Pack of Lies [2]

by Laura Anne Gilman

  *control* I heard, a whisper of a ping, and the current in the room cooled, still unsettled, but not dangerous.

  The ki-rin raced forward, after a pause that seemed to take forever, but couldn’t have. Just long enough for her to be thrown to the ground, her clothing torn, her skin bruised and mauled…

  *stop* Venec’s voice in my head, layers of reminder in that one-word sense. Stop projecting. Stop assuming. Stop. I stopped, and let the visual evidence unfold.

  Five minutes, maybe, from the first grab to the ki-rin’s arrival. Why had it been so slow? Then the dragon’s-head jaw opened in what must have been a roar, and a shadow jerked away. The second vic? The ki-rin ignored it, that graceful body rearing back and hooves and head coming down in attack mode, the horn angled down, and the darkness was suddenly the brighter for blood splattered across that pale body…

  “Stop it.” Pietr’s voice, hard.

  I managed to pause the display. It was getting easier to control it, although I still had to concentrate. Pietr leaned forward. “That second figure. He was the one who approached, but he never did anything. His cigarette stayed lit the entire time, I didn’t see it move at all. He was just standing there.”

  “He wasn’t part of the actual attack,” Venec said, confirming my initial theory. “That’s why the ki-rin let him live.”

  “He was the hook,” I said, seeing where Pietr was heading, looking with my brain instead of my emotions. “He brought her close enough to grab. But he wasn’t acting as the lookout. Otherwise he would have seen the ki-rin coming, and warned his buddy. He didn’t.”

  “And he wasn’t expecting trouble, either,” Venec said, rolling off our thoughts the way we did when we hit stride. “The positioning was all wrong. He was…more like he was waiting while his buddy had a go, but not expecting to have to restrain her, or help. As though she approached them, hot off the club scene, looking for some action. Just like our perp claimed.”

  “But the guy did grab her. It wasn’t the other way around.” I looked at the others, and they nodded. However she approached them, she hadn’t gone to the ground willingly. “Hang on….” I let the display go, and we watched as the ki-rin pulled back, then turned on its back hooves and lashed out at the second figure. He didn’t escape unscathed.

  “Punishment to fit the crime,” I said. “But he didn’t run. Why didn’t he run? He should have, at that point.”

  “Unless he was in shock,” Venec said thoughtfully, trying the idea out.

  “Like he wasn’t expecting a ki-rin?” Pietr wasn’t buying it. “If I had been part of that, and saw my buddy get gored, I’d be running like hell, especially if I originally thought the girl had been alone.”

  “Not expecting it…or he wasn’t expecting it to attack him?”

  The guys both turned to look at me. I leaned back and stared at the frozen display, a weird coldness stroking my spine, the way it did when my mood went from dark to pitch-black. The emptiness and the depression were both gone, and anger filled the space, but I wasn’t sure where to direct it…not yet. “He stood there…not part of it, but part of it. He approached her…but never touched her, didn’t seem to be part of the attempt…the ki-rin ignored him until well after the fact…. You were right, Pietr, earlier. I’ve got a really hinky feeling about this, too.”

  We were done—for now, anyway. I shut down the display and tucked it back into the carefully constructed nonspace it was stored in. There was already some degradation occurring. No matter how good my memory, eventually it would fade, especially if we kept watching it over and over. Nothing lasted forever. The thought was comforting, actually.

  When I’d finished closing up, we went not to the break room, but to the largest of our workspaces, with a large conference table, and eight chairs. There were only seven of us, but I guess the eighth chair came with the set, and nobody ever moved it to another room.

  Nifty was already there, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair impatiently, a notebook open on the conference table in front of him. “Four different clubs, all in the same area,” he said to Venec when we came in. “I pinged Nick with the names, and he and Sharon are checking them out.”

  “What clubs?” I asked.

  “Daylight, Roseroom, the Woogie, and Mei-Chan’s.”

  “I know them.”

  “Of course you do,” Venec said dryly, and Pietr snickered. Hey, I never made any bones about being a club kid, and I wasn’t going to apologize, especially if it gave us information we needed.

