"Gabriel doesn't want--"
"He's always been very careful to keep me out of anything that could land me in a jail cell." She smiled. "He'd hate the bother of replacing me. I understand he thinks it's unsafe for me to know more, but I'm asking."
At a noise from Gabriel's office, I turned.
"Go on," she said. "Just consider it. Please."
I said goodbye and hurried back to the office, where Gabriel had taken off his jacket and pulled a chair over to the chaise lounge. He sat there, watching the lamia, making no move to wake her.
The girl looked about sixteen with curly black hair, a thin face, and a thin body. No makeup. Dressed in a battered leather jacket, jeans, and combat boots. Not hunting, then. Just being a regular girl--regular fae.
I shook her gently, but she didn't move. When I pressed my fingers to her neck, I could feel a pulse. Barely feel a pulse.
"She's hurt," I said. "I don't see an injury, but help me get her out of this jacket."
He did, and at first I still saw nothing. Then, when I started turning away, I caught a splash of red on her white T-shirt. I looked back and it vanished.
"Olivia?" Gabriel said.
His expression told me he hadn't seen what I did. "I'm going to pull up her shirt."
He turned away. I tugged up her tee, but saw only unblemished skin and a beige bra. Then I caught it again: the blood. I stayed at that angle, looking out of the corner of my eye. The girl's torso flickered, and stab wounds appeared on her chest, blood everywhere. When I looked back, her glamour rippled, as if she was growing too weak to sustain it, blood and scales glistening on her skin.
"Gabriel?"
"Hmm?"
"Look at her out of the corner of your eye." When he hesitated, I said, "She's wearing a bra. Please look."
He turned, just enough to do as I asked. Then he blinked, and that small reaction told me I wasn't imagining things.
"She's been attacked," I said, dropping to my knees beside the girl. "She's using a glamour to hide it." I took the girl's shoulder and shook harder, trying to rouse her, and then said, "I'll get a cold cloth."
When I came back, the girl's eyelids were quivering, as she looked up at Gabriel, his hand on her forehead. She whispered, "Gwynn," and he pulled back quickly, but I hurried up beside him, took his hand, and put it back on her forehead, saying, "Please," and he tensed but nodded and crouched there awkwardly, his hand on her again.
"Gwynn," she said.
"Y...yes," he managed.
"And your name?" I asked, moving beside her and hunkering down. I reached for her hand, and she didn't hesitate to take mine, her skin cool.
"Not--not important," she managed. "But you're--you're Matilda. You glow. So pretty." Tears glistened in her eyes. "So lucky. So blessed."
Not sure about that, but I said, "You've been stabbed. Tell us what we can do."
"N-nothing. Dying."
"No," I said. "Let me get--"
"A first aid kit?" Her lips twitched. "An ambulance? Not for me. Just...just listen."
"Anything," I said.
Her eyes flickered open and shut, as if she'd used all her energy, and then she whispered, "Attacked. Not...not...wasn't..."
"It wasn't like the others? Not the same person?"
Her eyes glistened again. "Don't understand."
"Okay, sorry. Explain again."
"Not you. Me." Each word came slow, labored. "She...she wanted to help. Always wanted to help. Don't understand."
"She? Help?" I thought fast. "Aunika? Did Aunika do this to you?"
The lamia mumbled something unintelligible.
Gabriel leaned down over her, his face as close to her as he could get, though he seemed to grit his teeth to do it. "Did Aunika attack you?" he asked.
She opened her eyes, looked at him, smiled, and said, "Gwynn." Then her eyelids fluttered and she whispered, "Tell Toby..." Her eyes closed, and I gripped her hand tighter, leaning in--
Darkness. Light, darkness, light. Then darkness again. A hiss, not of anger, but of contented sleep. A warm body pressed to mine. Wrapping my arms around it and trying to get closer. A chuckle. A hand on my thigh, wonderfully warm hands. A voice, a young man's, saying, "Love you, too, Dami," and another hissing sigh, rippling through me. One eye open. Moonlight through a window. Cheap curtains. A mattress on the floor. A boy curled against me, and I was sighing and thinking, This is the best. I don't deserve it. But I'll take it. And I caught a glimpse in a broken mirror, and I saw the lamia, curled up with a young man in his late teens.
