by A. L. Tyler
Cal raised his drink. “To Axel. May his death bring us together.”
We all raised our wine glasses. “To Axel.”
We drank. Even Nick. Molly Wolffkyn coughed twice, convulsing. She fell from her chair, her blank eyes listing to the ceiling.
Chapter 14
Skyla was screaming as she scrambled over the table with no regard for the beautiful dress she was wearing. “Mom!”
Nick was already bowed over Molly, checking her for a pulse as her breathing stuttered and stopped. He looked up at me, desperation in his eyes. “You know CPR?”
I was on the floor, and Nick was gone. I barely had time to get my hands in position before he was back with an armload of small glass vials.
I pumped Mrs. Wolffkyn’s chest, trying to keep my rhythm steady as Skyla screamed over my shoulder and Nick sorted his collection.
“That’s not going to help,” I said, feeling breathless. “This isn’t magic!”
Nick poured something into her mouth anyway, holding her lips shut as he massaged her neck, trying to force it down her throat. Blood was coming out between his fingers and pooling in the corners of Molly’s staring eyes. Dread wrapped around me like a hungry snake.
“It’s poison,” I whispered. “I’ve seen this. It’s poison. There’s nothing we can do.”
Skyla’s screams turned to sobs of terror. Nick wiped his hand on his pants and held her as she collapsed next to her mother, turning her away.
“It’s in the wine!” Shaina’s voice joined the chaos as she shot up from the table. “Gods—it’s in the wine!”
Rogers was staring at Molly in disbelief and Cal was gripping what little hair he had left on his head with both hands. Amos rushed to Nick and Skyla’s side as Shaina ran, hysterical, from the dining room.
Cal looked at me, frozen in his seat. His voice was a high whisper. “It’s in the wine?”
My mind raced. I remembered the descriptions vividly from my time as a breaker for the Bleak.
“Don’t touch this,” my superior had said. “It can cause instantaneous hemorrhaging. Bleeding from everywhere.”
“What is it?”
Blood was pouring from Molly’s eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Her skin was already turning a bluish-purple. Her eyes were swollen and red.
“Take her to the kitchen,” Nick told Amos. “Stay where I can hear you. Woodrow, go get Shaina.”
Rogers chair made a horrible screech on the wood as he pushed it back too hard and fast getting up from the table. Nick took the dinner jacket that Amos offered him and used it to cover Molly’s face.
“What is it?” Nick asked.
What is it? I couldn’t remember the name, but still, I knew. My brain re-engaged with what was happening.
“It’s not in the wine,” I said with certainty. “I drank the wine. We all drank the wine, and it was from the same bottle. If it was in the wine, we’d all be dead now. We’re okay. It’s not in the wine.”
I took a deep breath as Cal dragged his hands over his face, staring. I stood up, looking at Molly’s place setting as Nick stood as still as death next to me. Molly’s food and silverware were untouched. Was it on the chair? The outside of the wine glass? Something she was wearing? Where did it come from?
“Don’t touch anything,” I said in a steady voice. Cal kept both his hands on his face as he slowly stood up from the table and stepped away. “It’s a volatile mix of rare herbs. It’s not magic. Nick, get me a kit from the exam benches in the big library.”
He didn’t move. He did field work, not desk work.
I closed my eyes, trying to remember what I needed. “Gloves—all three kinds. There will be a bag with a collection of mineral dusts, a stack of envelopes, six bottles of potions, probably in a bag together. Make sure they don’t break, or we’ll have bigger problems.”
He disappeared. I tried to focus, but Skyla was still sobbing in the next room. Cal’s wide eyes stared on as he dared not move his hands from his face. I walked around to the far side of the body, careful to only touch the jacket as I lifted the cover from Molly’s face to examine the toxin’s progress.
“Am I going to die?” Cal asked.
I glanced up at him over the edge of the jacket. Nick returned, setting my supplies next to me.
“Have you done this before?” he asked.
