His face was impassive and his voice without heat as he said, “Did you not notice the increase in violence lately? The cutthroat and more bloodthirsty nature of the syndicate now?”
I blinked, knowing there was only so much I was free to discuss with him. But yes, we’d all noticed the increase in violence. “Who runs the gang now?” I asked so quietly I was sure he wouldn’t hear me.
His gaze was laser focused on mine as he said, “Anne Bonny, and make no bones of it, lass, jewels are the very least of what she’s wanting.”
I knew Anne. Anyone in law enforcement knew Anne. The mad rose, she’d been dubbed ages ago. She was a pirate with the uncanniest ability to always slip right through the cracks. Slippery like an eel, she was, flaunting all her crimes in law enforcement faces, getting captured yet even so, somehow always managing to evade the hangman’s noose.
“Are you telling me”—I placed my hands on my hips and leaned slightly forward—“that the syndicate that is, for all intents and purposes, a group of shifter crows, is now being run by an interloper?”
He grinned, and the sight of it made my knees go weak, because he looked so much like my old Hook—swarthy, handsome, and just a little bad.
“Interloper?” he said. “Did you not know then, lass? She was Black Angus’s only daughter and his first mate to boot. She’s no interloper. It was a coup.”
I blinked. I’d not known that. In fact, I doubted anyone in law enforcement did. “Black Angus never had a child.”
“Aye. He did, lass. Kept her under wraps because of some deep, dark family secret. But she was. And she overthrew him.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll accept that.” I held up my hand. “But none of that explains the magick. Anne’s not a wit— ”
He cocked his head, thinning his lips, and my blood curdled in my veins because I knew that look.
“No,” I whispered.
“Aye. She is, Ellie. She is as dark a witch as they come. And what she’s got planned next will rock the hundred realms to its knees. I’m telling you, lass, that I know what’s coming down the pipeline, and if you’ll let me, I can help you bring the Slashers down.”
CHAPTER 31
DETECTIVE ELLE
THERE WAS a loud rap at the door, and I twirled just as Bo entered with a squad of well-armed cops behind her. My heart skipped a beat. “Already? But I wasn’t— ”
“Transport’s five minutes out, Elle. Good work. Take him to the cell.” She pointed at Hook as she spoke to the group of guards behind her.
A large and rather terrifying ogre we’d all affectionately coined Fluffy—on account of the fact that he was absolutely not—grunted as he approached Hook.
“Gently, Fluffy. Not that I should have to add that caveat,” Bo snipped, “but…”
The tusked and green-skinned ogre grunted. He’d been on the job less than a month and still had quite a bit to learn about managing his strength.
I said nothing, but I felt sick and stupidly emotional. I watched as Fluffy pulled Hook upright.
So much of it just felt so wrong, but I couldn’t stop it, either.
Hook went without argument, only looking at me as he was slowly led out of the captain’s office and back toward the underground and warded jail.
I told myself to feel nothing. But my insides were rioting, and my mouth tasted of cotton. I breathed gently through my nose and out through my mouth, telling myself that even if it was him, it wasn’t him.
Not really. He and I had been so long ago. That version of the man I’d once loved, it wasn’t the same. I’d sensed it, felt it. Once upon a time, Hook and I had been like one soul. That was gone. It was gone.
Closing my eyes, I forced myself to turn back toward Bo’s desk and forget about him. She was staring at me with a pinched look, a thousand questions burning in her eyes.
“If you need to ta— ”
“I’m good, Captain,” I said, voice strong. Though my insides ached. I squeezed my fists tight by my sides.
She grunted. “Well then, good job. I’ll send Mulan and Rip to follow up on the Anne Bonny angle.”
I thinned my lips, staring hard at the blunted curve of her desk.
“You’ve done good work, Detective. You should be proud. Much of what he said in here made a certain kind of sense. We’d suspected for a while that there’d been a shift in gang leadership, and the uptick in violence is a deadly reflection of it. Hook being part of the syndicate, his story of a bloodthirsty pirate manning the helm, it ticks all the boxes for us. The clues we’ve been missing, it all aligns, so why do I sense hesitation in you?”
