Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery)

by Tracey Martin

  “Enough.” In theory anyway. I suspected there’d be a whole lot less of me and a whole lot more of Dezzi going into that decision.

  But that agreed upon, it didn’t take Dezzi long to put a compulsion spell on me. I didn’t even know she’d started until she pronounced it done.

  “That’s it?”

  “That is it.” Dezzi whipped out her phone, typing as she wandered to the door. “You’re free to talk about whatever here. I have a meeting with the harpies.”

  Lucen gestured for me to follow, and we made our way down to The Lair. Dezzi left after a quick word to the three people in the bar’s main room. Two of them appeared to be on some sort of guard duty. For Angelia, I assumed. They reminded me of the satyrs Dezzi had assigned to watch over me when the sylphs had been out for my blood.

  That left the third person to be Angelia. She sat at a central table, her legs delicately crossed, her head turned in my direction. Despite not being able to see me, she could sense my emotions—and hence my presence—as well as any pred. And my emotions were, well, surprised.

  Angelia’s silky brown hair spilled down her shoulders in loose curls, her lips were a perfect bow, and her body was what you might call a pinnacle of feminine perfection. Soft, slim and extremely curvy. She was Aphrodite personified, or satyr-ified, given her horns.

  It boggled the mind to imagine that someone could consider her imperfect, although the evidence of her physical suffering was clear. Angelia wore a satiny black scarf tied around her head over where her eyes should be. Yet even that looked like a carefully chosen accessory, designed to be as seductive as it was practical. She could have been a model on one of Val’s erotic romance novels.

  Eh, satyrs. Everything was about seduction.

  Lucen introduced us, and as if they’d been waiting for the cue, the two brawny satyrs with Angelia strolled outside. Apparently they weren’t permitted to take part in the conversation.

  Angelia held out her hands to me, beaming a smile that was the stuff of an adolescent boy’s wet dreams. “So you’re the mysterious human woman with a satyr’s power I’ve heard so much about. I’m so thrilled to finally meet you.”

  I had to stifle a laugh since I’d kept thinking of Angelia as the mysterious F maker. All at once, and in spite of everything that had led me here, I took a liking to her. “People seem to be talking about me a lot. I feel famous.” I cast a wry glance at Lucen.

  “Infamous,” he retorted.

  “You certainly intrigue people,” Angelia said. Her hands remained extended, so although I usually tried to avoid touching preds—even my new immunity was weakened through direct skin contact with their magic—I took them.

  Immediately, I was overwhelmed by the hyacinth scent of Angelia’s pheromones. The flowery fragrance was almost too much as she clasped my hands. Her skin was as soft as it looked, and my burnt-out, magic-detecting nerve endings were pleasantly awakened by her touch. It wasn’t the first time I’d been aroused by a female satyr, but it was always a touch strange considering I was fairly hetero by nature.

  But nature was no match for satyr magic, and I found myself wondering if her full lips were as soft to kiss as they appeared.

  Next to her, Lucen smirked, sensing my desire.

  I dropped my hands back to my sides quickly when Angelia released them, and was pleased my body returned to normal. No offense to Angelia, but since Devon’s magic was starting to have an effect on me, I was growing worried that my immunity was wearing off. There was no way I’d want to rent an apartment in Shadowtown if it were.

  Angelia brushed her hair behind her neck. “You have to believe me. I have nothing to do with those deaths. I think it’s awful. Violence and murder…” She shuddered. “I’m sure you don’t approve of what I do, but I make F because it’s about pleasure and sensuality and enjoyment. It’s the opposite of what someone is using it for.”

  I chewed on my lip. I didn’t know if it was because of what Lucen had told me about Angelia’s past, or if I just wanted my own theory about the glyph to be correct, but I believed her. Hell, if she were lying, she was the best actress I’d ever met. Everything about her, from her figure to her sweetly sultry voice, screamed, I am the opposite of violence.

  That said, I couldn’t let her protests stand without challenge. “The murders aside, you do realize how often F is used to commit rape?”

