Gift of Secrets

by Amir Lane

  Distant screams echoed through the back of my mind, muffled by time and a ringing in my ears.

  Angelo’s brow furrowed in what might have been confusion or concern or even annoyance. He was thin, with sunken eyes and cheekbones. Eyes so like Rutherford Bromley’s stared at me. The bruising around them suggested he’d been sleeping about as much as I had lately. He smiled, but it wasn’t the smirk I’d grown used to. His clothes — a pair of dark jeans and an eggshell blue t-shirt accented with a navy infinity scarf — were at least a size too big for him.

  “Ciao, bella.”

  Something inside me broke at that. I couldn’t say why. After everything I’d been through, it was ridiculous that two words would be enough to make me break. I’d seen two people get their brains blown out. One of them was the man in front of me.

  I covered my mouth with my hand as if it would hide the sobs that were quickly getting out of control. Ariadne put a hand on my back, and Angelo took a tentative step forward.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said softly.

  I didn’t know if he was talking about breaking into my house or shooting himself right in the skull. It didn’t matter; I was sure it was true either way. When he took another step forward, I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into a hug. He tensed, and part of me worried if he was touch-averse like Rowan, but he quickly relaxed and returned the hug. He smelled like ash and cheap aftershave.

  “Careful, bella. I don’t want your wife getting jealous.”

  I laughed. I had to. After everything that had happened in the past few days, I would go crazy if I didn’t laugh. He kissed my disgusting mess of hair. I pulled away from him, wiping my eyes.

  “Sorry,” I murmured. “I’m sorry, I just— It’s been a very long few days.”

  “I can see that. I’m guessing your long days are why I woke up ass-naked in a prison cell in Italy?”

  “Italy?” Ariadne said.

  “Italy,” Angelo repeated. “Do you know how hard it is to get a flight out here with no notice?”

  I rubbed a hand over my face, sniffling a little. I could handle headaches, but I was worried I’d pushed myself into migraine territory by forcing up the barrier.

  “I think we have a lot of catching up to do, but I need a shower first. Can somebody make coffee?”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Angelo said.

  “And?”

  “Do you own a French press?”

  Showering helped. Eating helped more. There wasn’t much food in the fridge. Ariadne obviously hadn’t bothered doing much grocery shopping while I’d been undercover. I silently prayed that I hadn’t accidentally forced her to relapse into an unhealthy habit of eating disorders.

  In terms of who made the best coffee I’d ever had, my dad was first, with Kieron in a close second and Angelo in an even closer third. Apparently, he’d found work at an Italian coffee shop near downtown to supplement his income as a Vatican-sanctioned exorcist’s apprentice.

  “You’d be surprised how little that pays. Do you know how much rent is in this city?” he said.

  I was very aware. I was lucky enough to have been able to put enough of a down payment that my mortgage wasn’t bad. I was paying less per month on an entire house than some people paid on a one-bedroom apartment.

  “Good point,” I said between bites of the peanut butter and chickpeas I’d thrown onto some pita bread in a sad but surprisingly delicious excuse for a sandwich.

  “How did you end up as an exorcist’s apprentice anyway? I thought you weren’t a witch,” Ariadne said.

  Now that she mentioned it, it did seem odd. Exorcisms required a certain affinity for magic. Necromancers were best suited to it, obviously, but I was sure they couldn’t be the only ones. I was also sure Angelo wasn’t a necromancer. He’d given me a whole lecture on magic shortly before we’d killed Bromley, but I couldn’t make enough of my brain work to remember it. Something about different types of magic being… different…

  “I’m something like a witch.” The slight smile suggested there’s more to that statement than he was letting on. I didn’t have the energy to pursue it. “I have some very limited magic that I can channel into exorcisms.”

  “Like you did with Bromley,” I muttered.

  He’d cast the spell that had allowed me to kill him. It had been some kind of exorcism spell. He gave a slight nod.

  “Exactly.”

