Chapter Twenty-Three
The goblin proprietor leaned against his broom as I scurried inside the shop. “You again? Didn’t expect to see that.”
“Circumstances have changed. Can you arrange for me to meet with Gunthra? Tell her I’m willing to pay her price.”
I moved out of the way as he swept broken glass into a tidy pile. Things sometimes got broken in raids. Things a Gryphon could tell were illegal but didn’t feel like formally confiscating. Things a demon might want to hide.
One of those things stunk strongly of bergamot. Normally, I liked that smell, but it was overpowering in the small shop. My nose burned, although that could be from something more toxic. I doubted the goblin had been using bergamot to make Earl Grey tea.
“Would you mind?” He motioned to the dustpan I was blocking.
I handed it to him. “Well?” If he refused, I supposed I could go pound on her door myself. But it would be easier to do this behind Lucen’s back if the goblin agreed.
The goblin’s ears twitched. “My people did not participate in the fighting last night, but that’s only because the fighting stayed away from us. We are a pragmatic people. War is bad for business.”
“And for people’s lives.”
“That too.” Clearly, lives were an afterthought, if they were thought of at all. The goblin dumped his trash into a bin behind the counter. “The sylphs won’t like it, but Gunthra will be curious. Stop back tomorrow.”
“How about you give me a call tomorrow?”
He flashed his many teeth in a disturbing grin. “Your satyr friend wouldn’t approve of this, would he? Very well. Give me a number.”
In the five minutes I’d been gone, the satyrs had gathered in The Lair to discuss strategy. They pushed two tables together, and Dezzi took the spot at the head. There were nine of them total on the council, and four sat on either side of their Dom. I was strangely pleased to see Lucen had a seat close to her. Despite offering me protection without her permission, maybe he hadn’t lost his place as her third. Why I cared escaped me.
I gave everyone the rundown on what had happened over the last couple hours, intending on leaving out the bit where I went into a fury bar. Alas, I had to explain how I deduced who Victor’s master was so I had no choice. No one seemed thrilled by that except Devon, who complimented me on my balls.
“You can’t compliment a woman for having balls,” I told him once the meeting adjourned.
“Why not? You haven’t proven yet that you don’t have any.”
I rolled my eyes and turned the netbook toward him. “This is him.” I’d brought up the newspaper photo of Victor so he and the others could see it.
Lucen had found an address for a Victor Aubrey, presumably the same one, so the first order of business was attempting to round him up. I’d wanted to return to the bar and get my hands on the furies, but Dezzi had refused. While Lucen and Gi prepared to go after Victor, she planned on talking to the fury’s Dom.
“I want to know if he knows anything about this,” she said. “If he doesn’t approve, then we can handle the matter with minimal damages.”
“And if he does know and does approve?”
“Then we have a problem.” She tossed her braids over her shoulder. “Not you, us.”
I failed to see how I was excluded from this problem, but I’d argue later when I knew whether there was one.
“Coming, little siren?” Lucen called from the entrance.
Back to “little siren”, were we? Guess Lucen was over his hissy fit. “I’m allowed to come along for the ride?”
“I’m not about to leave you home alone this time.”
Right. Bastard.
Victor wasn’t home, which wasn’t exactly surprising. I sat in a car with Lucen and Gi for four hours, staking out his place. When midnight rolled around, two new satyrs took our place.
Lucen started the car. “I doubt he’ll be back. The Matches are less than twenty-four hours away. The furies will have pulled all their available addicts to help them get ready, and if they suspect you’re looking for this guy, his master will be keeping him close.”
I didn’t say a word on the drive back to Shadowtown, but unease churned in my gut.
Gi took off, and I decided to use the rest of the night to run through some of my training exercises. This week had been terrible health-wise—bad food when I bothered to eat at all and no gym. Sure, I’d probably run the equivalent of a half marathon through The Feathers yesterday, but that hadn’t exactly helped my muscles. They were still sore.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”
I was in the middle of a precarious balance pose and almost fell over. “Is that possible?”
Lucen leaned against the wall, watching me. “I’d say so since I just said it. I’m concerned about you.”
“Well, you don’t have to be anymore. I gave you all the information you need. I can be killed now without it interfering with your war-prevention efforts.”
“I care about, you little siren. Should be obvious.”
I swallowed and pretended that my insides didn’t feel as though they were melting. Maybe Lucen was right and it should be obvious. But he was what he was, and so was I. How was I supposed to get over my fear of what he could do to me?
Yet another reason I had to talk to Gunthra and find out what her cryptic comment meant.
I let my hair fall over my face so Lucen couldn’t see my distress even if he could sense it. “I care about you too.”
“I know.” Of course. Stupid misery-sucking satyr. “So what’s bugging you?”
I paused my stretching. “If we can’t get Victor tonight, that means we have no choice but to look for him at the Matches.”
“Ah, you’re nervous.” He stood next to me, close enough that I could sense the air disturbance between us. In spite of how he’d annoyed me this evening, my body ached for his touch. Just give in, it urged my brain. Do you really want to die without having slept with him?
No, body, but I don’t really want to die without having visited France, and that might not be happening either. So shove it.
