She ducked her head to look in the open passenger window. “Excuse me, but do you know how to get to Runaway Bay?”

“Your travel agent book you there, lady? That’s on the other side of the island. I don’t go that far.” He nodded at a bus. “Shuttle to Ocho Rios get you there in about an hour, and it won’t cost you two hundred dollars.”

“Money is not a problem.” His British accent made Simone smile a little as she produced enough cash to make the young man gape. “Would this help change your mind?”

He hooted and reached over for the door handle, and then sat back and sighed. “Ah, I still can’t do it. My sister needs me to pick up her girls from school. If I take you, I won’t get back in time.”

“I can wait until after you take your nieces home,” she assured him.

“Then, beautiful lady, I take you anywhere you want to go on the island.” He grinned and opened the door for her. “Half price.”

Once she had her seat belt on, the driver held up a scratched CD. “You want to listen to Bob Marley’s greatest hits?”

Simone glanced at name on the operator’s license hanging from one of the A/C vents. “If you don’t mind, Jamar, I prefer Debussy.”

“So do I.” He tucked the CD into his sun visor, and eased into the stream of cars driving by the loading zone.

Jamar’s nieces turned out to be three very polite little girls who sat together on the bench seat behind Simone and told their uncle about their day at school. As Simone listened to the children, she watched the side-view mirror, but saw no one following them.

Jamar stopped in front of a small house, where the girls’ mother was waiting at the curb. She gave Simone a curious look as she helped her daughters out of the van and then herded them inside.

Simone felt better as she watched the girls disappear into their home. You will be safe, too, little ones.

“So where are you staying in Runaway Bay, lady?” Jamar asked once they were back on the road. “The SuperFun, the Gran Bahia, or Club Ambiance?”

“I’m going to Winter Cove.”

“You really need to fire this travel agent, lady.” He shook his head. “Winter Cove isn’t a hotel. It’s a big ugly old house back in the woods.”

“I know what it is.”

Jamar didn’t seem to hear her. “My cousin Denisha, she drives a shuttle for the SuperFun, and she go past the road to that house ten, fifteen times every day. Nobody ever stays there. She heard that as soon as he built it, the owner left the island and never came back.” He reached over and patted her hand. “I’ll take you to the SuperFun. Denisha can get you a nice room for a good rate.”

“Thank you, Jamar, but I don’t need a room,” she told him. “I’ll be staying at the big, ugly old house.”

He gave her a startled look. “You know who owns the place, lady?”

She nodded. “Yes. I own it.”

Chapter 19

O

nce the excavation equipment had been unloaded, the men Pájaro had hired to transport it gathered in a circle on the beach to share a blunt. He watched them as he injected himself with the last of the morphine. It barely took the edge off his pounding migraine; he should have taken all the vials from the drug dealer he’d killed thirty minutes after landing in Montego Bay. At least he’d had the sense to search the dealer’s car, which had provided him with three fully loaded machine guns. Another lung spasm gripped him, and as he coughed the needle slipped from his hand and rolled under the seat.

His driver glanced back over the partition. “You don’t look too good, boss. You want to go to your hotel now?”

“Later.” He wiped the bloody mucus from his mouth and pocketed the handkerchief before he picked up the GPS unit. “Call the surveyor again. Tell him if he’s not here in fifteen minutes he’s a dead man.”

The driver looked uneasy. “You mean he’s fired, right, boss?”

To keep from blowing the man’s brains out sooner than would be convenient, Pájaro climbed out of the limo. At once clammy, salt-riddled heat engulfed him, adding a layer of briny sweat atop his chilled flesh. Whatever infection had invaded his system seemed to be sinking into his bones; his very limbs felt like they were grinding into his joints.

The illness aggravated him, but he knew it was only a temporary annoyance. He had taken back from the old man’s brat the legacy that belonged to him. Once he unearthed the Trinity cross, the sickness would vanish along with all the other mortal weaknesses that plagued him. He would never again have to endure a single moment of suffering.

Pájaro walked down to the edge of the beach and surveyed the snowy white sands. That the old man’s family had managed to retain ownership of three miles of pristine shoreline for all this time impressed him. Now that it was to be his, he would build his first palace here. Perhaps he would have the old man’s brat brought here to serve as some entertainment. With all the time and power and wealth in the world at his disposal, he could make her suffer for decades.