I gave him a long look. My previous experience with this toxin was limited to what I’d seen and heard at my desk, and it was so incredibly hard to make that I’d only encountered it once.
This was fieldwork.
I looked to Cal. “Shower thoroughly with your clothes on before taking them off. You’ll know if you’ve touched it because it will burn your skin on contact. If that happens, you’re going to need something called...” I searched my mind, trying to recall the anti-toxin. “Persevras. Nick, check the library. It’s easy to make. I’m sure you can manage.”
“This is a murder investigation now.”
Well, duh. I turned and looked up at him. He was staring toward the kitchen, where we could still hear Amos trying to calm Skyla.
“This isn’t a shelter in place. Two murder events is an active investigation. There are protocols. I need to question the suspects first.”
That’s deeply ingrained. “Agent Warren, this is my expert opinion. If these people don’t decontaminate immediately, you may not have suspects to question.”
“Gods.” Cal turned away.
Only Nick’s head moved as he turned to face me. The stillness of his trench coat, hanging mere inches from my shoulder, unsettled me. “You’re asking me to remove people from the scene.”
Molly’s face was already contorted beyond recognition. I didn’t have a stopwatch running, but I knew the extent of the flesh damage was severe and it had been less than ten minutes. I lowered the jacket, careful not to make any wind as I did so and hoping the funny feeling in my mouth was just bile coming back up.
“This is a potent mix.” I stood up and stepped back. “We should all move away from the scene until the anti-toxin is on hand. We don’t know how she came in contact and it’s usually dispersed as a dust.”
“It’s airborne?” Nick said. He blinked.
“Can be. I think this is something called bleeding stone—”
“You think?”
I squared my shoulders. “Bleeding stone is a reaction caused by mixing finely ground active obsidian with a variety of nightshade and dead roots of a wyvern’s nest plant. Wyvern’s nest is incredibly rare these days, but it’s not completely inaccessible. Axel has some here. I saw it on the tour. It causes spontaneous hemorrhaging that spreads rapidly, and it is especially deadly if it’s inhaled or ingested. Do you have a better theory?”
Nick’s attention snapped back to the body on the floor. “No. Cal, you’re going with Skyla and Amos to shower and change. Stay in the room together until I come back for you. Ms. Driftwood will take Rogers and Shaina to do the same. I’ll have the anti-toxin on hand when we get back.”
Cal started to walk. I heard Rogers and Shaina returning in the hall, her quick breathing indicating that she was still in the midst of a panic attack.
I paused, clenching and opening my fists. “And Nick, don’t touch—”
“Anything,” he finished for me, nodding as he surveyed the scene. The warm lights of the dining room lit his features as he reached for my hand. He lowered his voice as I felt three small vials cold against my palm. “Take those as a precaution. Don’t tell anyone. Do not shower until I get there. Do not leave Shaina and Rogers alone together. Do not close or lock any doors. I’m going to call your phone, and I want you to leave the line open until we’re back together.”
I wanted to take a deep breath, but I resisted the urge. I looked into Nick’s hazel eyes as his jaw tensed and he let my hand go. I nodded, uncorking all three vials and dumping them into my mouth as Nick watched. The flavors mixed on my tongue, one sharply bitter and another sweet and pungent like rotting fruit.
I swallowed. Nick didn’t look even slightly relieved.
“Two people are lying and killing here. They’re covering for each other, and we don’t know their end game. Be careful.”
I gave him another nod before walking to the hall. My phone rang. I opened the line and left it in my pocket. I wasn’t sure what Nick intended to do in an emergency someone-trying-to-kill-me situation that I couldn’t, but if it helped him to stay calm, then I’d play along.
Shaina was having a full-fledged freakout, complete with shaking, crying, and one hand poised next to her mouth. I carefully laid my hand on hers, pushing it down to her side just in case.
