Beneath the Skin

by Amy Lee Burgess

  Murphy held me down, his face tight with determination. Even though I couldn’t see

  straight, his gaze never left mine, not for a second, even when a pandemonium of noise and movement erupted behind us where Rudi’s body rested.

  “Jesus Christ,” somebody said. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Was it poison? In the bottle? Look, there’s an empty bottle near him and another one half full. Was something in it?”

  Babbling voices competed with each other as Liam Murphy and I stared at each other.

  I’d stopped screaming, but my heart pounded so fast and hard I thought I was dying.

  Things got very bright then very dim and the voices got louder then softer. Sometimes I couldn’t understand them, sometimes I could.

  “Rudi’s dead,” I said again. Conversationally. Trying it out so it would take on some sort of meaning.

  Murphy sat on top me, legs to either side of my torso, pinning me down. He had both arms up above my head, wrists together, blocking me from any movement.

  His chest heaved from exertion or maybe stress. His gaze never, ever left mine.

  “I’m going to let you up now,” he said, also conversationally. “And you’re not going to run or scream. Are you?” The Irish lilt was more subdued now. I realized he was conscious of it and guarded against how much of it he revealed in everyday, ordinary speech.

  I shook my head, because my heart beat too hard for me to speak.

  “You need to answer me, Constance. I’ll not let you up until I know you can do what I ask you to do. So I’m asking again. You’re not going to run or scream, are you now? You’re going to stand by me and do whatever they tell you to do. They’re going to want to ask questions and you’re going to answer them and you’re not going to scream and get hysterical. Tell me I’m right.”

  “You’ll stay with me?” I begged. I felt that maybe--maybe--I could do it if at least one familiar face was in the background somewhere. “I’m so alone, Murphy. I don’t have anyone and I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be scared,” he said. “I’ll stay with you if you promise not to run or scream. Deal?”

  People were gathered around us. I felt them watching us. Some were fascinated, some impatient--all of them were confused. There was anger too. I could smell that.

  “Deal,” I said and he nodded in solemn approval of my decision. He helped me to my

  feet, glaring at the ones who tried to step forward.

  “My mouth is so dry,” I whispered because it was. It hurt it was so dry.

  “Give her some water,” Murphy snapped.

  “No, not that one. We need to analyze that,” a woman protested.

  “Just get her some goddamned water, someone, please!” Murphy was angry now. On my

  behalf? Or at everything, including me?

  Someone handed me a half-drunk bottle of water and I gulped at it gratefully, as I

  clutched it in my hands while Murphy guided me by the elbow out of the ballroom. He knew where we were going. I didn’t. All I knew was that Rudi was dead and the water tasted divine.

  “What did you put in the water, Constance?” It was the same question over and over

  again. It had been hours now since they’d brought me to the little room with the white marble fireplace and the museum-quality furniture. The grandfather clock in the corner had chimed every quarter hour and I’d heard the distinctive sound thirteen times now. I was numb and could no longer felt the empty water bottle I had crushed between my hands.

  Murphy sat beside me. His temper had spiraled up and up with each chime of that

  damned clock. At some point he’d re-buttoned his shirt, but he still had the lipstick smudge--now faded--across one cheek. His hair was still a tousled mess, his dark eyes flat and murderous.

  A French woman from the Great Council, Celine Ducharme, asked most of the questions.

  Jason Allerton was there too, but mostly he was quiet. Listening. Taking notes. Not on paper but inside his head. Three Advisors were present. They were the ones who took notes on paper--one in French, one in English, one in German. The German one was for Rudi’s pack.

  Rudi’s pack snarled and paced on the other side of the door. I heard them sometimes.

  Lucy sobbing, Roxanne trying not to, Theresa talking in fast German with a pack member I had not met and did not want to meet, considering the circumstances.

  The first time Celine Ducharme asked me that question I had stared at her blankly,

  because things weren’t making much sense.

