Dominion: A Zoe Martinique Investigation, #6

One

The first Power dropped down out of the trees and landed on my shoulders, causing me to face-plant into a snowbank. I hoped I hadn't hit yellow snow. Daniel dispatched that one with a quick twist of the asshole's head, snapping his neck.

Powers, although extensions of the Ethereal Plane, servants to the Ethereal Virtues, were still human. Even with their strength enhanced, they were technically dead bodies reanimated to do the Virtues' bidding. The Ethereal Planes' undead. They could manifest weapons at will, which in a close fight had proven to be a bit touchy. But they had a multitude of weaknesses.

The second one came at Daniel from a crop of snow-covered bushes and tackled him. The two landed in a heap on the other side of the path. I shifted into Wraith and slid my long talons into its side. Female, bad breath, spitting French at me at the top of her lungs. I grabbed her belt and lifted her with me into the sky, taking her as high as I could, and then tossed her. She made a nasty crunch when she landed. I was pretty confident she wasn't getting back up again.

The crack of a gunshot stopped me in mid-flight.

I looked down at my chest. I didn't see blood or bone sticking out. I didn't feel pain. So that meant I hadn't been hit with a bullet, right? I put my hand to my front just to be sure.

Nope.

No holes.

Daniel yelled ahead of me, and after that came the clang of metal.

Shit.

I speed forward as fast as my wings could carry me. It was after midnight, and the full moon overhead sparkled like diamonds off the snow-covered mounds of bushes and benches. I zipped down close along the tree-shrouded lane on the south end of Lafontaine Park when I saw the flash of the park's lights against steel.

Blood dotted the snow around Daniel and his attacker. This guy was larger than the first, and his telltale tattoo covered most of the left side of his face.

When a Power is made by a Virtue, the magic of that Virtue leaves a mark on the Power's face. At first glance, these marks resemble tribal tattoos, but if you got close enough, you'd see they were actually made of even smaller symbols, all crowded together to make a larger one. And each Virtue had their own symbol, making it easy to figure out who they belonged to.

When I landed, I realized they weren't fighting with swords, but pipes. I had no idea where those had come from, but luckily Daniel had one. The guy came at Daniel swinging, but Daniel jumped back and then ducked down in time to avoid being hit, just as he spun and nailed the guy with a pipe strike to the ankles.

Zoë…

The First Born inside of Daniel, Inanna, spoke to me in my head. It was their bond that made Daniel a Revenant.

A vampire.

First Borns are the children of the first Phantasm, the ruler of the Abysmal Plane. A lot of people assumed the Abysmal was Hell, and the Ethereal was Heaven. Me? They were simply places. And I'd started to not care who was right and who was wrong, 'cause they both had issues.

What is it? I called out. I moved to the right as the guy fell back. I'd heard his ankle crack. They might be reanimated corpses, but the Symbionts inside of them still felt pain.

I'd also noticed a bit of distress in Inanna's voice. Daniel's welfare was her job. Without him, she had nowhere on this Plane to exist. If he died, and she had no new host ready….

You have to stop this. He's losing blood.

That much I could see. Either this guy had landed a hit on Daniel, or the girl with the knife had. Or could have been the shot I heard—but who'd fired a gun? And where was it?

I bolted as the Power tried to stand on his cracked ankles. I grabbed his belt from the side and lifted him into the air as well. This time—as he struggled and cursed at me, again in French like his companion—I dropped him on a line of fencing with pointy spoke accents.

Daniel lay on the ground behind a bench, breathing irregularly. His leather all-weather coat was open, and I could see the wound. It'd been the girl. She'd managed to get her weapon into his gut and then twist. Inanna was right—Daniel was losing too much blood, too fast.

His beautiful blue eyes looked up at me as I knelt beside him and shifted back to just me. Plain old Zoë. No longer a Wraith, Harbinger of Death, taker of souls—all that rot.

I put my hands on the sides of his face. Daniel Frasier was my first big crush at the age of twenty-something. Love at first sight. He was a detective with the Atlanta Police Department, and I'd met him after a First Born touched my arm and changed me into this.

It's such a long story, and for the first time since I began this journey, I had no time to retell it.

Daniel, I said, and tried to push my thoughts into his. Look at me. Just look at me, okay? You've got to stop moving.

I—oh, Zoë— he blinked and focused on me. He took several deep breaths before he said, You've got to run. Now. Please. I can't control—

I'm not leaving you here—

He's only thinking of your well-being.

