“They experimented on him,” she said. “In that lab I told you about. I can’t say what he was like before, but I’m guessing it didn’t do his mind any good. Being constantly assaulted with sins and hallucinations all the time like that, it’s…” She drifted off, lost in her own memories, and swallowed. “It’s horrible,” she said simply.
“I see,” said Holgersen, his tone still no different than if he was taking a statement from someone who’d witnessed a fender bender. “And can you give me the names of any others who were at this lab?”
“Yes. One of them was my cousin. She’ll back up everything I’ve just said. And there was a doctor working there, Dr. Forrester. Female, middle-aged, curly hair the color of milky coffee. But I don’t know her first name. And I doubt she’d be very cooperative.”
“We also have records,” Alecto said, “from the hearings we conducted on this. Emails, witness statements, recovered files. I can have my assistant get it together for you and put it on a flash drive. I want the record to show we cooperated on this.”
“Thank you.” Holgersen stood to go.
Alecto offered to escort the detective off campus herself, and told Thea she could go back to her desk. Before they all parted ways outside, Holgersen turned to Thea.
“That photo will go through enhancement,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing what software can do, these days.”
“What’s your point?” Alecto asked.
Holgersen looked at her. “My point is, you might be the head of the colony, but she—” he turned back to Thea. “You are the face of Hexing House, or you will be soon enough. And that’s going to make you unpopular. I’d suggest you be careful.”
With that warning, as blandly delivered as everything else he said, Detective Holgersen walked away.
Thea had no idea how the hell she was supposed to focus on her work after all that, but it turned out there was no need to. When she got back to HRI, she spent a half hour answering questions from her curious coworkers before realizing lunch time had not only come, but almost gone.
She hurried to the dining hall, where she searched for Cora’s tomato-colored hair, easily spotted in a crowd. Thea found her friend at a table on her own, sipping coffee.
“Where have you been?” Cora asked as Thea sat down. “I stopped by your desk like an hour ago, and I’ve been stretching out lunch ever since, hoping to catch you.”
“I was in Alecto’s office with that detective forever.” Thea smiled at Diana as the server approached with a glass of water and another set of silverware.
“Thea!” Diana said. “I heard you were part of the excitement at the gate this morning.”
“Wasn’t that exciting,” said Thea. “Just a misunderstanding.”
Diana leaned forward and said, “But it was Megaira’s people, right? What happened in that human neighborhood? It was the superhex, wasn’t it? That’s what people are saying.”
Thea nodded. She’d been honest with everyone who asked. She figured if it wasn’t a secret from Holgersen, there was no reason for it to be a secret within the colony. And besides, Megaira was always trying to recruit furies away from Hexing House with promises of how wonderful her colony was. The more of them who knew the ugly truth about Fury Unlimited, the better.
Diana shook her head. “That is awful. Just awful. You heard Milo went over to them?”
Thea didn’t even know who Milo was, but it had become a familiar story. She nodded and made a sympathetic noise.
“Well, anyway, I suppose I’d better take your order before we close ‘til dinner. All we’ve got left is the BLT or the grilled cheese.”
“I’ll have the BLT with fries, please.” Thea was tempted to ask for a beer to go with it, but settled for a sweet tea. While they waited for her food, she told Cora about her questioning.
“So you think he believed everything?” Cora asked.
Thea shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m sure it sounded crazy to him. But I’m more curious about what Mr. Fanatic seems to believe. Who is this Lex guy?”
Cora took out her phone. “They’ve released a lot of the names, I think. We’re looking for a Lexington family?”
“Yeah. Talbott Lexington was the kid I rescued, and Holgersen said his parents were killed. Poor kid.” Thea felt wrath coming to the surface, like a bubble in a pot of boiling water. “Fucking Megaira.”
Cora looked up, surprised by Thea’s sudden change in tone, and handed over her phone. “Boyd Lexington was the father. Face ring a bell or anything?”
