White Witch Black Curse - By Kim Harrison Page 0,2
long gone. Nothing moved past the curtains but a flapping blue tarp. Instinct told me Kisten hadn't died in this room. I had to go deeper.
Ford said nothing as I walked into the dark, narrow hallway, blind until my eyes adjusted. My pulse quickened as I passed the tiny bathroom where I'd tried on the sharp caps Kisten had given me for my birthday, and I slowed, listening to my body and realizing I was rubbing my fingertips together as they silently burned.
My skin tingled, and I halted, staring at my fingers, recognizing the memory of feeling carpet under my fingers, hot from friction. I held my breath as a new thought surfaced, born from the long-gone sensation. Terror, helplessness. I had been dragged down this hall.
A flash of remembered panic rose, and I squelched it, forcing my breath out in a slow exhalation. The lines I'd made in the carpet had been erased by the FIB vacuuming for evidence, erased from my memory by a spell. Only my body had remembered, and now me.
Ford stood silently behind me. He knew something was trickling through my brain. Ahead was the door to the bedroom, and my fear thickened. That was where it had happened. That was where Kisten had lain, his body torn and savaged, slumped against the bed, his eyes silvered and truly dead. What if I remember it all? Right here in front of Ford and break down?
"Rachel."
I jumped, startled, and Ford winced. "We can do this another way," he coaxed. "The meditation didn't work, but hypnosis might. It's less stressful."
Shaking my head, I moved forward and reached for the handle of Kisten's room. My fingers were pale and cold, looking like mine but not. Hypnosis was a false calm that would put off the panic until the middle of the night when I'd be alone. "I'm fine," I said, then pushed the door open. Taking a slow breath, I went in.
The large room was cold, the wide windows that let in the light doing little to keep out the chill. Arm clutched against me, I looked to where Kisten had been propped up against the bed. Kisten. There was nothing. My heart ached as I missed him. Behind me, Ford started to breathe with an odd regularity, working to keep my emotions from overwhelming him.
Someone had cleaned the carpet where Kisten had died for the second and final time. Not that there had been much blood. The fingerprint powder was gone, but the only prints they had found were from me, Ivy, and Kisten-scattered like signposts. There'd been none from his murderer. Not even on Kisten's body. The I.S. had probably cleaned his corpse between when I'd left to kick some vampire ass and my bewildered return with the FIB after I'd forgotten everything.
The I.S. didn't want the murder solved, a courtesy to whoever Kisten's last blood had been given as a thank-you. Inderland tradition came before society's laws, apparently. The same people I'd actually once worked for were covering it up, and that pissed me off.
My thoughts vacillated between rage and a debilitating heartache. Ford panted, and I tried to relax, for him if nothing else. Blinking back the threatened tears, I stared at the ceiling, breathing in the cold, quiet air and counting backward from ten, running through the useless exercise Ford had given me to find a light state of meditation.
At least Kisten had been spared the sordidness of being drained for someone's pleasure. He had died twice in quick succession, both times probably trying to save me from the vampire he'd been given to. His necropsy had been no help at all. Whatever had killed him the first time had been repaired by the vampire virus before he died again. And if what I'd told Jenks before losing my memory was true, he'd died his second death by biting his attacker, mixing their undead blood to kill them both. Unfortunately, Kisten hadn't been dead for long. It might only have left his much older attacker simply wounded. I just didn't know.
I mentally reached zero, and calmer, I moved toward the dresser. There was a shirt box on it, and I almost bent double in heartache when I recognized it.
"Oh God," I whispered. My hand went out, turning to a fist before my fingers slowly uncurled and I touched it. It was the lace teddy Kisten had given me for my birthday. I'd forgotten it was here.