I grimaced. “So if it was a real vision, and someone is going to be burned tonight… maybe the killer is inspired by events of the past. Things that terrified Londoners.”
“And I think we both know who we’re after.”
“Roan. That’s a very good reason for me to find him. But I need the police off my back.”
“Where’s your phone?” Gabriel asked.
“I threw it into a trashcan outside the station.”
“Which trashcan?”
I closed my eyes, trying to remember where I’d been. “Devonshire Square.”
“Okay, I think I can find it. Let’s hope it’s still there. If it is, I can provide a distraction. Keep your new phone handy. I’ll call you later.”
“Okay. Uh, Gabriel?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.” I smiled.
“Sure.” He smiled back, and stood up, about to leave.
“Uh… Gabriel?”
“Yeah?”
My face flushed. “Do you have some cash on you?”
Chapter 15
I’d basically spent the day skulking around the city, wearing a baseball cap I’d purchased with Gabriel’s money. Besides the invisibility potion, the only lucky aspect of this whole day was that I’d chosen to wear flats that morning. I’d spent time staking out Leroy’s Wine Bar, hoping to catch sight of Roan, but the place didn’t open ’til eight. I ventured a few glimpses at the Andaz Hotel, but I couldn’t get too close without being spotted by the cops.
Just after eight, I wandered back to Guildhall. As the sun set, staining the square with amber, I walked down the narrow road to Leroy’s Wine Bar.
It appeared to be live-band night when I walked inside. The patrons sat in rapt attention, listening to a slender brunette sing into the mic from an arched alcove, her sapphire eyes twinkling in the darkness. Her voice was rich, low, and sexy, the kind of voice that inspired images of satin sheets, scattered rose petals, an uncorked wine bottle. I would have loved nothing better than to grab a chair and listen to her sing, but my mind was on something else tonight.
I scanned the room, looking for Roan. He was nowhere in sight, but I quickly homed in on Alvin’s halo of blond curls. He sat at the bar, facing the singer. This time, he wore a ragged T-shirt that read Chem Trails = Death Trails.
I made my way over to him, nearly tripping over the cat in the Jacobean ruff. The creature looked up at me in surprise, blinking her mismatched purple and green eyes.
I finally reached Alvin and sat next to him.
He glanced at me and smiled, reeking of weed. “Hey Cassandra,” he said softly. “Nice to see you again.”
“Nice to see you, too.” I nodded at his shirt. “Nice T-shirt.”
He shrugged. “Charity shop.”
“That potion you gave me certainly came in handy. In a way.”
“Did it? Good. Now hush. I’m trying to watch the siren.” His eyes closed halfway. “She’s fit as fuck.”
I touched his arm. “You could have warned me that it made everyone invisible.”
“It did what I said it would. Magic is much easier when it’s symmetrical, innit? You have any idea how hard it is to make an asymmetrical invisibility potion?”
I shook my head. “Okay, but listen. I have some important questions for you.”
“My debt is paid. End of.”
I marshaled my patience. “It’s important. There’s a killer out there, murdering women.”
“You want answers, I’ll give them to you.” He shrugged. “Everything for a price.”
“I’ll gladly buy you another meal.”
“Wonderful!” He grinned. “But information doesn’t come cheap. I’ll need something else.”
“What?”
He considered this. “The memory of your first proper kiss.”
“What?” I asked incredulously. “Like, you want me to describe it?”
“No. I want you to give the actual memory to me. Take it outta your mind. Hand it over.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I have no idea how to do that, and I can promise you it was not something you want to experience. Lot of drool, some weird groping.”
“Okay, not a memory then.” He blinked, his eyes bloodshot. “How about… the color of your eyes? That blue is dope. A guy could get lost in that blue.”
I let out a breath of exasperation. “I can give you twenty pounds!”
“Cash?” he wrinkled his nose. “No way. I’m not selling knowledge for that.”
“Okay. How about I owe you one?”
