Killer's Gambit

by Hermione Stark

  It was times like these that I wished that I actually had closer female friendships; people that I could talk to about this kind of thing, and maybe hatch a plot to figure out if Storm did secretly like me or not. I debated whether that to call Aisling or Deepika and ask to meet them for a drink this evening. But they would probably be working a shift at Luca’s in the evening, and I had to go and visit the Ronin nest. And what was I going to say to them anyway? Hey ladies, I haven’t bothered to come and see you or call you in three weeks or take any interest in your lives, but now I really want talk about a crush that I’ve got on my boss and I was hoping you could help me out? I’d sound utterly selfish.

  I resorted to letting myself slip into a little daydream about all of the delicious ways that Storm being in my bed the other night could have turned out. It would have been so intense, but the most amazing part would have been him holding me in his arms afterwards. That’s what I really longed for. To be held and cherished and be told that everything was going to be all right. That I was all right just as I was. And I wanted to hold him, to make him feel safe too, to tell him that whatever was bothering him would work out just fine. That I would magically make it so somehow.

  When I glanced at the clock on my phone again, I cursed and leapt immediately out of bed. Dammit! It was 10:00 am already. I guess that made up my mind for me. I was not going to do the walk of shame into the office late again. I sent Storm a text message telling him that I was going to be out on the field this morning trying to track down Finch Greyiron, the goblin, who I hoped knew something that would lead me to Zezi.

  Storm replied saying he wanted me to check in with him at the end of the day.

  Sure, I typed. I’ll update you on anything I find.

  I knew that what he’d meant was that he wanted me to come into the office to see him so that he could keep an eye on me, but what I meant was that I would just send him a text message when I was done to tell him whether I’d progressed any further towards finding Zezi. Or who killed her.

  I hummed to myself as I took a shower and then fed AngelBeastie and myself. It was a darned good job that I was in a mostly weird good mood these days, otherwise I’d probably be feeling a bit lonely and miserable right now. I liked my solitude but sometimes I got scared it might be forever. It would have been nice to be enjoying my breakfast with someone for company. Even if that someone was just a friend. Why was it so difficult for me to make friends? Probably because I didn’t bother to put much effort into it.

  AngelBeastie was perched on the chair beside me looking at me as if she could read my mind. The look on her face said, ‘who needs friends when you’ve got me?’ I giggled and tickled her under her chin.

  “Thank goodness for you Beastie, otherwise I’d be withering away by myself in here.”

  I let myself out of my apartment and Beastie followed me down the stairs to the ground floor of my building. I’d wasn’t allowed to keep pets, and I used to sneak Beastie down inside my satchel for fear that my landlady would find out. But such fears no longer plagued me. Let her try to evict me if she dared.

  The hunt for Finch Greyiron turned out to be far more frustrating than I had expected, almost as if the guy was avoiding me on purpose, which did not bode well for him. As a student in his third year at University College London, I had already tracked down the halls of residence where he lived yesterday. But when I turned up there, his dorm neighbor, a ginger-haired pink-faced guy who was yawning widely as if I had woken him up from sleep, told me that I must have just missed him. He could have sworn he’d heard finch moving around next door just a moment ago but now was nowhere to be found.

  I refused to let the guy get back to his bed until he had shown me a picture of what Finch looked like. The guy scrolled through his phone until he found a photo, which he forwarded to me. I hadn’t been able to decide whether Finch would be unattractive, as stereotypes said goblins usually were, or whether he’d be a handsome hunky fella given the ardent dedication and longing with which Zezi had addressed her diary letters to him. Finch Greyiron was neither. His photo showed just an average, skinny, brown-haired kid that nobody would look at twice.

  The neighbor had already told me yesterday that Finch was a quiet ordinary guy who kept himself to himself, so I didn’t waste time questioning him again. The psychic music coming from the guy wasn’t exactly interesting, and I had no reason to believe that he was hiding anything from me.

  The guy was able to tell me that Finch took his lectures in the building directly opposite the halls of residence where he was studying for a degree in biological sciences. The guy did not have a copy of Finch’s class schedule, but that wasn’t too hard to find after some asking around in the building and the library opposite. I managed to find out a few of the lectures that Finch was supposed to be in, and where he tended to hang out with his friends during breaks, so that was where I headed.

  But everywhere I went people told me that he had only just been there and now he was gone. I must’ve just missed him. I begin to feel like this Finch guy must know that I was after him, and that he was leading me on a merry dance on purpose. When I got hold of him I intended to teach him a thing or two about manners.

  All I had wanted was for him to tell me about Zezi, but now I was beginning to think that he was involved. Heck, maybe I’d flash my Agency identity card at him and force him to go into Agency Headquarters with me for questioning in a cold and ominous interview room. That would serve him right, having to explain to all his friends why law enforcement wanted him for questioning. It seemed to me that nobody knew he was a goblin, and so far I had done him the courtesy of keeping that quiet.

