She Dies at the End (November Snow Book 1)

by A. M. Manay

  November realized then that they were in the escape tunnel she’d intuited the existence of on her first day in the house. As they ran, November caught a glimpse of someone else in the passageway, running quickly and silently ahead of them. They finally came to a small room whose hidden door Greg secured firmly behind them, turning on the room’s dim light only after the three of them were sealed in the underground tomb. The whole race had taken perhaps 15 seconds.

  “Welcome to our bolt-hole,” Pine said quietly as he lowered her gently to the floor. “We’re about 20 feet underneath the gazebo, if you’re wondering.” Her knees buckled as soon as her feet touched the ground, and she wound up half in his lap. The two men helped her sit with her back against the wall, and she looked up at them in mute confusion, shaking with equal parts adrenaline, fear, and cold.

  She was barefoot, wearing only a cotton nightgown that barely came to her knees and left her arms bare, and it was about 20 degrees colder down here than it was in her room. Greg took off the jacket of his suit and draped it over her, bringing a whispered, “Thanks,” out of the trembling teenager who still could not process the fact that she was no longer in her bathroom. She was too freaked out to catch any visions off of the blazer, which she supposed was rather a mercy. She looked down and realized that her toothbrush was still clutched tightly in her hand. Greg gently peeled her fingers away from it, and she let it fall to the ground.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe in here. It’ll only be for a little while, until the police leave,” Pine said in a reassuring tone that did not quite jive with the rather dramatic sprint they had just completed.

  “Police?” she managed.

  Greg explained, “They found the body of one of the women who works for the cleaning crew we use, a woman by the name of Carly. They think she was killed the day before yesterday, the same day she was here to clean our house. So, they’re here as a matter of routine.”

  November closed her eyes, sad to learn that her fears about the maid were correct, horrified to hear that another innocent had died over her gift. It also occurred to her that she should probably be careful how she reacted and what she revealed. She did not know if the two men guarding her had been brought into the loop with respect to Esther’s planted necklace. She sighed inwardly. She was not cut out for this cloak and dagger nonsense.

  “William asked us to hide you until they depart. He didn’t want them interviewing you,” Greg continued.

  “He thought they might wonder why a barely-eighteen-year-old girl with a missing mom and no I.D. was living in his house?” she asked.

  “Pretty much,” Greg answered. Something in his voice convinced her that there was more to the story.

  “What else?” The men were silent, avoiding her eyes. “Spill it,” she ordered, her irritation finally subduing her fear.

  They looked at each other, and Pine took a deep breath before admitting, “Someone sent in a tip to the police and the newspapers about 10 days ago saying that there was a runaway girl by the name of November living in Oakland. The individual described you, said they feared you might be a victim of human trafficking. They supplied a photo, which has been all over the news, in the papers, on the internet. Best we can tell, this was all done over e-mail, from a local coffee shop with free wifi.”

  Now that was a rather unexpected piece of information for the flustered young woman to take in. Holy. Cow. “For serious? And no one bothered to tell me?” Irritation bloomed anew. “You know, I’m getting really tired of being the last person informed about things affecting my life.” The men held a guilty silence before November continued, “Who would do that? The only friend I have from the carnival doesn’t even know how to use a computer.”

  “Presumably the same people who are looking to kidnap you,” Pine answered. “This way, if you go anywhere off these grounds, you run the risk of being recognized by someone or picked up by police. That would help the enemy to find you and get their hands on you. Now half the state of California has their eyes looking for you, along with their phone cameras. Quite the force multiplier. It’s pretty clever, actually. Of course, involving human authorities in an internal dispute of our realm is both illegal and very taboo. I think our spy is getting pretty desperate, which, of course, makes things more dangerous.”

  “That’s a tad alarming,” November said flatly. She was even more trapped than she had realized. Here was a good reason to be happy that she had not run away when she had found out about William’s wife and his deceit. I would have run straight into the spy’s trap no matter where I had gone, thanks to the mole’s little media blitz. “But if it was the spy who did it, then why not go all the way and tell the cops that I’m in this house?”

  “Actually, we think he or she may have done just that,” Pine confessed further. “We have spotted people watching the gate. Humans, plainclothes police. An anonymous tip wasn’t enough to get them a warrant, especially for the home of someone like Lord William. He contributes a lot of money to a lot of important peoples’ political campaigns. Throw in a dead housekeeper, though, and now they have enough to get inside the house.” November shuddered, prompting Pine to turn to her and say, “Hey, it’s going to be alright. They’re not going to get anywhere near you with Greg and me around, okay?”

  November nodded, feeling silly that she was afraid of the police when evil supernatural creatures were out to get her. After all, her own father had been a policeman. When she had been very small, she’d loved her father’s uniform. She would sit on his lap and play with his badge. Her innate affection for police had lasted until the day they had been called to her mother’s residence because the neighbors had heard November screaming from inside the trunk of the broken-down car in the yard. This fateful day had occurred a few months after her grandmother’s death, and her drug-addled remaining parent had not exactly risen to the occasion of renewed motherhood.

