“I said get down!” The voice shouted again and I knelt. Rough hands cuffed mine and jerked me upright. My broken fingers lashed me with pain and I nearly fainted. Mason was already cuffed beside me.
An officer knelt beside Pierre. “He’s dead.”
The lead officer jerked me backward. “I’m arresting you for murder and destruction of property—”
“Stop! Release these prisoners.” Merrow chose that moment to drop her glamor. Sato stood beside her, looking shaken.
Merrow approached and the officers raised their guns. She held out her widget and said, “I am Queen Leighna’s personal assistant, here by her orders. Check my credentials.” The cop took her widget, scanned the ID and handed it back to her. “I can attest that this man was killed in self defense only.” She pointed to Pierre’s body. “He is the criminal here, not those two.”
As the officer uncuffed me, I was happy with her intervention, but not enough to forgive the fact that she didn’t step in sooner. In her true form, she could have stopped Pierre before…
Jacoby!
I ran to his side. Errol had crawled out from under him and sat leaning against the dervish with a dazed look on his face.
“Mrthbtgh.” I couldn’t understand him and got nothing through his mind-speak. He tried again and I shook my head. He laid his head on Jacoby’s arm and tears soaked his long beard.
Jacoby lay like a limp rag. Even the fringe of gray fur around his eyes drooped. And he was still. Too perfectly still.
No! He couldn’t be dead! Not Jacoby, the rascal who was so full of mischief…so full of life.
I reached for him with my keening, and felt the swell of his lungs expanding, so slowly it was barely perceptible. I dug deeper for his magic. It was there, but dim like a shuttered lantern. He was alive.
“Hey, buddy.” I smoothed the fur back from his face. It was surprisingly soft. “You were very brave. You took care of Errol, just like I asked.” My voice broke. I couldn’t stop the tears. They couldn’t take Jacoby from me. Not again. Damn Pierre and Gerard and their schemes! Damn Joran and Susanna for acting as their pawns. And damn Polina for fueling their obsessions. They’d taken Alvin and Theo, and now I could lose Jacoby.
I laid my broken hand on his frail chest. Errol stood on shaky legs and gripped my little finger. I felt another hand close over my shoulder. We stood like that—Errol, Mason and I—waiting for Jacoby to open his eyes.
Chapter
28
Hub detained us for a full day, not exactly in jail, but not free to leave either. From the small interrogation room, I watched the sun come up through a dirty window. Mason was being held in a separate room. I hoped the sunrise had come fast enough to heal his wounds, but none of the officers who came into my room would update me on his condition.
And no one mentioned Emil. Maybe he got away before Hub could detain him.
Some time after sunrise, a medic came in to treat my cuts and set my broken fingers. Detective Kesik arrived as the medic was leaving. He brought me coffee and a muffin that had known better days. He leaned a hip on the table in front of me and said nothing for nearly a minute, hoping to unnerve me. But I was too tired for games. I sipped the tepid coffee and ignored the muffin.
When he realized that his intimidation wasn’t working, he sat across from me and pinned me with his gaze. “Tell me again how you ended up in the private lab of the prime minister with a dead man and contraband bloodstones.”
“Now, you see, it’s all about perspective. You chose all the wrong highlights. Why not ask how we managed to save the ward from a mad alchemist hell-bent on exploiting the dead souls of fae?”
Kesik leaned back, unsmiling.
“I haven’t known you long, Miss Greene, but it seems like every time we meet, there’s a dead body involved.”
“See? Wrong perspective again. Every time we meet, I’m helping you solve a case. In fact, we handed you this one on a silver platter, complete with unbiased witnesses. Where is Merrow, anyway?”
“Gone.” He finally smiled. “Back to the Queen, leaving you in my tender care.”
I huffed out a breath. I really didn’t like this guy, and my edges were frayed. “I have nothing more to say to you.”
