“Two things I need from you. Where’s the library and where’s your physical-record room?”
He could see the thoughts traipsing over the kid’s face. But as Berrick hoped, the youth held their tongue. Berrick was aware that the library was no respectable place for anyone, let alone law enforcement. A den of perversity frequented by all manner of scum who didn’t want their actions and proclivities seen. But that was precisely what Berrick needed, a place to research that wouldn’t easily be tracked.
More importantly, so would Silvia and Halis. They hadn’t come here to live, so presumably there was some sort of information here and if nothing else, they would need to research where to go next. The library and its security footage were the best place to start. The spiders were too paranoid of being followed to be caught with net-glasses.
For the first time, he had a leg up on them.
∆∆∆
“What do you mean, gone?” Darith asked, sitting in his chair. He set one hand on the spotless reception desk and glared at the skinny girl in her crisp, white uniform.
“The paperwork says she was checked out, sir.” The woman leaned as far back in her chair as it would allow without tipping backward. Her eyes darted about, presumably searching for support, and she picked up a pen, wielding it like a magical object capable of making him see reason.
“Impossible,” Darith said, bending toward her. He smiled as he imagined prying her eyeballs from her skull with the pen she clutched. “My wife has no one to check her out but her father and me. Her father is off-world. So either this place is incompetent in keeping records and Marim is in her room or it is even more incompetent and you let a stranger take my wife. And my family will have this whole place shut down.”
“Sir…”
Darith growled and clenched his fist. The woman’s hands lifted to her throat and pawed as her jaw silently moved.
“Woman, I am not interested in what your paperwork says,” Darith continued. He stood, leaning over the counter slightly and tightened his fist. He hardly noticed the darkening of his skin anymore. “Tell me the facts. Is my wife in her room?”
The woman shook her head, the whites of her eyes large. Her nails made little scratches on her throat.
“You know this? You’ve seen?”
She nodded.
“Were you here when she was removed from the facility?”
She shook her head.
Darith opened his fist. The woman gasped and sputtered behind the desk. Darith waited a beat for her to still before continuing. “What name was she taken under? She did not get up and walk out.”
“Your name, sir.”
Darith tasted the metallic glory of her blood and held his smile frozen on his face. If she stayed there, looking helpless, useless and defenseless, he doubted he could retain control. Little spider voices screamed to drink her death. “Kill her, eat her, show her our strength.”
“Find me someone who saw her leave, or I swear I’ll burn this place down. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Go.”
Marim’s absence didn’t make sense. Halis and Silvia had not returned. He would have felt that in the dark remnants they left behind. Nor were they dead, so Berrick would not have come back. Who else had any interest in Marim? The count and countess disapproved of Marim being held in a public institution. But it would cause a scandal to remove her like this. They would never invite scandal.
So who? And why?
Darith struck the desk with his fist.
Access to police records would be great, but without Berrick, Darith had no power to investigate. He didn’t even know how.
The first woman returned with another in the same crisp uniform. It was not a nurse he recognized. That was worthy of note, as visiting almost daily, Darith knew all the nurses in the little ward.
“You’re new,” he accused before she said anything.
“Just transferred, sir.”
How long had this been in the works? How long had they been waiting to steal Marim? Who were they?
“The person whom you allowed to steal my wife, what did they look like?”
“There were three men there,” the new nurse said. “The one who cleared our system as you looked, well, like you only in a wheelchair. Our records say you can’t—”
“I couldn’t. Now I am perfectly able. Looked like me how?”
“Dark hair, dark skin, young. He had that look, sir, the way all nobles look, as if…”
Darith glanced down at his hand, only to note the assessment was valid. His pale aristocratic skin had darkened not just slightly but as if a thick shadow lay over him.
“Yes, how do nobles look? Do continue.”
“Like they’re just daring you to question them so they can crush you.”
“Honesty is good. Anything else?”
“One thing, sir,” the woman said. “A rumor, but they say he came in a hover-car. All the girls twittered about it.”
That made even less sense than anything else. Hovercars were illegal to buy or sell on Yahal. He knew few people who could afford to import one, considering the astronomical import tax. His parents possessed the wealth, but it couldn’t be them. Why would two people so image-conscious risk the social censure that would come with such a flagrant transgression of propriety? No. Whoever this person was, they had not been sent by the count and countess. But who else would come here with an air of nobility and wealth, interested in Marim?
Chapter 7
Windows & Night Walks
Even dead and leafless, the tree stood tall, barely stirring in the Veesp colonies’ heavy winds. Allison stared out at the witch-finger branches, yearning evident on her face. She ached to throw open her bedroom window and leap to the branches, to see if she could reach. She’d had a similar tree outside her parents’ mansion growing up, and she’d dreamed of climbing it, of having the strength in her limbs to swing from branch to branch like a monkey.
The Agency had given her strength, but the dream had disappeared, and now her employers wanted her dead or they wouldn’t be withholding information. She’d looked into Berrick’s comment about Halis being a monster but found nothing. Perhaps it was metaphorical, perhaps not. Either way, it didn’t change her goals. Something clawed in her chest, demanding she leap from the fourth-story window and trust to the fates.
