“What marriage?” she says. “One you saw in a vision? Who would believe that?”
“We both know it is real. You admitted it.”
“It’ll be a bit difficult for you to get hold of a wedding certificate from a secret marriage ceremony that may or may not have taken place in Otherworld so many long years ago.”
“Agent Storm is very good at finding things. He has so many contacts.” I have no idea if this is true but the little voice sounds sure of it.
Beatrice scoffs. “Even if he could prove it, I married a brute. He was a terrible man. It was all I could do to escape from him with my life. You said it yourself. And of course I hid the marriage. I was so ashamed of him and what he did. It would have ruined my new life and my new business. People will understand.”
“You’ve been so clever,” says the little voice.
She takes another step towards me. “You’ve been suspicious of me from the start. How did you really know it was me? I have to know.”
“Because you did love him,” the little voice says. “Grictor. I’ve been wondering about that. Such an ugly name for a woman like you to choose for herself. I had to ask myself why. And then I saw the nameplate on your office. Beatrice Ann Grictor. Ann Grictor. An anagram for Carrington.
An anagram! So that’s what’s been bothering me, tickling the edges of my mind but never quite revealing itself. I cannot believe the little voice kept it to herself.
“Even while separated,” the little voice says, “You couldn’t bear to not keep his last name. You still love him. You’ve been part of his life all along, haven’t you?”
Beatrice gives a little laugh. “Very clever.”
“Did he tell you to come to London to get cozy with the ambassador?” the little voice asks. “All so you could start trafficking water sprites? You must have been really sneaky to pull the wool over Raif’s eyes.”
“What do you care about Raif?” she scoffs. “You’re angry about the note I sent threatening Constantine Storm’s life, aren’t you? How did you feel knowing you might have lost the man you love? The way I felt when you took my husband from me. You. You’re the reason my husband is dead!”
She smiles suddenly. “And now here you are. In my power.” She raises her hand, and I see what I didn’t see before. There is a gun in it. She points it at me.
The little voice does not even flinch. She does not seem shocked. “So you admit it?” she says. “You killed Raif Silverstone? And you used Lynesse Jones as a trick to confuse investigators?”
“And they fell for it,” she spits out. “But you just had to stick your nose in. Yes, I killed Raif. He stole from me. My husband was dead. My life was over, and he stole from me. I couldn’t go to the police. They would discover the extent of my involvement in my husband’s business. That bastard thought I was weak. He dared to steal from me. Who did he think he was?”
“And what about Lynesse?” the little voice asks. “I’ve been wondering why she never fought back. She saw you coming. She was a succubus. She could have fought back.”
“Don’t be so naive. You really aren’t a succubus. Feeding on energy is like eating meat. Just because you can eat it doesn’t mean you will devour a person who is attacking you. Only a psychopath would do that, and Lynesse was not a psychopath. Or perhaps she was just afraid of me, like she had been of my husband. Of his power over her.”
The little voice nods my head. “It’s good that you admitted it.”
Beatrice laughs. “And what are you going to do with it? No one will believe you, Diana Bellona, disturbed psychiatric patient, grieving from the murder of her family. You’re mad. You’ve gone off your trolley.”
“Nemesis,” says the little voice.
“What?”
“It’s Nemesis. Not Diana.”
What are you doing? I whisper.
She ignores me. “Say you’re sorry,” she says to Beatrice. “And I might go easy on you.”
Beatrice laughs. “Go easy on me? You really think that you’re going to get Constantine Storm to arrest me? There is no evidence, you fool. All you have is an anagram. It means nothing.”
“I don’t need any evidence,” says the little voice calmly. “I just wanted to be sure it was you. And now I am.”
I feel a chill. She’s called herself Nemesis. She has given herself a name, as if she is a separate entity. As if she isn’t me.
And then her arm whips out faster than I thought was possible. The edge of her hand strikes Beatrice’s arm sharply. Beatrice cries out and drops the gun, which skitters across the room.
Beatrice screeches, reaching for it. She has no chance. The little voice grabs her head and bashes it into the edge of the desk with such brute force that I’m surprised it doesn’t kill Beatrice instantly. Beatrice drops onto all fours, groaning. The little voice delivers a flying kick in her solar plexus that lifts Beatrice bodily from the ground.
What are you doing? I ask in panic. Stop it! You have her confession. Now Storm will be able to gather the evidence he needs.
“No need,” says the little voice in that calm cold manner. “I told you that I prefer vengeance to justice.”
She is methodically whacking Beatrice’s head into the floor, while Beatrice’s legs kick weakly, trying to get away. The worst part is that she is enjoying it. I can feel her satisfaction spreading through me. It feels like nourishment. Like she needs it.
