sensation spread over her abrasion, which began to bubble with pink foam. “I guess that’s not water,” she said, gritting her teeth to hold back another f*ck-prefaced protest. “Peroxide, to kill germs.” He showed her the label on the bottle. “The ground in the alley is filthy.” “Right.” And if he kept talking, soon she might not feel any pain. Not only was Angel Eyes the most physically beautiful man she’d ever met; he also had without a doubt the best voice she’d ever heard: rich, deep, dark and sweet—a double shot of espresso with a honey chaser. Hearing it made her bones melt. Part of it had to be the way he spoke English, with that low, liquid French accent spilling over every word; it felt like being kissed on the ears. She could close her eyes and listen to him read his grocery list, and probably get off by the time he reached the dry goods. . . . Something here was seriously wrong. Twenty minutes ago she’d almost smeared herself all over a Volvo and had come within a phone call of mixing it up with the cops. Was she scared? Was she rethinking her declaration of independence? Was she even figuring out where she was going to sleep tonight? No. She was thinking about banging the gorgeous Good Samaritan. Jesus Christ. She had to get the hell out of here. “Hey, uh, you don’t have to do this. I’m sure I’ll be okay.” When that didn’t get a response, she tried, “It’s pretty late. Isn’t there someone waiting for you at home?” “My partner sleeps until dawn.” He turned away to look for something in the kit. “Why are you here so late, Rowan? Do you visit someone?” “Yes,” she lied without hesitation, and pushed herself down from the crate. “Thanks for helping me out. If you’ll give me your address, I’ll send you the money as soon as—” “Ça ne va pas, non?” He caught her hips between his palms. “You cannot go.” That grab went over the line for her, and she clamped her hands over his, intending to shove him away. Shifting her weight caused another jolt of pain to radiate from her knee, forcing her to instead hold on to him. “Be still,” he murmured. It was the damnedest thing. Those two words chased off the pain and brought back that sense of safety and well-being, just as she’d felt before when he was cleaning her up. It confused her; she was hurt and that always made her angry. But trying to push him off suddenly didn’t make sense, either; it wasn’t as if he was trying to grab her ass or anything. Why was she acting like such a bitch?

“It’s okay; I’m fine.” “Your motorcycle,” he reminded her as he stood up, sliding his fingers through hers as casually as if they were on a date. “It needs some repair, oui?” “It needs a lot of repair.” She thought about the contents of her wallet; making the trip from Savannah had left it pretty thin. What cash she had wouldn’t replace the tires, much less fix the damage to the chassis or whatever the crash might have done to the engine. She used to have a street map of the city in her head, but she’d replaced it with mental diagrams of Atlanta and Savannah and Albany. “Is there a bus stop near here that I can walk to that will take me to the Port Authority?” “There is,” he said. “But you cannot push the bike there or put it on the bus.” This would be the second set of wheels she’d abandoned in as many months, and she wouldn’t have anything but her feet or public transportation to help her get around Boston. Still, she had no other option. “I’m not taking it with me.” She freed her hands from his, and stuffed them in her pockets to keep from reaching for him again. At the same time her head seemed to clear. “If you call in a complaint about the bike to the cops, they’ll send someone to tow it away.” “There is something better to do,” he assured her. “You can stay. Work for me. Until your bike is fixed.” “Work here? At the restaurant?” Rowan couldn’t understand why he was offering her a job, until she remembered him paying off Bernard. He thinks I’m going to stiff him. “Listen, I will get you your money back, Dansant. There’s a job waiting there for me in Boston, and I start as soon as I get there.” Honesty made her add, “It might take me a couple of months to earn enough to cover what you gave Bernard, but I’m good for it. I promise.” “So? You are here now. I have a job for you.” He spread his hands. “You stay, work, pay me back.” “Exactly what kind of job are we talking here?” She glanced at the industrial-size dishwasher in the far corner of the kitchen. “You want me to do dishes? A little cliché, don’t you think?” “You, a plongeur? Never.” He began replacing the supplies in the first-aid kit. “I think you would be very good as un tournant, a . . . kitchen helper?” She knew what a tournant was; little more than a glorified drudge who ran between stations to fetch and carry for the line cooks, and handled the dirty work no one else wanted to do, like cleaning out the grease traps and scraping plates. It was supposed to be like an internship, to give an aspiring chef a chance to see a professional kitchen staff in action, and learn how things worked on the line. But that didn’t change the fact that tournants were minimum-wage gophers who spent hours up to their elbows in trash and sh*t. Rowan might never have gone to culinary school, but she was better than that. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.” “It is work, Rowan.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “You have family here, or Boston? Friends? Someone to help you?” She would have lied to him again, but by the time she’d completed the thought the “no” had already left her lips. “Do you have any friends?” She had friends, plenty of them, but the thought of asking them for help didn’t appeal to her in the slightest. Matthias and Jessa were living on his farm in Tennessee, but at the moment she felt as if she’d rather walk to Boston on foot than call Matt and ask him for money. She hadn’t exactly faced up to Jessa or explained why she’d deceived her, either, and she was in no hurry to have that conversation. Drew, the closest friend she had after Matt and Jessa, had moved on himself, all the way

out to California. No, she thought, dismissing the last shred of doubt. Her life was her own now; she had to deal with this mess herself. “Rowan?” he persisted. She shook her head. “There’s no one I can ask for help.” He slid his hands down her arms before letting go. “Except me.” If he kept smiling and touching her like that she was going to climb the wall or jump him. “It’s sweet of you to offer me a job, Dansant, but even if I took it I’d still need a place to live.” Seeing his blank look, she added, “This is Manhattan, my man. I’m broke, and minimum wage won’t cover the rent for closet space around here.” “Of course.” His expression cleared. “You will live here.” She couldn’t help the laugh. “Uh, as comfortable as the floor looks, I think ceramic tile would be bad for my back. Or are you planning to let me use one of your storage rooms?” He was staring at her again, and she brought her hand to her nose. “Is there something on my face?” “Yes. No.” Dansant shook his head a little. “I am sorry. I do not mean live here in the restaurant.” He gestured toward the ceiling. “Upstairs, there are two flats. One is empty.” Maybe he didn’t understand the concept of I’m broke. “And what does the landlord want for rent?” “Nothing.” Her brows rose. “There’s no such thing as a free apartment, pal.” “There is when I am the landlord.” He smiled briefly. “My partner and I own the entire building.” “Nice.” She glanced up to keep from drooling over his teeth, which were of course as dazzling white and perfect as the rest of him. “You’d let me stay there for free, when you could rent out the apartment to someone who could pay?” The way he kept touching her, maybe he meant to handle rent another way. “You thinking of taking it out in trade?” He was staring at her face again. “What is this trade?” “You know.” She let her gaze drift down the length of him, pausing to study the excellent fit of his khakis to his strong thighs and lean hips before looking into his eyes again. “You give me an apartment; I give you what you want. Trade.” “What do you think I want, Rowan?” He didn’t sound offended or angry; now there was something like pity in his eyes. She’d spent years in bars hustling pool tables and getting hit on by beer-soaked Romeos; she’d heard every come-on in existence. She had few illusions about her looks. The only reason a guy hit on her was because he was plastered or desperate. But Dansant wasn’t drunk, and if he was hard up for a woman she’d eat her helmet. As spectacular as his looks were, he was also kind and gentle, and had tended to her as if she were some stray kitten he’d found in the alley. She had no right to think he wanted her to pay the rent on her back; he hadn’t made one move on her. She looked at his hands again, and saw how immaculate and well shaped they were. The evocative scent of jacqueminot warmed her lungs, as if she was standing in some unseen garden. One where she could happily spend the rest of her days. He’d definitely been shopping in the wrong cologne department. . . . Isn’t there someone waiting for you at home? So beautiful and clean and perfectly groomed, Dansant was, right down to his manicured fingernails. My partner sleeps to dawn. Oh, hell. Suddenly it all made sense. He’s gay.

“Nothing. I was wrong.” She ducked her head. “Sorry.” And she was, for herself and all her sisters in the world who would never have a chance with the man. “You’re sure about this?” Still a little heartbroken, she glanced up. “I mean, giving me a job, letting me stay here?” “Oui.” He’d said only one of the apartments was empty. “Do you live in the other one?” He shook his head. “The man who lives there is a mechanic. I think he will know how to repair your motorcycle.” A job, a place to live, and a neighbor who could fix her bike. That was a hell of a lot more than she had waiting for her in Boston. “Well, you may be crazy, Dansant, but I’m not. All right.” She grinned at him. “You’ve got yourself a new tenant tournant.” The special analysis lab in the Atlanta headquarters of GenHance, Inc., had been given many names since being built. Administration identified it as “the clean room.” The few technicians cleared for limited, supervised access quietly referred to it as “the pressure cooker.” The janitorial staff, who were not permitted inside, called it “Area 51.” In reality the room was an enormous, two-thousand-square-foot sealed, sterile space, with its own air lock, power grid, security system, and complex, multifiltered air supply. Until they submitted to a full-body scan, no one who was authorized access could enter the room. Each day security personnel performed similar, intensive scans on the surgical steel walls, floors, and equipment inside the lab. Nothing was brought into the room that was not first thoroughly inspected. The official explanation was that the stringent measures were to protect the delicate materials involved in ongoing genetic experiments. In reality the measures were taken to protect the reason behind those experiments, and to assure that no activity or conversation held inside the clean room was monitored or recorded. Lately, GenHance chairman Jonah Genaro had been spending a great deal of time in the clean room, but he had no choice. A month ago he’d discovered a traitor on his staff, one who had been passing along information on GenHance’s most sensitive projects to the company’s primary targets, the Kyndred. He was taking no more chances. “I’m sorry, sir,” Dr. Elliot Kirchner told Genaro after he finished relating the details of his latest test trials, and handed off the file to his assistant, Nella Hoff. “Results consistently show that neuroblockers will not mute or nullify the negative effects.” Genaro regarded the two scientists for a long moment. Kirchner, a tall, gray-haired man with the graceless build of a long-legged bird, looked like an ostrich beside his petite, slightly built assistant. “Whoever injects the transerum will experience significant, cascading cerebral destabilization,” Kirchner continued. “The breakdown of behavioral inhibitors and impulse control will occur within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” As they had all witnessed when Bradford Lawson, a GenHance executive wounded during a botched attempt to capture a particularly valuable Kyndred, had stolen and injected himself with the transerum. “Is the damage reversible?” Kirchner shook his head. “The transerum doesn’t damage the brain, sir. It alters it.” “Permanently,” Hoff added, nodding enough to make the bell of auburn hair around her face bob. As chairman of one of the largest and most profitable biotech research corporations in the world, Jonah Genaro was accustomed to success. Under his direction GenHance, Inc., was actively re-

searching therapeutic treatments for dozens of genetic abnormalities and disorders. His company was also widely considered the global leader in ground-breaking genetic research procedures, medical applications, and other important developments in the biotech industry. Genaro had spent a great deal of time and money to create and maintain that illusion, to ensure that no one learned of the real work going on behind GenHance’s humanitarian facade: using Kyndred DNA to create a serum that would genetically enhance humans and turn them into living weapons. He would not accept that the work of the past eleven years—indeed, of his entire existence—had all been for nothing. Nella Hoff’s delicate floral perfume didn’t quite cover the odor of her sweat, and Genaro noted the woman’s nervous hand movements and damp temples before he addressed the chief geneticist. “What will it take to deal with this destabilization issue?” Kirchner frowned. “We’ve explored every possible modification, sir, without success. As it is now, the transerum cannot be used on humans without serious consequences.” “Unacceptable.” Before the geneticist could reply, he added, “Lest you forget, there are hundreds of human beings in the world who have already been successfully enhanced. The Kyndred were genetically altered and given extraordinary abilities. They still lead normal lives. None of them has gone insane.” “That we know of,” Hoff broke in. As both men regarded her, the skin around her nose tightened, but she plowed on. “I’m sorry, Mr. Genaro, but Dr. Kirchner is right. The transerum can’t be fixed unless we re-create the original experiment. The process used to enhance them was lost along with the geneticists who created them. The records were destroyed. There are no living witnesses. Where we are now, we’re dead in the water.” Genaro glanced at Kirchner, whose expression remained remote. “The Kyndred are alive.” “They’re idiots,” Nella insisted. “Most of them probably still don’t even realize that they were deliberately enhanced.” “Dr. Hoff is correct. I’ve reviewed all of the transcripts from the interrogations of the Kyndred we’ve captured alive,” Kirchner admitted. “It’s obvious that they were altered in utero or in early infancy. They have no real recollection of the experiments, only fragmented memories and nightmares from childhood. They can’t provide any useful information.” Genaro wasn’t interested in the childhood tragedies of the Kyndred. “Then what is the next step, Dr. Kirchner?” His geneticist began to speak, but once more Nella interrupted. “I believe I’ve discovered the solution, sir.” She lowered her voice a notch. “While Dr. Kirchner was testing the neuroblockers, I decided to take the initiative with another approach. I accessed the bioarchives, retrieved a Kyndred sample, and used it with an organic human specimen in the neurosequencer.” “What?” Kirchner’s face darkened. “You took a sample and wasted it on a cadaver brain?” “Only a recovered partial sample,” Nella snapped back, ire sparkling in her pretty green eyes. “We never recovered a full cell spread from the female. It was useless to us.” Now Genaro cut off Kirchner’s furious response. “What were the results, Dr. Hoff?” She produced a confident smile. “Introducing the Kyndred cells to the cadaver brain stabilized the serum. I recorded the simulation. If I may show you, sir?” When he inclined his head, Nella went to a terminal and pulled up a video file to play onscreen. “This is the neurosequencing of the specimen after being injected with the transerum. As you can see here”—she traced a bright yellow, branching light—“the destabilization process is well advanced. At this point I introduced DNA recovered from the female’s single tissue sample.” The web of yellow light began to shrink and in a few seconds disappeared altogether. “The specimen stabilized completely after thirty minutes, at which time the

female’s DNA became dormant.” Genaro had her run the simulation a second time before he asked, “Do you know why?” “I have a theory about this particular female, sir,” the assistant said, all eagerness now. “It’s related to her specific enhancement. She’s the most powerful Kyndred we’ve identified to date. Her ability physically transforms both matter and energy. That makes her what I like to think of as a dominant.” Kirchner made a disgusted sound. “First you help yourself to the bioarchives, and now you think you can categorize them?” “With you wasting time on testing conventional inhibitors, someone had to,” Hoff replied before turning back to address Genaro. “Sir, I can provide you with a detailed analysis of my experiment. All indications are that a full cell spread from this female subject will control the destabilization process during the enhancement stage. This is the breakthrough we needed.” “So it would seem.” Genaro studied her damp face, and wondered why such an attractive woman would choose research science as her success vehicle. Perhaps she hasn’t. “Dr. Hoff, why did you not first obtain permission from Dr. Kirchner for this experiment?” “With all due respect, sir, Dr. Kirchner is not interested in anyone’s opinion but his own. I knew he would treat my theory with utter contempt, and refuse to allow me to run the simulation.” She folded her arms. “Conducting the experiment without his knowledge was the only way.” Genaro nodded slowly. “Very well. Make copies of the simulation, and I want to see a complete analysis of the experiment as soon as possible, including all pertinent notes and research.” “I’ll have it on your desk before the close of business today, sir.” Without looking at Kirchner, Nella left the lab. Genaro waited until the doors of the air lock resealed before he spoke to his geneticist. “Your assistant is a very ambitious woman, Elliot. She wants your job, I suspect, so she can have complete access to the project materials.” “You think she’s a spy?” Genaro shrugged. “Has she offered you anything out of the ordinary?” “Sex, a month after I hired her. I thought I had dealt with it.” Kirchner rubbed his forehead. “I apologize, Mr. Genaro. It won’t happen again.” “Don’t have her terminated.” When Kirchner gave him a surprised look, he added, “She did solve the problem with the transerum. I think that in itself deserves some reward.” Kirchner frowned. “What exactly did you have in mind, sir?” “Once we recover the female Kyndred with the dominant DNA and use it to stabilize the transerum, we will need a fresh cadaver brain.” Genaro eyed the simulation loop still playing on the screen. “Dr. Hoff’s should serve adequately.” Dreamveil

Chapter 3 Taire took one last peek through the hole she’d wiped in the ice- covered windowpane, and watched Dansant lead Rowan toward the stairwell by the back storage room. She relaxed the fingers she’d knotted into tight fists, and rested her forehead against the glass. Her breath melted some of the thin frost, which slid down the window like the tears on her face. Rowan was banged up from the accident, but not too badly. Taire had overheard everything else. She was taking the job Dansant had offered. She was staying.