I clenched my jaw and turned toward her. “I don’t like it.”
Sitting slowly, she spread her hands over the desk. “Explain, please.”
I shrugged, not even sure how to put it into words. “It’s… it’s a feeling.”
She snorted. “You’re going to need to give me a little more than ‘It’s a feeling.’ You know the commissioner wants this case closed. And right now, Elle, I won’t lie—things are looking pretty good from where I’m sitting.”
“Yeah, that’s just it. His story is too perfect. I mean, it’s so damned flawless, and you and I both know that’s not how cases go.”
“Sometimes they do. Sometimes you actually can tie a nice neat bow on things. This isn’t just about the case, though, is it? Not really. It’s because it’s him, right? Maybe you should take some leave. Get your head on ri— ”
I jerked, snaring her gaze with mine. “No. I don’t want it. And unless you force it on me, I’m fine right where I am.”
She tipped her head. “Fine. And just to alleviate your fears, we’ll question him further, see if we can’t make the connection between Midas’s gala and Whiskers’s rampage and if we can’t have someone from the inside link these crimes together.”
I snorted. “And the fae stronghold. And why he claims that I was the focus of the attack at Midas’s gala. That makes no sense at all. Yes, I’m a powerful siren. But other than wanting to lock their arses in jail, I’ve got no personal feelings on the gang one way or another. But if what he claims is true, then Midas is likely lying or withholding information from us.”
She pursed her lips. “Hm, you might be right. But are you claiming that he, too, is involved with the syndicate? That he created that event to help set up your takedown? You know if I even hint at that with Commissioner Draven, that another royal acted badly without incontrovertible proof, this will go down like— ”
“Fetid whale blubber, yeah. I get that.”
She snorted. “Not exactly what I was going for, but basically.” Her lips thinned to a tight razor line. “I’ll call the hospital, reach out to the medical chief, and see if we can’t get Maddox released tonight. You need sleep?”
I shook my head.
“Good, because I wasn’t planning to give you any. With Hook in custody, Draven is gonna be up our asses more than ever to shut the syndicate down. You have an established kinship with Midas. Use it. Go back there and make him talk. “
Nodding, I made to go, but her words stopped me.
“And Elle?”
Glancing at her over my shoulder, I lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I snorted and smirked. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Captain.”
“Yeah, right.” She grinned.
There was a sudden knock at the door, and instantly, we both dropped our grins.
“Captain Bo, is this a good time?” someone with a deeply cultured voice asked.
Turning, I stared straight into the face of an immortal. Draven was a throwback to a different era, another dawn.
His body was tall and lanky, his face smooth but alluring. He was strangely beautiful with his razor-sharp cheekbones, piercing light-brown eyes, skin the color of warm umber, and long, beautiful raven’s-wing-black hair that he had tied back with a silky red ribbon. He wore a long black coat that fell to his knees and a bloodred cravat much l
ike Hatter’s. I’d never actually seen the commissioner in person, but there was no mistaking who the man was.
He simply oozed vampiric elegance.
“Detective,” he said in the hypnotic drawl of his people before gliding past. I shivered at his nearness. I might be a predator that most of the hundred realms feared, but I’d hazard a guess that my death count and Draven’s weren’t even within the same vicinity. You wouldn’t know it, though, to look at his public records. Marcel Draven was probably the only vampire with such a squeaky-clean record. But he was rich, and he had the ear and loyalty of the ultra-elite on his side.
“Elle, shut the door behind you,” Bo commanded. “Draven, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
If one didn’t know better, one might actually believe the captain happy to see the vampire. But Draven was no fool and chuckled robustly. “All lies, but that is neither here nor there at the moment, Captain. I’ve been told you have the one known as Hook in your custody. We must talk.”
“I rather thought we would,” she murmured.
