Wicked Misery (Miss Misery)

by Martin, Tracey

  “Good,” Devon said. “I hate having to get all confrontational with hot women.”

  Uh-huh. “How did you know I was down there anyway? I didn’t see any cameras.”

  “No need for cameras, although I do have some. You tripped my alarms.” Devon slid off the desk, and his normally mischievous smile became something less playful. “What did you find by the way?”

  Excellent question. Those cocoon-like things were creepy, even for preds and especially for satyrs who, generally, weren’t half as creepy as their pred brethren.

  But when I attempted to ask, the words evaporated from my tongue. I tried again, mouth opening and shutting like I was chewing the air. No words came out. Frustrated, my jaw clenched as I refused to give up, fighting the inevitable.

  Devon watched me, his expression curious.

  At last, I balled my hands into fists and let out the words my brain wanted to say. “Nothing interesting.” Then I screamed. “What did you do?”

  Devon’s face was almost comical. “You remember what you saw?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t talk about it?”

  “Yes. What the hell did you do to me?”

  “Personally? Nothing.” He raised his eyebrows and donned his usual smirk. “I can think of a few things I’d like to do though.”

  I backed up. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. You are interesting, Jess. I’ve never seen a human resist a compulsion spell that way, and it’s a strong one too. I can absolutely see why Lucen likes you so much.”

  “You mean you all just like screwing with me.” So I was right about the type of spell, for all the good that did me.

  I rubbed my aching head. The clock on the wall proclaimed the time to be closing in on midnight. According to Devon, Note-writer hadn’t called Pete, and another day was about to escape into tomorrow. No wonder I felt ill.

  “You haven’t given any of us the chance to screw with you yet. But I’m sure you’re right. We would like it.” Devon winked. “Time to take you home.”

  “I can take myself back to Shadowtown. My disguise appears to be working fine, and someone needs to be with Pete in case he gets a call.”

  “Someone is with Pete. Don’t worry. And your disguise is quite good. Lei does good work. But I so rarely get the chance to be gallant.” He pressed the button for the elevator. No keycard was needed up here.

  “It doesn’t mean I’m going to let you into my pants.” Yeah, if he wanted in there badly enough, it’s not as if I could stop him, but I saw no harm in making my opinion known as frequently as possible.

  “I’m patient.”

  “So am I. When are you going to tell me about—?” I gurgled as the words died away. “You know what.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Since glaring at him did nothing more than encourage Devon to make lewd comments, I gave up.

  The trip back to Shadowtown was uneventful. Devon drove, and I stayed mostly silent, scheming of ways to ask Lucen about what I saw without setting off whatever curse had been laid on me.

  It was all for nothing. Walking through his front door was like turning back the hands on the clock. My negative emotions of earlier returned with a vengeance, distracting me. I rested my head against the wall, breathing deeply to calm down, but Lucen’s pheromones thickened the air.

  Fortunately, Devon hadn’t come inside, so I was on my own. I stomped up the steps, praying I wouldn’t be subjected to any more noise from Lucen’s bedroom. It was quiet, but I shut my bedroom door anyway.

  Lucen had brought up my duffel bag. It sat on the bed next to a netbook. Interesting. I’d ask about that later. Right now my body was telling me I needed a shower. Purgatory had left a layer of sweat on me, and maybe I could wash these ridiculous emotions off, as well.

  As I tossed my clothes on top of the containers Lei had given me, the answer to my turmoil smacked me in the face. Before I’d returned to Lucen’s, I’d spent a couple hours in the presence of a harpy. She’d been stirring up my jealousy, and so I was primed for a good old freak-out when I left. That had to be why I’d been so irrational.

  Really, why else would it bother me that Lucen was acting like the satyr he was? I shouldn’t care enough about him to react at all. I didn’t care enough. I didn’t trust him, didn’t understand him. Hell, I barely liked him. Sure he was good-looking, and I fantasized about him more than I cared to admit, but he was a satyr. He secreted sex. Everyone fantasized about satyrs. It was how they enslaved so many humans. There was nothing abnormal about me when it came to that.