I'll be fine. I bit my lower lip. I know what he needs.

There was a deafening silence in my mind, and then Inanna's voice. No.

There's no other choice. He's got to heal and that'll happen if he drinks. There aren't any other candidates around and he can't drink from the Powers.

I won't allow it. We don't know what it will do.

What does that mean, you don't know what it'll do? It'll heal him! I sighed as Daniel's eyelids fluttered and then closed. I tapped his face. Daniel—

No, Zoë—no Revenant has tasted your blood since your latest transformation. We…we don't know how that blood will infuse our host. Or us.

My latest what? I really wasn't sure what she was talking about. You mean me spending time physically in the Abysmal?

Pause. Yes.

Aw fuckity-fuck-fuck. Why is it shit's always mucking with my body? Inanna, he needs blood and I'm right here.

Find a deer or something.

No time, and if they're smart, they're all tucked away in bed. I moved down his body, just visible under the moonlight. I dug my freezing fingers into his jeans pocket, and fished his army knife out, and pulled the blade free.

No! Zoë, you're a Wraith! We do not know what your blood will do!

Inanna, I said as I scooted up close to his shoulders, I can't let him die here, and I can't get him to a hospital. And besides, I'm more Abysmal now, so isn't that good? I mean, ya'll are Abysmal.

Call someone. Just fly him away.

"I'm doing this—"

No! You are a Wraith!

I'm a human, too. I held my breath as I pressed the sharp tip of the knife into my wrist, then pushed, and pulled the blade down along the forearm. It hurt at first, and my body felt a little numb, like it wasn't sure what to do with this sensation. As I watched the blood well up black and then bright red, the burning feeling started.

I moved my wrist to Daniel's lips and held it there, feeling like some heroine in one of those new vampire movies. All sacrificey and stuff.

It looked all nice on the screen and shit—but they don't tell you that it hurts like freakin' hell. I heard a whoosh past my ears as I shifted my position, and had to lower my arm when I moved.

Daniel sprang to life. Faster than anything I'd ever seen. He latched his teeth onto my arm and started to drink.

I'd only seen Daniel like this once. A few months ago, I'd had to wound him to kill an attacker, and Daniel had lost a great deal of blood because of me. That blood loss had caused him to frenzy and he'd attacked an innocent human. Killed him.

He was close to frenzying now and I was keenly aware of it.

I also didn't know what I thought this would feel like. I'd given blood once and passed out. So I knew I was anemic. Was that gonna be a problem for him? Did that make me like decaffeinated coffee?

Blood light?

Speaking of light, so was my head, and a buzzing started in my ears. I tried to pull away…but he grabbed onto me. In fact….I realized I was leaning away and he was sitting up. He finally released me and looked at my face. There was very little blood on his lips, and he was no longer pale, but warm looking. His cheeks flushed pink.

And then he was on top of me, his face buried into my neck. I tried to push him off but couldn't get good leverage. He was strong. Stronger than I remembered.

I cried out when I felt his fangs snap through flesh. His hand came over my mouth and pressed my lips against my teeth.

Oh no, Daniel…

No! I told you! I can't stop him!

Fuck!

I fought him. I tried to shift, but couldn't—not completely. My wings moved against my back against the snow under us as I reached up and grabbed hunks of his hair. I yanked and pulled and tried desperately to get him off of me.

Warmth wove its way into my muscles, and I lost strength in my arms. I relaxed back as if I'd submerged myself into comforting hot tub. He took his hand from my mouth and I felt the cold night air on my lips. I wasn't on the ground anymore, but in his arms, his face pressed into my neck.

My own arms lay out to my sides. I couldn't move them. I couldn't move anything. This was different than simple blood loss. The rushing past my ears wasn't normal, and I could sense Azrael was close.

Daniel… I heard a soft voice say on the wind. Please…you're killing me… And if you don't run…they're going to kill you.

Two

I. Hate. The Beeping.

But it seems I'm to be cursed with its damning sound for the rest of my unnatural life. At least I can say that when I hear it, I know I'm alive on the Physical Plane—cause ain't nobody got them beeping machines on the Astral or Mental.

Uh uh.

But before I open my eyes, I think it's only fair that I tell you who I am.

Zoë Martinique. Former retail salesgirl. Now a big bad Wraith.

