by Faith Hunter
Right. That made sense. And Bruiser had not told me that because I was supposed to draw my own conclusions. Basic police work. Everybody observe, then everybody share. Conclusions were more likely to be correct with that formula than if one person told all the others, which would slant everything. I understood it, but it ticked me off.
“Whatever we think we know about the night Joses went missing,” I said, staring at the crystal, “is wrong.”
Eli agreed with a slight nod. Though his words were unspoken, I could hear him thinking about the crystal, his thoughts probably paralleling my own. He said, “No mention of a dead fanghead.”
Pinkie cleared her throat warningly, but Eli didn’t retract his fanghead insult with the more polite Mithran. He squatted onto the balls of his feet and gestured to the vamp. “Something in her fingers, hidden by her dress, and”—he bent in closer—“she’s wearing a glove on this hand.”
I moved to his side as he pulled a thin-bladed knife, leaned forward, and pressed the flat of the blade against the striped dress fabric. Rather than moving, the skirt of the dress crumbled with a dry shushing sound and fell into dust on the chewed glove beneath, exposing what she had held.
The female vamp had been holding a silver stake in her gloved right hand. The tip was corroded, as if vamp blood had been on it.
“Huh,” I said.
“Who was here that night? Could you tell?” Eli asked. Meaning could I smell them.
“This much blood and this many years makes it hard to smell anything,” I said, telling the truth and yet not answering the question.
Pinkie looked at me curiously. It was obvious that she hadn’t heard the whole “Jane turned into a mountain lion in Leo’s car” story that was still making the vamp rounds.
“Would you excuse us?” I asked her. Pinkie’s pink brows went up, making her forehead do that wrinkly thing again, but she nodded and walked away. When I heard her patent leather shoes tapping on the stairs I said quietly, “I remember seeing a painting at vamp HQ on sub-four. Adrianna and a blond vamp, arms around each other. They looked chummy. I’ve never seen the blonde alive except in the painting, so this could be her. Maybe.”
“Chummy in a culturally appropriate way for the time, or in an ‘into her panties’ kind of way?” Eli asked. “Because if they were lovers and she died here . . .”
That was a really good question and a better observation. “If they were lovers, then we have motive for a lot of things.” More softly, I said, “And if the broken crystal means what I think it does, then we have a lot more interesting things going on than we anticipated.”
“I’ll take a photo shoot on sub-four,” Eli said. “Been meaning to get photos of all the paintings down there before they get moved to Leo’s new place. Scents?” he reminded me.
“I should have changed into a bloodhound before we opened the door, and it’s too late now. The scents are so faint that it’s going to be impossible to tell which people were here before the death, during the death, or after the death. I smell Joses—Joseph—though not with the sick smell he had hanging on the wall in sub-five. Here he smelled the way he did in the kill bar; the walls here are permeated with his scent, meaning that he stayed here for a long time. I smell Adrianna and the dead vamp. I smell Leo and Bethany and Sabina and another male vamp who could be Amaury, and maybe an arcenciel.” I frowned, not knowing how to deal with the other scent I had picked up, except that it couldn’t be kept a secret. “Most importantly, I smell Immanuel.”
“The thing masquerading as Leo’s son?” Eli looked around the room as if the creature I had killed might be hiding in a shadow.
“The u’tlun’ta,” I said. “Liver-eater. Spear-finger.”
“The insane skinwalker,” Eli said, gently, shifting his eyes up to me from where he crouched on the floor.
I couldn’t make myself look at him, but I nodded. “The thing I’ll turn into someday, when I’m old and go insane and start eating people.”
“You don’t know that. What we do know is that Immanuel spent decades trying to find ways to greater power and ways to control the psychosis that was eating away at his mind,” Eli said. “Not your mind. His.”
I nodded, knowing Eli was right, but not knowing how his thinking would relate to my possible future. As far as I had been able to determine, skinwalkers all went nutso and started eating humans.
“So,” Eli went on, “if we look at this crime scene in light of that need—the need to hold on to his sanity—why was he here? What did he hope to accomplish?”