“Yeah, I’m nervous. I hate the Matches. Never thought I’d be going again. And there’s always a chance we won’t catch Victor and everything will blow up.”
“We have a name. We have a face. If he’s there, we’ll find him.”
“And his master?”
“That’s Dezzi’s job to handle the politics. All we need to do is find Victor and get a confession.”
“And let the fury responsible for all this get away?”
“No one’s said that’s what will happen.”
I balled my hands into fists. No one said it, but it might. The Doms would do what was necessary to keep the Gryphons out of their business, and if that meant Victor died to appease the sylphs, so be it. And while Victor probably ought to die for his crimes, he wasn’t the only one.
Someone had to make sure justice was served, that the Gryphons learned the truth so I could walk free and the guilty person couldn’t ruin more lives. No doubt that someone was going to be me.
To do that I needed backup.
I half-expected Assym and his merry band of hippie-thugs would be pounding on The Lair’s door at five the next day, demanding the satyrs hand me over. But Lucen assured me we had until midnight.
“That’s all we need, so relax.”
“Right.” I had a hard time believing it, or relaxing.
While Lucen once more met with Dezzi and the satyr and harpy councils to discuss strategy—a meeting I wasn’t invited to—I took the opportunity to do two things that would be certain to infuriate everyone gathered in The Lair.
First, I called Steph, something I should have done last night if I’d had the sense. Thank dragons, she was neither injured nor arrested. We couldn’t talk for long because she had a feeling the Gryphons were trying to use her to find me a second time. I had to laugh at that as I gave her a message to pass on. For once, the Gryphon
s and I had the same idea.
Next, I used another of Lei’s glamours to design myself a new face. The goblin—whose name I still hadn’t bothered to discover—had called me earlier. Ten minutes to seven, with the meeting below in full swing, I left to meet Gunthra.
“Miss Moore.” Gunthra stood as I entered the same room we’d met in last time. “Nice disguise work. I admit, I wasn’t certain you would return. Why did you change your mind?”
I smiled. “That’s information. It has a cost.” What the hell. Two could play goblin games.
“I see.” She flattened her ears and beckoned me to sit. “So we are agreed to the price? I tell you everything I know about your unique abilities, and in return you owe me one favor of my choosing at a later date?”
“One favor that doesn’t involve me harming an innocent person. And that includes myself.”
“Harm can be too broadly defined. It could be interpreted to mean anything.”
Well, crap. That had kind of been my intent.
I thought quickly. “That does not involve me hurting, killing or otherwise ruining an innocent person’s life. Including mine.” I ran that through my head a few times, doubting it was as rock solid as I’d like.
“Agreed.”
And that was probably my proof that it wasn’t as rock solid as I’d like. I sighed. Would have been nice to be able to bring a lawyer.
Gunthra and I shook, then she had a servant bring in tea. It was all eerily familiar.
“Tell me, Miss Moore,” Gunthra said, passing me a delicate china cup. “What do you know about our young?”
Young preds had what to do with me? I set the cup down and shrugged. “I don’t know anything. Just that I’ve never seen one.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Gunthra rose and took one of the preserved butterflies off her mantel. She set the glass frame on the table between us. “You know where butterflies come from, yes?”
“You mean caterpillars?” An image sprang to mind, one that I’d strangely—or perhaps not so strangely if it had been the result of magic—forgotten about it. The shell-like things in the basement of Purgatory. Only…
I straightened, my jaw threatening to fall open. Was she getting at what I thought she was? Was that crypt I’d found not a crypt at all, but a…well, the opposite? Had those things been cocoons?
My mind must have been buzzing perceptibly because Gunthra’s left ear twitched. “Caterpillars are ugly, clumsy little insects until they undergo metamorphosis. And when they emerge from their cocoons, they’re beautiful creatures, are they not? Colorful and capable of flying distances their earthbound old selves could never do. No one adores caterpillars—they’re pests—but butterflies are admired.”
I didn’t understand what this had to do with me, but she definitely had my attention. “You’re telling me preds aren’t born. Preds are—”
“Were once human, yes.” She sat back down and sipped her tea while I gaped at her. “This is no big secret, you understand. Had you not failed to join the Gryphons, you would have learned the same, I’m sure.”
“Oh.” Well, that was kind of disappointing.
“I tell you this because you need to know it in order to understand what you truly want to know. So another question for you. What sort of human may be transformed into a better self?”
A better self? That was debatable.
I ran my finger around the fleur-de-lis pattern on the sofa, wondering how I was supposed to guess. She’d only thrown the transformation bit at me a minute ago. But the more I considered, only one answer seemed plausible. Preds had magic in their blood. They must, therefore, come from humans with magic in their blood.
“No,” Gunthra said, when I answered.
“No?”
“No. You are entirely wrong.” She smiled at my confusion. “The magic involved in the metamorphosis process is, as you can imagine, intense. Powerful. And it must be worked in isolation. That is, the person undergoing the process must have no magic in their blood lest that power interfere with the process. You follow?”
I settled back against the sofa, nodding, and yet my gut tightened. I had an inkling of where Gunthra was going with this now, and I didn’t like it one bit.