  “Roseroom and the Woogie are fatae-friendly, so it makes sense they’d go there. Daylight’s new, I went there once and wasn’t impressed. Retro-trance, wasn’t my thing. Mei-Chan’s, that’s classy. Very expensive. Was our girl in the money?”

  “Not particularly, no. But she might have been hoping to meet someone who was?”

  “A sugar daddy who wasn’t looking for a bed-toy? Unlikely.”

  “A sugar mommy?” Nifty asked.

  I snorted. “Virginity isn’t dependent on a penis, Nift.”

  He blinked, and then blushed a little, like his brain had never gone there before. Yeah, right.

  “Well, until the others get back, that’s all I got. You?”

  Venec filled Nifty in on our revised evaluation, while I looked over the notepad he’d been working on. A penciled map, linking the four clubs, trying to figure out the possible routes that would land them on the park walkway at that hour. No direct lines anywhere.

  “So, someone’s lying,” Nifty said.

  “We knew that already.” Venec, tired-sounding. “You don’t get two wildly dissenting stories without someone being full of shit. The hell with the client—they just wanted to cover their asses. Well, we were on the scene, so now no matter what happens, it’s our reputation that’s on the line. We can’t back off, not without looking incompetent.”

  There was a brief silence as everyone digested that fact. Had we been set up, more than just the Council using us as a splatter-sheild? We’d screwed ourselves by taking the case so fast, without knowing more detail, but we’d been so hyped to actually be on scene first, not last-called…

  Oh, hell, I would have made the same decision Ian did. We knew that we were being used, but we were in the business to be used, when it all boiled down to bones. Eventually, people would learn that we didn’t give a damn what their games and goals were: we were after the facts.

  “We need to get answers, and we need to prove what happened, without any room for doubt. If we don’t, this will never be settled to anyone’s satisfaction, and that doubt’s going to come back and bite us on the ass hard enough to take a chunk out right when we can least afford it.”

  In other words, it was not only this case that was on the line, but also our ability to function down the road. But no pressure, puppies.

  “So, obviously, the first thought is it’s the second attacker who is lying.” Pietr was thinking out loud. “His buddy’s dead, he’s laid up with serious medical bills piling up, so he’s trying to blame the girl, saying she was a willing partner so the cops have no reason to get involved, and the ki-rin…did what? Overreacted? Got jealous?”

  Stosser came in as we were talking. He looked calmer, but his body language still sang tension, and it hit a note in me, too. I could feel myself tense up. The others seemed oblivious, focusing on their own notebooks.

  “Would a ki-rin’s companion give that up for a quick lay, suddenly?” Venec asked, testing the theory. “Or maybe there wasn’t as much respect between the two of them as we’d been assuming…trouble in paradise?”

  “No.” I was definite about that. “They had been physically affectionate, just minutes before, really comfortable with each other. If she was going to break ties there are ways to do that, formally, so both can go their way with honor. This…that sort of thing would be a slap to the ki-rin.” I thought. My knowledge of ki-rin was pretty much what J had told me over dinner, and even that was mostly hearsay and legend. None of the fatae
were open with their lives—except the piskies who shared too damn much—and unlike some of the older European breeds, who made their living off their reputations. The Asiatic breeds weren’t exactly inking tell-alls for TV.

  “What about the girl,” Pietr said. “What reason would she have to lie? She didn’t shy away from the first guy, our survivor, at first. Could his story be true, that she went willingly—or changed her mind at the last minute? Could the cry of attempted rape be a way to protect herself, so nobody would know about her betrayal of the ki-rin, and that’s why she won’t press charges? Because she doesn’t want anyone actively investigating her story?”

  It was a fair, if ugly, question. The Cosa reaction would be exactly what we were seeing—a willingness to shove it under the table, and allow the ki-rin historical rights to revenge, not rock any boats. But it didn’t say nice things about the girl if she flip-flopped like that. My immediate response was to leap to her defense, but Venec’s injunction made me keep it in check. Was it possible?