I heard no more after that, as I finally shut the door. I extracted my travel card and swiped it through the air. Thanks to the high-priority capture the Slashers had become, all detectives now had access to the enviable golden key cards. I was so damned spoiled.
I stepped through the transdimensional tunnel back into the witch’s hospital and shoved open Hatter’s door.
The room that had once been an idyllic nighttime garden was now cold and white and sterile. The bed was made, and there seemed to be no one around.
I frowned. “Maddox?”
“Elle?”
Whirling at the husky sound of my name, I saw him standing in the corner, gathering up what few items had come with him. He was still only in his black trousers and was completely shirtless. I’d forgotten that we’d come here straight from the gala.
He looked confused. “What are you doing here? I was only just discharged.”
I wasn’t sure when Bo had issued the order, but clearly, she’d meant business.
My gaze roamed up and down his muscular form, and without stopping to think, I walked over to him, took his hand in mine, and pulled him into me, hugging him hard.
He was tense at first. “Elle?” His voice was unsure and surprised. “What is this, eh?” he asked at my sniff.
Overcome by emotions I didn’t quite know how to handle right then, I buried my face into his chest and trembled all over.
He stopped asking me for an explanation after that, only hugged me tight and murmured thickly, “It’s okay, Detective. Whatever has been done, you’re okay now.”
Feeling the heat desperate to leak from the corners of my eyes, I squeezed them tightly shut and nodded miserably. I needed to get a handle on my emotions. Right now.
I cleared my throat and grunted several times before I trusted myself to speak. “I’m… I’m fine. But I do need coffee.”
Tipping my chin up with his thumb and forefinger, he nodded slowly. “Okay, partner.”
Biting down on my back teeth, I forced out a smile I wasn’t feeling. But I’d be feeling better soon enough. “After that, we make a quick detour to my waters. Are you okay to— ”
“I’m fine, Detective. Don’t worry. I’ve been lain up long enough.” His eyes were shaded and pinched. I knew he needed his soul back, and I would give it to him tonight. Then he’d be good to go again.
With a nod of gratitude, I stepped out of his arms, cleared my throat, and held my head up high. We grabbed our coffees, mine with several extra shots of calm, before we headed to my grotto to retrieve his golden soul.
I watched him as he slipped the soul back into his body. His entire frame gave a rolling shudder, and the gray tint that had perpetually hooded his mouth and eyes in the hospital instantly vanished. For a split second, his pores radiated like candlelight from the inside out. Then his soul settled in, and he was simply Hatter once more.
“You ready?” I asked, retrieving my key card from my inside jacket pocket.
And just as I made to swipe, he said softly, “Elle, I know you’ve noticed— ”
I knew what it was. I also knew there was no time for it. I shook my head and gave him a soft smile.
“Think nothing of it, Maddox. The truth is, we all have our skeletons.”
He closed his mouth, eyes looking worried and unsure.
I nodded. “I’m your partner. I’ve got your six, just as I’d hope you’d have mine. Does your soul impact our working relationship in any way?”
He looked thoughtful before shaking his head.
I knew it was the triple shots of calm that were affecting my mood. I’d always heard coffee called a drug. Now I knew it was true. The stuff they served at the Witches’ Beans was nowhere near as mouthwatering as what Georgie made, but I was growing an addiction to it all the same. Because Georgie’s wasn’t pure magick.
“Then that’s what matters. Not us, right now. The case the only thing. If you’re ever ready to tell me what you are, I’m ready to listen. But until then, we have to stay on task. The noose is tightening. I can feel it.”
I swiped the key card and opened a tunnel. We didn’t speak again until we’d stepped within.
Hatter glanced at me, and I sensed none of his earlier unease. My words had clearly helped him compartmentalize, and I was glad of it.
“So what do we know so far?” he asked.
That was Maddox’s way—he’d think through our cases like a chess match, looking at past moves to help him create a likelihood of what future moves would look like.