I shrugged. I had killed Immanuel, the only other skinwalker I had met in modern times. The insanity of the psychotic killing machine had been a vision into my own future unless I died first, which seemed a much better alternative than eating my friends.
“Jane!” Eli said, his voice harsh, cracking like a whip. I snapped my head to him. “Do your job.”
I blinked and took a breath. Smelling the stink and the age and the puzzle before us. “Yeah.” I blew out the breath. “Thanks. If we look at Immanuel’s modus operandi, he took power by drinking down lots of humans, and vamps with more power than he had. So maybe he and Adrianna and our headless Barbie here busted in and tried to drink Joses down. Maybe they wanted to kill him. Maybe they let him drink from them. Only problem is that Leo said Adrianna was with him the night Joses disappeared. Did she do Leo and then come here? To barter with Joseph? More blood and sex for the favor Leo refused her?”
“No damage to the door,” Eli said, his eyes scouting the room again, “so she didn’t break in.” He stood and stepped to the tea trolley. “Three cups, but four saucers. No, wait.” He leaned into the wall and said, “Four. One on the floor, broken. Santana was expecting company. He welcomed them in, brought them upstairs where it was private, got room service or a servant to send up tea. It started out proper and polite.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can see that. So maybe they were going to have tea and crumpets, or a business meeting, or a group blood and sex orgy, and things got out of hand.”
“Or maybe they were going to let him feed off them in return for a sip of his blood. It’s powerful enough for Leo to hold him prisoner for over a century so he could drink it. It had to pack an even bigger punch when Joseph was sane and well fed with the blood of other vamps.”
“Or maybe they planned to trick Santana and just steal his blood. Some kind of power play.” It was the sort of thing vamps did. I’d seen Leo after one such gang blood attack when he’d been nearly drained dry. It hadn’t been pretty.
Eli walked around the room, taking care where he placed his feet. He opened the armoire, pulling on the small knob and then inserting his other hand in the bowed top of the door and yanking. The wood squealed and the door popped open with a splintering crack. Inside were piles of clothes that had rotted off the hangers and more evidence of mice. A small travel bag was on the bottom and Eli opened it, shook his head, and left it open. “Empty.” He continued his survey. In a bottom armoire drawer, he found a second leather satchel, much like Bruiser’s in style, meant to hold papers, but constructed of soft leather. Its mouth was open, and it was full of paper scraps, an ancient mouse nest. If the papers had once been important, they were now ruined, chewed and stained with mouse droppings and body fluids. With enough time, maybe an antiques specialist could restore the papers, but time wasn’t something we had. Which left Leo’s search at HQ.
If I hadn’t been mentally wacko the last time I saw him, I could have beaten the truth out of Leo about Adrianna and about what happened the night that Santana had been taken prisoner. I made a mental note to carry brass knuckles next time I saw the MOC.
Eli said, “They might not have planned anything other than a meet and greet. We have no evidence to go on. But we do know that something went wrong.”
“Like maybe Joseph Santana tasted Immanuel,” I said, “and recognized that he wasn’t just a fanghead, but an u’tlun’ta in fanghead skin. And that was when the poop hit the prop.�
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Eli nodded, considering, agreeing. “Could be. Could not be too. There was a short, fast fight. Not enough to break the furniture.” He turned his head toward the room door and I heard a phone ring, an actual ring on a landline, and then Pinkie’s voice answering, her tone professionally pleasant.
Eli said, “Headless Barbie tried to stake someone, let’s say Santana. And let’s say he was wearing the arcenciel crystal. The crystal broke, and the arcenciel bit . . . someone.”
If captured and imprisoned in quartz crystal, arcenciels could give their master control over time, much like I had over time when I was in the Gray Between—if I was willing to suffer the illness that followed. The one who captured an arcenciel didn’t have to worry about being sick after. Just about being bitten and poisoned if the creature got free.
“Some ones, maybe. And then, after the arcenciel got free, one of the others beheaded her.”
Eli nodded. “Maybe in retaliation for breaking the crystal.”