  She sighed. “I’m aware of it. Actually, I’ve been tinkering with ways to adjust the magic, to make it impossible to use my version that way.”

  “You’ve been changing the spell around?”

  Angelia seized on the implication. “Yes, but I haven’t sold any of the altered version. It’s purely experimental so far. It couldn’t be what’s caused these deaths.”

  Maybe or maybe not. I wished I’d been allowed to take notes. “Dezzi mentioned you might have enemies.”

  “No. I used to have many, but not anymore. They’re all dead by now or far away.” She waved her hand carelessly.

  I wasn’t sure how to bring up what Lucen had told me without sounding totally crass, so I turned toward him for help.

  In response, he grimaced. “Dezzi suggested some people might not have appreciated her bringing you here.”

  “Oh, yes. Naturally. You mean because of this.” Angelia touched her blindfold. “I’m sure that’s true, but no one’s said anything about it to me. It would be particularly stupid of them to openly challenge Dezzi’s decisions.”

  “What if they weren’t up for openly challenging them?” I asked. “How hard is it to make F? Could someone be trying to set you up?”

  Angelia traced a finger over her pink lips in thought. “It’s not especially hard, but there would be differences in the magical signatures between my F and someone else’s F. You could figure it out.”

  “We could if we had enough of the killer F to run analyses on, but I’ll keep that in mind.” I stretched out in my chair, getting antsy. “Could any of your dealers be tampering with it?”

  “No, not my ladies.” Angelia’s voice was firm. “But to be sure, I questioned them all when this first came to light. I’d know if they were lying. I can’t say it doesn’t happen farther down the line, after it leaves their hands. It could always be resold. I’ve told Dezzi that.”

  “Your ladies? They’re all addicts?”

  “Naturally.”

  Naturally. Andre had told me they would be.

  I took out my phone. Friday, after I’d met with Devon, it had occurred to me to ask whether anyone had gotten a photograph of the mark—or glyph—on the Wonderland victims’ legs.

  Yesterday, Andre had sent me one, along with a note informing me that the real mark on the victim’s leg had vanished. It was both good and bad news. It bolstered my theory that the glyph was related to the murders since glyphs didn’t typically disappear so quickly. But as a result, this photo was now all we had as evidence of its existence.

  I brought up the photo on my phone to show Angelia, then realized my colossal mistake. Embarrassed, I handed the phone to Lucen instead since he hadn’t seen it yet. “I’m sure Dezzi told you my theory about how there might be more to this than tainted F. Do you recognize this mark?”

  Lucen inspected the photo. “That could be something to do with endurance or perseverance. But it’s heavily mixed with other glyphs.”

  “Devon said endurance too. Confirmation is good.”

  “Someone else’s magic is tampering with my F?” Angelia crossed her arms. She sounded indignant. “Show me the glyph.”

  I hesitated, unsure what to say or do, but Lucen understood. Angelia held out her palm, and he drew the glyph on her with his finger. Clever, but it turned out not to be so helpful. Angelia was as perplexed as the rest of us.

  I asked a few more questions, probing for theories on whether tampering with the F could work that way or who might have the s
kills and the means to do it, but I came up short on anything I could work with. Angelia’s information was enlightening and potentially useful in the long run, but it didn’t give me much to go on. If I could share it all with Andre, he might have ideas…but I couldn’t.

  “Lucen?” Angelia twirled a curl around her finger. “Would you let me talk to Jess alone for a minute?”

  Lucen raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I suppose I could. I’ll be upstairs.”

  Watching him leave, I wondered what was on Angelia’s mind that she didn’t want to share it in front of him.

  Angelia was silent until the door shut. “You like him a lot. I can sense it in you.”

  I pulled my knees in, hoping she also sensed how uncomfortable it made me to have my emotions blasted to all and sundry. “Yeah, most of the time.”

  “He cares a lot about you.”

