by Lyra Evans
For a moment, a dangerous light entered Preston’s eyes. “You could,” he whispered, and Niko sensed Cobalt’s movement before he managed to strike Preston.
Holding a hand up to stop Cobalt, Niko shook his head. “You’ve got one very good friend,” he said, pointing to the short entry. “This one sent you quite a lot right before you ran off into the forest. Why might that be?”
Cobalt’s presence expanded outward, as though it was tangible on the air. Niko felt the heat of it envelop him, but he imagined it pressed down on Preston like sunstroke. Preston’s expression didn’t change.
“There are so many reasons to give a gift,” Preston said. “Birthdays, anniversaries, achievements—”
“Extortion, blackmail, bribery,” Niko finished for him. Preston tilted his head.
“Those wouldn’t really be gifts, would they?”
“So who sent you this particular gift?” Niko asked.
“My bank records didn’t give you that information?” he asked. Niko stiffened minutely. Preston narrowed his eyes, a smile on his face. “I guess we’ll never know now.”
Preston was frustratingly neutral, giving nothing away. Not even Cobalt’s physical assaults had shaken him in the slightest. Perhaps he was weighing his chances with them, assuming they wouldn’t kill him. Or, at least, that Niko wouldn’t kill him. It was a bet he shouldn’t have been so willing to make.
Niko turned to Cobalt, considering their surroundings. “We found so much interesting information at the condo,” he reiterated, and Cobalt straightened. “Seems like searching here too could be fruitful. We came all this way, after all.” Niko addressed the last to Preston, watching for any tells.
“Indeed. Allow me,” Cobalt said, moving around the small cabin, pulling things from shelves and opening every drawer and door he came across. He started in the kitchen, first refilling his water bottle at the sink and taking a long drink. Preston, meanwhile, held Niko’s gaze. But where he was mischief and darkness before, now his eyes held a flat kind of cold. Like a frozen lake top.
“Here’s what I think happened,” Niko said, crossing his arms over his chest and considering the ceiling as though studying the sky. “I think you got frustrated. You’re used to being able to fly under the radar with your activities when you choose. You’re whole M.O. is that of a ‘man of mystery,’” Niko said, rolling his eyes at the phrase. Preston watched him, expressionless. “But with me constantly harping on how you were just as culpable for the auction as Vermillion Oak was—”
“Which was untrue,” Preston interrupted.
Niko ignored him. “—I was making it pretty difficult for you to disappear into the background like you wanted. People started to notice you more. Reporters and tabloid photographers were following you around more. Asking questions. You couldn’t conduct business as usual.”
“I’m glad you acknowledge the real and quantitative repercussions your false allegations have had on my life,” Preston interrupted again. Again, Niko ignored him.
“So you decided to do something about it,” Niko said, writing the narrative out on the air. “You did some digging into my past and found Sade. Your perfect little patsy. And just enough of a psychopath to get along with you. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of common interests.”
“Sade Hemlock? Is that who we’re talking about? The vicious rapist who delivered you the information necessary to locate the Selkie auction in the first place?” Preston asked, his expression pointed.
Niko ignored this too, though he thought it rather rich of Preston, of all people, to call Sade a vicious rapist. Sometimes people didn’t recognize their own reflections, Niko supposed.
“He gave you lots of fascinating details about me, probably, because Sade’s a fucking narcissist and can’t resist reliving past exploits,” Niko went on. “The only problem was Sade was in prison. Couldn’t use him against me while he was locked up at Sluagh. So you had to call in a favour or two from your long list of very powerful friends.”
“Getting someone like Sade out of prison would likely have called for more than a couple favours,” Preston mused. Niko caught his eyes, waiting for him to incriminate himself, but Preston shrugged. “But how should I know? I had nothing to do with it.” Niko’s jaw tightened slightly, and behind him, Cobalt tossed book after book over his shoulder as he emptied out the bookcase. For the first time since arriving, Niko saw Preston’s control slip. “Will you please be careful with those? Some are very old and very fragile.” His jaw pulled and morphed as he snapped at Cobalt, his mouth and nose lengthening, in a split second, to the razor-toothed maw of a Wolf before reforming to their regular state. He was angry.
