Taken

by Claire Farrell

  I turned in my seat. “We’re all in this together. If something comes up, we’ll all deal with it. Besides, you have Aiden on your side.”

  “What if he doesn’t believe me?”

  “He’s your brother. You’re more important than some stupid Council.”

  She raised a brow.

  “Oh, give me a break. They aren’t doing anything amazing in the world, you know?”

  She nodded. “But they’re in charge. They have power, alliances. Even if we do uncover something, it could go badly wrong.”

  “You can back out,” I said quickly. “But I’m not going to.”

  She tapped the steering wheel and stared into the distance. “I can’t,” she said finally. “I need to find out what’s really going on.” She started the engine. “Besides, if it all goes well, I could get a promotion.”

  I shook my head, but I understood her point. She had gotten everything because of her brother. Her home, her money, her job, her respect. Shifters grew up fast, but in a world of ancient beings, a shifter of her age was still considered a pup, or in her case, a cub. If she could prove herself without Aiden’s help, nobody would ever be able to discount her again.

  “Can you drop me off at the bar?” I asked. “I need to talk to Gabe.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  She drove off quickly once she dropped me off at the bar. Inside, I was surprised to see Callista with Gabe. He handed her an envelope and gave her a tight hug. He saw me watching and frowned. His lips moved, and Callista turned to face me, her cheeks flushing red.

  I strode straight over to them. “I’ve just been to your house,” I said before either of them could speak.

  “I’m going home to be with my other sisters. The city has been nothing but bad luck for us.”

  “Esther still has questions for you,” I said.

  “I don’t have any answers,” she insisted.

  Gabe laid his hand on her arm. “Maybe you should save your questions.”

  “I have more respect for Illeana than that,” I snapped. “We’re trying to finish your sister’s work here, Callista. If you have anything to tell us, now is the time. Please.” I softened my voice the way Carl did when he tried to get through to someone, and miracle of miracles, it actually worked.

  She nodded, wiping away fresh tears with perfectly manicured hands. “You’re right. And I will keep in touch. I’ll call Esther if I remember anything, I promise you. But all I know is that when the Council sent me her belongings, some items were missing. My sisters are old fashioned, but Illeana wasn’t. She embraced modern technology, yet none of her gadgets were amongst her things. Even her handbag and purse were missing. I don’t… I don’t really understand it.”

  Gabe frowned. “I was telling Callista that they were probably kept as evidence. We’re still investigating those attacks, after all.”

  Callista looked confused. “I don’t understand how they could be of any help.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t you worry.”

  She squeezed my hand briefly. “Thank you. I… thank you for doing this for her.”

  Gabe hurried her out of the bar, suitcases and all. When he returned, I was sitting alone, thinking hard.

  “Are you trying to make my life more awkward?” he asked impatiently.

  “What the hell is going on? Who is doing this?”

  He sat down, looking weary all of a sudden. “I have no idea. And I have a feeling we won’t know until we’re supposed to.”

  “You have your suspicions though, right?”

  “Too many. That’s the problem.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  “Esther told me she was making sure that Illeana’s family received all of her belongings. So someone involved with the Council took them.”

  “Looks that way,” he admitted. “Why are you here?”

  I frowned. “I’m not sure anymore. I mean, you obviously don’t have any answers either. Except… do you think it’s a good idea to send volunteers to the UK right now?”

  “How else are we going to find out what’s going on? Our people over there haven’t made contact in a month. We need to figure out what’s really happening.”

  “The BVA mean business,” I said. “The twins, the ones who hosted me in Liverpool, they were pretty sure that the vampires wanted in on this election. They’ve been trying for over thirty years. It sounds like they would be pretty pissed over this.”

  “It’s not our concern.”

  “It is if they’ve been working on making creatures like Becca. Their own slaves reckon they have big plans. As in, ‘create an army of beasts and drop them in the middle of their enemies’ kind of plans.”

  He looked more tired than ever. “That’s their business, Ava.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, until they decide we’re one of their enemies. Think about it. What if Gideon’s been making secret alliances with them all along? He gives the best locations, helps them out, and they make him king of Ireland or something. It makes sense when you think about how arrogant and devious he is.”

  “He’s not that stupid, or rather, he isn’t that clever. Gideon’s being watched constantly, don’t worry. Do you ever stop thinking?” But he smiled, and I couldn’t resist smiling back. Gabe was beautiful, even if he was the fakest creature I had come across yet.

  “Nobody can stop thinking,” I said. “Why am I working for you in secret?”

  He seemed taken aback. “Because it could be dangerous for everyone to make this public.”

  I laughed. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows what I’m doing. The questions make it kind of obvious.”

  “There’s a difference between making it official and making it a poorly kept secret. The best way to keep your enemies on their toes is to let them hear half-truths, so you can watch them try to figure out the lie. This way, I get to see how the rumours affect those around me.”

  He gave me a knowing smile. “And if we get somewhere, my rewards will make it all worth it.”

  “For you.”

  “For me,” he agreed.

