Darkest Misery

by Tracey Martin

  My voice died away in the silence. I could feel everyone’s gaze pressing down on me, but my eyes were locked on Claudius.

  Feed on that anger, you smirking asshole. I hope it gives you indigestion.

  “Jess.” Lucen placed a hand over mine, but I was beyond being calmed.

  Once more, Dezzi tried to be the voice of reason. “We are all stressed, and we all cope with stress in different ways. I think it would be good if we all assumed helpful intentions.”

  Both Xander and I snorted.

  Great. Now I had something in common with that birdbrain.

  “Jessica.” Tom cast a pleading look at me. “Please sit. We all need to do our best to get along.”

  “I do not get along with people who make jokes about my dead friends.”

  I’d lost it. Even as I spun around and stomped out of the room, I was well aware what a bad idea it was. I mentally yelled at myself to stop, but I couldn’t. Like the day I’d found out what the Gryphons had done to me, I moved on autopilot, pushed too hard by my temper to regain control. I saw what I was doing, knew it was a bad idea and was powerless to prevent it.

  A couple chairs lined the deserted hotel corridor, and I collapsed on one of them. Footsteps approached a moment later. I hoped for Lucen, but when I raised my head, I saw Tom.

  “You need to get your temper under control.”

  “Yeah, well, you’d know about it, wouldn’t you?”

  Tom stepped away and leaned against the opposite wall, studying me. “I have had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of it before. Between you and Xander—”

  “Do not ever lump me in with Xander.”

  “Then stop acting like him.”

  I jumped up. “I am not. He’s making baseless accusations. I’m pissed off about some satyr jackass making jokes about dead people. It’s not the same.”

  “Not in the specifics, but you’re both derailing the meeting.”

  I couldn’t argue with that so I ignored it. “Why didn’t anyone tell me Lei was brought in for questioning?”

  “Can we discuss this later? We should go back inside.”

  “I cannot go back in there yet or I’ll punch Claudius. So why not?” I crossed my arms.

  Tom pushed off the wall and paced, hands in his pockets. “I spoke about your involvement in the investigation with Ingrid, and on further reflection we agreed that it wasn’t the best use of your time. You should be training. At the most, your part in the investigation should be focused on reviewing the information we obtained from Olef to decipher his message to you.”

  I opened my eyes wide. The angry adrenaline that had been dissipating in my blood was refreshed. “She convinced you to take me off the case? I want to be involved.”

  “We agreed together. You have more important things to do.”

  “No, you have things you want me to do. Whether they’re more important is debatable. We have no idea what role I might play in this prophecy. Therefore learning how to make charms or read glyphs might be a complete waste of my time. The only thing I do know isn’t a waste of time is finding out who killed Olef and bringing them to justice.”

  I could sense Tom’s annoyance with me seeping past his emotion-dampening charms. “We can discuss this more later. Jessica, please go back inside and calm down.”

  “Has the lab figured out what kind of feather was in Olef’s room?”

  “We’re still waiting on results.”

  “Why was Lei in The Feathers? Xander’s got a point. It’s very strange.”

  “Jessica…” Tom closed his eyes, and I got the sense he wouldn’t mind bashing my head in. “Can we discuss this later?”

  I stared at Tom, utterly lost. Why was he deflecting? What could Lei have been doing in The Feathers that he didn’t want me to know about? Dragon shit on toast, nothing was making sense anymore.

  “Fine, I’ll go ask her myself.”

  “Jessica, please. You need to work with us right now.”

  I jabbed the elevator button, and when it didn’t appear immediately, I opened the stairwell door. “In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t trust any of you. If I have to do this on my own, I will.”

  I feared for a moment Tom would charge after me, but the door slammed shut, and then all I heard was my feet on the concrete stairs and the sound of blood rushing by my ears.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tom didn’t follow me, but apparently my satyr bodyguards had arrived at the hotel sometime after I had. Gi and Melissa were hanging out in the bar, disguise charms in place. I had to pass by them to get from the stairs to the front door. Gi downed the rest of his beer, and they rushed to catch up to me as I left.

  I rolled my eyes as I opened the door. The rain had gotten worse. It was pouring. “How effective are you guys supposed to be if you’ve been drinking?”

  Gi grinned. “We’re still the biggest badasses this side of the Charles.”

  “Uh-huh. Let’s hope my potential attackers don’t hail from the Cambridge side then.”

  Melissa tucked her extra-large umbrella under her arm. “Your meeting was scheduled to go on longer.”

  “I stormed out ahead of schedule. Everyone else is yelling at each other.”

  Gi’s phone rang as we gained cover under the parking garage roof, and from his expression, I gathered the caller was talking about me. He hung up, shaking his head. “Sounds like you caused a scene.”

  “Me? Never.”

  “Hit anyone with a chair lately?”

  In spite of everything, I laughed. “No, but I’ll keep it in mind for next time.”

  “So where are we going?” Melissa opened the car door.

  “Shadowtown. I need to talk to Lei.”

