by Nalini Singh
Adele raised an eyebrow. "You plan to put the fear of Dmitri in them?"
Dmitri knew he could be ruthless; it was an asset. The current situation, however, required stronger firepower. "The audience isn't with me, Adele. Raphael has requested their presence." He'd spoken to Raphael the previous night, when the reports first came in, received the go-ahead to take this action if he deemed it necessary--because the archangel who was his friend caused bone-deep fear in mortals and immortals both.
"It appears," Dmitri purred to a rapidly paling Adele, "that the Made need to be reminded that the Tower never stops watching."
Adele's swallow was audible. "Who will die tonight?" she asked on a whisper of sound.
"All those who have forgotten that they are not the apex predators in this city."
29
Felicity's apartment building, blackened with the grit and smog of the city, had the downtrodden look of a woman who'd once been beautiful but had long since surrendered to the march of time. She didn't even bother with makeup: window coverings were absent or hanging in a lopsided way, and at least a third of the dirty panes of glass had cracks running through them. Two had given in to the pull of gravity and were totally missing, the holes covered up with black plastic.
A tenant on the third floor had made an effort--Ashwini could see greenery against the window, what looked like the curling tendrils of a luxuriant fern. The attempt at beauty only threw the decrepitude of the rest of the building into sharp focus. That lack of care was visible inside as well. Graffiti crawled across the walls just inside the entranceway, and the scuff marks on the linoleum floor had worn through to the concrete.
"I understand why she wanted out." The leaden despair soaked into the concrete and glass and wood of the building was powerful enough to brush against her senses, but far, far beneath, she could almost glimpse tiny, struggling seeds of hope.
Felicity had planted one of those seeds, would've given hope to her neighbors when she made it out. Seeing this, feeling the fragility that lay underneath the hardened surface, it made the cruelty of what had been done to the young woman even worse. Not only had the monster who'd killed her stolen her life, he'd made a mockery of her spirit. "The person responsible for Felicity's torture and death deserves every circle of hell."
"We will ensure he--or she--ends up roasting for a long, long time." Janvier nodded to the left, to a sign that, judging from the richness of the ink, had been recently defaced by a blue marker that told the reader to "Fock of!" It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Below the misspelled profanity was the word Office and an arrow pointing down the corridor.
"I do not have high hopes of anyone actually being in the office," Janvier said, "but the world is full of surprises."
"Most of them bloody and nasty and deadly." Walking with him down the narrow corridor, Ashwini took the dimly lit stairs down to a basement level. In front of her was a closed door plastered with advertising flyers, neighborhood promos by people struggling to create a sense of community in this hopeless place, and small posters asking for help in finding lost pets. Raising her hand, she rapped on the door with her knuckles.
To her astonishment, it opened almost immediately to reveal a big, bearded guy with skin so sallow it was clear soaking up the sun wasn't his favorite pastime.
"Yeah?" He scowled before Ashwini could identify herself and spoke again. "You're a hunter. Which schmuck vamp is hiding out here?"
Perceptive, she thought. He might actually be of some help. "No vamp," she said, "but we have questions about a former tenant."
The man, who appeared to be in his early thirties, scratched his belly, the size of it hinting at a love of beer and fast food. "Right. Come in." Backing away from the door, he waved them into an office that held a television set currently showing a rerun of a crime show, a sagging sofa with denim upholstery, a desk buried under paper, and several rickety chairs.
He switched off the TV and said, "You want to sit?"
Not sure the chairs would hold, Ashwini shook her head. "You're the super?" she asked to make certain--for all she knew, he could be the owner.
Reaching up, he scratched his jaw this time, the frizzy black curls of his beard rasping against his skin. "Ah, yep, had the gig going on ten years now," he said. "Name's Seth. I'm a student--on my second doctorate, so this job's great, especially since it comes with a room out back." He made a face. "I do what I can, fix what I can, but the owners don't give me much money, so I have to let the inessential stuff--like the endless fucking graffiti--go." Rubbing his hands over his face, he blew out a breath. "But you didn't come here to listen to me moan. Who's the tenant?"
