The girl's eyelids drooped, and she smiled. "Of course you have." She opened the door wider. "Come in."

Lucan stepped inside and smiled down at the girl. "I will care for her now. You should go home and sleep."

"Sleep." The girl yawned. "Yes. Good night." Without protest she walked out and went into the apartment across the hall.

He saw some candles burning here and there, but most of the electric lights had been switched off. Samantha lay curled up on her bed, still dressed in her day clothes, her eyes staring at the ceiling. At the threshold he again hesitated.

"I heard you talking to Chris," she said, not looking at him. "Come in."

"Rafael told me about Detective Quinn." Cautiously he approached the bed and stood at the foot of it. "I am very sorry for your loss, Samantha."

"That's what we always say to the victim's family. Right before we ask them who might have wanted the victim dead." She sat up, looking a little bewildered. "How did you know where I lived?" Before he could reply, she rubbed her eyes. "You've had me investigated. Why?"

"I wanted to learn more about you." That seemed the blandest way of putting it. "I know you're a very private person. I apologize for intruding."

"Don't. I'm flattered." She swung her legs off the bed and tried to stand, but had to grasp the headboard for support. "I'm not doing too well right now, though. Maybe you could hit on me another time."

"Samantha." He went to her, catching her as she tumbled forward, holding her against him. "It wasn't your fault."

"I should have been with him. I'm his partner. Was his partner." She rubbed her hand. "I saw how he died. Brutal, but quick. He didn't suffer long. I suppose that's better than dying slowly in a hospital bed."He had forgotten about her talent. "I wish I could have spared you that." He would find whoever killed Harry Quinn, and he would gut them slowly. That much he could do for her.

She uttered something like a laugh and lifted her hand, exposing the puckered scar across the palm. "You know, you're the only person I can trust now. You know about what I do."

He wanted to protect her, but he was the very thing she despised. All his plans to make her his kyrya seemed slightly obscene now. "You shouldn't trust so easily."

She looked from her hand to him. "Twenty people at the club confirmed your alibi; they saw you there the entire night when Lena was murdered. You weren't the man in the garden with Montgomery. And you were with me when Harry was murdered."

She was going to rip the heart out of his chest. He put her down on the bed and drew his hands away from her. "I will go and bring the blue-haired girl back here."

"I want you." Her hand curled around his velvet-covered fingers, and she moved over, making room for him. "Stay with me."

Lucan fought a silent battle with himself and lost. He pulled off his jacket, slipped his feet from his shoes, and lay down with her.

Her bed was a third the size of his, and barely accommodated his length and bulk. He had never been more uncomfortable in his life, including the years he spent on his knees praying under the stern eye of the Templar master.

Then Samantha was curling up against him, and he forgot everything but putting his arms around her and holding her there.

He would not mouth empty platitudes; surely she had heard enough of those. "What will you do now?"

She thought about it. "Take a few days off. Bury my partner. Try to find a reason to stay on the job. They won't let me investigate Harry's murder because I was his partner, so I'm running low on reasons."

He would not permit her to go on risking her life to serve the police force. The man who had killed her partner could have easily done the same to her. Samantha didn't realize how much she needed his protection. She would also resent any insinuation that she did.

"Perhaps," he said carefully, "there is something else you could do besides police work."

"If I wasn't a cop, I'd be nothing. It's all I have." Her hair tickled his chin as she looked up at him. "You said you could help me find the man who killed Lena. Was that part of the come-on, or did you mean it?"

"Yes." Lucan hadn't considered how much of her self-esteem was involved in her work. He needed to show her what her life would be like with him, to give her a clear choice. But that would have to wait until after she had had proper time to grieve. "We will talk about it in a few days."

"I can't believe I'm in bed with you." Her voice slurred on the last words, and her eyes closed. "It's like a dream."

Lucan pulled the covers up around them. "Then go to sleep, Samantha."

Chapter 15.

"Father, do you know where Brother Patrick is?" Mercer looked up from the chapter in Kings that he was pretending to read.

"Not here, I hope."

"He's disappeared," Ignatius said. "He never came back from town with our supplies yesterday. He never came back at all."

"That's odd." Ignatius's voice was piercing the fog of wine Mercer had so carefully built over the last hour, but the old friar wouldn't go away until he showed some interest. "Did Brother Jacob receive a phone call from him?"

"I already checked, and no, he did not." Ignatius began pacing the floor in front of Mercer's desk. "You gave him cash to buy the supplies, didn't you? That was foolish. He has probably run off with it."

"Of course I gave him cash. John couldn't very well take the checkbook." Mercer wondered if Ignatius devoted all of his waking hours to looking for trouble. "Have you acquired new accommodations for him?"

