Valentine drew his brows together, as he ladled himself another helping of borscht from Robert’s grandmother’s soup tureen. He took his time filling his bowl, clearly admiring the way the silver glittered in the candlelight. “Perhaps the fairy is just lazy,” Valentine offered, but didn’t even buy his own suggestion for very long because he added, “Though he seems awfully young to have slipped into the indolent stage already.”
I nodded, even though I couldn’t say I easily followed Valentine’s assessment of fairy character. I had, at first, considered the possibility that Jones was one of those people who had grown comfortable doing the least amount of work to get the job done. But is it lazy to make your inhuman partner, who isn’t very good at talking to people outside the magical community, explain that there might be the equivalent of a spell bomb inside a corpse?
Or is it criminal negligence?
Or something worse?
There was something else niggling at the back of my mind that I wanted to ask Valentine about. I took another spoonful of soup while I tried to formulate my thoughts in an organized way. “Even though I think they started that way, I don’t think the brother and sister are working together now. She didn’t have a high opinion of him, and she seemed baffled by his motivations. She said something about a wall.”
“A wall?” He was clearing the plate from me. I hadn’t even remembered emptying the bowl, but my stomach felt satisfied and full.
“Some number…fourth wall…or was it fifth? I didn’t understand it. But, she said that he thought that if he could break it, he would have a lot more power.”
From the kitchen, I heard the plates go next to the sink. “It’s an interesting theory.”
“You mean you know what she was talking about?”
Valentine came back out and leaned his hip against the doorjamb. “Her brother is a ‘Tinker Bellist’—so named after the fairy in Peter Pan who could be healed if enough people believed. It’s the idea that the more people accept the reality of magic, the stronger magic becomes. The assumption is based on the supposition that magic was easier to tap before the Age of Reason and, in fact, the whole movement to equate magic with superstition and madness was a conspiracy by those who would seek to contain the power.”
“So what’s the thing with the wall?”
“It’s a theater term. To break the fourth wall is when the actor intentionally destroys the illusion of distance between himself and the audience. He addresses them directly, reminding them they are watching an actor playing a part. I suspect, in this case, it means using magic in public, making it impossible for regular people to deny or ignore.”
Given everything that happened in this town, you wouldn’t think there’d be many people like that left.
Maybe that was the point.
“Do you think it’s true?” I asked. “Does it really work that way?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Valentine began moving around the room, snuffing out the candles with his fingers. “But I do know that there is something special about this place. You spent years in the company of a powerful demon and you never saw her for what she was. In fact, it didn’t take much for the doctors to convince you that you made it all up. I could never have revealed myself to you in Chicago, but here…? You’ve been here, how long?”
“Four months.”
“Yes, hardly any time at all.” Leaning toward the tall taper in the center of the table, Valentine blew a thin breath of air. Ice crystals, like a miniature snowstorm, streamed from between his lips. They swirled and danced around the flame before dousing it. “Now you not only see the magic you used to ignore, but you can use it.”
“And you think that’s because a larger percentage of the population in Pierre believes magic is real?”
Valentine sat down across from me. “I didn’t say that. It is, however, one possibility.”
So the necromancer might be sending zombies into the diner just because it was the single most disruptive place to do so. Also, picking the recently deceased, someone the townsfolk would remember, would only heighten the inability to ignore the dead elephant in the room, as it were—only it was dead grandpa. Before I moved here, I researched the size of Pierre. There were only about fifteen thousand people living here. “What would happen if everyone in town believed?”
“Well, those who subscribe to the Tinker Bell Theorem say that a hundred percent buy-in could cause a kind of magical pulsar, with massive bursts of energy going off regularly.”
“Which, presumably, a skilled magician could use to his or her advantage?”
“Absolutely.”
“Do you believe in it? The Tinker Bell Theorem?”
“It’s difficult to prove one way or the other,” he said with a lift of one shoulder. “There are very few places in the world without skeptics. But there are communities where magic appears stronger. Is it the conviction of the practitioners or some other harmonic convergence? Perhaps, as some believe, the magic is in the earth itself, and some places have the right kind of mountain ranges or lakes or rock formations. I don’t know.”
Even so, I thought this theorem seemed like a strong possibility for a motive. It might explain the zombies and possibly even the attack on the rancher’s cows. Jones was concerned that word of the cow mutilations not get out to the public. Yet it had.
Could that have been the work of the necromancer as his sister suggested?
“Okay,” I said, desperately trying to remember my forensics classes. “That could be motive, what’s the other thing we need?”
“Opportunity,” Valentine supplied with a crooked smile that showed a bit of sharp canine.
“Seems to me opportunity decreases dramatically when you’re dead.”
“For normal people, yes,” Valentine observed dryly.
“Is being dead an advantage in magic?”
Valentine lifted a shoulder. “If you die under the right circumstances, it can be. Vampires are stronger than living men. Zombies are more—”
“Tenacious,” I said with a shiver.
He inclined his head. “Just so.”
I chewed my fingernail, trying to puzzle it out. Valentine continued to clean up around me.
