He set a vial filled with half of Mahalia’s allicorn on Rhyan’s desk. Her eyes widened as she realized what was in the glass container and that Mahalia had, in fact, sent us here.
“She was right to send you to me. No one else in town can get you elven wares.” The unique powder transfixed Rhyan.
I looked at Oberon. He didn’t seem bothered by her statement. Doesn’t deal with stolen goods, my ass. I’d bet more than one of the jars on her shelves contained magical black-market items.
She spun around in her chair, stood up, and went to the shelves behind her. She slid the bulk packs of paper towels to one side, revealing a small safe. She opened the safe and pulled out a small jewelry box. She set the box down on her desk and snatched up the allicorn, quickly putting it in the safe. I had a moment of panic. What if the box was empty? She had already locked up the allicorn, and something told me we’d have a hell of a time getting it back from her now.
I reached for the worn-velvet jewelry box. The hinged lid creaked a little when I opened it. Relief flooded me as a silver chain with a black and white stone pendant came into view. I decided to wait until we were outside to put it on. Rhyan knew who I was, even though I’d never met her before. It seemed like a bad idea to let her know I was the one who needed the amulet, and that got me thinking.
“How do we know that this is the amulet that Mahalia wants?” I was regretting my haste to leave the house without getting more information from Mahalia.
“I’ve got only one amulet in my safe worth what she offered for trade.”
“So you say. But…”
Oberon reached for my arm, stopping me.
“Are you trying to insinuate something, Miss Kincaide? Why don’t you ask your friend if this is the right one?” Rhyan gestured to Oberon, a smirk on her face.
“I wasn’t trying to imply anything. I just want to be sure it’s the right one.” I backtracked a little, trying to placate Rhyan so we didn’t blow the deal.
I looked at Oberon. He nodded in agreement with Rhyan.
“Our business is concluded. See yourselves out.” She busied herself with the stack of papers on her desk.
“Th—”
Oberon grabbed my arm firmly enough to make me stop. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t thank her.” He held on to my arm and led me out of Rhyan’s office and Idiosyncrasy.
“Damn, Maurin, don’t you know better than to thank the Fey?” Oberon asked, once we were outside. He ran his hands through his cropped hair, exasperated by my blunder.
“She was Fey?” I let out a low whistle, relieved he had stopped me before I owed a debt I could probably never repay.
“Her glamour was really good, but I thought that you’d be able to tell.” He pushed the button on the keyfob, unlocking his truck.
“What kind of Fey?” Climbing in the passenger side, I buckled my seatbelt.
“The scary kind. Now put the amulet on. That’ll be one less thing that we have to worry about.”
I slipped the silver chain over my head, tucking the pendant in my shirt. The black and white stone felt cool against my skin. Other than that, putting the amulet on was pretty anticlimactic. For some reason, I thought I’d feel something when I put it on, but nothing happened. There was no astral wind blowing my hair back, no thrum of magic, not even a goose bump.
“Are you sure that this is the right one?” I tried to hide my disbelief.
“It’s black and white agate on a silver chain.”
I guess that explained everything.
Chapter 11
By the time we got back to Mahalia’s, I was utterly exhausted. I went inside and headed straight for the guest bedroom, leaving Oberon to fill Mahalia in on our trip to Idiosyncrasy. Amalie was sprawled out on the bed, listening to her iPod and reading a book. I threw my jacket on the trunk at the foot of the bed and sat down to take off my shoes. Amalie tugged her earbuds out and closed her book.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like shit.” With a hand to my mouth, I covered a yawn.
“Well, I figured that. You’ve been up for nearly two days. I meant since getting the amulet. How are you feeling?”
“I’ll let you know after I go to sleep. He doesn’t seem to bother me when I’m awake. At least, not yet. Maybe if we hadn’t tried the glamour, he wouldn’t have bothered me at all.”
“Guess I’ll leave you alone and let you get some shut- eye.” She slid off the bed.