It had worked. Taire wiped her face and nose on her sleeve before she moved away, taking care to stay in the shadows. No one was on the streets now, and she was only three blocks from her place, but she wouldn’t risk being seen. Not now, when she was so close to getting some real answers. She’s older, and she’s on her own. She lifted her cold, curled fingers to her mouth and blew on them. She has the marks. She has to know something. An hour ago Taire had been idly watching some kids tagging a building when Rowan had stopped her bike at the traffic light. The first thing she’d spotted was the jacket tied around Rowan’s waist, which in the freezing cold made no sense. Then one of the homeboys had gone over to sweet-talk her and then tried to grab her keys, and she’d grabbed him back. When the edge of Rowan’s sleeve slid down, and the edge of a black tattoo appeared, Taire had straightened. Then something strange had happened. Taire couldn’t see Rowan’s face, but she got a good look at the weird blue glow that had appeared under both of her sleeves. She’d heard the tone of the boy’s voice when he’d called her some Spanish name. Cold as it was, Taire had also picked up the faintest scent of something tart and fruity and —for want of a better word—ticklish. Complex and alien, it was coming from Rowan. She had breathed in deeply to break down the other girl’s scent into its components. It smelled of grapefruit, oak, apple, pears, and mint. Then it came back to her, that New Year’s Eve, when one young nanny had smuggled a bottle of champagne out of the wine cellar and up to the nursery to have her own private celebration. She’d let little Taire take a sip from the clear, flat-bottomed cuvée. Rowan—a biker chick—smelled like that. Like Cristal. Taire stopped across the street from her place and waited, turning her head to watch both sides of the street. The old hotel had been closed for several years, but the owner had hung onto the property until his death last year. Taire had found the place after reading about the owner’s heirs suing each other over rights to and disposition of the property, as the land the hotel was built on was worth millions to the city’s space-hungry real estate developers. Until the case was settled, and ownership established—something that would take years, according to the paper—the hotel would continue to stand, empty and useless, slowly decaying behind the graffiti-covered plywood nailed over its doors and windows. It wasn’t as bad as some of the places Taire had slept. Once she’d spent a weekend hiding in the corner of a warehouse in the meat-packing district, and the stink of old blood and raw meat had made her so sick she’d puked up everything she’d tried to eat. She knew better than to try sleeping in Central Park, but she’d nodded off out of exhaustion one afternoon while sitting on a bench, only to wake up in the dark to find some old boozer groping through her jacket pockets for money. He hadn’t even been embarrassed over getting caught. Ain’t you got nothing you can gimme, little girl? Taire tried never to think about him, but sometimes she woke up smelling rotten breath laced with cheap wine, and seeing those bloodshot eyes bulging out as if they were going to pop out of his dirty, scabby old face. It wasn’t my fault. I was so tired. Once she felt sure no one was watching, Taire closed her eyes. A moment later she darted across the street and climbed through the narrow gap in the boards, pausing only to secure them again before moving toward the old reception desk. The city had cut off water and power to the building long before Taire had moved in, so the interior was as frigid as the outside, and the boards and sheets of plywood blocked out any light from the

street. She’d bruised and scraped her hands and face falling over things more than once, but eventually she’d memorized every inch of the place, until she could walk freely in the dark. Now she moved confidently through the labyrinth of dry- rotting furniture in the lobby, sure of every step, leaving puffs of her breath to hang in the frozen air. To keep anyone from discovering her presence she’d been careful to disturb nothing, leaving the cobweb-laced drapes drawn open and the front desk to collect nothing but layer upon layer of dust and dead insects. Rats had been a problem for a while, until she’d found all the holes they’d been using to get in and sealed them from inside, where the repairs couldn’t be seen, using some drywall patches and filler that she’d taken from a supply shed at a construction site. Every time she stole something, guilt ate at her stomach. She wasn’t a thief. But taking something that didn’t belong to her was better than waking up to find some of her hair gone, gnawed off to line a rat’s winter nest. Since the elevators no longer functioned, Taire used the service stairs to go up to her room on the fifth floor. Along the way she checked each step for new footprints or signs that someone else had moved in. An abandoned building was an open invitation to anyone left out in the cold, and the plywood boards were getting old now. This winter was going to be a bad one; she could almost smell in the wind the coming snowstorms. If squatters broke in she couldn’t fight them; she’d have to go and start looking for another place. She thought of the faint blue glow that had appeared so briefly under Rowan’s sleeves. Or maybe I won’t have to. The door to the room she used was locked like all the others, but she’d filched one of the master keys from the manager’s desk and used it to let herself in. It was the smallest on the fifth floor, and contained only a single twin bed covered with a cheap brown and green paisley spread, an empty metal television stand (the heirs had gotten to the TV sets before the case went to court), and a cramped shower and toilet. The inch of water left in the toilet had frozen. Taire had chosen the room not because of the bed, which she never used, but for the closet tucked away behind the door. The small room adjoined another, larger suite, and the closet between them could be opened from both sides. If someone came in unexpectedly, she could take her things and slip out into the adjoining suite without opening the interior door or being seen. She went into the bathroom and stepped into the tub, tugging down her jeans before she crouched down low and emptied her bladder into the drain. It had taken some practice before she’d learned how to pee that way without splashing herself with her own urine. When she was finished she stepped out and poured down the drain a little bleach from the small jug she kept hidden behind the toilet. The smell from her urine abruptly disappeared. Out in the room, she shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the closet rail before looking down at the sagging black garbage bag that contained her spare clothes and shoes. She’d spread the extra blanket she’d found on the closet shelf over a mound of sheets and cushions she’d removed from some rooms on another floor to make a bed for herself. Because the closet was only three feet wide she had to sleep curled up like a shrimp, with her feet braced against the inside of the door, but the cramped quarters made her feel safer than if she had been sleeping out in the open. At first it was like curling up in a refrigerator, but it didn’t take too long for her to warm up in the small space. The three blankets she’d taken from other rooms trapped her body heat and kept her from freezing even on the coldest nights. She didn’t bother to remove her shoes as she settled in, covered up, and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. She began to warm up a little, but then her stomach started to growl. After a few minutes of listening to it, she took half a protein cereal bar from her jeans pocket. The foil wrapper crackled as she unfolded it and held the torn end to her nose. Although it was stale now, the white chocolate, toasted rice, and dried strawberries still made her mouth water. It was the last of

her food stash, and she knew she should save it for tomorrow, but she was too cold and hungry now to sleep. Her eyes stung as she nibbled at it, chewing every bite slowly to make it last as long as possible. This time a year ago she would have been asleep in her own bed, warm and cozy, her belly full. She’d never realized how lucky she’d been to have so much; she’d taken it all for granted. Back then she’d wasted enough food in one week to live on now for a month or two. Then it was gone, as if it had never been. No more mistakes. Taire reached under one of the pillows, took out the flashlight she’d found in a utility closet downstairs, and turned it on as she removed a folded paper from the plastic bag holding her belongings. The paper, a glossy, professionally printed flyer, had the photo of a young girl in the center along with a detailed description. Anyone who had information leading to the recovery of Alana King, the flyer promised, would be given a reward of five hundred thousand dollars. All they had to do was call the toll- free number printed on the flyer. Taire crumpled the stiff paper in her fingers, and then smoothed it out and refolded it neatly before putting it back in her bag. She was convinced that Rowan could help her, but asking for that help would be almost as bad as making the call to the hotline for Alana King. She didn’t know Rowan. The biker chick might not want to help her. She might even turn Taire over to the cops. She was so close that it didn’t seem fair that so many things could go wrong now. But they could, and just like the last time, one wrong decision would destroy everything. She had to be very careful, or she’d blow her last chance to make things right with her father. If she didn’t fix this, he would never let her come home again. He wouldn’t send her to the room. This time he’d make sure she never had a place to live or someone to love. This time, he’d kill her. It’ll be all right. Taire tucked a cold hand under her cheek and closed her eyes, imagining herself back in her old bed, surrounded by white eyelet lace curtains and clean linens, falling asleep while watching the snow fall outside. Rowan’s here now, and she’ll make everything fine again. She’ll help me get back home. “So when are you gonna come stop by the office in person for your messages, Sean?” Rita the answering service operator asked. “ ’Cause I’ll tell ya, we got a pool going on you now.” “Yeah?” Sean Meriden spotted a parking spot opening up in front of a deli and slid his Mustang Cobra into it a few seconds before a suit in a silver Beemer could. “How much?” “Hundred ten bucks so far.” She popped her gum. “Whoever guesses right where you land on the Lost stud scale takes the pot.” He grinned at the Beemer’s blaring horn as the driver gunned his high-priced engine and moved on. “Do I want to know what the Lost stud scale is?” “Lost, like the TV show, you know? We made a scale of one to ten for the guys on the show,” Rita advised him. “Ten being Josh Holloway, and one being that googly-eyed guy who plays Ben.” The things women did to entertain themselves. “Who’s five?” “Desmond.” She sighed. “He’s not bad to look at, but that freaking Scottish accent and the way he’s always like calling every guy ‘brotha’ gets on everyone’s nerves.” “I think I’ll let the pot build up a little more.” Meriden climbed out, locked up, and fed the meter some coins while he enjoyed the gawkers. His red and white sports car might have been an antique, but it still drew the envious eye of every middle-aged man on the street. Women, on the other hand, paid more attention to Meriden. “Any other calls come in?”

“Couple.” Paper shuffled on the other end of the line. “Mr. Dansant called just before midnight. Said to tell you that he moved someone into the other apartment. Didn’t leave a phone number or ask for a call back.” “No.” Meriden’s smile faded. “He wouldn’t.” “The last call came in about an hour before the day shift started. This guy said he was Gerald King of King Properties in Manhattan”—she snickered—“and that he needed to talk to you about doing a job for him. Left the number for his private line; I texted it to you.” He didn’t have to think about the name; in Manhattan it was as well known as Donald Trump’s. “He’s not Gerald King.” “That’s what I told my supervisor when I picked up your overnight messages. She said maybe it was an alias for some other important guy who needs you.” Rita chuckled. “You get the weirdest messages sometimes, Sean.” “Goes with the job, sweetheart.” He looked down the block until he located a phone booth. “I’ll check in with you around noon. Page me on the mobile if you get in something urgent.” “I’ve got twenty bucks on nine,” Rita confided. “You gotta be a Matthew Fox. Big guy, scruffy, tattoos, beat all to hell, but a born hero. I could tell first time I talked to you.” She disconnected before he could reply. Meriden looked down at the inside of his right forearm. The tat in the center of his arm, a taijitu formed from the body of a snakelike dragon, had been rendered in scarlet ink that some people mistook at first glance for blood or a bad burn. A born hero. If only Rita knew. Meriden pulled up the text with King’s number as he made his way to the phone booth. He never called clients from his mobile; that would give them the ability to call him at any hour or even track his whereabouts. His answering service covered calls to the number on his business cards, and any callbacks he had to make he did from a public phone. He dialed the number from the text and waited for an answer. The line connected on the third ring to a soft, dry male voice. “Hello.” “This is Sean Meriden. Gerald King left this number with my service, asked me to call about a job.” “Yes, I made that call, Mr. Meriden. I presume you know who I am?” “Gerald King died five years ago,” Sean pointed out. “It was in all the papers. He your dad, or is this your idea of a clever alias?” “There was an attempt made on my life five years ago,” King said. “To prevent another, I have since allowed the general public to believe the first was successful.” King had been a complete recluse before he’d died—or had faked his death—so his story was almost plausible. “Are the police involved in your charade, or this job you want done?” Meriden avoided butting heads with the NYPD whenever possible. “Not at all. I prefer working with independent contractors. Excuse me for a moment.” He continued speaking for a minute, but he must have covered the receiver, because Meriden couldn’t make out more than the muffled sound of his voice. Then he said, “I would like to hire you to find my daughter Alana, Mr. Meriden. I haven’t seen her since she ran away from home, but according to the latest information I’ve been given, she was seen in Manhattan yesterday.” Meriden felt oddly relieved. “I’m sorry, Mr. King, but I don’t work missing persons cases. I’m strictly bond jumpers and parole violators.” “When you find Alana and bring her home, I will pay you five hundred thousand dollars,” King said

as if he hadn’t heard him. “In cash, if you prefer.” He rubbed his forehead. “It doesn’t matter if you pay me in gold coins, sir. My answer is still the same. I don’t do runaways.” “I believe I can persuade you to change your mind.” Meriden checked his watch; he had only seven hours left before he’d have to call it a day. “I believe we’re done, Mr. King.” “Not yet,” the old man said. “Would you turn around for a moment, please?” Surprised by the request, he looked over his shoulder, and then turned. A heavyset man in a parka stood a few feet behind him. He was making short work of a pastrami sandwich half wrapped in greasy deli paper. When Meriden met his gaze, he scowled. “You gonna be all day, pal?” the fat man asked. “I’m freezing my ass off here.” “Watch,” he heard King say over the line. Meriden heard a hiss, and the man waiting to use the phone flinched and clapped a hand to the back of his head. His eyes widened as his hand, now wet with blood, slid away. The half-eaten sandwich hit the icy sidewalk a moment before the fat man’s knees did, and then disappeared under the heavy body as the man toppled sideways and didn’t move again. As a passing woman stopped and screamed, Meriden saw the neat bullet hole at the base of the man’s skull. “I can arrange the same thing to happen to you,” King said softly. “At any time, in any place. As with that unfortunate gentleman on the sidewalk, there would be no warning at all.” “All right.” He heard sirens approaching. “What do you want?” “As I said, I want you to find Alana—” As flashing lights appeared at the end of the next block, Meriden hung up the phone and wove his way through the gathering crowd around the body until he broke free of bodies. He pulled his car out of the parking space a few moments before the patrol cars arrived, and used the momentary traffic disruption to make a U-turn and drive away from the murder scene. He watched his rearview to see if he was being followed while taking several unnecessary turns. Once he felt safe, he went directly to the garage. He left the Mustang parked in the bay, let himself out onto the roof, and stood watching the street for an hour. Gerald King was crazy, of that he was convinced. But if he went to the cops with this story, they’d lock him up as a suspect or send him over to Bellevue. The last thing he needed was to spend a night in a holding cell or on a psych ward. He could hear the sound of the phone in the garage office below ringing, and his gut told him it was King. Meriden climbed down the back fire escape stairwell and went on foot to D’Anges, where he used his key to get inside and head up to his apartment. Fortunately he kept very little in the way of personal possessions, so it would take him only a few minutes to pack up. Then he saw the stack of money and note left on his kitchen table. Dansant had left the note, which Meriden read then swore. The bike in the alley belonged to Dansant’s new girlfriend, and he wanted Meriden to fix it. His f*cking lordship had taken on another damsel in distress. Well, this time he’d have to walk away from his new charity case. They had to get out of the city now, before King tracked them down. Meriden was just closing his suitcase when the phone rang. No one had the number here, not even the girls at the answering service. The phone, like the apartment and the restaurant, belonged to Dansant. He considered tossing it through the window before he picked up the receiver and held it

