The Severed Thread

by Dione C. Suto

  “Well,” I said slowly as I tried to decide how direct to be with him. I had a feeling it was going to get ugly no matter what so, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that. I leaned forward in my seat.

  “Maybe I don’t think you are a very good friend. You were supposed to be Jason’s friend, right?” I asked without giving him a chance to answer. “But I think you know something about who killed him or at least why he was killed. So what is it Harvey, friend or foe?” I sat back in my seat, crossing my arms loosely in my lap. He gave me a calculating look for a few pregnant moments before bursting out laughing.

  “You’ve got some nerve for a stuck-up bitch,” he said. Wow, we had come a long way from the guy who essentially asked to be my date for Jason’s funeral. “All those years spent trying to get a toe hold into the circles you and your idiotic brother moved in and for what? To be ridiculed behind my back. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said, pointing at me angrily before a sly look came over him and he leaned towards me. “But I finally found my opportunity and from the most unlikely source. I bet you’ll never guess from whom.”

  “I could probably make a decent guess.”

  “Oh, I doubt it,” he said meanly. “And I suggest you stop nosing around, or you might just find out the kind of people you're messing with,” he threatened as he grabbed my arm and wrenched me against his chest. “And don’t for a moment delude yourself into thinking those wolves watching your door will be enough to protect you.”

  “Let go of me,” I said through clenched teeth as he squeezed my arm painfully. I wasn’t sure what to think about his knowledge of my extra security arrangement with the pack. Not that I should have been surprised since he was obviously up to his eyeballs in whatever was going on.

  “On second thought,” he mused, his liquor laced breath billowing right into my face. “Keep nosing around. I’d like to have a little taste of elf before I turn you over to be gutted.” He suggestively licked his lips, leaving little doubt in my mind as to what type of taste he planned on getting.

  “You wormy piece of shit,” I spat at him as I pushed him away roughly. I’d obviously underestimated him up until now. You could be damned sure I wouldn’t make that mistake in the future.

  “It will be a cold day in hell before that ever happens!” I shouted as my temper flared. My berserker, who had over the last few minutes been slowly rousing from the stupor Brant had lulled her into, growled loudly and threw herself against the barrier. A grating sound slipped from my lips and everything in our immediate vicinity was bathed in the red light coming from my eyes.

  Harvey stood and scrambled backwards so quickly that his chair tipped over. He visibly made an effort to conquer his fear in the face of the predator staring at him from behind my eyes. I growled as I stood, leaning towards him to better take in his scent.

  “You smell goooood,” I rasped, nostrils flaring at the scent of his fear. In fact, the smell of his alarm was so heady it was nearly intoxicating. I watched, somewhat detached, as Harvey looked around to see if there was any help coming. Most of the adjacent groups had stopped talking to watch our exchange. I imagined that Andrei and Luca were here somewhere, or maybe one of the giants would step in to help him, but everyone else appeared afraid or unwilling to get involved.

  I laughed, and out of my mouth came a low guttural sound that was so foreign, so harsh, that surely it was never meant to cross my lips. I had the fleeting thought that I might be about to cross a line I could never recover from if I couldn’t pull back from this madness. The idea of further confinement instantly subdued my berserker. She stopped banging on the walls and stomped off to a corner of her cell to sit on the floor, her chest heaving in anger and frustration. “You fix!” she screamed at me. “You fix this!”

  I staggered as she spoke, dumbstruck. She had never spoken to me before. Hell, she had never spoken at all before!

  “And here I thought all that talk of elves and berserkers was just fairy tales,” Harvey said, eyeing me warily from beside his fallen chair. “But you can’t let your crazy beast out can you?” he mocked now that he had regained some of his composure. “Then you’d have to spend the rest of your life locked up with the rest of the slavering lunatics. I guess that’s how come Jason didn’t let his out when he was being gutted like a pig.”

  I jumped to my feet as another rush of adrenalin hit me but my berserker was having none of it.