This is the best.
The best moment.
The best memory.
The scene flickered, and I was in an alley. I heard a noise and I stiffened and stifled a hiss. My eyes adjusted to the dark. I let them slit to snake form, but as soon as I did, I felt the cold of night. I opened my mouth, tongue darting out, sampling the air, catching a familiar scent before I shifted back to human, warming again.
"Stop hiding in shadow," I said. "Let's get this over with. Toby will be home soon."
"And you want to have dinner for him?" A sneering laugh in a female voice. "Do you like playing house with human boys, Damara?"
"This one? Yes. Very much. Skip the mockery, and tell me what you want. If you're offering to get me into Cainsville, the answer is no. I'm happy here. I'm safe here."
"No, actually, you're not."
A figure swooped from the darkness and I felt pain, incredible pain. Then I was lying on the pavement, and a voice whispered in my ear, "I'm supposed to do more, but I think that's enough. Sleep well, little Damara."
The vision ended, and I snapped back. I was on the floor. Well, mostly--Gabriel was propping me up, his fingers biting into my upper arms, anxious eyes over mine. I braced, expecting to be dropped, but he kept me there, holding me as he said, "I didn't try to bring you back. I thought whatever you were seeing was important. Or that it would be, to you."
I nodded, saying, "It was." His fingers went to my forehead and he exhaled softly.
"Barely warm."
"It was a quick one." I pulled up and looked at the lamia, dead on the chaise lounge. "Her name was Damara. There was a boy. Human. Toby. That's who..."
I trailed off, seeing Gabriel's expression of barely concealed impatience, and I gave a small, wry smile. I might hear that story and grieve for the girl who'd found a boy, found the best part of a very long and not very happy life, the girl who'd pulled forth that memory to comfort her as she died. Gabriel heard it and thought, Yes, yes, let's get to the important part.
"She knew her killer. It was a girl or a woman. Someone who knew what she was."
"Aunika?"
"It didn't sound like her voice or anyone I recognized. Damara was summoned to meet her attacker. She thought it was about moving to Cainsville. That was the entire conversation. She didn't see her killer. It was dark and the attack came from nowhere and-- No, wait. Her killer said she was supposed to do more, but she decided that was enough."
"Complete the ritual."
I nodded. "In my first vision, the lamia was...sliced open. This killer skipped that, which is how Damara survived to get here. She played dead."
But now she was dead, her glamour faded but not gone, leaving a girl covered in scales, a girl with a half-dozen stab wounds in her chest, a girl who'd used the last of her energy, not to get home for a final moment with her lover, but to cover her injuries with a glamour and get here to speak to us. Only we were too far away, and when we arrived, she only had energy left for those few final clues.
"We need to..."
I gazed at the body. We need to what? What do we do with a dead fae girl?
"I-I'll call Veronica," I said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
"She will fade," Veronica said after I explained. "If you leave her where she is, the glamour will dissolve and eventually so will she."
"Which is why the other lamiae victims weren't found." I thought of the bodies in the tunnel. I still needed to
move them. As for why they hadn't faded, I'd ask about that, too, later.
"I would presume she doesn't look nearly as human now?" Veronica said.
I glanced over. I'd put my jacket over her, but could see her features changing, becoming more serpentine.
"No," I said. "She doesn't."
"That will last only an hour or so before she's gone."
"Where does she go? I mean, her spirit. To the afterlife?"
Silence.
"Sorry," I said. "I'm not trying to break our agreement. I'm just a little...shaken up."
"We don't go anywhere, Olivia," she said softly. "That is one part of the human lore that's true, which is why I hesitated. I thought you knew."
"You don't go..."
"We have no afterlife. We aren't mortal."
"But you're not immortal."
"Not invulnerable, but most of us can live until we are killed or until we no longer wish to live."
"Oh." I looked at Damara. I thought of a girl whose best moment in life--her most treasured moment--was cuddling up with a boy and feeling loved. That was all she got. All she'd ever get.