  What was all this satyr interest in my relationship with Lucen about? First Devon, which was weird but at least understandable since he was Lucen’s friend. Now Angelia who I’d met only ten minutes ago? “This can’t be what you wanted to talk to me about.”

  “Actually it is.”

  “Seriously?”

  “When you mentioned this—” Angelia pointed to her blindfold, “—and brought up Dezzi taking me in, it made me think. You’re absolutely right that there are probably satyrs around here who don’t approve of what she did. But Dezzi is special and amazing, and she cares about me and was willing to risk the turmoil bringing me here might have caused.” Angelia’s voice was sweet and wistful. She talked like a woman in love.

  Like any woman in love, and in that moment she struck me as more human than not. I’d never heard a satyr—or any pred—speak in such a voice. Lucen told me he cared about me, and he always sounded sincere, but cared was the extent of it. I wasn’t sure he was capable of anything more. Until recently, I hadn’t been entirely convinced he was capable of that much.

  “I’m telling you this…” Angelia leaned forward, her voice hushed, “…because I want you to accept that we can feel very deeply. I’m not sure you believe it because it’s a side of us you’d never usually see. But what Lucen feels for you—I can’t say I see it in his face or sense it in his emotions—but it’s in his actions. This relationship he has with you—it’s a risk. It’s like Dezzi taking me in. You’re different than most humans, but you’re not one of us. There are satyrs who I’m sure don’t approve, or wouldn’t if they knew. Dezzi allows it because she knows, because of me.”

  Angelia’s speech left me bereft of words. Some of what she said, about Dezzi’s approval of our relationship mattering, I’d already suspected. But mostly, Angelia caught me off-guard.

  I picked through my thoughts, searching for something to say, but it was useless. So I said nothing. Let Angelia discern the intricacies of my emotions. She was probably better at it. I spent too much time denying them.

  Angelia smiled. “I stunned you. It’s okay. And I’m talking out of turn. It’s not my business. I just wanted to let you know we can form strong bonds. So just because you don’t understand Lucen, don’t assume he’s incapable of it.” She patted my hand, and this time I was so out of it I didn’t feel the fragrant lust.

  “I appreciate the lecture,” I finally managed. “I think.”

  “Good.” She got up perkily as if my comment had made her day. “I should go. Do let me know if I can help. I don’t want any more people to die.”

  My head didn’t feel stuck on correctly as I stood too. “Thanks. That makes two of us.”

  Angelia left, and through The Lair’s window I could see the shadowy figures of her bodyguards leaving with her. Slowly, I climbed the stairs to Lucen’s apartment. I’d been doing fine until Angelia decided to play relationship counselor. Now I felt like I knew less about everything than I had when I started the day.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Monday afternoon our investigation team had another meeting with Brian. Entering the conference room, I gripped my coffee chest-high as though it were a shield. Although I was convinced of Angelia’s innocence, I didn’t need a magi’s clairvoyance to foresee that convincing anyone else was not going to go over well.

  “So.” Brian bustled in the room and dropped a file on the table. “What’s new?”

  Andre went first. He’d been busy without me, tracking down leads, searching for connections between the victims, trying to find out if the latest victims had ever been to Purgatory. When he got to the part about my theory on the glyph, I tightened my grip on my coffee cup.

  Andre tucked his pen behind his ear, an especially dorky look on a guy who was built like a professional athlete. “I’ve asked around, but no one can identify the mark or say positively what combination of glyphs it might be. If it is glyphs, at all.”

  I forced my fingers to relax before I crushed my cup. “I showed it to a couple magically skilled satyrs, and they both suggested endurance might be part of it, which fits with how the victims died.”

  Brian frowned at me. “You showed it to satyrs? Why?”

  “Well, it made sense to me that if someone was drawing glyphs on people that either killed them directly or worked in concert with F, they might know something useful. It might also mean someone is trying to set them up and make them—or the F maker—look like a murderer.”

  “What did they say to that?” Andre asked.

  “They liked the idea.”

  Brian snorted. “Of course they did. Did you learn anything useful since you’re sharing things you really shouldn’t be sharing?”