“Oh, you will.” Kesik thumped the table with the flat of his hand and left. He tried to talk to me several more times during the day. I made one futile attempt to leave. And though Kesik insisted I wasn’t under arrest—yet—there were guards outside my door.
In truth, I didn’t try very hard. Mason was locked up in another room, waiting out the sun, and I wouldn’t leave without him.
Before Hub had dragged me downtown, I’d called Gabe. Without question, and despite the late hour, he’d come to collect Jacoby and Errol. At least I knew they were safe at home. The best way I could help them now would be to stop Gerard Golovin from executing whatever master plan he had in the works.
For that, I needed to wait for Merrow.
I slept on and off with my head on the table, each time waking to look at the sun’s position through the window, since Kesik had taken my widget. A junior officer brought me food in the afternoon. I picked at it. And when the sun set, I paced the small room until the door opened again and Merrow entered.
“Leighna wants to see you now,” she said.
“Finally. I’ll just go home and change first.”
“No time. Golovin will be there too, and she won’t be able to hold him for long.”
Terrific. Merrow looked fresh and put together, like she hadn’t spent the night in an exploding lab and then a day in a stuffy interrogation room. My clothes reeked of smoke, and I had little sweaters on my teeth. I didn’t even want to look at my hair.
The guards were gone from outside my room, and I ran down the hall without being stopped. At least I had a fresh shirt in my Hub locker. I splashed water on my face and raked a brush through my hair before braiding it again. A quick look in the mirror told me I looked a little better than a fresh corpse. It would have to do.
I drove to the Winter Court with Mason and Angus.
Mason looked tired. The sunrise had mended his wounds, but did nothing for his state of mind.
“How’s Jacoby?” he asked.
“No change.” I’d called Gabe as soon as the Hub agents had given me back my widget. Jacoby was home now, but still unconscious. If it were anyone else besides the queen requesting my presence, I would have skipped out to be home by his side.
“What about him?” I jerked a thumb to the backseat where Angus sat lost in his own thoughts, staring out the window at the night.
Mason made a noncommittal shrug. “That jar of bloodstones upset him.”
I could understand that. With those stones, Golovin had the potential to create dozens of gargoyles—beings like Angus who would live forever trapped in a body that was not their own and enslaved to GenPort.
Mason put the car on auto-drive—something that told me just how tired he was—and leaned his head against the seat.
“You know, I’ve been dreading this day for centuries. But in a way, I’m glad it’s come. Polina might be free, but at least now I can stop her. Not just detain her. I’m going to end to this.”
“We will end it,” I said.
He squeezed my hand. “Thank you. I know what this mess has already cost you.”
I thought of Jacoby, of Alvin and Theo, of Gita and Errol, all lost or hurt by events spun out of control. Events that started when Joran first came to town.
“I’ve been trying to work out something. Susanna is his sister, you know. Joran’s I mean. They have the same look. And Susanna called Polina ‘Grandmother’ too.”
“Oh, I bet she loved that.”
I laughed. “Not so much.”
“Polina hates anything that reminds her of her mortality, even her own daughter.”
“I can work with that.” One day we would face her again and I’d need all the ammunition I could get. “Do you think she’ll kill Susanna too?”
“Not yet. With Pierre dead, she needs to find her way in this strange world. But as soon as Susanna outlives her usefulness, Polina will use her for some dark rite. That’s how she thinks. People are tools to her.”
We arrived at the Winter Court. There were only a few other cars in the lot at this time of night. Merrow parked beside us and we all headed toward the front entrance. Mason held me back until the others were out of earshot.
“I want you to know that as soon as this meeting is over, I’m leaving for France.”
“What? France?” My mind frantically calculated the dangers of a journey that could only be taken by boat. “That will take months! Why?”
“Polina will want Pierre’s body. She’s been attached to him through some dark spell for centuries. I won’t let her have it. Hub is already cremating him, and I’ll take his ashes back to France.”
He wouldn’t look me in the eye. There was more to this reckless journey. I crossed my arms and scowled. I was tired of my people being in constant danger. And as unlikely as it seemed, Mason was definitely one of my people now.
