By the time I walked into the office, it was just after one o’clock.
“Maxine, I’m so glad you’re here. Ricky went out. He was called about another case.”
Another case? What on Earth was she talking about? Ricky didn’t see any clients without me, but then maybe this had something to do with the evidence that we had found last night.
“Did he say anything else?” I asked, checking the mail.
“He said, well… he was kind of rude,” she said shyly, looking at me with those big blue eyes.
“Just tell me. I can take it,” I said. Humans, they appeared to be so fragile, always worried about other people.
“Oh, my God! What happened to your face?” she asked, like she just noticed my black eye.
I placed my hands on her arms and said, “It’s nothing, Emma, just focus. What did Ricky say?”
“For you not to fuck anything up before he came back. There’s some information about a man in his drawer that he wanted you to look at,” she rambled, looking anxiously at my black eye. Ricky must have worked really hard last night while I was getting wasted at the bar. There were some notes inside his cabinet, telling me that the demon who took George was part of Lucifer’s faction.
“Maxine, can I ask you something?”
Emma followed me back to Ricky’s office. She looked uncomfortable, like she wanted to tell me something, but was afraid to be rejected.
“What it is, Emma?” I asked, trying to be patient, trying to act like I was a good boss.
“Well, it’s my daughter’s birthday party this weekend, and I was wondering if you would like to come. There will be mostly other mothers, but you have done so much for me already, and I would love to have you there.”
I glanced back at her, knowing that she was waiting for me to answer. Right at that moment, I was ready to forget I was running a business, that I was half demon and a weak soul. The pain inside my chest stung me hard, reminding me of the last twelve months, reminding me of exactly what I had left behind.
“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” I pointed out, sounding odd, feeling vulnerable. Her face brightened instantly, like a bulb in a dark room, and my soul darkened. Some snippets of her memories were slowly coming back to me.
“Yes, she is five and she invited all her friends from school. We would love to have you there,” she said beaming, clapping enthusiastically. I scratched my head, trying to push that deep, burning guilt away, knowing I could have taken a different path a couple of months ago.
Emma looked happy, delighted, and I wanted to be like her: normal for once.
“All right, I’ll come over. Leave the address and the time on my desk.” I forced out the words before my brain could process what I agreed to. Emma jumped again and then hugged me. I was stiff like a wooden board. This was weird.
“Amazeballs, can’t wait. This will be awesome.”
Chapter 11
“In His will, our peace.”
― Dante Alighieri
Ricky had left pretty good notes, and after triple-checking everything, I had a clear idea where I needed to head next. George could have been poisoned and smuggled out of the palace through the staff quarters. I still had no theory of what exactly had happened that night, but I wanted to find the woman who Matt had spoken about. I needed to get back to the palace and question a couple of people who I had missed the day before.
Instead of taking the tube to the palace, I headed to the south side of the city. Zachary worked at the police station in Epsom, and after our agreement, I had to talk to him about my next course of action, without revealing too much. Part of me wanted to stay away from him, but the other part needed to thank him for saving my arse. My gut feeling told me that George was still in the city, but most likely not for very long. The royals were the key, but the problem was, that all of them (apart from Arthur) hated my freaking guts.
Rubbing my achy thighs in the tube, I was listening to a mother who was telling off one of her twins for smearing chocolate over his brother’s face. Deep down this woman wished that she could leave them in the tube. Yeah, everyone somehow had dark marks on their souls.
The crowds of people on the streets in early afternoon had put me off going out in the middle of the day, but at least it wasn’t raining. This case was my priority, and I didn’t want any unexpected visitors from Hell looking into my background. Some mongrels with developed abilities like mine were summoned down below regardless of their role in society. Lucifer liked picking out half demons with exceptional abilities, and I had to stay away from Hell, as far as was physically possible. The freedom in the underworld was limited; that’s why many demons were willing to try a new life on the outside.
It took me a while to find the police station in Epsom. There was a part of me that believed Zach wanted to use me for something. He had his own dark secrets.
As soon as I entered the red brick building, I knew that I could never truly call myself human. Tequila emphasised the emotions that humans were broadcasting. I felt extreme anger, pain, and resentment. There were many people in the building filled with troubled thoughts. Zachary was inside, too. I had spent enough time with him last night to recognise his fiery attitude somewhere on the third floor. Sometimes I connected with strangers, still not understanding that odd side of my supernatural abilities. My father, whoever he was, must have been a very powerful demon.
I walked straight to the cop who sat at the front desk. Once I cleared my throat, he looked up and automatically frowned. He didn’t like my colourful hair and the fact that I had a black eye. He believed that I could still be saved if I pray to God for forgiveness. Yeah, I was most definitely on the wrong side of the city.
“Hey, I’m looking Detective Quinton,” I said, ignoring his judgemental look.
“Have you got an appointment?” he asked. “Are you from the press?”
Wow, paranoid much?
“We are on a case together, and I need to speak to him urgently,” I explained, not entirely happy that I had to have an appointment just to see Zach. Humans were awkward, and sometimes difficult for no apparent reason. I hated wasting my precious time, and this guy obviously judged me from the start.