  That evening as I walked home, I tried to sort everything I knew for sure in my head. It wasn’t a lot. But I knew, if I kept asking questions, that I would eventually find what I was looking for. As I entered my cul-de-sac, I heard a shrill voice calling my name. Dita. I turned and paused, seeing her mother following her closely.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said when Dita ran up to me. “Where you been?”

  “We went to the zoo,” she said, her eyes bright with excitement. “What did you do today?”

  “Boring grownup stuff,” I said, giving an exaggerated eye roll.

  She laughed, and her mother joined us, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

  “How are you?” I asked, pleased to see the bruises on her arms were rapidly fading.

  “We are good,” Anka said, her accent making her words sound harsher than her expression seemed to intend.

  “Can I talk to you about some things?” I thought she would say no, but it didn’t hurt to try.

  She gazed at her daughter and nodded. “Fine. Dita, go ahead and wash your hands. We eat soon.”

  Her daughter made a face as she took a set of keys from her mother, but she ran ahead obediently. Anka led me as far as the gate, and then blocked the way with her body. “I don’t want to hear a lecture,” she said.

  “I’m not… I wasn’t going to give you a lecture. I just wondered if you knew any more about the markets. Anything at all.”

  She shook her head. “We can’t talk about those things. I’m grateful for your help, but─”

  “Please. Anything you can think of that might help. I won’t keep bothering you about it, but I’m stuck for new leads. I have to do what I can, you know?” I attempted to look unassuming, even a little vulnerable.

  She made an exasperated sound, and I tried not to smile triumphantly. “All I know is that there are more powerful beings than us in charge. That muc
h I learned in my mother’s presence. Favours, money, alliances—all can be bought with a useful child. Nobody cares about people like us. We have no friends, no power. We aren’t pure. That’s why you, of all people, need to keep your nose out of it.”

  She turned abruptly and headed for her house. At her front door, she paused and turned. “But if anyone is capable of finding it, I hear you have the right skills.” She slammed the door behind her, and I was left standing there, a chill running down my spine at her words.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning, I had breakfast with Carl at Eddie’s bookshop, partly so I could whine at how little we were getting accomplished, and mostly so I could ignore the incessant ringing of my phone. Every now and then, my grandmother got it into her head to call me. Over and over again. I had answered the calls for the first couple of days, thinking something was wrong, but she had only wanted to beg me to come over to see her. I wasn’t interested. I didn’t tell Carl that though. I just stuck to the current story.

  “It’s not that we aren’t trying,” I said. “It just seems like we’re blocked at every angle. I mean, I’ve been looking online almost constantly trying to find witnesses.”

  “Maybe we’re looking too far afield,” he mused as he perused websites on his laptop.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We still have Peter.”

  I shrugged. “So?”

  “So he’s a witness, and he went through something pretty traumatic. Maybe he’s forgotten details or whatever.”

  “Well, if he’s forgotten them, how are we supposed to make use of him?” I asked.

  “What if we spoke to someone else who was there that night? Like a police officer or something?”

  I stopped chewing. “Do you think they would even talk to us?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? But it’s worth a try.”

  “’Course it is. Wanna come with?”

  His face lit up. “Yeah. After I finish?”

  We agreed to meet when his shift was over. He was in charge of calling ahead to see if he could find anyone who had attended the scene.

  I walked home and figured I should make use of the next few hours to check out the rest of my leads. With an aching neck, I went through incident after incident, struggling to find a witness. Near the end, I got lucky.

  I called Esther. “I’ve found someone, but they’re in England.”

  “Seriously? That’s pure luck, Ava. I could go see them when I’m over there next week.”

  “They’re way, way down south though.”

  “So I’ll go earlier than the rest of the Circle and join them when I’m finished with this lead. We could be on the way to something here.”

  “Let’s not get our hopes up just yet. He’s an elderly man. He might not even be alive, never mind still remember anything useful.”

  She laughed. “It’s better than the nothing we had yesterday, so I’m looking at a half-full glass here.”

  By the time I met with Carl, I was feeling a little more optimistic.

  “That’s fantastic,” he said when I told him. “Even if it’s just to hear them confirm what we already know, at least we’re getting somewhere.”

  “I suppose. Are you sure about this though?” I gestured at the police station. It wasn’t Peter’s local one, but Carl had discovered that one of the officers who attended the scene was dead, and the others had been scattered around the country. Only one remained in Dublin, and he was who we were about to see.

  “Look, we’ll never know if we don’t try.” He shifted his walking stick awkwardly. “Let’s just talk to him and see what happens.”

  I followed him reluctantly. I didn’t really want to face a Garda, especially since the time I had basically mind-screwed one who had stopped Peter and me on the way home one night. The station was tiny, and the phone wasn’t ringing much, but we still had to wait fifteen minutes before someone opened the hatch and took our query.

  “We’re looking for Garda Whelan,” Carl said, standing up with difficulty.

  The Garda’s face tightened. “That’s Sergeant Whelan,” he said snappily. “And he’s on a break.”