She threw the window wide, letting the wind whip into her face. Her fingers stretched out, but her fingertips brushed only brittle twigs. The distance to the stronger branches was too far to leap, and she doubted shimmying up the trunk would fit the image she needed to build.
No, no one could travel from her window to the tree. And the only beings who seemed capable of bridging the gap from the tree to her room were a plethora of spiders. Even a hovercar could not have accessed the window—they could not hover that high in the air. The room was ideally situated for her purposes, even allowing her to leave her window open and not fear intrusion.
The spiders were a drawback. She’d considered calling maintenance, but in a dive like this, she didn’t want to deal with obtaining adequate help. And she’d take the spiders in exchange for a fresh breeze and birdsong—both luxuries even the wealth of The Agency couldn’t buy.
With another deep inhale of air, Allison retreated into the dim apartment. Everything was set in place. Objects seemingly carelessly thrown were placed with meticulous care. Should anyone enter in her absence, she’d know it. As she exited, she angled the door until it was at the precise degree she desired.
She strode to the kitchen counter and swiped up a set of secondhand net-glasses. The type she imagined a girl like ‘Lilly’ would own. She absently wiped at her right temple. No physical sign showed of her net-implant, but putting on the glasses she missed the instant access.
Her net-implant was turned off, as it had to be on all missions. She could only store bits for upload. She added a note regarding the location of Halis’ home and the best prospec
tive hiding places.
Then she picked up a small notebook and pen. Here she jotted by hand, her handwriting easy and fluid. These words were not for The Agency and she needed to get them down before she forgot. She’d already written up her Agency report on the incident. She’d written it five nights before on the night that it happened and set it in the queue for upload.
Followed Halis from the nightclub. Took me a while to get free, but in the end, he was easy to locate. Where, after all, would someone go in the slums to engage their prey? I still hoped at that point that perhaps the girl had survived…
Allison remembered as she wrote, and goosebumps lifted on her arm.
Outside the club was mostly empty industrial district, but in the distance, she saw a line of trees. Pulling her black cloak around her whiteness, she darted into the darkness. In and out of pools cast by the streetlamps, she trod carefully, keeping to the shadows as much as she could.
It was not until the deep shadows of the woods embraced her that she relaxed. She threaded through the trees slowly. Then the scream shattered the night air around her, and she flattened against the nearest trunk.
Already? She hadn’t anticipated he’d go directly for a kill. The trunk she clung to was ambivalent to her and to the screams. Allison calmed her breathing and waited. The agonized sounds tapered off. She stared at the sky and counted stars until her instinct told her it was safe to approach.
When she did, each step was placed so as to not stir so much as a leaf. When she came to the place, following her recollection of the origin of the sound, the girl’s body was ripped open, an arm thrown against a tree, separated by a good foot from the body. Eyes stared at Allison, glazed with death but still retaining terror and betrayal.
Allison touched her net-glasses and dialed the local law. It was a relief to let her voice tremble, as was its natural inclination. The arm had not been cut free… It was something else. Something she didn’t understand. Allison crept forward, all her weight on her toes so her stiletto heels didn’t catch in the soft dirt.
At the woman’s side, she kneeled. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the numerous stab wounds punctuating the corpse. This was not a clean kill. From the blood around the wounds, most of these had been made while the woman had still been alive. But how? What weapon made those marks?
“Sick bastard,” she whispered.
After a deep breath of woodsy air, Allison reached out and lifted the sequined skirt. Underneath, the lacy undergarments were relatively blood free and in place. He didn’t rape her, Allison thought.
The pen dropped to the countertop. Allison turned it and pushed it back an inch before picking up the book and tucking it into her purse for safe keeping. Her fingers trembled, and she wiped them down the cheap fabric of her dress.
That is the fate The Agency wants for me. To date, the fact Halis didn’t sexually violate his victims was the only consolation she had. If she failed, the death that awaited her was not pleasant and the weapon used in the murders still eluded her.
It wouldn’t matter so much if she had been hired to simply kill Halis. But her instructions were to gather information then get close and gather more. She couldn’t do this task at a distance.
The glowing numbers on her kitchen clock startled her from her thoughts. Writing had taken longer than anticipated and she had to dash to catch the public transport hover bus.
It wasn’t far to her stop, but she needed to show up by bus. She couldn’t let the diner know she’d already put a contract down on an apartment. It was better they thought her desperate rather than that she expected them to hire her.
The interior stank of cheap grease and instantly Allison could feel it clogging her pores, seeping into her hair. A chubby, older woman frowned at her from behind the counter. She gripped a stained counter cloth in her calloused hands. Allison smiled, lowering her eyes and looking up timidly from beneath her lashes.
“Yer Lilly, ain’t ye? The girl from the city, called ’bout our help ad?”
“Yes,” Allison said. “Is the position still available?”
