She looked at me and examined my face. I saw a little glimmer in her eye, and she smiled. The tension in her body seemed to ease, and she took a calming breath in and out.
“Or maybe you can.” She slid closer to me, like a happy cat wanting to be petted. “I knew you would come. Maybe if I help you, it will help my karma for all the shit I did for them.”
She grabbed a cocktail napkin and wrote something down, stuffing it into Millie’s hand when she was finished.
“Here. This is the cure.” She took one of the vials from Millie and put it in my hand. “Drink this now.”
I took the cap off and drank the vial without a second thought. Another thing to add to the list of dumb shit I probably should have thought through a little more.
“You will need the blood of the truest believer,” Lilly said. Millie nodded; she seemed to know what she meant. I had so many questions I didn’t even know where to begin. Lilly rubbed her hand on her chin, deep in thought, then turned to me again. Her blue eyes were full of sadness and a deep, overwhelming aura of the lost.
“I wish I had chosen a different path. All I wanted was to be taken seriously in this world. They told me they would make me powerful, that my family could align with them and really be something. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have to claw your way up from the bottom? To have to prove yourself at every turn?” She chuckled, looking away for a moment. “No, of course you wouldn’t. You’ve been charmed since the beginning, people will only bow to you. I thought the Kinkaid’s respected me and took me seriously, took my family name seriously. But they just turned me into a henchman, and I can’t accept the person I have become. I can’t deal with this.” She grabbed my gloved hand and squeezed. “Save us. You can. You and him, together, can save us all.”
My eyes welled up with tears. “I don’t think I can. I only found out a few days ago.”
“But you can. And you will. I have seen it.” She laughed a little, then pulled another vial out of her purse.
“I have to find my friend. I have to help her.”
“She can’t be helped. Tobias Kinkaid is in love with her. She has been claimed. I am so sorry.”
I was going to say more, but she drank her vial, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes.
“Do I need to take more than one vial? Am I safe?” I asked her.
She didn’t reply. She stayed perfectly still with her head back and eyes closed.
“What the fuck?” Nya snapped, banging her palm flat on the table. “Hello? This is no time to take a nap, you dumb bitch! Wake the fuck up!”
That darkness inside me that had connected with those things outside Burnt Offerings began to vibrate like a cell phone on silent. I reached out to Lilly. A thread came out of my hand, it felt weaker than the others had as it slithered along towards her. It withered and faded away while trying to connect to her.
“I don’t get it. Something is wrong,” I said. “Could that be part of her cover spell?”
The three of them were silent as I stared at their blank faces. I tried to reach out another of my threads to connect with her, but the same thing happened. I searched inside myself for that ball of energy and tried to mould it to grab onto Lilly. It reached out, feeling everyone else around us, but Lilly just wasn’t there. I knew she had strong magic, but I figured Blanchmains could connect with her somehow. But nothing happened.
She just sat there. Did she not feel me trying to use my magic? Would that not be enough to make her react?
It took longer than it should have for me to realize she was dead.
“No! No! NO!” I screamed in her face. “You get back here, you bitch! I have to help my friend! What good are these stupid powers if I can’t help Bliss?”
Eric reached out and grabbed my hand. Millie made her mothering face from across the table. I extended my hand out to try to physically grab Lilly’s shirt when Eric grabbed that one too.
“You think I am joking? I will drag her dead body out of here and beat her senseless until she fucking comes back!” I yelled. “How do I put her whatever the fuck you call it back in her body? Her essence? Her soul? I can do that, right? I did it before.”
“Cas.” Millie said my name in that calm, parental tone that only pissed adults off.
“Oh, don’t ‘Cas’ me. This is bullshit, and you know it. What good is any of this if you can’t do anything when bad shit happens? Can I summon her? I am going to summon her then banish her to whatever hell the fuckin—”
Eric pulled me out of the booth. “We need to go. Now.”
“Hell no! I am not going anywhere without….” I couldn’t hear my own voice over the noise in the room as he pulled me back through the crowd and outside to the street.
“This is not happening. This is not fucking happening.” I paced back and forth on the sidewalk. I was at the end of my rope and was about to lose my shit. My anger, along with my magic, pulsed inside me, and my hands began to throb. I started shaking my hands beside me as if I was shaking off water, trying to help lessen the pulsing pain that was working its way up to my elbows.
“We can work with the info she gave us,” he told me. “It’s not over. We can still find her.”
Nya and Millie came out a little while after. Their expressions were grim.
“We told the bartender. They’re going to deal with the body,” Millie said when she got close to us. “I am so sorry, Camille.”
“This seems so wrong! She just kills herself like that, and no one calls the cops? This is so wrong!” I exclaimed. At that point I didn’t care who heard me.
“They will deal with it, and her family will be notified.” She showed me the napkin with writing on it. “But we have the cure. And you have taken it.”
“We should be able to figure out exactly what it’s made of from the vials she gave us. Unless she left an ingredient out,” Nya added. “What is this shit about a band? What the fuck is she talking about?”