"Felicity Johnson."
His animated face froze, then crumpled noticeably. "Aw, damn, something happened to her, didn't it? I knew she'd never leave Taffy like that."
"I'm afraid she was murdered." Ashwini watched him for any signs of possible guilt as she delivered the news, saw only pain.
"Who'd do that?" A bewildered question. "She was no threat to anyone."
"You remember her," Janvier said, leaning against the door he'd closed.
"Yeah, she was sweet. Real nice." His sallow face even more pale and his previously steady body swaying a fraction, he took a seat behind his desk. "You sure it's her?"
"We haven't yet been able to run DNA or find a fingerprint match," Ashwini said more gently than she might have before witnessing his reaction, "but yes, we believe it's her." It was too much to hope that Felicity's room remained untenanted, but if Seth had kept her tenancy application, then fingerprints might be a possibility.
"Most tenants in a place like this," the super said, staring at his overflowing desk, "they get so hard, so angry with life that they just want someone to blame--I'm an easy target. But Felicity isn't . . . wasn't like that." A shaky smile. "When I fixed her door after it threatened to fall off its hinges, she baked me muffins. I never had fresh-baked muffins before."
Another glimpse of who Felicity had been, another stab of fury at the person who'd ended the life of a woman with stars in her eyes. "Who's Taffy?"
"Oh, Taffy . . . was her cat."
Deciding to risk it, Ashwini flipped around one of the chairs and sat with her arms along the back. "How long ago did Felicity leave?"
"Well, 'bout eight months ago she started going away for a day or two. She asked me to check in on Taffy, that's how come I know."
That fit with Sina's account of when Felicity had met her mysterious rich boyfriend. "Go on."
"Then she started staying away for longer and longer." He swallowed, his voice hoarse. "I figured she'd give up her lease, but she didn't, popped in and out until about six months ago."
One more month, we're closer by one more month, Ashwini thought on a fierce wave of exultation, but didn't interrupt the desolate man.
"The last couple of times I saw her, maybe two weeks apart," Seth said, his eyes bleak, "she didn't look so good. See, the thing with Felicity was, no matter how bad it got, no matter how low she was on funds--" He broke off, started again. "I cut her a bit of slack now and then. Gave her a little extra time to get the rent to me; I knew she'd be good for it."
He shook his head. "Anyway, the thing was, she was always happy, you know? Like a bunny or something. All peppy and shit." His shoulders began to shake, sudden tears rolling down his face. His sobs were loud, harsh, and real, a dam that had burst without warning.
Janvier ran his hand over her hair before she could reach out to the distraught man, then moved past her to squeeze Seth's shoulder. He returned to his previous position only when the other man began to calm.
"Sorry," the super gasped out, lifting the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe his face. "I kept hoping that she was living the high life on a yacht in the Mediterranean or something, but I knew, I knew she wouldn't leave Taffy."
A meow sounded right then. A small gray cat slid through the gap in the door behind the desk on its heels. Seth's face crumpled again at the sight of the cat, but he pulled h
imself together on a shuddering breath. "Come 'ere, Taffy," he said, and the cat jumped up into his lap. "She's as sweet as Felicity. I never was a cat guy, but then Felicity didn't come back . . ." Shoulders slumped, he petted the purring animal.
"I'm sorry." The words were inadequate, but they were all she had until they tracked down the person who'd hurt Felicity.
"I want to help," Seth said, wiping the back of his hand over his eyes and lifting his head. "Felicity, I never saw her down, you know? But those last two times, it was like she was . . . fading. As if someone was stealing her spirit." A vein pulsed along his temple. "I asked her if her boyfriend was hitting her, but she said she'd just given too much blood."
"So," Ashwini said, thinking through what he'd shared, "she wasn't really living here those last months but she never took Taffy?"
"No, said her guy didn't like cats. I told her no man was worth giving up Taffy, but she just laughed." He petted the cat again, the repetitive action easing the tension in his body. "I couldn't figure out why she kept the apartment, wasted her money. She knew I'd take care of Taffy if she really needed it . . . I hope she knew."