  At first, the child had been grateful for the rescue. It had been ninety degrees that day, and she had been roasting alive. But once the social worker had arrived and the police had dragged her away, screaming in fear at being separated from her only family, her feelings had begun to change. Subsequent encounters with law enforcement hadn’t been much more pleasant, always charged with the anxiety that her mother would end up in jail again and that November would go back into the system. November knew intellectually that the officers had been trying to help her, but still she still assigned them some of the blame for her years-long hospitalization, and she had developed an instinctive fear of them, their sirens, their weapons, and their power to disrupt a person’s whole world.

  “Well, let’s hope that we’ll be able to get some info about Carly’s murder that will help us identify the traitor in our midst,” Greg said after a brief silence. “There’s a fairy lieutenant in the police department, so he should be able to be of some help.”

  November tried to focus on Greg’s words rather than on her anxiety and her frozen toes. It made November feel a little better, having something practical to think about while they were stuck in that dark room. “My examining the body is obviously out of the question, but maybe we could get hold of a personal object of hers? I might be able to see who killed her,” she offered.

  “We’ll discuss this with Lord William after the police leave,” Pine promised.

  As she calmed down, a thought occurred to her. “Who was that in the chase? Running ahead of us?” she asked.

  “There was no one in front of us, child,” Greg replied with a raised eyebrow. “Was it a vision?”

  “Maybe.” Or perhaps it was just the stress and a trick of the light. Right now, I don't even care.

  They settled in to wait. November tried to relax, closing her eyes and snuggling down underneath Greg’s jacket. In spite of the vampire’s chivalry and the impressive heat generated by the fairy, November felt terribly cold. She hated being cold. Their house in the winter had always been cold. Her nose was running from the chill, and soon she began to shi
ver.

  When the light went out to protect its battery, she hit her limit. Claustrophobia, cold, fear, hunger, and lack of sleep combined to be more than she could handle. Tears began rolling down her face as she tried without success to keep her breathing even, tried to keep her companions from noticing her distress. With their acute senses, of course, this was impossible. “Hey,” Pine said softly. “Let me try to warm you up, okay?” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. November startled at the touch despite how desperate she was to no longer be cold. “I’m not going to try anything. I’m not going to hurt you. But you need to get warm. I didn’t realize how chilly it was down here. We should have planned for that.”

  As the fairy pulled her onto his lap and began rubbing her hands between his own, November did her best to keep her blinders on. She let the fragments of Pine’s life pile up around her without picking any of them up. The last thing she wanted right then was to have a vision. Once the blood had come back into her hands, she curled up against Pine with her head on his shoulder, and Greg gave her his socks to put on and readjusted his blazer to cover her again. She was still crying a little, and she was sure she looked ridiculous, but at least she wasn’t quite so cold.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Greg asked gently. “It’s okay if you don’t.”

  She was silent for several minutes before everything came out in a flood. She told them of her fear of enclosed spaces, her anxiety about the mole in the house, her terror of getting kidnapped again, her anger at Lord William’s deceit, her rage at being kept in the dark about everything all the time, especially this missing person nonsense. She spoke of her guilt over her mother’s murder, and Carly’s, and even the deaths of the fairies from the gas station. She described how trapped she felt, trapped in her life and in this house and by her gift, the feeling so reminiscent of how she used to feel locked up in that awful hospital in Idaho. By the time she finished, the tears were gone, and she did feel a little bit better if seriously embarrassed about losing her composure.

  It seemed like they were trapped in there forever. In truth, about three hours passed before Lord William arrived to give them the all clear. She looked at him balefully and said nothing as she began to trudge back down the long passageway to the house proper. He tried to apologize for neglecting to keep her informed about her newly minted fame as a missing person, but she just shook her head and kept walking.

  The ladders presented a bit of a problem. She absolutely refused to have the men in a position to look up her nightdress, but they for their part did not want to let her climb up behind them in case she were to fall. In the end, she had to compromise and allow herself to be carried, as it was marginally less mortifying than the alternative. This indignity did nothing to improve her black mood.

  Once they emerged from the linen closet, she turned to them and thanked Pine and Greg for their help and suggested that next time they bring a goddamned blanket along. She then informed them all that she required an hour to get herself together before she wanted to exchange another word with anyone. She stalked down the hall to her room and propped a chair under the doorknob as a makeshift lock, fully aware of the futility of that measure but angry enough not to care.

  It took a half an hour of blazing hot water before she felt really warm again. She dressed quickly. Her appearance was severe enough to match her mood: black turtleneck, black leggings, black boots, and a slicked-back ponytail of black hair. She looked like a severely irritated beat poet. All she needed was a pair of chunky black glasses to complete the look.

  Clean and warm at last, she headed down to the kitchen, eating her dinner while reading a Harry Potter book she’d found in the library. She still found it hilarious that all seven volumes of the series were present in a vampire’s elegant library, all in hardback first editions of the British version, of course.

  “Snape kills Dumbledore, you know,” Ben said as he slipped into the kitchen, reaching into the refrigerator for some refreshment. November flipped him off without even looking up.