  “She was attacked, and injured, even though the bastard was interrupted before he managed penetration,” Ian said. He had been the one to see her in person, so he’d know. “She’s shaken and scared, physically and emotionally damaged…no. I think the refusal to press charges has more to do with shame than fear of being revealed as a liar.”

  Stosser was a pretty good judge of character when he wanted to be, so we were willing to accept his take on the situation. The fact that she had injuries also supported her version of the story…unless she liked that sort of thing. I didn’t want to bring that up, but…

  “Also, she’s Talent, although so lo-res as to be practically Null, and being a companion was serious status uptick to her,” he said, echoing my earlier point. “I can’t see her letting that go, and certainly not in such an insulting manner. The news that this guy is countering her claims made her—”

  “You told her?”

  “Boss! You said you’d be gentle!”

  Stosser looked taken aback when Pietr and I both jumped on him for that. “Well, yes. I went back while you were working, after I got the news. I wanted to see her reaction.”

  Oh. My. Dog. I’d known Stosser was a cold bastard, but that…wow. Even Venec looked a little sick.

  “Shame or fear, the counterclaim raised the possibility that she might not be an innocent victim.” I guess everyone’s expression was the same, because this was the first time ever I’d heard Stosser be defensive. “It was our best chance to gauge her response to the news, before anyone had a chance to warn her.”

  Might not being the operative term. I could understand why he’d done it, I guess; fast and brutal was sometimes the best attack, and we were fighting for our professional lives, but damn.

  “Damage done,” Nifty said, shaking his head like he still couldn’t believe Ian had done that. “What was her reaction, as though we don’t already know?”

  Stosser looked way from us, admitting just a sliver of guilt with that action. “She burst into tears and refused to speak to me any longer.”

  I would have thrown something at him, myself. And that something would have hit him, too.

  Venec touched my arm, like he knew how close I was to saying something that might get me fired, and I felt annoyance settle down, my temper going back to its normal even tone.

  “So we have a he-said/she-said situation,” Venec said, with a look at his partner that didn’t bode well for later out-of-office discussions about tact and human kindness. Good. Although the thought of Venec lecturing anyone about tact was kind of funny.

  “If the actual attacker is dead,” Venec went on, “and the ki-rin will say only that he was retaliating within his rights for his former companion’s dishonoring…what does that leave us with? I know the myths about this breed, but most of the fatae have a historical association with…twisting the truth, in order to get their way. Could the ki-rin be lying?”

  “No.” Stosser answered that one. “You can’t judge them by the standards of the rest of the fatae, Ben. I’m not sure a ki-rin is even capable of lying. The unicorn mythos is right about that as well as the virginity obsession. Pure and true, loyal and loving, et cetera, et cetera. Fierce bastards, too. I saw what was left of the dead guy. I’m not sure there’s enough left to do an autopsy, although the ki-rin thoughtfully left the face intact for identification.”

  “Kind of it, I’m sure,” Pietr said.

  “I don’t think kindness was in its plans,” Nifty said. “Maybe the girl is scared of the ki-rin, now that she’s not protected? It may choose human companions, for whatever reason, but I’ve yet to meet a fatae that wouldn’t choose the nonhuman side in a heartbeat. They’re just as happy to stamp us into the ground, most of them, given the chance.”

  “Wow, fataephobic a bit, aren’t you?” Pietr asked, echoing my own reluctant thought.

  “I like most of ’em fine,” Nifty said, scowling at Pietr. “I just don’t trust ’em. Not with my life and not with yours, either. I read my histories. For every good fairy godmother or kindly elf, you get a dozen bog-spirits and water-sprites just cackling about the chance to put us down.”

  I wanted to argue, but he was right. On the other hand, we’d written those stories, we humans. I wondered what the fatae had to say about us?

  “Y’know,” Pietr said, breaking into my thoughts, “I’d have expected a black man to be a little less bigo—”

  “Hey! Watch it!”

  Pietr held his ground, even when Nifty stood up, leaning across the table, and I tensed, not sure if I would get between them or dive under the table, if it came to that.

