Murder was premeditated. Murder was planned. Murder required a commitment—not just to kill, but to live with the killing.
I had taken lives, demonic and human, but always in self-defense, or in the defense of others. I had learned to sleep at night despite the death on my hands. I could look at myself in the mirror without flinching. Usually.
In the case of Ernie’s murder, I assumed that someone had been hired to take him out; perhaps the kid found shot nearby, or someone else. The attack on Ernie had been deliberate and vicious. Knives were always vicious. Stabbing someone again and again took a level of resolve and intimacy that pulling a trigger didn’t quite reach. To kill someone like that meant you were used to murder—extremely desperate—or you really hated the guts of the person you were attacking. Sometimes all three.
Ernie had covered his tracks, though. It would have taken resources to follow him. Or someone who knew him well. The mysterious Winnie had known where he would be. Chances were good someone else he trusted had been in the loop, too.
I thought about that a lot during the flight. It was six hours from Seattle to New York City. I had never been on a plane. Never wanted to be on a plane. I hated the idea, even though I knew, intellectually, that a domestic flight would not be dangerous. It was international travel that caused trouble—moving from night to day, and back again. The boys might wake up.
But by the time we landed at La Guardia, I was a mess. Air pressure, air sickness, bad air, no air. No zombies, though. I had been seeing less of them over the past few months. Most of the parasites had left Seattle—run from my presence—but ten minutes inside New York City, I wondered if something else was at work. No dark auras, anywhere. Not even a taste. Far cry from the last time I had been here.
It was a little after seven in the evening when the cab dropped us off in front of Winnie’s apartment building. It was located on a quiet street filled with brownstone walkups, tilting trees, and the nearby glow of a small deli. Still daylight. I listened to the hum of air conditioners bolted outside windows, and the hush of quiet laughter from the couple at the intersection.
Winifred’s apartment building, unlike its neighbors, was taller than five stories, a cream-colored concrete block of windows with a green awning over the double-wide glass doors, and an elevator visible at the far end of the small lobby. Red geraniums framed the entrance, overflowing from massive clay pots.
I watched the street, listening to the rippling sensation on my skin as the boys shifted restlessly in their dreams. Not quite a warning, but close enough. I glanced at Grant, and found him also watching our surroundings; intense, a hint of gold in his brown eyes.
“Anything?”
“Nothing remarkable. But something doesn’t feel right.” He briefly nudged my shoulder. “Don’t.”
I frowned. “Stop reading me.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Who said I was worried about you?”
Grant smiled grimly. I shook my head. Maybe I had been too hasty in agreeing that he should come along. I was getting soft. Something I had been telling myself for almost a year now.
I dialed in the apartment number that Zee had given me and hit the buzzer. I let it ring until it choked off, and then tried again. No one answered. A deeply tanned, gorgeous young man—dressed like he was ready for a jog—exited the elevator, and pushed open the glass doors. He gave Grant a lusty smile, and with a lingering backward glance, strode down the sidewalk.
I stuck my foot in the doorway before we could be locked out. “Dude. You were just totally undressed.”
“Try not to be jealous,” Grant replied dryly, limping past me into the building. “I can’t help my unbridled sexual magnetism.”
We rode the elevator to the tenth floor. Seemed like a nice enough place. Quiet, clean, modern. I was no expert on apartment buildings, though I had inherited a place uptown, along Central Park. No strong memories of it, except that it faced the southeast, had a view of the trees, and had been bought by my great-great-grandmother during the Depression. I doubted seriously that I would be stopping by for a visit, though part of me wondered if some of my mother’s things would still be there, covered in dust after more than a decade of absence.
Winifred Cohen’s door was near the elevator. I lingered for a moment, simply listening, but heard nothing from within but the faint caress of soft music: violins weeping to Mozart.
Grant knocked. I nudged him aside. Safer than standing in front of a door when you did not know what was on the other side. Might not be Winifred. Maybe Winifred wasn’t Winifred. People were never who we thought them to be.
No one came to the door, though I sensed a presence inside that apartment; like a mouse hiding in a hole, whiskers quivering just enough for the big bad cat to hear.
I knocked again, and leaned close. “Winifred. My name is Maxine Kiss. I’m here because of Jean, my grandmother. And Ernie.”
Nothing. I shared a long look with Grant, and reached into my back pocket for the lock picks I had brought with me. “Winifred. If you’re in there, please say something. Or else I’m coming in.”
The music kept playing softly. No footsteps. No whispers of movement. But I felt something. She was there—or someone else was. I hoped it was not the latter.
It took me only moments to open the main lock, but there was a deadbolt on the other side, and probably a chain. No good way of undoing those without kicking in the door, and that was too much attention to bring on ourselves. I was ready to suggest that we wait another hour—until the sun went down—when I finally heard a faint shuffling sound on the other side. I stepped away, as did Grant, leaning against the wall beside the door while I stared at the peephole.
The locks clicked. Five metallic rasps as bolts and chains were thrown back. Then, nothing. Grant gave me a long look, and I shrugged. If she—or whomever—wanted to play games, then fine.
I opened the door. Found shadows in a long hall. Nothing but darkness, and the soft mournful keen of violins shrouding the air. I held up my hand to Grant, motioning for him to wait, and walked inside. Zee, sleeping between my breasts, began tugging gently on my skin. I ignored him, listening hard, but all I could hear below the music was my own pulse and the near-silent scuff of my cowboy boots on the hardwood floor.
Until cool air moved against my cheek and someone reached from the darkness to stab me in the throat.
The blade snapped instantly. I smelled perfume, heard the harsh rasp of someone breathing, and turned toward the darkened closet door that now housed a small hunched figure that swayed so unsteadily that I reached out, and brushed my fingers against a wrinkled elbow. My skin tingled beneath my tattoos; or maybe that was the boys, reacting. I felt strange, touching her. Light-headed.
The old woman began to back away, and then stopped, staring down at the broken knife: better suited for steaks than throats, though she’d had good aim. It took strength to cut into the cartilage of a human neck, but not if you stabbed at the soft part. Which she had. More knives, I thought, peering into eyes so dark they were almost black.
“Winifred, I presume,” I said quietly, as Grant entered the apartment and shut the door behind him, watching her warily.
“You really are her granddaughter,” replied the old woman, staring up at me with no small amount of wonderment and unease—glancing briefly at Grant with an even more troubled gaze. She had an American accent, though her vowels were tinged with the faint coil of another place and time. A stout woman with long gray hair and a round stomach that pushed against her blue housedress.
“Some test.” I took the remains of the steak knife from her hand. “Were you expecting someone else?”