Thea looked down at the chubby face on the screen, the wide smile, and shook her head. “No. But Mr. Fanatic said something about Lex seeing the truth about us witches and demons, and letting him go.”
“Letting Mr. Fanatic go?”
“Yeah.”
“Which would imply that Lex worked at the lab at some point.”
“Exactly. I don’t know how Mr. Fanatic got out, but I doubt it was a friendly parting of ways. This guy might have helped him escape.” She gestured with the phone. “Mind if I use this? I left mine on my desk.”
“Go ahead.”
Thea called Flannery and got her voice mail. “Flan, it’s Thea, I need you to look at the pictures of the victims at Hemlock Heights, and see if you recognize the guy named Boyd Lexington. He may have been at the superhex lab. Call me back, okay?”
She handed Cora back her phone and laughed at the look of distaste on her friend’s face. “What’s the matter, afraid your phone will catch cooties from her voicemail?”
Cora grimaced. “I’m not trying to be mean.”
“You just can’t stand that your brother is dating my cousin.”
“Well, come on. I’m not prejudiced, but the head of RDM and a human? It’s unseemly.”
Thea laughed harder. “No, you’re not prejudiced at all.”
“I’m friends with you, aren’t I?”
“I’m not human!”
“But I was friends with you when you were.”
“Mostly out of guilt because you were so mean when you first met me.” Thea waved away Cora’s outrage. “I’m teasing you. To be honest, I’m not so crazy about them getting serious either. It’s weird.”
Truth be told, Thea didn’t like it at all. Not because she had a natural-born fury’s bias against humans, but because Hexing House was hers. Her new home. Her new life. Her new self.
Flannery had been jealous and envious of Thea their whole lives. (Something that made no sense to Thea, when Flannery was the one spoiled with such luxuries as sane parents.) And to avoid confrontation, Thea had always given in, always given up whatever it was that Flannery wanted.
But she didn’t want to let Flannery have this.
“It doesn’t matter,” Thea said, as much to herself as to Cora. “We have more important things to worry about at the moment.”
Cora sighed. “Fine. I’ll try to be less petty.”
After lunch, Thea stopped back at her office just long enough to pack up her phone and laptop, and plead a headache. Then she went back to her residence, where she commenced pacing, thinking about what Mr. Fanatic had said.
Maybe Boyd Lexington really had helped Mr. Fanatic escape the lab, or they at least had some kind of history together. Maybe because of that, or maybe for other reasons, the people at Fury Unlimited were pissed at Boyd.
But Alecto was right. Even if all those maybes were true, and true enough for Megaira to want Boyd dead, this was not how someone like her would go about killing a person. She’d do something much neater and more efficient. She’d use something more precise and easier to control than the superhex. And she’d go about it in a way that didn’t point directly at the business she was working so hard to establish.
That didn’t mean it was a coincidence, though, or that Mr. Fanatic was lying or imagining things. Megaira probably had a whole list of enemies. Some of them were bound to live in places that met whatever criteria she had for a demonstration or a test. Why not see if she could multitask
by planning those events where they might hurt somebody she wanted hurt?
Thea bit her lip and shook her head. Her logic felt flimsy. She was missing something.
Like most of the Hexing House residences, Thea’s was sparse, with no kitchen (although plenty of furies kept mugs and wine glasses for the occasional beverage taken out of the dining hall), or television (movies and TV shows were watched on their laptops, or reserved for movie nights in the auditorium). There were no paintings or pictures. Many furies had bookshelves, but Thea wasn’t much of a reader. The table beside her couch boasted a clock, and a single scented candle.
But there was one incongruous, odd decoration in her otherwise tidy living room: hung over the window latch, in the position that once would have been occupied by a bell on a string, was a blue cardigan sweater.
It had a grease stain on the front from a dining hall accident involving a plate of tater tots, and it was missing two buttons, so Thea didn’t wear it anymore. But it was the first article of clothing she’d gotten from Personal Services. The first thing she owned that had slits to accommodate her wings.