  By mid-afternoon I was sick and tired of the wild goose chase. I headed back to Finch’s dormitory room and I left him a hand written message taped to his door telling him in no uncertain terms that I expected him to call me or I would make things official. I decided to take a break and headed to a nearby cafe to grab a panini and some coffee, and to read Zezi’s diary more thoroughly.

  Dear Finch, she had began every single entry with:

  Dear Finch, It is so exciting to be at university. I never thought mama would let me go, but I made a deal with her that I would live at home to save money and babysit the kids during my spare hours and I would get a part-time job to help put towards the bills, and she said we’ll see how it goes. I miss you. I wish now that I’d had the guts to stand up to mama when she told me I couldn’t see you anymore. You were my best friend….

  Dear Finch, Lectures are really hard and I’m struggling to keep up with everyone else. The lecturer talks about stuff that everyone thinks is basic background information, but I’ve never heard of it before. And don’t have time to do all the extra reading because in the evenings I need to feed the kids and they won’t give me any peace and quiet. It’s a full-time job trying to keep the boys at home and doing their homework instead of out on the streets, where mama doesn’t want them to be. And I’ve had to turn down a couple of shifts at the cafe I’ve been working in because I had to be home with the kids. They didn’t like that. I think of you often, and how wonderful it would be to be able to give you a call. The boys used to love you. You could have taken them to play basketball in the park nearby. Maybe mama wouldn’t have minded that if she hadn’t found out about you.

  Dear Finch, They fired me at work. My boss was really mean. I think she wanted to make me cry, and I’m embarrassed that I did because it was such a shock when she said to me in the middle of the staff meeting that she had to let me go. Nobody else. Just me. Mama will never let me stay at university now. She said I have to drop out and get a full-time job. I wish I was like you. I wish I could run away and live your kind of life where people are powerful and free. Where life is exciting. Wish I had the guts to call you and tell you I miss you…

  Dear Finch, I’ve met the most exciting new people and they’ve offered to pay me to be a waitress and socialize at their parties. They’re your kind of people, and I secretly daydrea
m that one day I am going to bump into you at one of the parties and it will be just like old times… I’ve got enough money for the bills now but mama hates my job. I think she knows that I can’t be working a normal job and she’s suspicious of the people that I’m hanging out with. Why does she have to be so mean and worried and angry all the time? Why can’t she just trust me? If only you were here again. This time I would tell her to back off and leave us alone…

  It was all the usual heartache and joys and angst that I imagined any eighteen-year-old at her first year at university would be feeling when life was changing so much so quickly. Not that I would know. I had never been to university.

  It was odd to me that she had addressed the whole thing to Finch. There had been no mention of whether she and Finch had just been friends or in a relationship or anything in particular about Finch himself.

  The feelings I got from the diary did not offer any new leads. No hints of anyone dangerous that she had met, no visions of any of the events that she wrote about, and nothing more than wisps of the emotions she had felt as she had written the entries down.

  The diary entries ended suddenly. The last one was another entry addressed to Finch where she daydreamed about meeting him and having fun and dancing together at one of the parties that she mentioned, but most of it was just talk of her feelings and insecurities, with no mention of any names.

  By the time I finished reading it was just past 5:00 pm. Still daylight. Too early for me to go to the Ronins and too early for me to go to the back to the bar that I had met Marielle in to check that out again. Marielle had not called me either. She had not offered me her number, and I hadn’t asked for it given that she was a private citizen and a vampire to boot. I was being impatient. It had only been a couple of days and she probably didn’t have any news yet.

  I sent Storm a message saying that I was still chasing leads on the Zezi Shahidi case and that I would see him tomorrow.

  Feeling impatient to do something useful, anything at all, I ended up calling the cowboy. Ronin had said I could make use of the cowboy while investigating the case, and I had assumed he meant as a chauffeur.

  The cowboy answered his phone immediately. “Do you think vampires would be awake by now?” I asked him.

  “Sure thing,” he said. “They don’t like the daylight much but that doesn’t mean they’re not up in it. They don’t need much rest.”

  “Excellent! Can you meet me at University College London? I need a lift to the Ronin house.”

  I got myself a chai latte to go and made my way to the spot we’d agreed to meet at, outside of a big red crossed-shaped building called the cruciform. Five minutes later the cowboy rolled up in the Cadillac with American country music blaring. The sight put a big grin on my face. The guy really knew how to live big. I liked that.

  The cowboy got out to open the passenger door for me but I waved him away. I could darn well open my own door. But then a shout stopped me. I turned towards the source. A guy who was waving at me from down the street. It was Finch Greyiron.

