“If she is still there she will be.”
Contemplating her statement, I wondered about their connection. These two were certainly old and powerful but I could get no read off exactly what they were. Sending in the cavalry to take on Frankenstein could prove to be a really bad idea.
Or a really fucking great one, dummy. They look like the really damn big stone you get to kill two birds with.
Maybe they would end up killing Bliss too.
Looking down at my new tattoo, the interlacing lines now gone and the sword more prominent, there wasn’t much else I could say.
“Will you keep me updated?”
They both seemed surprised. “Absolutely.”
“Then we have a deal.”
16, Leaving Thesauri, I felt like I accomplished a lot. With an ally that possessed some actual legit power, I gained new confidence.
Even if I never saw them again, it didn’t matter. I had my sword.
Staring mindlessly at my new tattoo as we drove, I couldn’t help but smile. Eric and I hadn’t spoken since we walked out of the shop, my mind completely on the newest addition to this insanity.
The next time I looked back up we were back at the office. I turned to Eric.
“We're here?” I said. “I thought we were going to….”
“I have something I have to take care of.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke, something seemed off about him but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Gathering up my things, he made no move to embrace me as I got out of the vehicle and took my laptop out of the trunk. I did my best to drape my coat over the sword, hoping it wasn’t visible. Before I could get to the driver’s side door to say goodbye he honked his horn and drove away.
Standing in the parking lot like an asshole, I watched him drive away until he went out of sight. That damaged part of me that clung to a shitty relationship screamed to call him, chase him down, probe until I got the response I wanted. But logically the rational part of me knew that wouldn’t solve anything.
And he still has your pain meds.
Dragging myself back into the office, Ramona looked surprised to see me. Smiling and nodding felt difficult but I managed a passable expression and got into my office without her following me. Putting all my stuff down I slithered over my desk and started rummaging through my drawers for some sort of pain medicine. I’d settle for Midol if I necessary.
My hasty ransack came up short, so I went into the break room and began going through the cupboards.
“Whatcha looking for?” Ted’s sing song voice made me jump.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.” I turned and smiled at him. “You don’t have any pain killers on you, do you? Eric split and he’s got my meds, and my neck is screaming in pain.”
He shrugged. “Sorry kid, maybe ask Ramona. I thought you guys would be gone most of the day, I‘m surprised to see you.”
“We went and did some things, and he said he had to take care of something and dropped me off.”
“He didn‘t say what or where he was going?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“That's weird for him?”
“A little.”
“Did he mention Chris sending him out for something?”
The odd query about his partner made me pause. “Nope.”
“Well, maybe text him in a bit. Cuddy has been talking about having Maritza over for dinner and I thought it would be nice if we all ate together.”
Opening my mouth to speak, I quickly closed it. Perhaps they were right, and I needed to find a way to accept the fact that this Maritza character wasn’t going anywhere. Immediately I thought of calling Millie, but decided against it.
“Alright. We can do that. I got a random question for you. Have you ever heard of Gabriel Kinkaid? “
His head tilted to one side. “Elliot Kinkaid’s brother. What about him?”
“I was just curious what you knew about him. What he does for a living, is he local, shit like that.”
“Well, that's an easy one. There's nothing to know. He's been dead for, well, I want to say fifteen years? But maybe it‘s been longer. Why? Where did you hear that name from?”
I shrugged. “In your Dad‘s files. I‘d never heard the name before so I was curious.”
“Not much to tell really. “ His phone beeped, he quickly checked it then stood with his coffee in hand. “But we can talk about him on the ride home if you want.”
“Sounds good.” I followed him back towards Ramona‘s desk, he waved as he continued on back to his office.
Smiling big and showing off teeth, I leaned on the side of Ramona‘s desk. One of the most retro things in the office, a ledge for people to sign forms or other random things sat about a foot above the actual desktop. It reminded me of something from the 1960s.
“Hey, do you have any pain medicine by any chance?” I said sweetly. “Eric has my pills and he went out and I am in quite a lot of pain.”
She nodded quickly, opened the top drawer of her desk, withdrew one of several bottles of pills, shook two into her hand and handed them to me. “You’ll have to wait a few hours to take any more, but I can send you home with a couple to tide you over until he brings your meds back.”
I smiled warmly, closing my hand. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Quickly squeezing my hand, the phone started ringing so I took that as my chance to bail and started down the hall. I stopped at my door for a moment, considering something, and then continued to Eric’s office.
The door sat slightly ajar and I quietly peeked inside. No sign of him reappearing, and a quick glance around it looked like he hadn’t been here at all even though I knew he had. Going inside, I sat at his desk and began to rummage around. When I opened his top desk drawer sure enough, I found a small earwax orange plastic bottle with a white lid that I quickly shoved in my pocket. Beside it sat a phone number written on the back of a business card, the ink terribly smudged to the point that I almost couldn’t read it.