Thea had given The Book of Flower Friends, stained with the red blood of the human she no longer was, back to Aunt Bridget weeks ago. It had long since stopped helping her have visions. Like Nana had once told her, Thea’s childhood comfort object wasn’t a piece of her anymore.
But one night, while she was investigating Megaira and the location of her new shop, Thea had nicked her lip with a claw and brought the sweater to her mouth, the purple of her blood soaking in, blending with the rich royal blue. She’d done it on a whim, thinking that maybe, just maybe, the reason she refused to throw away the sweater despite its condition was that it had become a comfort object in its own right.
She’d immediately seen the seaside cliff where Fury Unlimited was.
Since then, the things Thea saw when she used the sweater were often vague, brief, and hard to decipher, but it had never once failed to help her see something. She didn’t have the deep connection to it she’d had to the Flower Friends when she was a little girl, but that didn’t seem to matter. Her powers were so much stronger now. She just had to get herself into the right place to use them.
She eyed the sweater now, then reached out to run a finger down its soft sleeve. She took it back to the couch and cut her lip.
The house, the rubble, the exposed bedroom. The boy’s leg, reaching into the air. He would jump.
His fingers were sticky. Thea could feel his hot breath on her cheek as she scooped him up and flew him to safety.
Then the world shifted, and she was the boy, seeing herself through his eyes as he clung to her.
This one isn’t scary like the other monsters.
They came back. Daddy said they wouldn’t anymore, that he would stop them. But he didn’t.
The monsters came back.
Then she—he—was in bed, curled tightly around the pillow, watching the crack of light under the door. Shadows moved across it. Footsteps.
The monsters were there.
Thea’s eyes snapped open, and she used the sweater to wipe sweat off her face and neck.
The monsters came back.
She sat still, breathing slowly in and out, steadying herself. Until she jumped in a most unfurylike way, startled by the blare of her phone.
“Flan. You got my message?”
“Yeah, I got it. And I almost didn’t call you right away, because I’d already seen the pictures on the news, and I didn’t recognize anyone.”
“Would you mind looking again?”
“I did. Still didn’t recognize him.”
So much for that, then. Maybe Mr. Fanatic was confused. (Well. Definitely Mr. Fanatic was confused.) Maybe Boyd Lexington just looked like someone he used to know.
“Well, thanks for calling to tell me,” Thea said.
“No, but then I did,” said Flannery.
“Huh? Then you did what?”
“His head used to be shaved,” Flannery said. “That’s why I didn’t notice right off. But then it hit me.”
“What hit you?”
“That’s Lex. He used to be a nurse at the lab.”
“What is Pete doing here?” Thea whispered to Aunt Bridget.
“He was helping me out in the orchard today,” Bridget said with a shrug. “When he heard you’d be here for dinner, he asked if he could stay. You know there’s always plenty of food.”
“Plenty of food is not the point.” Thea pulled some of the plenty in question—a ham that had to weigh at least seven pounds—out of the oven. “You don’t think it’s a little awkward for Flannery and Nero, having him around?”
“He’s around all the time. He still helps me with things. And why should that be awkward anymore? I can see when they first broke up, but— Here’s a platter, you can start slicing that. Use a knife.”
Thea laughed. “What did you think I was going to do, claw at it?”
“My point is, Flannery and Nero are happy,” said Bridget. “They wouldn’t begrudge you and Pete the same.”
And what about Pete? Does he begrudge their happiness?
Thea hadn’t had many chances—hadn’t made many chances—to talk to Pete alone since his breakup with Flannery. On the surface, he seemed to be taking it all in stride, and remarkably well. But then, on the surface, Pete took everything in stride, remarkably well.
“There is no me and Pete, Aunt Bridget.”
If there was, I would know what’s going on beneath that surface.
Although Thea wasn’t sure that was true, either. The people closest to Pete were identifiable mostly by how much time they spent with him, not by being in his confidence.
“He’s worried about you,” Bridget said.