Lifting up my hands, I ticked off what I knew already.
“One, the sands, which seems relatively open and shut. The sands are how the Slashers are enchanting their… let’s just call them zombies for now. Cognizant to a degree but asleep.”
Though I thought of what Hook said and thought maybe sands hadn’t been used on him at all.
He tipped his head. “It might behoove Ichabod to try to trace where the particular sands are coming from. Could help us create a sort of grid, where they are bound to meet. They’d have to gather more sand at some point, surely.”
I nodded. “He has, actually. He even showed me all the grains he’s found.”
“And?”
“Nothing. I can normally trace even a granule of sand to a nearly perfect location, but this stuff, it was just nothing, as though there was no point of origin for it, no mineral content in it, very little in the way of personality.”
“That’s very interesting. Maybe in this case, the lack of identifiers is actually the clue?”
I shrugged. “If I could speak with my sister Anahita, I could probably figure it out. There is no one who knows more about water-based sediment than her.”
His eyebrows twitched. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“I have six, actually. And I doubt she’ll help, but I could try reaching out to her, though she’d daddy’s little pet and loyal to him to a fault.”
“Worth a shot.”
“I guess.” Thinking of my family I could no longer see usually filled me with a sense of profound and aching loneliness. Though Father and I didn’t get on at all, it had been quite different for my sisters and me. We’d grown up with a very tight bond between us, and when I’d been exiled, they’d been the only ones truly broken up to see me go.
The coffee was truly a wonder drug. I almost smiled at feeling nothing.
“What else?” he asked, nudging me with his elbow and drawing me out of my head.
“Erm. ” I shook my head to clear the thoughts and said, “Obviously, the fae.”
“Not proof positive that those two cases are one hundred percent connected,” he said deeply.
“Mm, ” I wiggled my wrist. “The fact that Whiskers was at both crime scenes is more than a little coincidental.”
“At the very least, it warrants our time to dig a little deeper into it,” he murmured. “What else?”
Thinning my lips, I did a
mental catalogue of what I knew so far. “Midas probably deceived us.”
He pursed his lips. I hadn’t yet told him about that latest development.
“I spoke with Hook right before coming to fetch you.”
“Ah,” he said as though he’d finally understood something that had been nagging him, a long and rolling sort of sound. Not ah so much as ahhhhhh .
“And he mentioned that he’d been sent to take me out, basically.” I shrugged.
At this, Hatter’s dark eyebrows lifted high on his forehead. “Excuse me? You? But why? What have you to do with the Slashers?”
“Beats me.” I held my hands up in the universal gesture of “How the hells should I know?” “That’s what he claimed, anyway. I’m not sure whether I fully believe him. Though he does appear to have more of his memories intact than Whiskers does. Which brings us to the dragon. Two different bloody scenes he’s witness to.” I held up two fingers. “One is the bloody remains of something large that had been killed outside his nest. But at the other, he’s an active participant of the slaughter. Then that rolls right into the fae stronghold—something was stolen. What?” I shrugged.
He shook his head. “At the very least, it would be worth chatting with the queen about this.”
I thinned my lips. “Titiana isn’t the most forthcoming of fae. She sent me out there without a guard. I could have been killed. I don’t think she would have cared.”
He snorted. “You’re quite levelheaded about your near extermination.”
I grinned. “I know, right? It’s that witch’s brew. Anyway…” I flicked the nonsensical tangent away. “And last but certainly not least, Draven came.”
“And that’s of note because?” He let his question dangle.
I snorted. “You clearly have no experience with vampires. Somewhere around their five thousandth year of life, they begin to petrify. Immortal but not.” I wiggled my hands. “Which means it takes something truly significant to cause them to leave their self-imposed prison. He came. It’s significant.”
“Okay,” he said as he scrubbed at his jaw. “Okay. I think I’m spun up now.”
“Good. Because we’re here.” I turned, and the tunnel opened at the same moment.
The Grimm Files Collection Boxed Set Page 43