Yet somehow I didn’t think we were on the right track. When I met the necromancer, he didn’t seem particularly powerful, like he’d achieved some altered state beyond death. He was just plain dead.
Well, not exactly. I looked at the snake on my hand. This had sprung out of him. He hadn’t turned into it, though, the way a human might become a vampire or a zombie. I supposed, like the severed head said, it was a part of him.
No, from the moment everyone saw it or interacted with it, they called the snake a spell. It might have started out as his, but it was clearly mine now. I stroked the head, remembering how it had helped me, tried to save me from the spiders.
The spiders were like some kind of booby trap, too, weren’t they? Jack and Jones couldn’t even enter his apartment; they said it was so strongly anti-naturally warded. Wards were like a protection, too, right?
Why did the necromancer need all these security measures?
All these defenses seemed less like the actions of a man on the verge of becoming something greater than those of one under siege.
So who was he protecting himself from?
Were we looking at murder, after all? Was someone trying to stop the necromancer from gaining his goal?
Which was…?
The Tinker Bell thing?
If so, the sister certainly seemed to think he was pretty stupid. She seemed to want something else entirely, but what, exactly?
And how was Jones involved?
I started thinking out loud, because I wanted Valentine’s take on all of it. “The zombie talked to me when he was dead…Well, his mouth was sewn shut so I thought he’d said, ‘He hates Spenser,’ but I wonder if the zombie meant, ‘She hates Spenser.’ ”
“There’s a lot to hate,” Valentine agreed, heading for the kitc
hen with the last of the silverware.
This time I followed, pulling my robe tighter around my waist as I got up. “I suppose. I mostly find him cantankerous. I’m not sure he always treats Devon fairly, and he has some serious mommy issues. But the sister seemed very stung by someone who hates unnatural magic.”
Valentine opened the freezer and pulled out a quart of ice cream. “You think it’s Spenser?”
Was it? After all, what was it that everyone around Jones continually fought about? Natural versus unnatural. Stone desperately wanted to be natural. Devon revelled in being unnatural, mostly, I began to think, just to poke at Jones.
Heck, I’d felt the sting of his disapproval myself.
I pulled bowls from the cabinet while he got out the syrup and a can of whipped cream. “He seemed particularly irritable at the funeral home, didn’t he?”
“I assumed that was because I was there,” Valentine said, scooping out a large spoonful for himself. “And because you kicked magical ass.”
I laughed slightly at that. I dug out my own helping and added lots of toppings. “Well, that’s the most obvious option,” I agreed, taking a bite. I savored the chocolate before continuing. “You’d think he’d have mentioned a connection to the necromancer’s sister before this.”
Valentine said, “Perhaps he didn’t know they were related.”
“I like that better than my own theory.”
“What’s that?”
“That he’s kept the information from us on purpose.”
“What purpose would he have?”
I didn’t know. This was where all my theorizing ground to a halt.
Valentine pulled the spoon from his mouth in a rather suggestive manner. “They’re lovers!”
“What?” I wagged my spoon at him. “Now who’s pretending?”
“He knew her name,” Valentine insisted mischievously.
“So?” I grimaced at him. Trust him to go to the basest possible option. “You said yourself that it made sense in a small town, in a tiny magical community. Anyway, they could just be friends.”
“That’s much less interesting,” Valentine insisted with a petulant pout. “My theory is more fun.”
“But it’s a really wild theory.”
“I still like it. Humans get very tangled over love and sex. They kill for it almost more than any other animal.”
I did remember that from my forensics class. Nine times out of ten, husbands killed wives or vice versa. Valentine had a good point. Sex was often the lowest common denominator. “This town isn’t that big,” I noted, playing along with his hypothesis. “The dating pool among magical people must be tiny.”
“Minuscule,” he said, taunting me with the way he used his tongue to lick the last bit of ice cream melt from his spoon.
I blushed, and tried to stay focused on the conversation. “Do you suppose it’s considered dirty to date someone from the ‘other side’?”
Valentine shrugged.
If it was, then the number of eligible partners dropped significantly—assuming that it mattered to you if you dated someone with superpowers like your own. I could easily picture Jones as that type, however. Most of my ice cream had melted into slush, but I tipped the bowl to my lips and drank it up.
“Is there a magical way to kill someone without leaving any physical trace?”
Valentine lifted his eyebrow. “Many. Humans are stunningly easy to kill, magically or otherwise.”
I ignored the shiver that crept up my spine at the ice in Valentine’s voice. “What about a way to neutralize someone’s magic without entirely killing them? Or,” I said, thinking about how hard it had been to go after my own family, even my evil stepmonster, “what about an accident? Could you put someone in a state of suspended animation with a botched attempt at magical murder?”
“I wouldn’t know. I rarely miss.”
A theory was percolating in my head, but I had no proof to confirm it yet. I put the bowl down. I wanted to get dressed quickly. “What if the necromancer’s sister was angry at her brother for stirring the pot with this whole fourth wall thing—especially since it made things worse between her and her lover?”