“Mr. Helada?”

He turned to see a nervous-looking man carrying a leather case. “Are you the surveyor?”

“Yes, sir.” He put down the case and took out a note from his pocket. “I checked the information you gave me, and I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Why not?”

“Sir, whatever you’re trying to locate isn’t on this island.” He gestured toward the sea. “According to the coordinates you provided, it’s about halfway between here and the island of Cuba.”

Pájaro glanced out at the vivid turquoise water. “There is nothing between here and Cuba.”

“There is the Cayman Trough, sir,” the surveyor said. “If these numbers are correct, that is your site.” He offered a feeble smile. “It’s the deepest point in the Caribbean. Whatever you’re looking for is three miles under the ocean.”

The man’s nervous chatter had at last exposed the true reason for his anxiety. “Why do you believe that I’m looking for anything?”

“Oh, I don’t,” the surveyor said quickly. “I just assumed you were.”

“Don’t concern yourself. It was only a small error.” He walked over and put his arm around the man’s thin shoulders to guide him into the trees. “I’m certain whoever bribed you to lie to me will still pay whatever he promised, as long as I allow you to live to collect it. Keep walking.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you’re wrong.” The surveyor stopped and tried to shrug off Pájaro’s arm. “I have to get back to my office.”

“And so you will.” He released him and took out his straight razor, turning it to catch a beam of sunlight. “Tell me where it is, and I will let you go. Lie to me again, and you lose an eye.”

“Why ya be taking dis mon back in da trees?” a friendly voice asked.

Pájaro eyed the light-skinned laborer whose dreadlocks obscured most of his face. “Go back with the others and wait.”

“I take dis good brudda with me.” The laborer walked in front of Pájaro and clapped the surveyor on the shoulder. “De spot to dig, you show us, yeah?”

“Yes.” The trembling man sounded dazed. “I’ll show you.”

Pájaro looked into the laborer’s bloodshot gray eyes, but saw only the haze of drugs and ignorance. The reek of cannabis coming from the man turned his stomach. “Good.” He tucked the razor back into his sleeve. “Make it quick.”

The laborer grinned. “It will be, boss.”

Gabriel emerged from the back cabin and sat across from Korvel, placing a bottle of bloodwine and two glasses on the table between them. “You’ve not rested since we left Marseilles.”

“I can sleep when it’s done.” He glanced up from the financial records he was reading. “How is your lady?”

“She seems fully recovered, but I sense that something still plagues her.” He filled both glasses and handed one to Korvel. “I want to know who did this to her, Captain.”

The Kyn lord’s wording made him frown. “You believe that one of us used talent against her?”

“I don’t know what to think.” Gabriel stared down at his glass. “Nicola’s sensitivity to the Kyn is profound. If an enemy can use her ability as a conduit into her mind, as a means to control her, she will never be safe.”

“Most Kyn don’t possess abilities that allow them to exercise influence over other Kyn. Richard, Lucan, and some of the modern mortal women who were changed are the only exceptions.” He thought of the reports Cyprien had sent to Richard after his initial meeting with the Kyndred in New York. “These mortals whom the Brethren meddled with are powerful, and they were engineered to be our adversaries. We know a few, like the brother of Valentin’s lady, were taken and trained by the order to serve as field operatives. It could be one of them.”

“It’s not the Kyndred,” Nicola said as she joined them. “Whatever got in my head felt like the Kyn, but I don’t think it was one of us or them. It felt strange. Older. Ancient.”

Gabriel leveled a direct look at Korvel. “I want that fucking scroll destroyed.”

“Baby.” Nicola put a hand to her cheek. “Such language.”

The attendant came out of the front cabin to inform them that they would be landing in a few minutes.

Korvel reached to switch off his laptop when he saw the new e-mail icon flashing, and accessed his in-box. The new message came from an unknown sender, but the subject line read, Derien Estate Winter Cove Runaway Bay Jamaica. As soon as he opened the e-mail, code began scrolling across the screen, which abruptly went blank as the computer shut down. When he restarted it, the laptop remained inert.

“Let me have a look at it.” Nicola turned the laptop toward her and tapped on a few keys before she rested her hand on top of them. “You just got hit with the mother of all viruses. Your hard drive is completely fried.”