  “She’s in shock, goddamn all of you,” Murphy had snarled. “Why can’t this wait? Let her get herself together. Can’t you see she’s barely even hearing you?”

  While Ducharme’s eyes had narrowed menacingly when Murphy swore at her, Allerton

  had simply sat in his chair, silent, and calm. He had a very Zen quality to him I envied, even though at that point I felt more out of my body than in it.

  Councilor Ducharme had glared daggers at Murphy then repeated her question to me,

  leaning in toward my face, glowering. Her lipstick was a shade between coral and scarlet. There were fine lines in the skin around her mouth. She balanced between middle and old age. I figured she had ten years max left on the Council before she became a grandmother. There were no grandmothers on the Councils. Or grandfathers, for that matter. No, one morning soon enough she would not be able to cover the wrinkles with skillful makeup and all the hair dye in the world wouldn’t cover the gray. If she hadn’t gracefully stepped down from the Great Council, she would be asked to leave it to exist on the charity of her pack. That day, it seemed to me, couldn’t come soon enough.

  Murphy’s voice had dripped sarcasm. “What kind of a kangaroo court is this? You’ve

  already decided she’s guilty, haven’t you?”

  “What did you put in the water, Constance?” Celine Ducharme asked it again for maybe the twentieth time.

  “Nothing,” I answered for maybe the twelfth time. I was gradually regaining my sense of surroundings. I had to pee--all that goddamned water.

  “I grow tired of this.” She gave the room a sour look and Murphy gave her one of his trademark smirks, for once not aimed at me.

  “I was tired of this three and half hours ago,” he said.

  “You can leave any time you like, monsieur!” Ducharme flared. “I’m not even sure why you’re here? Why are you here? You saw nothing. You explained that much already.”

  “She’s only said she didn’t put anything in the water about fifteen times now. You’re still asking the same question, though. Why don’t you ask me what I saw over and over again?

  Maybe I’ll change my answer the way you want her to change hers.”

  “I believed you,” declared Ducharme. Ice frosted her words so that I shivered

  involuntarily.

  “I’m not getting anything off her that indicates she’s lying, Councilor,” argued Murphy.

  “The Pack are not as easy to read as Others are, monsieur,” the Councilor reminded him.

  “She could be very good at this. I think she must be. After all he died right in front of her and here she is being defiant and refusing to cooperate. Highly suspicious.”

  “She is cooperating. Just because she’s not telling you what you want to hear doesn’t mean she’s not cooperating.” Murphy’s jaw was tight and he had to almost force the words out.

  Ducharme gave him a pitying smile.

  “You have nothing that ties her to this man’s death tonight,” Murphy’s mouth twisted in disgust.

  “When the tox screens come back from the water analysis, we’ll see about that, Monsieur Murphy.”

  Murphy glanced irritably at his watch and shook his wrist as if he could make time go faster that way. “You aren’t going to keep us boxed up in here until then, are you?”

  “As I’ve said repeatedly, you can leave whenever you like. In fact, I wish you would.

  Gerald, show this man to the do
or please.”

  Allerton lifted his hand, but it was enough to cause the young Advisor, Gerald, to sit back down looking rather relieved. I would have been relieved too. By the expression on Murphy’s face, it would have been hell trying to kick his ass out the door.

  “Elise Benoit tells me you are very good with herbs, Constance.” Celine Ducharme

  leaned forward in her antique chair, her brown eyes alight with suspicion. Her thin face looked sucked in, as if she perpetually tasted a fresh slice of lemon under her tongue. “You were the star pupil in the herbal lecture yesterday, weren’t you?”

  I looked at the crushed plastic water bottle in my hands and wished I could go to the bathroom. In about ten minutes, I would have a very embarrassing accident.

  “I like to crush up the herbs and ingredients and measure them into capsules and liquids.

  It’s soothing. It clears my mind,” I said.

  “Aha,” declared Celine Ducharme, as if I had confessed to something unspeakable.