It didn’t matter. She could convince this woman easily to create a position, but she didn’t want to do more than she had to. She had to play the part perfectly for Halis. City girl who fell in with the wrong crowd flees to country for a new start. If she played her part, he’d play his. Wealthy handsome man sweeps in to the rescue. Of course, she knew he would only be playing a role.
“You ever waited tables before? Dun seem the type.”
“My daddy owned a restaurant.”
Chapter 8
Mr. N & Mr. Q
The hover-car was parked in his parents’ looped driveway next to the hitching-post the old witch sometimes tied her nag to. If he hadn’t already been warned about the hover-car, Darith would have mistaken it for a normal high-end vehicle. The sort all the rich paraded around in. But the wheels were a dead giveaway when he bothered to look.
Darith sat in the Town Car, glaring at the metal wheels. He was wrong? Were his parents involved? Would he find Marim safe inside? The thoughts racing in his mind brought back the familiar, spiteful anger he had lived with since the “incident.” One more betrayal to add to the list of how his parents had failed him.
His display at the asylum had left him empty. The secret strength drained from him quickly, and he settled into the chair his driver brought out for him. With that hover-car sitting there, he itched to stride into the house on his own two feet and confront his parents. He couldn’t.
The driver returned to the car once Darith wheeled up the drive. What little strength remained, he wanted to keep as a reserve.
I’ll kill them before I’ll let them touch her. Meddle with my family. Darith smiled at a mental picture of his father lying in a puddle of blood. I’ll open their jugulars if they’ve so much as touched Marim.
The front door was ajar. His parents’ guests were careless. Darith reached out on the threads of darkness but felt only his daughter within. Marim wasn’t here. Where else would they have brought her?
A loud crash from the direction of his father’s study startled Darith. For the first time since discovering the car, Darith noticed his surroundings.
Door ajar.
And along the hall, things were off. No servants had come to greet him and ahead, at the juncture of the hall, a table was overturned, its contents scattered. A cracked Avartia vase rolled across the floor.
Darith stopped. Not my parents. Then who? And why come here? Why would someone want Marim and my parents?
The air felt twenty degrees colder. No, no one wants my parents. This revolves around Annabelle and me. Darith held his breath, torn between two actions. He recalled the crash from his father’s office. Whoever did this, would they hurt the count? A habit from childhood overtook him, and he crossed his chest in prayer, but it was not toward the office he turned.
The count would have to fend for himself.
But my mother… I can’t just leave her to them. Darith clenched his jaw and forced the thought of his mother from his mind. Her heir was in danger—she of all people would want him to protect Annabelle. The only time he’d ever seen an outward display of pride from her was when she’d found him curled in front of Marim’s guestroom door. He had slept there that week when she’d first came to stay with them to form a barrier between the grieving girl and his father.
“This is what you are, boy. Don’t ever forget. Outward softness counts for nothing. It’s the heart, the soul that differentiates the monster from the angel. Let the world worship men like your father. I know a hero when I see one,” she had said. Then, “I’ve all the alcohol locked away. I promise you, to get to her he will need to tear through me before he ever reaches you.”
“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said.
Whoever was here hadn’t come for his parents. No, anyone who wanted Marim wanted her because of the darkness, which meant that they had come for him and for Annabelle. If he paid for his daughter’s safety in his
parents’ blood, he would experience not a moment’s regret.
Annabelle had a beautiful nursery set up for her, painted in purple with unicorns etched in silver on the walls. She wouldn’t be there. From moment one, Darith had trusted his daughter with no one but himself for any extended time. The nanny would not have dared take Annabelle out of Darith’s room.
Darith stretched his fingers, recalling the sharp sound of his hand striking the last nanny’s face. Hearing her tears as she pleaded to keep her job, claimed she needed it, would not disobey again. But some things weren’t to be forgiven. The woman had taken Annabelle to sleep in her nursery. Where anyone could get at her. The count could get at her. No, it was bad enough he required a nanny, but no one else should have access to his daughter without his express consent. Only the dreary rooms the count and countess provided to their crippled shame of a son would do to isolate Annabelle from harm. Or harming others.
Darith arrived at his rooms without meeting anyone. When he came inside, the nanny gave a little scream. When she recognized Darith, she relaxed. Slightly.
“Someone’s here, sir. In the house.”
“Yes. They’ll be here soon.” In their shame, his parents had moved him to the guest wing, but that act might just have saved Annabelle’s life. His old quarters would have been among the first searched. “Who are they?”
The woman shrugged, and a panicked sob escaped her lips. Darith wheeled himself across the room and took Annabelle from her carrier. The babe’s black eyes met his. How long until she changed? How long and who could he trust? Not this sniveling girl. It was impossible Annabelle was human. Darith held no illusions about his daughter. He could touch the blackness inside her human shell. He could feel her need and her hunger. The voice in both of them cried for blood and vengeance.
But that gulf of darkness might work in their favor today.
Spider's Kiss: Book One of the Drambish Chronicles Page 18