  I shouldn’t have been sharing? It would be nice if someone told me this crap. But I bit my tongue because arguing I’d been blackmailed into this job without being given sufficient training wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I needed their buy-in on my theory so I had to play nice. “I think there’s a good possibility that my theory is exactly what’s happening—someone is trying to frame the F maker. I don’t think she’s intentionally putting out tainted F.”

  “She?” Two pairs of eyebrows shot upward, and my own rose with them. I hadn’t realized just how little they knew.

  “You got a name?” Brian asked.

  My jaw clenched beyond my control. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t tell you. Dezzi allowed me to talk to her only after she put a compulsion on me.”

  As expected, what Dezzi had decided I could share with the Gryphons was not much, and my rational arguments for greater leeway had been shot down. “Tell them your theory first and see what they say,” she’d told me. “We can release details as they need to know.”

  I’d argued that it wouldn’t work. Sometimes getting to say I told you so was not worth the gloating.

  Brian swore, but Andre chuckled in some sort of amused annoyance. “Of course she did. Dezzi’s no fool.”

  “Fine.” Brian raised his hands in defeat. “This person’s convinced you she’s innocent and someone might want to frame her. Why?”

  I took a deep breath, not sure how much of my response would come out. “She might have enemies among the satyrs.”

  To Brian’s increasing frustration and Andre’s decreasing humor, I couldn’t answer their questions about the reason for those enemies in much detail.

  “Look.” I shoved my coffee cup aside. “Dezzi is willing to admit there might be satyr involvement here. This is big. She’s been trying to protect her F maker. If we follow up on this, we could have her cooperation. Doesn’t that mean something?”

  “It means shit, Jess.” Brian stood up, apparently so he could glare down at me. “It’s a cute theory. Maybe Dezzi buys it, maybe she doesn’t. I can think of a lot of reasons she might be willing to go along with it, including to sacrifice a satyr who’s gotten on her nerves, someone she’d like to kick out anyway. Then she can do what Doms always prefer to do—handle the real problem t
hemselves. She’ll cover it up and dole out her own so-called punishments, and the real culprit will never see justice for what they did.”

  Beneath the table, I dug my nails into my palms. “There are legit reasons to think someone might have it in for…” I tripped over Angelia’s name, “…the F maker.”

  “So you say.” Brian shook his head. “It’s not good enough. I need to know the motive if nothing else. We all need to know it so we can consider it. If you can’t share it with me, then all I’ve got is your word, or the word of some satyrs, and a symbol that may or may not be a glyph. There’s nothing we can act on. Unless you bring me back something to lend credence to this—frankly outlandish—theory, then it’s a nonstarter. Get me a motive or I can’t take it seriously.”

  I dropped my head to the table. Well, that went about as well I’d warned Dezzi it would.

  My day didn’t improve after the meeting broke up. I was back to work with Andre, helping him gather information about the Wonderland victims. It was dreary and dull, and made all the more so because I didn’t believe it was actually getting us any closer to solving the case.

  For his part, Andre wasn’t unsympathetic to my theory. But, on a practical level, he agreed with Brian. Me vouching for the F maker’s innocence and suspicion about enemies was nothing they could use.

  “Get us a motive,” he said, echoing Brian. “If we have a motive, we can find suspects. If we can find suspects, we can bring them in for questioning.”

  Unfortunately, I had a motive, but it was vague and I couldn’t share it unless Dezzi gave me permission and lifted that part of the compulsion. I’d send her a message, but I wasn’t hopeful. Alas, this just meant if anyone was going to follow up and try to uncover who might have it in for Angelia, it would have to be me and it would have to be on my free time since I wasn’t permitted to chase “frankly outlandish” theories on the Gryphons’ dime.

  Wednesday, things got weirder. I was packing up after another pointless day spent with the unpleasant task of talking to friends of the deceased, and a slightly less unpleasant task of learning about magical blood analyses from Anna, when Tom appeared at my cube.