But I would recognize Bliss‘s number anywhere. Quickly flipping the card over, Ren’s neon logo looked like a giant warning sign.
Why would the demon give that phone number to Eric?
Taking a photo of both sides of the card, I put it back where I found it. Maybe it was innocent; the demon spoke about him before. Maybe it thought it could be sneaky.
Or maybe Bliss was crying out from inside for help.
I left his office exactly as I found it, dry swallowing the pills Ramona gave me on my way back to my office. As soon as he saw that the pills were gone he would know I looked around, but I didn’t want him to think I’d been snooping.
Once my door closed, I considered tracking his phone. I couldn’t keep doing this; I didn’t want to be that person again. Having an adult relationship meant behaving like an adult; my inclining towards jealous teenage bullshit wasn’t attractive. So I decided my time would be better spent doing other things, first off keeping up my end of the bargain by sending Otrera and Shae that information.
It took some time for me to scan all the papers Lemme brought me. When I previously read them the info hadn’t really processed, but now at second glance I could see my friend's descent into madness plain as day. That made me sad. But this would be that mermaid's best chance of survival without starting a full out war.
So what are you going to tell Lemme, genius? Hey, I found two chicks that, well, I don’t know what the fuck they are, but they are going to rescue the mermaid. And don’t worry! It was part of the bargain that I got my sword with so I'm eighty five percent sure they will honor it.
It took longer than it should have for me to realize that Eric may have an issue with me having the sword. A pretty clear sign that the pills kicked in and I could avoid deep thinking for a while.
Easing back in my chair I got super lost in my th
oughts until the phone rang.
“Hey kid.” It seemed like forever since I'd heard Kiera's voice. “Staying out of trouble?”
I laughed. “Never! Why? What’s up?”
“I have to tell you something really important. Are you busy?”
“Nope. What's up?”
“Are you sitting down? Maybe you should go get Ted.”
“Oh balls. Who's dead now?”
“No! No one. But there has been a development in Jesse's case.”
“A development? What do you mean?” I swallowed hard, biting back my anxiety.
“Well, we arrested this prostitute recently. She was more than just a prostitute, she was a stripper and a porn star……wait, are you ok to hear this? I don’t want to upset you.”
The first line of that bitch's email burned into my thoughts. “I'm fine. Just tell me.”
“OK so, we had been watching this girl for a while. We got a tip that she had been drugging guys to get them to stay with her, a concerned mother called us worried about her son. So we went to check it out, and caught her red handed over top of a body.”
“What does this have to do with Jesse?”
“Well, we got a search warrant for her place and her phone. Not only did she have photos of Jesse on her phone, but she had his ID, and the silver promise ring you gave him in eighth grade.”
I'd forgotten all about that stupid ring. “How do you know it was his?”
“Because your name is engraved in it, silly. Why would I say it was his if I didn’t know for sure?”
Wow. Had the le Fay set that up or was it just a random coincidence?
“Holy Shit.” All I could manage to say, my mind gone so fucking blank I almost forgot how to speak.
“I know, right? I know it’s a lot to process, but this is a good thing. She will be brought to justice. And maybe it will bring you some peace.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I thought it might help you knowing he didn’t do this to himself.”
I know that. He's dead because of me.
“Camille? Camille? Are you ok?”
Shaking my head, I said, “Yeah. I'll be alright. Keep me posted on the whole situation. Can you tell me her name?”
“It'll be on the news in the morning but as long as you don’t go try to scoop the story.” She chuckled at her preposterous statement. “Her name is Amanda. Amanda Foster.”
I sighed. “Of course it is.”
“You know this girl?” Kiera chuckled. “Of course you do.”
“Remember the illegally obtained brothel video from before?” She groaned as I continued. “That's Amanda. Jesse was having an affair with her.”
“Great. What do you know about her?”
“Not a lot. Stripper, whore.” I thought about the last thing Jesse said about her, whether or not I should mention it. “Jesse told me some story about her drugging his food to keep him there, and he would start withdrawing when they were apart for too long and he’d go back. Sounded like bullshit to me.”
“I gotta run, kid. We'll talk more later.” Kiera hung up before I could continue.
Putting my phone down on my desk, racing thoughts made me stop. I leaned my elbows on the tabletop and held my head in my hands.
Considering everything that happened to me, you'd think that when fate pointed me in a direction that I wouldn’t be surprised anymore. And this, this was a clear and obvious sign from somewhere that Jesse would have died anyway.
It still messed with my head, the knock at my door bringing me back to reality.
By the look on Ted's face I knew that he talked to Kiera. Grabbing my stuff, I crawled out from behind my desk.
“Ready to go home?” He put his big warm hand on my shoulder. I nodded slowly. With my eyes pointed down I followed him out to the car.
Closing my eyes as Ted drove, I leaned back and with my neck supported on the headrest, the vibration of the moving vehicle actually felt good.
“You ok?” Ted's voice was oddly quiet.
