Gabi’s eyes locked with his. “She’s said this?”
“With her face, not her words.”
Gabi made a dismissive sound.
“Seriously. She wants to be with you, anyone can see that. But you were both hurt before and she blames herself for it. She’s never gonna make the first move, and not just because she’s scared you’ll reject her. She doesn’t want to hurt you, Pride. So you have to suck it up and ask her first.”
Gabi’s insides were squirming. Embarrassment? Hurt? Nerves? Anticipation? Her emotions were a mystery even to her. “Like I said. Off limits.”
Gus was quiet so long that Gabi got suspicious. He was frowning at her, like she was a ridiculously difficult crossword he couldn’t solve. “Tell me you don’t think she’ll turn you down,” he said. “Tell me you’re not that much of an idiot.”
“She dumped me,” Gabi said defensively. “She was the one who told me to leave, that she never wanted to talk to me again, see me again. I don’t want…” All her indignation fizzled out. “I just don’t want to hear that again.”
Gus dropped his head into his hands. “So that’s why it’s been months and nothing’s happened. You’re both as bad as each other.”
Joy
Joy sat in a circle of crystals, wishing she had a better reason for doing this. If anyone came in, she’d tell them she was searching for inner strength to battle her problems. Something that sounded better than I’m trying to find the courage to ask my ex-girlfriend out again.
Yellow citrine for clear communication. Lapis Lazuli for courage of the mind. Aventurine to help her speak from the heart (in her head Joy added, without thoroughly fucking it up.) And throughout them all clear quartz to bind the circle and amethyst, Joy’s heart stone, the same as the long, elegant wand she held beside her. She sat cross-legged, her eyes closed, focussing on the task in front of her. Impossible. Insurmountable. What was the best way to say, I know I broke your heart and was an awful person to you the last time we were together but I’d like to be with you again?
Joy sat there for ten minutes, and even if she didn’t feel ready or brave or fortified inside, she felt calmer and balanced in herself and that was almost as good. Her breathing was even, her mind clear of her mountain of worries for a few minutes. Joy was thankful for her witchcraft, her crystals.
A method of casting witchcraft began to speak to a witch around adolescence but there was always a choice involved, as there was a choice involved in all witchcraft. Joy could have picked potions as her method, or runes and sigils, or sand magic, but crystals had always felt right, and better than that, they fit her.
She needed this centring, fortifying witchcraft more and more lately. Everything had got worse since Salma left. Joy and Victoriya were somehow balancing the act of leader between them which was ... difficult since neither knew what they were doing. It was worse still for Joy because of that blue power, whatever it had been, that had filled Joy’s hand, discoloured her skin until it was icy and pale like an unpolished crystal itself. She’d sucked the witchcraft right out of Perchta, without even meaning to.
Deep deep down, Joy could admit that was the reason she hadn’t been brave enough to tell Gabi her feelings. What if Gabi was as scared of that blue power as Joy was? Scared of Joy herself? Worse—what if she wasn’t scared, if she didn’t shy from Joy, and Joy lost control and drained all the magic from Gabi? She had no way of knowing that cruel power only worked on witches like Perchta, had no way of knowing it wouldn’t lash out at elven magic, at the woman Joy loved most.
Joy scrubbed a hand over her face and got to her feet, her peace thoroughly ruined. One by one, she began picking up the stones, dismantling the circle.
Pride
Out of laziness, Gus and Gabi resorted to eating cold pizza. Not the greasy and quick take away pizza, but an organic, homemade Italian-style pizza with enough green leaves on top that Gabi struggled to see the base. She had yet to answer the question of if the helpful citizen who gave Gabi this had bothered to put on cheese and tomato sauce. All Gabi could taste was grass. She was not a fan of grass. But it was better than eating cold casserole.
“How many are we up to now?” Gus asked, happily munching the cold pizza, sprinkling herbs from a mason jar he’d brought on top. Gabi wasn’t sure whether for taste or witchcraft.
