by Dannika Dark
Yep. I was going to burn in hell.
“What is it, child?”
“Father, I need to speak to someone you’re keeping downstairs. It’s related to a case I’m working on, and I just want to see if he has any information that might shed some light and help us track down a killer.”
Father Martin’s fuzzy eyebrows arched. “Have you no faith that God will find the killer?”
“God may get him in the end, but here on earth, his ass belongs to me. Please? It might save lives.”
He clasped his hands, and I guessed him to be around forty-five. Somewhere on the cusp of middle age, but he hadn’t relinquished his youthful personality.
I could tell he was struggling with a decision. “Christian’s going to update you in a little bit about locking the door and not letting anyone down there, including Regulators. I’m sure you agree that’s the best idea. Right now, we need to ensure their safety by trusting no one. Well, except you, since you have the key. You can walk down with me. I’d feel better with you there. I stabbed a few of them, and they might be holding a grudge.”
His lip twitched. “Come with me.”
I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets and followed Father Martin across the chapel. He stopped in a short hall and retrieved a set of keys from his pocket. After unlocking a heavy door, he switched on a small flashlight and said, “You go first.”
I peered into the dark stairwell and took a few steps down. It was significantly cooler with a musty smell, and the steps were made of stone instead of concrete. “How old is this place?”
Once he finished locking the door, we continued our descent.
“The church was rebuilt after a fire in 1908. The lower levels didn’t sustain any damage, so they look just like they did two hundred years ago. Well, except for the plumbing we installed. And electricity. Oh, and the furniture.”
“So basically, the walls look the same?”
He moved past me, the bright beam guiding our way down the curved stairwell. “The higher authority paid for everything. Since this church has always been one of their chosen safe havens, they’ve given us everything we’ve ever needed. It’s been a real blessing in times of struggle. Just last year, they sent a check to cover the cost of adding the rectory. Before that, I had to take a bus. Though, to tell you the truth, I often slept in one of the spare rooms. There’s a lot to do around here, and public transportation isn’t always timely.”
“Why don’t you drive?”
“Too many tickets. Who is it you wish to speak with?”
“His name is Henry. Bonded to Elaine Sanders.”
The stairs seemed to go on forever. I imagined a dungeon with officials eating gruel out of wooden bowls and sleeping in hay.
“Are there rats down there?” I asked.
“We’ve never had a problem with rats. I guess they haven’t found a way in. But we haven’t been able to evict the spiders. We call an exterminator twice a year just to keep them from taking over.”
I shuddered at the thought.
When the priest unlocked the second door, warm air hit me in the face. The sound of a loud motor came from a room on the left.
“It sounds like you’ve got a motorcycle in there!”
“That’s the generator.” Father Martin locked the door behind us. “It’s in a room with a large ventilation pipe that leads outside, and we keep the door sealed off when it’s running. It’s not as if the fumes will kill our immortal guests, and it was at their insistence. We’re only running it for brief periods anyhow.” He led me away from the door and stopped. “We weren’t prepared for an outage. Christian was good enough to have someone deliver us the generator, but the man couldn’t come downstairs. We were lucky that one of the officials knew how to wire things up.”
“It doesn’t work upstairs?”
“There’s no need. The gas stove works just fine, and we never run out of candles.” As we continued our walk, he did a lot of speaking with his hands. “I’m useless with repairs. Sometimes we have volunteers fix small issues with the heating and plumbing. We’ve warmed things up in here with space heaters, and the walls will do a good job holding in the heat. We have excellent insulation.”
Candles flickered behind the glass sconces on the wall, but that was the only rustic thing about the enormous room. The pillars and oval-shaped, recessed ceiling reminded me of a hotel lobby, and doors to each room spanned the outer walls. The center had massive red-and-gold rugs covering the marble floor, which absorbed light and brightened the room. Black leather sofas, coffee tables, and plastic plants decorated the middle, and between each doorway was a religious painting. Candlelight reflected in the prisms of two crystal chandeliers and on the walls painted gold. The higher authority spared no expense, then or now.
I noticed numbers above the arched doorways.
“We barely had room to spare,” he said. “There aren’t any rules about how many of each Breed serve on the panel.”
“Maybe they should have stuck to equal representation.”
He clicked off his flashlight. “The evacuation plan was formulated a long time ago, and I suppose no one has really looked at it in over fifty years. It’s not uncommon. People put emergency procedures in place but never test them. Sometimes they don’t even think about them until it’s too late.”
“How did you get involved in all this?” I asked, truly curious.
“In the church?”
“No. With Breed.”
He chuckled and flashed his green eyes at me. Father Martin kind of looked like an Italian cook I used to see at a local pizza place. Except cuter, in a nerdy, priestly kind of way. “There’s a selection process of who they bring in as trusted humans, and it’s all under the guidance of the clergy who have been working with Breed all their lives.”
“It seems like finding out about immortals would make you question your faith.”
