“Somehow I find his frenzied attacks far more comforting than watching him go about his business in that more methodical way he has.”

“He’s had dozens of incarnations in which to perfect his mania. I consider it something of an art form,” Kamen remarked in return to the woman sitting beside him. “This frenzy you see, that’s the interference of his host. The host is disorganized, most likely because of its disability, and almost frantic … probably because it’s being forced to take part in something that might usually go against its moral code. Though he has subjugated his host’s soul for the most part, it still bleeds through on occasion.”

She tilted her head, her clear blue eyes narrowing on the bloody tableau in front of her, the analytical mind within her contemplating so many possibilities. There were many explanations, but only one really mattered at the moment. One truth that made a difference.

“So I gather we missed her?”

“So it would appear. But—” He broke off as movement down the street caught his attention. He reached to rap a knuckle on the glass, and Chatha immediately went still. Kamen watched as a man skidded down the drive of a small house, pulling out the service weapon on his belt as he ran shouting down the street.

“Well, that’s not good,” his companion noted dryly.

“Watch. He’s pure poetry,” Kamen reassured her.

The cop ran down the sidewalk toward Chatha, who immediately plopped down in the snow on his backside beside the body he’d been manhandling moments ago.

Jackson drew a bead on the two bloody figures in the snow. One of them was still as death, the other was bawling his eyes out as if someone had stolen his puppy. He saw Jackson’s gun and shied away, covering his head with both hands as if it would afford him protection.

“Don’t shoot me!”

“I’m a cop,” Jackson said quickly, taking in the bloody skin and clothes of the weeping adult male. His features were instantly identifiable, his innocence automatic and obvious. Now that Jackson had dismissed the Down syndrome male as a potential threat, his eyes darted up and down the street warily. “Was there a woman here?”

“They took her,” he answered helpfully, his whole face lighting up in a smile. “Can I be a cop? Did I help?”

“Sure,” Jackson said absently, even as panic was washing sickly through him. “Who are ‘they’?”

“Two bad men. They took the nice lady after they killed this man. They were mean bad men. I couldn’t help. They hurt me.” The frown and tears reappeared.

Jackson’s frustration knew no bounds. Something had happened to Docia, and his only witness, it appeared, was a man with what appeared to be the mental maturity of a six-year-old. But maybe he’d get lucky. A lot of Down’s adults could be very high functioning and were veritable fonts of information. Maybe once he calmed down he would be a better source of clues as to where Docia had disappeared to.

“What’s your name?” Jackson asked him.

“Andrew. Andy.”

Jackson lowered his weapon, hoping to calm Andy down a little by coming across as less threatening.

“Andy, that lady they took was my sister. I’m really worried about her. Did you see them hurt her?”

“I tried to help. They hurt me.”

Jackson sighed and reached for his phone. He tried not to let guilt and a slew of other emotions sicken him as he called the precinct. He had known better than to leave her. What the hell had he been thinking? He’d been thinking about Dr. Marissa “Hotbody” Anderson telling him that a sense of normalcy would be very important to Docia when she got home, that he wouldn’t be doing her any favors being overprotective of her. So when Docia had begged him to leave her alone for the thirty minutes it would take for him to dash to the store and acquire dinner, he’d actually gone against his better judgment and agreed.

But now he’d come home to Docia’s bloody jacket on the floor of the house and his sister nowhere to be seen. Mere steps away, this gruesome sight, a corpse dead and bloodied and a gentle overgrown child possibly hurt as well. If they’d had no compunctions about hurting this harmless man, what would they do to his sister, whom they clearly saw as enough of a threat to have tried killing once before? And who the hell were they?

Jackson fought down the surge of bile in the back of his throat. His sister was going to turn up dead, and it would be his fault. The only thing in his favor at the moment was that they had taken her away instead of killing her on the spot. But as a cop, he also knew that bringing her to a second scene was like writing a murder book. They wanted time to get cozy with her, in privacy, to do whatever it was they wanted to do with her. Extract information? Maybe. Torture?

His eyes jerked over the corpse lying in the road. He had yet to understand how the body figured into all of this. A Good Samaritan, perhaps? Had the man tried to help Docia and paid for it with his life?

“This is Sergeant Jackson Waverly, badge number 1131. I need backup at Washington and Prospect. The coroner and some detectives.” He eyed his potential source of information. If he called Social Services, they’d circle the wagons and he’d never get a decent interview out of his only witness. But he couldn’t exactly hide a witness from the detectives, either. Frustration burned along with rising agitation and seething panic inside of him. He’d never been in the position before of choosing between doing what would keep his family safe and upholding the law and its protocols. But he’d put his entire faith in the law and those he called his second family … the second family that had taken his sister in as one of their own for years now. He had to trust that they would help him do the right thing. To do everything they could to get her back.

He hung up the phone and immediately pressed a speed-dial button.

“Alvarez.”

Jackson took a deep breath, but words refused to come to his tongue. They jammed in his throat for some reason, sticking together and keeping him from speaking.

“Jacks?” Leo’s concern was immediate and cautious. “Man, did you just ass-dial me?”

“Leo,” Jackson finally managed to say. It was all he said. All he could catch breath to say. Apparently, it was all he needed to say.

“Where are you?” Leo demanded, his longtime friend knowing instantly that something was very wrong.

“Docia …” Jackson took a breath, and it seemed to be helping. “Leo, they took her. She’s gone.”