“Six,” Gabi replied. It had been a long day—and most of her days were long. This one felt like it had been going on an eternity. She’d been going through the human police database, thanks to Paulina’s connections. Searching specifically for rashes, marks, and the like, Gabi had found a whole slew of potential related deaths, only four of which seemed to be likely at this point. The trouble was that dying in your sleep just didn’t look suspicious, so there could be hundreds of people like Joy’s mum and Gabi would never find them.
If they even existed.
It was always around eleven at night when the doubt hit, and it was hitting hard right now. Was she making something out of this that wasn’t even there? Gus agreed with her that this was worth looking into but she didn’t know how good a judge he was. They could just be wasting time. She should be out there, following Andy Brewell’s husband with her camera, doing an actual job. Not that that was much of a service to the town. But it was better than this. At least she knew what she was doing with that one.
“Make that seven,” Gus said around a mouthful of pizza, nodding to the printer that began to churn out pages, not happy about serving the old desktop after long years with modern laptops. Maybe it had forgotten how to communicate with the ten-year-old computer Gus sat in front of. Or maybe Gabi was tired and overworked and needed to have a long sleep and stop wondering about the printer.
Her mind caught up to what Gus had said. “Wait. Seven? You found another?”
“Maybe. These are all maybes, right? We don’t know anything for sure?”
Gabi nodded, because he was right and she could use the reminder. Nothing was certain until she had evidence to prove it. With Perchta, it had been fairly straight forward. After the event, she’d collected enough evidence to prove to everyone that Paulina’s temporary assistant had been the killer. But now Gabi needed that evidence to prove to herself she wasn’t following a blind hunch. Which was a lot more complicated.
She knew what she needed. She needed someone who had unfaltering faith in her, who could lift her mood and bolter her spirits no matter how low and unsure she felt, who could crack the grey doubt around her heart with a single smile. Gabi clenched her jaw. That wasn’t an option. Not until she had proof.
“How far are you?” she asked Gus, gulping a drink far too sugary for this time of night. Her eyes glazed over as the sweetness hit.
“Almost to West Yorkshire. You?”
“Lincolnshire.” They’d split the regions in half alphabetically, halving the work so it went quicker. It occurred to Gabi that she was being very trusting with Gus. She was trusting him not to miss anything. Part of her wanted to wait until he slept and meticulously go through his half of the database, but the rest of her wanted to sleep when people were supposed to be sleeping for once. Not going to bed at four A.M. and waking up at seven.
“Awesome,” Gus replied, stretching long arms over his head. “So we’re nearly done? What do we do then?”
“Compare the post mortem and crime scene photos. I want to see the marks, if they’re similar.” If they weren’t, this had all been for nothing and Gabi would have to give up and move on. If they were … she’d have to tell Joy. She didn’t know which outcome she dreaded more.
“Alrighty.” Oddly enough, Gus looked excited at the prospect of more work.
“But that’s tomorrow. We should get some sleep after this.” Gabi looked across the room to the bundle of coats and hoodies where Maisie had been curled up for hours, sleeping. She had the right idea. Or was it exhausting to be constantly in a form that wasn’t her natural form? It must have been frustrating at least, to not be able to communicate or cast sp
ells using a wand, only as an amplifier, to be so isolated all the time. Not to mention boring. Gabi felt a bit bad for not asking Maisie’s help in searching for similar deaths but she didn’t know how good fox eyes were. Was it even possible for the fox to spend hours searching a computer? How would she scroll?
“No arguments here,” Gus replied, bringing Gabi back to earth. Her mind kept wandering. It was a good job she was so near the end—she wouldn’t be able to focus for much longer.
“Put the paper with the other files,” Gabi told Gus and resumed scrolling. Most of the hits from her search were as unrelated as possible but the odd one looked promising … until it wasn’t. Gabi didn’t know if she should be looking for marks in places other than the neck, but since the woman on the news and Joy’s mum had had rashes in the same place, she narrowed her search to that part of the body. If it came to it, she could go back through the results and print off the others later. She needed to do this first, to know if she was right or if she was just paranoid and grasping.