  “Down!” Stosser didn’t have the deep voice Venec did, but he could do a command as well as any dog trainer I’d ever seen. Nifty sat down, if reluctantly, and Pietr leaned back, nonverbally letting go of the argument.

  Stosser wasn’t appeased. “Do I have to assign you two scutwork until you learn to play well with each other?”

  “No, sir,” Nifty said quickly. Too quickly for the Big Dog’s satisfaction, because he glared at Nifty. It should have been funny, stick-skinny Stosser trying to physically cow the former football player, but it wasn’t. It was scary. Nifty blinked and looked down, and Ian turned to the other culprit, waiting for his response.

  “No, boss.” Pietr shook his head, looking much more rebuked than Nifty had managed. I wasn’t sure I trusted his response any more, but it came across better.

  For some reason Stosser looked at me, and I looked back, as wide-eyed and quiet as I could manage.

  “Right now,” Venec said, and he was talking to Stosser, not us; you could tell when he put on his Big Dog-to-Big Dog voice, “we have a record of events that could be used to support either claim—there’s just enough leeway to allow reasonable doubt on anyone, especially without anything more than torn clothing and bruising that could have been consensual roughhousing.”

  Oh, good. I didn’t have to be the one to bring that up. Wasn’t my thing, but I knew plenty of people who were in the Life, and being thrown down on the ground and restrained with force was their idea of a cozy Tuesday-night date.

  “Damn it.” Stosser was still pissed, but I was right, it wasn’t that cold fury anymore. Thankfully. I much preferred calculating Stosser to furious Stosser. “It’s going to come down to the weight, not the quality. That puts the onus on us to collect everything, and I do mean everything, I don’t care how small or insignificant or duplicated the effort.”

  Yeah, we’d already gotten that, boss. But I kept my mouth shut, and so did Nifty and Pietr, for once. When the Big Dogs went at it, you didn’t get involved. We all stayed very still and quiet, and listened really hard.

  “Are Sharon and Nick still out?”

  Venec nodded. “They’re checking on the clubs the girl hit that night.”

  “Right. Pietr, Bonnie, I want you talking to the fatae, any one you can lay fingers on. See what they’re chattering about. Ben, you and I will deal with the Null aspects. Nifty�
�” He looked consideringly at the big guy, and I could see Nifty bracing himself for some kind of punishment detail.

  “There was a cop first on-scene, one of ours.” Talent, he meant. “The guy who called the Council in. I need you to find him, talk to him. See if you can jog anything loose from his memory, anything that seemed out of place, or didn’t jibe with protocol.”

  Nifty nodded, trying not to show his relief. It’s not a job I’d have wanted, but he could do guys-together-shooting-shit better than anyone else on the crew.

  Ian nodded at us all, his gaze steady as a basilisk’s, and just as unnerving. “We’re still on the job, even if the parameters have changed. A crime was committed—we just don’t know what crime anymore. That’s what we need to determine. It’s important to get this one right, the first time, and have it locked down solid—you know what’s riding on this.”

  A girl’s reputation. A man’s death. A Cosa shitstorm. Our professional survival. Yeah, we knew.

  “No mistakes, no slipups or oversights. Take all day, all night if you have to. Be back here in the morning with something to give us. I don’t want theories or hypothetical situations. Facts only. Everything else is useless.”

  five

  The four of us were heading out on our fatae—and fact-finding—missions, Stosser on our heels heading who knows where, when Sharon and Nick came into the lobby.

  “Changing of the guard?” Nick asked, but his face didn’t match the lighthearted tone, and I could tell he was making an effort.

  “Any success?” Stosser asked them, before either of us could make a response.

  “They all have a CCTV setup, but the recording’s wiped after twenty-four hours if nobody files a complaint,” Sharon said. “All legal by current laws, if incredibly skanky.” Sharon sounded disgusted; she might have been a great legal researcher but she’d have been lousy in court. “And if anyone knew or remembered anything, they weren’t talking. We should have sent Bonnie—she’d have been able to get something out of somebody there, turning on her trashy charm.”