"Not yet." Ignatius inserted his hands in the ends of his sleeves and assumed what he considered his most dignified posture.

"There is something wrong with Brother Patrick. He shouldn't be here. He asks too many questions about us. I think we should report him to the Lightkeeper."

"I think you should remember who is in charge here," Mercer suggested. "I decide what Rome needs to know."

"Of course, Father." Ignatius's paranoia turned fearful. "Please do not think that I was questioning your judgment. I was only concerned. You have been under so much stress lately." He looked pointedly at the wine bottle on the desk.

Mercer magnanimously ignored that. "Ignatius, I am depending on you to hold things together here when I take the men out tonight to look for the maledicti. Please don't make me think I've made a poor choice."

"You haven't, Father." Now the guestmaster was babbling. "I have devoted myself to our cause, as you well know. Part of our promise to the Lightkeeper is to obey without question. I wouldn't dream of-"

"You needn't be so afraid of me." Mercer smiled. "Even Jesus questioned the Lord once. Go now."

After Ignatius left, Mercer contemplated his night's work. He had been sending the brothers in pairs to search the downtown clubs and report any suspicious activity, but he couldn't keep doing that, not after Rome's latest fax. The order was looking for a former priest named John Patrick Keller, and he was to be taken and detained for interrogators if possible, or terminated if not.

That pushed Mercer over the edge. He took out the bottle from his desk, began drinking, and hadn't stopped since.

That he had deviated from his mission now did not bother him in the slightest, for the order had asked too much of him this time.

He was so close to finishing his work, after which he had planned to retire here at Barbastro and live out the rest of his life in peace. If he was careful, it was possible that he could. Over the years he had occasionally lived the life of a real priest; he longed to do so again. But the order was not willing to release him from their clutches, and no one ever left the order.

Death and destruction, that was all that mattered to them.

Mercer could not wantonly, destroy life; it went against everything he believed in. That was what had driven him to look outside the order, to consult with the priests of other faiths. His lengthy search had revealed one cult that wielded true mystical powers.

The santeros of Lukumi.

Mercer had not believed it the first time he had witnessed the old man practicing his witchcraft, or the second. The third time he tried to dismiss it as hysteria. Then one of the younger brothers had been caught in a minor scandal involving a young Cuban girl, and Mercer had gone to the santero to ask for his intervention. The old man had done better than that. He had made the problem vanish into thin air.Even Mercer couldn't do that.

He picked up the phone and dialed a number in Little Havana, where the santero kept his church. The old man spoke only Spanish, but Mercer knew enough to make himself understood. They agreed upon a meeting time, the price to be negotiated.

Then he called a local cab company and ordered a taxi to pick him up at the front gate within thirty minutes. When asked his destination, he told the dispatcher that he would give the address to the driver upon arrival.

"Whaddya mean, you want to go to Little Havana?" the cab-driver asked when Mercer climbed into the back thirty minutes later and gave him the address. "Do you know how far that is?"

Mercer handed him three twenties. "If the meter runs over that I have more."

"Whatever you say, pal."

The drive to Little Havana took over an hour, but it gave Mercer time to consider his options and to sober up a little more. The cabdriver stopped in front of the little church at the address Mercer had given him.

"You sure you want to get out in this neighborhood, Father?" The cabdriver looked at a posse of Cuban teenagers strolling casually by. All had knives and handguns tucked in the front pockets of their baggy jeans, and examined the cab with negligent interest. "You're gonna end up getting mugged or something."

"I'll be perfectly safe," Mercer assured him as he handed him another twenty. "Would you return for me in an hour, please?"

"Yeah, if you're still alive." The driver was still shaking his head as he drove away.

Mercer walked up the narrow sidewalk to the front of the little church. The hand-painted sign above the door read, CAPILLA DEL SAGRADO CORAZON DE OGUN in small, poorly sized lettering. Dents and rust blooms defaced the cheap tin siding, while an unadorned wooden cross, nailed to the roof peak, cast a skewed shadow with its sagging crossbeam.

Mercer had cast off most of his fears over time, but there was nothing on earth he feared more than walking through this door.

The last time he had, Mercer had sworn he would never do so again. And yet, here he was. Come to beg for help from the helpless.

The stink of cigar smoke and rum greeted him as he stepped inside. To honor Babalu Aye, the Afro-Cuban version of Saint Lazarus, the worshipers here smoked cigars during church services, and drank from open bottles. There were no Bibles, no prayer guides, no canon or formal texts in this religion. The storytelling traditions of their native land combined with the need for secrecy kept them from permanently recording anything about their religion. Everything was passed along by word of mouth alone.

"Hola, Padre Lane," a young, sly voice greeted him. "Mi abuelo is expecting you."