An hour later, they’d both finished searching and had eight potentially linked deaths, including the initial two. Gabi exercised extreme restraint by dividing them into coloured folders, putting them on the coffee table, and leaving them there.
“It’s killing you, isn’t it?” Gus asked with a laugh.
“It’s fine.”
“Wanna brew some coffee and go through those files?”
“God,” Gabi said, “I really, really do. But sleep. And functioning like a normal person.”
Gus snorted. “That’s overrated. Come on, Pride. You know you wanna.” He picked up the stack of files and waved them at her, as if, like food, they had a scent that would entice her. Which wasn’t exactly untrue. They had that newly printed, fresh folder smell.
Gabi caved. “Half an hour, and no coffee.”
“Victory is sweet,” Gus crowed, raising the filed above his head. Maisie snorted.
Gabi’s heart stopped. “Please don’t drop them. Do you have any idea how long it would take to sort them out?”
Gus carefully and slowly put them on the table. Gabi’s heart resumed its natural rhythm. She said, “Move the table. We’re going to need the whole floor.”
Five were completely unrelated, the marks wildly different, but by sunrise that left three who were related, not counting Joy’s mum, whose records Gabi didn’t have in light of there not being any. She could have requested her death certificate from town hall—that horrifically familiar record’s room—but it wouldn’t say anything other than her cause of death, which would be listed as natural.
The three victims—if they were victims of a person and not just a common illness that had taken them all—had a circular rash like a thumbprint on their necks, slightly off centre. All the same, practically identical when you took out angle of the photos and accounted for the different levels of zoom. Three, connected by this rash. What were the chances of three rashes being exactly the same?
It had to mean Gabi was right. Logic didn’t allow for identical marks unless they had an identical cause, which meant this could not be coincidence. How many people got rashes or red marks, and how many of those were in the exact same place, the same size and shape? Factor in how many of those had died in their sleep and this was more than coincidence.
Gabi was right. This was a string of connected deaths. Now all she had to do was find the connection.
“And sleep,” Gus added, which was strange. Did people usually reply to Gabi’s thoughts? That seemed off somehow.
“It’s not off,” Gus said with a tired laugh. “You’re saying all that out loud.”
No, she wasn't.
“Yes, you are. Go sleep, Pride. Your bed’s that way. You remember that, right? Fluffy, comfortable thing with pillows and a nice fleece. Doorway’s behind you.”
Gabi groaned and stumbled to her feet. She didn’t remember walking to her room but she must have done because she fell face first into her duvet and slept immediately.
Joy
As she’d done every morning since that day in the town hall, Joy sat at the kitchen table staring at her uneaten toast. The thought of eating it made her ill. She rubbed her eyes, trying to massage away the stinging, gritty feeling and made herself take a tiny bite. It was even worse after a whole night of dreamless sleep than nightmares of Perchta stabbing Gabi with her elongated nails. When she slept through the night she was more awake in the morning, which meant her mind would return to that one moment on the records room floor in perfect clarity. Joy grasping for any witchcraft to save Gabi, terrified she was too late. Her hand changing from its natural porcelain to pale, pure blue from fingertip to wrist. Her hand on Perchta’s skin, those dark veins roiling across the witch’s flesh, that pulse of bright, electric blue like no power Joy had ever seen, and the witch’s cries afterward.
Joy gripped the chair under her, shaking.
What had she done?
What was she?
Witch killer, her mind whispered, a slithering heartless voice. Witch killer just like Perchta. Thief of witchcraft. Hollower. Unnatural, monstrous, dangerous.
And that was the worst part, that final word. She was dangerous. Perchta had cried and howled until Paulina’s coven had ventured to that floor in town hall and carried her to a secure room in the clinic. Where they had treated her. And been wary of her. Because she was a witch who had killed. But days later, with her locked in a cell in Liverpool, they’d accepted the truth: Perchta was no longer a threat. She didn’t have witchcraft, didn’t have any power, and no matter how hard the woman screamed and railed, she never became that petrifying creature that had slammed claws into Gabi. She didn’t have that second form anymore. She no longer had witchcraft. She was no longer a witch.