“Hey, Amalie,” I said, stopping her at the bedroom door. “Do me a favor?”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you need.”
“Can you call the hospital and see how Matthison is doing?”
I had thought about asking Oberon to stop when we were on our way back but chickened out, afraid of running into Matthison’s wife. I couldn’t stand to see the blame and hate in her eyes again. Not to mention I hated hospitals and didn’t want to see Matthison hooked up to all those machines and tubes. If he didn’t make it, then I didn’t want to remember him like that. The memory of what he had looked like before we got him there would haunt me enough.
“Sure. Try to get some sleep. I’ll give you a full report when you get up.” She smiled and shut the door.
I lowered the blinds and pulled the heavy drapes closed; darkening the room just enough to trick my brain into thinking that it wasn’t going on noon. I put her stuff on the nightstand, grabbed the Retaliator from beside my duffel bag, and crawled into bed.
Oberon came in just as I was falling asleep. “Scoot over.”
I rolled over to the middle of the bed, and Oberon climbed in, spooning me.
“Are you going to sleep with your sword?” between yawns.
“Yes.”
“Do you do that a lot?”
“Yes.” I was too tired to explain that most nights I couldn’t fall sleep without it.
“Okay.” He squeezed me tighter.
There was no sign of Lachadiel when I closed my eyes, so I let the sleep I so desperately needed take me.
There were flashes of red. The color was everywhere, dripping from my hands, soaked into my clothes. Skull-splitting screams drowned out the initial sounds of gurgling I’d heard. Covering my ears, I tried to muffle the sounds. I wanted to find the person screaming and help, but couldn’t see anyone in the sea of red. The unseen victim just kept screaming until all traces of a true voice were gone. Even then, the hoarse, ragged attempt at a scream still reached my ears.
Familiar voices broke through the sounds of that poor tortured soul. Voices that were calling my name.
“Maurin!” a scared female voice called out. She knew me, but I couldn’t place her at all.
“Don’t startle her! Back up, Amalie! Don’t touch her!” The man’s voice was strained; he sounded panicky.
Oberon! I jolted awake.
He grabbed my wrist.
I looked down to find him under me, with the Retaliator pressed against his throat.
“Whoa!” Amalie gasped, the shock of my night terror setting in.
“Amalie, why don’t you go downstairs and put some coffee on” Oberon suggested, his voice far more casual than the situation warranted.
She didn’t move.
“We’re okay. Right, Maurin? It’s okay.” He sounded calm and confident, but he never took his eyes off of me.
Immobilized from the fear that Graive’s predictions were coming true, I couldn’t offer any reassurances.
“Oberon, I—” Amalie seemed reluctant to leave us alone.
“Just go make the coffee please, Amalie,” he interrupted.
“But I need to—” She tried again.
“We’re fine. Just give us a minute. We’ll be right down.” Oberon’s took on a firmer tone, brooking no argument from the young witch.
Amalie closed the door behind her.
“Maurin, it’s alright. You can put the sword away now.”
He didn’t move, but held my wrist firmly enough to keep the blade from pressing down into his nec
k.
Unable to find my voice, I just nodded; slowly pulling the sword away until he let go of my wrist. I dropped the Retaliator on the bed beside him and collapsed on his chest.
“Maurin, look at me. Hey, look at me.”
. I’d almost killed him while he slept—while I slept. I couldn’t look at him and certainly wasn’t deserving of his kindness. “Are you, did I hurt you?” I kept my face buried in his chest, afraid to hear the answer.
“No. I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.”
“I could have killed you,” I whispered.
“But you didn’t.” Oberon tried to reassure me.
It didn’t working.
“Only because you and Amalie managed to wake me up in time. What if I didn’t wake up? What if you didn’t grab a hold of my wrist in time?”
“I’m not totally defenseless, you know. If I thought you were going to kill me, then I would have…well. I would have stopped you.”
“You should have.” I knew what he meant, even though he didn’t say it.