“Are you from another division?” he questioned.
“No, I run a private detective agency. Detective Quinton and I have been assigned to a new case. Can you just do me a favour and tell him that I need to speak to him pronto?” I pressed, more hostile, losing my patience. He didn’t look amused or even impressed.
“He’s busy. It might be a while,” he replied, not even bothering to inform Zach that I was waiting downstairs.
I forced myself not to compel him to give me a pass upstairs. The hangover was hitting me hard this afternoon, and I still had to head to Buckingham Palace. I didn’t want to get drunk again tonight. I had no more available cash, and Ricky would kill me, knowing that I was wasting time.
I waved my thanks and decided to wait for a bit, hoping that Zach would eventually show up. I found the bathroom after getting bored of waiting outside. There were a few female cops talking, some obviously in a hurry. I splashed some water on my face, wondering if I could sneak upstairs somehow and stop wasting time waiting around. I was just about to leave when I overheard a conversation between two police officers. One of them was inside the last cubical, and the other was washing her hands.
“Apparently Zach came in late today and had a massive argument with Dean,” the dark-haired one said. I didn’t want it to seem obvious that I was eavesdropping, so I entered the free cubical next to the last one.
“Really? Zach is always in such a bad mood. The other day, he nearly beat someone up on the street over some voodoo crap. I wonder why they haven’t suspended him yet,” the other woman pointed out. She was in the cubical next to mine. It seemed that Zach was well known at the station, obviously from his reputation as a stellar personality. All of a sudden, I didn’t want to leave. If I was going to work with this guy, I wanted to get to kno
w him a little better.
“I don’t know, but apparently the superintendent had his guts full of complaints. Zach believes in all sorts of supernatural rubbish. He is super hot, but too eccentric. Apparently, he is trying to find something odd in every bloody case that he gets his hands on these days,” the woman said, washing her hands in the sink.
Humans weren’t aware of the other world, so it wasn’t a surprise that both of these women believed Zach was simply odd. The Watchers had made sure that every human was protected from the real truth, but every mongrel out there knew that sometimes, rules were made to be broken. There had been many unexplained cases on the streets of London that many cops didn’t want to touch.
“He was normal before, you know… before this thing with his partner.”
Okay, now I needed to know what “this thing” with his partner meant.
“I don’t know, maybe. It’s terrible what happened to Cora. She died at such a young age. Quinton never believed in her suicide, you know,” the one who was right opposite me said. Hell, Ricky had been right. And Paul. Zachary was carrying a grudge over his dead partner. I should have let him win and solved this case on my own.
“Zach thinks she didn’t commit suicide, that some kind of dark forces were involved. He hasn’t been the same since. I don’t know, but the pathologist was convinced it was a suicide, that no third party was involved.”
There was a long moment of silence, as the woman in the cubical next to me was digesting all the information slowly. I had my answer now: Zach had lost his partner a while back. Of course, I didn’t know all the details, but it was safe to assume that he hadn’t gotten over it yet.
“Right, you mean, he thinks that there is some other world beyond this one.” The other cop laughed.
“Yes, something like that. He might have lost his mind,” the one next to me added. A moment later, I flushed the toilet and left like I was just some random girl done with her business.
Zachary believed in the other world, and there was possibly a good reason for it. Some demon had already tampered with his mind or he was simply just paranoid. I didn’t quite believe in the second option. These days demons were unpredictable.
I left half an hour later, not getting anywhere with the cop at the front desk. Maybe last night was a mistake. I shouldn’t have shared with Zach intimate details about my past. He was obviously sensitive to things that weren’t easily explained. His problems shouldn’t have really worried me, but I knew that in the near future, I had to stop blabbing about my life to anyone who was willing to listen. Working alongside a human who believed in supernatural stuff could slow down the progression of the case. If the missing royal was kidnapped by another demon, then Lucifer’s reputation would be in tatters.
I was hoping the guy at the desk would tell Zach that I had been around, so I expected him to get in touch with me later on. It took me another hour to reach Buckingham Palace. I was pleased to see that security was tighter than normal, and the guard at the front of desk made me wait for ages before I was eventually let through. Deep down, I was hoping that Arthur was out gallivanting somewhere else with Natalie, so I didn’t have to deal with him today.
“Ahh, Miss Brodeur, I presume you have a reason to be here again?”
I turned around, not even making it a few steps into the main corridor. Rodriguez must have gotten the call that I was in the palace.
“My business partner has managed to extract an elixir from the samples found in George’s blood. We are certain that the demon who took George belongs to a higher faction—Lucifer’s,” I said, getting straight to the point. I bet this wasn’t what Rodriquez wanted to hear, but he needed to face the truth.
Rodriguez stroked his beard, grabbed me by the elbow, and moved us aside, like he was afraid someone was planning to listen in. Of course, the news was unexpected. That could only mean that someone within the faction was conspiring against Lucifer himself.