He turned to me in surprise, his eyes shifting to orange. “That’s… an offer I can’t refuse.”
“Okay,” I said, relieved. “I need some information.”
He nodded. “Sure. Buy us some dinner, all right? The show’s almost over. We’ll talk when it ends.”
I turned to Leroy and ordered myself a brie sandwich. Recalling Alvin’s appetite, I ordered two for him. Then, I sat back, listening to the siren’s song.
Once I gave her my full attention, everything in the room faded away. Her voice, soft and melodious, wrapped me in a warm feeling of love. I wasn’t sure what she was singing about, or even if it was English, but after a few seconds, I no longer cared. I couldn’t feel, see, smell, or hear anything but her voice. The melody washed the tension away, curling around me, bringing out memories I hadn’t thought of in years. The day my parents took me to the beach and my mom hugged me and kissed me over and over as my father looked at us, smiling. The afternoon when my dad taught me to ride a bicycle, running behind me as I wobbled, shouting encouragements. Watching my mom from behind as she fried eggs for dinner, humming to herself.
When the music stopped, I realized my cheeks were wet. The siren smiled as people began clapping. My breath shuddered. I felt as if I had just glimpsed something beautiful, only for it to be snatched away.
“Okay,” Alvin chirped by my side. He turned to face the bar, already digging into his bread and cheese.
At some point during the show, Leroy had slid our food across the bar, and I hadn’t even noticed. Mine was still untouched.
I smoothed out my skirt, trying to collect my thoughts. “Okay, I have a bunch of questions,” I said.
“Three,” Alvin said.
“What?”
“I’ll answer three. And then you’ll owe me a favor. That’s the deal.”
“I have more than three questions.”
He looked at me, his eyes suddenly hard and alert, the look completely incongruous with his youth. “Three.”
“Fine.” Irritation bloomed in me, but apparently I had to play by his rules. “Where’s Roan?”
“You’re taking the piss. I’m not answering that.”
“You said you’ll answer three questions! This is one of them!”
“I said I’ll answer three questions.” He nodded. “I didn’t say which ones. You’re nice and you’re fit, but a favor from you is not worth dying for. Know what I mean?”
I considered getting up and leaving, but I was out of my depth, and Alvin seemed to know this world of magic and fae.
“Okay.” I pursed my lips. “This morning someone who looked like me, and talked like me, walked into the city morgue. It wasn’t me. My question is, how is that possible, and who was it?”
“That’s two questions.” He took a bite of his sandwich. “But I don’t know the answer to the second one anyway. As for the first… Did she look exactly like you?”
“Down to the smallest detail.”
He shook his head. “No. Most fae can change their looks, but they can’t copy someone’s appearance like that. Glamour doesn’t work that way. That could only happen if you broke your word to a fae, and you wouldn’t be that dumb.”
“Well.” Slowly, my heart was sinking. “Suppose I had broken a promise to… someone.”
He shrugged. “Well, a broken promise gives a fae power over you. It gives another person your power, or your looks. That’s why no one but an idiot…�
�� He narrowed his eyes. “You broke a promise, didn’t you?”
Roan’s voice rang in my mind. Then you have broken your word, he’d said. Now that I recalled it, there’d been an undertone of satisfaction to it.
“Maybe.”
“That would be enough to wear your form, for a couple of minutes, at least.”
“Only a couple of minutes.” I repeated his words, careful not to frame it as a question. Interrogating without asking questions was a delicate skill.
“Hard to explain.” He frowned. “A broken promise is like a broken vase. The water it holds spills on the floor, and then it’s gone. Any power from it is temporary, innit? Can’t say how long.”
“And when I owe someone a favor…” I said slowly, the meaning sinking in. A favor was like a blank check. A promise given with no specifications.
He grinned at me.
“You bastard,” I said.
“I’ll allow you two more questions. This sandwich is perfect.”