“Three minutes. No more. You hear me? I’ll be there, Jackson.” There was the sound of screeching tires over the phone and the wail of an angry horn. “¡Jodete Cabron!” Leo shouted before hanging up his phone.

The knowledge that Leo was on his way helped Jackson to draw his wits back together. God almighty, he couldn’t afford these paralyzing hits of panic. Where the hell had they come from, anyway? He wasn’t some Sissy Mary always crying every time his life hit a hiccup. He’d been trained to keep a level head … and usually he did.

“So, Andy,” Jackson said after clearing his throat. He checked the streets once more before slipping his gun back into its holster. “You want to be a cop, right?”

“Yep!"

“You know, a good cop has to remember everything they see in a split second.”

“I can do that,” Andy said brightly.

“You think you can describe the men who took the nice lady?”

“Yep!”

There was a long beat, and Jackson tried not to get impatient. “Do you think you could do that now?” he asked. Literal. Children and challenged individuals tended to be very literal, he reminded himself.

“Oh sure! One was tall and big, like a monster. The other was big, too, but yellow haired. The monster had black hair and he looked like this.” Andy scrunched up his face and body as ominously as he could manage. Jackson let his eyes wander over the boy-man, trying to figure out how he had gotten covered in so much blood.

“Was she hurt? Did they make her bleed?” He spoke through gritted teeth, fighting back the resurrection of his panic. Maybe the blood on Andy’s jacket was Docia’s. But … how had her jacket gotten back in the house? And a few smears on the outside of the jacket didn’t indicate signs of any great injury.

Yet.

“No, she was right as rain,” Andy said helpfully.

Strange. Anyone who looked at Docia wouldn’t use that sort of a descriptor for her after the hell she’d recently been through. She certainly didn’t look right as rain. But this wasn’t just anyone, he reminded himself once again. Andy saw things in his own way.

What he wouldn’t give right then for Chico. His K-9 partner would have been able to tell him more in just a few minutes than this adult witness was going to be able to do. But Chico wasn’t there, and he never would be again, so he’d have to make do. He couldn’t lose focus. Couldn’t waste time wishing for what he didn’t have.

“Andy, which way did they go?” Jackson asked, crouching down to meet the other man eye to eye. “The lady and the monsters?”

“Away,” Andy said matter-of-factly. “In a car.”

“What kind of car?” Jackson asked, trying not to let a sudden surge of hopefulness fog his need to focus. This, he acknowledged at last, was why cops weren’t allowed to work cases related to family members. He clearly couldn’t think straight. All he could do was feel the nausea of knowing his sister was out there, helpless, and in the hands of monsters. And that he had let it happen.

“A big car.”

Great.

This was going to take a while, he thought painfully.

“Amazing,” the female mused. “In a matter of minutes he has a well-trained police officer disarmed, off guard, and lowered into a position of weakness and vulnerability. So why doesn’t he attack?”

“That’s the beauty of Chatha,” Kamen explained. “He gets far more pleasure watching his prey squirm than he does in the actual attack. Whatever the cop is doing or saying is providing Chatha with more delight than killing him outright would. And as long as he continues to do so, Chatha will allow him to live.”

“I’ve been away much too long.…” She sighed, smoothing delicate fingers down the side of her face as she leaned to look into the mirror off the passenger-side door. The glass magnified her stunning blue eyes, as well as the faint scar on her temple. It had been her entry point, the wound this original had suffered that had allowed her to come out of the Ether. That had been two months ago. The Blending had come and gone, and now she was the dominant inside this mind. But as with Chatha, occasionally the less controlled original would rise to the surface and its impulses would disturb her control and focus.

“Never fear, my mistress. You’ll be the queen you deserve to be. This time will be very different from the last,” Kamen reassured her.

“Last time we came so close.” She sighed.

“There will only be success this time. I have created a plan far more complex than anything they will be suspecting.”

“Simplicity has its beauties,” she warned him. “Depend on no one, Kamen.”

“No one but you, my divinity. You are the divine, your hands around the hearts of the gods. It is you and no one else who should rule the Bodywalkers.”

“Mmm. Clearly there are those who would argue the matter with us. As they have for aeons. Sometimes I win, and sometimes I do not. I am not in the mood for failure. Time is growing short, Kamen. The god Amun is rising. I can feel it. And we must be ready to greet him when he does or all of the world will suffer for it.”

“I don’t imagine anyone is ever in the mood for failure,” Kamen mused, amusement glittering in his eyes. She clicked her tongue at him in admonishment and gave his shoulder a shove.

“Anyway, whatever your plans, you might have to alter them a little at first,” she cautioned him. “I have an idea of my own. Something equally unexpected that I wish to try first. But neither of our methods will bear fruit unless we get hold of this girl.”

“Agreed. But no doubt she is at a safe house by now.”

“No doubt. But there are ways around that, just as Chatha has proven,” she said with a smile that curled in wickedly beautiful amusement.

Ram watched her face as they drove the distance from the final gate to the house itself. It was a ways farther up the mountain, the road hard paved now to provide surety and ease of plowing for the rough mountain winters they sometimes had here. Since the long drive was a dual switchback, that surety came in handy. There were huge stone pillars lining the drive, each topped with a stone-carved gargoyle of grotesquely giant proportions. Some had wingspans stretched to full glory, others grasped at the tops of their column perches in a low crouch, their faces sinister and foreboding.