Witch killer, Joy’s mind hissed. Hollower.
Pride
“Your neighbours think I’ve murdered you,” Gus offered as way of good morning when Gabi hauled herself out of bed the next afternoon. She felt hungover, which although she rarely drank enough for that, wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. Turns out if you don’t get enough sleep, it feels like you’ve downed a dozen pints the night before.
“Huh?” Gabi flicked the kettle on for tea—coffee did not feel like a good idea in her current state—and reached for a half-eaten packet of doughnuts. The kitchen was uncommonly warm, a mystery Gabi puzzled until she realised Gus was using witchcraft and his affinity for air to warm the air around them, trailing lazy sigils in the air with his wand. Handy.
“You missed your open hours, or whatever you call them. A murder of old women wanted to hit me with their handbags for not letting them in.”
“A murder of old women?” Gabi rubbed sleep from her eyes, nodded a greeting at Maisie who was eating something Gabi couldn’t identify from a duck-egg blue bowl.
“Like murder of crows,” Gus explained. “Seemed appropriate. When I said you weren’t able to see anyone today, they looked at me like I was keeping you captive in here. Tied to a radiator and starving to death, the whole works.”
Gabi made herself tea and sat at the table with the siblings, still frowning, still confused. “Why?”
Gus laughed, though it was strained. “I’m already the villain of this town. The big scary trans guy coming to ruin all their virtues and sully the community by kicking their shrubbery to bits or whatever the fuck they think I’m gonna do.”
Gabi sobered and woke up all at once. She’d forgotten that while she experienced her own brand of prejudice for being Chinese, an elf, and gay, that Gus experienced a crueller, more targeted kind of abuse. “Shit,” she said. “Gus, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s just the way they look at me.”
Nothing Gabi could say would be enough, and all the replies that went through her head sounded contrived or cliché. “Well,” she said. “They’re assholes. Most of them are on their last legs anyway. They’ll be dead in a few months.” It was a shitty way to think of the women who’d been bringing her fo
od and paying her electric bill but it was the truth. And honestly, they deserved it.
Gus laughed though, which was worth insulting those old bitches.
“I could probably issue a town-wide decree to stop being bigoted pricks,” Gabi offered, reaching for another doughnut.
“Nah.” He shook his head, brown hair falling into his eye. “Doubt it’d change anything anyway.”
Gabi nodded. He was probably right. But what was the point of being the law keeper in this town, respected and admired, if she couldn’t change something this vital? “I won’t interfere,” Gabi promised. “I know it’d make shit worse for you. But if there’s ever something you want me to do, ask for it. Actually, I mean that no matter what. Not just dealing with assholes and discrimination. Across the board. I’m pretty sure you’re my friend now, so I’ll help you out with whatever.”
“Like offering me a place to stay,” Gus said, somewhere between frowning and smiling. “You’ve already helped me out. Helped both of us.” Maisie made an agreeing sound, or so Gabi interpreted.
Gabi shrugged. She couldn’t avoid the feeling that she’d said all the wrong things and made Gus feel worse. She wanted to say something else and rectify it but that could just make him feel even shittier. So she pushed up from the table and scrutinised the fridge. “What’d you want for breakfast? Well. Lunch, I guess, since it’s past one. There’s an unidentified pie.”
“Unidentified pie,” Gus said, a smile in his voice now. “My favourite.”
“I feel a lot more like a serial killer than a cop,” Gus commented, eyeing the cork board Gabi had leant against the wall of the interview room downstairs, the lengths of yellow string—the supermarket had not had red—running in a zigzag path across the UK, the only colour in the room. Grey walls, silver table, charcoal seats, black carpet. Gabi assumed her dad had decorated it as bland as possible to make it look to a real interrogation room, though the addition of a sofa at the far end—for consultations with non-suspects—did interrupt that vibe. And the cork board and whiteboard with Gabi’s frantic scrawl didn’t particularly belong in the room either.
Bound Powers (Pride & Joy Book 2) Page 4