  “What did you make yesterday in the herbal lecture?” Murphy asked me. When he talked to me, his voice was almost gentle, the sarcasm gone, but his jaw was still exquisitely tight.

  I had to think about it, because mostly all I could concentrate on was not peeing myself.

  “We made a remedy for stomach aches and one for headaches.” I was rather proud of

  myself for being able to recall that under the circumstances.

  “No poisons? You didn’t make any poisons?” Now Murphy sounded sarcastic, but he

  talked mostly to Councilor Ducharme.

  “No poisons.” I shrugged.

  “You’d better lock her up, Councilor. She’s guilty of making a home remedy for stomach aches and headaches. Pure evil. We can’t let that sort of knowledge roam free.”

  “Be quiet,” snapped Celine Ducharme. “If one is good at one part of herbalism, why

  wouldn’t one be good at another? Like poison?”

  “Is that what the grandmothers are teaching nowadays? How to poison people? Not my

  grandmother. Not any grandmother that I ever knew.”

  “They know poisons. They have to know certain ones. Taken in small doses they cause things to happen that may be necessary sometimes.” The Councilor’s words were vague but we all got the meaning.

  “Constance, did you try to give Rudi a home abortion this afternoon? Was he pregnant and not Alpha in his pack?” Murphy enquired, straight faced. One of the Advisors, the English one--Gerald--let out a snort of laughter and quickly apologized under the searing glare of Celine Ducharme.

  “If I don’t get to the bathroom in about two seconds, I’m going to piss myself,” I said, because I didn’t care anymore and it was the truth.

  This time the French Advisor was the one to laugh. Even Murphy’s tight jaw unclenched a little to allow a tiny smile.

  “Angelique, escort her.” Councilor Ducharme rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Don’t let her try anything.”

  “I’m not going to escape out the bathroom window if that’s what you’re afraid of. I won’t even try to give myself a home abortion in the hopes of killing myself by accident. I just have to pee.” I rose to my feet with alacrity and hoped the damn bathroom wasn’t a football field away.

  I exited to the sound of smothered laughter.

  I don’t think anything in my life even came close to feeling as good as taking that particular piss did. Not sex, not a massage, not a run in the forest. Nothing.

  The Advisor, Angelique Roget, waited by the door for me. She was petite and pretty, very French, with long, blond hair she’d pulled back into a silver barrette. She had her notebook in hand and pretended to study it as I came out into the hall, marveling at the relief.

  “Did you love him?” She looked up from her notebook. We stared at each other. The

  wind outside blew around the eaves of the chateau and a tree limb scraped at a window across from us. The shadow of it crossed us momentarily, rendering us faceless.

  When I could see her eyes again, I said, “We were going to be bond mates. We were

  going to bond at the ceremony later this week.” I confessed it as if it were a crime.

  “Why would you kill him?” She flipped her notebook shut. “Sometimes I detest my job.”

  Celine Ducharme was, to put it bluntly, pissed off when we returned. Murphy smirked and Allerton just sat there with legs crossed at the ankle, hands steepled in front of his face, concealing his expression.

  The tox screen results had arrived. They were inconclusive.

  “Inconclusive does not mean he was not poisoned!” Councilor Ducharme spat, her straw-like hair whipping around her face as she stalked around the fireplace. Flames crackled in the grate and I smelled the scent of burning birch wood. It was such a light green smell. Like spring.

  “What the hell does that mean? They didn’t find anything, Councilor, because there was nothing to find.” Murphy stopped smirking, and clenched his fists, his eyes dangerously dark.

  “It just means they didn’t look for the right things!”

  “What?” Murphy’s jaw dropped. “The grandmothers didn’t know what the hell to look

  for? Bullshit. I’m calling bullshit.”

  “You better stop swearing at me, monsieur! I don’t know who you think you are, but I grow very tired of your constant interference in this interrogation!” Celine Ducharme stabbed a stick-thin scarlet-tipped finger at him and, if she could have, she would have ripped his eyeballs out with her fingernails.