I wanted to strangle him. The phone in my bag beeped, and I pulled it out. A message from Gabriel: Meet me outside St Bart’s church at nine. I had less than an hour.
“Okay.” I knew what I had to ask. I framed the question carefully, making sure he wouldn’t weasel out of it. “In the past few days, I’ve been seeing… visions, in mirrors. Other places, other people. I walked through a mirror once. I might have seen a vision of the future in a reflection. What’s causing this?”
He looked at me with something like respect in his eyes. “Not just mirrors, yeah? Other shiny surfaces, too. Windows, puddles?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s reflection magic,” he said. “I wouldn’t have guessed you had it in you. No offense, but you look so clueless.”
“Reflection magic,” I repeated.
“Yeah. It’s rare among the fae, but some can master it. It gives a person control over reflections. I’ve heard of fae looking through one reflection to another, passing though mirrors, making reflections bend to their will. It makes, like, a shortcut. A tunnel of sorts.”
“Like a wormhole.”
“I guess so. But the further the reflections are, the more power you need. I can see what you’re doing, by the way. Getting me to talk more without asking anything. I wasn’t born yesterday. But that’s fine. I’m giving you a free pass out of kindness.” He grimaced at the last word.
“Okay,” I said. “But I tried to do it earlier and it failed.”
He took a bite of his bread, and widened his eyes innocently.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Last question. How do I get it to work?”
“You said you tried earlier. That won’t work. Magic is a reflex. You can’t force it. Do you try to yawn? Do you try to make your heart beat?” He shook his head. “You don’t try to do magic. You get open, and just magic.”
“I just magic? That’s… not a verb.”
“Yeah, it is. Mate, if you have reflection magic—which is doubtful, honestly—it’s a part of you. The reflections you control are a part of you. You don’t need to concentrate to make it happen. You just make it happen.”
“That’s the most useless advice anyone has ever given me.”
“You ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers, Cassandra.”
I scowled. “Who told you my name?”
“I gave you three answers, and now you owe me a favor.” He finished off his sandwich, brushing the crumbs from his hands. “I’ll collect later.” He rose and walked to the stairwell, leaving me alone with a hundred unanswered questions.
Chapter 16
It was cold as I walked through Smithfield, and I hugged myself in the chill of the night air, glancing at the stone gatehouse. Inset into the stone arches, the iron gate house stood shut, and the streetlights glinted off a heraldic emblem on the bars.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket, flicking the text open. I was supposed to meet Gabriel down a narrow road called Cloth Fair, between St. Bartholomew the Great and an ale and pie house. I took a left, crossing into the ancient street. And this is what I liked about London. So many of the street names signaled their medieval purposes. Milk Street, Poultry, Fish Street… and here, Cloth Fair, where ladies would have bought their wools and silks.
As I walked, I rubbed my arms for warmth. At night in London, the temperature dropped, even in summer.
I found Gabriel on the other side of a spiky iron fence to my right, lingering in the shadows by the edge of the churchyard. As I stepped closer to him, the sight of his warm, hazel eyes filled with me with relief.
He flashed me his charming smile. “Hey. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Shouldn’t I be?”
His expression grew serious. “The police search for you is a lot more intensive than I had thought it would be. DCI Wood is furious you got away. It’s a very embarrassing incident for him.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“Let me help you over the fence. We’ve got a great view from here.”
I didn’t really need his help, but I appreciated his gentlemanly manners. I gripped the top of the iron fence, between the spikes, and hoisted myself up, swinging my feet over the top
Gabriel grabbed me around my ribs, gently lifting me down. As he did, the front of my chest brushed against his, and I breathed in his clean scent. I craned my neck to look up at him, meeting his eyes. He was holding my gaze for a bit longer than normal, his eyes intent, fingers still lingering on my body. Warmth radiated off of him. I had a brief, insane impulse to reach all the way up and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling my body close to his. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to kiss him.
But I resisted. We were here to work.