  “Why did you come back? You could have gone anywhere,” I said, accidentally mirroring what I’d said to him the first time we’d met.

  Angelo picked at a piece of the banana cake we’d found in the freezer and reheated. I couldn’t quite remember when we’d baked it. It must have been a few weeks, at least. Maybe even a month. The recipe was one of Kieron’s. We substituted oil for butter and used less than half the sugar he recommended, but it still tasted fine. It wasn’t even dry. He scowled down at the plate, drumming his fingers against the side of the coffee mug.

  “When you were looking into Bromley,” he said slowly, “did you find a faerie? A man with bright blue butterfly wings? He would have been missing his… What’s it called? His pancreas or something.”

  I was surprised at how neutral I managed to keep my expression. I took a moment to let the words sink in, then shook my head before Ariadne could contradict me. She frowned at me in my periphery, but didn’t say anything. It was a calculated decision. If the lie backfired, I could blame exhaustion giving me bad memory. And Ariadne saw so many bodies on a daily basis, she couldn’t be expected to remember every single one she autopsied.

  Not that there had been much left to autopsy.

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  Angelo shook his head.

  “I don’t remember. I just remember… ‘Better you than me.’ That’s what I said to him before—”

  He covered his eyes with one hand and let out a shaky breath. I gave Ariadne a startled look, which she returned.

  “You—” Ariadne began.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Angelo said quickly. “I never killed any of them, as far as I remember. It— It takes time for the memories to come back every time I die. Some of them might not ever come back, I don’t know. I have a lot of them. It’s only been a few days. It usually takes longer for me to even be able to speak right.”

  He laughed a little, but there was no humour in it. It sounded choked, like he was holding back the urge to cry.

  All I felt was nausea at the reminder of his blood splattered all over the floor and the sight of his body burning.

  Two minutes.

  A violent shudder ran through me. Ariadne’s hand came to rest on my thigh, and I clutched at it hard enough that it must have hurt. She didn’t pull away.

  Angelo lowered his hand and cupped his hands around the coffee mug. We didn’t have a French press, so he’d made it the old-fashioned way. It was way too late in the night for Turkish coffee. He took a slow sip. It looked more like he was buying himself time than anything.

  “I got a lot of people killed, bella. Innocent people who didn’t deserve it. They all died violently and horribly. I—” He sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. “Three months ago, this city saw a massive spike in spirits.”

  Had it? I hadn’t noticed. Honestly, until we’d killed Bromley, I hadn’t even fully believed in spirits. Part of me still didn’t.

  “I hadn’t heard,” I said.

  “Well, it’s not like people are going to go around saying they saw ghosts,” Ariadne said.

  Angelo rolled his eyes.

  “North Americans believe in half the things they shouldn’t and don’t believe in half the things they should. I didn't know why there were suddenly so many of them until… I didn't put it together.”

  The realization of what he was talking about did a better job at waking me up than coffee ever could have. All those spirits Bromley had sucked into himself were out there now. His victims still didn't have peace.

  “I'm part of why s
ome of these people are dead. I have to try to make it right.”

  He touched the side of his neck through the scarf, then pulled the fabric down to reveal a burn scar where the compass tattoo had been. The lumpy skin was stark white against his olive complexion and looked even whiter against the dark fabric. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran through me at the sight of it. Had he done that to himself?

  “I owed you a debt for rescuing me from him, investigatrice.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “Yes, I did. He would have kept using me if you hadn’t killed him. You can’t imagine what he did to me.”

  His voice wavered. I didn’t have to imagine it; I’d seen it firsthand. I was the second detective on scene after Bromley had taken his eyes, after all. I only nodded, too tired to try arguing about this debt.

  “I think we’re about even now. A life for a life. But… I still have work to do here. So if you need me, I might be able to find time for you, especially if it hurts those assholes Bromley was working with. Let’s be clear, though. I’m not dying for you again.”