to his ear. “I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Meriden,” King’s dry voice said. “Perhaps one demonstration was not adequate. Shall I arrange another?” “You’ll kill me whenever you like, King,” he said. “Whether I take the job or not. So have your shooter do me now, because I’ll burn in hell before I work for you.” “An interesting response—not at all what I’d expected. I myself don’t believe in hell.” He paused. “It seems you have a new neighbor. I think you’ll find the surveillance photos of her with your landlord to be most interesting. An envelope should be delivered to you within the next minute.” Meriden dropped the phone and went to the door, yanking it open. A kid wearing white ear buds and holding a plain brown envelope stood stooped over, and looked up in surprise. “Hi. I’m supposed to stick this under the door.” He handed the envelope to Meriden, who grabbed the front of his ratty T-shirt. “Whoa.” He held up his hands. “I don’t know what it is. Some guy down the street paid me fifty bucks to deliver it, okay?” “Yeah.” Meriden released him, shoved a five into the kid’s hand, and shut the door. He opened the envelope and took out a short stack of five-by-seven photos and a file folder. The pictures showed a sequential series of shots of a tall dark man leading a tall pale girl into the kitchen and treating her scraped knees. The condition of her clothes looked as if she’d slid across dirty concrete. He shuffled through the photos, studying them. Whoever the girl was, Dansant was definitely interested in her. One of the pictures showed him kneeling and looking up at her as if she were an angel. Meriden went back and picked up the phone. “You get your rocks off peeping through windows, old man?” King didn’t respond to the insult. “According to the sous-chef your landlord fired last night, her name is Rowan Dietrich. It seems Mr. Dansant paid for the damages she caused before he tended to her injuries and let her into the apartment across from yours. A great kindness on his part.” The stupid bastard. “Neither of them have anything to do with me, King. I just live here.” “Perhaps you have no history with Ms. Dietrich, but you and Jean-Marc Dansant are quite another matter.” King made a thoughtful sound. “The two of you met in Paris and traveled all over Europe together before coming to the States. He helped you finance your garage, while you supervised renovations for his restaurant. I don’t know how you were able to arrange his U.S. citizenship, but it was granted in a third of the time it usually takes.” He thought they were friends. Meriden began to laugh. “You think this is funny?” For the first time the old man sounded angry. “Go ahead and shoot Dansant,” Meriden told him. “You’ll be doing me a personal favor.” “What about Ms. Dietrich?” He looked at the image of the battered girl. He had no interest in Dansant’s strays, but something about her eyes made his gut knot. “I don’t know her. She’s his problem, not mine.” “Not the words of a born hero, Mr. Meriden,” King chided. “Rita Gonzalez would be so disappointed.” He’d been monitoring the mobile, somehow. “f*ck you.” The old man chuckled. “Given the charm of her voice, I was surprised to discover that Rita is a rather plain, plump woman of multiracial background. Too young to be a single mother of three, of course, but her kind always seems to breed indiscriminately. She walks fifteen blocks to work each day to save on subway fares. Her mother is already raising four grandchildren in a one-room flat, so I don’t imagine three more will be welcome.”

The information on Rita made it clear that King had been investigating him for some time. “You’re bluffing.” “I’ve just received the background information on Ms. Dietrich.” King drank something. “It seems she was recently involved in some very unpleasant business in Atlanta. She’s wanted on multiple assault charges, vandalism, and various computer crimes. One of the corporations she defrauded is offering a sizable reward for her apprehension and return for prosecution.” Meriden said nothing. “I can arrange to have both Rita and Ms. Dietrich picked up today,” the old man continued. “Some of my employees are former convicts, you understand, and prefer to indulge some of their personal vices before they carry out their specific orders—” “Enough.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll do it.” “I thought you might.” King’s voice turned crisp. “The file in the envelope contains all the information you need to locate my daughter. Once you have her, you will bring her to me directly.” He gave Meriden the address of one of the last privately owned mansions in Manhattan. “One last thing I should mention. Your movements and your communications will be under constant surveillance. Any attempt on your part to involve the authorities in any capacity will result in the immediate execution of someone you know, starting with Ms. Gonzalez.” Meriden opened the file and saw a stack of neatly typed pages, along with the photo of a young blond girl about nine years old. The kid was smiling, but her dark blue eyes looked frightened. “I suppose now you’ll give me some sort of impossible deadline to do this.” “Not at all,” the old man said. “I understand these sorts of investigations do take some time. I will give you three weeks to locate my daughter and bring her home.” “Why three?” Meriden asked. “Why not one, or five, or twelve?” “Because I only have three weeks to live, Mr. Meriden,” King said calmly. “And, unless you find Alana, so do you.” Dreamveil

Chapter 4 The town of Halagan, California, didn’t appear on most maps, and was barely large enough to rate a Welcome sign. The only paved road was Main Street, which curled through Halagan’s official business district, a cluster of old wood-sided buildings, one or two that dated back to the Gold Rush days, when miners came down out of the hills to buy flour, salt pork, and, if they’d panned enough that month, an hour with one of the tired whor*s at one of the town’s five taverns. A few weeks ago Andrew Riordan had stopped here for gas, caught a glimpse of a for-rent sign in the window of a boardinghouse, and decided it was as good a place as any to hole up in. His landlady, an older woman who bred horses on a ranch a few miles outside of town, had not asked for his phony references or much in the way of a deposit. “Rent’s due on the first of the month, utilities included,” she told him briskly. “You pay for your phone calls per week. No kids or pets, no loud music, no cooking, and if you have a girlfriend by, she needs to leave before breakfast.” “Fair enough.” He handed over his cash deposit. “Who else lives in the house?” “Besides my good-for-nothing nephew?” Her mouth twisted. “A geologist doing some survey mapping up in the hills, one of the elementary school teachers in the middle of a nasty divorce, and Mr. Cantwell, who is collecting government disability while he tries to finish his first novel.”

Drew winced. “What’s his disability?” “I believe he has a terminal case of lazy-ass, don’t-want-to-work syndrome.” She tucked his money into a bank deposit envelope and met his gaze. “My brother-in-law is a county sheriff, and he’s going to run your name, your driver’s license number, and your tags. If he shouldn’t, tell me now, and I’ll return your deposit and you can keep going.” “I’m clean.” “Good.” She handed him a business card. “Any problems, you can reach me at either number anytime. Just be warned, you call after midnight, the place had better be burning down around you.” Drew chuckled and shook her hand. The room he’d rented had several bonuses: It was clean, comfortably furnished without being crowded or fussy, and the windows gave him an excellent view of both sides of Main Street. The tiny bathroom offered only a shower, but the water was hot, plentiful, and had the crystal-clear, faintly mineral taste of the mountain reservoir from where it originated. Drew didn’t unpack for the first week as he looked around and made himself known to the townspeople. A few eyed the new beard he’d grown, and one of the waitresses at the local diner claimed he looked just like that red-haired actor during his NYPD Blue days, but other than that he passed inspection. His cover story was as new as his beard; he was David White, a native of Los Angeles and graduate student who was spending his winter holidays on the road to see a little of the state while he figured out his thesis. It was just specific enough to explain his joblessness and the temporary nature of his residence, and vague enough to keep anyone from running more than a cursory background check. Even if someone did, Drew’s hacking abilities combined with a little help from his friends had insured that every detail would hold up. David White was registered as a graduate student at his college, had last resided in a small apartment off campus, and had inherited a small but tidy sum of money from a deceased uncle that was financing his mini-sabbatical. His taxes were paid, his student loans were up-to-date, and even his car was registered to the nonexistent David White. He had bought his phone in L.A. from a store that specialized in the latest preservation of privacy gear, and while it looked like an ordinary cordless, it encrypted its own signal and could detect a trace within five seconds of activation. His computer, salvaged from the house in Savannah that had served as a base of operations for him and his friends, also boasted enough safeguards to rival those of the Pentagon. Drew liked living in Halagan well enough, although he’d have to move on by the time the new year arrived. After several years of working undercover at GenHance, Inc., he had been exposed as a spy and had barely escaped being captured, killed, and dissected. Although outwardly he appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary, somewhat geeky computer nerd, Drew’s DNA was something more than human, and had made him part of a secret new order of superhumans that had named themselves the Takyn. Like his other friends, Drew had been genetically altered as an orphaned child by scientists working outside the law. No one knew exactly what they had intended, but their experiments had resulted in children with powerful, unique, and sometimes frightening psychic abilities. After an accident destroyed the main experimental facility and killed most of the geneticists working on the project, the surviving children’s memories had been suppressed or erased before they were placed for adoption and scattered throughout the country. Neither the children nor their new families had any idea of what had been done to alter them. Their Takyn abilities remained dormant for the most part throughout their childhood, although some of the children showed minor, precursory abilities. As a boy Drew had always been able to sense the presence of copper, usually in the form of pennies on the ground. He was so good at finding the coins, some of his friends in the old neighborhood had used him like a metal detector. Then when he

was nine, Drew had gone swimming in a nearby lake with some friends, swallowed some water after being dunked, and had contracted an amoebic infection that had caused his temperature to spike at one hundred and six degrees. Later his mother had told him that the doctors had prepared her and his dad for the worst. “They said you had lesions on your brain, and if you did come out of it you might never be able to talk or understand or take care of yourself again.” Drew had stunned his parents and doctors by not only surviving, but coming out of the lethal sickness completely well. Aside from a nagging headache, he’d apparently suffered no ill effects at all from the infection. Until his father woke him up one night to his mother’s shrieking and water flooding across the floor of his room. “The bathroom pipes burst,” his dad had told him, shouting to be heard over his mother. “Come and help your mom.” Drew got out of bed and followed his dad, but something tugged at him and he changed direction. The pipes in his house were old, and as he went down the hall of his one-story home he ran his hand along the wall, tracing the path of the pipe he couldn’t see but could somehow feel. “Andrew.” “Hang on, Mom,” he called back in an absent tone. He moved his hand over the wall as he sought out the weak spot in the pipes, and then found it. He could feel through the wall the ragged edges of the split in the metal and how they curled out like a tattered flower. His dad was going to have to get the plumber to knock a hole in the wall to get at the pipe. Unless . . . The headache he’d had since returning from the hospital disappeared, and in its place came another feeling, a sizzling warmth that gathered behind his eyes. It traveled down into his shoulder and through his arm, moving like warm water, and seemed to pour through his hand into the wall. The water rushing across his feet began to slow, and then stopped. “Thank God, your father finally got the water turned off. Oh, look at you,” his mother said behind him. “You’re soaked to the skin.” His dad came up the stairs from the basem*nt. “The shutoff valve is too rusted to turn, Bridget. I’d better call . . .” He stopped and looked at the floor. “What happened?” Drew turned and smiled at his father. “I fixed it, Dad.” Ron Riordan stared at his son before he burst out laughing. “And how did you do that, boy? With a prayer to the patron saint of piping?” “No, with my headache.” Drew grimaced as he glanced down at his pajamas, which were sodden to the knees. “Can I change into my Transformers, Mom?” Bridget looked at the wall and then sighed. “Sure, darling. But you bring those wet things into the laundry room.” As Drew trotted back to his bedroom, he heard his mother say, “Broken pipes don’t go and mend themselves, Ronnie.” “Something got stuck in it, I imagine. I’m calling Crowley. He’ll have something he can use to loosen up that geedee shutoff valve.” The next day Mr. Crowley, the neighborhood plumber, came early to inspect the damage. Drew had to go to school, and didn’t give any more thought to the broken pipe until he found his father waiting for him outside the school gate. “Dad.” Drew couldn’t remember his father ever coming to school to pick him up. Ron drove a bus,

and didn’t get home until after six every night. “What are you doing here?” “I took the day off, son. Boys.” Ron nodded to the two friends Drew usually walked home with. “Come on. Your mother’s waiting in the car for us.” Drew wondered if he was in trouble, especially when he saw his mother’s face. She looked as if she’d been crying. “Did I do something wrong, Daddy?” “No, son.” Ron rested a hand on his shoulder. “Your mother and me and you, we just need to have a little talk.” His father drove them to the park where Drew sometimes played ball with his friends. The bleachers were deserted today, however, and as they went to sit by the dugout he began to see that his parents weren’t just upset; they were frightened. “Mom?” Bridget sat down and took his hands in hers. “Last night, Andy, when you were touching the wall, what did you do?” “I fixed the pipe.” He searched his parents’ faces. “Didn’t I?” “Mr. Crowley cut a hole in the wall to look at it. The pipe did break there. At least . . .” Bridget stopped and looked helplessly at Ron. His father crouched down beside him. “How did you fix the pipe, boy?” “I felt it through the wall,” Drew said, trying to put the strange feelings into words. “The metal. I could feel where it was broken. Then my head got hot, and the heat went down my arm and into the wall. It made the pipe go back together.” “You felt the metal.” Drew nodded. “It feels funny. Like . . .” He paused to search for the right comparison. “Christmas morning.” “Does it now?” Ron fished a handful of change out of his pocket and put it in Drew’s hand. “Can you show me with this what you did to the metal?” Drew frowned at the coins. He couldn’t feel the dimes or the nickels or quarters. “Not with all of them.” He picked out five pennies and handed the rest back to Ron. Then he concentrated, bringing back the warm feeling in his head as he held his hand open. The pennies began to dance a little, which made him smile, and then he made them stand on end and roll in a circle. He spun the pennies faster, pouring more of the heat into them, and they began to stretch and melt into each other. “Dear God in Heaven,” he heard his mother whisper. Drew felt proud. He made the pennies join together into a solid ring, and then pulled back some of the heat so it wouldn’t burn his hand. When the copper stopped spinning, it was a perfect circle, the same size as the pretty bracelets his mom liked to wear. It was cool to see what he couldn’t last night, not with the wall in the way. He looked up at his dad. “That’s what I did, kind of. Is it okay?” His mom’s fingers trembled as she took the bracelet. “It’s only a little warm.” She handed it to Ron, and then covered her face and began to sob. “Mom?” Drew threw his arms around her. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” “No, darling. It’s all right. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She choked back her sobs and wiped her face quickly before she rubbed her hands over his arms. “It was just . . . a surprise, sweetheart. But a good one.”