I surge forward inside my head. I should have taken over well before now. Nothing happens. It is like I hit a wall. I try again, surging, trying to occupy my own head, my own limbs, my torso. My body, God dammit. My body. Except it isn’t my body. It is hers. She is wearing it effortlessly, and she doesn’t even notice my attempts to take control.
Beatrice is lying on the floor moaning. Nemesis walks my body over to where my satchel is lying on the floor. She opens it. She takes out something that looks like a small torch. It is a stunbommer. I have no idea where she got it. I’ve not seen it before. And yet there it is, coming out of my satchel.
Nemesis takes it over to Beatrice. She lowers herself onto her knees over Beatrice’s body, straddling her. She shoves the end of the stunbommer into Beatrice’s mouth. She yanks Beatrice’s hair until Beatrice opens her eyes.
“Do you know what this is?” Nemesis says. She is smiling.
Beatrice strains to see. When her eyes catch a glimpse of the stunbommer she whimpers.
“Do you know what happens when you ignite a stunbommer in someone’s mouth?” says Nemesis. “I saw it once. It’s rather remarkable really.”
Beatrice is weeping, and shaking her head frantically.
She is going to do it. Nemesis is really going to do it. Stop it! Stop it! I shout. And then I scream inside her head. She flinches.
I scream again, louder, and I surge with all of my might, gathering myself like a tidal wave and rushing, reaching for my own hand. And for the briefest moment I have control of it. My hand. I can feel it closing more tightly around the stunbommer. And I lift it, while Nemesis fights me for control. I force my hand away from Beatrice’s mouth. I force it to point the stunbommer at the mirror. I point it at my reflection.
“No!” Nemesis snarls.
But it is too late. I have pressed the button. The magic ignites. I pray that it will do what it is supposed to. The stunbomm flies towards the mirror, and does what it is designed to do when it meets a mirror. It reflects back, coming directly at me and hitting me in the chest.
It hurts like it has pummeled each of the cells in my body individually. I cannot move or feel. I can barely think. When I regain my senses I do not know how much time has passed. My ears are ringing. But I am back in my body. I am back in control.
I feel sluggish. Slow. My body reluctant to move. Stunned. This is what a stunbomm does. I can feel Beatrice moving beneath me. Weakly, but she is moving. Her hand reaches for mine. For my slack fingers. And she eases the stunbommer out of it.
I cry out a sluggish wail of panic. I slap her wi
th my other hand, clumsily, but enough to make her squeal when I hit her injured head.
I stagger heavily to my feet. I run lumbering out of the door, half falling down the stairs. I can hear her getting up. I can hear her fetching something in the room. The gun. She is going for her gun. I can hear her at the top of the stairs. She doesn’t run down. She’s pointing the gun at me. There is a bang as she fires.
The bullet flies past my shoulder, ripping a line of fire into my flesh. I stumble down the last few stairs. And now she’s coming after me. Closer. And she is aiming again. Aiming to kill.
And ahead of me the front door is opening. I run towards it. Storm is standing in the doorway. Storm is here. I scream a warning at him. I throw myself down on the ground. His hand rises almost in a blurry arc. He fires his stunbommer. I feel the force of the magic fly over my back. I hear Beatrice hit the ground with a solid thunk.
Panting, I hoist myself up into a sitting position. I smile weakly at him. “You took your time,” I say.
Chapter 25
DIANA
On Thursday morning I awake tired but happier than I have felt in a really long time. My head feels light with sleeplessness, given that I was up half the night, too full of nervous energy to rest. My shoulder hurts where the hospital has patched up my wound, but I don’t care.
Storm had been eerily calm as he dealt with the fallout yesterday, and I am worried about how he feels now about what I did despite all of his warning about the danger. Despite all that, I have woken in a joyful mood.
I take a shower, change the dressing on my shoulder, then pick up AngelBeastie and take her for a little dance around my room, at which she yowls in disgust and leaps from my hands the second I’m finished clutching her. Laughing, I ruffle the thick fur on her head.
“The worst days are behind us Beastie. Things are going to be better from now on. You believe me.”
Beastie munchies her dry kibbles and looks unimpressed. Her grumpy little face seems to say that she’ll believe it when she gets that juicy salmon that I promised.
“I’ll come home with it,” I tell her. “You’ll see. But I might be late. I have a busy day today.”
My first stop is a supermarket in search of a cherry. My second is Beatrice Grictor’s house. I need to catch her secretary before the young woman disappears. Like I had hoped, when I arrive she is there. She is apologetic as she answers the door, saying that Beatrice will not be available for any appointments for a while.
“I didn’t come to see her,” I say. “I came to see you.”
“I’m nearly ready to leave,” she says guardedly. She continues packing her box of belongings on her desk. She picks up a name plate that says ‘Jane Mustow’ on it and drops it into the box.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I tell her.
