by M. D. Massey
She grabbed the file folder, taking her time picking up the photos one by one, carefully tucking them inside before walking out the door. Once she was gone, Borovitz grabbed her chair and pulled it around the table so he could sit as close to me as possible.
He leaned in and spoke quietly in my ear, in sharp, clipped sentences. “Did you say anything? Anything at all?”
He may as well have been asking me, Is it safe? Is it secret? I shook my head no.
“Good. All evidence that might place you inside the house or on the premises has gone missing. So, all they have is circumstantial evidence. There is nothing to place you inside the home or connect you with the detective’s murder.
“Say nothing else to anyone, no matter how they question or harass you. We have witnesses to corroborate your story, one that we’ll discuss later at my offices. I assure you that you’ll be released shortly—within a few hours at most. Just sit tight and shut up, and you’ll be home in no time.”
I nodded, and he stood.
“Then I’ll see you at my offices in the morning. Remember, say nothing to anyone. Not even a cellmate.”
Cellmate?
That night I discovered cops were relentless about questioning suspects, and that they’d say just about anything to drag a confession out of a suspect. Once they started threatening to arrest my mom, I knew they were desperate and didn’t have anything on me. I guess the time I’d spent watching videos on civil rights and curbside law on YouTube had been time well spent.
I also discovered that holding cells sucked, and that there were some scary people in jail. I sat by myself in the corner and didn’t get a wink of sleep. One guy tried to brace me, saying he didn’t like the way I looked. So I cast a cantrip on him that caused him to lose control of his bowels. He pissed and shit himself until he was no longer a threat; it was hard to look tough when your pants were full of urine and diarrhea.
Unfortunately, it took a while for the jailers to take him to the infirmary—which meant we all had to put up with the smell. The place already reeked of vomit and urine, so let’s just say it wasn’t the most pleasant six hours I’d ever spent. After that guy left, I struck up a conversation with a guy wearing a Misfits shirt, and we talked classic punk bands until the early morning hours when I was finally released.
Borovitz had called it true; they didn’t have anything substantial to tie me to Erskine’s murder. Other than the fact that I’d been strolling through his neighborhood a few hours after the time of Erskine’s death, the police couldn’t actually place me at the scene. Borovitz explained all of this to me at his office later that morning, and he also explained my alibi and the “real” reason why I’d been wandering Erskine’s neighborhood at that time of night.
Apparently I’d been at an acquaintance’s house watching movies. Their dog had gotten out, so I was walking around trying to help them locate the missing pooch. It so happened that this same acquaintance, who I’d never actually met, lived in a neighborhood adjacent to Erskine’s. Lo and behold, there were three other people I’d never met who could corroborate the story.
All of them worked for Maeve in some capacity. I met each one at Borovitz’s offices, where they related the alleged events of the night to me in convincing detail, one by one. Never let it be said that it didn’t pay to have a wealthy, powerful fae queen pulling your strings and watching you dance. Because apparently she could screw with me all she liked, but the Austin Police Department could piss off.
I left my meeting with Borovitz close to lunchtime, with instructions to go clean up so we could stop by the station later to answer a few lingering questions as a formality. Bleary-eyed, I nodded and took the bus back to the junkyard, napping on the way. Once home, I caught a few hours of sleep, cleaned up and changed my clothes, and met Borovitz at the police station.
He answered every question for me, and with every passing minute Klein’s face grew darker and darker. Eventually she stormed out of the room, leaving her lieutenant to state that the interview was over.
Somehow, I didn’t think that would be the last I’d see of Detective Klein.
Borovitz left me with clear instructions to lay low, and to call him if the police attempted to question me further. By that point I realized I was starving. I stopped by Dirty Martin’s for a burger, fries, and a malt on the way home. After stuffing my face, I checked my phone and saw about a jillion texts from Bells.
I texted her back and assured her everything was fine. She insisted on seeing me, and I declined on grounds that I was about to go comatose. She relented, and I went home and slept a restless sleep punctuated by nightmares about doing hard time in a prison where the other prisoners were ghouls, the guards were necromancers, and everyone was either trying to eat my face off or sacrifice me to their dark gods.
All in all, it wasn’t exactly my proudest twenty-four hours. Not by a long shot.
The next day, I woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept a wink, and with a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that said I was screwing this case up royally. I slammed three cups of coffee and threw on some coveralls, then headed out into the yard to get some work done and clear my mind. The coffee didn’t do much for the butterflies in my gut, but I hoped a morning lost in mindless work would at least help me figure out my next move.
After a couple of hours spent pulling parts for customers, I was greasy and sweaty, but I still hadn’t decided what to do next. Frustrated, I took off my mechanic’s gloves and chewed my thumbnail, letting old Fionn’s magical insight wash over me as I sat on the tailgate of a rusted out Ford F-150. That magic was another advantage that had been handed down to me all the way from Fionn MacCumhaill, who’d accidentally stolen it from Finnegas. I think it still rankled the old man a bit, and I felt guilty for wishing he was around so I could rub it in his face.