Drew wasn’t so sure about that. The only time he’d seen his mother cry that hard was the day he’d woken up in the hospital. “Andrew.” His father looked stern now. “Does anyone else know you can do this thing? Have you told your friends at school?” “No, sir. Just you and Mom.” “Good.” His gruff voice sounded less strained now. “Now listen to me, boy. We can’t be telling people outside our family about this, ah, thing you do.” He almost asked why, and then he considered what he could do. No one that he knew could make metal dance. Well, there was Magneto in the X-Men comics, but he was a villain. Drew could never be a bad guy. He squinted up at his father. “I’m kind of like a superhero, aren’t I? That’s why we have to keep it secret?” His parents exchanged another long look before his father said, “Yes, Andrew. That’s why.” Bridget squeezed his hands in hers. “You have to be careful with this, darling. Being able to make the metal dance is fun, I’m sure, but metal can be hard and sharp, and you could hurt yourself. Your friends, your teachers, or even me and your dad. Do you understand me?” On some level Drew knew that metal would never hurt him, but his mother was right—he might accidentally burn someone when he made it hot, or cut them when he made it into different shapes. “Yes, ma’am.” She kissed his forehead. “Now I think we need to go to Haskin’s Ice Cream Shop and have some hot fudge sundaes. I know I do, very badly.” From that day on, Drew never had cause to regret revealing his ability to his parents. It didn’t change their feelings toward him, and if anything made them all closer. Over the years his father worked with him on learning the extent of his ability and what he could do with it, and in the process taught Drew more about copper, its properties and uses, than the average metallurgist knew. Although she didn’t tell him until he’d graduated college, from that day on his mother quietly began trying to find his birth records and through them his biological parents. She and Ron had adopted him as a baby through a placement program run by their church, but there were almost no records of Drew’s birth aside from a hastily written police report about an older, unidentified man bringing him to an emergency room shortly after his birth and abandoning him there. “It’s as if you just appeared out of nowhere,” Bridget said sadly. “Your mother was probably his daughter or granddaughter, and gave birth at home. At least he took you where you’d be safe and cared for.” Thanks to the love of his parents, Drew had always lived comfortably with his ability. Even after learning of how he and the other Takyn had been meddled with, knowing what some of the other Takyn could do made him feel as if he’d gotten the kind end of the DNA swizzle stick. One of his oldest friends among the Takyn, a man he knew as Paracelsus, was plagued with visions of the past, often so real that more than once they had almost destroyed his mind. His newest friend, Jessa Bellamy, could see the darkest secrets in anyone’s soul just by touching them. And then there was Rowan. As he thought of her, Drew settled down at his computer to pull up the tracking program he’d initiated on Rowan. She didn’t know that before they had parted ways in Savannah, he had planted a GPS locator on her bike. Matthias, a former Roman soldier who had survived two thousand years of accidental burial in ice, and the oldest of the Takyn, hadn’t asked him to do it, but at the time Drew had thought it would be a good idea to keep tabs on Miss Independence. When he told Matthias about it, the older man had agreed it was a smart move.

Drew had followed her progress as she rode from Savannah toward Boston, where she had found a job working for another of their Takyn friends. The signal told him only where she was, not what she was doing, but it comforted Drew to know. Rowan might be tough as nails, but she was also young and on her own—and hurting. Jessa had confirmed his suspicions. “I think Rowan left us because she was in love with Matthias. It would have been hard for her to stay and watch me with him, especially now with the baby coming.” “How is Maximus Junior?” Drew asked. “At the moment, trying to kick a hole through my spleen,” she said wryly. “But that’s better than the morning sickness. Listen, Drew, I know Rowan is proud and needs to go it alone and all, but she’s still so young. If she calls you—” “I’ll talk to her,” he assured her. “Don’t worry. With some time and distance, I’m sure she’ll get over it.” Tonight he expected her to be through New York City and well into Connecticut, but the signal track still showed her at the border between New Jersey and New York City. “What are you doing, stopping for an egg cream?” he murmured as he zoomed in and watched the tiny bright light move across the Hudson. “You should have moved out here with me, girl. I’d have taught you to surf.” Just as soon as he learned. Drew picked up his cordless and dialed the number to Matthias’s farm in Tennessee. Jessa answered, and after exchanging pleasantries put Matthias on the phone. “Are you well?” was the older man’s first question. “Well and truly bored. I haven’t been able to hack through GenHance’s new security measures. I think I taught my staff a little too well,” he said, referring to his old job working as chief of the technical department. “Any word from Rowan?” “She has not called us. You?” “No, but I’m looking at her right now. She’s screwing around somewhere in New York City.” He frowned as the signal fluttered, and then winked out. “sh*t.” He attacked the keyboard, trying to boost the signal. No light. “She just disappeared off the radar.” “What does that mean?” “It means the locator isn’t putting out a signal anymore. Maybe she found it and tossed it in the river. I’d better give her a call. Hold on.” Drew picked up his disposable mobile phone, dialed Rowan’s number, and put it on speaker. “This is not me,” Rowan’s voice said. “This is computerized bullsh*t pretending to be me. Leave a name and number at the tone, or this is all you’ll ever listen to.” “Ro, it’s David. Give me a call back right away.” He switched off the mobile and spoke into the cordless. “Her phone is going straight to voice mail.” “She may be angry about finding the locator.” “Yeah.” Drew frowned at the screen map. “That’s probably it. I’ll wait for her to call.” Rowan never slept well the first night in a new place, but for once her periodic insomnia didn’t keep her watching infomercials until dawn. She didn’t even bother to turn on the small television in the apartment Dansant was letting her use, but went into the bedroom, unfolded the long black futon, and flopped down on it to judge the fit. Most day-beds and singles were too short for her long frame, but this one was an oversized full with a decent mattress. The last thing she remembered doing was looking up at the beaded honey pine ceiling, and thinking it was a lot newer than the oak

and cherry checkerwork parquet floor. Then nothing. Just sweet, endless, dreamless sleep. She opened her eyes to the same ceiling, and lay there for a time, letting the sunlight from the three old casem*nt windows play over her. From the strength and position of the sun she judged it to be early afternoon, which meant she’d slept six or seven hours straight. She had plenty of time before her first shift started at six. Rowan knew how lucky she was. I could be in a hospital right now, scaring the sh*t out of some doctors. Her knees throbbed a little, but from the slight pulling and stiffness she felt when she bent them she knew they were already heavily scabbed over. Tomorrow the scabs would fall off and the lacerations would be gone. Another bonus from the mad scientists who had f*cked with her genes when she was a kid; she never got sick and she healed almost as fast as she got hurt. She rolled over, hugging her pillow as she lazily replayed bits and pieces of her conversation last night with Dansant. You’re really going to let me stay here? She’d come out of the large bedroom into the spacious front room, which combined a large sitting room with a breakfast/dining area that opened out onto a private terrace. The furnishings were basic—a futon, side table and lamp in the bedroom, and a loveseat, armchair and kitchen set in the front, but everything was clean and in good condition. There was also a closet stocked with fresh, neatly folded linens and towels. You could get three, four thousand a month for this place, easy. Not everyone wishes to live above a restaurant, Rowan. You must also share the bath with the other tenant. She’d already taken a peek at the big full bath situated between the two apartments. Someone had recently updated the plumbing with European-style fixtures, and paved every inch of it but the ceiling in quarried stone tiles the color of old honey spilled on polished slate. Rowan could easily imagine spending several hours soaking in the big beautiful claw-footed tub. The lock on the door works, right? Oui. After that Dansant had handed her the keys, smiled, and left her to it. Total access, complete trust. The man was a saint. The man was insane. Hunger drove Rowan out of bed, and after rummaging through the stuff she’d taken from her bike panniers, she found an unopened bag of her favorite trail mix. An investigation of the tiny kitchenette’s cabinets and drawers produced a clean mug and a spoon. She ran the hot water tap until it was scalding—as she’d figured, the restaurant’s water heater was set to an inferno temperature— and using some gratis packets she’d swiped from the last motel she’d stayed at, mixed up a cup of coffee. Now all I need is a big half- naked guy to feed me grapes and fan me, and I’ll know I’m in heaven. Carrying her improvised breakfast out onto the terrace felt completely natural, as did sitting in the wicker patio chair and watching the tail end of city lunch hour gridlock. Her neighbor’s apartment was on the opposite side of the building, so if he had a terrace it overlooked the alley. She even had the better view. That it was all a little too good to be true didn’t bother her. Rowan felt safe, and she hadn’t felt that way since leaving Savannah. Her normal alarms and alerts simply weren’t going off. Dansant was a decent guy who had shown her nothing but kindness and compassion. Whatever strings came along with this minor miracle, it seemed for now she was going to enjoy it.

The nuts, raisins, and chocolate in her trail mix quieted the snarling beast that lived in her belly, but she’d need to shop before she started work tonight to stock up on some supplies. Dansant had told her he made a traditional family meal every night for the staff, and she was welcome to use whatever she wanted from the pantry, but she was already taking advantage of him. She had enough cash to cover the basics, and from the wages they’d agreed on she’d have another thirty or forty dollars to spend on food every week. As long as she didn’t splurge, that should cover her needs. Dansant had promised her that Meriden, the guy who lived in the other apartment, wouldn’t charge much to work on her bike, but Rowan had a feeling that was going to be a much bigger expense. Even if Meriden could get them discounted, new tires alone were going to run at least three hundred bucks. She calculated her expenses, along with repaying Dansant for what he’d given Bernard and what she roughly estimated the bike repairs would be. If she had no other unexpected expenses, she should be able to earn enough for everything by the end of January at the latest. Looks like I’m spending Christmas in New York. She’d dreaded the thought of getting through the holidays alone and friendless in Boston. Here maybe she’d be allowed to share a little of the festivities with Dansant and his crew. Since the sisters who had taken her in and looked after her had died, she hadn’t spent Christmas with anyone. Matt had never celebrated the holidays, and she hadn’t tried to change that because he had already been coping with an entire world of changes that had come about in the two thousand years since he’d served as a soldier in the Roman army. Rowan had explained Christmas to him once, and he’d been appalled. “I know of this man,” he said. “Iesus Nazarenus. He caused much unrest in Judea. Many were killed in the riots. But his people did not call him Jesus or Christ. He was known among his own kind as Y’hoshua.” Even now, Rowan giggled over the thought of the Son of God being called the ancient equivalent of Joshua. If not for the Romans and how they translated Hebrew into Latin, they might be celebrating Joshmas. Still grinning, she swallowed the rest of her sugary coffee before raiding her pack again for fresh clothes and her bathroom stuff. As Rowan took a towel from the closet she wondered when Meriden used the shared bath. Dansant had told her only that her neighbor worked days; she hoped he preferred to shower in the morning or evening. Working in a busy kitchen all night was a messy business, and she knew from experience that she’d need to bathe before she went to bed. But if it caused problems, she could give herself a quick bath inside her apartment. As long as she had running water and a sink, she never had to go to bed sweaty or smelly. Rowan bundled her things together and let herself out of the apartment, locking the door behind her. She heard footsteps behind her and smiled as she turned. “I thought you said you didn’t—” She stopped as soon as she saw the size of the man coming out of the opposite apartment. Definitely too tall and broad to be her new boss. “Oh, sorry. I thought you were someone else.” He closed the door and pocketed a bunch of keys before facing her. “You must be Meriden.” She held out her free hand. “I’m Rowan, your new neighbor.” When he ignored the gesture, she dropped her arm. He might think he was insulting her, but she was suddenly, irrationally glad she didn’t have to touch him. And for the life of her she couldn’t remember if Dansant had told her his first name. “You are Mr. Meriden, right?” “Just Meriden.” The dark landing kept his face in shadow, but from the pitch of his rumbling baritone he didn’t sound like he was smiling. “Didn’t waste any time moving in, did you?” Suspicious, but this was New York, and she would be living ten feet from his door. “I don’t have

much stuff.” Although she understood the need for his being cautious, she couldn’t help adding on in her head, Are you always this much of a jerk? He reached past her head and switched on a light. In the dark Meriden resembled a distant linebacker, big but anonymous. Illuminated by the overhead light, he looked like a pissed-off gladiator who ate linebackers for an afternoon snack, and used girls like Rowan as a toothpick. I have every right to be here, she reminded herself, straightening her shoulders. This is Dansant’s place. Not his. Meriden wasn’t at all handsome like her new boss, thank God. Everything about him reminded her of forged metals, from the quarter inch of white-blond hair covering his scalp to the dark gold stubble darkening his jaw and chin. His summer tan hadn’t completely faded from his fair skin, but she suspected he’d look just as scary with a winter-pale hide. Life or luck had hammered and beaten his features into a collection of hard edges and dented planes, lending him a rough-hewn look more suited to less-civilized times. He would have made an excellent gladiator, too; beneath his slanted brows dark eyes watched her with unnerving stillness. If he were about to die, Rowan thought, he wouldn’t salute anyone. He’d already be chopping someone to pieces. The stretched white A-line undershirt tried to cover some of Meriden’s chest, but the standard male dimensions it had been manufactured to fit simply didn’t apply to Meriden’s Olympian build. He hadn’t pumped up; he’d grown out, somehow creating layer upon layer of heroic, sculpted muscle that belonged in some arena where barbarians were butchered and tigers were wrestled. Living with Matthias, Rowan had grown accustomed to being around a man whose body had been developed to optimum levels. Matt had merely maintained what a lifetime of battle experience had shaped, but he had become her standard, the mental yardstick with which she measured all other men and found them lacking. Her next-door neighbor wasn’t Matthias. He was bigger, wider, harder, and—if all that brute muscle wasn’t false advertising—as strong as if not stronger than her old friend. “Seen enough?” he asked. “Or should I drop my pants?” Rowan should have snapped back with something equally insulting, but she had been staring at him like a love-struck kid. She glanced down at Meriden’s faded jeans, which sported an impressive amount of smears, spots, and stains. The seam edges had frayed into a short white fringe, and a split ran across the lower part of his left thigh. “I don’t know,” she said honestly as she glanced up into his dark-hearted eyes. “I’m not sure my heart can take any more.” He didn’t laugh. Such a specimen of rugged masculinity in its most intense form never came equipped with a sense of humor, of course. That would mean there was a God and He liked her. “Look, I took a spill last night in the alley,” she said quickly. “My bike needs new front and rear tires and some repair work. Dansant told me that you’re a mechanic. Maybe you could look at the damage and give me an estimate?” The way he was glaring down at her made her think he was going to refuse, but then he surprised her again. “I’ve got another job to do. It’ll have to wait ’til next week.” She nodded, feeling a little relieved that she’d have some time to build up her cash supply. “Are you okay with me making payments for the repairs?” “Talk to Dansant.” “I can put down about a hundred—”

He shook his head. “He’ll pay me. You pay him.” Rowan let it go. “Okay. The only other thing is working out the bathroom arrangements.” She gestured at the door between their apartments. “Is there any specific time you need it to shower, shave, whatever?” He didn’t reply. “I’d like to use it after my shift, around two a.m., and whenever I get up in the morning, probably around ten or eleven. That okay with you?” He kept silent, kept watching her. Patience had never been one of her virtues. “It’s a yes or no question, Meriden. A simple head movement should cover it.” “I don’t care what the f*ck you do, Cupcake.” He bent his head so she could see directly into his eyes. Now they were diamond hard and demon black, as if he were an icy volcano ready to blow. “Just stay out of my way.” “My pleasure.” The sting of Cupcake made her add an insulting amount of wattage to her smile. “Soon as you get the hell out of mine, Farm Boy.” Meriden took a step to the side, creating just enough space for her to edge past him without causing physical contact. Rowan ignored the heat of his huge body, and how it warmed the suddenly oversensitive skin of her cheek and throat, but the smell of him, as cool and dark as a midnight tide, filled her head. She refused to fiddle with the bathroom door or glance back at him. She wasn’t some kid for him to scare into scurrying away. Cupcake my ass. She managed a casual “See you around” before she stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind her. Which was a good thing, because somehow in spite of her fury her knees were liquefying and she was trembling all over. Rowan listened, but she didn’t pick up his steps moving away or hitting the stairs. He was still standing there on the other side, waiting for something. Her heart bounced in her throat as she groped behind her for the locking latch, and twisted it. After a long moment, heavy footsteps moved across the landing and down the stairs. A few seconds later the back kitchen door opened and slammed shut. He was gone, and she was sliding down the door until she sat on the floor in a muddled, jittery mess. Rowan hugged her legs with her arms and pressed her forehead to her knees, willing herself to calm down. So Meriden was an oversized, bad-tempered jackass; at least she knew that up front. He worked days; she would be working nights. All she needed to do was learn his schedule and avoid him whenever he was coming or going. Then she’d work on figuring out why it wasn’t terror that was making her shake like this. Dreamveil