“If a chosen human isn’t willing to accept the truth and learn more, they simply scrub them, and their life goes back to normal.”
“Nice.”
“They give us a choice. I prayed about it and decided that God would want me to accept all his children. Even the ones with fangs.”
I pointed at the doors we passed. “Are you locking everyone in their rooms?”
“Goodness, no,” Father Martin said, holding in his laugh. “They used the couches early last night, but some of them don’t get along well with others, so they retreated to the privacy of their rooms. Once we got the generator running, most of them wanted to watch the news.”
“They have TVs?”
“The higher authority decided it was a necessary expense. They installed them, oh… about twenty years ago. They’re the older models. They used to have cable running down here, but five years ago, a crew came out to connect them to the internet. I don’t watch television, so I don’t know how that works.”
It made me think how rapidly technology changed in just five years.
He stopped at door number twenty and knocked.
“Come in.”
Father Martin opened the door. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Tate, but I have someone here who wishes to speak with you.”
The man reading in his chair looked up at me. “I thought you said no visitors were allowed down here.”
“This is an exception. She works for Keystone, the group who brought you here. Shall I step into the hall and let you two speak alone?”
Without waiting for our answers, the priest walked backward and closed the door.
I scoped out the room. Sconces lined the walls in here as well, but it looked less formal than the main room. The television sat atop a dresser to the right, and across from it, a sofa and chair. To my immediate right, a short counter had all the basic necessities a person could want: a coffeepot, creamers, mugs and drinking glasses, bottles of water, and a basket of snacks. I wondered if Father Martin had recently brought down those goodies or if they’d expired five years ago. Nightstands flanked the bed, wh
ich was opposite the door. The red lampshades on the lamps matched the color of the bedspread.
“Why don’t you turn on the lights?” I asked. “The generator’s working.”
“He suggested using as little electricity as possible,” Henry replied, closing his book. “It’s mainly so we can run our space heaters and catch up on the news. He doesn’t want to leave it running all the time since there’s no ventilation down here.” Henry rolled his eyes. “As if we could die. I’m sorry, have we met?”
“I’m Raven Black. I investigated Elaine’s murder.”
“You’re not a Regulator. How do you know about her death?”
“My partner and I were assigned to research something on her case. Are you familiar with Keystone and what we do?”
“I am.” Henry uncrossed his legs and set the book on a small table before walking away. “Did you find the killer?” He closed the bathroom door on the other side of the dresser and returned.
“No.”
“Then you’re here for your own amusement?”
“Is your last name Tate?”
He chortled and sat back down in his chair. “Some investigator you are.”
“Your name wasn’t part of my job,” I retorted, sitting on the sofa beside him. “I don’t like ambiguity.”
“Sanders was Elaine’s surname, not mine. What Breed are you?”
I shifted in my seat. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“If you know anything about Mage bonding, then you’d know that most of us don’t change our last names. Some like the old custom, but most women prefer to keep the name of their Creator. It generates more problems with record keeping when you change it.”
“You don’t seem upset she’s dead, Henry.”
“I’m also not hosting a party in my room and drinking champagne. How is one supposed to look when his wife is found murdered in an apartment that she shared with her lover?”
“Point taken. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Henry crossed his legs. “No, you’re not. You’re only saying that because it’s the civilized thing to do. People should say what they mean.”
“Fine. I think you’re an arrogant asshole.”
“Is that what you came to tell a widower?” He rested his head against his fist, every strand of his brown hair perfectly in place.
I shifted to face him, searching for the best way to broach the topic. I was still certain Henry Tate hadn’t killed his wife, but he had to know something. “Did you love your wife?”
He considered the question for a long while. “When we first bonded, yes, I loved her. If you’re asking me if I knew she was having an affair, then no. I suspected it, but I didn’t want to rock the boat.”
I furrowed my brow. “What do you mean?”
Henry pinched his chin. “Elaine and I were a power couple. It made more sense to stay together. We were so compatible, even if it was obvious that we’d fallen out of love with each other a long time ago. It doesn’t mean you can’t still be friends with a person, but I suppose that’s why most immortals don’t bond. Forever is a long time. Those feelings of newness and love fade, and if you don’t enjoy the company of the person you’re with, you’ll never be happy.”
“If you got along, why would she cheat?”
Henry didn’t look comfortable with our conversation and gave me a stern look.
“I’m just trying to get a better sense of who your wife was. Maybe they told you this, or maybe they didn’t, but she wasn’t the only victim.”
“I’m aware.”
“The victims might have something in common.”
“And you think asking about my sex life will capture the killer?”
I felt my face flush. “The devil is in the details.”
He sighed and looked away. “Elaine and I stopped having sex years ago. It’s not easy to feel passionate about someone you’ve fallen out of love with. Maybe she wanted to feel that newness all over again, or maybe she had carnal needs like everyone else. Regardless, she wanted us to stay together and do whatever it took to work out our problems.”
