Why? I thought. The situation with Brynne was harrowing, but I’d witnessed far worse with no immediate repercussions. So why here?
Because I have damn shitty luck, that’s why.
Barnes hung up the phone. He nodded at Creed as he approached, but it was cursory as the captain’s world-weary eyes focused on me. They were searching and eager, as if he wished he could lift the answers right out of me. Yet, a tired wariness hung over the man that suggested he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear them. “Miss Nite.” He grabbed my hand. “We’ve had half the city out looking for you.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to cause a fuss.”
“Not at all. If someone didn’t cause a fuss once in a while, I’d never get five feet from my desk.” Barnes looked me over as he let go of my hand. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
Not expecting my honesty, he blanched. “I’m truly sorry about your friend.”
“Thank you.”
Barnes glanced at the uproar outside. “Seems the man was fairly popular.”
“Sal made a name for himself in the neighborhood. He was a good man. Kind. Generous with his time.” Just like Frankie. “He’ll be missed.”
“I’m sure he will.” Barnes paused before getting to the point. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but we need to know what happened. Where you’ve been. How this all went down.”
“Of course.” I repeated the story I gave Creed. “I was on my way to see you this morning. I knew Sal was worried so I stopped in to let him know I was all right.”
His stare was kind, but firm. “A lot of us were worried.”
I smiled briefly. “I appreciate that, Captain.”
He shifted his attention to Creed. “Go on, then. We’ll pick this up later.”
As Barnes turned away, Creed pointed past Sal’s office. He escorted me to the ring, and we stopped at the side of the platform. Creed climbed up onto the edge. He held the ropes open for me, and I climbed up and stepped through. If I’d been paying attention, I would have smelled the body long before I saw it.
Brynne was on her back, dead center of the bright blue canvas. Arms at her sides and legs stretched out, her skull was cracked and her chest torn open. Between the bruises and the dried fluids, what was left of Brynne was nearly one color. The gaping hole in her chest was fist-sized and messy. Its edges were jagged and charred. Blistered, blackened skin ringed the wound.
I may have killed her, but Reech had put her on display.
Instead of disposing of the body, and wiping away all traces of lyrriken DNA, he’d driven nails into Brynne’s extremities, just like she Ella and her children, just like Ronan. He’d left her; giftwrapped for me.
It was a sick, twisted olive branch.
No way was I taking it.
Creed moved in to stand behind me. “Who was she, Nite? Who was Brynne?””
“She was just this kid who used to hang around my neighborhood. She looked up to me, wanted to be like me. It was a long time ago.”
“Was she unstable?”
“She was clingy. More than normal, I guess, but I didn’t see it at the time. She used to try and impress me. It was annoying more than anything. When I left, it was sudden. Brynne didn’t want me to go.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “My leaving had nothing to do with her, but I guess she felt abandoned.”
“You guess? If the girl wanted your attention as badly then as she did now…”
“I was young, driven. Wrapped up in my own life. I barely noticed her.”
He didn’t reply, but I had a good idea what Detective Creed thought of my younger self. “Do you at least remember her last name? An address?”
“She didn’t have a family.”
“Homeless, then?” I didn’t deny it, and he took that for a yes. “I wonder what did it. What made her snap after all these years?”
That was easy. “Pain.”
I stood and turned around. Creed’s eyes on me were hard and curious. No. It was more than that. His gaze was challenging, demanding.
Understanding why, I didn’t flinch. “Go ahead, Detective. Ask.”
“Did you do this?”
“Is that what Barnes thinks?”
“No.”
“You?”
He didn’t answer.
Eyes defiant, hands clenched at my sides; I wanted to ask how he could think such a thing. How he could believe I would taint my dead friend’s name. How I could defile one of the few havens I’d ever known in this world. But I could, I thought. And if Reech hadn’t showed up, I very much would have. “No, Detective. I didn’t do this. When I left, Brynne didn’t have a single nail in her body. She was alive,” I lied boldly.
“Okay,” he nodded.
“That’s it? You believe me?”
“Until I have a reason not to.”
I deserved it, but Creed’s lack of faith still pissed me off. “You think I’m lying.”
“Maybe not about this.” I broke his stare with an angry laugh, and he gave it right back. “What the hell did you expect, Nite? You dodge my questions. You hold back. You vanish, claiming you were abducted—”
“I was.”
“Yet you remember nothing to help us find the person who took you.”
“Well,” I threw a heated gesture at Brynne, “Looks like that problem’s solved.”
“You’re not officially a suspect,” he said with strained patience, “but until you came into this case, we had one murder scene. One.”
“And the rest are my fault?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I took a second to smooth the bile from my voice. It didn’t work. “I hate what she did because of me. But I didn’t make her do it. I didn’t make Brynne kill. And I won’t take the blame for it. I won’t feel guilty for her crimes. I won’t go down that road. I can’t.”
His edgy stare softened.
It wasn’t enough.
I backed up a step. “You want a confession, Detective?”
“Go ahead.”