Chapter 5 Dansant came to open the restaurant after sunset, but instead of posting the menu for the night he went directly to the back stairs to see if Rowan had come down yet. She was already in the kitchen, walking around and inspecting everything. For a moment he watched her, unsure if he would have the same unsettling reaction as last night. He had intended only to see to her wounds and assure himself that she did not need to be taken to the hospital. That much he would swear to. But as soon as he had closed the door, the scent of her enfolded him, sinking into him and going straight to his head. Dansant had controlled himself until she had uttered those words: All right, Dansant. Do whatever

you want. Rowan remembered nothing of what had happened next, of course. Later, after he had regained his control, he had taken the memories from her as easily as he had brought her under his influence. Rowan. Look at me. Look. Your eyes—something . . . wrong . . . Her own had widened as she resisted him for a moment, and then her lashes drifted down, framing the faint reflection of shining turquoise from his own. Now the same longing and hunger besieged him as soon as he breathed in her scent, but while it was as intense as before, he seemed to have a better grip on his self-control now. Dansant also felt a terrible weight lift from his heart, as if some part of him had been convinced she would be gone before he came here, before he could touch her again. But she had stayed. She must have slept well, too, for her color was better and her eyes brighter, although she still moved with some residual stiffness. Her head turned as she became aware of his presence and she smiled, although that seemed carefully measured as well; just so much of a welcome and no more. She must feel the same as I, he thought. But if she does, she does not wish me to know it any more than I want her to remember what I did to her. “Bonsoir, Rowan.” “Hey, boss.” She had dressed simply in jeans and a T-shirt, and had tied a blue bandanna around her dark curls. She appeared younger tonight, barely more than an adolescent, which helped steady him. Compared to him she was a child, one who needed a friend more than a lover. He would keep reminding himself of that. “You look as if you slept well.” “I did,” she agreed. Last night he had not wasted time with polite inquiries or any sort of finesse. As soon as Rowan’s defenses had fallen he had stood and placed his hands on either side of her face. She smiled blindly up at him, her lips parted, her soft skin warm against his palms. He had watched her eyes as he slid his fingers into her hair, angling her face so that the overhead lights bathed every inch of her. She was a midnight jewel, this girl, alabaster moon-skinned and onyx star-eyed. Her mouth, soft and gentle and unguarded, had drawn him down. As their lips met, her breath whispered out of her, a silent sigh that he covered and drank in. “Ready to put me to work?” Her voice brought him back to the present. Glad to have something to do other than remember what he had done to her, Dansant took a white bib apron from the stacks shelved above the sink and gave it to her. “I will show you the setup of the kitchen, the stations, and how we do things before the others arrive,” he told her. “We begin preparations at seven and seat at nine.” “What’s the seventy-seven for?” she asked as she tied on the apron, looking down at the small embroidered patch on the left side of the bib. “It is the restaurant’s logo,” he told her. “The street number for our building is seventy-seven.” “To remind people where you are. Smart. You could have called the restaurant 77, too. Everyone remembers digi-named places, like 17 Murray, or 2 West at the Ritz-Carlton.” He thought of the true meaning of the number. “I prefer D’Anges.” “For a French restaurant, that doesn’t hurt, either.” She smoothed down the tapered pockets below

the waist ties. He watched her hands as he recalled the taste of her. Her mouth had been especially luscious, rich and sweet, like brandied pears. His first taste of her had led to a second, and a third, and then to an endless, mindless kiss that tore into him, deep and savage as a jagged blade. “Dansant?” When he looked at her, she asked, “Why do you seat so late?” Late? Last night he had lifted her from the crate and held her against him, all his to do with as he pleased. Now he had to chat with her as if none of it had happened. “We seat late to, ah, discourage the before-timers.” “Sorry?” He’d been so wrapped up in his recollections that he’d forgotten the term in English. “It is like capons. No, not them.” Just when he thought he could speak her language well enough, he stumbled over something like this. “Older people who arrive at opening and expect special pricing.” Her smile flashed. “Early birds.” “Oui.” He turned his head so he wouldn’t stare at her mouth. Last night he had been intent on that, hers and his. In the thrall of pleasure he had forgotten that he had brought her inside to care for her, but it had never been like that for him. He had come to this country and lived this life not of his choosing because there had been nothing left of him or for him. That he woke every night and found he was still alive, still able to live, seemed a miracle each time he opened his eyes. After learning what had happened to him in France, he had never dared dream of more. Now this woman had crashed into his life, and she was looking at him with no knowledge or understanding of what he was, or what he would never again be. “No early birds,” she said. “Check.” He had to move away from her, so strong was the compulsion to touch her. He had to get on with it, this charade of employing her. “The work begins here,” Dansant told her as he led her out to the back entry door. “Everything we do in the kitchen is by design—la marche en avant.” Rowan frowned. “We’re moving backward out of the kitchen, not forward.” She had managed to surprise him again. “You understand French?” “I can read it, not speak it.” She sounded defensive now. “I’ve . . . worked in a couple restaurants, and picked up some stuff from books, mostly kitchen and cooking terms. It sure doesn’t sound the same as it looks on paper.” “But you have a natural ear for it, I think.” Dansant decided to test her. “I will say the French for each place in the kitchen, and you will tell me what it is in English and what you know of it.” He gestured at the door. “Entrée, réception des matières.” “Entrance and receiving,” she translated. “Where everything comes through and is delivered.” He nodded and moved to the right into the main storage room. “Stockage à sec.” “Dry storage, where you put the dry goods.” She made a face. “I cheated. I looked at the shelves and guessed.” From there he introduced her to the three chambres froids used to store meat, frozen goods, and fruits and vegetables; the légumerie where the vegetables were washed; and the plonge sinks and equipment on the opposite side of the section for cleaning pots and dishes. She correctly identified each one and even began echoing the words he said in French under her breath.

It pleased him that she wanted to improve her understanding of his language. Years of living in New York had taught him that few Americans were willing to make such an effort. “Why is everything sectioned off this way?” Rowan asked after he had brought her back into the front of the kitchen. “Wouldn’t it be easier to do all the prep work in one area, have the storage units together?” “Using la marche en avant, the staff assure that work is done in the correct order,” he explained, “with no clean foods coming near the unclean things like garbage and soiled dishes.” Her expression cleared. “Okay. So everything moves clockwise until it’s plated and ready to be served: delivery, initial prep, storage, hot and cold prep, plating, then service.” She waited until he nodded. “Trash and bus bins are brought through the side door and go down that way to the sinks and the compactor, away from the food.” He smiled at how quickly she comprehended what had taken the French three hundred years to perfect. “You must have worked at many restaurants.” “To be honest, only a bakery shop—Emmanuel’s Pâtisserie,” she amended. “We had a couple of tables out in front for coffee, cakes, sandwiches, that kind of thing. Manny ran his kitchen the same way you do.” “Then he was French, or taught by a Frenchman.” Dansant escorted her to the center cuisine island, where the bulk of the cooking was done, and explained the layout of the equipment. “Here we have cooktops and stoves on this side, rotisseries and broilers on the other. The brigade de cuisine work mainly here, but the garde-manger, rôtisseur, saucier, and pâtissier all have their own mise en place at their stations where they ready the food for final cooking. When the orders begin they will go through their provisions quickly and call for what they need from cold or dry storage. That is when you will collect it for them, and perhaps assist or plate for them.” “Sounds good.” “Later, after we have our family meal, you will help clean and sanitize the kitchen surfaces.” He saw her palm as she tucked back a curl that had strayed from the edge of her bandanna, and caught her wrist without thinking. “What is this?” “It’s a hand.” She sounded puzzled. “I come equipped with two of them.” So she did. Last night both of her palms had been grazed, but not deeply enough to mar her fair skin. Now he saw no trace of them. “They weren’t as scratched up as I thought,” she said quickly, as if she had read his thoughts. “It was mostly blood from my knees. I must have grabbed them right after I crashed.” She was lying now. “How are your knees?” “Sore.” She checked the chunky watch she wore, deftly removing her hand from his in the process. “Who takes care of cleaning up the restaurant tables and stuff out front?” “The front of the house,” he corrected. “A cleaning crew comes two days each week. The waiters and service manager see to the rest before they finish their shift.” “So all we have to worry about is keeping the kitchen clean.” “Everyone tends to their own stations. The rest we do together.” He regarded her steadily, trying to see what else he had missed last night. She had the unmarked, translucent skin of a child, and he saw no lines or other indications of her age. “How old are you, Rowan?” “Twenty-one. Completely legal.” She didn’t like him asking. “What, you want to see my ID?” Dansant wondered if it would be genuine. He had not intruded on her mind last night more than was absolutely necessary—he had violated her enough by holding and kissing her—but certainly she

was young. Perhaps she spoke the truth, and was nothing more than what she appeared, but now doubt brought with it one possible explanation for what had compelled him to touch her. “Where is your family?” “I told you last night, I don’t have any.” He had to be sure. “No parents, brothers, sisters?” “None.” Her tone grew bitter. “I was abandoned at birth, and raised in foster care. No one has ever claimed me as their daughter or sister or third cousin twice removed, but then, they probably would have gone to jail for child abandonment if they had.” She turned away from him. Dansant felt like an ogre for pressing her, but from the scant details she had given him he would have to know more. Silently he decided to have Meriden perform a discreet background check on his newest employee as soon as possible. “I did not ask to be rude, Rowan. Je suis désolé.” His staff would soon be arriving, and he had yet to post the menu for the night. “How is your handwriting?” “Readable, but nothing fancy.” “Then it is a thousand times better than mine.” He took down the big blackboard and handed her a piece of chalk. “We offer a small menu each night, five plats principals with hors d’oeuvres and desserts that suit them. We list the main courses on the board in French and English.” She held the chalk above the board. “Fire away.” “Loup de mer rôti aux herbes,” he told her as he moved to stand beside her and watch. “Roasted sea wolf?” Her grin reappeared. “Is that with or without the fur?” “Roasted sea bass,” he corrected, “with herbs only.” “Then why not just call it bass?” “It would be confusing.” He loved to see her smile. “In French, bass is un instrument de musique.” “It is in English, too,” she assured him, “and we never get confused.” He pointed at the board. “Loup de mer, if you please.” Dansant gave her the rest of the menu, throughout which she joked and even constructed a kind of story. His poulet demi-deuil was not a chicken with a truffle-stuffed skin, but a depressed widowed hen; the filet de boeuf au vin had done something unspeakable to the hen’s coq, probably by stewing him in the petit* pois aux morilles, or dropping him in with the cabbage and potatoes to make trinxat. “The poor chick,” Rowan sighed as she finished writing the last item on the board in English. “She loses her guy to a side of beef, stuffs herself with high-priced ’shrooms, and then ends up roasting for it.” She chuckled as she gave him a sideways glance. “Ain’t love grand?” Dansant’s amusem*nt faded. Love was not grand; it was tragedy, it was horror. For him, there could never be love. Last night, when Rowan had been in his arms, she had murmured something against his mouth, and another voice woke inside his head. This life was never yours. Neither is she. In dousing his need, that voice had been as effective as a fire hose. Dansant had groaned as he pushed Rowan from him, holding her arm only to keep her from collapsing. Commanding her made her pliant but also temporarily stripped her of her power of mind and will; she would do nothing but respond willingly to his desires. Even in that she had no choice, and once more Dansant was reminded of the monster that he was beneath his civilized veneer, that he could do this to a being as helpless as she.

“Before I kissed you,” he said to her, “did you want me? Give me your truth, Rowan.” She nodded slowly, and then shook her head. It seemed she shared his confusion. “Do you have a lover or husband?” Another shake of her head. At least he had not trespassed on another man’s claim. “You will remember nothing of this. As before, you will feel safe and at ease with me. You will trust me as you do a friend.” He couldn’t help adding, “More so than any of your other friends.” He’d taken his hands from her, and knelt before her, and after releasing her from his control had tended to her injuries. She would never remember the kissing or the touching. Or how close she had come to being stripped and dragged to the floor and f*cked until she screamed for him. “Dansant?” A slim hand waved in front of his face. “You keep zoning out on me.” “Forgive me.” Not for the first time he wished he could erase his own memories. “Talk of love . . . it is not always so grand.” “You got burned?” Her chin dropped. “Come on.” “It was a friend,” he lied. “He lost his beloved one, and it sent him into hell. I did what I could; I tried to bring him back to life, but he . . . he suffers still.” Part of it was true. They had both suffered, each in their own way, after discovering what had been and never would be again. Her eyes became distant. “That’s why they call it true love, I guess.” A rumble came from the alley, and she put down the chalk. “Sounds like the first delivery is here. I’ll get it.” As Rowan went to the back door, Dansant looked up the shadowy flight of stairs, almost expecting to see Meriden there, waiting, listening. He could almost see his black eyes, staring at him, knowing everything, despising him for what he had done to Rowan. Hating him for what he was, wanting to kill him. It was a pity, Dansant thought, that he was already dead. “Whadayawanmista?” Meriden glanced at the menu board over the counter. “Large black coffee and a bow tie.” The tired-eyed girl nodded, cracking her gum as she punched the picture keys on her register. “Three-ohseven.” He handed her four bucks. “Keep the change.” She worked up a smile for him. “Thanks.” After she’d poured and handed him his coffee, she went to the doughnut racks. “Oh, crap. Mister, the bow ties aren’t out yet.” Which was why he’d ordered one. “I’ll be sitting over there.” He nodded to a corner table. “Yeah, okay.” She turned to the next customer. “Whadayawanlady?” Meriden sat down and sampled the coffee, which was drinkable, and took out his notepad and the photo of Alana King. When the counter girl walked over with his bow tie wrapped in a two-sided bag, she saw the photo. “That your daughter? She’s cute.” “No, this is a girl I’m looking for.” He checked the counter, which was clear. “She was seen here getting some coffee.” “Kid that age?” She folded over her bottom lip. “I don’t think so. I’d remember selling coffee to a little one.” “She’s older now. About sixteen.” The counter girl glanced back before she sat down across from him. “Is this that missing kid? I