I bent over the decapitated head to get a look at the damage to her vertebrae near her skull, then at her shoulders. “Whoever took her head was no novice. It’s hard to take a head, and this was done with a single strike. Long sword, most likely, not a short sword, vamp-killer, ax, or hatchet.”
Eli moved to where he thought the beheader had stood and mimed a sword strike at the likely location of the Barbie’s head, when it was on her shoulders and not on the floor, when she was alive—undead, whatever—and standing. “Not much room,” he said. “Unless . . .” He moved to the foot of the bed and examined the bedpost. “Sword strike continued upward and embedded the blade here. Discoloration in the nick. Blood probably. The wood is slivered, indicating that it took some effort to get the weapon free.” Eli turned his attention to the blood spatter on the wall, which clearly marked where the swordsman had been standing. “We’re assuming the sword’s master was Santana, but that’s an assumption neither backed up by, nor refuted by, the evidence.”
I thought about my sword lessons. “He wouldn’t have had only one weapon. A short sword to back up the long sword, probably, considering the close quarters. When one blade stuck after the beheading, he’d have used another and pulled the sword free later. If he lived. If not, then someone else did. You’re right. Assumptions at this point are stupid.”
“We work with what we’ve got,” Eli said, ever the pragmatist. “So the crystal holding the arcenciel got broken, Santana was bitten, making him have both arcenciel poison and . . .” Eli looked around the room, thinking, evaluating. “. . . and maybe skinwalker blood in his body at the same time, though that too is an assumption.”
“U’tlun’ta, not just skinwalker, blood,” I clarified. Because I could never forget what awaited me at some point in my future. “It makes more and more sense that Joseph was bitten by the arcenciel, because he was captured shortly after whatever took place in this room,” I said.
“We know Leo’s predecessor ordered that Joseph be taken prisoner, but it might not have been here,” Eli countered. “Leo might have tracked Joses from here, found him elsewhere when the SoD was injured and weak from an arcenciel bite and from drinking liver-eater blood. In which case Leo or Amaury could have taken him from anywhere.”
“Right.” I toed the rotten rug, which shredded beneath my faint kick. “We know that Leo drank from Santana for decades. He also drank from someone who had been bitten by an arcenciel at some point because when he was bitten not so long ago, he recuperated quickly,” I said, “an immune response that may have saved his life. We know it wasn’t Immanuel, because if he’d tasted Immanuel’s blood, he’d have recognized the taste of my blood as being the same species. So we might be able to draw the conclusion from this broken crystal that Santana was bitten by the arcenciel”—I held up a second finger—“and that the poison made him crazy enough to be taken captive. That still leaves us with lots of questions and not enough answers.”
“What we do know is that the next morning, when this room was discovered, Joses—correction, Joseph—had been disappeared. At some point after that, the room was sealed; at some point Joseph was turned over to Amaury or Leo; at some point Bethany tasted Santana’s blood; and at some point the SoD was hung on the sub-five dungeon wall at fanghead HQ. At which point he was a raving maniac.”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t enough. I didn’t know enough. As usual. “We need to ask someone what happened that night. And try to get a straight answer.”
“Good luck with that. Adrianna, Joseph, and Leo are the only ones still alive to question,” Eli said, amused. “One has scrambled brains, one is drinking people to death, and the other has never been overly forthcoming with the truth.”
I thought about the brass knuckles and beating the truth from Leo. Reluctantly, I said, “There’s Bethany.”
“Ditto on the loony tunes,” Eli said.
“I wonder where Leo got the painting of Adrianna and Barbie. It was with stuff that came from his clan home when it burned, but I never saw it until it was on sub-four. Bruiser said Leo was searching for things pertaining to Santana, so I have to wonder how many other things and bits of evidence there are.”
“Diaries?” Eli asked. “Dear Diary, Today I intend to stake the Son of Darkness. Then a sleepover with my bestie, Adrianna.”
“Okay. Ha-ha. But what about newspapers? Gossip columns were big in the day.”
Eli’s mouth turned down and he nodded as he considered that. “Alex can check through archived newspapers. I’ll look on sub-four and search the room Adrianna used at HQ.” He frowned. “It’s on sub-four too.”