  But Lei’s harpy magic had been screwing with my head. Making me jealous. It was all magic, nothing more.

  Lucen knocked as I fiddled with the tap. “Can I come in?”

  “One second.” I threw some clothes on and opened the door. Then, to cover my discomfort, I began removing the glamour, grateful for something to do that required a modicum of concentration.

  “Jess, earlier, if I—”

  “Aren’t you neglecting your addict? Or is that the whole point? To work him up then let him down?”

  An unreadable expression passed over his face. “He’s gone.” He gestured to the netbook. “Since you can’t use your phone, I thought you could use it to check email. It’s old, but it works well enough.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where did you go? It’s not safe for you to be out by yourself.”

  I grimaced and smeared away my enhanced cheekbones. “I’m a big girl. I know the risks.” I considered not telling him the rest, but he was bound to find out soon enough. Might as well be me that told him. “I went to Purgatory to find Pete, got busted snooping around by Devon, and he dropped me off back here.”

  “What were you going to do with Pete if you found him?”

  I shrugged. “Get the Gryphons off my back.”

  “That’s not going to—”

  “Yeah, I realized that.”

  Lucen shifted and tapped his finger against the door. “Can I get you something?”

  Yeah, answers about what I saw in Purgatory’s basement would be good. But I didn’t want to talk to Lucen. Not now. Not with all these unwelcome feelings lingering so close to the surface. Besides, I felt too embarrassed about how I acted earlier. “No. Silence. That’s all.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about—?”

  “Yeah. I need sleep. Good night.”

  I didn’t sleep for a while. After my shower, I used Lucen’s netbook to get online and search for information about pred crypts, but I found nothing reliable. Figured. The Gryphons could probably tell me what I’d seen, but I’d been down that coulda-shoulda-woulda path before. Lots of knowledge and power had been shut off from me.

  And Gunthra knew why.

  I wouldn’t ask.

  Just like I wouldn’t dwell any deeper on what had come over me earlier when Lucen’s addict was around.

  There was nothing I could do about either problem.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Yesterday had to all be Lei’s fault. I didn’t understand why I had such a hard time accepting it. When I tried to think about everything logically, I felt like I was adding up two plus two plus two and getting negative eleven. Nothing made sense, and I tossed and turned all night because of it.

  Lucen came downstairs not long after eleven. It was an abominably early hour for a pred to be up, and the circles under his eyes proved it. I was in the kitchen on my second cup of coffee, taking stock of what he had in his cabinets. My stomach hadn’t stopped growling since I got up. I hadn’t eaten enough yesterday, and what I had eaten was crap.

  Lucen emptied the rest of the coffeepot into an oversized mug. “Devon called after you asked not to be disturbed last night.”

  “Thought I heard the phone ring. Tattling about my adventures at Purgatory?” Would Lucen mind if I ate his Pop-Tarts? Something higher in protein, like eggs, was probably asking too much.

  “He was keep
ing me informed. Please tell me you’ve put this idea of contacting the Gryphons out of your head. For good.”

  “Yes. I was acting irrational last night. I don’t want to be arrested.”

  “Irrational? Is that what that was?” His voice smiled.

  I slammed the Pop-Tarts package on the counter and shuffled toward the window, keeping my back to Lucen. Stupid me had pulled my hair into its habitual ponytail this morning, which meant the flush on my cheeks would be blatant. Damn that half-Irish heritage that made my face into a tomato at the first hint of discomfort.

  Not that it mattered since Lucen could read my emotions.

  But I wasn’t jealous, so that didn’t matter, either.

  I needed more coffee. Or perhaps a lobotomy.

  The prepaid cellphone rang, making me jump but sparing me from forming a retort.

  Lucen gave me a quizzical look as I picked up. The phone number was unfamiliar. “Hello?”

  “It’s Steph. Are you available around noon to talk?”