“I was more concerned about her saying Frankenstein,” Millie mumbled.
“Should I just get used to the pile of bodies around me? With the stupid—” I went to take off my gloves, and Nya reached out and grabbed me, pulling me close to her. She was stronger than she looked.
“I get that you’re mad. I would be mad too. But what you are about to do will only make this all a hundred times worse, I promise. I know it’s hard when you’re angry, but you have to think before you act,” she said quietly to me, then turned to her mother. “Seems the temper is genetic.”
Millie laughed. “You probably don’t remember Marie, Nya. But her temper was legendary. Why do you think Cas didn’t know about us? Because Harold pissed Marie off, and she disowned the entire family line.”
That caused me to stop. “I have no memory of my mother ever getting angry.”
“That was probably because her parents were out of the picture.”
Eric stared at me with the strangest look on his face, and it was starting to freak me out. As if he was trying to recall a memory that was buried far back in his mind.
“Marie le Fay was your mom?” he asked. It was like a light bulb went on in his head.
“Yeah, why?” I replied.
“I met her a long time ago. My predecessor helped her make a,” he paused, pointing at me. “Oh. That makes sense. I think my predecessor helped her bind your powers.”
“That explains a lot. But that is not our biggest concern. Right now, we need to find out why this ‘Frankenstein’ is making the virus and why they needed the blood of the truest believer,” Millie said.
“Could Frankenstein be a fucked-up nickname?” Nya asked.
“I certainly hope so.” Millie sighed loudly, running her fingers through her hair.
A noise somewhere between a groan and a growl came out as I sat down on the curb. I tried to process exactly what had happened, the way the whole situation played out, and I couldn’t. Regardless of what powers I had, I would never get used to death.
Espe
cially death that happened right beside me.
What was happening that Lilly would rather die than face it?
“Why would she do that?” I asked no one in particular as I started to cry. “I mean, everyone does bad things. But if you try to do better and correct your mistakes, you can atone. Did she not see that if she helped us it could have helped her too?”
Millie sat down beside me. “Camille, Lilly did not get the nickname ‘traitor’ simply because she worked for the Kinkaid’s. She did things, even to her own kind.”
“Especially to her own kind,” Nya chimed in.
“A good deed can’t remedy that. She was involved in what may be the destruction of the human race as we know it.” Millie continued, “I don’t think she could live with her guilt.”
“What exactly did she do? Other than this thing with the virus?”
“We can discuss it another time. What I will say is that Lilly Darling has enough blood on her hands that they may be permanently stained. That’s not easy to come back from.”
“Is that going to happen to me?”
Millie tried to smile and stroked my hair. “No. You acted in self defence.”
“Bliss killed Lucia Kinkaid,” I whispered to her.
“I figured. Did she have just cause?”
“Lucia had Bliss’s brother beaten to death,” I began. “That’s why I have been so terrified. Because if they find out the truth…even if Tobias claimed her….”
I looked up at Nya and Eric, who were chatting amongst themselves and not paying attention. “You can’t tell them. You can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t dear.” She smiled and patted my back as I turned my gaze across the road. I saw something move in the shadows but couldn’t focus on it.
A dark van pulled up on the curb across the street. It looked surprisingly similar to the one The Wild Boys had been driving that crazy night.
I hadn’t spoken to October since I called her the night Bliss disappeared a week or so ago. I knew nothing about what she had found, or if she had gotten herself killed. That was a whole side of the story that I wanted to know more about, but with everything else going on, it would have to wait.
Two men in dark clothes got out of the van and headed into The Matador. I watched in amazement like some people watch the clean up after a car accident.
How are they going to get the body out?
One of the men came out a few minutes later carrying what looked like a duffel bag. It was hard to tell the shape.
“Where is the gurney?” I said quietly.
Millie put her hand on my shoulder. “They can’t let anyone see a body come out of the club. It’s a cloaking spell. I promise she is being treated respectfully.”
“This is so messed up.” I started to cry more as the truck pulled away. The world felt like it was crashing down around me, and I had no idea how to handle it. “She was our lead. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
Eric came over and held out his hand, pulling me to my feet. His warm hand in mine made me feel more grounded.
“You’re a private investigator. This world may have magic, but standard rules still apply,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Tomorrow we investigate.”
7.
True to his word, Eric was waiting for me in my office the next morning with coffee and donuts. It was nicer than flowers.
He was sitting in the chair with his computer on his lap. When I walked in, he looked up and smiled. “Morning sunshine.”
I piled all my stuff in the corner, grabbed my laptop, and crawled over my desk to my chair.
“Morning. I did not sleep. Like at all. Peter Pan is scary when you really dissect the story,” I replied, leaning across the desk and grabbing my coffee. It was strong but sweet and vanilla flavoured, just like I like it.
“I know it’s hard to put it aside, but we can worry about what happened to Lilly later. Let’s find your friend. What can you tell me about the last location she was at?”