What is that?

No idea. But whatever it is—it's made my life a living hell. Well, not all the time, but enough of it that I sometimes doubt my own purpose in life. And apparently it's not to find love and happiness.

I was born an Irin, which translates roughly into a child of an Ethereal and a human. But a year ago I was touched by an Abysmal being—if you want to say demon, that's fine. But I just don't use those titles 'cause it dredges up all kinds of ick. That touch apparently tainted me. Mixed up my Ethereal parts with some Abysmal ones—shaken, not stirred—and voila! I'm a Wraith.

I used to go out of body, or OOB, even before that touch. But after it happened, I discovered that my astral self liked to suck the life out of living people. I cut a few tethered ghosts and sent them on their way—or I hope I did. And I learned I had one hell of a yell—a Scream that could flay the skin right off of a cow.

It could also shoot the essence of an Abysmal Symbiont right back to the Abysmal Plane.

But things got wonky after I accidentally set off a spell meant to close down that power. It'd been hidden in my mother's house/shop in Little Five Points, a spell she'd used on me when I hit puberty so that I wouldn't slip out of my body and go bar hopping, I suppose. Back then, the pressure of keeping my power capped off just created an over-sexed libido and a need to wear high heels. Years later, after my nineteenth birthday, my boyfriend and I were attacked in Piedmont Park. He was killed, and I was raped and stabbed. It was enough of a trauma that it broke the spell, and I slipped out of my body for the first time I could remember.

Barry Stephens died that night and I was reborn into something I didn't understand.

And recently, it's been hinted that the rapist had been hired to do what he did to break the spell and force me out of my body, as was my birthright.

But when I accidentally activated the spell again, the pressure building inside of me created what I learned was a Horror, a personification of my Abysmal side. And that part of me possessed my ex-lover at the time, Detective Daniel Frasier.

He killed a lot of people—but only because he was forced to…by me.

And when I took that part of myself back and Daniel was free of it, his mind couldn't accept what he'd done. He'd escaped and tried to kill me, but shot his police captain instead. They committed him to an institution in another state.

So much happened then…too much to core-dump anymore. And I really want to open my eyes.

At first the images were bleary, fuzzy, black-and-white. The usual. Oh, I'd become an old hat at this. I cleared my throat—no tubes this time. But I felt stiff. My muscles were sore as I tried to shift.

"Mademoiselle…. came a soft feminine voice. Jus' rest eazee, oui? You're okay and you're safe 'ere."

Safe? Safe from what? And why did she sound French?

Oh—then I remembered.

Montreal. Quebec. Canada.

Daniel.

He'd been hurt and he'd had to feed. And I'd been the Hot Pocket of the night. I cleared my throat. ….where?

Montreal Zheneral Hospitol, she said in that soft accent. Joo were found in ze park. Joo were attacked?

Found in the park? That asshole left me there? But why did he leave? I had a vague memory of sensing Azrael nearby, the previous First Born who gave me the touch that turned me into a Wraith. He wore the Throne of the Phantasm now, the leader of the Abysmal Plane. And he was a friend.

Kinda. There was a lover factor in there somewhere—but in a way I still didn't quite understand.

I think the jury's still out on ole TC. Trench Coat. My old name for him. I blinked a few more times and finally focused on a small, thin face with large brown eyes and bobbed hair. It was dark brown and tucked under her pointed chin. She sat to my right, just past a railing of bars (why do they put bars on beds in hospitals? Do people actually roll off?). She wore a dark coat and an orange scarf. It looked fuzzy and soft to touch.

Okay. Not a nurse. A man came into the room just then, through a door behind the woman. When he stood behind her, I could just make out his face. Much wider, blond, short hair, and light-colored eyes. His cheeks were red and slightly chapped. He wore a darker scarf, but a coat of a similar color. You two aren't nurses or doctors, are you?

No, the man said as he stepped to the left of the woman. I'm Constable Alfred Carter. He didn't have the really cool French accent she did. In fact, he sounded like American Midwest. That kind of…non-accent accent. Like news announcers on television. He gestured to the woman. This is Constable Mae Theotokos.

I smiled at both of them. Constable. I assumed that was like Canadian for officer or something. I'm Zoë Martinique.