  “Yeah, sure. What’s wrong with now?”

  “I’m at work. Hold on.” It sounded like she put the phone down and spoke to someone else. A minute later, she picked up again. “I don’t want to talk from home because I’m paranoid, and I have to give you something ASAP. Can you meet me at that café by the hospital? You know the one I mean, right? We’ve eaten there before.”

  I checked the time. Noon was forty-five minutes away. Barely enough time to create a decent glamour and travel halfway across town. “Oasis, yeah. I remember it. What do you have to give me?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s better you have it now than me. Got to go.”

  And with that most unhelpful information, Steph hung up. I frowned at the phone. “She sounds nervous.”

  “Who?”

  “Steph.” I took the remaining Pop-Tart before Lucen could eat it, and my debt to him grew by one toaster pastry. Repayment was going to be a bitch. “She wants to meet at noon.”

  “Why would she be nervous?” Lucen peered at me over his mug, his face taut.

  “How should I know? Because she’s planning to meet with a fugitive?”

  “I don’t like this. I’ll be going with you.”

  Peachy.

  “I wish you’d done more with the disguise,” Lucen muttered as we got off the subway.

  I tucked a curl of carrot-red hair behind my ear. “Steph sounded nervous. I didn’t want to freak her out with a totally unrecognizable face.” Truthfully, I wasn’t as adept with the magic as I needed to be in order to create a better disguise in such a limited time. But Lucen didn’t need to know that. Nor that I’d accidentally erased half my nose in the bathroom and it had taken me ten minutes to create a new one that didn’t look like it belonged in a bad sci-fi movie. “Besides, with the new charms Eyff dropped off, plus the two of you, I’ll be fine.”

  Lucen shook his head as we emerged into the sunlight, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his leather trench coat. I didn’t understand how he could take the heat, but neither he nor the other satyr who joined us seemed to mind. They were both dressed almost identically.

  Gi was the satyr with the lovely effeminate face I’d met several days ago. Devon remained with Scumbag Pete, so Gi was our added backup today. He had a deep, melodious voice totally at odds with his face, but which made my knees weak.

  Like Lucen, he didn’t think I was doing enough to protect myself. “You should have insisted she come to Shadowtown.”

  “No. I already asked her to do that once, and I’m not doing it again. She may never forgive me as it is.”

  The hospital where Steph worked sat near the border of The Feathers. Up and down this strip, intermingled with the usual retail stores, were a variety of restaurants that specifically catered to mixed-race groups.

  “There it is.” I pointed toward the hole-in-the-wall café done up with a desert motif.

  “Hold on.” Lucen reached out to grab me back. I tensed. His hands hovered not even an inch from my wrist.

  “I’m not catching anything that screams trap.” Gi lowered his sunglasses a touch and took in the street with a sweeping gaze.

  “Of course it’s not a trap. It’s Steph. For the love of dragons, she helped me break in to Gryphon headquarters.”

  Lucen sighed. “Yes, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious, little siren.”

  I strode to the intersection and waited for the light. “Aw, you actually sound like you care.”

  “Of course we care,” Lucen said, coming up behind me. “We’re trying to prevent a war.”

  “Right. Stupid me.” I stretched out with my gift but detected nothing out of the ordinary anxiety, which was hardly a shock. If the satyrs couldn’t find anything odd, I couldn’t.

  The inside of the restaurant revealed nothing more. Oasis called itself a café but was more like a diner with pretensions. Steph must have bought her lunch at the to-go counter because she stood near the cash register with a buzzer in her hand, waiting for her order to come up. Lucen and Gi fortunately decided they’d hang guard by the door while I wove through the lunch line and absurd tropical décor to reach her.

  Steph continued to stare at the door as I approached, clueless. Icky, icky spearmint crawled along my tongue. I didn’t think she’d been this anxious even during her jaunt into Shadowtown. Frightened, yes, but this was more diffuse. Worry instead of fear. It wasn’t her fault that I had to taste the spearmint, but I took some delight in tapping her on the shoulder and making her jump. “Like my new ’do?”