“Don’t say that. Why would you want me to use my magic against you when I didn’t need to? I knew you weren’t trying to hurt me. You weren’t even awake. You didn’t even know what you were doing. Would you please look at me?”
I rolled off of him and onto my back, but I wouldn’t look at him. I just stared up at the ceiling.
He propped himself up on his elbow, his face close to mine, waiting for me to turn my head. I didn’t. A tear slipped out of the corner of my eye.
Before it touched my cheek, Oberon wiped it away. He kissed my temple. “If you’d look at me, then you’d see that I’m fine. Maybe then you could forgive yourself for what didn’t even happen.”
Graive’s voice was on repeat inside my head. All I could hear was her saying, “she’s going to kill you” over and over again. She was pretty convincing. I had high hopes for the amulet , but it obviously wasn’t enough. This was more than just a bad dream. Lachadiel was still getting inside my head.
“Maurin.” Something had changed in Oberon’s tone, which made me finally look at him.
I wished I hadn’t. He looked at me like I hung the moon for him, and all I could see was the trickle of blood on his neck from my sword. I wiped the blood away, trying to undo the harm I’d done, and failing pathetically. “You lied.”
“What? That’s just a nick. It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” I got up and walked around the bed toward the door.
“I can feel you putting your wall back up between us. Why do you keep walking away from me?”
“Did you ever think that it would be better if you didn’t keep trying to stop me?”
“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” Oberon sat up, ready to push himself off the bed to stop me from leaving the room.
“I need you not to follow me right now. I just need a few minutes to clear my head.”
“Maurin, you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” Rolling onto his side, he propped himself up on one elbow .
“This is not nothing. Can you just…” I sighed. “Just let me have a cup of coffee and a few minutes to think. Please?”
“Okay, okay.” He rubbed his face with his hands.
“Wouldn’t hurt for you to do some thinking too,” I muttered as I walked out the door.
“I heard that. There’s nothing to think about!”
Damn! The man was stubborn. I almost sliced his neck open with the Retaliator and gave him a wound no amount of magic could heal, and he claimed there’s nothing to think about? A danger to him, and everyone else, as long as Lachadiel was around, I needed to find out how to get rid of the mark and the tie that bound me to him. My best shot at that was the Inquisitors. We had to find them fast, because there was too much riding on it.
I walked into the kitchen and saw Amalie making a sandwich. “Don’t start in on me, please. I just want to get some coffee.”
“Trouble in paradise, Maurin?”
I spun around to see Masarelli standing in the entrance to the kitchen.
“Who let him in?” Jerking a thumb in Masarelli’s direction, it was hard to keep the dislike from my voice.
“Come on, Maurin; is that any way to greet an old friend from the department?” He stood up and walked over, his hand out for me to shake.
“That’s what I went upstairs to tell you. He said that he needed to talk to you, and if I didn’t let him in he’d just come back with a search warrant,” Amalie grumbled,
staring at his hand like it carried the plague.
“Oh yeah? On what grounds?” I crossed my arms over my chest defiantly.
He didn’t say anything, just gave me a smug look, his hand still extended. Masarelli was a lot of things, but he wasn’t this stupid. After working with me for so long, he knew if I shook his hand I’d be able to see inside his head. What was he up to?
Taking his hand with a firm grip; I squeezed hard so he couldn’t jerk away if he had a change of heart. Thoughts all jumbled, Masarelli’s mind was as messy as his car. Barraged with memories, most of them personal and probably more than Masarelli wanted to share; I could feel him trying to tuck them away. Too late. He started this little game, and I planned to finish it. I picked through his mental high school yearbook. Hmm, he had been a jock, and he’d been good, but not good enough to earn a scout’s attention. After graduation he signed up for the police academy. Flash forward to his wife. She was surprisingly lovely. And par for the course of his life, he was falling short there too. There was the affair he had chosen to ignore, which had ultimately ended his marriage.