We know, Constable Carter said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet with his credentials. They were very different than the Atlanta Police Department ones, but then, those were the only official badges I'd ever seen. After he replaced the wallet, he pulled out a smart phone and tapped the surface. You reside in Atlanta, Georgia, he said, then rattled off my address (my new one!), my phone number, bank, my social security number…and then he really freaked the hell out of me. And you are the daughter of one Nona Martinique, CEO of the Ishmael Society.

I just blinked at him. I didn't know what to say except, What did I do?

Mae smiled and leaned forward. No, no, no. I loved the way she said no! She sounded like Sophie did in The Da Vinci Code movie. "Iz nothing like that. Your…condition when found was much like that of three other women, all attacked in Plateau du Mont-Royal. Except for there was no gentleman with you and no sign of rape. Yet, ze hostess at ze bed-and-breakfast you were staying in, Auberge de la Fontaine, said you were there with a young man?"

I wasn't sure if Plateau du Mont-Royal was the same place we'd been fighting in, and I sure as hell didn't want to alert them to the fact we'd been fighting at all. They obviously knew where I'd been staying—mom had booked us in under the Society's account. But they didn't have Daniel's name.

Uh… What was I going to say? I couldn't tell them I was with Daniel Frasier. He was still wanted for the murders in Atlanta, including that of Captain Kenneth Cooper of the Atlanta Police Department.

Quick—who could I use? I ran through the list of guys I knew at the Society. None of them really looked like Daniel. Not really. Daniel was…he was beautiful. And I'd loved him.

Still did in a way, and if it hadn't have been for—

And that's when I did it. Something I hadn't done in several days.

I thought of Dags.

Darren Dags McConnell. The man I loved. The man I'd believed I was going to marry.

The man my best friend stole from me.

Ms. Martinique? Constable Carter said, pulling me out of my downward spiral.

I blinked several times and looked up at him. I—am I okay? Can I go?

Not until you tell us who it was you were with. It's very important to us, Ms. Martinique. The description we've received from the night hostess there is questionable.

I pushed myself up in the bed. My back was aching and I wanted to get a better idea of exactly how well I was hooked to the bed and how big of a distance there was from me to the door. I had an IV needle in the left arm, and one of those heart monitor things clipped to my finger. The beeper! Other than that, it was just me, a gown—were they backless in Canada, too?—and my bare feet.

And snow outside.

I could always go to the bathroom, go Wraith, and sieve up through the ceiling and go find Daniel. 'Cause it was freaking me the hell out that he'd left me there in a park. Alone. Defenseless. It…just wasn't like him.

Then again, I wasn't so sure I wanted to keep trusting men when they were so easily swayed by other women.

I wasn't stupid, either—these two had probably already identified Daniel from the description that hostess at the bed–and-breakfast gave them. Which was bad if they connected a wanted criminal with the Society.

Damn. Things were getting worse.

Excuse me? Why are you people in here?

The voice was male and commanding, and had only a small hint of an accent. I looked at the door, as did the two of them, and saw an older man with snow-white hair in a white coat. He had a stethoscope around his neck and a very angry look on his face. His mouth looked like an upside-down smile beneath a bushy white mustache.

Doctor Bergeron, Constable Carter said as he turned to face the doctor. The victim is awake and we have an investigation.

You have no right to be in here, because I have not given you permission. Doctor Bergeron stepped into the room. I watched the door start to close just as another hand stopped it. Male. Strong. And attached to—

Nick Shay?!

" Arrêtez interroger ma fiancée , he said as he stepped in. Now."

I caught one word in there.

Fiancée?

Three

The Ghoul Nickolas Shay stepped into the room just behind the doctor. Nick's blond hair had been clipped short over his collar, although a shock of it still hung over his brilliant blue eyes. He was immaculately dressed—and if I wasn't mistaken, it was a Hugo Boss. Navy blue. And perfectly tailored.

Nick's little speech put him firmly in Constable Carter's sights. And who are you? Carter asked Nick.

The Ghoul held out his right hand. Nickolas Shay, attaché to Jason Lawrence of Mephistopheles, Inc.

Mephistopheles, Inc.? WTH?

Never heard of him or it.

Nick smiled as he lowered his hand after the greeting. Then we're doing our job right. He looked at me. You okay? And that's when I heard the gentle and kind Nick I was used to. His eyes softened when he saw me, and I held out my hand. He was across the room and lowering the railing in a New York minute.

Unlike a Revenant, a Ghoul's hand could be warm. And Nick's was just right. He reached out and touched my cheek. I'm taking you home.