Niko paused, as did Cobalt. They both looked at Preston a moment, who seemed aware of his slip. He looked away, sucking on his teeth. Cobalt plucked another book from the shelf, this one particularly old. The fabric binding was a faded green, the once-gold lettering along the spine flaked off to a dull grey-black. When Cobalt opened it, the strings connecting the spine to the covers stretched, showing just how used the book was. He flipped idly through the pages, then, eyes on Preston, flung the book aside across the room.
“Does this bother you?” he asked. The book had landed inches from the fireplace, cover spread wide, leaning on its now bending pages.
Preston rolled his head, stretching out the visible tension in his neck. Closing his eyes slowly, he regained his control, favouring Cobalt with another flat look. “I think I will bill you, actually.”
Niko reached over and picked up the old volume, considering the title. It was a genealogical compendium of the old families of Maeve’s Court titled The First Trees in the Woods. Niko cocked an eyebrow at it.
“That’s a first edition,” Preston said. “The only one of its kind left. They reprinted it with some adjustments. You can’t find this version anywhere anymore.”
Niko let it fall shut and dropped it back to the floor, this time closed. The thunk it made as it hit the ground echoed in the cabin. He cared little for the Old Trees and their idiotic claims to legitimacy in Maeve’s Court.
“It took some time,” Niko said, returning immediately to his narrative, “but you got your selected Courtiers together, a bench staffed by your old friends, with Keilani Palm in the lead, and set about releasing a violent and unrepentant sexual and physical predator back into the world.” Preston’s expression changed minutely, his slippered feet shifting to the side as he leaned back against the chair. “But Sade makes a very bad friend and worse conspirator. He serves no one but himself. He’s also volatile and reckless, particularly when he’s paranoid. And thanks to me, he’s always paranoid now. So you had to act quickly. You sent him to a warehouse you’d pre-selected in order to trap both him and me.”
“How did I convince him to go to a location I’d selected if he’s so paranoid?” Preston asked, feigning confusion.
“By making it seem like a gift,” Niko said. “A place he could do as he wished in private. The warehouse you picked worked very well for that. And consequently, it worked well for you to torture and kill him, too.”
“Only I didn’t,” Preston said.
Niko ignored him. “So you snuck in the back, through the fencing you’d cut and set with runes to look undamaged—”
“I have no ability to set runes,” Preston interrupted.
“And given how wealthy you are, it wouldn’t be difficult to have all this done quietly by companies who take money for discretion,” Niko went on. “And you surprised Sade when he thought he was alone. Not a small feat, granted. But Werewolves are particularly stealthy, aren’t they?”
“Only in Wolf form, really,” Preston said. “And I’m sure someone would have noticed a massive Wolf wandering the streets—”
“Wouldn’t have been an issue if you approached the warehouse from the back, which faces a wooded area across an unpaved access road,” Niko explained. “And where we might have found paw prints.” He didn’t mention the odd details of the prints, being u
nable to explain them yet. But Preston seemed unbothered by the mention of the prints. “You strung him up, tortured him, and killed him. And to make it look like me, you made sure to reproduce every little detail of what he’d put me through, down to the placement on the body and timing. Stun gun burns, knife wounds, whip lashes, choking, cigarette burns—the whole of it. But you went too far with the pipe; I would never have done that. Not to him, not to anyone.”
Preston’s eyes widened a mite, a movement so brief and small Niko thought he’d imagined it for a moment. He hesitated only a second.
“How was I to carry all these implements in if I was in Wolf form?” Preston asked.
Niko held his gaze, wondering at the momentary reaction. “Stashed them there ahead of time. You picked the place, after all. And you left them all behind. After you shot him, of course. I find it somewhat funny you think I’d go to the trouble of emptying a whole clip into his dick before killing him, but shows how little you can learn about a person through second-hand research alone.”
