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The Courier
By Melanie Jackson
Dorchester Publishing
Copyright © 2004
Melanie JacksonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-505-52576-3
Chapter One
Lyris Damsel leaned closer to the screen and peered for the
thousandth time at the piece of film that an anonymous source
had somehow dropped into her private, security-screened email.
Everyone believed that the Zapruder tape was the only one that
existed-and therefore was the only one that mattered. But it
looked like they were wrong. A much more detailed film of that
day existed. A much, much more detailed film. It had been shot
by someone-an agent of H.U.G. or perhaps the F.B.I.?-with what
was then an experimental, heat-sensing camera. They also had
the ability to hide their electronic signature. Her geek
friend couldn't back-hack to the source and find out who had
sent it to her. The movie had arrived without any server
information.
With a sigh, she clicked the mouse and ran the digitized film
again. She tried to ignore the auditory hallucination that had
plagued her since she first watched the film, but in the back
of her mind she could still hear the faint ticking a clock-a
stop-watch maybe-that seemed to be winding down toward some
unforeseen disaster related to the Kennedy assassination.
Lyris focused on the screen. There was a lot of traffic
outside of Love Field, but that was only to be expected when a
president came to town. They hadn't been careful about
crowd-control back then.
John Kennedy was in the second car of the motorcade with his
wife Jackie, and John and Nelly Connally. The heat signatures
said that the driver was a goblin.
The film cut to a quick shot from a freeway overpass that
showed the motorcade passing beneath it, and then switched to
the limousine as it turned onto Elm off of Houston Street,
where the two very famous explosions changed history. The film
showed clearly that the first bullet hit the president in the
shoulder. The second blew part of his head off. It was all
just as the Zapruder tape suggested-except for one thing. That
famous bit of standard film couldn't show that at least twenty
goblins were standing in the crowd on Elm Street, watching
intently as the president was assassinated. Goblins in
daylight? But how? This was pre-sunscreen. Even with hats and
sunglasses they would have been in agony.
The tape abruptly cut from the shooting of JFK to the day that
Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald. The heat signatures were
interesting on that film too. Ruby and Oswald were both
showing goblin green. And there was another green aura in that
crowd as well-haloing the same lean face that was also in the
throng that was lining Elm Street. It was-she was certain-the
infamous but seldom photographed Robert Schiem, retired silent
film actor and now right-hand man to King Quede of New
Orleans.
The film cut a third time. She was now looking at a series of
close-ups of Lyndon Johnson. In one clip taken from the
campaign, his heat signature was the standard human blaze of
orange. In another, taken after the assassination, he had
turned a dark glowing green.
Lyris sat back.
The implication was clear. If this tape wasn't a hoax then LBJ
had been replaced some time in the sixties. And that meant
that everyone had it all wrong. It wasn't Hoover or the mafia
who had taken out the president; it was the goblins.
And that raised all kinds of questions, like whether young
Caitlin St. Barth who had made many of the suspicious travel
arrangements was also involved, or yet another goblin victim.
Unfortunately, there was no film of her.
Lyris looked at her watch with bleary eyes. Two o'clock
on-Saturday, right? It had to be the weekend. She could here
children outside. She should be out barbecuing or washing her
car or shopping-whatever the hell it was people did on a fine
fall weekend. Instead she was locked up in this dark bedroom,
rehashing events from four decades ago surrounded by an army
of file cabinets and yellowing books with the shades down and
the burglar alarm turned on.
She glanced at the drawn shades and wondered briefly if she
was finally turning paranoid as well as obsessive. Paranoia
and suspicion were fine, if you domesticated them, used them
as tools to help keep you secure from danger. But experience
had taught her that it was not safe to be sharing brain space
with something insidious that could turn feral and overwhelm
reason. Reason was her life-jacket, her god. She couldn't
afford to have her judgment impaired.
There was also the fact that thinking you were paranoid could
make you paranoid.
"Damn. I can't worry about paranoia right now," she muttered
and went back to thinking about her theory, testing it,
tweaking it-realizing that she wasn't doing anything useful,
that she was stuck in an infinite loop, like a computer
program with a logic error. She had a great hypothesis, tons
of circumstantial evidence-enough for a crackpot conspiracy of
the week TV special probably. But that wasn't enough. She had
to break the logic glitch. She needed something concrete she
could take to her former editor-Doug needed to see that she
wasn't off her rocker-and maybe the police. She needed some
building blocks she could construct her case out of that were
more solid than this supposition ... and she wasn't going to
get an exhumation order-over the protests of LBJ's heirs-to
exhume his remains and test them for goblin DNA.
Tick-tick-tick.
That left proving the other end of her theory. Everyone agreed
that King Quede of New Orleans had to be a goblin. After all,
whatever he looked like these days-and though there were no
photos, the rumors of his beauty were rampant-he was still the
goblin king. She needed to prove that he was also a vampire.
The theory sounded far-fetched when said aloud, but it worked
so well with evidence she had collected.
Quede came from a long line of powerful goblins, but his
longevity had surpassed by a century any of his ancestors,
even Gofimbel, the founder of his line who had been known for
drinking the dragon blood that was a sort of goblin fountain
of youth. Quede also seemed to possess a certain
gravitas-seriousness and focus-that was very ungoblin like.