  I wasn’t ready to admit it to Lucen, but occasionally, having bodyguards was useful. Melissa dropped me off in front of Lei’s shop and went to park while Gi escorted me inside. The rain had lightened, but I was just as glad not to have to walk in it.

  In fact, being away from the meeting had lifted my mood considerably. Everything felt hopeless, but I no longer wanted to hit people.

  Lei’s shop was neither fancy nor particularly inviting, but it didn’t need to be. Her work and reputation spoke for itself. She had no need to lure people in with decorative charm vials in the window or a fancy sign over the storefront.

  People, be they preds or humans, came here because they wanted complicated or powerful spells, and they paid a lot to obtain them. The ones humans came here for were probably illegal or else they would have bought them from a magi, and no doubt they paid for them with their souls. There was a time not so long ago when I’d have been disgusted by that, but I had bigger issues.

  Besides, I had to admit the information Devon had shared with me about why preds needed addicts had softened my attitude a bit. I could tell myself that as long as the pred treated their addicts well, it wasn’t too terrible a situation for the humans.

  I told myself that again now, although I still couldn’t force myself to entirely believe it.

  A harpy with cascading yellow and blue feathers down her head was mixing some sort of concoction in an obsidian bowl. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Lei.”

  The harpy paused her mixing and cocked her head side to side. “She’s busy.”

  “I need to talk to her about why the Gryphons questioned her this morning.”

  “You are a Gryphon. Ask them.”

  I groaned, and Gi tapped me on the shoulder. “Might not want to wear your jacket ’round here or carry so many weapons.”

  The Gryphon windbreaker. I’d forgotten I had it on, and I pulled it off. “Would you tell her Jessica Moore wants to talk to her? She should—”

  “In here, Ms. Moore,” Lei called out from the back room.

  I smiled.

  The
other harpy returned to her concoction. “Go on then.”

  Gi stayed behind, commandeering one of the plush chairs in the shop’s corner while I headed into the work area. I’d been back here before. When Lei had created her glamour for me, I’d had to spend several hours in her back room as she taught me how to use it. It looked much like the charm labs I’d since seen at Gryphon Headquarters, and much how I’d imagine a mundane chemistry lab might look. Only with more vile ingredients and stranger-smelling brews.

  Lei gestured me to the small metal table in the corner, and she sat across from me. “I assure you, the Gryphons questioned me quite thoroughly this morning. I don’t have anything left to tell.”

  I twisted my fingers together, thinking I should have approached this in a better way. Of course Lei wasn’t going to enjoy explaining herself a second time. “The Gryphons are locking me out of the investigation about Olef.”

  “And what does this have to do with me?”

  “I don’t like being locked out. If they won’t tell me what you told them, then I figure it’s got to be important.”

  Lei stared at me a moment, then she laughed, a high cackling sound that once would have made the hairs on my neck stand on end. These days, I was able merely to consider it an unfortunate personality quirk. Lei wasn’t nearly so sinister anymore. “The Gryphons chose well when they made you to be one of their elite, didn’t they? You have to do everything on your own.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic. “The Gryphons got lucky with me, but they don’t appreciate it. They also chose Victor Aubrey.”

  Lei laughed again. “Point taken. I like you. Since you’re the one responsible for setting this odd coalition into motion, I’ll play along. I was in The Feathers the morning of Olef’s death to meet with him. I am, unfortunately, probably the last person to have seen him alive.”

  I sat up straighter with surprise. Of all the reasons I could have imagined why Lei might be in the magi neighborhood—and admittedly, I couldn’t imagine many—meeting with Olef was not one of them. Yet I wondered if I should have suspected something. There had to be a good reason why the Gryphons had released Lei so quickly, especially if she’d seen him the morning he was killed.

  I made a guess. “Were you talking about the prophecy?”

  Lei folded her fingers together. “Not quite. I’m not sure what path Olef was going down with the research he was doing for you, but he was asking me questions about magic. I went to his apartment so he wouldn’t have to lug his books around. You find this odd?”

  She was reading my emotions, and I could only hope she didn’t think I was being rude. “A bit, yeah. No offense, but why would Olef ask you? Plenty of magi are skilled in magic even if Olef wasn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t say plenty. It’s only plenty compared to humanity’s lack of skilled charm makers.” She looked so smug I was tempted to point out that a harpy’s weakness was supposed to be jealously, not vanity. But Lei continued. “Magi are as different from our races as they are from yours. Magic is inherent in them. It’s a force within them since they are born. With us, that’s not true. Do you follow?”

  I followed. Preds were made, not born. They were once humans with not a hint of a magical gift in their bodies. “So do you mean you work magic differently than magi?”

  “Essentially. We react to it and can use it differently, which is why Olef wanted my perspective.”

  My phone buzzed, and I ignored it. “About what?”

  “I’m honestly not entirely sure what he was getting at. He was keeping his motives secretive, but he was asking me about how we channel power. It made some sense because of what Dezzi told us about the Vessels, but Olef was asking about alternate ways we can do it. I don’t think I was much help.”

  Alternate ways to channel power didn’t make sense to me either. We weren’t trying to channel anything. Our goal was to prevent the furies from being able to open the Pit, and to do that we needed to find the Vessels.