“The address is in my phone. I tried to find someone to drive me that night, but I couldn’t.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I went there by myself and threw rocks through the windows like a child.
“So let’s go.”
“Right now?”
“Yep. You got somewhere else to be?”
“Yeah. Here. At work.”
He smiled. “I already checked with Ramona. Our schedules are clear today.”
“Why does that keep happening?”
“I don’t understand.”
“It seems like I’ve had zero appointments recently. What is up with that?”
“I don’t think we have had any new clients this week. Chris and Ted are working on open cases. I already spoke to all three of them.”
“You what now?”
“I told Chris and Ted I was looking into something about Mrs Tanner and needed your help. I didn’t have to be so detailed with Ramona, who smiled and winked. We are free to go.”
I took a big swig of my coffee. “We will need more caffeine. I am not sure I can get through the day without it.”
“That’s easy enough. Let’s go.”
We drove to suburbia, picking up more coffee on the way. I sipped it happily as we drove, smiling stupidly out the window as the scenery started to look familiar. I was so happy in my coffee fuelled state that it took me far longer than it should have to clue in to where we were.
“You been here before?” Eric asked as he slowed down and parked.
I looked at the houses on the street, and something clicked. I examined the smaller details and began to remember. In the daylight everything looked different than when I had come on my own.
“Yeah. I have,” I answered. I blinked, and I was in the back seat of Ted’s car with Fray. But not Fray—Noah. He was back to his high school self. He smiled at me, thanking Ted and I for dropping him off at his band practice.
“That…that…that is Eamon’s house,” I blurted out. “The fucking drummer of this fucking band that I went to high school with. Our friends. They are mine and Bliss’s friends. Ted and I dropped him off here after Noah and I were studying at the library. I couldn’t bring him to my house because Jesse would have lost his shit. They were practicing for the talent show where they got booed off the stage.”
I took out my phone and got online, doing a quick title search on the house address. Sure enough, the house was owned by Eamon’s parents.
Why didn’t I do that when I went before?
I was here, in the dark mind you, but I didn’t see it. My fear must have blinded me. Or maybe I didn’t want to see it.
“Why were the Kinkaid’s holding Bliss at her friend’s house?” he asked.
“Good question. Maybe we should go ask them.”
I took a deep breath to calm myself, but I ended up hyperventilating instead. I bent over and tried to put my head between my knees, which was difficult while wearing a seat belt.
“What do I do?” Eric asked. “What do you want to do?”
“How could I be so stupid?” I blurted out. “He sings my favourite song at every fucking concert. He has a goddamn bishop tattoo, the chess piece, and has supposedly been in love with me since high school. He wanted me to be his girlfriend. He helped Bliss get into college. He was, or I thought he was, our friend. How could I not see he was playing us both?”
“You’re not a psychic or clairvoyant. This is not your fault.”
“But I should have fucking known. That’s my job. As soon as I tracked the address and Google Earth searched the damn house, I should have known!Why do I keep getting played by these assholes?”
“This may be the wrong time to say this, but I must repeat it: Boys. You are dealing with boys.”
I sat up and stared at him. “You asked me why they would hold her at her friend’s house. Let’s go ask him.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s a great idea. I am fucking
done with getting kicked around. With getting played by sick excuses for people. He needs to be held accountable for his actions.”
“I won’t let you kill anyone.”
“What the hell? I’m not going to kill him. That would be too easy. I am just going to make him pee his pants. Now, please take me to him or I will go on my own.”
“What’s the address?”
I banged on Fray’s door as hard as I could. I was tired and annoyed, and I wanted answers.
Like, now.
“Cas. Hi!” Fray smiled brightly when he saw my face. That ball of energy I’d had to dig for was now at the forefront, easily coiling itself inside of my body like a tentacle. It reached out for him, knocking him in his chest hard enough to throw him back into his apartment, skidding towards the living room.
“What the hell!” Fray yelled. “Camille, what the—”
I wrapped that energy tentacle around his throat, pulling him up off the floor and dangling him in the air. I hadn’t even thought about putting on my gloves.
“Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out?” I snapped at him. “You held her at Eamon’s parents’ house, you dumbass. Did you think I wouldn’t remember that Ted dropped you there? Am I that fucking transparent?”
Fray sniffled and choked, not saying a word. Eric stood beside me completely silent.
“Where the fuck is Bliss, Noah!” I screamed at him. My face felt hot from anger.
“I don’t know! I’m sorry!” he sputtered, then started crying, the pathetic blubber of someone caught in their lie and scared shitless. “I didn’t know this would happen!”
“Is this a joke to you? You’re supposed to be her friend. She trusted you.”
The crying got worse. I squeezed a little harder out of frustration. His eyes bugged out, and his face turned red. That little bit of emotion I had for him was gone. When I looked at him now, I felt sick to my stomach.
“Put him down so he can talk,” Eric said flatly. He was right, even if I didn’t want to hear it.
I slammed Fray into the ground, my energy retracting back into my body. He gasped for air and clutched at his throat.
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