Most of the green men had no self-discipline and relied on
brute strength or sneakiness to take them to the top. But the
4-1-1 among those few who were willing to talk about the
goblin king was that he was prepared to be ruthless about
business, but only when necessary. He didn't glory in
bloodshed the way some of the other goblin kings and queens
had. His games were more mental. He liked psychological
torture. And so expert was he at it that he didn't need troll
enforcers to police his city. Nor had he gated New Orleans the
way other goblin warlords had. The lack of walls around New
Orleans was a tremendous show of power. Or arrogance. Probably
both. That was definitely more of vampire than a goblin
trait-rule through terror.
It was also said that he used some super kind of mind-control
to direct his empire. The kind of mind-control that could
order goblins-lots of them-out into the sun at eleven a.m. on
a sunny day; the kind that would make one of them remain
passive and silent even during arrest and questioning about a
presidential assassination when he surely knew that he was
going to die. The only creature she had ever heard of that
could do something like that was a master vampire ... It fit,
dammit! She was ninety-nine percent sure that she was right.
Quede had to be a blood-sucker. Everyone said that the
vampires were dead-wiped out like the pure-blood feys at the
time of the Great Drought. But maybe they were wrong. Fey
cross-breeds had survived-why not vampire crosses?
Lyris pushed back from the desk and began to pace the small
space near the smaller table. A sense of urgency was growing
in her, filling up her head with constant ticking.
So what next? Should she actually go to New Orleans? It made
sense. That was where Kennedy's aid, Caitlin St. Barth had
disappeared after she began dating King Quede. Maybe there was
something else to be learned from this angle even after all
these years. No one else had ever really examined this
situation, and she had certain skills-gifts-that she could use
to determine the truth.
Also, since Quede didn't travel, it was plain that she would
have to take the mountain to Mohammad if she wanted to see
him-and she thought she did, at least from a distance. How bad
could it be? She only needed to see him for a moment and then
she'd know. That was her gift, the ability to see someone and
know them, see what they truly were. One glimpse and she'd
have her answers. Probably. She'd never met a vampire before,
but she was fairly certain her power would work ...
The question was how to approach him. Feys weren't welcome in
New Orleans. And one didn't exactly telephone for an
appointment with the king of goblins. She'd need to get into
the city, attract his attention and bring him to her some
place public. Quede was known to have two interests; exotic
women and even more exotic orchids. Fortunately, she knew all
about being one and could learn about the other if she had to.
It wouldn't be easy though-or safe. She needed to interest him
enough to get a meeting, but not to arouse his ire. Or lust.
Or betray the fact that she was part sylph. There were some
truly nasty stories about his treatment of unwilling-and even
willing-lovers. Especially among the fey. According to one of
the few faeries who had escaped to talk about him-once, and
she died shortly thereafter-there wasn't a black deep enough
to dye him in.
Lyris caught a glimpse of her reflection in the in the
monitor; a triangular face, raptor-like eyes the green of
polar ice, a lean body. And then there was her back-though the
fused wings didn't show when she had clothes on. Of course,
all she needed was a backless dress and then she'd have all
the attention she wanted and then some. Oh yes, she was plenty
exotic.
Unhappy with that thought, Lyris spun away from her reflection
and resumed pacing, trying to outrun the frantic ticking in
her head.
Damn. It blew the mind. The goblins had killed Kennedy! This
was important. It would change history. But if she pursued it,
would this be the story of her lifetime? Or the end of it?
"Paranoia," she muttered. But was it?
At first, her successful investigation had seemed the result
of a string of happy coincidences rather than a sequence of
orchestrated events and discoveries. If anyone asked her, she
would have said that if anything had been guiding her, it had
been Fate. But she was taking another look now, and it didn't
seem to be Fate's fingerprints that were all over her
investigation. Someone clearly wanted her to find out about
Quede-now. And that someone preferred to remain in the
shadows, a puppet-master. That just smacked of potential bad
news.
What should she do? Take Fate's-or someone else's-dangerous
dare? Or just forget the whole thing? She could do that,
couldn't she? Just let this cup pass her by. There was no law
that said she had to put herself in danger, no higher power
that she had to answer to if she chose to let this sleeping
bloodsucker lie. So what if she had chased this story for
years? Maybe it was time to let it go, to stop brooding and
start barbecuing.
Lyris looked back at her computer. The screen glowed an eerie
green, accusing her, taunting her ... tick-tick-tick.
No-damn, damn, damn! She couldn't let it go. At times there
was nothing to do except take the next step. And if you
survived that one, then you got to take another. As the saying
went: sometimes the only way out was through. She was going to
New Orleans.
But she wasn't dumb. She'd arrange for some insurance first.
Time to call on the man with the answers and the useful
friends in even more useful places. After all, this film was
likely his challenge to her.
Lyris picked up the phone and punched in an unlisted number
for the answering service of the mercenary goblin-hunter, Jack
Frost.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Courier
by Melanie Jackson
Copyright © 2004 by Melanie Jackson .
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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