"I think she did." To Ashwini, Felicity's actions said the other woman had felt safe here, and that she'd had enough misgivings about her new life to cling to that safety as long as she could. "Can you remember the exact date of the last time you saw her?"
"No, but I can find it." Opening a big black diary scrawled with so many notations, Ashwini didn't know how he made sense of it, he backtracked until he found the note of her visit. "No, it was shredded," he said when Ashwini asked about the tenancy agreement. "Did you want to look at her things instead?"
Ashwini's heart kicked. "You kept them?" Felicity's belongings could provide a near-foolproof source of DNA and/or fingerprints.
"The landlord sold off most of it to pay the back rent after she didn't come back," Seth said, "but I went in beforehand and gathered up the stuff I knew meant something to her. Rest of it was furniture she got from Goodwill, few clothes and books."
"It'd be helpful if we could take Felicity's things with us."
Getting up at Ashwini's reply, Seth retrieved the slain woman's belongings from the back room. "I hid it there in case the landlord figured out I saved stuff for her." His face crumpled again. "I kept hoping she'd come back."
He placed the pitifully small box on the table in front of Ashwini, then sat down and rubbed Taffy's head with his fingers when the cat returned to her perch on his lap. "After you're done . . . could I maybe have the picture in the red frame? It's of us after we went out to a ball game one time with some other friends."
That was when she understood the keening note of anguish beneath his sadness. It was love. Felicity had been deeply loved and had never known it . . . or perhaps she had, but was unable to reciprocate it for reasons of her own. People didn't always love who they should, or the ones who were good for them. "I'll make sure you get it back," she said.
"Her funeral . . ."
"Do you know Sina, Carys, and Aaliyah?"
A jerky nod. "I'll talk to them, take care of Felicity."
So many lives, Ashwini thought, Felicity had touched so many lives.
Not able to leave Seth sitting there alone with the cat in his arms and tears in his eyes, she said, "Do you have family in the city? Friends?"
"Yeah." A rough answer. "But I need to be alone right now. I need to try to understand it."
Ashwini didn't have the heart to tell him there could be no understanding this. Leaving him to his grief, she didn't say anything until they'd stowed the box of Felicity's belongings in the car. Their first stop afterward was the Guild forensics lab, where a senior technician looked in the box and commandeered a black picture frame he said had a good surface for prints.
It held an image of Felicity standing on a rooftop, her arms raised and feet spread as she looked toward the Tower. A classic tourist shot--and Felicity, she looked so young and brimming with hope.
The forensic tech also took a small hairbrush with a carved wooden handle. "I can see several hairs we might be able to use for DNA . . . yes, the follicle is attached," the bespectacled man said as he meticulously picked the strands out.
Meanwhile, the no-nonsense woman who took care of fingerprints lifted several from the picture frame. A number were too big to be Felicity's, likely Seth's. But the smaller ones matched the body they'd found. To confirm, the tech also printed an ID card from a fast-food chain that had Felicity's name and face on it.
"No doubt, it's a match," she said.
The DNA would put the final stamp on the identification, but there was no longer any question in Ashwini's mind that Felicity Johnson was their victim.
Taking the rest of Felicity's belongings, she turned to Janvier. "Let's go to a pretty place to look at this." It seemed an insult to Felicity's hopes to do it in such hard, clinical surroundings.
"I know a spot," Janvier said, and they headed back to his car.
Watching the city pass by, the snow ground into ice and dirt in places, pristine in others, she kept her silence. There was no need to speak. She'd seen the same grim sorrow that lived in her heart on Janvier's face. When he pulled into a parking garage near Chelsea Market, she thought he meant for them to go into a tea shop inside, but he led her through to the High Line.
Originally elevated railway tracks used by freight trains, the area had been converted into a living green space. Summer days and nights saw it filled with New Yorkers out to grab a little sun, take a stroll, or just hang out. And it wasn't popular only with mortals and vampires. Angels liked to drop by, often sitting on the specially reinforced railings, their wings hanging over the sides. Ashwini had once seen two of them eating ice cream and watching the stream of yellow taxis below while a curious boy of about seven leaned on the railing beside them and asked a million questions.
