Unveiled (Etudes in C# Book 2)

by Jamie Wyman

  Chapter Seven

  “Agitated”

  In all the movies people smoke when they’re pissed. If someone’s about to lose their calm they’ve got a cancer stick in their hands. That way they can flick it to the side when it’s time to go about the business of getting shit done, like saving the world or kicking some serious ass. Me? I don’t smoke. I’ve stolen a drag or two in my time, inhaled more than my share of secondhand smoke at a bar or a concert. Generally, though, smoking is not a habit I’ve picked up, nurtured, and made my own. But in Nate Harper’s backyard, I wanted nothing more than to light up for the specific purpose of being able to physically breathe fire.

  Pacing up and down the small patio, alone and angry, I heard Polly’s voice muffled by the wall between us and shot a glare to the kitchen window. She leaned against the counter, arms crossed over her ample chest. A fresh wave of angst boiled under my skin. Why did she bother me so much? Maybe it was the way she looked at me, like I was some kindergartener. No, she treated me like an insect, insignificant and puny. I’d had enough of that bullshit when I worked with Eris. I didn’t need more from some high and mighty—

  The screen door rattled open. I wheeled around, seething, to see Flynn stepping out. He held up his palms in surrender.

  “Hey, tiger. Just coming to check on you,” he said.

  I let out a long breath. In a room full of strangers, I needed my friend and was glad to see him standing there.

  “Hey.”

  Flynn stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked over to me. “You okay?”

  “Peachy,” I said with a plastic smile.

  “Do you want to talk?”

  I scoffed. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to yell and scream. I wanted to pepper him with questions about Karma because he would at least have answers for that. Why hadn’t he told me he was seeing someone? When did this happen? How had I lost track of my friend? I didn’t really want to think about that, though. Those thoughts turned into the memory of Flynn buried to the hilt in Karma. If we talked about that I’d have to think about things that made me more than a little uncomfortable.

  Flopping into one of the patio chairs, I held my head in my hands. “I don’t know what to do to help these people,” I complained, giving voice to the real source of my angst.

  “Drives you nuts, doesn’t it?” Flynn asked.

  “They won’t give me an inch,” I said. “How am I supposed to find out who killed this girl if Nate and Polly are going to keep me in the dark?”

  “It’s a problem,” Flynn said, “but you’ll figure it out. It’s what you do.”

  “You sound like Loki.” I sighed. “Do you have any ideas? I mean, I get that Muriel, Nate, and Polly aren’t Normals. Muriel looked plain as Kansas, but you don’t bash in a Normal’s skull and crucify her with magic. Loki wouldn’t have to hide the body if she was as plain as she seemed. And Nate pulled on a mantle of some sort in there, some smooth power, but I can’t tell what he was using.”

  “Glad you caught that,” Flynn added quietly.

  Massaging my temples, I coaxed myself. “Come on, Cat. Think. What have you seen? He got all dark and broody, but it was like he started to glow. Manipulating light? That’s more our area, and I just don’t tag this guy or his sister as technomages…” I took a deep breath. “No,” I continued, still thinking out loud. “Mages don’t necessarily need to hide. It’s something about her body. ‘Unique,’ Loki said. So something about their physiology that would freak out a coroner, maybe? What is it? Dammit! What am I missing?”

  Flynn sucked in air through his teeth and shot a furtive glance to the kitchen. My eyes followed. Polly and Karma were chatting animatedly while sipping sodas. When Flynn spoke, he kept his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They’re very old. Potent magic. Karma told me to leave it alone.”

  “So she knows?”

  He nodded. “She’s not telling, though. I wouldn’t push it. Not right now, anyway. These people are like family to her. She’s holding it together as best as she can, but this has hit her hard.”

  “I feel like an intruder,” I said, giving voice to my earlier thought.

  “That makes two of us, kid.” Flynn took my hand. “I’m way out of my league here. I don’t know what to say to any of them. I mean, their friend—Nate’s twin sister—has been killed. No rhyme or reason as to why. And a servant of Loki’s shows up saying she’s looking into it? Today has got to be the worst and weirdest day of their lives.”