Masarelli slammed up a wall. Quick learner. He flooded his mind with new memories. These were ones he wanted me to see. It was a massacre. Blood was everywhere. The place was crawling with cops. What the hell? There were more images, flashes of old photos of members of the Inquisitors, and faces of coven members.
“What? You’re crazy; you know that?” I told him, as I pieced it all together.
“The Inquisitors are dead. Any one of the coven members could have done it,” Masarelli’s hard ass cop façade slid back into place.
“The Inquisitors are dead? When the hell did this happen?” Amalie reeled at the news, shocked to learn the coven’s adversaries were dead.
I wanted to scream. Things just kept getting worse. The Inquisitors were dead, and Masarelli had his sights set on the coven. Then there was my problem with Lachadiel. Obviously the Inquisitors being dead didn’t mean he was gone. I had to know more about Lachadiel and the connection he had with me. My best shot at finding out how to get rid of him for good had been the Inquisitors, and now that connection was gone.
“Go get Mahalia.”
Amalie needed something to do, other than stand there with her jaw agape. Mahalia needed to hear what the detective had to say, false accusations or not.
“That’s a great idea.” It was never a good thing when Masarelli agreed with me.
“I’ve got a great idea, why don’t you go out and find the real killer.” Snapping at him wouldn’t help anything, but it made me feel a little better.
“That’s precisely why I’m here. Motive, means, and opportunity. Everyone under this roof is a suspect.” Masarelli restocked the portion of his shirt that had freed itself from his pants at some point. “We’ve closed the case on the witch murders. We are now focusing all of our attention on finding the person or persons who killed a total of ten people.”
“Ah, now we’re getting down to it. Witches are people too, asshole. I don’t know how you ever got on SPTF in the first place,” I didn’t bother hiding my disgust with his old prejudices.
“I asked the same question about you.”
‘Touché, asshole.”
“Detective, how nice of you to drop by. Amalie tells me there have been some developments in the case. How can we assist you?” Mahalia breezed into the room, stopping us from coming to blows.
Oberon, Juno, and Phallon followed behind her like a coven hit squa
d, which I don’t think helped the argument that no one here had killed the Inquisitors.
“Is that what you call a mass murder? A development? Is that the new boyfriend, Maurin?” Masarelli chuckled, hitching his thumb in Oberon’s direction.
His clenched jaw and bulging veins were a good indication Oberon wanted to unleash on Masarelli. Thankfully, he had better control of his temper than I did. I knew the game Masarelli was playing. He was there on a fishing expedition. If he had any true evidence, then he would have brought his warrant with him and torn the place apart.
“How did you even find the Inquisitors? Something tells me that the investigation came to a screeching halt when they put you in charge of SPTF.”
“We got a tip. Turns out they were renting an old warehouse down at the wharf. The property owner got suspicious and went to see what they were up to.” Masarelli was preening like a peacock, so confident; like the tip was a direct result of his skills as a detective.
“I want to go to the warehouse, and I want to see your files.”
If I was lucky, there would be some of Lachadiel.
“It’s good to want things. It builds character. Why don’t you ask one of your little witch friends to look into her crystal ball and tell you what really happened?”
“What? You’re an idiot! Since you’re just filling in for Matthison, let me clue you in on how this works. I’m liaison. That means that I am entitled to know everything that you know. You can’t even run a background check on an Other without my knowledge.” .
“Yeah, well, things have changed. Matthison’s still in a coma, and I’m in charge, so we’ll be doing things my way from now on.” Chest puffed up, Masarelli tried to look more intimidating.
“Ooh, tough words big guy, but you're just a stand in. Now tell me which warehouse it is.”
We were wasting time, standing around the kitchen bitching. Everything was a pissing contest with him.
“Right, like I’m going to let you and Broomhilda over there go traipsing around. You think you can contaminate the whole crime scene and make any evidence that we find inadmissible? I don’t think so. Even Matthison wouldn’t tolerate suspects poking around our investigation.” He jerked his head in Mahalia’s direction.
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