  Besides the hair, I’d altered me eye color, removed the freckles around my nose and added a good twenty pounds to my frame. Despite what Lucen thought about my disguise, it wasn’t bad.

  Steph’s eyes opened wide. “Jesus. Finally got your charms, I see.”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty potent. So what’s up?”

  “Something weird. I got questioned by the Gryphons yesterday.” She danced from foot to foot, taking in Lucen and Gi by the door. She wasn’t the only human giving them wary glances.

  “Sorry.” I winced. Damn it. If they suspected Steph had anything to do with the break-in, I’d be bearing some serious guilt. I already carried around so much it was amazing I could climb out of bed in the mornings. The last thing I needed was to add getting my best friend arrested to the burden.

  Steph shrugged as if it were no big deal, but I could tell she didn’t mean it. She jiggled her lighter around in her hand. “From what I could gather, they’re questioning everyone known to have ties to you. I’m simply more suspicious because they discovered I work in IT. But that’s not what’s weird. Here.”

  Steph pressed the lighter into my hand, and only then did I realize it wasn’t a lighter. It merely resembled her lighter in size. It was a thumb drive.

  I waited for her to take her lunch from the guy behind the counter while I examined it. “What’s this? I mean, besides the obvious.”

  “Beats me.” She stepped away from the counter and dropped her voice even lower. “After I got back home the other night, I did a search for your name in the database in case I’d missed anything at first. And I found something.”

  “That’s the weird?”

  “The weird is that it’s a file, heavily encrypted, but your name is in the file name. Your name, the word ‘Philadelphia’, and the number five. That’s the only bits I could read. So I downloaded it.”

  I flipped the thumb drive over. “And put it on here?”

  She nodded. “It’s not the only one. After that, I did some real digging and found four more similar files.” Steph stuffed some napkins into her bag and a packet of ketchup. “I don’t know what they are, and I don’t want them on me. The Gryphons didn’t say anything telling when they questioned me, but I think someone was watching my building when I left for work this morning. I’ve got the feeling they’re not done with me. If they come back with a search warrant…”

  “Got it. So these are the only copies?”

  “Yup
, and they closed the hole in their system soon after I downloaded them.”

  I wet my lips, which had gone dry without me noticing. Okay, Steph was right. This definitely constituted weird. Almost as weird as what I’d seen in the basement of Purgatory last night, only more troublesome because it involved me.

  “Thanks,” I said, pocketing the drive. “I think.”

  Steph snorted. “Right.”

  “Excuse me.” A jittery customer wormed his way to the pick-up counter. I started to move aside when I caught the first inkling of deception settling on my tongue. Steph’s anxiety rose as well.

  She gave me a slight shove. “I think that’s the same guy who—”

  I was already going, but by then it was too late. The plain-clothed Gryphon grasped my wrist. “Jessica Moore, you’re under arrest. Do yourself a favor and don’t make a scene.”

  My heart skipped. Steph swore. So she’d been right to be paranoid. I could taste her shock and fear—icy and tart. She hadn’t been expecting this any more than I had.

  Instead of doing something useful like planning an escape, my frantic brain tried to fit the pieces together. The Gryphon must have followed Steph. Maybe even tapped her phone. How else could he have seen through my disguise?

  The thoughts raced through my head in under a second while the world around me appeared to slow down. Somehow I’d unconsciously activated my speed charm. My wicked strong speed charm.

  Across the room, someone screamed. The sound snapped me into action. Lucen and Gi had noticed my shot of panic and were plowing through the restaurant. I twisted to the side, and the room blurred with my motion. My fingers dug into my pocket, checking that the thumb drive was safely buried. Then, as if in slow motion, I turned and decked the Gryphon who had my arm.

  He fell back and collided with a table, but didn’t let go. Glass shattered. I yanked on my arm and suddenly it was free. There was a great crash of wood, and the Gryphon hit the floor. Lucen was dragging him off me.