“You realize that one in five vessels never makes it across the Atlantic.”
He nodded. Since the Flood Wars, the ocean had been reclaimed by magical beasts, much like the Inbetween.
“Even so, a round trip should only take a couple of months, if I can find what I’m looking for quickly.”
“And what exactly is that?”
“The only thing that has a chance of defeating Polina.” He looked away, as if not wanting to commit to more. I frowned.
“And in the meantime? What if she makes a play before you return?”
He shook his head. “She’s weak. She’ll go into hiding and build her strength.”
“I could barely fight her last night! We need to stop her now.”
“I can’t!” His voice was anguished. “Don’t you understand? I’m not strong enough to defeat her. I never was.”
“But this…this thing you’re bringing back from France is?”
“Maybe. It’s a long shot, but the only one we’ve got.”
“I could go with you.” I hated the smallness of my voice in that moment, but I felt like we were on the brink of something. Something bigger growing between us, and now he was leaving.
“It’s too dangerous.” He held up a hand when I began to protest. “And you’re needed here. Tell me you’d really leave Jacoby now?”
I ground my teeth. He was right. I couldn’t leave. Not for a months-long journey.
He cupped my cheek, sneaking his fingers around to the back of my neck so he could pull me closer.
“When I come back, we’ll sort this out.” His eyes searched mine. I willed back tears and nodded.
“Whatever this is.”
“Whatever this is,” he agreed. His kiss was light, a simple promise of more, then Angus called out, “Are you two planning to keep the queen waiting much longer? ‘Cuz I’ve got to piss as it is.”
Mason bumped his forehead against mine and grinned. “Time to face the firing squad.”
Leighna and Gerard Golovin waited for us in the council chambers. The queen sat in her usual chair in front of the odd wall with the moving wallpaper. It looked like frost on glass that continually grew and morphed in a kaleidoscope pattern. Before her, a metal box sat on the coffee table. My keening picked up the null space around it. The box was a safe for a magical artifact.
Sato and Prime Minister Tremblay sat in chairs opposite Leighna while Golovin paced the room, stopping when we entered.
“Finally,” he said. “Now will you tell us what this nonsense is all about. I have a gala to attend at the museum tonight. I’m already late.” He was dressed in a black suit that shimmered with a damask pattern. It was a fashionable style that made my eyes hurt as much as Leighna’s wallpaper. Every time I saw Gerard Golovin, two words came to mind: slick and dangerous, like the oil spills I remembered in my youth that devastated entire ecosystems.
“Prime Minister Golovin, sit down there, and we can proceed.” Leighna pointed to the only empty chair in the room.
Gerard raised an eyebrow at her formality, then decided to be ornery and stood at the end of the table with his hands clasped behind him. Maybe he thought he looked tough and military that way, but the flashy suit ruined the effect.
“Does this have anything to do with the explosion at Abbott’s Agora last night?” Gerard asked.
“Yes, it does,” Merrow said.
“I hope you caught the criminals responsible.” Gerard’s eyes rested on me, then Mason.
“We were more concerned with the illicit experiments going on in your lab,” Leighna said. “You know, the secret one in the old Stewart Hall. Your associate, Pierre Garnier, was making gargoyles for you, wasn’t he? The Black Hat Act prohibits the creation of life, in any form.”
A muscle twitched on Gerard’s cheek, and he took too long to answer. He was deciding which was the worst of his crimes and didn’t deny the existence of the second lab. “You have no proof that I was involved in any of that. I let Garnier use my lab. So what? I did an old friend a favor. I had no idea that he was into illicit magic.”
“Actually, we have ample proof. Several witnesses in fact.” Leighna pointed at Mason and me. “And at this moment, Hub forces are raiding your GenPort site and confiscating your gencrew. And not the Hub officers that you’ve been paying off. I made sure to send in fae and human advisors too.” She smiled coldly.