  “First, I’ve already read them all, like everyone else above the age of seven in this country. Second, I’m psychic. I always know how the story ends. The end isn’t the point. It’s how you get there. Third, I’m in no damn mood.”

  Ben slid into the adjacent stool after heating his snack briefly in the microwave. “At least you didn’t have to spend an hour talking to some idiot cop about some maid you never even met.”

  “No, I got to huddle in a dark and freezing room for three hours wondering what the hell was going on.”

  “Yeah, that bites. At least the cops seem satisfied. They didn’t find anything, of course. Fell all over themselves apologizing to our lord and master.”

  “How did he explain the fridge?” she asked. A fridge full of blood seemed like it would raise a few flags for law enforcement.

  “Zinnia told them she’s a hemophiliac who requires frequent blood transfusions. She’s a real strong enthraller. She can make people believe anything.” November’s stomach clenched at that. She didn’t want to mistrust the closest thing to a real friend she'd ever had, but living in this state of tension was making her paranoid.

  “Where is she?” November demanded.

  “In a pow-wow with his lordship.” He paused. “The cops spent a really long time with her. They found a blue hair on the body,” he said more softly, looking around secretively.

  November felt ill. “That doesn’t mean anything. The woman cleaned her room the same day she died. They come twice a week – once during the day to do the upstairs and once at night to do the basement. They were here during the day on Halloween. She could have picked up hair from any of us daywalkers,” November said with some heat. “Zinnia could never kill anyone. Not on purpose.”

  “Of course not, of course not,” Ben agreed quickly.

  “How did the woman die?”

  “Strangled, apparently. With a scarf. It was probably a boyfriend or something. Humans are always killing each other for stupid reasons.” He paused again, then spoke again as though having a revelation. “Unless the maid found something incriminating in someone’s room that day. The spy’s room, I mean. I suppose that’s possible. That would make the spy a fairy.”

  November said, “Hmm,” noncommittally. She had no intention of spilling any sensitive information in the course of this conversation, so the less she said, the better. Luckily, she was rescued by Pine, who informed her that her presence was required in Lord William’s office.

  The vampire governor of California was pacing like a caged animal, his hands clenching and releasing as he tried not to lose his temper and break any of the tasteful decorative items scattered around his domain. Birch was somewhat calmer, but his messy coiffure testified to the level of his tension. The stranger in the room was a policeman, obviously Lord William’s fairy connection on the Oakland force. A folder was on the conference table, its contents scattered over the polished surface.

  “Lt. Cyprus, this is my resident seer, November Snow,” William said, finally sitting down, coiled like a spring.

  “Yes, I recognize her from the Amber Alert. A pleasure to meet you,” he said, tipping his hat.

  “Likewise,” she replied with a nod. “What is going on?” she asked.

  Birch replied, “The cleaning woman was killed on Halloween, the same night you found the pendant she’d left in your room for you. She was strangled with a scarf belonging to Zinnia. Now, we know that she most likely did not have time to commit the murder that night, given that she was summoned back to the house only an hour after departing, and in that time, she was never out of my sight. However, the police estimate of the time of death runs from 4 pm to midnight, so it is possible that Zinnia could have committed the crime during the day. In addition, the police search turned up a disposable cell phone in her room that had been used to dial the victim’s phone number.”

  November’s stomach turned. “Where is Zinnia?”

  “In the basement.
Waiting for Savita,” William answered quietly, his lips tight with anger.

  “You don’t seriously believe she had anything to do with this? There’s no way!” November cried. It took all her self-control not to burst into tears.

  “I don’t want to, but we have to consider the possibility. If she is innocent, you can help us clear her,” Birch replied. His ageless face was clouded with worry.

  “This has gone on too long. We wanted to keep our knowledge of a mole secret so as not to tip off the guilty party or to induce him to do something desperate. It’s clear now that he is desperate or foolish enough to involve humans. And it’s obvious to the whole household now that there is a rotten apple in the barrel. It will soon be obvious to the entire Bay Area supernatural community, now that police have been inside my home. There is no further need for pretending. We will find the cancer and cut it out. Tonight.”

  November had never seen William so angry. He looked like he was moments from exploding in a fireball that would consume them all. She decided that she would never want him to be this angry with her. Everyone watched him warily, no one wanting to be the first to speak and risk drawing his ire.

  “If we had something belonging to the victim, I might be able to see something. Actually going to the crime scene would work better,” November ventured. “If we can get hold of the phone or the scarf, that might tell me a lot.”

  “I can’t get my hands on the physical evidence. If you wait a few days, the crime scene would be doable. Same with sneaking into her residence to swipe a personal object. We’d need to wait a while so as not to get caught. I was able to swipe a few pictures and a copy of the crime scene report. Could you get something from the photos in the file?” Cyprus asked, gesturing toward the table.

  “Probably not, but I could try,” she offered, sitting down to make the attempt. The poor woman in the photos was on the floor of what looked like an abandoned warehouse. She had one of Zinnia’s signature scarves wrapped tightly around her neck. Close-ups showed hands roughened by years of hard work, but she didn’t see any indication of a fight. “No signs of a struggle?” she asked the policeman.