“We’re going to go take some precautions,” I said. The taste of the potions was still on my tongue, and I feared I was going to remember this moment of uncertainty and the look of sheer terror on Shaina’s face every time I smelled an overripe banana. “I know what I’m doing. Everything is going to be okay. We just need to shower and change.”
“It was in the wine.”
I led the way as Rogers steered Shaina down the hall.
“I left the wine to breathe on the counter while I was preparing the dining room,” Shaina went on. “I didn’t leave it that long. I got the napkins from the linen closet and went to the dining room to set out the silverware—”
“It wasn’t in the wine,” I said gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You don’t understand.”
The urgency in her voice made me stop. Her shoulders slumped beneath Rogers’ hands, but the look in her eyes was unwavering. She was sure of what she was saying.
“My mother had the touch,” she said. “She was slightly clairvoyant.”
Rogers rolled his eyes. “Okay. Shay, you’re in shock—”
“Let her speak,” I said. The funny feeling in my mouth was still there. “Why do you think it was in the wine?”
She raised both of her hands, closing her eyes in deep concentration. “I came back after setting the table, and I had this feeling that something was different. I think someone slipped it in the wine while I was out of the room.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” Shaina shook her head. “Ms. Driftwood, there is a murderer in this house.”
I narrowed my eyes. People had a wide range of reactions to tragedy, and my boss at the Fallvale PD had always told me he was suspicious of anyone who wasn’t crying and pissing themselves after seeing something gruesome and unexpected. Being a level-headed introvert, I felt that attitude constituted an unfair bias. Maybe I was a shifty character, but I kept the vast majority of my emotions where no one could ever see them.
Staring down Shaina’s emotional wreckage, I saw what he meant. This was a real, raw reaction to a tragedy, but she hadn’t shed a tear when Axel died.
And now—now—she was worried about a murderer in the house.
“Shaina,” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm. “Did you kill Axel?”
“That is entirely uncalled for!” Rogers shouted. “Ms. Driftwood, we no longer require your help. Excuse me—”
I raised a hand, lighting a fireball as he threatened to push past me. He stopped, pulling Shaina into a hug as he stepped back.
A heavy hand landed on my arm. Rogers glared at Nick.
“Get her under control,” Rogers growled. He and Shaina crept around us before hurrying down the hall.
Nick clutched a glass bottle filled with a thick green mixture in one hand. It looked about like persevras should.
“You think it was Shaina.” His eyes darted in the direction of Shaina and Rogers before returning to me with intensity.
“Did you drink the wine?”
“Yes.” He didn’t look happy. “You’re now theorizing there was a problem with the wine.”
“No.” I frowned. I wasn’t sure anymore if the lingering feeling in my mouth was from the wine, the potions, or the placebo effect. “Did it taste normal to you?”
Nick’s shoulders relaxed. He pulled my cell phone from my pants pocket, letting his hand linger a moment on my hip. He ended the open call before handing it back to me.
“No. It didn’t.”
I pursed my lips, shoving my phone back in my pocket. “I need to get back to the library.”
Chapter 15
The extensive, official library and lab that the Bleak built on Grand Gray-Hayden Island was straight out of a horror movie at night. Lightning flashed in the windows that stretched three floors high. Rain crashed against the domed skylight over the telescope and astrological instruments. Thunder shook the walls as cold fluorescent lights didn’t quite penetrate all the shadows in the corners.
Outside, hulking half-human wolves crouched, waiting. Every time I spied a pair of glowing eyes I had to fight the impulse to look just below at the exposed, grotesque teeth.
Those creatures had already tasted blood.
The library possessed every resource and amenity I could have wanted. There were mineral kits and pre-mixed potions, calibrated tools, spell books and theory articles, and simulators to recreate natural conditions customarily needed to test certain magic. They even had a local, recent copy of the incomplete digital criminal records database the Bleak had recently started compiling.
Everything I needed, except for twenty copies of myself to do the research necessary.
I was second-guessing everything. Shaina’s behavior struck me as odd, but she was now claiming clairvoyant knowledge of someone poisoning the wine. It was possible her panic stemmed from a perceived threat to herself, whereas the attack on Axel had been contained to him alone.