  “And I feel like a shit trying to get them to shove that grief aside and drag information out of them. I just…I don’t know what to do.”

  Flynn’s lips planted a fraternal kiss on top of my head. “I know that whatever you do, it will be the right thing. I have faith in you.”

  He ambled back into the house, leaving me to my simmering thoughts.

  …

  Back in the house, I went to the bathroom and splashed some cool water on my face. That helped temper some of the residual angst. When I’d finished, I found Nate lingering at the door to a room at the end of the hall.

  I came up beside him to see a twin bed with white sheets. A soft, thin blue blanket. A bedside table with an old alarm clock. That was all. No pictures on the walls. No knickknacks or personal totems. No books. Not so much as a dirty sock on the floor.

  “This was her room,” Nate said, his tone hushed. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s what she preferred.”

  “It doesn’t look like anyone lived in here,” I noted.

  “No, she lived in here.” He pointed to another room and led me a few steps down the hall. Gently, he eased open that door.

  Canvases of every size filled the room. A small easel sat empty by the window while a larger one held a canvas in progress. Though there were drop cloths, I could still see paint-splatter dotting the hardwood floor. Here, there was no organization. Empty paint bottles, discarded brushes, and various rags littered Muriel’s art space. She lived in mania here with a frenzy and passion that could not be contained to drawers or cabinets.

  “How can she not be here?” he whispered. He reached out and stroked the canvas lightly. “She’s in every floorboard of this room. Every stretched canvas. Every drop of paint. Her presence is practically choking me in here, but she’s gone. ‘Passed away,’ as they say. What does that mean?” He whipped his head to face me. His voice was hard and sharp on the air. “I know what they’re saying. It’s a nice way to say she’s dead, but ‘passed away’? What does that even mean? Where is she? Where is she?”

  Nate flinched and doubled over as if he might throw up. He lurched around the easel. As his eyes took in the unfinished painting, Nate’s jaw dropped and tears filled his eyes.

  “Oh, Muri.”

  I rounded the easel and gasped at this new portrait. Like the subjects of those in the living room, the shapes in the painting were undefined, blurry at the edges, and abstract. However, this piece held a dark menace. Copper and rust red tainted the golden wash of light over the canvas. Like blood, the paint dripped over the shadow of a horned figure.

  Nate wrapped his arms around himself and stalked away from the haunting figure on the easel. Bitterness seeped into his words as he flipped through a stack of finished canvases.

  “I thought she was getting better. She didn’t spend so much time alone anymore. I thought painting was helping her heal.”

  “Heal?”

  He didn’t answer. Not right away. He just sifted through the paintings. As I let my own gaze drift around the room, I noticed a clockwork music box, an antique. It sat on a table near to Muriel’s well-used palette. The music box depicted a dancing couple, and my fingers brushed over the ceramic surface of the dancers, then the wood casing of the mechanisms. I applied the slightest pressure to the figurines, but they wouldn’t move.

  “Broken,” Nate said. “Has been for decades.”

  I picked it up and held the music box with both hands. Closing my eyes, I let my senses drift into
the gears and cogs. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

  Nate chuffed through his teeth. “It stopped working about the same time Muri did.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked, squinting at him.

  Nate breathed in and out a few times, eyes swimming out of focus as he chose his words. Finally, he shook his head. “She wasn’t all right. Hadn’t been for a long time. She…” Nate’s voice trailed off. “A friend of hers died unexpectedly. A lover. She felt responsible.”

  “Was she?”

  “No,” he said chewing his thumb. “When he died, he took pieces of my sister with him. She wasn’t the same after that.”

  “Is that why you lived together?”

  Nate bobbed his head. “Muri needed someone. I’m the only real family she has.”

  My brows knitted together in confusion. “What about your father?”

  “He’s not around much,” Nate said, unable to contain the snarl of contempt that edged into his throat.

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  “What happened? Why did she need help?” I prompted.