“He doesn’t need to be.” Thea dropped a kiss on her aunt’s cheek on her way out of the room. “And neither do you.”
She brought the ham into the dining room, where Pete was chatting with Nero while Flannery poured wine. Aunt Bridget was right: none of them looked embarrassed or awkward. The circumstances of Flannery and Pete’s breakup had been ugly. Could they be so relaxed with one another now, if they’d ever really loved each other in the first place? Or were they just that mature and secure, that they could move past it and genuinely wish each other well?
Thea watched her cousin squeeze Nero’s shoulder as she walked behind his chair, laughing at something he said. Maybe Thea hadn’t given her enough credit, lately. Thea wasn’t the only one who’d gone through a transformation.
Pete spotted her standing there and jumped up to take the ham. Thea didn’t quite meet his eyes.
There is no me and Pete.
Bridget came in, balancing two bowls against one another. “Okay, someone grab the potatoes from the kitchen and we can eat.”
When they’d all taken their seats, Thea started to ask Flannery about Boyd Lexington, but Bridget smacked her arm lightly and shook her head. “Not until we’ve thanked the Lord for the food and the company.”
So they bowed their heads and prayed, then Thea said, “Now tell me about this Lex guy.”
“Lex was really nice,” Flannery said. “He wasn’t there for long after I got there, though. Got fired or quit, I don’t know which. I know people gossiped about it, but I don’t know any details.”
“No, I guess they wouldn’t talk about it in front of you,” said Thea.
Flannery shot a quick, guilty glance across the table at her mother and Pete, then said, “Well, remember I wasn’t a prisoner there the way you were. They pretty much treated us lab rats like everyone else. But I didn’t know anyone very well yet, at that point.”
“Sounds like Mr. Fanatic was a prisoner there,” said Thea.
“I told you though, I don’t remember him at all. I don’t think we were there at the same time.”
“What about now that we know his name?” Thea asked. “Does Agnew ring any bells? Maybe as part of all that whispering about Lex?”
Flannery shook he
r head. “Not that I can recall.”
Thea sighed. “I don’t get it.”
“Let’s review what we know,” Nero said. He started ticking off facts on his fingers. “This guy Lex was a nurse at the lab. He may have helped Mr. Fanatic leave. Shortly after that he was fired or quit. And now a few months later, his neighborhood is targeted for a superhex demonstration, and he and most of his family are killed.”
“But Alecto was right, that’s a stupid way to murder somebody,” Thea said. “There has to be more to it.”
“What about these monsters?” Pete asked Thea. “Flan says this Lex’s boy was talking to you about monsters.”
“Daddy’s monsters, and Mommy’s,” Thea agreed. “And someone named Miss Wendy’s. No. Miss Wanda’s.”
“Well, was anyone named Wanda killed at Hemlock Heights?” asked Pete.
“That’s a good question,” said Thea. “To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about Miss Wanda until just now. We need to look that up.”
But Aunt Bridget slapped her arm again when Thea went to take out her phone. “Not at the table, you won’t.”
“Aunt Bridget, this is kind of important.”
“And it’ll still be important when we’re finished. I’ll excuse you from helping with the dishes so you can look into it.”
So Thea had to wait through dinner, and then pie, before learning that someone named Wanda Randall had lived next door to the Lexingtons. She’d been alone that day; her kids were spending spring break in Florida with her ex-husband and his new wife. Wanda was killed by another neighbor, one Seth Bates, who was now in custody awaiting trial.
Bates claimed it was an accident. He swore he’d only been trying to leave the neighborhood when Wanda came out of nowhere and threw herself in front of his car.
But Wanda had been on the sidewalk when he ran her down.
“If this Bates guy was under the influence of the hex, he probably won’t remember what happened,” Nero said. “But if they were really targeting people, the hex might have just been a cover.”
“So you think they deployed the hex, then sent people like this Bates guy in to kill their targets while all the confusion was going on?” Thea asked. “That’s an awfully elaborate plan.”
Lasting Fury (Hexing House Book 2) Page 4