Preston smiled softly. Niko didn’t like the look of it, his stomach clenching. “So where’s the gun?”
Niko leaned forward here, affecting an expression that normally conveyed a state somewhere between understanding and knowing. “You tell me, Preston.”
Eyebrows rising to his dark hairline, Preston turned his head. “You haven’t found the murder weapon?” Niko held his position and expression, yielding nothing. The heat of the fire in the hearth felt suddenly intense on his skin. It was too hot, really, for a fire. “Bold of you to make accusations like this without any evidence whatsoever.”
“We have evidence,” Niko said.
“Oh? Are my fingerprints on the stun gun or whip or whatever? My DNA on the rope or the pipe?”
Anger surged in Niko. He bit it back. “We’ve got your paw prints.”
“You think I’m brilliant enough to get a violent offender released from prison, trick him into a trap, torture and murder him without anyone overhearing, leave no fingerprints or DNA, but then I left my paw prints to be found?”
“The paw prints were outside the fencing, across the street,” Niko said. “Easy to imagine you thought you were safe once you were beyond the fence.”
Preston laughed, and Niko wanted to punch him. But the darkening bruise along Preston’s jawline from Cobalt’s assaults reminded him to keep his anger in check. He would give Preston no way to play for anyone’s sympathy.
“So you really do have nothing,” he said. “Paw prints near a wooded area outside the limits of the crime scene,” he reiterated. “You know there are such things as wild wolves too, yes?”
“There haven’t been wild wolves in Maeve’s Court in centuries,” Niko said with a glare. He felt bile rise in his throat.
Preston rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he said, shaking his head. “Only the entire story is based on a fallacy. There is no reason to work this hard to discredit you. You did it well enough yourself.” Niko’s skin stung, his eyes sharp on Preston. Everything darkened around them, the day wearing on. He breathed in a calculated breath, searching for Cobalt’s scent to anchor himself. But Cobalt was across the cabin, rifling through the closet, too far for Niko to inhale. The fire and wood smell overtook everything else, and Niko itched to unleash his bottled violence on Preston. “The newspapers have already moved on from your claims. Even the tabloids don’t bother with it anymore. No one believed you. Why would I bother setting you up this way?”
Teeth grinding together, neck muscles wrought to knots, Niko said, “Because I’m still investigating the Woods, and I don’t let cases go until I solve them. And I always do.”
Preston shook his head. “The Woods was Vermillion Oak and his megalomaniacal plans. He’s dead, and so is the Woods.”
“One tree hardly makes a forest,” Niko snapped, repeating Oak’s words with a fury and conviction that almost made him fear for his own sanity.
But it stopped Preston. He fell silent a moment, staring Niko down. “That really depends on your definition of forest,” Preston said. “Perhaps you should revisit yours.”
Something passed between Niko and Preston then, but Niko didn’t know how to identify it. There was a look in Preston’s eyes that spoke of something dangerous, but it wasn’t a threat. If Niko hadn’t known better, he might have thought it was a warning.
“Niko.” Cobalt’s voice cut through the tenuous thread connecting Niko and Preston, and Niko turned. The Selkie looked back at him with a stern, wary expression. “I’ve found something.”
Niko looked back at Preston, searching for a reaction, but Preston remained oddly neutral. “Curious,” Preston said.
Getting to his feet, Niko went over to where Cobalt stood in front of the small closet. It was a multi-purpose storage area, with some hanging coats and clothes, as well as cleaning tools propped against one side, towels stacked on a shelf, and other miscellaneous items. At first Niko didn’t know what Cobalt meant; there was quite a lot in the closet and only some of it had been removed and sorted. But Cobalt pointed a long, muscled arm toward the back corner of the space.
“Keep an eye on him,” Niko said to Cobalt, as he crouched down to study the area closer. The back wall of the closet appeared to be made of the same wooden boards as everything else at first, the boards parallel but staggered on and off for aesthetic purposes. But on closer inspection, the breaks of several boards appeared to line up too closely, too evenly, standing out very slightly against the rest. It shaped the outline of what Niko might describe as a staircase zigzag.