  “You fix, you fix,” she whispered over and over while pitifully rocking herself, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. I wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted me to fix but she didn’t seem interested in ripping Harvey to shreds, at least not at the moment.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Keltan?” The stony faced bouncer from the VIP entrance was back. He looked from the overturned chair, to Harvey, to me.

  “No, no problem Frank but Abigail here was just leaving.” he said.

  I nodded my head, not trusting myself to speak. That my berserker had talked to me had rocked me. Hard. I needed some time to digest before I would be able to push Harvey further. I hadn’t discovered anything that would lead me to whoever ordered Jason’s murder but I still felt I had learned a lot. Now it was time to cut my losses before my berserker decided to stop playing meek. As I made my way out of the VIP lounge, I looked back to see that Andrei and Luca were with Harvey and all three were watching me. Harvey was animatedly talking, his arm making large frustrated gestures. I couldn’t tell if he was explaining himself or complaining. Either way, it didn’t bode well for me.

  I moved in a daze as I headed for the stairs, trying to process the impossible. My berserker had spoken! It said actual words instead of the usual roar and screech. What the hell was that all about?

  A hand touched my arm and I recoiled.

  “Are you okay?” Samantha asked, concern written all over her face. I sagged in relief.

  “I need to get out of here.”

  Samantha took me home, plying me with questions about what had happened. I filled her in on my eye-opening encounter with Harvey. I wasn’t ready to talk about my suddenly verbal berserker yet.

  “I’m sorry Abigail,” she said softly. “I can’t believe that he threatened you like that.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I was never in any physical danger. If anything, he was the one taking risks. If my beast had broken free, he would now be nothing more than quivering little bits of flesh strewn all over the lounge.”

  “And you would be on your way to a new permanent home in a padded cell.”

  “Good point.”

  By the time she pulled into my drive, I was feeling together enough to at least reassure her that I was okay.

  “You seemed really upset at the club, are you sure you’re okay?” she said as I reached for the door handle. “I can come in for a little bit and we can talk.”

  “I’ll be fine, really,” I assured her, unfolding myself from the passenger seat. “There are two wolves lurking around here somewhere, so if I need anything, someone is close by.”

  “Like you said earlier, you are not in any physical danger, it’s the mental danger I’m worried about. I don’t think you should be alone.”

  “I just need to sleep and then meditate in the morning. I promise, I’ll be fine.” I knew she meant well but I needed to talk to Naris and I couldn’t do that until she left.

  She finally consented to leave and I made my way inside the house. As soon as I saw the lights of her car exit the driveway I called out into the stillness.

  “Naris.”

  “I am here,” he said from behind me.

  “It spoke to me,” I whispered, my hands shaking. “No, no, that’s not right, she spoke to me!” I couldn’t very well keep calling her an it when she could talk. An it didn’t talk.

  “Who?”

  “My berserker!” Wasn’t he listening? Who else would freak me out like this?

  “Ah.” He didn’t seem surprised. Why wasn’t he surprised?


  “That’s it?” I yelled. “That’s all you have to say?”

  “What would you have me say?”

  “I’d like for you to tell me why you are not surprised!”

  “Why would I be?”

  I gave him a mutinous look. He wasn’t getting away with that this time.

  “Abigail Lassiter, your berserker is sentient,” he said chidingly. “That should not be new information.”

  “I knew she understood a certain amount of things but why is she suddenly speaking?” I was pacing, unable to figure out why she would choose now to talk to me. After all, she had been around as long as I had and she had never spoken before. Berserkers who spoke were the stuff of legend.

  “The elves prior to the plague were able to communicate with the vessel of their inner rage.” I blinked at him in surprise. I had been so caught up in my shock that I hadn’t thought of that.

  “Yes, but I’m not an elf from prior to the plague.”