  Despite the slight smile on his lips, he wasn’t joking. That was fine with me. I hadn’t wanted him dying for me the first or second time. Just the thought made bile rise up in the back of my throat.

  Angelo shifted to take his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. His case was one of those wallet cases, just like mine. The fake leather was peeling around the corners. He pulled a thin card from it and held it out across the table. Ariadne took it.

  “Merano Angelus, Assistant Exorcist. Your name is Merano?” she asked.

  “I usually go by Meran, but Angelo is for people I like.” He winked at Ariadne. “You two should get some sleep. You’re both beautiful as ever, but you look like Hell.”

  Ariadne saw him out. They whispered to each other, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I imagined it was something along the lines of, Make sure she doesn’t break her skull open falling down the stairs in her state. I nursed my coffee, staring absently at the card on the table. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t move on. It didn’t make me feel better about it.

  My head jerked up as Ariadne slid an arm around my shoulder and settled onto the edge of my chair. The side of her head pressed against mine.

  “That faerie he asked about,” she said. “His name was Tyr Lund. I remember because Tyr is a Norse God. Bromley stripped him for parts.”

  “Was that before, or after Cerys Rees?”

  When his attempt to strip her for parts had failed, had he gone to Angelo to find him someone else? Or had he not gotten what he wanted from Tyr first?

  “I don’t know. I don’t really remember which one came first. But they intercepted his kidneys.”

  “Intercepted his kidneys,” I repeated.

  “Bromley was working with the Black Birches. The Birches trafficked organs.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t already known. Bromley took what he needed and passed the rest to them.

  Ariadne kissed the side of my head and sighed into my hair.

  “I saw what they did to him. It was… Fairuz, I’ve seen some bad bodies but that— Somebody did that to him. They did that to him.” She let out a slow, controlled breath. “Angelo is right. We need to sleep. And then, we need a plan. A good one.”

  I agreed. Hopefully, the plan we came up with wouldn’t involve any more car crashes. I didn’t have many of those left in me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was easy enough to play the meeting off as one of our regular team get-togethers. Anybody watching would likely think that was all it was. Kieron even brought cupcakes. It was no different than any of the other ‘team bonding nights’ we’d done in the past. There were only two major differences. The first was the glaring lack of Rowan. The second was the even more glaring inclusion of Angelo. I hadn’t actually expected him to come when I’d invited him out of courtesy.

  “I’m only interested in bringing peace to the spirits Bromley took,” he’d explained firmly. “That’s all.”

  I was fine with that. The only reason he was here was because he might have had some insight into the Black Birches movements, even if he didn’t realize it. His memories were still coming back. There was a good chance some or most of them never would. Every time he regenerated, he started with a blank slate and returned to himself over time. Even if he came back, I didn’t want to put him through that again. He was just starting to look like himself. He was even flirting in a teasing way with Indira, who laughed brightly and flirted right back.

  Kieron slipped something into my hand. It shocked me, and I nearly dropped it.

  “What is this?” I asked, turning the thing over in my hand.

  It looked like an old, beaten-up stopwatch. The plastic was scuffed and scratched, and the screen was cracked so badly, I didn’t think it was even readable. On the back was a small symbol I didn’t recognize.

  “It’s a soundproof warding charm. It’ll only hold the room, and only for about half an hour. It was the only one my nephew had lying around. I recommend we keep any electronics out of the room just to be safe. There’s a good chance it’ll end up frying them.”

  I reached out and squeezed his hand. The shadows under his eyes weren’t as bad as they’d been last time I’d seen him and he'd shaved his beard, but I didn’t think I was imagining the lines around his eyes or the fresh white hairs along his temple.

  “Thank him for me,” I said.

  He nodded and frowned just slightly.

  “I need you to promise me something, Fairuz.”

  “Anything,” I said without thinking.

  At this point, I more than owed him. He let out a quick breath.

  “I want you to leave my family out of this. Don’t go back to Elias unless somebody is dead or dying. If I’d known how far this went, I never woulda’ brought him in in the first place.”