“Her current lover? Not ex?”
Of course, I didn’t know. This was all theory and conjecture. But, the fact remained, Jones knew the necromancer’s sister well enough to call her by name. Glamour or not, we had to find out what he knew.
“How quickly can you get me into the office?”
“If we fly, a matter of seconds.”
I dressed as fast as I could, throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt. The look was a little less than office casual, but I was in a hurry. We stood outside Robert’s house, and Valentine was studying my face. The sun had melted most of the remaining snow, and my Converse sneakers were thin protection against the wet and cold. “Are you sure you want me to do this?” he asked
At first, I didn’t understand his hesitation. But then I saw that expression in the worry lines between his brows. It was the same one he’d worn when he had been forced to transform in front of me the first time. “Are you embarrassed by what you are?” I asked. Before he could answer, I quickly added, “Don’t be. I think you’re beautiful.”
Though I noticed his face soften, he sniffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m worried about you. I’ll have to carry you.” He held his hands out to show me, and I tried not to picture the sharp talons, as clear and long as icicles, that they would become.
Oh. I’d kind of hoped to ride on his back, like they always did in the movies.
He must have seen my wistful expression, but his hardened. “You would need a saddle. I will never wear reins.”
Right, of course.
I let out a long breath, and I tried to stay focused. “Jones is with her right now. I don’t want him to do something stupid.”
“We don’t have to get involved,” he noted.
Actually, I did. Not only was it my job, but I was beginning to care about these people. What worried me more was busting into the precinct headquarters full of conjecture and accusations. I had no real proof, only a bunch of hunches and circumstances that fit a wild theory.
“I just want to be there,” I said, telling myself that I didn’t have to go in with guns blazing and pointing fingers. “If I’m wrong and Jones is hiding nothing, it will be a relief. Let’s just do it.”
“As you wish.” Valentine nodded, and ducked his head down toward his chest. Instantly, he began to transform. Clothes disappeared. White scales covered his skin as he began to expand. Arms and legs became haunches, while a tail sprouted and twitched itself into a long coil. Wings unfolded gracefully. His face narrowed and elongated, a proud snout filled with rows of dangerously sharp teeth. A spiky mane of ice rose from his head and snaked down his spine.
When he finished, he was nearly as tall as the house on all fours.
A cock of his head implied that I needed to make myself ready. Even so, I wasn’t quite able to keep the gasp from escaping when his claw reached for me. The padded paw that encircled me was softer and gentler than I expected. As the joints clasped together, I found I could sit against the curve of the fingers and hold on to knuckles. It felt as safe as an amusement park ride, which wasn’t saying much. Still, I trusted Valentine not to drop me.
His body tensed and was followed by the massive upswell of air as he beat his powerful wings. We went up briefly. Then we went down, and I felt my stomach drop. I thought we were falling until he’d flap his wings again and we’d bob back upward. I had trouble enjoying the flight, because the whole experience was nauseatingly jerky.
The wind stung at my face, bringing tears to my eyes. I blinked them away to watch the houses moving below us. The Missouri glittered beautifully. If I could get used to the up and down motion, it would be lovely to travel this way.
But, I hardly had the opportunity. He was right; it took little time before the precinct house was below us. From above there was no illusion. I could see the court
yard clearly, as we began a gliding spiral downward.
A gang of magpies appeared in the air beside us. They darted around us—joyfully calling to each other, playing in the wind eddies caused by Valentine’s wings.
I closed my eyes as the ground came toward us. Skillful use of wings and muscles absorbed the impact. I felt ground beneath my feet. I stood on my own as the shape of Valentine’s hand changed. Soon I felt the more familiar sensation of his arm around my waist and his body behind me. The magpies continued to flit around him, almost protectively circling him, as if they had adopted this giant flying reptile as a member of their crew.
I ran to the courtyard door only to find it locked from the inside. Valentine stepped around me. He took the knob in his hand and gave it a simple twist. I heard the lock break. He pulled the door open with a slight bow, as if he was a gentleman opening it for a lady.
Which he was—most definitely, dragon or not.
I leaned over to give him a quick but passionate kiss on his lips. “I owe you.”
“Hardly,” he said, and with a smile he fell into step behind me. “Dramatic entrances are reward enough.”
Inside, I was surprised to find Jones was alone with the necromancer’s sister.
One of the vines that seemed to cover most surfaces in the room was wrapped around her, like manacles, surrounding her wrists and ankles. She wasn’t struggling. Her face was flushed with emotion, though with which one I couldn’t say.
Whatever Jones had been saying died in his throat. His mouth hung open as I walked in the door.
“I think there’s something you’re not telling us,” I said to him.
“Me?” Jones pointed to his chest, belligerently. “What the hell are you doing here, Connor? I told you to go home and rest.”
“Yeah, well, rest got me thinking,” I said. I hadn’t meant to be this belligerent about my theories, but Jones’s attitude irritated me. I wouldn’t be dismissed. So, I ignored Jones and looked at the necromancer’s sister. “Are you two dating?”
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