“A demon part of Lucifer’s faction? Impossible. The prince never associates himself with any demons,” Rodriquez snarled, looking alarmed. The royals were protected and, after me, no other demon apart from Rodriquez was allowed anywhere near them.
“Yes, sir, my business partner triple-checked everything. That’s why I need full access to the prince’s staff to assess if anything was missed the night in question. I also found out that the prince had been seen with redheaded, an older woman outside the palace. Maybe this is nothing, but would you know who that might be?”
Rodriquez’s eyes narrowed even further, and a vein in his neck began thumping faster. No one ever dared to rebel against the hierarchy in Hell, and now there was a demon on the loose—who had Prince George. This whole thing stunk like someone was looking to start an uprising.
“Of course, I will inform the guards to give you full access. Make sure you keep this to yourself. The Dark Lord wants this matter to be resolved as soon as possible. On top of that, the Queen Mother is thinking about appealing to the press, and we can’t afford the risk of panic in the nation,” Rodriquez hissed, exhaling sharply.
He was right; things were tight, and time wasn’t on my side. If I had to bet, I’d say the other factions didn’t know the Queen’s grandson was missing. There was only one master of the underworld, but I had heard rumours that some Watchers expected to see a change. Apparently not everyone was happy downstairs and, if there was going to be an uprising in Hell, then mongrels like me were going to be used as a shield. Yeah, none of this was good.
“I shall, but right now, I need to go,” I said, letting him know that he was wasting my time.
“Use the back entrance. There is a meeting on the upper floor. I’ll make all staff available to you should they need to be questioned again,” Rodriquez said. “By the way, what happened to Detective Quinton?”
As soon as Rodriguez mentioned Zach’s name, a fresh wave of heat shot over the nape of my neck. I didn’t understand this new reaction. The guy was a still stranger to me.
“He’s around. We made a deal last night to work together,” I explained, faking a smile. “I’m planning to give him a full report later on.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it. Time is of the essence, Miss Brodeur, and I hope to hear good news soon,” he said, turned around, and then headed in the opposite direction.
My hangover reminded me that I had to get on with my task, so I used the back corridors to walk to the main kitchen. I still had friends amongst the staff. Not many of them were privy to what happened to me twelve months ago. Arthur was forced to cut all contact he had with me. I was relieved from my post within an hour. I never had a chance to say goodbye to anyone who I had worked closely with, so I wasn’t sure how some of the staff would react seeing me now. After all, I was an outsider now, asking them uncomfortable questions about their bosses.
It took me fifteen minutes to get from one wing to the other. Now and again, I had to stop as the heated memories blurred my vision, spiking my anxiety and increasing my heartbeat. Arthur was an impetuous man; he used to drag me to all of the secret rooms, away from guards, staff, and other people, so we could be alone. I needed to keep the whole affair in the past, but right now, I was reliving every second of it. My love for him burned deep inside me, and I couldn’t get away, even after twelve months of hell.
“Hello, are you lost, little girl?”
An unfamiliar voice startled me when I walked through one of the back staff rooms. A woman appeared suddenly right in front of me. Her face was hidden in the shadow, and I couldn’t read her emotions. I nearly tripped but kept my balance. There was something odd about her ambiance. She was either a demon or something much worse.
Chapter 12
“Because your question searches for deep meaning,
I shall explain in simple words”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Her long, silky hair was wavy, the colour of chestnut. She wore a long, fitted silky green dress. Whoever she was, she couldn’t have been part of the roy
al staff. I wondered if I had ever met her before, but my mind was totally blank. As far as I knew, she was a stranger.
“No, I’m fine. I’m heading to the kitchen,” I said, kind of wanting to tell her to stay out of my business. “And you are?”
She lifted her lips in a smile, but there was something disturbing in the way she expressed her joy. Her eyes were sharp and focused. My energy danced across my neck, as I was trying to read into her emotions. Every human was unique, and everyone reacted differently when I was close, but I was always able to read humans, without exception.
“Alexis Frasier. I’m a close friend of Princess Layla,” she stated with a sophisticated, icy tone of voice. “I don’t think Lord Chamberlain would appreciate seeing you running around the palace without proper identification.”
I forced myself not to roll my eyes. She obviously wanted me to think that she was someone important, but I really didn’t give a damn. Princess Layla had never mentioned her, and as an ex-head of security, I knew everyone in the palace.
“I’m working with Rodriguez, and I don’t have time to chat, if you’ll exc—”
“Oh, so you’re the private investigator who is looking into the disappearance of young Prince George?” She cut me off, moving even closer. I was taken aback by the way she changed her tune so suddenly. She had very green alluring eyes, and I kept thinking that I had seen her somewhere before. I had been drinking tequila for so long that I had problems with remembering certain people or events from the past. Maybe it was time to stop drinking the shit.
“Maybe I am, but right now, I really have to go,” I muttered, ready to leave, but she grabbed my elbow, and a spark of electricity shot down to my abdomen. I looked down at her hand, wondering what the hell her problem was. I didn’t like to be touched.
Doomed Cases Box Set: The Complete Collection Books 1- 4 & Prequel Page 13