Wicked Misery (Miss Misery)

by Martin, Tracey

  Just one freaking protective charm. I couldn’t have worn one freaking protective charm on a regular basis? But no, I couldn’t have. The longer it touched my skin, the faster my body would use up the charm’s magic, and I didn’t have the money to replace charms that often.

  Lucen hadn’t moved from the doorway. “What do you want with Jessica?”

  One of the sylphs, probably an older man although it was hard to tell, tossed his silver hair. “She is wanted for murder by the Gryphons. We intend to turn her in.”

  My jaw dropped. Even Lucen started. That had to be a lie.

  Hadn’t it? Would sylphs really cooperate with the Gryphons? And how had they found out so fast?

  Two sylphs approached me, and I stepped back.

  “She is not yours to take,” Lucen said. His voice had lost its gentle mockery. “She’s under my protection, and any attempt to take her will be met with force.”

  “A human is under your protection?” Sylla smirked.

  I flushed, recalling her comment about Lucen being my master. Obviously I was no addict, but I couldn’t understand Lucen’s attempt to protect me any more than the sylphs apparently could. Not to mention I had a strange feeling that I was missing something. There were too many shocked expressions on those flawless faces.

  The older sylph raised an eyebrow. “Does Dezzi approve of this?”

  “Of course she does.” Dezzi’s accent cut through the murmuring. She’d appeared in the doorway silently. Her black braids were piled so high on her head that she was nearly Lucen’s height, and her voluptuous figure swayed to a silent music as she entered the room. Her power swept over me, leaving me dizzy and conflicted. Fortunately, it was not on me that she concentrated. A couple of the sylphs shrank back.

  Behind Dezzi, more satyrs filed into the bar, including the black-haired one I’d met the other day. He winked at me but stayed close to Dezzi. They were all armed, as was Lucen who must have grabbed a gun from somewhere.

  “Assym, it was very rude of you to bring your council here without giving me notice.” Dezzi approached the older sylph, and the other sylphs retreated behind him. “Rude, and I might say unwise unless you wish to incite a war.”

  Assym, who must have been the sylphs’ Dom, smoothed invisible wrinkles from his bright blue shirt. “We were not aware this concerned anyone but the human.”

  “When you’ve been harassing us for weeks?” Lucen slammed the door. “That’s funny.”

  “And now,” said Assym, “we have word that the true culprit was the human, so we are here to collect her.”

  Dezzi waved a hand, and the satyrs began shuffling tables around. “Is it true that you’re wanted for the crimes?” she asked me.

  I braced myself. “It’s true the Gryphons want to arrest me. I didn’t kill anyone, though.”

  Lucen crossed the room to stand closer to me. “You can tell she’s not lying.”

  “Well, one of you is.” Assym banged his fist on a table. “We demand justice. The human must know something. Turn her over to us, and we will turn her over to the Gryphons.”

  “Since when do you cooperate with Gryphons?” I asked.

  “For once our interests align.” He sneered at me, and I felt a brush of insecurity as he whipped my mind with his magic.

  Suddenly I was self-conscious, horribly so, aware of every fault and flaw—a human so easy to break, mentally and physically. My fighting skills were terrible. I could never land a decent left-handed punch. Freckles marred my face. My nails were brittle, my knees too thick to be attractive. My magic was too weak to be classed among the preds, and too freakish to earn me credit among humans. I was puny and pathetic. I’d be nothing without Assym’s help.

  My will shuddered, then the connection was blasted apart by a wave of knee-weakening lust. I staggered back into a table. Heat swept over me, leaving behind the vivid sensation that Lucen was pressed against my body, every bare-skinned inch of him seeping into my flesh, filling my head with his scent, parting my lips with his tongue and my legs with his hands.

  Then the power withdrew. Shaking, I inched away from the real Lucen who hadn’t shifted position by Dezzi. Logically, I knew he’d been trying to break Assym’s hold on me, but I couldn’t be thankful when it meant he’d exerted his own power in Assym’s place.

  My kingdom for a protective charm.