I swallowed hard, composing myself. “So where is this stake-out spot you found for us?”
“Right.” He blinked, his expression clearing. “First, I got something to keep us warm.” He turned, grabbing two steaming cups from a stone wall, and he handed me one.
I inhaled the steam, the faintly perfumed scent. Tea. So that’s how we were doing stakeouts here in England. I could live with that.
“I found your phone, and it’s turned on. Right now, it’s on a truck bound for Manchester,” Gabriel said. “So that’ll buy us some time. They’re already trying to pinpoint where the signal is bound.”
I nodded. “Okay. And are we expecting Roan or our killer to show up here tonight?”
“I don’t know, Cassandra. We’re chasing a vision from a candlestick. But we don’t have much else to go on right now. “
“You raise a good point.”
“If he does show up, we’ll call backup as soon as we see him. If we manage to arrest him, I believe we can get you out of this mess. Wood isn’t likely to arrest an American FBI agent who helped catch the serial killer.”
“Let’s hope that’s enough to save my ass.” I frowned. “Where are we going to hide to get a view of that placard?”
“Come with me. We can close the gatehouse doors and stand behind them. There’s a small window inset into the door that we can peer through.”
I followed him down the stone steps, and back down the path to the gatehouse.
“Can’t say I’ve ever participated in a stakeout behind a five-hundred-year-old door,” I said.
“You can just imagine the friar on guard duty all night, peering through the window when beggars arrived looking for food. For centuries, this has been the butchery neighborhood. Cows and pigs, traitors, people getting legs hacked off in hospital. Jousting tournaments. All London’s slaughter.”
There it was again, the phantom city. History reflected through the modern metropolis.
“How charming,” I said. “Any other grim Smithfield history I haven’t yet learned about?”
He nodded at the hospital. “There’s a plague pit right there. And a fourteenth-century door somewhere around here that once sported the severed hand of an executed monk.”
I bit my lip. “Did anything good happen a
t any point in London’s history?”
“I doubt it.”
“So in this one little neighborhood alone, we have a medieval church, an execution spot, a plague pit—and what was that gluttony statue?”
“The golden boy of Pye Corner. The Great Fire of London began in a bakery, and ended at Pye Corner, so obviously, the culprit was the sin of gluttony.”
“Can’t fault that logic.”
He sipped his tea. “It was before people had taken to things like probability or rational thought.”
“Maybe the fire was vengeance for all the heretics the kings and queens burned in the neighborhood.”
Gabriel looked genuinely unsettled at the thought.
And so we nestled behind the wooden door until our cups had run empty of tea. When Gabriel and I began our long watch, I was alert, my eyes constantly shifting, looking for the girl I had seen in my vision. Every person who walked by made my muscles tense, trying to determine if it was the girl I’d seen, or perhaps Roan.
But, as dozens of random passersby went by, and the hours ticked on, I started to lose my focus. Maybe Gabriel had been right—this had been a long shot. We were chasing a vision from a damn candlestick. What made me think I had seen a vision of the future? Alvin had said reflection magic could let me manipulate reflections. What if my own fevered imagination had manifested this vision?
And even if it had been a vision of the future, there was no way to know that it would happen tonight.
As the hours wore on, I shivered in my thin sweater. When my teeth began chattering, something heavy and warm hugged my shoulders. Gabriel had taken off his jacket and draped it over me. I tried to give it back to him but he flatly refused, explaining that he had dressed warmly, knowing we had a long night ahead of us. His coat smelled of him—like leather and apples.
I leaned against the stone wall and closed my eyes. I must have nodded off for a few moments when Gabriel touched my shoulder softly. “Cassandra. I thought I heard something in the church. I’m gonna see if I can find a way in, okay? Call me if you see anything.” He pulled something from his pocket, and my heart sank as I realized it was a Taser. A gun would have been nice. “Here. Just in case.”
Agent of Enchantment (Dark Fae FBI Book 1) Page 13