"Is there...Is there anything I can..." I glanced at Damara. "No, I guess if she doesn't go anywhere, there isn't anything more I can do."
"There is, but you do not need to feel obligated--"
"What is it?"
"Take her someplace wild before she fades. Forest, meadow, even a farmer's field or a park in the city. We don't pass into another life, but there is something left, an energy, some small awareness, and if she's in a natural place, that remains."
"We'll do that."
--
We took Damara to Jackson Park. It was past midnight now, and Gabriel was able to find a spot to park, if not quite legally, and we carried her covered body inside the grounds. Damara hadn't reverted any further. This was her true form--human and serpent combined.
By the time we got her there, she was already fading. We found a spot and stayed until she was gone, and Gabriel managed, with some difficulty I suspect, not to check his messages until we were back at the car.
I slept at Gabriel's. It wasn't too late to go back to Cainsville, but I didn't want to spend my first night in the Carew house feeling like this, and if I stayed at my apartment, I'd only think of the house, of a magical evening gone so horribly wrong.
Come morning, we did go to Cainsville. We got there early, and we walked Melanie and Pepper to the diner, knowing it'd be almost empty. Veronica went with us, and a few of the elders showed up, and I could say they went to eavesdrop, but they seemed to be there as protection, taking tables around us, so we could speak in private.
We could, of course, have spoken even more privately at Veronica's house, but I remembered how much Pepper had liked her hot breakfast, and I thought that might cushion the news. She seemed a little better in Cainsville. Melanie claimed she'd spoken yesterday, and I hated to hurt her now. But they had to know.
I told Melanie and Pepper what had happened.
Pepper let out a whimper and said, in a breathy voice, "Damara?"
"I'm sorry," I said.
Another whimper, and she caught Melanie's arm. "Toby."
"I know." Melanie turned to us. "Damara had a...relationship with a boy. A small-time hustler." She made a face, clearly disapproving. "That's why she wouldn't come to Cainsville--she didn't want to leave him. Anyway, the two of them used to take Pepper for hot cocoa."
"Dami," Pepper whispered, her gaze dropping.
Melanie squeezed her arm. "I know, ee mikri mou."
"Did this boy know what Damara was?" I asked.
"I don't know. It wasn't safe either way, but Damara was a stubborn..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Damn it." Her voice cracked. "Stupid, stubborn--" She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and put her arm around Pepper.
"She said goodbye to you, Pepper."
Pepper looked over, slowly, at me, frowning because the voice obviously hadn't sounded like mine. Then her gaze turned to Gabriel.
He cleared his throat. "Before she passed, she mentioned your name. She said goodbye."
Pepper stared at him like a god himself had spoken. Then she launched herself across the table, dishes clattering as she threw her arms around his neck. Gabriel's hands were already on her upper arms, ready to push her off. But he only looked at me, nostrils flaring, as if he was trapped in a headlock. I mouthed, "Three, two, one," and then, having given Pepper her moment, carefully removed her, with Melanie helping. Around us, the elders looked pleased. Very, very pleased.
"Gabriel's right," I said, even if it wasn't entirely true. "Damara said goodbye."
We settled back in, and I told Melanie the rest. When I finished, she stared at me. "Aunika? No, that's--that's not possible."
"I don't know that she's behind it, only that she's the only one who fits what Damara said--that it's a she who seemed to want to help the lamiae. And it was a she who killed Damara, but the voice wasn't Aunika's, which doesn't exonerate her, because the killer seemed to be acting on instructions from someone else. Possibly the rogue Cwn Annwn."
"Wh-what?"
I updated her, carefully, leaving out Ciro's death.
"I...I don't understand," Melanie said.
"Which is exactly what Damara said," I murmured.
Melanie ran her hands through her hair. "It...it makes no sense. None of it."
"Damara's killer knew her. Knew she was a lamia, and knew some of you had retreated to Cainsville. Could the killer be another lamia?"
Melanie shook her head vehemently. "No. Never...I can't even imagine it."
Which might be what Damara meant when she said she couldn't understand. Why another lamia would murder her.