Thing was, I didn’t like to use it because it sometimes revealed things about people that I didn’t want to know. Fae magic was fickle that way. Most anything you got from the fae was going to end up becoming a burden or a curse at some point. And although Fionn hadn’t gotten the magic directly from the fae, I was fairly certain the Salmon of Knowledge had been a creation of the Tuatha Dé Danann, another magical jack-in-the-box they’d left for some poor fool to stumble upon. They loved to saddle mortals with particularly capricious magics, just to see what would happen. When they did, it almost always ended in disaster.
The fae were dicks like that.
But, despite my reservations about using the magic, I didn’t have much choice at the moment. I’d really thought we had things tied up and that Erskine was our guy. Instead, we’d gotten set up to take the fall for his death. Now, I needed a way forward before this case got me into even deeper trouble. The magic would make things clearer, and perhaps show me something I’d missed. I took deep, slow breaths and lost myself in it as I pondered everything that had recently happened.
Whoever our real necromancer was, it was someone who not only knew that I was investigating the case, but that I’d been looking into Erskine. In fact, I could see how they’d been pointing us toward him all along and leading us into a trap. Sure, Erskine had been involved with the case from the beginning, but I’d bet my best longsword that he’d been working for the necromancer, covering up and hiding evidence. He must’ve become expendable, and at that point all Erskine’s boss had needed to do was plant a few clues at the abandoned house and the detective’s hidey hole, and then wait for us to connect the dots.
And as soon as the necromancer had known we’d found the spell book, they’d murdered Erskine at his house and waited for us to show up before calling the cops. If it had worked, they would’ve removed two pieces from the board in one fell swoop. Boom. Except they hadn’t counted on us figuring a way out of that mess. Yet it was still going to slow us down, because now the cops would be watching my every move.
But something just wasn’t clicking with this entire mess. For one, what did our mysterious necromancer gain from raising thes
e ghouls? All they were doing was bringing attention to themselves. Then it occurred to me: maybe they weren’t as practiced at necromancy as I’d assumed. What if the first few ghoul attacks had been experiments, and they had just been testing out their abilities? It’d explain why things had gone quiet, because if that were true then by now they’d have gained more control over their creations.
But no newbie could’ve cast that stasis spell—no way, no how.
Despite all the attention they’d brought to themselves, they were doing a hell of a job staying out of the limelight. Yet, the necromancer had to know that eventually it would catch up to them. I could only assume they expected to be found out at some point, and that they were working against the clock because of it.
But what was the endgame? What did one gain from raising an army of undead?
Army… an army of undead. Bingo. They weren’t just randomly raising the dead for the hell of it, but instead gathering their forces and planning an attack. Against who or what, that was still anyone’s guess. Regardless, if they were creating more ghouls and keeping them in stasis then they had to be hiding them somewhere. All I had to do was figure out where.
And there was still one loose end I hadn’t tugged on. Elias. He’d been at the club the night of the attack, and somehow he was involved in all of this. I needed to track him down and find out what he knew. If he couldn’t lead me to the necromancer, something told me that this city would be witnessing a massacre before long.
I just hoped I wouldn’t be too late.
I caught up to Elias outside of CIRCE’s offices, where he still worked despite the fact that I’d taken out the person funding his operation. After staking the place out, it appeared he was the only person left working for CIRCE. CIRCE stood for “Cryptid International Rescue CollectivE,” and their official story was that they captured and relocated cryptids. However, a few weeks back I’d discovered that what they were actually doing was capturing those cryptids for a group that called themselves the Ananda Corporation.
Ananda had been financing them, and Crowley had somehow been tied up with them as well. CIRCE captured the creatures, Elias had delivered them to Crowley’s place, and then Crowley had tortured and interrogated them to get intel on magical artifacts—one of which had been Balor’s Eye. Crowley had intended to use it to kill me, but the Eye had other plans. And while Crowley had disappeared, Elias had stuck around. That meant he was probably still pulling a paycheck from Ananda. I wanted to know why.
I jumped him as he was walking out the back door, shoving him up against a van with my forearm against his throat. Yeah, I didn’t like bracing people, because it just wasn’t my style. But Elias responded really well to threats, and I didn’t have time to follow him around for days until I figured out how he was involved in this mess. I’d gladly play the heavy if that’s what it took to find and stop this necromancer.
“Hello, Elias,” I said as calmly and casually as possible. His eyes first widened in shock, then narrowed into slits. He was doing his best to act unfazed.
This was going to be harder than I’d thought.
“What do you want, McCool? You already screwed up the best gig I ever had, so why don’t you just leave me alone and I’ll agree to do the same for you.”
“See, that’s the problem, Elias—you haven’t been leaving me alone. The other night a buddy of mine gets picked up and questioned on suspicion of murder, and guess who was hanging around before he got arrested?”
His eyes tightened as he spoke. “Look, man, I wasn’t anywhere near that club that night.”
“Did I say anything about a club? You’re a horrible liar, Elias. Now, I suggest you quit covering up for your bosses, and tell me what I need to know before I become impatient. Crowley found out what happens when I get impatient—I’m sure you don’t want to find out as well.”