  “No, you are not and yet your beast spoke to you.” He looked like he was waiting for me to figure something out. And it took a moment for the implications to sink in. I thought back to the flicker of understanding that had flashed through my berserker’s eyes when I did my last large scale containment repairs. Was it possible? Was I the first elf to have spoken with their beast since the plague had hopelessly cut us off? I collapsed onto the couch and leaned my head back against the cushions. Naris settled next to me and took my hand in his.

  “Abigail, I was sent to you for a reason,” he said as I looked at him. “Nothing extraordinary that happens in your life will ever shock me.” He placed a cool hand on my cheek. “It would be more surprising if nothing amazing happened.”

  Chapter 27

  My eyes felt heavy and gritty. I blinked several times, taking a bleary eyed look at the ceiling while trying to figure out why I was awake. A two-tone bong resounded through the house. Was that the doorbell? I rolled over and groaned, looking at the clock beside my bed. It rang again, this time a staccato, bong, bong, bong-bong. It was only six-thirty – who the hell was ringing my doorbell at this hour? Seconds later the phone on my bedside table vibrated. I snatched it up and looked at the Caller ID. My eyebrows furrowed as I read the name – Jamison. It was one of Jonathan’s wolves that could be regularly found guarding my door.

  “What that hell is going on out there?” I grumbled into the phone.

  I heard what sounded suspiciously like a stifled chuckle before a deep baritone replied, “Ms. Lassiter, Agents Smathon and McCabe are outside. They seem anxious to speak with you.” I noticed the inflection change when he said ‘anxious’. Something must have developed in Jason’s case.

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, suddenly alert. “Can you tell them I’ll be right down?”

  “Will do,” was his only response before the line went dead.

  I leapt out of bed and hustled to the bathroom – three minutes later I bounded down the stairs with freshly brushed teeth and my hair thrown in a twist. I opened the door in a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt with what I hoped was a genuine appearing smile pasted on my face. My confidence stumbled and my smile quickly withered around the edges when I looked at the agents – McCabe appeared grim and Smathon smug. Not a great combination. Whatever they were here to discuss, I wasn’t going to like. I took a deep breath and tried to regroup as I fought the impulse to shut the door and pretend they weren’t there. I was enough of a realist to understand that shutting the door was completely pointless. It would just start the doorbell and phone ringing again.

  “Good morning agents, won’t you come in?” I stepped back from the door and swept my arm into the foyer. As they moved past me into the house I noticed that out on the porch Jamison was texting on his phone; updating the pack-master about my early morning visitors, no doubt.

  I turned back to my uninvited guests. “I’m guessing by your expressions that I’m not going to enjoy what you have to say.”

  “Several witnesses place you at The Holwer last night.” I blinked. Ah, alright. Talk about absolutely no lead-in and was that even a question? I decided to answer as if it were anyway.

  I nodded slowly, “I was there with Samantha last night.” I saw McCabe’s eyes sweep to Smathon before he continued. I was guessing that they already knew the answer to the question before they even asked it. They just wanted to see how I would respond.

  “Several people reported seeing a woman with silvery-blonde hair having a heated disagreement with a man at the Howler around eleven forty-five or so. The man fits the description of Harvey Kelton.” I didn’t need him to tell me who fit the description of the blonde woman. They wouldn’t be here unless they suspected it was me.

  “Was the woman you?” I was getting a bad feeling about where this was going.

  “Yes,” I admitted, unable to keep the hesitation out of my voice. “What is going on? Why do you care if I had a disagreement with Harvey?”

  “Because at a little after three this morning a patrol car found him sitting on a bench, holding his head in his hands about four blocks from here.” McCabe was looking at me intently as he relayed this little tidbit but I wasn’t getting the problem. Why did they care if he was sitting on bench in the middle of the night? It was odd but surely not against the law.

  I must have looked perplexed because Agent Smathon stepped in to clarify with an ugly smile on his face. He seemed to be truly enjoying himself and that made me even more apprehensive.