Biting his lips, Niko shuffled into the closet, shoving aside old rain boots that smelled of feet and dust, a basket of scarves and blankets, and the brooms and mops that leaned inside the space. He pressed his fingertips to the seaming in the wood pattern, feeling for some indication of—something. And he got it.
There was a lightness under the pads of his fingers when he touched the zigzagging seam compared to when he touched the other seams. Like a weak whisper of air passing through. With soft knocks, he tested the sound from one part of the closet wall to another. Knocking over the corner pieces produced a hollow sound.
“It’s a hatch,” Niko said, looking up at Cobalt. He turned back, heart beating faster. He could almost taste vindication on his tongue, but he focused on the little door. Pressing down, shoving inward, knocking, hitting—nothing worked to dislodge it. He searched around with blind hands for a knob or latch or something that might release it from its place. With increasing frustration, he swiped his hands together and felt around for a magical lock. And as he moved his fingers over the tiny door, he stopped dead. The magic sizzled and tingled on his skin, and he felt something like a locking spell.
A dark smile spread on his face as he traded around to release the spell. After a moment, he felt a small click, and the door popped slightly open.
“Do not move,” Cobalt Sang to Preston. Niko couldn’t see what Preston was doing, or trying to, from inside the closet, but he didn’t care much now.
Fingers gripping to the edge of the wood, Niko pried open the little hatch to see what Preston was so intent on hiding. Inside was a small metal box, covered in what Niko recognized as waterproofing coating. He pulled it out and crawled out of the closet, needing the light of the main cabin to see clearly. Cobalt moved in closer as Niko popped the latch on the front of the metal box. The cold lid eased open with a quiet whine, and Niko and Cobalt looked upon Preston’s dark secret.
Inside the box were two cellphones similar to the ones Niko and Cobalt had been given by Starla. They were cheap, disposable phones with no bells and whistles. Burner phones. Next to them was a signal boosting device slightly more sophisticated than the one Niko had gotten from Uri. And then there was a small adapter with very finely cut jade and aquamarine stones set into it. The adapter seemed to fit into the port of the cellphones.
“Are these how he’s been conducting business?” Cobalt asked, picking up one of the phones. Niko took the other.
They were both powered down, so Niko and Cobalt both pressed and held the buttons to turn them on. There was no personality to the phones once they were on. No background wallpaper, no apps beyond the standard, pre-set ones. The web browser had no history. There were no outgoing or incoming calls logged. No contacts.
Niko plugged the adapter into the phone he was holding to see what would happen. It popped up with a small window that seemed identical to the messenger app. Except for one detail.
“Niko, this is your phone number, is it not?” Cobalt asked, showing him the screen of his phone. Niko looked over, as though in slow motion. The number on Cobalt’s screen was, in fact, his number. He felt gripped by cold in that moment, unsure how to process anything he was seeing. But his eyes returned to his own screen, to the window open to a messenger app. It had an outgoing text message Niko recognized, but worse than that, the number marked as the sender was a series of incomprehensible symbols. These were messages from the glitched phone number.
Chapter 17
Everything was still and silent. The cabin and the fire and the jungle fell away, and Niko was left dangling in a void, holding evidence he couldn’t even begin to fathom. He had always been good with puzzles, riddles, mysteries. He’d figure out the killer in a crime novel in the first few chapters when he was younger, and he’d go through abandoned newspaper after abandoned newspaper, filling in all the daily puzzles he could get his hands on. He found being a Detective so gratifying because life was often so much more complicated than puzzles for entertainment. People were simple but less reliable, and there was an endless supply of variables affecting any one event. Magic made things easier and harder at once.
But now, staring at the texts that had been sent by the glitched number, that had clearly been sent from these phones, and could only have been sent by Preston, Niko found he was incapable of reasoning out a solution in any way that made sense. Preston was running the Woods. He funded the Selkie auction. He was a murderer and torturer and—he had sent Niko the text messages about the Woods.