talked to a couple detectives about her.” She gave him a suspicious look. “You a cop, too?” “Private investigator.” He showed her his identification and license. “I’m working for her father.” “Runaway, huh?” She grimaced. “The cops don’t care much about missing kids unless they’re real young. So what do you want to know?” “According to a witness who saw her here, you waited on her. She bought a small coffee, and you gave her a muffin.” He saw the uneasiness in her eyes. “It’s okay, I’m not going to say anything to your manager. I just wanted to know why.” “If it’s the girl I think you mean, she’s a street kid. You know, living out there.” She grimaced. “I’m not supposed to give out stuff, but it’s hard, you know, when they look at stuff on the racks, and they pay in nickels and pennies, and you know they ain’t got enough to get something else.” She looked down at the table as if she was ashamed. “My ma, she says they can go to a soup kitchen or a church any time, but I can’t help it. I mean, a muffin, come on, it’s not a big thing. And she buys something every time she comes in.” “She’s been here more than once.” The counter girl nodded. “She comes in regular, late at night. Maybe a couple times a month.” “Is there anything else about her you can tell me?” When she shrugged, he added, “Does she always leave in the same direction?” “I’m sorry, I just don’t look after they leave the counter.” “If you remember anything else”—he slid one of his business cards across the table—“give me a call. Anytime.” “Sure.” Her expression turned dubious. “One more thing.” He slid a ten across the table. “A muffin is something, and you’re a good person.” “Yeah.” She offered him a genuine smile. “I just wish it was enough.” She pocketed the ten and went back to work. Meriden worked the area for the rest of the morning, questioning the merchants with businesses around the coffee shop, and making no headway on the case. He grabbed a sandwich before he went to the garage, where he intended to put in a couple of hours before he called it a day. Rowan Dietrich’s bike sat at the back of his bay, delivered there by a tow-truck driver who owed him a favor. He resented it like everything else Dansant stuck him with, but the sooner he got it repaired, the sooner the girl would be on her way. He didn’t like her living in his back pocket, but he had to admit she had a sweet ride. He’d spent a lot of time biking when he’d lived overseas, both for convenience and to save money. A motorcycle didn’t require as much fuel, which was outrageously expensive over there, and it could be parked almost anywhere. He suddenly realized why he disliked the bike so much. It was a Ducati. Nathan had loved Italian racing bikes. Although his own years in Europe were just a blur of anger and confusion now, Meriden could clearly remember a few things about Nathan. The rest he’d put together after some careful, painstaking research. He’d been sent to Rome to study, but he’d left there after a year to hitchhike his way across a half- dozen countries, paying his way by picking up work as a cook. He’d met Gisele at her father’s restaurant, and it had been all over for Nathan the moment she smiled at him. She felt the same, for she had been the one to convince old Giusti to take him on as an apprentice. Meriden knew Nathan had fallen for her, hard, and had gambled everything to have her. They’d had only a year together, but from all accounts they’d been incredibly happy. If the dark men hadn’t

come for Nathan, he’d still be there, cooking beside Gisele’s father. When he’d learned the details of what had happened to the Giustis, Meriden had gone back to Nice to make sure Nathan was dead. He’d bribed a hospital employee in Nice to obtain copies of the medical records. Nathan had been horribly burned in the accident that had killed his wife, and despite attempts to resuscitate him, had died that night in the hospital. His death certificate had been signed by the attending physician. The facts were undeniable. Irrefutable. Inescapable. Pain spiked through Meriden’s skull. Thinking of those days gave him a migraine; if he didn’t stop he’d end up locked in a dark room. He’d accepted what had happened to Nathan, how he had died, and the bizarre aftereffects that had brought Sean together with Dansant in France. One accident, one horrific, tragic choice, and three lives had been changed forever. Sometimes he wondered what Nathan would think of him and Dansant. If he would be as accepting, or if he’d want them dead, too. If he had known what would happen, Sean thought, would he have still run into the flames? Despite his and Dansant’s efforts to discover the truth about Nathan’s past, and if there was any possibility of it affecting them in some way, there were still countless, troubling gaps in the man’s personal history. Nathan had gone to Rome, but then he had disappeared for almost a year. There were no records of when he had left Italy or how he had traveled to France; it was as if he’d simply rematerialized there. He’d been running from something, or he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of forging his papers and creating an entirely new identity for himself. He’d done an excellent job of becoming someone else, but the dark men had still caught up with him. Why they would wipe out an entire family simply to get their hands on an expat who liked to cook made no sense to Sean, but few things about Nathan did. “Hey, Sean.” Eugene, one of his regular customers, strode in through the shop door. “Where you been, you lazy bastard?” “Job across town.” Sean stood up and shook hands. “What can I do for you?” “I need to order some parts.” He bent sideways to look at the bike. “Is that a Ducati Monster?” He whistled. “Tires are f*cked. What’d the owner do, get spiked?” Eugene had a couple of motorcycles he was perennially working on, and Sean didn’t mind asking for a consult. “Collision in an alley. You ever seen two tires blow at the same time?” “If they were spiked, yeah. Or maybe some sh*tty retreads.” Eugene crouched down to finger the split in the rear tire. “This don’t look right. See how the rubber is peeling outward? This bitch blew fast and hard.” He stood up and walked over to look at the front tire. “Same here.” “Overfilled?” “If you filled ’em with cement or something.” He scratched his head. “This is some f*cking weird sh*t happening here, my brother.” “I’m putting two new tires on it.” Sean made a mental note to order them from his supplier. “Come in the office and I’ll write your parts.” Eugene glanced back a few times as they crossed the bay. “Hey, can I have the old tires off that bike?” “For what? Bookends?” “I want to show ’em to a friend of mine,” Eugene said. “He’s got a junkyard, and collects spooky sh*t. He’s got this eight-track he pulled out of a wrecked van that went over a bridge, killed a bunch of kids back in the seventies. It’s got a tape stuck in it, but when you turn it on it only plays ‘Free Bird.’ Creeps me out.” Sean chuckled. “Sure, you can have ’em if you haul ’em.”

“Excellent.” Eugene took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. “Okay, let’s talk carburetors.” The view from Gerald King’s bedroom window never changed. From his position on the top floor of one of the last freestanding mansions in Manhattan, he could see the streets below, the river beyond, and in the distance a vague smear of New Jersey skyline against the twilight sky. During the spring and summer he seldom looked out, indifferent to the city’s myriad celebrations of warmer temperatures and better business. Only when the fall began leeching the green from the trees and the people from the streets did he come to admire the view. As winter finally arrived with its bitter winds and gray snows, the city became like the landscape of his soul: empty, desolate, an ancient Titan chained for eternity to the rocks of existence, feeding on poison daily just to stay alive. If he had been a man who prayed, he would have made a single request of God—that he be given a second chance at life with the only thing he had ever loved. And she was here, in the city, perhaps even now just around the corner. Just out of his sight. What was she doing? Walking the streets? Watching faces? Looking for his? After all this time, did she still think of him? Or had she made herself forget him? She could do that, and more. With her powers she could make dreams come true. He had seen it with his own eyes; touched the proof of it with his own hands. And now she was out there, lost and alone, hiding herself among the herd of common humanity, who should have been gathering around to fall on their knees to worship her like the goddess she was. The knowledge that she lived made him feel young again. It also made him aware of every tick of the clock on his mantel, every shadow shifted by the passage of the sun. “Mr. King.” Gerald kept his staff on a ruthless schedule designed to keep his contact with them to a bare minimum. The interruption now, however, could not be avoided—not when he was so close to finding her. “What is it?” “You have an electronic message from Atlanta, sir.” The communications technician remained standing just beyond the threshold. “The transmission came through flagged as urgent and encrypted for eyes-only.” That meant only King could open the message. “Upload it to my system and then destroy the original transmission.” “Yes, sir.” The technician withdrew. No one had access to King’s private computer array; he kept it completely isolated from the rest of the household terminals as well as the networks used by his various business interests. A subterminal system allowed one-way communication between the household system by accepting uploads, which were then vigorously screened and sanitized before a second upload to the private mainframe. Nothing on King’s system could be downloaded or copied; any attempt to do so would initiate a terminus protocol that would destroy King’s computer as well as every computer that had ever uploaded anything to the subterminal. It took time for the subterminal to scan, study, and clean the upload before it was forwarded. King used the time to engage his privacy measures, which isolated and secured his living space from the rest of the house and generated an electronic signal that would scramble any listening device within five hundred yards. He glanced at his terminal, where the words upload completed appeared. “Open most recent encrypted file, password silence-one-one-two-seven-one-nine-five-six-rebirth.” The terminal’s voice recognition software responded not only to the spoken code but to King’s

voice itself, which it instantly compared with the voice print kept on file. Because the voice matched, it accepted the code; if anyone else had tried to use it the result would have been initiation of the terminus protocol. “Audio file opened,” the system’s computerized voice told him. “Hold, replay, save, or delete?” “Replay.” A moment later, a familiar voice came through the system’s speakers. “Mr. King, the partial DNA sample taken from the female prime has been used to resolve the problem with the transerum. Mr. Genaro is now aware of the value of the female and has determined that she is presently in New York City.” Pain lanced through his head and for a moment split his vision in two before he reached for his phone. King had obtained much of his communications equipment from various agencies involved in hightech surveillance and other covert operations. The satellite phone he used to place the call was one of only three in existence; it could not be monitored and any call he made on it could not be traced to the line he called or back to his residence. The voice that answered was as void of emotion as its owner. “Yes, Mr. King.” He had to unclench his teeth in order to speak. “How did Genaro find out she’s in the city?” “I’ve been unable to determine that, sir,” his operative said, “but I believe he’s using some unconventional means to locate them.” Them. As if King cared about anyone but her. But if Genaro had developed some new technology that could track her . . . “What could he use?” “Theoretically speaking, a government spy satellite could be programmed to search for them. They all have unique energy signatures that register off the grid. But I don’t think he has enough information gathered to correctly identify a targeted individual.” The operative paused. “He may be using one of them to locate the others. We’ve yet to identify a remote viewer, but it’s certainly not beyond the scope of their abilities.” King closed his eyes, forcing the pain back. “You told me he was killing everyone he captured in order to harvest their DNA.” “That is what we’ve been told,” his operative agreed, “and what the records show.” The chairman of GenHance had many secrets; it would be nothing for him to deceive even his most trusted employees. “What action is being taken?” “A team of trackers has been dispatched to recover her,” was the reply. “They will arrive within the next twelve hours.” Genaro’s efficiency and decisiveness remained unchanged, but this time he was sending his men into King’s territory. “Send complete profiles and photographs for each member of the team.” “They’re being transmitted to you as we speak.” King heard a faint rushing sound in his ears, as if sand was pouring out of them. “Has Genaro tested the modified transerum on a living human subject yet?” “No, sir.” Genaro’s uncharacteristic hesitancy gave King a slight advantage, one he would use to eradicate his wealthy rival in Atlanta. “Continue monitoring the situation. When the transerum is tested, report back to me at once.” “Yes, sir.”

King ended the call and left his bedroom, moving through a short passage and through a door no one but he was allowed to enter. Inside the smaller room the air was much cooler and drier, but still scented with the faintest trace of lily-of-the valley. He went, as he always did, to her pristine bed, where snow-white Belgian lace cascaded from a gracefully arched canopy to veil the cream linens. They lay pushed aside, as if someone had just risen from the bed. The right pillow still held a slight indentation, and draped on the end of the mattress lay a long robe of pale pink satin. He reached out a shaking hand, reverently touching the depression in the pillow as he thought of the many nights he had come to this bed and found the ultimate pleasure in her arms. She had been so sweet and trusting, and while she had never truly understood his passion, she had accepted it. Her love had indulged his every desire, giving him all that he had asked of her, refusing him nothing. That selflessness, that unstinting generosity—that was true love. King turned slowly toward the painting hanging on the south wall. He had commissioned her portrait just before she had come to him, and the world- renowned artist had captured every nuance of her being: the pale gold of her hair, the exquisite whiteness of her skin. Her eyes, large and beautifully blue, looked down at him, shining from within. All the love she had brought into his life he saw in her gentle smile, her thin hands. He could not bear to look upon her for more than a few moments; so great was his grief that he turned and moved to her little vanity table. The dainty pearl necklace that she had set out to wear that day curled beside the ivory brush and hand mirror she had used that last night. Some strands of her hair remained caught in the bristles of the brush, and when he brought it to his face he could smell her sweetness and goodness. Carefully he set down the brush exactly where it had been in the thick layer of dust that he never noticed. When he glanced in the curved mirror, he saw only his own eyes, dark with the pain he bore, wet with the tears he refused to shed. “Soon we’ll be together again, Alana,” he murmured. “Very soon, my love.” Dreamveil PART TWO Chasse MISSING PERSON/RUNAWAY REPORT Manhattan Police Department 100 Centre Street New York, NY 10013 Case #: J5720 Incident Location: King Estate, 371 Riverside Drive, Manhattan (at 109th St.) Date: September 29, 2008 Missing Person Information Name: Alana King DOB: 11-7-92 Age at Disappearance: 16 years Race: W Sex: F Height: 5’4” Weight: 105 lbs. Hair color: Blond Hair Style/Length: Straight, shoulder-length Eye Color: Blue Complexion: Fair

Build: Thin Medical, Mental, and Physical Condition: Physically frail; mentally incapacitated and medicationdependent (See attached psychiatric profile) Prior Medical History: Various surgeries to correct birth defects (See attached medical records) Birthmarks/Other Identifying Marks: Tattoos on both inner forearms (See attached photo) Piercings: None Teeth: (See attached dental records) Clothing worn at time of disappearance: Blue jeans, white T-shirt, brown cloth jacket, brown wool skullcap, brown scarf Jewelry: None Employer/Work/School: None/None/Home Tutored Circ*mstances of the Disappearance: On the evening of September 28, 2008, the estate security system was deactivated due to equipment failure. During the failure Ms. King left the premises without alerting parent or household staff and did not return. Known reasons for disappearance of minor: Father reports that daughter is mentally incapacitated and under close psychiatric care but may have stopped taking antipsychotic medications. Please describe any additional information that may be helpful to assist in locating the missing person: A $100K reward is being offered by Gerald King (father) for information leading to the recovery of minor. In authorizing this missing persons/runaway report, the parent(s) hereby agree(s) that MPD will be notified as soon as the missing person/runaway has returned home or is found. (Initialed by parent) Signature of Investigating Officer Det. W. J. Patterson Jr. Dreamveil