  Chapter 9

  FINCH

  Finch had been eating crunchy nut cornflakes that morning in the kitchen of his halls of residence when the doorbell downstairs had rung. He had looked out of the window which overlooked the street and seen a very pretty blond haired girl outside, hoping to be let in. Innocent enough, if it wasn’t for the fearsome and authoritative way that she’d jabbed the buzzer as if she owned the place. Immediately, Finch had been on his guard, worried that she was here to see him.

  He had been right, as he’d realized a few minutes later when some idiot had let her in and she had knocked first on Finch’s bedroom door and then confronted his nosy neighbor Matt, demanding to know where Finch was. Finch had been standing behind the kitchen door just a few meters away from her, wondering what the hell she wanted.

  He had been careful, he knew he had, and there was no reason for anyone to have come looking for him.

  Even so, it was best not to hang around, so he had pulled his disappearing act. Fading, he called it. Fading into the air, becoming a part of it, a rare skill that absolutely no one must ever know that he had. It was certainly not one that goblins were known for, and nobody at his university even knew he was goblin. Humans were notoriously distrustful of goblins. As they were right to be.

  So Finch had faded into the air and drifted past the Diana girl and down the stairs, where he had re-materialized near the front door. He’d swiftly let himself out of the flat and made his way to the first of his classes that day. He had not expected the Diana girl to follow him, but she had, proving remarkably persistent. In the end he had followed her, first back to his room where she had left him a note, and then to a cafe where she had sat for two hours with her attention riveted to some book that she was reading.

  The note she’d stuck to his door had said that she worked for the Agency of Otherkind Investigations and she had insisted that he had better call her back or else she would be coming back in an official capacity. That had been jarring. But if she really knew what Finch was up to she would never have left a note to warn him she was after him. And if it wasn’t that, then what did she want?

  Whatever it was could clearly put his entire life and everything he had worked for in jeopardy since the Agency were involved. Not knowing what she wanted, Finch hadn’t been able to decide whether it was best to speak to her and get it over and done with or whether it was best to avoid her entirely.

  The cafe that she’d chosen was inside a bookshop, and very busy with students, so it had not been difficult for Finch to quietly take a seat some distance away from Diana and keep an eye on her. Growing bored after half an hour of watching her read that damned book, he had pulled his little fading act and drifted over her to see what she was so engrossed in. And gotten a shock.

  It had been a book full of handwritten letters to him. In handwriting that he would have recognized anywhere. It was Zezi’s handwriting. She had been writing to him!

  But before he could get a closer look, Diana Bellona had suddenly stiffened and looked around her in confusion as if she sensed his presence, which was impossible of course, since he was nothing more than air. But it had unnerved him. He’d backed off, drifting off to a quiet spot behind a bookshelf to resume his normal form before re-taking his seat at the other end of the cafe.

  He had been shaken. Zezi had been writing to him! What had she been writing? And why did this Diana girl have the letters?

  He had sat at his table with his fists clenched, pretending to read a book, but really with his mind in turmoil. The memory of Zezi was an unpleasant blast from the past, and one that left him feeling all kinds of things that he had thought he had left behind him.

  When the Diana girl had gotten up from her table, he had followed her down the street until a cowboy driving a pink Cadillac of all things had pulled up next to her. She had been about to get into it. She was leaving, and she was taking Zezi’s letters with her. Before he had known what he was doing, he had called out to her, and she had turned and seen him.

  And now she was striding towards him with her eyes narrowed as if she intended to grab hold of him and throw him down on the ground and arrest him. He took a step backwards, and she calmed down, perhaps realizing that he was not going to run away. Finch thought fast.

  “Hi!” he said brightly. “You’re the girl that left a note on my door, right? I tried to catch up with you earlier but you disappeared. Good job I saw you again.”

  By her narrowed eyes, he could tell that she was not falling for this. “You’ve been giving me the run round all day, little man,” she accused.

  Finch blinked. She could hardly call him a little man, being shorter than him by several inches and slender enough that it looked like the wind might blow her away.

  “Er, so what did you want?” he asked.

  She took a glance back at the Cadillac as if she was impatient to get going. The cowboy had got out and was standing by the driver’s door wi
th his arms crossed, watching them curiously. Finch felt like if he ran, the cowboy would happily run him down.

  “Since you’ve wasted my time all day, you’re going to have to come with me now,” she said. “I haven’t got time to hang around.”

  “Where are you going?” Finch asked warily.

  He desperately needed to know about Zezi but no way was he going to trap himself in a car that he might not be able to get out of later. Not without giving himself away. Something was off about this Diana girl, and he wouldn’t put it past her and her cowboy chauffeur to have more to them than met the eye. And if they really worked for the Agency there was no telling what sort of magic might be in that car.

  “Never you mind where I am going,” said Diana, and flashed him her agency ID card. “I’ll interview you on the way and drop you off at the other end you. You can make your own way home.”

  The look she gave him told him that she would not be taking no for an answer. And Finch needed answers from her too. The last thing he needed in his life was for the ghost of Zezi to mess it up.