  Nate kept his gaze to the floor as he spoke. “Gustav was an artist. He sculpted sometimes but mostly preferred painting. Muriel modeled for him on occasion. That’s how they met. They fell in love. She knew it wouldn’t last forever, but she thought they had time. Muri wanted nothing more than a life with Gustav.”

  He closed his eyes, squeezing tears down those soft-looking cheeks. His jaw worked, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. Now that he was starting to open up, I didn’t dare speak.

  “She didn’t expect the war. He died fighting. She thought she should’ve known, should’ve felt it and been able to get to him before…thought she could have saved him. Right now I know how she felt.”

  “Which war?”

  He met my eyes. “World War I.”

  Things started to click together. A lover lost nearly a century ago. A life lived only in paintings. A broken woman who lived as a recluse. Fewer connections means fewer losses. Living with her brother…her twin…

  I studied him. Wonder now mingled with fear. “How old are you?”

  “Very.”

  Sniffing and then drying his tears on his sleeve, Nate left the room. I took one last look at the wicked art on the canvas and curled my arm around the antique music box protectively. I left the studio, taking the broken relic with me, and shut the door behind me.

  When I padded back into the living room, Nate and Polly were sharing the sofa. He was lying with his head in her lap while she was stroking his curls. With Flynn and Karma on the love seat, I took a turn in the threadbare wingback chair.

  “So you’ve got questions,” Nate muttered, waving a weary hand. “Ask me anything else,” he said, “and I’ll help. Just don’t push the subject of our heritage again. Please.”

  I nodded. “Fine. Can you tell me anything about the past few days? Had Muriel been acting differently? Seeing new people? Was she scared? Being followed?”

  Polly snorted. “Please, we’ve all been being followed for the past two weeks.”

  This came as news to Karma and Nate, apparently, as both of them jerked at her words.

  “What?” Karma demanded.

  “You hadn’t noticed?” Polly asked. “Huh, maybe it’s just me, then.”

  She went back to idly stroking Nate’s hair.

  He grabbed her hand and sat up, his stare cancer-serious. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  She shrugged. “It’s nothing big. Some guy keeps turning up. Trying to blend into the crowd everywhere I go. Well, almost everywhere,” she added. “I rented a room at a hotel, and he hasn’t found that yet.”

  “If it’s no big deal,” Karma said, an edge to her voice, “why bother with the room?”

  Polly smiled, baring her too-white teeth.

  “You’re playing with your stalker?” Flynn asked. “That’s dangerous.”

  “It’s kinda fun,” she said. “I’ve been bored.”

  “Usually people take up hobbies when they’re bored,” I piped in. “Like crochet or juggling chainsaws. You know, something a little less life threatening.”

  She gave me a Cheshire smile but otherwise didn’t respond.

  “And why is he following you around?” I asked.

  Her grin widened. “Look who’s finally starting to ask the right questions. To be frank, I come from an ancient family. We are quite large, and we are very, very rich.”

  “So why single you out among all the others? What are you?” I added.

  “Mommy was a Titan, and my father is a god. You put it together.”

  Okay, so this made some sense of Polly’s situation. Wealth could speak to some of it, but with divine heritage, Polly made an especially bright target. And the only Titans I’d ever heard of were Greek in nature. So, putting one and one together, I figured that Polly traced her lineage to the Olympian pantheon.

  “Can you tell me anything about your stalker?”

  “I’ve never seen his face. Dark hair. Tall. Athletic. Reminds me of home.”

  “Was he following Muriel, too?” Flynn asked.

  “When I was with her, he was lurking. He could’ve been watching her, or she could’ve had another tail. I don’t know.”

  An image of Muriel on the metal cross swam up from memory, and I focused my attention on the music box again. I turned it over in my hands as if it were a Rubik’s cube. “Why would anyone want to kill a recluse?” I muttered to myself.

  Polly spoke up, her low voice calm and smooth. “A message?”

  “To who?” I pondered.

  “And what about the appointment?” Karma added. “She had a message on her voice mail saying she’d missed a meeting with someone.”