  Assym’s smirk morphed into a frown as he realized he’d lost his grip. The sylphs and satyrs had pulled two tables together and sat facing each other like opposing tribunals. I stood off to the side, unsure what was going on other than the fact that I was deep in the salamander shit.

  “The Gryphons believe her responsible for murdering our addicts,” Assym said, folding his hands. “They will soon trace her to Shadowtown. We do not want her here, nor them. I demand you hand her over before the Gryphons harass us all. If you don’t, we will stand by our original assumption that you’re involved in the murders too. Now, more than ever, it seems likely. Why else do you protect her?”

  Dezzi pushed braids over her shoulder, never once losing Assym’s gaze. I held my breath. She had no reason to defend me other than the satyrs’ own issues with the sylphs. “None of my people will hand over someone who has been placed under our protection until I investigate the matter myself.” Behind Dezzi, Lucen flinched but remained silent while his Dom spoke. “Your accusations and harassment of my people have been baseless from the beginning. The human remains under our care until we decide otherwise.”

  “You are thieves and murderers.” Assym stood, and the rest of the sylphs followed his lead. “If you want a fight with us, Dezdemona, you have one.”

  The satyrs mirrored the sylphs’ action, and I tensed, sensing a coming magical shitstorm. Both sides were lost in a shouting match, their words indistinguishable above the thunder rumbling overhead.

  What would happen if a fight broke out? Besides the fact that I’d be toast? Screw this, I had to do something. “It’s the magi!”

  I had to yell it twice before I got anyone’s attention, but finally they quieted. “The dead addicts all had their hearts removed. I overheard the Gryphons telling that to Xander the other day. It must be some magus who’s responsible.”

  Dezzi turned to Lucen. “Did you know this?”

  “Jessica told me a few minutes before you arrived.”

  The satyrs’ Dom pressed her lips together and glared at Assym. “There, you see? You should gather your facts before you start making accusations.”

  “Prove it,” the sylph said. “The Gryphons believe you’re guilty, and that’s good enough for me. My people’s addicts have been killed. No one but a satyr or a satyr’s pet would do that.” A couple sylphs chuckled. “So you prove it to me, satyr pet, or even the Gryphons won’t be able to protect you from us.”

  Unfortunately, Lucen wasn’t crazy enough to use a salamander fire-forged bread knife. Too bad, because if I’d known the blade would kill him, I’d have been tempted to see how close I could get it to Assym’s heart before his posse stopped me.

  Satyr’s pet, my ass.

  “Prove it how?” I demanded.

  His ice-gray eyes froze mine. “That’s your problem. You apparently have access to all sorts of information. Very convenient. I’ll give you three days then my patience runs out.”

  “Three?” Impossible. My lungs constricted at the mere idea.

  Murder gleamed in Dezzi’s eyes. I suspected she would have liked to kill Assym, me and Lucen all about now, but her voice remained steady. “Why bother, Assym, if you are to be that unreasonable? We need a week, minimum.”

  “Four days.” Assym narrowed his eyes.

  “Six.”

  “Five.”

  “Agreed.” Dezzi held out a hand.

  I exhaled, feeling sick to my stomach. Nice to give me a say in the matter.

  Assym took Dezzi’s hand, and they shook like kindergartners being forced to make nice on the playground. “Prove it or we come to collect you, satyr’s pet,
and I don’t give a damn about your protection.” He snapped his fingers at the other sylphs. Together, they walked single file out of the bar.

  As soon as the door shut, Dezzi shoved Lucen into a seat. “You got me into this problem. I don’t know why you offered our protection to this human, but you see the consequences? I expect you will both get us all out of this mess in the next five days, or you will be the first I send to meet Assym’s warriors.”

  The black-haired satyr, whose name turned out to be Devon, hung a “closed until further notice” sign on The Lair’s front door while Lucen set beers on the tables. Desperation drove me to accept one. My end was nigh. What the hell.