“I wanted her dead. I wanted revenge for the sick game she’s been playing with the people of this city. For the souls she destroyed. Given the time, I would have thrown procedure and the law right out the fucking window, and I would have staked the bitch out just like this. But Sal’s life was worth more than that fleeting pleasure. So I left. Brynne had a partner in the Chandler murders. Clearly,” I pointed at the body, “she pissed him off.”
His stare sharp, he grunted. “That’s been known to happen.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a joke, or if I just needed it to be.
Bending, I stepped back through the ropes. I jumped down onto the floor, and Creed followed. As I walked away, he came up beside me. “Where are you going?”
“Home, Detective. I need to shower.”
“Don’t leave town.”
“I’ll come down later this afternoon and give you a statement.”
“Fine. But that’s not what I meant. Whoever did this is still out there. The Chandler case—the case you were hired for—that’s still open.”
He can’t want me involved after all this? “What are you saying, Detective?”
Creed swept the edge of his jacket back as his hands rested on his hips. “I’m saying we’re not done. So take a couple of days and get your head straight. Hell, take a week. Then we’re going after this son of a bitch.”
I said nothing, and the intensity of his stare deepened as he waited for my reply.
This is it, I thought. This was my last chance. It was my final opportunity to walk away like I always did, like I had so many times before; like I did when Sal’s father died.
But what was left to run from? Naalish and the Guild knew where I was. Dead or alive, Ronan was gone. And I’d outed myself to a human. I couldn’t walk away from that. I meant what I said to both Evans and Oren. No more running. I had one home now.
I had one identity: my own.
“Okay, Detecti
ve,” I said. “We’re not done.”
Walking through the gaggle of police, I spotted Evans near the door. Our eyes met. His expression was polite and neutral. No one would ever know he was dying to ask if I was all right.
I gave him a nod. It was the best I could do.
Forty
I spent the night sitting alone on my fire escape, drinking until the sun came up. Then I shocked my rebellious waves by pinning them up into a nice bun. I put on a respectable black dress, low heels, and dark sun glasses. Taking only the necessities, I dropped them into my bag: a bottle of aspirin, my phone, my sidearm, my wallet, and an energy drink. With all the bases covered, I drove out to the cemetery. The day before, I’d spent three hours cleaning out my jeep. It still smelled of Sal’s blood.
One of the groundskeepers was at the entrance. I was early. He was opening for the day; pulling open the elegant, swirling wrought iron gates back off the road. I rolled down my window as he came over to the car. An older man with thinning white hair and a nice smile, he wiped the dirt off his hands onto his work pants and asked who I was here for.
I wasn’t sure how to answer. I certainly wasn’t here for Sal. Sal was gone.
I wasn’t here for his family. They didn’t even know me.
When I didn’t answer, he went on about how it was a light morning, with only three burials scheduled. He started rattling off names. When my posture changed, he stopped and gave me directions. The roads were narrow and winding, crossing up and down a cliché of gentle rolling hills lined with weeping willows and perfect green fields laden with row after row of various sized headstones. Considering the scope of the place, the grounds were exceptionally neat and well-cared for.
Air rushed in through my open windows, covering the stale blood-smell with the scent of freshly cut grass. Morning sun beat from a cloudless blue sky. The serenity and beauty of the place was undeniable, but my mood was far too ugly to care. The multitude of ghosts, drifting over everything like a living black sea, pushing their pain against me, wanting in; didn’t help.
I parked on a quiet road not far from the gravesite. Popping open the drink, I washed down five aspirin with half the can. There were no other cars on the surrounding roads. The service wouldn’t start for another hour. Grabbing my bag, I got out, leaned against the side of the jeep, and waited.
The hearse arrived first, then three black limousines. A parade of cars followed. They filed in from all directions; a leisurely flood of black-clad mourners. They crossed the grass with lowered heads and sluggish steps, as if their reluctant pace might somehow change their destination. Aside from a few faces I knew from the gym, most in attendance were unfamiliar. I recognized some of Sal’s family from the pictures in his office. Picking out his widow and children, I watched them fill up the white wooden chairs in the front row. If we’d had more time, I might have met them in person. Sal had invited me to dinner, more than once.
I should have taken him up on it.
His grandchildren gathered around their parents’ legs, all tidy in little suits and dresses. The youngest ones tried not to fidget and point at the casket as they struggled to understand why everyone was so sad.
By the time the priest had started talking, I realized I’d come as far as I could. It wouldn’t matter to anyone there if one more body was in the crowd. It certainly wouldn’t matter to Sal. The elders believed the magic of reincarnation was distinctive to dragons and their offspring. Whether or not a human soul was capable of such a thing, Sal’s was already long gone. All that was here now was grief and pain—in crowd-sized proportions.
One after the other, glistening new ghosts burst from the grieving funeral-goers. New fuel was pushing older trauma out to hover over the ground. I watched it mingle with what already lived in the cemetery, and ignored its call. My detection seemed stronger now. The depth of my absorption was greater. Too great, I thought, for all the emotions circling Sal’s grave.