  Nate shot up off the couch. “Who?”

  “We don’t know,” Karma said. “The number led back to a public phone at a gas station a couple of blocks from here.”

  “Can I hear the message?” Nate asked.

  Karma’s eyes flicked to me. I reached in my pocket and tossed her the phone. Flynn caught it. “I’ve got this,” he said.

  I clenched my jaw and shut my eyes, letting my consciousness drift through the music box. Silver and blue light created a map in my head. The gears and clockwork mechanisms, the wheel with its tune mapped out in dots and empty space.

  Through Flynn’s magic, the voice mail began playing. I concentrated hard on the little machine in a weak attempt to ignore the terrible voice, but still I shivered at the sound. My fingers trembled, and the light inside the music box dimmed. I strengthened my focus, willed my ears to shut out that vile noise.

  Talk to me, I sang to the music box. Wake up and play for me.

  Arctic light pulsed in its center, a beacon, a heartbeat.

  No corrosion or dust. There was no reason it shouldn’t work.

  Stuck. The word came from within and without. Frozen. I looked closer, deeper into the gears.

  Please work.

  The gears clicked, a single note ringing out into the air. A sound of completion and beginning. The first and last note of a scale.

  Go on, I willed. Sing.

  The notes came haltingly at first but soon began to pour out in a torrent of urgency, of need and repressed desire. I recognized the tune: “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven.

  Nate’s voice broke into my trance. “How did you do that?”

  I opened my eyes to find everyone staring at me. Karma’s eyebrows had crawled up toward her pink halo, Flynn’s smile beamed with pride, and Polly’s eyes darted between me and my friend.

  The music slowed and clicked to silence.

  “How?” Nate asked again. He sat on the edge of the sofa, both hands gripping the seat with white knuckles.

  “I asked it to,” I answered meekly.

  “You’re a technomage. Do you always hum when you work?” Polly asked.

  I nodded. “So I’m told.”

  “Beholden to Loki?” When I nodded again, she pr
essed, “Has that always been the case?”

  “No. He won my soul from Eris.”

  Though she didn’t make a sound, laughter spread over her face in a blush, a twinkle in her dark eyes. She looked at Flynn for a long time, then back to me. When she smiled, it held a feline quality. “I see.”

  I put the music box back on the table, ready to change the subject. “Did the voice mail ring any bells for either of you?”

  Nate stared into one of the paintings on the wall, getting lost in the silvery landscape. Polly shook her head.

  Massaging my temples, I sagged into the chair, physically taxed from the work of fixing the music box. I felt rickety. I needed to move, to be awake, so I hopped up. My joints creaked like they were made of rusted hinges. I paced and tapped my fingers on my lips out of old habit.

  We couldn’t sit here, bickering, grieving, and hashing out details. We needed action. But where? Where would I even start? Back in the desert. With the corpse and the truck.

  That’s when a thought struck me. Loki had given me the place to begin.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said.

  “I have that effect on people,” Polly mused.

  I ignored her, hopeful for a new lead. “The truck. The truck! Loki sped off with it, so someone’s got to be looking for that truck, right? They’ll have reported it stolen. If we find out where it belongs, who might have access to it…maybe we can find out where Muriel died and get a better idea about who did it.”

  “Did you see a company name or anything on it?” Polly asked.

  I thought about it. When I hit a blank wall, I closed my eyes and tried to shove myself back through time, to the moment when Loki wrenched open the door. Like some lame effect on a crime show, I slowed it down and replayed it, zoomed in. However, unlike those stupid shows, I couldn’t come up with the answer. I couldn’t see it. The only clear point of that memory was Loki sitting behind the wheel, a smirk dimpling his cheeks.

  Don’t disappoint me.

  I shook my thoughts back into the present. “Not that I remember.”

  “On it,” Flynn said.

  Instantly, his interface manifested as a monitor before his face. His fingers twitched on his knees as he slipped through the Internet and into the secure files of the Clark County Police Department. Within seconds, his face lit up with a proud smile.