  “This whole interrogation is a farce. This woman was going to have sex with Rudi

  Grunwald, she wasn’t plotting murder! I have no idea why you insist on believing this wasn’t some sort of tragic accident. Maybe he had some medical condition we don’t know about, or maybe an allergic reaction to something!”

  “Why wouldn’t that show on the tests if it were an allergic reaction? Something would be in his bloodstream!”

  “A medical condition then. A heart attack.”

  “He was thirty-two years old. You are delirious, monsieur!”

  “There’s going to be an autopsy, right? Not just a goddamned inconclusive tox screen I hope!”

  “Of course there will be an autopsy. It’s already going on!” Celine Ducharme snarled.

  I saw it in my treacherous mind then. Rudi lying dead and pale on a table, knives slicing into his body so measurements and samples could be taken before he was sewed back up when they were through. And he’d never laugh anymore, or shift into a big silver-gray wolf and run through the forest with his pack mates ever again.

  Something must have showed on my face, because they all looked at me then and the

  room fell silent.

  “She was going to bond with him,” Angelique declared with a suddenness that startled all of us. “Councilor Ducharme, Constance was going to bond with him at the ceremony on Friday.

  Why should she murder him? She had nothing to gain and everything to lose.”

  Allerton’s eyes crinkled as he smiled behind his fingers. I had to wonder how long

  Angelique would keep her job. Maybe she didn’t care. She detested it, anyway. Sometimes.

  Murphy stared at me. I guess he hadn’t known Rudi and I were going to bond.

  “Is that what she told you?” Celine Ducharme stalked to the door, ripped it open and a moment later Lucy stood on the carpet in front of us, her eyes red rimmed, her nails bitten short.

  “Yes, it’s true,” she confirmed when the question was put to her. “Rudi told me last night on the bus after we dropped Stanzie off at her hotel. She was going to bond with us. He was so happy. We all were.” Her voice dropped and she looked at me. I could tell she wanted to ask me if I’d killed her bond mate. I shook my head no, even though she didn’t ask and her breathing seemed to come a little easier. She gave me a small, very sad smile. She believed me.

  “He was not Alpha in your pack. Did he clear this with Monsieur Bergen? Your Alpha
?”

  Celine wouldn’t let it go. She was incensed for some reason at the thought I might have bonded with Rudi.

  “Rudi was acting Alpha here at the Great Gathering, because Willem stayed home with Greta and their newborn twins. Rudi was free to take another bond mate. We want more triads in our pack, anyway, Councilor. It would not have been an issue.”

  “Not even if Willem knew her history? Knew that she’d killed her own former bond

  mates? He wants that sort of filth in his pack, Lucy?”

  Lucy gasped. So did most of the room. I didn’t. I just looked down. I wondered what had happened to my plastic water bottle. Now my hands didn’t have anything to do.

  “Excuse me, Councilor, but Constance was cleared of all culpability in that regrettable accident. In fact, if you might recall, I am the one who actually investigated the event, and if anyone in this room can state her guilt or innocence in the matter, it would be me, wouldn’t you say?” Allerton lowered his hands to reveal his face. His expression was impatient and angry.

  “We’ve all had accidents in our lives. Does that make us all filth? Are you so blameless?”

  Ducharme bristled. She almost growled and, except for the fact she was such a bitch and I could not imagine any man voluntarily getting near her for sex, I would have bet she wanted to shift and rip Allerton’s throat out.

  “She was driving the car, Jason.”

  “The car was examined after the accident, Celine. There was nothing wrong with it.”

  “By someone of the Pack?” Ducharme demanded.

  “Yes, by one of the grandfathers of the Riverglow pack, in fact. Who knew and loved all three of them.”

  I saw Grandfather Tobias in my mind then. I remembered driving the Mustang to his little house in Manchester so he could see it. When Grey gave me the car for my birthday, he had asked me where I wanted to drive first and it was to Grandfather Tobias. He knew cars. He was a mechanic.