  Most of the satyr council had disappeared. Dezzi had just left her first three—Lucen, Devon, who was her lieutenant, and a woman named Lucrezia who was her second. Dezzi said she’d be back later. She had other business to attend to, but she wasn’t about to trust the fate of Shadowtown to a human. The tension in the bar was thicker than a dragon’s hide. Whatever else Dezzi expected to blow up in the course of a fight, she’d predicted a large part of Boston would go with it, especially if the magi were involved.

  The rest of the council had gone to rally their people for imminent war.

  Obviously they had a ton of confidence in my ability to figure this crap out.

  I swigged my beer, grateful at least that Lucen’s protection afforded me one benefit—the satyrs weren’t working their magic on me. Lust stirred within when they got too close, but it was nowhere near as bad as I’d feared. Either they were trying to leave me alone, or they were too distraught about the coming magical apocalypse to exude pheromones. Probably the latter.

  “So how many of their addicts have been killed?” Lucrezia asked.

  “Four that I know of.” I slumped in my seat. “The bodies haven’t all been found in order of death, though. Could be more that haven’t shown up.”

  “Where are the other three hearts then?”

  “Eaten by whatever magus is committing the murders?” Lucen flipped the cap off his bottle. It went flying across the bar, bounced twice before hitting the end, and fell into a trash can. Not a bad trick if I’d been of a mind to appreciate it.

  Devon tapped his fingers together. “Jess, do you have any enemies among the magi? We do, so it figures they might want to start fights with us, but it’s odd that they’d pick on a human.”

  “Until today I didn’t think I had any enemies period. I guess people I took blood from for soul swapping would hate me, but only if they knew it was me and remembered what happened, and I did my best to prevent that.”

  “It might have nothing to do with Jess anyway,” Lucen said. “She could just be a convenient scapegoat.”

  “After all that’s been going on lately, somehow I doubt I’m a random pick.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “Focus. Who could pick a vanity addict out of a crowd?”

  Lucen stretched. “Any of our races.”

  “You,” Devon told me.

  I scowled. “Me and the creepy guy like me. And the Gryphons.”

  “Good thought with the Gryphons.” Lucrezia tapped a blood-red nail to her lips.

  I doubted they were involved, but whatever. Unfortunately, my mentioning of creepy note-writer guy needed explanation, and the conversation was derailed for five minutes while I provided an abbreviated version.

  “There’s someone with a motive,” Devon said. “We are allowed to discuss motives now, aren’t we? You said he got mad at you.”

  “Yeah, but that seems a bit extreme.”

  “But it’s a possibility, and if he knows your name, he could know where you live. Write it down.” He motioned to Lucen, who’d gotten out paper and a pen. “Who else?”

  “We’re back to the magi.” Lucrezia ran a finger through the condensation on her beer bottle. “They hate all of us.”

  Lucen pushed his seat back. “Agreed. Consider, the Gryphons put pressure on Xander because of the missing hearts. Xander put pressure on everyone in The Feathers. And whoever is doing it looked for a convenient human to blame. It’s not impossible that a magus could discover Jessica’s side business in trading souls.”

  “No.” Devon threw his bottle cap at Lucen. “But would they be dumb enough to pick a fight? They’d know what they were doing by targeting the sylphs’ addicts.”

  Lucrezia smiled. “Maybe the type of soluble magic in their blood gives the sylphs’ addicts the best-tasting hearts. All this killer wants is a tasty meal.”

  I held the beer bottle high above my mouth, but it was empty. Just as well. I really needed something stronger.

  The satyrs, Lucen and Lucrezia especially, were dead set on the magi being responsible. As they talked in circles over the next half hour, they could generate a million motives from the simple—one of them couldn’t suppress their appetite for human hearts—to the ludicrous—a war would boost the magi’s charm businesses and increase their influence with the Gryphons.

  I listened quietly, my throbbing head in my hands. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Devon might be right about my creepy note-writer. Although I had a hard time believing my refusal to attend the Meat Matches with him could have driven him to frame me for murder, the facts pointed in his direction. Mainly that he was unstable and he knew who I was and could thus handle the logistics. How he knew about the addicts’ hearts, or if he was even involved in the addicts’ deaths, was unclear. But it was possible that he’d killed the Somerville men, and right now possible was the best I had. After all, somehow this guy had found out about me once, which meant he could have followed me before and done it again on Friday.