“That was you? I asked what happened to him, and no one would tell me anything.” His shoulders sagged, and the tension left his face as his chin dropped against my arm. “Fine, I’ll tell you what I know.”
I followed him inside CIRCE’s offices and into the ready room, where they’d staged their capture missions. Most of the equipment was gone, and besides Elias’ desk, the place was empty.
“Love what you’ve done with the place.”
He snorted. “After you shut Crowley down, the bills stopped getting paid. I’ve had to sell most everything off, and I have to be out of the building at the end of the month.”
“I’m finding it hard to drum up any sympathy for you right now. Why don’t you spare me the sob story and skip to the part where you tell me what I need to know?”
He flopped down behind his desk and rubbed the stubble that covered his face. The guy looked like hell. Good.
“If it means getting you out of my life, I’ll tell you what I know. Someone from Ananda called me a few days ago, saying they had another job for me. They wanted me to go to this bar and watch for anything unusual. I asked for further details, but that’s all they wanted me to do—just watch and report what I saw.”
“And what did you see?”
“Nothing, that’s just the thing. Absolutely nothing. I was supposed to meet someone in the alley behind the bar to give them my report, but they never showed. I got tired of waiting, and I left.”
I had to laugh. “Elias, were you aware that someone was killed in that alley later that night?”
“What do you mean, killed? Like murdered killed?”
“By a ghoul. Sounds like your bosses wanted to get rid of you, only you didn’t follow orders. If you’d have stuck around a few minutes later we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
He sagged into his chair. “Shit.”
“Yeah, it must suck being you. Anything else I should know?”
He looked like he was about to have a meltdown. “Damn it, I never asked to get caught up with these people. I was fine before they approached me. Sure, I didn’t have any money, but at least no one was trying to kill me.”
“Focus, Elias. If you can help me take these people out, maybe it’ll save your skin.”
He leaned his elbows on the desk and placed his head in his hands. “Well, they’re probably going to kill me anyway, so what the hell. They’re after someone by the name of Maeve, that’s all I know. Some sort of corporate takeover or something. I heard Crowley talking about it over the phone with someone once. And from the sound of it, they really hate her guts.”
I nodded. “Any idea how they intend to do it?”
He shrugged. “That’s all I know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to disappear for a while. A long while, in fact.”
“Probably a good idea. I hear Siberia’s nice this time of year.”
He groaned and banged his head on the desk as I walked out. Somehow, I still couldn’t bring myself to feel sorry for the guy—but I couldn’t bring myself to hate him, either. Maybe he’d get away before Ananda caught up to him, and maybe he wouldn’t. Right now, I had bigger fish to fry. Starting with finding out what Maeve knew about Ananda Corp.
Chapter Sixteen
I didn’t trust Siobhan with the information I’d gleaned, however thin it was. For all I knew, she was in on it, and I didn’t want to tip her off. It was best that I told Maeve in private, so I headed to her place. Unfortunately, Siobhan headed me off at her front door.
“Sorry, druid, but Maeve is currently indisposed. Come back to beg some other time.”
She began to shut the door in my face, so I stuck my foot in the doorframe. She slammed the door with surprising force, and despite the combat boots I was wearing it hurt like hell.
“Wait! I have information for Maeve on the necromancer.”
She stared at me through the space my foot had made, her face unreadable. “I can convey the information to her—what have you learned thus far?”
I shook my head. “Maeve’s ears only. I don’t work for you, Siobhan.”
She cocked her head. “Then
we have nothing more to discuss. Good day.” She tilted her chin and a chill wind blew from inside the house, staggering me and knocking me off the front porch. The door slammed shut, and I was left wondering just what kind of fae Siobhan was.
This close to a gate to the Underrealms, it was no surprise that she’d have access to magic that she might not normally possess. However, I’d never witnessed her using any magic at all, besides perhaps a smattering of glamour to cover whatever alien features she possessed. The bit of power she’d just shown intrigued me, but I didn’t have time to fuss about it. I still had to find this necromancer creep and shut him down.
But was it a him? For all I knew, it might’ve been Siobhan. It would take a huge set of balls, to be doing necromancy while living right under Maeve’s nose. No, it had to be someone else.
After leaving Maeve’s, I stopped by Luther’s to get some caffeine in me and to update him on the situation. A barista took my order, and when I asked for Luther he told me to wait. The barista made a phone call, then motioned me to the counter.
“Luther says to come up the back way—he’s upstairs.” I nodded and did as requested, and Luther greeted me at the upstairs door to his apartment.
The place was much as it had been when I’d seen him there last, except Luther had company. At least a half-dozen vamps lounged around his place, drinking bloody cocktails while Billie Holliday played softly in the background. It was the middle of the day, which meant they all had to be at least a century old. Luther’s personal guard, was my guess.
“Billie Holiday, Luther? Really? Next thing I know, you’ll be decorating your apartment in Marilyn Monroe photos and carrying a small dog around in a handbag.”
He frowned at me for a moment, then laughed. “Oh hush. You forget that I’ve been around for quite a while. This music reminds me of brighter times.”