  “He had been positioned on the bench with his hands palm up on his lap holding his decapitated head.”

  “Oh my God!” I gasped. I could feel the color drain from my face at the visual that evoked. Unfortunately, now I understood. I had envisioned Harvey sitting on a bench bent over, elbows on his knees maybe, holding his very attached head in his hands. You know, like someone with a headache. Not for one second had I considered what Smathon had just described.

  I put my arm across my roiling stomach. Harvey’s death in and of itself was not overwhelmingly upsetting because admittedly, I detested the man. But decapitated? Who would do that? The same person who had casually gutted my brother in my driveway, that’s who. The thought made my skin crawl but what really freaked me out was that I suddenly realized why the agents were really here.

  They were here because I had opportunity. It happened right down the street. Not to mention I also had an apparent motive since we had had a public disagreement the night before. Shit, shit, shit-shit, shit!

  “I think I need to sit down,” I said as I turned to go into the living room. They followed without comment.

  Smathon started in with the questions as soon as we were seated. “What were you arguing with Mr. Keltan about, Ms. Lassiter?”

  “I thought he knew something about Jason’s murder. When I asked him about it, he denied knowing anything. Then instead of his usual attempts to ingratiate himself, he took a completely different track and threatened me.”

  “Threatened you how? What did he say exactly?”

  Exactly? I had to think for a minute. “He suggested that if I wasn’t careful, something bad might happen to me.”

  “What did you think of that?”

  “Harvey is…,” I stumbled over the word, “was a slime bag.” And no, I did not feel the slightest bit bad speaking ill of the dead. “But, I always considered him more talk than action. I accused him of being involved, or at least knowing something about what happened. I wasn’t afraid of him initially because he had always seemed more interested in getting into my pants than anything else. But last night, he was different. He was more aggressive and confident than I had ever seen him in the past.”

  “After you left the Howler, where did you go?”

  “Home… here.”

  “Can anyone vouch for that?”

  “Just the guards at the door.”

  “We already checked on that,” Smathon said. “They admitted that while they do perimeter checks they don’t
keep someone continuously posted at the back of the house. You could have slipped out and been back without them knowing.”

  “Could have done is different than actually doing,” I felt it was necessary to point out. “I never left the house.”

  Smathon opened his mouth to comment further but was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. I left the agents to wait in the living room while I went to get the door. My eyebrows rose in question as I ushered Corbin into the house.

  “Jamison texted the pack-master,” he said.

  “Ah,” I nodded in understanding. I had suspected that was what Jamison was doing but not that Corbin would show up.

  “Remind me to thank him later.” I kissed Corbin on the cheek in greeting. “Come on, my guests,” I muttered, “are waiting in the living room.”

  “Agents, this is my lawyer Corbin Greenbranch. Corbin,” I said, waving in the general direction of the sofa, “this is Agent McCabe and Agent Smathon.”

  “So, you decided you needed a lawyer,” Smathon all but sneered when everyone was again seated. “If you didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Keltan’s murder, why the lawyer?”

  “As you must have noticed, I haven’t had an opportunity to call anyone.” He knew that. What was wrong with him? “Since he’s here now, let’s continue, shall we?” Smathon opened his mouth to speak again but Agent McCabe put his hand on his arm interrupting.

  “What time did you get home?” McCabe asked.

  “Around one-thirty or so. We left the club and Samantha dropped me off.”

  The questions went around and around, finally ending with a warning from Agent Smathon not to leave town.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured him as they were leaving.

  I shut the door on the two men and leaned my forehead against the door. This was not good.

  “Anything I need to know,” Corbin asked softly from behind me.

  “You don’t think I had anything to do with this do you?” I breathed, turning around to face him.

  “No,” he said, sounding like he thought I was an idiot. “But, you have to admit that there are a number of out of control things going on in your life at the moment. I was more thinking along the lines that you might have additional information about why Harvey was killed.”