Mercer told himself it was the heat that made him sweat as he moved farther into the church. Everywhere cheap votive and tealight candles flickered; no matter what hour of the day or night they were always left burning. The young grinning Cuban boy sitting by the altar waiting for him had a long, thick Havana cigar in his right hand. He tucked it in the corner of his mouth as he jumped up.

"Abuelo say for me to translate for you this time," the boy told him, and seized his hand with one small, dirty paw. "He say your Spanish suck."

Mercer wanted to laugh at the little church, the cigar-smoking boy, and his wicked, wicked grandfather. He wanted to run outside where the air was clean, where desperate men didn't consort with the unholy. But this man had helped him before, and each time everything he had promised had happened.

Lukumi was not that much different from Catholicism. Certainly it had embraced the practices and rituals of the church. Some said that it had also corrupted them with evil pagan practices born in Africa and brought to Cuba by slaves. Whatever it was, sometimes Mercer thought it might be the only true magic left in the world. It had been born in the cradle of civilization and had been blended with the greatest of the world's faiths. Perhaps that was what made it so powerful. .

The old man was sitting in his usual rocking chair, dressed in a faded Panama Jack T-shirt and frayed boxers. He had a quarter of a bottle of rum in his hand, from which he took a drink before he rose on unsteady legs.

"Padre."

"Santera." Mercer did not touch him, but bowed with respect. "Tell your grandfather that I need to remove a threat to our abbey. Tell him I must do this in secret, as before."

The boy nodded and rattled off a great deal in Spanish. "Mi abuelo call on his orisha," the boy said. "He will ride him and tell you what you to do."

Mercer knew little of the unholy spirits the santero called upon to possess him in his trances. He knew the old man's followers believed that every person was born under the guardianship of a particular orisha, and that several hundred of them ruled over everything in the universe, and beseeched them through prayer and ritual offerings to help them live better and cleanse their spirits. There were colors and numbers and days of the week involved with each one that the followers honored with beaded necklaces and household shrines.

The old man sat back down in his rocking chair and carefully put aside the bottle of rum. He gripped the arms of the chair and began chanting a prayer in monotone Spanish, bracing himself as he did.

The boy brought the rum bottle to his grandfather's mouth, but instead of swallowing the liquor he spit it in four directions on the floor around his chair. His face turned dark red, and he shook all over, as if going into a seizure.

"Orisha comes," the boy whispered.

The old man slumped over, and then slowly straightened. His entire posture and bearing changed, becoming as straight as that of a much younger man. He glared at Mercer and barked out something in a deeper, frightening voice.

"Ask what you want," the boy said.

"There is a man whom I believe will destroy me," Mercer said. "I have to do something to stop him, but I don't know how. It cannot be anything that could be traced back to me, or it will be for nothing."

The santero snickered and asked something.

"Orisha ask if you have heart to do what must be done," the boy translated.

Mercer nodded. "Anything."

The old man took a pouch from the pocket of his shirt and handed it to the boy, along with a string of orders.

"Orisha say you use this. Do not mix with anything. Pour into mouth." The boy handed him the pouch.

Mercer felt his knees quake. "What is it?"

The old man grinned and said in perfect English, "Heart killer."

"I can't do my job if you keep things from me," Phillipe heard Alexandra shout."There are matters involved here that you cannot understand," his master said, sounding as calm as his sygkenis was furious. "I have explained this to you."

"Did you just call me stupid?"

The seneschal reined in a sigh and finished giving orders to Cyprien's personal guards. "Patrol the grounds until dawn. Be alert for any signs of the suzerain's men." Something crashed into a wall and shattered. "Stay away from the master's sygkenis."

"He should beat her," Maren muttered as he checked copper rounds in his pistol and pocketed it. He had been one of the last survivors of a jardin in Burgundy that had fallen to the Brethren during the Revolution.

Kamisor, who had served Cyprien since the holy wars, sighed. "I would lock her in an attic with no one to feed on for two weeks. That would sweeten her wasp's tongue."

"The mistress is a modern woman," Phillipe reminded them. "They expect many things our women did not, such as being regarded as an equal partner and being consulted over matters of importance to their lord."

Maren snorted. "Oh, so she wishes to be a man."

"Bizarre." Kamisor shook his shaggy head.

"She will come around. She always does." Phillipe nodded to them as they left, and then went back to his daily chore of screening the seigneur's e-mails. It was not long before he heard the front door of the beach house slam, hard enough to make the entire edifice shake. A few moments later, Alexandra burst into the kitchen.

"Where are the guns?" she demanded.

Knowing this might take a while, Phillipe shut off the laptop's screen. "Why?"