--
Later, I was lying in bed with Ricky, eating cold pizza and talking. The pizza was cold because, well, bed. Yes, it was the middle of the afternoon, but with our schedules, we took private time where we found it. He'd slept late after a Saturday night with the Saints, and I wanted to update him on the case, so I'd brought lunch to his place.
I started explaining at the beginning of yesterday evening. I didn't get far before Ricky stopped mid-bite and said, "Gabriel got you a house?"
"No, no. He--"
"I know--you'll buy it if that's what you decide. But he got the place ready for you. Bought all that stuff for you."
Ricky's gaze was averted, ostensibly fixed on the pizza as he pulled off another slice, but he didn't take it, just separated it.
"It was his way of saying thanks," I said. "And maybe apologizing for...the past."
He nodded, his gaze still on the pizza box as my gut twisted.
"I would insist on paying him back for the supplies," I said. "But that seems ungrateful."
"What?" He looked over, saw my expression, and pulled me to him. "Course you can't do that. You shouldn't. He was making amends and pushing you to take a step you weren't going to take yourself. Which is the best kind of gift. I just...I didn't expect that from him." A wry smile. "He's cutting into my gig--anticipating what you'll want."
Despite the smile, there was something in his gaze that made the knot in my stomach tighten.
"If it bothers you--" I began.
"If it bothered me, I'd take it up with him. It's good to see him paying more attention. Just...It's sooner than I..." He cleared his throat. "You should buy the house. He's right that it's a great investment. Live in it for a while, make sure there aren't any serious issues with the visions. You're not really an apartment dweller. You need roots. You need stability."
"You make me sound like a tree."
He chuckled. "You know flattering metaphors really aren't my thing. I'm just saying that a house is a good move for you."
Something wistful passed behind his eyes, and I felt a pang of alarm, but he pulled me to him, hands on my hips, mouth going to mine in a long, sweet kiss.
"That house makes you happy," he said. "I want you to be happy. Whatever it takes, because otherwise? Other
wise, it just doesn't work, and we'll both pay the price."
"I don't under--"
"Just trust me," he said, and rolled onto his back, pulling me on top of him.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I told Ricky the rest of the story, about Damara's death. Something in it gave him an idea, which involved going to Ioan's house. He didn't tell the Cwn Annwn leader we were coming, just pulled up at the gate. I swung off the bike, but before I could ring the buzzer, the gates opened, and l looked back to see Ioan pulling up behind us. He drove a Mercedes-Benz AMG, which looks like a damned ugly mini SUV best suited for grocery runs...and has over five hundred horses under the hood. All power. No show. I was impressed in spite of myself.
Ioan stopped just inside the gate and put down his window. Ricky opened his visor. "Just coming by to see the hound."
Ioan smiled. "She'll like that. Have you chosen a name?"
"I'd rather use her real one."
"I've been making inquiries, but as you know, we don't have much contact with other Cwn Annwn. They're very unlikely to admit to having lost a hound. I'm hoping a third-party source may be able to supply rumors, but--"
"Slow and unreliable. I'm going to the source."
The Huntsman frowned. "If you mean the hound, while I still have hopes you can repair her psychic bond, that will likely take even longer than--"
"I may have a shortcut. Now..." He waved toward the house. "Onward?"
Ricky drove up the winding drive while Ioan looped around into the garage. As we waited at the door, Ioan walked up and took something from his pocket.
"This will make it easier," he said, and handed Ricky a set of keys and a gate opener.
When Ricky hesitated, Ioan said, "So you can check on the hound whenever you want."
Ricky took the keys and opener. It was, in a way, like me and the Carew house. This felt natural, and part of him longed to embrace it. He just knew--as I did--that every inch we moved in that direction made the fae and Cwn Annwn a little too happy.
We went inside and paused in the front hall to take off our jackets.
"Will you stay for dinner?" Ioan said.
"Up to Liv." He glanced at me. "You're spending the night at the new house, right?" He turned back to Ioan before I could answer. "Liv is test-driving a house in Cainsville, for when her inheritance comes in. I think it's a good idea. Put down roots."
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