Even if it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with me. Because it couldn’t. Right?
“So…” My throat dried up, and I reached for the tea. Maybe having it here wasn’t just a social nicety. “What happens if someone does have magic in their blood?”
“They die.”
“They do?” I exhaled in relief. Silly, Jess. Of course you’re not some kind of fucked-up pred.
Gunthra twirled one of many rings around her finger. “This is also common knowledge among my people. I can’t speak for the Gryphons this time.” Abruptly, she stopped fiddling with the ring and leaned forward. “Now we get to the part that your satyr friends couldn’t have told you if you’d asked. The part that’s costing you something. And that part is, Miss Moore, that I lied.”
“What?”
The goblin smiled wickedly. “Humans with magic in their blood don’t always die.”
Oh. Oh fuck.
“Mostly they die.” Gunthra waved her hand around, clearly enjoying playing with my head. “Often enough they die that no other reason needs be given for why no one is stupid enough to attempt to transform one. But occasionally, rarely, one lives.”
She stared at me with that creepy, blinkless gaze. My stomach rolled over and decided it had had enough.
I didn’t want to know but asked anyway. Because I had to. “And when that happens?”
“My forebears called the results—the hybrids—an abomination.” Gunthra stood, and the smile on her face disappeared. Although she was a good ten inches shorter than me, I got the sense that she was doing her best to make me feel like the smaller one. I had half a mind to stand up, but I didn’t want to test my knees. My whole body felt mushy, including my brain.
God no. Don’t let what she’s telling me be it. I am not some part-pred. I didn’t hurt humanity. I helped them.
No, us. Us—I helped us.
Gunthra clasped her hands behind her back. “This is why my price is high, Miss Moore. My forbears buried the information that I’m sharing with you because people like you are dangerous to us. You draw strength like we do, but we cannot control you. Your soul is less than worthless to me. Your soul is dangerous to me were I stupid enough to steal it. You understand? It has been transformed by our magic.”
“No.” I exhaled the word in a bluster of relief. She was lying again. She had to be, and this was my out. “This other guy, the one like me, he’s an addict. So that can’t be right.”
“Then he is by choice.”
“What? No! No one would choose to be enslaved.”
Gunthra regarded me piteously. “You believe my addicts get nothing from their bargain? The bond is not entirely one way. I feed them as well, Miss Moore. They send me power, and I can send it back and more if they require it. I heal them, energize them, give them strength they wouldn’t otherwise have.” She studied her rings. “If this person accepts that, then the bond works. You would not accept that. That’s what makes you dangerous.”
I sat in silence for a moment, gathering my thoughts. My throat trembled like I was going to vomit, but inside I felt numb. Dead. It had to be the shock. This could not be true, yet still I grappled for more information as if my life depended on it. Or my soul.
“So I can’t be addicted?” Okay, I could focus on the silver lining here. This was what I’d needed to know, wasn’t it? Assym couldn’t addict me? My soul was safe.
Didn’t mean I wouldn’t hurl later.
“You can be, but no one with sense would want you. You have the same power as we do, and the bond is not one way.”
“But how does that make me dangerous? Preds can’t addict other preds, so what good is the power?”
“That is not something I can tell you. You’ll have to figure it out yourself.”
“You can’t tell me, or you won’t?” She didn’t answer, but her face was frosty. I took that to mean won’t. “Shouldn’t this be covered under our deal?”
“I can only tell you those things which I know. Since I’m not the same as you, technically I can’t know what anything is like from your perspective. You see?”
Yeah, I saw. She could tell me a lot more, but technicalities were a goblin’s best friend.
I buried my head in my hands. Was Gunthra suggesting I could use the same weak power I exerted over humans on preds? Impossible. I couldn’t even control a human the way a pred could.
And I didn’t really want to think about controlling anyone, or feeding off of anyone. Except I’d been doing that since I was eighteen, hadn’t I? Treating humanity as an emotional buffet. It hadn’t been my choice, but I’d sure put my gift to use. I pretended I did it for good reasons, but what good really did I do? Enough to negate the bad, or just enough to rid myself of the guilt I felt for feeling most alive when those around me—even those I cared about—suffered?
It only made sense that I wasn’t entirely human. Part pred. Hybrid. Abomination.
Yeah, I felt that last one.
My throat tightened, just waiting to expel my disgust with myself.
“My gift,” I said, my voice trembling. “It’s like a satyr’s. Does that mean—?”
“You’re part satyr, yes.”
I closed my eyes. Xander’s voice from yesterday taunted me. “A pred’s gift comes from a corrupted soul.” He’d been right. Gunthra had said it—my soul had been transformed.
Screw you, Xander, and the Hitchcock movie you flew in on.
I am not evil. I’m not even half evil. I’m…a fucking abomination. Face it, Jess. You’re not little siren. You’re little satyr.
I dug my nails into my palms. Although I didn’t move another muscle, I swore the room was spinning.
“Who would do this? If none of your people would bother trying to transform someone like me, then how did this happen?” And when? Why didn’t I have any memory of it?
Wicked Misery (Miss Misery) Page 26