Not so fast, Carter said. This is a criminal investigation into the attack and murder of several couples in the park—

Nick interrupted, his voice walking all over Constable Carter's without him really raising it. My fiancée is not dead. She was out walking, enjoying the snow—which she and I see so infrequently in the south of the US. Someone attacked her. Luckily, she survived.

I got it—I mean, I figured out what Nick was doing. He was filling in for Daniel. Which meant that he knew Daniel wasn't around. Or, had Daniel called him and told him he was missing and to get me out of hock? Otherwise, how had they known where I was? Unless the hospital notified the Society?

Wait…dead couples? I finally said as I frowned up at Nick.

Mae finally spoke. "Oui. There have been three attacks in zat park. All three were couples. Ze men were killed—their throats slit. And ze women raped, their mouths filled with an item of clothing, and then stabbed and killed."

My body abruptly took on a bit more weight as I sunk into the surprisingly spongy mattress of the hospital bed. Couples attacked in a park. The males with slit throats. The women raped and stabbed and their mouths—

I was sure that in some quantum theory of multiple universes, there was a finite number of ways to kill and rape. But how often were the same methods put into practice in the same way as the man that'd raped and killed me?

And killed Barry in Piedmont Park?

Barry and I had been in the park, at night, after a show at the Shakespeare Tavern. The bastard had slit Barry's throat before he came after me, shoved my socks into my mouth, and raped me. I didn't know he'd stabbed me until later at the hospital, after I'd left my body for the first time since I was a tweener.

His was a face I'd never forget.

Carter was looking at me. So was Nick. Show her.

Mae reached inside of a case or something she had to the left of the chair and produced a piece of paper. Zis is a suspect sketch given to us by a witnesses who saw zis man fleeing zee park. She handed it to me. Do you recognize him?

I reached out with a shaking hand and took the paper. Nick sat with me, keeping his hand tightly wrapped around my other one and watching my face.

My gaze locked on the sketch.

Watching all those forensic and investigative shows on TruTV and HLN, I'd always wondered how they identified anyone from those crazy, Wooly Willy-looking sketches.

I didn't have to wonder anymore. It was him. There were inconsistencies in the eyes and the nose. But the eyes…the eyes and the way they sat over his long face.

It was him.

The guy in the park that night. The one grunting over me under the lights as Barry bled to death beside me.

But that wasn't why I was starting to lose it.

Not by a long shot.

Zoë? Nick leaned in close. Honey, talk to me. Do you know him?

I was nodding before he even finished asking.

Is he the one who attacked you in the park? Carter asked.

I shook my head, and then I nodded. I hadn't realized my cheeks were wet until Nick was shoving tissues into the hand he'd been holding.

That man had attacked me, but not this time. I looked directly into Nick's eyes, but couldn't speak. I couldn't tell these people the truth of what else I'd seen in that drawing. The stylized mark along the man's left cheek.

The mark of a Power.

And it wasn't that this rapist and murderer had been recruited by a Virtue to fight.

It was that I remembered the mark.

I'd stared at it that night as that man ripped and tore me apart.

It was too much, and I felt overwhelmed.

I'd been raped, and murdered, by a Power, over ten years ago. And if what I'd learned was true, a Virtue, a being of Ethereal essence had controlled that Power.

The mark…was my dad's.

Four

I think…since that night…I hadn't really stopped to consider everything that'd happened to me. The years I spent using my ability to slip out of my body seemed like happy ones. The years before then were…more of a blur. I didn't know back then that my mom had placed a spell on me. Hell, I didn't even know she was a witch. At the age of twelve, I was using a different first letter to go with the –itch part.

She'd done this to keep me hidden from others—namely her own uncle, Domas.

I believe she knew my dad was dead when they made love the night they conceived me. I also believe she loved him, and wanted to give him the child he'd always wanted. And she had.

Me.

But when he disappeared, when he left on my fourth birthday and never came back, I think it broke her heart more than it broke my own. The realization that he'd chosen his new life over her. And me.

And then it became her obsession to keep me away from them.

Until that night.

I'd lived in what I believed was relative obscurity until the night I witnessed TC murder William Tanaka. The First Born—an unknown entity to me at that time—had changed me.

And I had changed him.

All that time, the Society had their little puppet watching me.

Rhonda Orly.

She'd betrayed me then, and then she'd betrayed me again after I