  Chances were, he would enjoy killing people too. I wouldn’t put it past anyone who got off on the Meat Matches. They proved sadism was alive and well.

  I raised my head when the satyrs’ conversation dulled. “We need the Gryphon reports. Bridget was hiding stuff when I talked to her about the murders. It could be the missing hearts, but it could also be more. We should also check my blood for magic.”

  “That’s the easy part.” Lucen searched through a drawer by the cash register and tossed me a box cutter. “You’re right about the reports, too, but how are we going to get them?”

  I flipped the cool steel over in my hands. Add another item to my list of things I wished I had with me—my lancet. Less blood loss, less pain.

  “This Bridget—she’s your friend in the Gryphons?” Devon said. “Can you get the information from her?”

  “I doubt it now. Bridget’s a very law-and-order kind of person. She’ll urge me to turn myself in and trust the Gryphons.”

  Lucrezia yawned. “Tell her you’ll meet her. We’ll come along and convince her to help. Gryphons are resistant to persuasion but not unbreakable. Three of us together and it will be over like that.” She snapped her garish fingers.

  “No.”

  The keen expression on Devon’s face fell. “What’s your idea then?”

  “I don’t know.” I just knew there was no way in hell I was turning a friend—even one who wanted to arrest me—over to the satyrs to break. They all seemed way too fond of the idea. Turning a Gryphon into an addict was rarely accomplished, but it gave a lot of prestige to the pred who managed it.

  Of course, an addict Gryphon didn’t stay an addict Gryphon long because either their friends discovered it and healed them, or they mysteriously disappeared from the Gryphons, called into the depths of Shadowtown to be at their master’s side. Kind of like a living, breathing piece of edible art.

  “Are you going to bleed for me, little siren, or no?”

  Grimacing, I slid the razor from the safety and drew the blade along my fingertip. Lucen handed me two tissues. I smeared the results along one, and washed my finger off in the bar sink while the satyrs examined my blood.

  “Ah, will you feel that,” Lucrezia said. “Velvety.”

  I shut off the tap and applied pressure to the cut with the second tissue. The satyrs were rubbing their fingers
together over my blood. Each pred race seemed to have their own methods for sensing magic—satyrs felt it, goblins saw it, sylphs smelled it and harpies could taste it. I had no clue how or if furies could detect it because I’d never traded for a soul with one. Gryphons, on the other hand, had to use a complicated system of spells to parse blood’s magical properties. “What do you mean velvety?”

  “Your magic gives your blood a different texture than Gryphon magic.” Lucen wiped off his hand. “Gryphon magic leaves the blood silky. Yours is soft but rougher. Velvety, as Lucrezia said. It’s different from theirs and different from ours.”

  “But will it show up as pred or human magic when the Gryphons examine it?”

  “Depends on what kind of analysis they do,” Lucen said. “It’ll confuse them for sure.”

  Interesting. Bridget had accused me of colluding with a pred, so what kinds of magical traces had they found in the victims? And could they tie any of it to my blood directly—say, if my bandage had been found in the Somerville apartment? Or was the blood sample I’d taken from Greg their sole connection between the vanity-addict murders and the Somerville murders? The throbbing in my head picked up the tempo. “We need those reports.”

  “We gave you an idea for how to get them.” Devon gave me a pointed look.

  “No.” I met Lucen’s eyes, and he shrugged. Anger surged through me for a second. Why was I looking to him for help? He was just like them. Given that he was now on Dezzi’s shitlist for offering me the satyrs’ protection without her consent, he could probably use the prestige of addicting a Gryphon. If I wanted to save Bridget’s uptight ass, it was up to me.

  “Fine. I’ll ask for her help.” And if that failed, I needed to come up with a better idea fast.

  “Keep your conversation quick,” Lucen warned me. “And turn off the phone again when you’re done so it can’t be traced.”