“What kind of problems? For the record, I don’t think you did it. I probably shouldn’t tell you that, but you’re the one who likes honesty.”
Henry uncrossed his legs. “If Elaine were alive today, she’d be organizing an army of people to get the lights back on. I’d rather sit here and let whatever happens… happen.”
“That’s an odd remark from an official. Aren’t you worried about all the crimes underway? And what if rogues decide to go after the humans?”
“While the higher authority has laws in place that protect humans, not all of us agree with them. That’s why we have a diverse panel.”
“I guess I didn’t consider you guys had party lines like Democrats and Republicans.”
A smile touched his lips. “It’s more complex than you could ever imagine. We have an open vote every year on exposing our secret to humans. Those votes are compared to the higher authorities in every city across the nation. You would be surprised to learn just how many cities out there are ready to expose our world and risk war.”
“I guess that makes it important to get more people like your late wife on the panel.”
“That was the one thing we always disagreed on. I couldn’t care less if we discovered a supervirus to exterminate them all, but Elaine didn’t feel that way. Her vote could never be swayed. She helped to create some of the laws that protect human rights and punish Breed who violate those laws. She said it was the only way to keep order, but you can imagine how many felt like she was betraying her own kind by valuing the lives of humans above our own. Anyhow, it’s just as well things ended the way they did. Seeing what’s happening to our city would have crushed her.”
Funny, Elaine hadn’t struck me as especially sensitive to people’s needs when I’d met her. But you couldn’t judge a book by its cover or a woman by her $4,000 pair of shoes. I sat back and looked across the room at the black television screen. I remembered the conversation I’d had with Merry earlier about the victims. The Mageri official had said they were upstanding people on the right side of the law. He’d also mentioned how each of them was a staunch supporter of human rights.
All of them? Could it be as simple as someone wanting to clear out the dissidents?
“Do you think you could give me a list of every official who supports human rights?”
Henry frowned. “Do you think someone targeted her for that reason?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to compare the names on the list with the deceased.”
“It’s not as long a list as you might think.” He rose to his feet and grabbed a notepad and pen from the counter. “With most policies, we have a certain number of members on each side of the issue. It’s not always even, but that’s irrelevant. Then there are a larger number of swing votes. It’s not like human politics. People sometimes change their vote from one year to the next depending on how the debate goes and how convincing the speakers are.” Henry continued scribbling as he spoke. “There’s nothing confidential about this list, but I would advise you not to spread your theory around. You have no idea the level of disruption this could cause, especially if it isn’t true.” Henry tapped his chin with the pen and glanced up at the ceiling before adding another name.
“Trust me, I know all about your slander laws.”
Henry closed the distance between us and handed me the paper. “These are the names of every official in this city who is unwavering in their support for human rights. Every single one of them has participated in the annual debates.”
I stood up. After folding the paper, I stuffed it into a pocket in the lining of my jacket. “Thanks for your cooperation. I can’t give you any updates, but I’ll do what I can to find her killer.”
He inclined his head. “I appreciate your help, Miss Black. Or is it Mrs.?”
I snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
After he showed me out, I zipped up m
y jacket and wondered what to do with this newfound information.
“Miss Black!”
I turned swiftly, expecting someone to be running at me with a giant steak knife. Instead, I saw Patrick Bane in a long red robe, rushing from his room to greet me.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, his accent just as jovial as ever. “What a pleasant surprise.”
I scratched my neck. Few people had ever said those words to me. “I thought you were on someone else’s list. What are you doing here?”
“I believe this is where I’m supposed to be. Are you familiar with HALO? Fine lads. They dropped me and another man off not long ago.”
“How do you like your accommodations?” I asked, the generator still grinding away.
“One can hardly raise a complaint when your host works for the man upstairs,” he said, making the sign of the cross. But the way he did it was irreverent. “While I have you here, how’s the boy?”
“He’s fine. Someone’s keeping an eye on him and watching over the property.”
“Good to know. If you don’t mind my asking, who’s watching over him?” Patrick gave me a guarded look, but he wasn’t an easy man to read. “Is it a woman?”
“Yes,” I said tersely.
A smile relaxed his face. “That’s what I like to hear.”
My jaw set.
“Only meaning that I wouldn’t want any able-bodied man to be babysitting when he could be helping with the evacuation.”
I bristled at the implied insult. “All the able-bodied women were already working the assignment. We just happened to have an extra person to spare.”
He chuckled. “I’m an old-fashioned man, Miss Black. Do forgive me.”
“By the way, I went by your place to pick up some clothes for the kid. What’s his name again?”
Patrick frowned. “You went to my home?”
“Yep. You didn’t think we had children’s clothes lying around, did you?”
He tightened the belt on his robe, which was already tight.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t go through your things. Did you get new guards? I noticed a couple of new guys at the Valentine’s party.”