The wine wasn’t poisoned. After sitting with the bottle in front of me for half an hour, listening intently amidst the clamor of all the magic around me, I still couldn’t hear anything tainting it.
Nick insisted that there must be magic at work. There was a spell or curse operating behind our backs, and all we had to do was find it. In the human world, it would have been easy for me to hear it.
In Axel’s mansion, he was asking for the impossible. It was too loud, and it created its own muffled white noise. Absent any magic, I didn’t have the lab equipment I needed to test for anything non-magic that might be in the wine. Bleak breakers didn’t deal with such monotony.
“Marge, how do you test for marijuana?”
“You send it to the lab,” she replied with a yawn. “Do you have a chromatography lab?”
I laid my forehead on the smooth stone counter next to the two cell phones. Nick was sweeping the halls, making sure people stayed in their rooms while we tried to figure out what had happened. We were using confiscated cell phones to keep an open line between him and me while I used my own phone to bounce ideas with Marge.
“No,” I said. I rested my face in my hands. “I don’t have that kind of lab. There’s no back-alley home test for this stuff?”
I heard her clicking away on her keyboard. “Well, if all it took was vinegar and baking soda, we wouldn’t need tests. Why the hell are you worried about marijuana in wine, anyway? That’s not going to kill anyone.”
“It tasted weird and the original dead guy was being doped.”
“Uh huh. And he knew this how?”
I paused, closing my eyes and cringing as I directed my voice to the other phone. “Nick, could you please bring by some of Axel’s home testing kits when you get a chance?”
Marge sighed heavily. “You’re an idiot, Driftwood. You need to sleep. But seriously, what is marijuana going to do? It doesn’t cause the kind of instant ebola you described.”
Nick breezed into the room and I sat up straight. He dropped the test kits on the counter and gave me a quick nod before disappearing to the halls again. It was a large mansion, and I didn’t blame him for his paranoia: our main suspect in Axel’s death had just bit the dust, and everyone else was lacking in motive and opportunity. As unlikely as it seemed, the possibility of an unknown and undetected guest hiding somewhere was increasing.
A fresh bolt of lightning s
hook the windows. I pulled on my gloves and got back to work. The wine was negative for marijuana.
“What did it taste like?”
I tried to think back, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention. I remembered Skyla’s painful screams, Molly convulsing on the floor, and Nick trying to force an antidote down her throat.
“It burned,” I said. “And my tongue felt weird.”
“Burning isn’t a taste,” Marge said. “And alcohol does produce a burning sensation. I know you don’t drink that much. Is it possible you were experiencing the effects of alcohol?”
“No.” I slumped back in my chair. I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know what.
Marge hung on the line, even though it was after midnight, and even though she was exhausted. “Are you okay?”
I closed my eyes, shaking my head. It wasn’t the bodies, and it wasn’t the murderer. Somewhere, Skyla was still waiting for an answer. “Yeah. I’m fine. I just need to sleep.”
But I couldn’t. What had happened to her could never be fixed, and while I feared Molly’s corpse would be the image forever burned in my brain, that wasn’t what I fixated on.
It was the sound of Skyla’s blue dress ripping up the side when she climbed over the long dining room table. Seeing the edge of her dark stockings against her thigh, her glossy red manicured nails against her cheeks, and a thousand-dollar dress ruined forever in a helpless bid to save the woman she’d hated for most of her life. The woman she’d lied for when a body showed up.
That was family. Even when you hated them, you loved them.
I knew what it felt like to have a parent clawed away so viciously. I knew the anger and sorrow she held in her heart, and I knew she would die before letting the culprit slip away.
I would have done the same.
The bottle of wine was still sitting on the table in front of me, its dark silhouette beckoning and seductive, and I wanted to get another. One that was still corked and not poisoned, because my thoughts were with the ghosts of my past.
Samson Grift.