She stiffens. She turns to look at me. Fear is etched onto her fine features. Features that I had never bothered to look at before. She doesn’t look much like the photograph that had been on Raif’s desk. She is wearing a glamour. She takes a step back from me, looking like she is going to flee.
“No,” I say quickly. “I’m not here to harm you. I’m here to give you this. Raif wanted you to have it.” I hold out my hand, showing her the silver key that Raif paid for with his life.
She looks at it in disbelief. Her breath comes out in little gasps. She reaches for it with trembling fingers as if she dares not believe it is true, but she doesn’t touch it. Tears are pouring down her cheeks. Her other hand goes to the silken scarf that is wrapped tightly around her throat and pulls it away, revealing that awful collar that I had once thought looked like a pretty tribal ornament. I flinch when I see it.
It is my flinch that finally persuades her that this is not a trick. Her fingers close over the silver disc in my palm. She clenches it tightly in her fist, and closes her eyes, scrunching them shut as if praying hard. I watch in fascination as the collar around her throat simply disappears into thin air. When she opens her clenched fist the disc is also gone.
Murmuring a cry of shock, she collapses down onto her chair. She touches the skin of her throat, pressing it as if she hasn’t felt it in a long time. Then she buries her face in her hands. Her shoulders are shaking as she sobs. Whether from relief or grief, I cannot tell. I reach over to touch her hair. It feels okay to do that because suddenly she seems so young.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. Raif clung on to this world because he was still thinking of you, and he was so desperate to make sure that there was someone here to help you. And he found me.”
I keep speaking to her softly, stroking her hair like Raif might have done if he was here. “Your dad taught me something important. That in the end it is love that matters, not vengeance. In the end he was thinking of you, not his murderer. He was thinking only of you.”
Eventually she stops weeping. She wipes her eyes. She has to clear her throat a couple of times before she is able to speak. “You saw him?” she asks tremulously.
I nod. “I saw his ghost. But he is gone now. He was at peace the moment he knew that I had promised to help you.”
“Does Beatrice know about me now?” She looks worried.
I shake my head. “I never told her. And she’ll be in prison for a long time. She never needs to find out.”
“I was so scared,” she whispers. “Of her. Of the fae. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if he had managed to get the key. I couldn’t leave without it. There was no point. I can’t believe he’s gone.” Another tear slides down her cheek.
I put my hand on top of hers and I squeeze her hand gently. “Maybe he’s up there somewhere watching you, glad you’re finally free.”
She nods, and offers me a tremulous smile.
“Do you have someone to go to? Your mother maybe?”
“She’s dead. She was a water sprite too. The Grey Queen had her killed when she tried to escape with me. I was going to be next. Then Raif came to get me. I couldn’t believe it. My mother never even spoke about him.”
“What will you do now?” I ask her. “Will they still be looking for you?”
She nods. “But it will be so much harder for them to find me now that my collar is gone. I really am free. Free to hide. Free to disappear from them forever.”
“I think he must have had some running away money hidden somewhere,” I tell her. “But I’m sorry. I don’t know where he hid it.”
She shows me a little key on her keyring. “A locker,” she says. “He had told me where it was, just in case.”
“You’ll be okay now?” I ask.
She nods. “Thank you. You can’t understand what this means to me.”
“I think I can,” I tell her. We hug long and hard before I leave. It feels good. It feels like hugging Raif and Lynesse too. It feels like I can breathe again.
My next stop is Agency Headquarters. I take a deep breath before walking in. This time Maxine at the reception desk is expecting me. She reminds me of the directions to the chief’s office. When I knock on his door, he gives a terse command for me to come in.
I make sure to stroll in with a little of Nemesis’s panache and give him a cheeky little grin.
He merely raises his brows at me and slides an envelope across the desk. I take a peek inside and bite my lip. It is a small stack of banknotes. More money than I have seen in a long time.
“The next one will be a check,” he tells me. “So make sure you open a bank account.”
“So there will be a next time?” I ask him. “You really are giving me my job back?”
He shakes his head. “You broke all of the rules I told you not to break.”
“How would I have solved the case otherwise?” I demand.
“You’ve got gumption, I’ll give you that.”
“And what did you mean about a check if you’re not giving me my job back?”
“Not a permanent position. But you have any more of those visions of yours, you let Storm know. If it’s worth our while, he’ll brin
g you in as a consultant. Or if he wants you on a case, he’ll give you a call. I’ve agreed with him to take it on a case-by-case basis.”
“And is Storm happy with that?” I ask anxiously.
The chief shrugs. “You’ll have to check with him.” He shows me to the door, and points me in the right direction.
Feeling nervous, I approach Storm’s office. I can see him in there, his head down as he scrutinizes a report. Remi, Leo and Monroe are sat at desks outside his office. They all turn to look at me as I approach. I offer them a smile, and place the box of cupcakes I have baked for them down on Remi’s desk.
“Peace offering?” I say.
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