Feeling the strain, I squeezed my eyes shut a moment. Keeping my mind closed to their existence would leave me with the mother of all migraines, but it wasn’t going to make the same mistake I did at Frankie’s funeral. That day had ended with me leaving the city and drinking for three days straight, with the lights off in a shithole motel room off the highway. Absorbing so much grief, watching young Sal die a little inside as dirt was thrown onto his father’s casket had been bad enough. Experiencing his pain as I turned down his plea to bring Frankie back from the dead had pushed me over the edge.
I thought I could stomach it this time. I was wrong.
So I stayed put, with my back against the jeep door, as more and more people gathered around Sal’s gravesite. I listened to the snippets of conversation and the sounds the breeze carried; the soft, gentle, background music, the priest’s monotone droning, the whining children, the eulogy by a young man who bore a striking resemblance to Sal’s father in his prime. I caught glimpses of the sobbing widow through willow branches and hunched shoulders.
I should have stayed home, I thought. Yet I needed to see, to know he was gone. I needed to feel the anger again. I couldn’t let it fade. Not this time. If I’d held onto it after Ronan, even after Evans’s brush with death, I would have been more careful. I would have been sharper. Sal would never have gotten hurt.
That’s why I’m here.
A car pulled up behind mine. Recognizing it, I shook my head. The door opened, and Oren stepped out in a three-piece black suit that implied he was here for the funeral.
I knew better.
Buttoning his jacket as he walked over, Oren stood beside me and put his back against the jeep. After a moment of quiet, he grumbled, “Barbaric custom. I’ll never understand the human need to express grief in public over a soulless body. And they go out of their way to make themselves sad. Just listen to that music…”
I wasn’t in the mood to debate with him. “What are you doing here, Oren?”
“I brought you that special hunting tool you asked for.” He slid a small cardboard box out of his pocket. “It has limits, so be sure he’s in town before you use it. Though, at this point, I don’t see a need.”
“Reech isn’t dead.”
“Does he have to be?”
Taking the box, I dropped it in my purse. “Thanks.”
“When we spoke yesterday you said you had something to show me.”
“I didn’t mean here.”
“I thought it was important.”
I frowned at him. “So is this.”
Lips pursed, he tried to sound patient. “Of course.”
Relenting, I took out my phone. I hadn’t planned on bringing the necklace to Oren in person, anyway. I couldn’t risk having it out in the open, not until I knew why Reech wanted it. Pulling up the pictures I’d taken of Ella’s necklace, I handed him the phone.
Oren tilted it to avoid the strong sun. As the picture became clear, he murmured an inquisitive, “Oh….”
“You know what it is?”
Scrolling through the series of photos I’d taken, he glanced up. “It’s a necklace.”
“It’s an eye.”
“Well, yes.” There’d been a sense of omission to his voice, like Oren wouldn’t have admitted that tidbit if I hadn’t already known. “Any idea whose head it might have come from?”
“The parts of many important elders have been preserved over the years.”
“Is there a way to find out? A log or record, a dragon-parts lost and found or something?”
Oren’s jaw lifted. “Why is it every time you get a pain in your head, little barbs develop on your tongue, words leave your mouth, and suddenly I’m the one with the giant pain—in my ass?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m well aware.” Oren crossed his arms, and I waited for the reprimand. “I wish you would let me help. At least try taking what I gave you.”
“I don’t need pills. I’ll lay off for a couple of days, and the headaches will go away. They always do.” I snatched my phone
back and threw it in my bag. “I think Aidric gave that necklace to Ella Chandler. Brynne stole it when she killed Ella and her family. Seems like, she originally took it for Reech, then went on her little rampage, and for some reason, never gave it to him. If all the players were human, I’d say Reech was upset his father was giving gifts to his secret love child and not him. Maybe he thought he had a right to the necklace or he wanted to rub it in Aidric’s face.”
“But Reech isn’t human.”
“And this isn’t just a necklace. So whatever the eye symbolizes, whatever it’s supposed to do, I need to know.”
A little less surly, Oren gave in. “I’ll put some quiet feelers out.”
“Thank you.”
“You know I help where I can.”
“And you know I’m grateful when you do.”
“Yes, but there’s a line, Dahl. And we’re both walking it with this one. If I cross it for you, it could very well bring the wrath of Naalish or Aidric, or both, raining down on me. I could lose my position with the Guild, conceivably my life. So I need you to be absolutely certain this is the best course of action.”
I stared at him. I kept the surprise off my face, but my thoughts were churning. I could see it in his eyes: Oren wanted to tell me ‘no’. He wanted me to drop the whole thing and move on. It wasn’t merely a suggestion or a gentle tease, or even a warning that I might be treading on dangerous ground. I was used to all that coming from him. I wasn’t used to outright manipulation. Playing on my sympathies so I would tell him ‘never mind, it isn’t worth it’, only made me more certain that it was. It also meant his motives were more complicated than simple fear or worry. And why wouldn’t they be?
Underneath his kind, upper middle-aged human exterior, Oren was a highly trained Guild mage, hundreds of years older than me. As I thought back on all the positions he’d held, all that he’d seen, and all of the secrets he’d come to know, I began to wonder how well I really knew Oren Parish at all.
“I don’t want to cause you any trouble,” I said, playing his game. “I can look into it myself.”
Nite Fire: Flash Point Page 41