Chapter 6 The kitchen staff began to arrive for work at D’Anges while Rowan was sorting out and shelving the dry goods that had been delivered. As they came in, each one of the line cooks eyed her apron and then her face, but no one came over to her, said hello, or otherwise acknowledged her presence. Instead they went to their stations around the kitchen and began preparing for their shift, talking to each other in low tones and occasionally giving her a quick look. She didn’t scowl back at them, but she didn’t bother to paste a friendly look on her face, either. She knew enough about chefs and cooks from reading books about them and the service industry to recognize that as a new hire she had yet to prove herself, and until she did she would be treated as an unwelcome outsider. Rowan also saw that she was the only woman in the kitchen—Dansant’s staff was apparently all male—which obviously wouldn’t help matters. The shortest guy on the crew finally came over to speak with her. He was a burly, balding Italian who looked like he busted kneecaps on his days off. “You got a name, kid?” She placed the last bag of rye flour on the shelf. “Rowan Dietrich.” “I’m Lonzo.” He didn’t offer a hand, but turned and started pointing to the others. “That’s Manny, George, Vince, and Lou. Dishwasher’s Enrique, but he don’t speak English too good. Bernard’s the

sous-chef, but he’s late again.” He gave her the once-over. “Why’d Dansant hire you?” She didn’t think saying I crashed my bike into his sous-chef’s Volvo would go over well. “I needed the job.” “He walk you through the place, show you the stations?” When she nodded, he did the same. “All right, Trick, you’re my tournant tonight. Do what I tell you, don’t f*ck up, and we’ll see how it goes.” It was not the warmest reception in the world, but it was a fair one, and she’d rather be called Trick than kid any day. “Thank you, Chef.” Rowan expected some form of initiation or other trial by fire, and wasn’t disappointed when Lonzo took her to a big, sunken table at the back of the kitchen, handed her a six-inch flexible blade with a slight curve, and got her started on her first task. That was where Dansant found her thirty minutes later, up to her elbows in fish innards and slime as she worked her way through gutting and cleaning fifty pounds of striped bass. “What are you doing?” She finished trimming a fin before she spared him a glance. “You need me to explain this procedure to you, Chef?” He made an impatient sound. “I meant, why are you doing this?” “Easy. Your idiot supplier doesn’t clean them.” She made a slit in the carcass’s belly skin, extending it from the anus to the gills. “Also, if I don’t do this, Lonzo will kick my skinny ass.” Dansant scowled. “He will do no such thing.” She turned her head toward the front of the kitchen. “Hey, Chef,” she yelled, “what’ll you do if I stop cleaning this fish?” “I’ll kick your skinny ass,” Lonzo shouted back. “See?” Rowan reached inside the carcass, felt for the spot where the guts were all connected at the base of the head, and stripped out the lot. “Why doesn’t your supplier clean these guys out first?” “He purchases them from a fish farm, and brings them into the city in tanks. That way he can keep them alive until it is time to deliver,” Dansant told her. “I prefer to have them cleaned by my cooks.” “Farmed, tanked fish.” She shook her head, amused. He didn’t go, but watched her scrape out the bass’s liver and slice away the remains of its swim bladder. “You have done this before tonight.” “No,” she admitted. “But I’m good with knives, and you guys only have to show me how to do something once for me to get it.” She also sensed their conversation had drawn the attention of the other chefs, which made her shoulders itch. She didn’t want to be seen as receiving any kind of coddling or special treatment from Dansant. That would turn the staff’s wariness and suspicions into resentment and contempt. “Is there something else you need me to do, Chef?” “Yes.” He studied her face. “Add some ice to the bath”—he nodded toward the basin of water in which she’d placed the cleaned fish—“or the warmth of the water will leech out the flavor.” Relieved, Rowan nodded and quick-scrubbed her hands at the sink before grabbing a scoop and hurrying to the ice machine. A second after she had dropped the last fish into the ice water, Lonzo called her over to one of the prep tables, where a basket of brown, wrinkly morels and a huge colander of bright green pea pods sat beside a smaller, cloth-swaddled wooden box. “After we do the chicken you’re gonna shell those peas,” he told her as he began unwrapping the

box. She picked up the colander to take it to the rinsing table as he lifted the lid to reveal a dozen ugly black lumps nested like charred eggs in what appeared to be an airtight inner container. He caught her staring and took out one of the largest to hold it in front of her face. “You know what this is?” She tried not to breathe in the intoxicating fragrance, but it was too close to her nose to resist. It smelled of the earth and rain, with just the slightest hint of hazelnuts. “It’s a truffle.” “It’s a Périgord black truffle.” He turned it over in his hand as gently as if he were holding a newborn baby chick. “Twenty years ago you could only get these from Europe. The French exported them, but it would take a week or better, and what they sent was too small or old.” Lonzo made a nasty sound. “Greedy bastards kept all the best ones for themselves.” She’d read about these rarest and most prized of cooking fungi in books, but at prices that rose as high as sixteen hundred dollars a pound, she’d never had the money to buy even a dinky one. “Are they really that good?” “They’re the reason I go to the church on Sunday,” Lonzo said flatly, “and thank God that He loves us so much.” He removed a very thin, honed knife from the roll of black cloth beside the cutting board. “Now we got trufflieres that grow them right here, in America. Things go right, in a few years we’re gonna have all the black diamonds we want,” he added, using the fungus’s extravagant nickname. “You want me to wash the diamonds?” Rowan asked, and watched Lonzo yank the truffle back as if she had tried to spit on it. Dansant came over to the station and selected three more of the black tubers out of the box. “Or maybe I could just watch.” She was curious to see her new boss at work. “You ain’t got time.” Lonzo stepped between them and dumped into her arms several perforated plastic bags containing fresh rosemary, thyme, and mint. “Rinse the herbs, check them for black spots, and then take them to George’s station.” Over Lonzo’s shoulder, Dansant gave her a wink. Suppressing a chuckle, Rowan took the bags back to the rinsing sink. Although she stayed busy, Rowan was able to turn slightly and observe Dansant working with Lonzo. After delicately wiping clean his precious truffles, the garde-manger handed them to Dansant, who sliced them into perfectly even, wafer-thin rounds while Lonzo began lining up several untrussed chickens to one side of the cutting board. Once he had sliced enough rounds, Dansant loosened the skin of one chicken from the neck opening all the way across the breast, and then did the same for the legs. Rowan caught herself holding her breath as Dansant began deftly slipping one at a time the thin rounds of sliced truffle under the skin. His long, elegant fingers worked them in place, until most of each thigh and the breast were covered with the aromatic fungus. Once he had finished, he used kitchen string to bind the ends of the legs before crisscrossing it over the breast and under the back. By the time Rowan had delivered the cleaned herbs to George’s station, Lonzo called her over to tell her to carry the truffled chickens, now plastic-wrapped, back to the meat refrigerator. “Shouldn’t these go over to the rôtisseur?” she asked as she stood holding the tray while Lonzo unloaded them onto the shelves. “Vince will roast them tomorrow night.” For every package of chicken he put into the fridge, he took out another and placed it on the tray. Then Manny yelled for him, and he cursed under his breath before trotting off. “The truffles must have a day to infuse the meat with their magic,” Dansant said right behind her, making her nearly drop the heavy tray. He came around and supported it from the other side. “These are the chickens we stuffed last night.” He peeled away some of the wrap and pulled back the breast skin, enough for her to see how the truffle had darkened the meat.

“Poulet demi-deuil must be real popular,” she said, looking up at him. Tonight all the lights were on in the kitchen, and made his eyes look so dazzling a blue that Rowan almost let the tray slip a second time. “To make it every night. Do you? Put it on the menu every night?” In some corner of her head she knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop looking at him. Gay or not, he seemed to become more beautiful to her with every slam of her heart in her chest. “It is a house specialty.” He moved his hands around the edge of the tray until his fingers slid over hers. “Tell me what you are thinking.” “Why should I do that?” she heard herself ask in a strange, hollow voice. He bent his head until his breath cooled her damp scalp. “Why shouldn’t you, ma mûre?” “Trick.” Lonzo’s bellow jerked her back to herself just as she felt her eyes sting. “You go deaf or something? Vince is waiting for the tray. Bring it over, now.” “Right away, Chef.” She ducked her head, ashamed for making such a transparent ass out of herself in front of the rest of the staff, and hurried off. Taire heard the guys in the kitchen calling her Trick, and smirked a little. If Rowan thought they were doing it because they liked her, the trick was on her. She went to her usual spot, a recessed doorway hidden in the shadows, and sat down on the cold slate stoop. From there she watched the comings and goings, although the only person she saw was Rowan going on garbage runs. She passed the time by counting the number of times the other girl emerged from the back doorway carrying two or three overstuffed black bags, which she trotted over to the restaurant’s fenced-in Dumpster. At first she tossed them in like they were filled with feathers, but as the night stretched out, her tossing became heaving and a couple of times she groaned and rubbed her arm before trudging back in. Taire felt a twinge of sympathy. The guys in the kitchen weren’t as nice as the Frenchman, and they didn’t like women. Sometimes on other nights she had listened to a couple of them joking while they stood out in the alley on a smoke break. They considered women good for only two things: folding napkins and f*cking. No doubt they were going to make Rowan suffer as much as they could. Men loved it when women cried and quit. Father hadn’t been as crude or mean, but what he had expected of her had been just as harsh. If it were easy, my dear, anyone would do. She pushed her father from her thoughts and looked down each side of the alley. Sometimes bums came to rifle through the garbage bags. There would be plenty of scraps in them, good food from unfinished meals, and even the stink from the older garbage under them didn’t drive off the bums. No matter how hungry she was, Taire knew better than to rummage around a Dumpster. If Rowan or one of the guys from the restaurant didn’t catch her, the rats that were already gnawing their way into the bags would. Rowan made another run, and this time Taire had to press her arms around her waist to muffle the gurgle of her stomach. Being hungry sucked—and she was always hungry—but sitting there and breathing in the delicious scents that came rolling out along with Rowan made it worse. It was Taire’s own fault; she’d had all day to sneak out and get more food for her stash. She had enough change for a coffee, and the girl at the doughnut place where Taire usually went almost always slipped her a muffin or something for free. But thinking and dreaming and worrying had led to planning, and she’d paced her room all afternoon while she worked it out different ways in her head and then immediately shot down each one: I could write her a letter (but all she had was hotel stationery). I could call her on the restaurant’s phone (but the call might be traced). I could ask one of the kids to give her a message (and the same kid could go to the cops). I could break into her apartment upstairs (but she didn’t know how to pick locks, and anything else she might try would look like a burglary).

All that, and still no plan. She was too afraid to do anything, and would be until she knew for sure she wouldn’t be caught. Taire didn’t know what Rowan could do, or what she might do to her after she told her. Rowan had to be stronger; not even crashing her bike had really hurt her. And what if she was just as scared as Taire was? She might attack her. Her head whirled a little as she pushed herself up. Her hunger burned in her, worse than it ever had been; if she wasn’t careful she might pass out and be found. They’d call the police, or an ambulance. They’d take her to a hospital or a shelter. They’d find out who she was, and then they’d kill her. Or worse, they wouldn’t. The back door flung open, but Taire didn’t realize she was standing in the light until Rowan turned and looked directly at her. She staggered back into the shadows, but it was too late. “Hey.” Rowan set down the garbage bags by the curb and squinted at her. “Who’s there?” In her head Taire was running away, but her legs shook too much for that. She crouched down and huddled over, holding her breath, hoping the other girl would think she was only seeing things. “Hey, kid.” Rowan took a few steps toward her. “You need some help?” Taire felt the slate under her heels shift, and pressed her lips together to keep from shrieking. Yes! Help me! Save me! No! Stay away! “Wait a second, okay?” Rowan went back into the kitchen. Now was her chance to get up and out of here. Taire made it as far as the next door when she heard a familiar trotting step and glanced over her shoulder. Rowan stopped a few feet away. “It’s all right, kid.” In her hands was a large black plastic container with a clear top. “You hungry?” Taire could smell it now. Roasted chicken, herbs, potatoes, onions. Something more exotic and savory. She turned around, staring at the container—it was stuffed with food—and the red and silver can in Rowan’s other hand. A co*ke. She’d brought her food and a co*ke. For nothing. Rowan didn’t come at her, but held out her arms, putting the container and the can as far out as she could. “It’s for you.” When Taire didn’t move, she crouched and carefully put it on the ground, then stood and moved back. “Take it.” Taire shuffled forward, keeping one eye on the food and the other on Rowan. Anticipation was making her feel sick now, her belly shrinking in on itself, her chest tight, her throat a vise. At the same time the smell of it had her mouth watering so bad she was practically drooling. She hadn’t eaten real food in weeks. Jesus. She hadn’t had a co*ke since she’d left home. “Go on,” Rowan urged. Taire snatched the container and the soda up from the ground. The alley tilted, and she choked back a liquid sound as her stomach heaved. She had to say something, but all she could do was hold the food tight against her so no one would take it back. It was hers now. Rowan had put it on the ground. That made it hers. “So, what’s your name?” Rowan asked, still peering as if trying to see her face. Terror forced Taire to trip backward, spinning and clutching the container as she fled. She dodged around the corner and cut through two more streets, not looking back or hearing anything but the ferocious slam of her heart in her ears.

Finally she found a spot between two parked cars, slipped into it and crouched down. She had to hold her breath and press the cold soda can against one ear before the pounding ebbed and she could hear again. Nothing. No running footsteps, no calling voice. Taire waited to be sure, but after several minutes she knew Rowan hadn’t followed her. She set down the soda can carefully before she tore off the top of the container and grabbed a small whole potato speckled with flecks of herbs. She shoved the entire thing in her mouth, her eyes leaking thin tears as the alien sensation of having her mouth full nearly choked her. Slow down slow down slow down. Taire took the potato out of her mouth and instead held it like an apple so she could take a small bite. The taste was silky and buttery and flavored with thyme and rosemary, and she wanted to gobble the whole thing again. It took all her willpower to hold back and nibble away at it in small bites. The chicken was even better. She lifted a golden-brown drumstick from the container and smelled it before sinking her teeth into the fragrant, juicy meat. Something soft and dark and thin under the skin came with it, and expanded in a dark, rich cloud of flavor inside her mouth. The taste was so warm and wonderful she moaned. Oh God that’s so good. If she didn’t stop stuffing her face so fast it was all going to come back up, Taire knew, from the shock of so much rich, solid food on the bottomless pit of her belly. Because she had no way to keep it she’d have to eat everything tonight, but it didn’t have to be here or all at once. She could spend the rest of the night savoring the meal. She couldn’t wait for a taste of the co*ke, though, and tapped the top of the soda can before she opened it and took a little sip. It was so cold and sweet it made her teeth ache, and a little slopped over the edge as her hand shook. As she sipped at the spillage from the rim, she tasted a trace of something else that wasn’t as sweet, something tart and dry that took her back to the night before, when she’d watched Rowan take on the young tagger. When she’d seen the blue glow beneath the other girl’s sleeve. She hadn’t remembered every detail before, maybe because it had been another shock, like eating this food, to have so much within reach after having lived with nothing for so long. . . . I’m the co*ke and she’s the Cristal. Taire laughed as soundlessly as she cried. Dreamveil

Chapter 7 After her first night working at D’Anges, Rowan dragged herself upstairs, stripped to the skin as she staggered to her futon, and fell face- first onto the cushions. She was asleep as soon as she closed her eyes, and stayed that way until her stomach and her bladder combined forces to drive her out of bed. Bathroom. Food. Bathroom first. She trudged naked in that direction, then stopped and remembered the shared facilities. “God damn it.” She pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans before unlocking the door. The landing was empty, no light showed under the edge of Meriden’s door, and the bathroom door stood slightly open, so she figured she was alone. She found out she was wrong as soon as she walked inside.

Sean Meriden, dressed only in a pair of jeans, stood over the sink. He used his razor to remove a strip of white foam from his mostly shaved face before he eyed her in the cabinet mirror. He smelled of soap and menthol and heat, and there were tiny beads of water scattered over the short gilded stubble covering his scalp and the smooth muscles of his back. The pale light from the small window illuminated them, making him look as if he’d been crystallized. “Morning.” Normally she would take a moment to admire all the bare, sparkling man in her face, but if she didn’t soon pee her first task of the day would be mopping up a puddle. “You almost done?” He didn’t say a word. She waited, but he simply finished shaving and cleaned his razor under the tap. “Okay.” She did an about-face to head downstairs. The kitchen had a small half-bathroom for the line cooks to use; that would have to do. Maybe she’d grab something from the pantry; she was so hungry Meriden’s massive biceps was starting to look tasty. “It’s five thirty.” She turned around, surprised and confused. “Huh?” He dried off the bottom of his face with a hand towel, and then looked in the mirror and touched a small bloody spot on his jaw where he’d cut himself shaving. “You said you wanted the bathroom at two and between ten and eleven.” He pressed an edge of the towel over the cut. “It’s five thirty.” Well, at least he’d listened to her yesterday. And what the hell was she doing up so early? She hadn’t finished work until well after Dansant had left at midnight. “Uh, right. I didn’t look at the time. Sorry.” Something occurred to her, and she swung back around. “You do mean it’s five thirty in the morning, right?” He shook his head slowly. “Son of a bitch.” She’d slept through the entire night and day, and she had only thirty minutes before her next shift began. “You’re not planning to do anything like soak in the tub for the next hour, are you?” He grinned, and it was a beautiful, evil thing to behold. “I might.” “Leave some room for me, then.” She turned and dashed downstairs. Once she’d eliminated the risk of puddle making, Rowan ran to the pantry and quickly scanned the shelves. She needed lots of calories she could eat fast, and appropriated several bars of dark sweet baking chocolate and a can of condensed milk. She paused long enough to open and empty the thickened milk into a glass with ice, and then rushed back upstairs. Meriden wasn’t in the bathroom, so she detoured to get her soap and a towel before running in to turn on the shower and strip. At the same time, she tore open one of the bars of chocolate and crammed half of it into her mouth, chewing in between gulps of the cooled milk. In the shower she ate the rest of the chocolate bar from one hand while she used the other to soap herself from head to toe before she rinsed off. Just as she was wiping the water from her eyes and reached for the tap, she heard the door open. sh*t, she’d forgotten to lock it. “Almost done,” she called out desperately. Meriden cast a big shadow on the other side of the curtain. “How did you blow both tires on the bike?” This was not the conversation she wanted to have while she was standing naked and dripping wet with a paper-thin piece of opaque plastic between them. “I don’t know. Something hit me from behind.”