  I hated the twinge in my stomach at the loss of a valuable resource. I couldn’t be that selfish to insist he could be of some help. Besides, letting Elias get more involved than he already had been was just opening up another avenue for the Birches to infiltrate. The fewer people who knew what we knew, the better.

  So far, the only people completely up to date on what was happening were the people in this house. Not even Sabine knew more than she officially had to. It had been tempting to tell Raisa Karim everything. We hadn’t gone for dinner with her as planned, but I at least owed her a coffee to thank her for inadvertently helping me expose O’Rourke, and for the djinni case she’d helped me with last year. Of course, I’d asked Ariadne a hundred thousand times if she was okay with me seeing my ex-girlfriend without her. She told me a hundred thousand times that she didn’t mind. I had never given her a reason to worry, and there wasn’t one. Raisa and I had history, but that was all it was.

  I didn’t tell Raisa the truth, and brushed it off as nothing. If she’d wanted to, she probably could have forced me to tell her. She didn’t, and I appreciated that. I wasn’t sure if she believed me when I said it was for her own safety. There were few people I knew who could handle themselves better than Raisa. Elias Harper might have been just as capable, but if I wasn’t willing to risk her, then it wasn’t fair of me to risk him.

  “Of course. I won’t go to him,” I promised.

  Kieron hesitated.

  “You have to understand. I couldn’t love Rowan more if he was my own flesh and blood, but Elias is my flesh and blood. He’s my brother’s son. He might be one of the most skilled witches I ever seen, but he’s reckless and does not have the greatest impulse control. Sort of like someone else I know.”

  I didn’t take the jab personally. I took his hand again and squeezed as hard as I could. His fingers twitched against my hand.

  “Kieron, I swear to you, I won’t get him involved.”

  “Or Merrick.”

  “Or Merrick.”

  “Or Gwen.”

  “I would never!”

  S
he was just a child, not even a teenager yet. Just thinking of involving her made my stomach twist.

  He nodded, finally seeming satisfied.

  “All right. All right, I suppose we should get started.”

  I followed him to the living room, but not before leaving my phone on the stairs with the pile already there. Kieron must have told the rest of the team to leave them out of the stopwatch ward’s range. Ariadne smiled up at me from the loveseat as we entered and held up a cup of coffee. Kieron sat at one end of the couch, while Indira and Angelo were practically draped over each other at the other end. I turned the stopwatch over in my hand. How did this thing even work?

  Kieron motioned for it. I handed it back to him and took my place next to Ariadne. The warmth of her body next to me was even more comforting than the hot mug of coffee in my hands. A ripple ran through the air. My ears crackled. Indira winced and shook his head, and Angelo looked around the room at something we couldn’t see.

  “Is it working?” I asked.

  Kieron shrugged. “Seems to be. Countdown is running.”

  “So what's the plan?” Indira asked, looking right at me.

  “You're assuming she has one,” Angelo said, still staring at the air.

  I avoided rolling my eyes, only because my head still hurt. Over the past few days, I'd done my best to come up with something concrete beyond simply investigating every lead that came up. I couldn't have a repeat of this.

  It turned out I wasn't as good at planning ahead as I pretended to be. It wasn’t that I just never really bothered to plan more than one step ahead, it was that that was only as far ahead as I could think. The realization made me miss Rowan even more. If he were here, he'd have a six-step plan already mapped out and ready to go, with four separate contingencies in case something went wrong.

  “We’re going up against an international gang. There's no one strategy that will work,” I said in defense of myself.

  “So, no plan,” Angelo said.

  I gave him a sharp look, even though he was mostly right. I had a plan, but that plan was to be as loud and obvious as possible, to draw out as many people as we could and take them down one by one until their infrastructure crumbled. It was the only thing I could come up with, and it would no doubt get at least one of us killed. If nobody suggested anything else, then I would put it out there. In the meantime, I would call it Plan C.