“Now, I’m giving you one chance to come clean. We all know those gencrew are not automatons, or golems or whatever you want to call them. They’re gargoyles, animated by the souls of fae citizens stolen right off the streets of this ward.”
“I had no idea what Garnier was doing. And you can’t prove otherwise.” Gerard’s face reddened. “I’ll see you crucified in the media for this, Leighna. Your approval ratings are already at an all-time low after your brother’s attempted coup last year. This will finally take you down.”
Leighna leaned forward and opened the box on the table. Magic brushed against my wards as she revealed the bloodstones. “No, Gerard. It’s your turn to step down. These were found in your lab. Your personal lab.”
“A bunch of rocks? That’s your proof?” Gerard scoffed.
“I think you know these are no ordinary rocks. Anyone with a bit of keening or a good thaumagauge can sense the magic coming off them. These are bloodstones. Each one holds a soul you stole. Someone your takers killed for this purpose.”
“You can’t prove I had anything to do with it!” His voice rose, flirting with the edges of hysteria.
Merrow stood and faced him. “I was there, Gerard. So was Sato. We heard Pierre Garnier confess before he died. Along with Henry Mason and the Valkyrie, we have witnesses from all three parties and one independent. And by morning, we’ll have your gencrew in custody. That’s enough to sway any judge.”
Gerard swung his gaze around the room, finding no allies in this group. Then a switch flicked in his head and his expression went from defensive to offensive. He clenched both fists at his sides.
“You are fools. The gods are fickle. Terra will take as easily as she gives. Have you all forgotten the Flood Wars already? Need I remind you how Terra shut down entire governments by flooding the land with magic? An effective way to kill a society so reliant on technology. And what about us? What do we rely on? Magic. It fuels your city, runs your cars and heats your homes. Magic given to us by Terra. What happens when she takes it all away? We’ll need an alternate source of energy. That, ladies and gentlemen, is our future.” He pointed to the bowl of bloodstones.
Prime Minister Tremblay rose and jabbed a finger at Gerard. “Terra won’t take away magic as
long as we live within our means. As long as arrogant fools like you stop trying to expand our footprint.”
Tremblay had been against the GenPort expansion from the beginning.
“And how long do you think Montreal can continue to thrive under Terra’s restraints?” continued Gerard, exasperated with our stupidity. “We can’t grow any further and expect to feed our population because some angry god is always ready to take back any new land we clear for crops. We can’t dig for fossil fuels anymore. We can’t expand off this island at all. Terra is nothing but a big mother hen, who’s so concerned with keeping her nest safe, she’s going to smother her chicks. And you’re the fools who will let her.” He was panting now. He held out his hands. “So are you going to arrest me or not? I have a gala to get to.”
Leighna rose. She looked at Prime Minister Tremblay, who nodded. Then she turned to Gerard.
“I think we can all agree that arresting one of Montreal’s prime ministers will cause civil unrest that we can ill afford right now.”
Gerard looked smug, but Leighna wasn’t finished. “But you will step down as prime minister and leader of the Alchemist Party immediately. I don’t care what excuse you use, but make it believable. Your gencrew have already been taken into custody. They will be destroyed along with the bloodstones. You will be forbidden access to Perrot Island, Abbott’s Agora and any other alchemy property. I can’t stop you from building your damned railroad since parliament has already passed funding for it. But know that we will be watching you, and if I even hear a rumor of impropriety on that construction site again, I will shut you down and deal with parliament later.”
Gerard glowered at her, but just nodded. He strode to the door, stopping in front of Mason.
“Looks like you’ll finally get what you’ve always wanted—control of the alchemists. Just remember, it’s only yours because a better man had to step away.”
Mason’s face was impassive as Gerard stormed out.
“Though I don’t agree with his last assessment,” Leighna said, “I do hope you will consider running for prime minister.”
Dervishes Don't Dance: A Paranormal Suspense Novel with a Touch of Romance (Valkyrie Bestiary Book 2) Page 24