“They’re f*cked.” So was she. “Okay.” “I ordered new.” He made it sound as if he’d paid for them in blood. “Thanks.” Could she reach for her towel without flashing him? Probably not. “Let me get dressed and then we’ll go over—” “Don’t bother.” His voice sounded odd. “I’m outta here.” And then he was. Rowan peeked around the edge of the curtain to be sure, then stepped out and dried off with two swipes. Her damp body made it harder to get back into her clothes, but she was nothing if not determined. Once she’d covered everything she didn’t want him ogling, she stepped out onto the landing. Meriden wasn’t there, so she knocked on his door and waited, rubbing the towel over her wet curls. He didn’t answer. “Snotty bastard.” She stomped back into the bathroom, collected her stuff and went into her apartment. She had meant to go shopping today for supplies, but she’d blown that. She ate the rest of the chocolate she’d filched from the pantry to quiet her belly and chugged the last of the iced condensed milk, wishing for coffee but not daring to spare the time to make it. By the time her watch read 5:55 p.m., she had made herself presentable and went downstairs. Lonzo was waiting for her. “You’re late.” Maybe Dansant hadn’t told him what her working hours were. “I start at six.” “If you’re not fifteen minutes early,” he told her with a stab of his finger at the wall clock, “you’re late.” From the depth of his scowl Lonzo was clearly in a bad mood. “I’m sorry, Chef. It won’t happen again.” She glanced around. “Did you see Meriden—uh, the other tenant who lives upstairs—come down and leave?” “What am I, your f*cking doorman?” He made a rude gesture. “We got a truck waiting outside and five meez to restock. Get your ass out there and start unloading.” Rowan started for the back door. “Trick.” When she turned, Lonzo tossed an apron at her. “This is your uniform. I see you outta uniform again, you’re cleaning squid for a week.” She’d probably be cleaning squid for a week anyway. “Understood, Chef.” The delivery truck’s driver was only slightly less annoyed with her than Lonzo, but Rowan kept her mouth shut, her head down, and unloaded the boxes marked for D’Anges. By the time she stowed the last one inside, another truck rolled up. While she was unloading that one, the line cooks started arriving. No one offered to help, but Rowan knew better than to ask. Vince, the rôtisseur, stayed outside the back door to smoke a cigarette and watch. Of all the line cooks, Vince was the one Rowan liked least. He was a few inches shorter than her and about a hundred pounds heavier, with wiry strawberry-blond hair and a pudgy face. Rosacea bloomed like heat rash on his chin and cheeks, and a network of broken capillaries around his nostrils attested to a serious drinking problem. He had light brown eyes nested in the puffy bags and deep wrinkles of a much older man. He’d visited the kitchen john several times the night before, and from the used-ashtray smell of his whites she guessed he’d gone in to sneak a smoke. Vince had a wheezing, high-pitched voice like a washed-up boxer who had gotten punched in the nose and throat too many times, and when he spoke to her it was mainly in the direction of her tit*. “You enjoying the new job, baby?”

“Love it.” Rowan counted the boxes before she checked the driver’s invoice and signed off on it. She bent to pick up a box, and straightened into a cloud of smoke. He’d shifted a little so he could blow it in her face, but she’d be damned if she’d let out a single cough. “Those things will kill you.” “That or the whiskey,” he agreed. He squinted again at her chest, his lips pursed as if he were judging it for a boobs contest. “Danz gave you a place upstairs, I heard.” She started to carry the box inside, but he barred the door with one beefy arm. The box dragged at her arms, and if she ducked under she’d drop it. “Yeah. He did.” “You getting lonely up there, by yourself?” He showed her his crooked, nicotine-yellowed teeth. “Maybe you want a little company later?” Telling him she was a lesbian would probably just turn him on. “I got company, thanks.” “Oh, yeah? Who? Not Danz,” he said, answering himself. “He don’t exactly go for the ladies, know what I mean?” “Guy across the hall does.” She leaned into his envelope of smoke. “About six-six, two-fifty, works on bikes and cars. You know him?” Vince cleared his throat. “The Irishman. Sure, I seen that guy.” He tried to curl his lip. “Not really your type, baby.” “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t listen to your girlfriends.” She let her gaze drift down and then back up. “Size does matter.” He dropped his arm, and she carried the box in. Lonzo was standing just inside, but now he wasn’t glowering. He was looking at her as if she’d just grown another head. Here we go, Rowan thought, kissing her job good-bye. “Vince,” he yelled, not looking away from her face. “Drop that butt and start getting them boxes in here.” All Vince said in return was a remarkably meek “Yes, Chef.” Meriden stopped at the first pay phone he found and called the number Gerald King had given him to use to make his daily report. “I went to the coffee shop where Alana was spotted,” he told the old man as soon as he answered. “The girl who served her thought she might be in trouble. From her general description of your daughter it sounds as if she’s living on the street.” “That girl is not my daughter,” King told him. “She is remembering the wrong person. Go back and question her again.” “The girl she served matches Alana’s physical description—” “So does every blond, blue-eyed girl in the city,” the old man snapped. “Alana is not living on the street. Nor would she go out or wander around the streets during the day.” “Why? Is she a werewolf?” King produced a dry, hacking laugh. “No, Mr. Meriden, she is most certainly not. Didn’t you read the file I provided for you? Wherever she is, Alana will need constant access to food. Check the grocery stores, the delis, the hot dog stands, and anywhere one can buy food cheaply and quickly.” He frowned. “You didn’t tell me your daughter has an eating disorder.” “She doesn’t. Alana has an unusual metabolism combined with a digestive problem,” King said. “She has to eat many times a day or she begins rapidly losing weight.” This might be the lead he needed. “Is she on any medication for it?”

“No. Her condition is untreatable.” King covered a cough before he added, “Is there anything else?” “I need to interview the man who called in the sighting,” Meriden told him. “He may have noticed more than he told you.” “The transcripts from his interview are also in the file,” King said. “He told me everything he remembered.” “I’d rather interview him again and be sure.” The old man sighed. “Alas, that is no longer possible. Mr. Sengali is deceased.” “You killed him?” Meriden’s skin crawled. “Are you crazy? He was the only person who’s seen your daughter in a year.” “Mr. Sengali neglected to tell me that he had a weak heart. After questioning, he had a heart attack and died of natural causes.” King’s tone hardened. “That needn’t concern you, Mr. Meriden. You have a young, strong heart, and three weeks to ensure that it will keep beating long after our business is concluded.” He hung up. Meriden slammed the receiver down, cracking the plastic earpiece in the process. “You stupid sh*t son of a bitch.” The last rays of the sun filtered through the maze of Manhattan’s skyscrapers and glittered on the icy waters of the Hudson. He should have gone back to his apartment, but Meriden drove instead to a new building, and swiped a plastic security card at the gate to the underground garage. He parked his car in the empty space marked PH-1 and used a key to enter the elevator. The condominium had been built to provide accommodations for the city’s up-and-coming power brokers, and was as high-tech and sterile as their offices in the financial district. As the lift whisked him up to the top floor, he clenched his keys in his fist, not feeling the sharp edges cutting into his palm. King was being too open and unguarded; he’d already given him enough information to destroy the old man’s life. At first Meriden thought it was because King was dying, but now he wasn’t so sure. Whatever happened to King in three weeks, whether Meriden found Alana or not, the old man now couldn’t afford to let him live. Dansant owned the top two floors of the building, but only used the apartment with the best view of the Upper West Side. Meriden used another key to let himself in. Dansant knew Meriden had duped all of his keys and cards without asking, but he had never altered his codes or changed the locks. As he walked into the spacious front room, he felt a surge of envy and hatred that hadn’t diminished since the first time he’d seen the place. Rather than compartmentalize the three-thousand-square-foot apartment into separate rooms, Dansant’s army of interior designers had knocked down most of the walls and replaced them with floor-to-ceiling panels of clear and translucent glass. The effect allowed anyone standing in any corner of the apartment to see most of the interior simply by turning their head. Enormous sheets of smooth, camel-colored limestone covered the floors, and the twelve- foot exterior walls were painted a matte cream that had been faintly textured to absorb light rather than reflect it. The effect was something like standing in a cloud. Unconventional furnishings and fabrics graced each room, from the imported ivory silk carpets from China to the low-slung sofas and chairs designed to flow like ribbons fluttering in the wind. The only colors used were muted earth and sky tones, which faded away into the cloudlike walls as if they were in the process of disappearing into them. Meriden despised clutter, and he might have warmed to the place himself if not for the dozens of portraits hung on the walls, each one a slam of color to the eye. He had no idea who the people were that Dansant painted, but they pissed him off every time he

looked at one of their faces. The oil paintings, which showed both men and women standing surrounded by mists or shadows, were dark and composed of thousands of short, broad strokes, more like sketches than paintings. Framed in precious woods and polished steel, each one was illuminated by an incandescent spotlight in the ceiling, which emphasized the rich jewellike colors and compelling movements of the brushstrokes. The men were handsome and the women gorgeous, but there was something wrong with all of them. Despite the heavy hand Dansant used with his paint, he managed to draw out disturbing details from each portrait: lethal chrome eyes, a twisted angelic smile, a slash of scar. One of the youngest subjects in the paintings, a tall, dark-haired kid with glowing purple eyes, looked at times like a feminine boy and at others a boyish girl. Another portrait showed a man whose hair and skin were covered with green shadows that echoed the eerie color of his emerald eyes. The one he really hated most was the one he’d christened the Bitch Madonna, a portrait of a woman dressed in white, the only one of his subjects that Dansant had painted in profile. She stood halfturned toward something, the shape of another figure cloaked in the shadows around her, but instead of looking at her mystery companion she eyed Meriden like he was a swatch of slime under a microscope. Her nose was too beaky and her eyes too sharp for her to be called pretty, but the colors the Frenchman had used for her made her shimmer with life, from the red lights spiraling through her long chestnut curls to the golden warmth of her skin. She radiated light like high noon on a summer day, but something about her made him think of thunderstorms at midnight. D’Anges’s executive chef rarely spent more than a few hours in the place, and didn’t stock anything for himself in the brushed-steel fridge or glass- fronted cabinets. Meriden never knew when he was going to end up here, so he kept a stock of his own supplies. He took out a cold beer before he pulled back the silver drapes and stepped out onto the teak floor of the narrow balcony that wrapped around the entire floor. From the west side he could watch the sky, which he often did, counting the minutes until the night crept over the city. Meriden lifted his beer in the direction of King’s mansion. Cheers, you evil motherf*cker. The Frenchman would be late to the restaurant tonight, Meriden thought with some satisfaction, so by the time he got there that long, cool woman he’d hired would be too busy working to flirt with him. He guessed Rowan Dietrich was already half in love with Dansant; there wasn’t a woman alive who could resist him. Let Dansant have her, too. Meriden wasn’t interested in a skinny kid with eyes like permanent bruises and a subconscious death wish. All right, he admitted to himself, she was something to see, all long legs and racing curves. Meriden usually preferred his ladies blond and built, with bodies he could really sink into and play with, but the slinky little black cat had the kind of speed and grace that aroused something else in him. If a man had an itch, she’d definitely scratch. When she’d run downstairs, he’d wanted to follow, to chase her down. He scowled at his own thoughts, not sure why he’d felt that. She thought she was tough, you could see it in the set of her shoulders and the curl of her hands. The way she had of tilting her head to bring up her chin and look down her nose when she was pissed, should have annoyed him. Instead, it tickled the sh*t out of him. So did her sense of humor, so sharp it came equipped with teeth and claws. He shouldn’t have walked back into the bathroom earlier; he’d known from the sound of the shower she was in there washing up. And if he was going to be honest, that was exactly why he’d gone back in. She’d never know how close he’d come to yanking back the curtain and joining her. He’d have been happy to scrub her back, her front, and any other parts that needed some close, personal attention.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten laid; maybe that was why he’d gotten a hard-on that still hadn’t subsided. There were half a dozen women he could call for something easy and quick, and still he didn’t want a damn one of them. Talking to Rowan had been a mistake. He could have found out what her deal was through Dansant. Now he was screwed. He wasn’t living ten feet away from her without touching her. Not now that he knew what she smelled like when she stripped down to her skin. Sure, break into her apartment tonight and wake her up by f*cking her brains out. Of course she’ll come to thinking that you’re her dream prince. Meriden felt the last glimmer of sunlight touch his face before he drank the rest of his beer and went back inside. He looked at all the silent fixtures, the understated elegance and clean lines, knowing that—like Rowan—it would never be his. He threw the bottle across the room, watching it smash against the frame around the Bitch Madonna. The last dregs of his beer ran down the portrait’s face like amber tears. Another of Dansant’s victims, no doubt, not that Meriden would ever know for sure. The Frenchman kept his secrets. Still, after all these years together, he had a pretty good idea of how it would go. Dansant hadn’t hired Rowan or given her the apartment out of the goodness of his heart. He wanted her, and he intended to keep her where he could have her and make regular use of her. When he got bored, he’d employ his mojo, wipe her memory and send her on her way. He went into the bedroom to stand beside the bed. “You can have any woman in Manhattan,” he muttered as the light from outside disappeared. “Any woman in the f*cking world. Just leave this one alone. She didn’t ask for this sh*t. She didn’t ask for you. You hear me?” No one answered. Dreamveil

Chapter 8 Not for the first time in his new life, Dansant woke to the smell of beer and rage. He knew the cause of it. Meriden had sometimes indulged his penchant for breaking and entering as well as ale and anger in years past, although since coming to America he had calmed down considerably and had worked hard to make their arrangements comfortable. Dansant never fooled himself into believing Sean was happy, but he had assumed the younger man had made his peace with their situation. What has gone wrong now? He tracked the scent from his bedroom through the empty apartment to one of his paintings, beneath which lay scattered broken brown glass. A chip in the frame and the splatter of beer across the canvas testified to what had happened. He knelt and collected the glass in his hand, disposing of it in the kitchen before he went back to carefully clean the surface of the portrait. The narrow, clever face of the chestnut-haired woman seemed to soften with sympathy. Would you feel sorry for me, chérie? he wondered as he blotted dry her features. Or would you side yourself with him? He despised the circ*mstances that had brought him and Meriden together, and forced their dependence on each other, but when it came to a resolution, he was as helpless to change it as his partner was. Perhaps more so, for he had done nothing by design to harm Sean or intrude on his life, and had in fact been dragged into this uncomfortable partnership with no choice at all. Yet he had never blamed Nathan for what he had done, not when he had come to understand the reasons behind it.