“You talked to Kiera?”
He hesitated. “Yeah.”
“It’s the girl from the brothel. The one from the video Q took. I think you got video of her too.”
“Oh good.”
I opened one eye and turned to him, “I'm not sure she did it.”
“That’s for the police to figure out. Did you hear from Eric at all?”
“Nope.”
“You haven’t mentioned Millie lately. Everything ok on that end?”
Nope. “Sure. But it’s like I said before, she’s my Mom's people. Doesn’t mean she’s mine.”
“I knew your Mom pretty well, and for a long time. If Millie was your Mom's people, I am sure she would have been mentioned it least once and I had never heard of her until you told me who she was.”
Letting that statement process, I paused for a while before saying, “Valid point.”
The car stopped moving, and I opened my eyes and we were home.
“Do you need help?” Ted asked as I opened my door.
“I'll scream if I do.” He laughed as he got out ahead of me, standing by the hood of the car waiting as I slowly got out. He watched me with a big silly grin on his face, like I was learning to ride a bike or something.
“I was hurt, not broken.” I told him as I linked arms with him, my laptop and purse slung over the same shoulder and my coat draped over the sword in my other hand.
The house seemed empty, with an odd stillness that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Does something feel off to you?” I asked Ted.
He stopped, stood silently for a moment, and then said, “No. Seems fine to me.”
Nodding my acceptance, I took off my things and continued into the house. But that feeling, which now tingled up my arm, I couldn’t shake.
The familiar click of a can opening, and I knew Ted settled in front of the TV and I could walk the house alone. Leaving my coat downstairs, I hid the sword behind my back as I quietly walked around.
A quick check and I found nothing. When I got back to my room and closed the door, just for the hell of it I summoned the sword.
It felt completely different to when I summoned a ghost, more powerful and far less scary.
But it burned. My new sword shaped tattoo burned like a brand and I doubled over in pain. My fingers closed around the heavy metal hilt, and something inside me surged to life.
Smiling, I wiggled my fingers again and the sword disappeared, back into the scabbard on my bed.
I sat down beside it, pulling out my phone to call Eric. It rang three times before he answered.
I heard a bunch of loud noises before he said, “Hello?”
“Hey.” Staying quiet for a moment, I tried to identify some of the noises. “We're at home now. I didn’t want you to go back to the office if you didn’t have to.”
“But I have to go back to the office to get Cas.” His voice sounded oddly flat.
“I am Cas, silly.” I tried to chuckle. “Didn’t my name pop up on your call display?”
“What? Cas? What are you talking about?”
I stayed quiet for a minute, listening to his background noise, “Where are you?”
“I'm driving. I can’t talk when I'm driving. I'll call you when I am home.” Click.
That was weird.
Stashing the sword under my bed, I went back downstairs to grab my laptop to track his phone.
17. Quickly grabbing my laptop, I opened the software we'd used to track Jesse's phone. It felt like eons ago that Q, Lemme and I went on our little adventure but it really wasn’t. It amazed me that so much crazy could happen in a matter of months.
As I input the information my phone rang. Sighing, believing it to be Eric, I picked it up wit
hout checking the call display.
“Hey, what happened?” I said.
Millie chuckled. “I was hoping you would tell me.”
Crap. I debated what to say, finally deciding on, “Oh. Hey.”
“C’mon, Camille. You can do better than that.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. That boy of yours was being a dick. I just wanted to scare him. That's all.”
“That's all? Camille, you could have really hurt him.”
I groaned loudly. “Don’t be so dramatic. I would have stopped before he got seriously hurt.”
“I don’t want to argue with you. I called because I'm worried about Eric.”
“Why? What did he do?”
“Is he with you?”
I hesitated. “Not at the moment.”
“Well, where is he?”
“I am actually trying to figure that out as we speak.”
She got quiet, and I heard a male voice in the background. She growled, and then said, “Ledo wants to know if you guys went to Thesauri.”
“Not important right now. Why are you worried about Eric?”
“He's been off lately. Somethingdoesn’t seem right about him.”
“Since when?”
“Since….well, since the accident.”
I laughed. “We've both been off since the accident, Millie.”
“You, yes. But him, this is something else.”
“Something else like what?”
“I know what you’re going to say, but maybe the demon….”
“Urgh, my God! How many times to I have to tell you? The demon is GONE!”
“Well, I don’t believe that, Camille.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because it’s never that simple!”
Moving the phone away from my face, I debated my next move. Hanging up on her seemed logical, but if something ended up being seriously wrong with Eric, I would need their help whether I wanted it or not. But in no way would I knuckle under. Not for a second.
“I don’t know what to tell you. To the best of my knowledge, the demon is no longer an issue. I’ve not even seen a trace of it since that night we had the showdown with Nikki Frankenstein. Maybe she trapped it somehow.”
Rise (Camille Bishop Book 3) Page 9