Long grasses and wildflowers, trailing vines set up on trellises, innovative pieces of sculpture in among the greenery, the mood of the High Line changed at the whim of the gardeners and curators, making it a place that was new again and again and again. Then there were the birds and the butterflies, their song and color filling the air on sunlit summer days.
The sunshine today couldn't banish the cold snow on the deep wooden seats where people liked to lounge in warmer weather, but it remained a pretty place surrounded by the pulsing heart of the city. The gardeners allowed the plants and trees to grow freely in winter, so that instead of the barren lines of a manicured park, here there were waving grasses that had beaten the snow with grit and resilience, bare tree limbs stark against the sky.
Janvier placed the box of Felicity's belongings on a small wooden block that he brushed free of snow, then walked toward a winter-barren tree in the center of the garden. "Come here, cher. Look at this."
Joining Janvier under it, she sucked in a gasped breath. A delicate and secretive new sculpture had been added to the tree. Tiny bronze fairies sat on the branches, peeked out of a small hole in the trunk, tiptoed along in readiness to pounce on friends who sat gossiping. Each was exquisite in its detail, its features unique.
"Did you know it was here?" she asked, heart aching at the ephemeral beauty of the piece--because visitors who glimpsed the secret wouldn't be able to resist; they'd take a fairy or two home as a treasure.
"It's one of Aodhan's," Janvier told her. "He put it here three nights past with Illium's help. He says they are for taking--tiny sparks of laughter caught in bronze, meant to travel where wonder will bear them." Picking up a fairy who sat with her chin in her hands, her face expressive with delight at the world before her, he gave it to Ashwini. "For when Felicity is put to rest. I think it suits a woman who was never sad."
Ashwini pressed a kiss to his cheek on a wave of raw emotion and tucked the tiny creature carefully into her pocket, making sure the fairy's face popped out so she could continue to drink in the world. Then, brushing aside the snow from a couple of the seats, they sat opposite one another, the w
ooden block between them.
Though tall buildings looked down on them, Ashwini didn't feel enclosed. The rush of traffic, the car horns, and the fragmented conversations that drifted up from the street, added to the bite in the air, the shadow of angel wings on the snow as a squadron passed overhead, it all spoke of freedom. This was a good place to step into Felicity's past, to see who she'd been before a monster decided to treat her as disposable.
Ashwini lifted the lid off the box.
30
Felicity's box held an impossibly small amount for an entire life.
A pretty gold chain with a heart-shaped locket sat inside a decorative wooden box with a blue velvet lining. Opening the locket, Ashwini saw pictures of a man and woman who looked to be in their fifties or early sixties. "Probably her grandparents."
There were three more photos. The one of Seth with Felicity, both of them laughing and waving foam fingers in the air with one hand, the other closed around hot dogs bursting with all the fixings. Felicity was beaming at the camera, Seth at her. "She knew," Ashwini said, running a thumb over the red of the frame to brush away a fleck of dust. "She couldn't look at this photograph and not know how he felt about her."
Janvier picked up the second-to-last photograph, its frame sparkly pink. "This one, too, holds those who loved her." He turned it to show her an image of Felicity with Carys, Sina, and Aaliyah, the four women laughingly holding up pretty-colored drinks at a bar. Felicity was wearing a body-hugging white dress and had a silky-looking scarf of sunny yellow around her neck, purple butterflies on the fabric. She looked young and pretty and happy.
The last photograph was of the older couple in the locket again. Ashwini traced the tractor in the background, took in the endless turned earth, caught the glint of a shovel in the corner of the frame, the sun lines that marked the faces of the two smiling people who looked out of the image. "She was a country girl."
Janvier's eyes became chips of malachite, hard and icy. "One who came to the city to make a better life for herself, find a man who'd offer her the security she craved."
"Except she found a predator instead." It was too common a story, the predators as often human as immortal, but that didn't mean each and every victim didn't deserve justice.