“Nothing vamps do is coincidence. I’ll talk to Leo.” With or without brass knucks and the use of physical violence. “He was here. I need to know more about what he saw.” I started out of the room.
Eli looked at the damaged bedpost. “Sometime soon, we need to get in some more sword practice. We may need it.”
“Until further notice, we carry multiple silver crosses and silver ammo.”
“I’ll get some holy water from a priest I know,” Eli said, “because I doubt we’ll be welcomed back to The Church anytime soon.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets and frowned at that thought. I had liked the small church and the earnest preacher. “Let’s get out of here and get Pinkie to reseal the door. We may need back in later. Or not. But until we’re done with the room, Leo needs to leave the dead vamp.” I yawned, all the energy I had been expending suddenly gone. “And I need a nap.”
“This one alone, so you actually get some sleep?”
“Shut up,” I said, too tired to blush.
We said our good-byes to Pinkie, gave her instructions about the room, and made it to the vehicle. Eli turned on the radio to a local channel to hear that there was a crowd gathering outside of vamp HQ, demonstrating about the Fifty-two Killer. Swell. They had named him. That was never a good sign. I fell asleep on the way home, and when we arrived, Eli sent me to bed like a little girl. I was so tired I didn’t argue.
CHAPTER 12
So Many Things I Couldn’t Say Aloud
What felt like only minutes later and long before dark, I heard a knock on the front door. Pulling a pillow over my head, I tried to ignore it, until I heard a soft meow. In one flowing, fast move, I shoved back the covers, rolled to my feet, grabbed up the robe hanging over the bathroom door, shoved in my arms, and yanked open the bedroom door. Molly stood on the other side, the foyer lights tinting her red hair, a small cat in her arms. Her scent filled my nostrils—fresh-baked bread, herbs, soil, and cat. Heedless of the claws, I threw my arms around my best friend and her familiar.
Neither one responded instantly, but a heartbeat later, I heard a thump, felt the vibration of something heavy hitting the floor. Suitcase, I thought. And one of Molly’s arms came around me. The gesture was hesitant, then grew more firm as she pulled me closer. The cat between us started purring.
The hesitation in my best friend had been odd. But so was the feel of her in my arms
. I realized that I had never hugged Molly. Not spontaneously. Maybe not at all, ever. I wasn’t a hugger. Which was really stupid. I should be able to give my best friend in the world a hug. And then I thought that maybe Molly was afraid to hug people now, what with her magic being so wonky. And so maybe this hug was good for both of us in ways I couldn’t even speculate on. “I missed you,” I said.
Molly said, “I missed you too.”
I wasn’t sure how one backed away from a friendly hug. That wasn’t covered in ballroom dance class. So I patted her shoulders with both hands as a warning that I was getting ready to move, and stepped back, freeing her. The calico cat—who was still tiny but was probably nearly full grown by now—jumped out of Molly’s arm and onto my shoulder. Her claws sank lightly into my flesh, which made me hiss in discomfort, and she clung close as she stuck her nose into my ear, still purring. Molly, one hand still gripping my right arm, smiled happily up at me.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “So, so, so glad.”
The light in Molly’s eyes dimmed, and she lowered her gaze from my face to her hand on my arm. “Something happened to you.” She released me and stepped back, looking me over. “Your aura is all wrong. What happened?”
“I was going to tell you earlier, but you were trying to catch your flight.”
“Jane was hit with a spell from a very old vamp who started life as a witch, Molly,” Eli called from the kitchen. “It messed up her skinwalker magics. Why don’t you freshen up? I’ll toss some steaks on the grill and put a salad together. Then we can debr—visit.”
I smiled at Eli’s change in vocabulary from military to civilian-friendly. And kept my eyes on Molly. She looked great.
“Your room is waiting for you, Miz Molly,” Alex said. “Clean sheets, fresh towels in the bath, and the cleaning service even dusted the ceiling fan.” To me he added, “They’ll be back tomorrow to clean your room. They got the rest of the house while you snored.” He picked up Molly’s bag, which she had dropped when we hugged, and carried it upstairs.