  I bit my lip. “Did Olef ask you anything about a key?”

  “A key? No. Key to what?”

  “I have no clue. It was a long shot, but I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Lei looked at my phone, which buzzed again. “A key to the prison?”

  “I had that thought, but he was telling me to use it. If the prison’s locked, why would I want something that could unlock it?”

  “Perhaps you need to find this key and the Vessels to prevent it being unlocked.”

  Tom and I had brainstormed the same thoughts yesterday, but the fact remained—he’d never heard of a key either. And next to Olef, Tom was the most knowledgeable person we had about any of this lore. “I guess I need to keep searching Olef’s research.”

  “I do wish you luck, Ms. Moore. I’d have returned to the meeting today, except Xander.” She grimaced. “Neither Eyff nor I thought it would be wise.”

  “Good call.”

  After I left, Gi and Melissa escorted me to Lucen’s. I had to promise them I had no plans to go anywhere before they took off. Finally alone, not counting one grumpy pet dragon who was snorting in his cage, I plopped on the sofa.

  I wanted to nap. Maybe eat some ice cream. But I also wanted to find Olef’s killer and stop the furies, which meant no nap for me. I decided to compromise—make coffee, check if Lucen had any ice cream, then return to Olef’s research. I had a couple of his books at the apartment. It wasn’t much to work with, but it was something.

  Before I could move from the couch, though, I remembered my messages. Both were from Tom and annoyingly uninformative. Call me.

  Grumbling to myself, I did as asked. “Yes?”

  “Have you calmed down?”

  Ooh, moose tracks. Trust Lucen to only buy the good stuff. I pulled out the ice cream carton. “I’m about to eat ice cream. Does that sound like I’m calm? Why wouldn’t you share what Lei told you?”

  “You’re still hung up on that?” He sighed. “It wasn’t the time. Lei’s information raised a whole lot of new questions for us to consider. I didn’t want you getting sidetracked. I was going to tell you later.”

  I relegated myself to only taking a couple spoonfuls in a dish because I could probably stress-eat the entire carton if I wasn’t careful. “So you weren’t blowing me off?”

  “Do you have to take everything in the worst possible way?”

  “When it comes to your fraternity? Do you need to ask?”

  Wisely, he ignored my comment. “I take it you spoke to Lei. Where are you?”

  “Home.” Close enough. “How’s the meeting going?”

  “It’s not. I’m confident both the satyrs and the goblins have information about the Vessels that could be useful, but none of them are willing to share what they know.”

  Gooey chocolate melted on my tongue. My muscles seemed to melt with the ice cream. “How did you find that out?”

  “I overheard the goblins from the High Council talking to Gunthra.”

  “Sloppy of them.”

  I could almost hear Tom smile. “They weren’t aware of my presence.”

  “So you were spying? I approve.”

  “I’m so thrilled to have finally earned some respect from you.”

  I grinned and ate the last spoonful of ice cream. “Every now and then you manage, but don’t think I’m happy about being removed from the investigation. I’m not done arguing.”

  “I wouldn’t dream I’d be so lucky. Are you returning to the office?”

  I stuck the dirty dishes in Lucen’s dishwasher and wandered into the living room. “I have a couple of Olef’s books here, and more to go on from Lei. So no. It’s enough to keep me busy. Unless you plan to let me in on more secrets if I go in.”

  “Not today. Keep researching.”

  “Fine.” I hung up on him and tossed the phone on the table.

&nbs
p; A banging noise from behind alerted me that Sweetpea was up to no good. The dragon had apparently decided he was sick of being caged and was butting his head against the bars. “That makes two of us,” I told him. “I feel like I’m doing exactly the same thing.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Although I considered Sweetpea and myself to have shared a bonding moment, the dragon didn’t agree. Biting was more his style than bonding, but he eventually calmed down when he realized I wasn’t going to let him out of the cage so he could sink his teeth into me.

  “Hush, you,” I muttered as he attacked the poor chew toy Lucen had given him.

  My stomach rumbled, and I flipped the page in Olef’s book. Since the meeting had broken up, I expected Lucen home soon, and I was trying to be good and wait for him to arrive so we could eat together. As he enjoyed pointing out, he was the better cook.

  Alas, Olef’s book was dry reading and therefore a poor distraction. Thanks to my conversation with Lei, I had an idea why he’d been reading it, but the content—magical theory—was mostly over my head. The Gryphons wanted me to study the topic too but at a much more basic level. As such, my eyes glazed over as I scanned the pages in hopes of finding words like “channel” or “key” or anything that would induce me to stop and read more thoroughly.

  I was about to give up and text Lucen when someone knocked. Warily, I set the book down and traipsed to the narrow entryway that was squeezed between the living room and kitchen. Lucen had no peephole on the door, but he had a chain lock, which I made sure was in place.

  Despite my caution, I’d been hoping for a friendly visitor. Maybe Devon coming by to tease me for storming out of the meeting, or Dezzi stopping in to express her displeasure.

  I got Claudius. Fuck.

  “Lucen’s not home yet.” I went to shut the door, but it never made it all the way.