  “It’s all right, Andy,” a voice said from behind him. “I’ll handle it.”

  The hatch was shut hastily, and a door to our left opened. A tall Garda stepped through, a smile on his face. “I’m Sergeant Whelan,” he said, his voice a soft mixture of Kerry and inner-city Dublin accents. “Can I help you?”

  Carl and I exchanged glances.

  “We’re looking for information on an incident you attended about nine years ago,” I said. “Two grandparents had their necks broken, a mother’s throat was slit, and a toddler─”

  “Emmett Brannigan,” he said, his face paling. “I’ll open a room for us. Hold on.”

  He pushed the door open again and headed back inside.

  I turned to Carl, raising my eyebrows. “Kind of get the feeling he’s been waiting for someone to show up and ask about Emmett Brannigan?”

  “Why would he remember the exact name unless he thought it was extremely fishy?” Carl asked. “Or he knows something strange.”

  “He’s pretty young, so would he even have spotted anything weird back then?”

  He shrugged. “He’s the only one close by, so we better make the most of him. Try not to piss him off, Ava.”

  I tried and failed to look offended.

  Whelan returned with an anxious look in his eye. “Follow me.” He led us into a tiny interview room that smelled like sweat and stale cigarettes, despite the no smoking sign. As the Garda sat down across from us at the small table, my stomach turned unexpectedly. We were about to see a glimpse into Peter’s past, and Peter had no idea.

  “You’ve given me a little turn,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and his eyes were too innocent for the things he had seen. He was deeply tanned, with black hair and dark brown eyes, but his skin had grown sallow once he said Peter’s son’s name. “Nobody wanted to talk about that case. Nobody.” He shook his head.

  “Can you tell us anything?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed. “Why would you want to know?”

  Carl cleared his throat. “There have been a lot of similar incidents over the years. We’re trying to find some closure for our friend, the boy’s father.”

  Whelan nodded, his expression softening into one of pity and regret. “Peter.”

  “You remembered their names,” Carl said.

  Whelan stared at him. “I couldn’t forget their names if I tried.”

  “Sergeant─” I began.

  He held up his hand. “Call me Shay. This Sergeant crap has been the bane of my life. Never mind that.” He shook his head again, and I could see we had unsettled him.

  “Shay, then,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. “Is there anything you can tell us about that night? We’re pretty sure Peter has blocked out some of what happened.”

  “Peter,” he repeated. “I honestly thought he would have drunk himself to death by now.”

  “He’s made an effort,” I said wryly.

  Shay grinned. He had a good smile. “You get a sense for these things sometimes.”

  “You must have been young when it happened though,” Carl piped up.

  Shay nodded. “I was still a kid, really. Thought I knew it all, but I was barely out of Templemore, and I hadn’t a clue what I was in for. They sent me to Dublin, and I got a few lessons fierce quick. That case though… I’ll never forget that night.”

  He cleared his throat. “They stop affecting you as badly, but you never get some of them out of your head. Especially early on. And that was a weird one. That case was never closed. And now here you are.”

  He shuddered, and I could see him trying to gather his thoughts. I felt a little guilty for dredging up bad memories, but we did what we had to do.

  “When we were called out that night, I threw up at the sight of them. Not just the older couple or even
the girl. She was younger than me, so it got to me, but it was him. Peter. He was distraught, absolutely out of his head crazy, and everyone assumed he had something to do with it, but he was clean. And I could see it in his eyes. He was in shock, absolutely horrified. They had to sedate him in the end. He cried about the boy, kept calling out for the monsters. The things he said.” He shook his head again. “How is he now? He called us every day for a year, but then it all just stopped.”

  “He’s angry,” Carl said, anger in his own voice.

  Shay didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t blame him. We couldn’t find a trace of the child, and we were told to stop looking in the end. Nobody wanted to talk, and I had the sense that the entire incident was being swept under the carpet for some reason. The man I was partnered with that night kept asking questions, then eventually committed suicide. I took it as far as I could go, but they moved me on, said someone else was going to take over. But they didn’t, because I checked. Nobody took over. It was all dropped as if it never happened. Always made me think.”

  “Why would they do that?” Carl asked.

  Shay stared at his hands. “I couldn’t ever find out. Sometimes, I think the promotion was to shut me up.” He turned on his smile again, but there was no life behind it. “This is where you tell me what you know.”

  Carl hesitated. “We don’t know anything you could use.”

  “And that means what exactly?”

  “It means you wouldn’t believe us,” I said. “You didn’t believe Peter back then.”

  “About what? The light? It wasn’t exactly a lead,” he protested.

  “What light?” I pinched Carl’s arm for support. I wasn’t about to hear anything good; I just knew it.

  “When he was sedated, even before it, he kept going on about a monster and a bright light saving him. He wouldn’t stop raving about it. But after his uncle visited him in the hospital, he calmed down and latched back on to the monster thing again.”

  “What uncle?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  “I don’t remember. I just remember I thought it was strange that Peter just dropped half of his story on his uncle’s say so. It was a long time ago.”