by E. A. Copen
I told Abe most of it. I left out I’d gotten some information from Mara and Chanter, saying instead I’d found the information on the internet. Abe took it like a champ, hands folded and face blank.
When I was finished, he asked, “Do you not have a single suspect, Agent Black?”
I stabbed a cold French fry into a paper soufflé cup full of stale ketchup and shoved it thoughtfully in my mouth. “Until the attack, I thought I was chasing a spirit and, after that, I was a little busy trying not to die so, no, Abe, I don’t.”
Abe pushed up his floppy hat to look at me. “Hmm. It is a good thing they called me in. It looks as if you could use some help after all.”
“I thought I would work it backwards.”
Abe snorted.
“What? Did you have a better idea? I’ve already talked to everyone who was at the club two nights ago, all the witnesses... The only people who had motive don’t have the means and the people who have the means had no motive. I’ve been chasing my tail.”
“Based on what I saw inside the house and what you are telling me,” Abe said, leaning on the table, “the most recent attack was focused on the owner of the property, Kim Kelley. She is at the center of this. Whoever is responsible believed she would be at Aisling two nights ago and thought they would get a two for one deal, killing Harry and Kim in one move.”
“I came to the same conclusion,” I said after pushing the half eaten fries away. “But neither of them shared any enemies that I know of.”
Abe tapped a gloved finger to his chin. “Except for one. The one that pointed us both at Kim in the first place.”
“Robbie?” I laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. If Robbie could open portals to Faerie, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be running a nightclub and selling glamors. And he was pissed off enough I doubt he even knew about Harry and Kim cutting him out of money in the first place until Harry was dead.”
“It is as good a motive as any,” Abe said. “And he is the only one whose alibi you fail to mention in your reports from the scene.”
I opened my jaw and then promptly closed it. Dammit. He was right again. I hadn’t even questioned Robbie’s whereabouts. I knew he’d been at the club that night but it didn’t clear him or make him guilty. He ran the place. He was always there. As I worked through it, I realized I hadn’t ever seen the extent of Robbie’s power. But he was fae. Fae had an uncanny knack for magick. With the help of his glamors, he could do almost anything. But there was still a nagging feeling in my gut he was innocent. I didn’t care much for Robbie, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion this just wasn’t his style.
“Are you on good terms with any judges in the county?” Abe asked, pulling out an outdated cell phone. He tugged at the antenna, extending it three whole clicks.
“Not in particular. Why?”
“A search warrant for Robbie’s office could turn up something useful. It could give us the last thing we need for an arrest.”
“I’m telling you, Abe, it wasn’t Robbie.”
He looked over at me. I must have been a sight in my dress-up clothes with blood and gore all over me. Abe didn’t even comment on it. “Agent Black, did anyone brief you on how this works?”
“I’ve had partners before,” I said, feeling like I was back at the academy and he was one of my instructors.
“I am not here to be your partner,” Abe said flatly. “I am here to put this to bed. I do not care about notoriety, credit... Any creatures you are dealing with are your problem. I am here to bring in the person responsible. Human, vampire, fae... I do not care. I will round up the whole county if I have to in order to get the job done.”
“But you’re not going to do jack about the ice giant that’s actually killing people,” I finally finished, understanding. “You just want a body to put in cuffs.”
“As tragic and dangerous as it is to have one of those running around, it is not the cause of this. It is a symptom.”
“What about those draugr?” I said, gesturing to the wall. “If it makes more of those—”
Abe cut me off. “Then the consequences will be bad but not nearly as bad as if the Stryx are not given someone to punish.”
“I think a fucking draugr apocalypse and a mad ice giant running around doing his Hulk impression is way worse than bad.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he did speak again, it was with a softer, gentler tone. “I will make you a deal. Work your angle. Work that angle until you are satisfied. If I can be of any assistance, I will help. However, I was brought here to arrest a suspect and hand him over to the Stryx for punishment. I owe it to the tax payers here not to go off chasing legendary giants that we do not even know how to kill. But, if that is what you want to do, be my guest.” He adjusted his posture in his seat and then added, “As for me, I am going to go get a search warrant for Robbie Fellows’ home and office. Then I will follow up with Kim Kelley, who I assume has taken up with one of the local covens.”
Abe stood and discarded his sandwich and coffee, placing the tray on top of the trash can. “Abe,” I called and he looked back up. “Whether you believe it or not, this thing is dangerous. It’s already killed one vampire. Be careful.”
“I am only half vampire,” Abe scoffed and then tipped his hat slightly. “But I will take your concern to heart. Now, if you will excuse me... Oh! And you should replace your phone before headquarters cashes in your life insurance.”
He dug his hands into his pockets and made for the exit.
Chapter Nineteen
I drove home to change, resolving to call Doc. Since I was covered in blood, there wasn’t much else I could do.
All the way there, the scene played out in my head, me making a complete fool of myself in front of Abe. I had no doubt he’d make note of it in his report. My superiors were already questioning my abilities as an agent. I’d screwed up enough times in the past the disciplinary committee knew me by name. Gerry wasn’t kidding when he said a reversal of his recommendation could get me fired... or worse. I’d never heard of an ex-BSI agent. The people who didn’t make it, no one talked about them. No one talked about what happened to you if you made it through the academy and then weren’t effective in the field. All the bad agents I knew about had died in bizarre accidents. I didn’t want to have a bizarre accident.
Even if I managed to keep my nose clean, BSI would keep poking around in my personal life once I got their attention. If they kept it up, it wouldn’t be long before they started asking questions about my son... who I had illegally chosen not to register with the very agency I worked for.
I wasn’t blind. I knew BSI had its problems. I also knew what was best for the majority wasn’t always ideal for the individual. BSI worked to keep the peace and keep crime low. Things like registration, they worked for people who were criminals and who had records, giving them a second chance. But my boy wasn’t a criminal or a killer. He was just a boy. And if I registered him, the small degree of normalcy he still had left in his life would be gone.
Once I got home and through the door, I stripped in the kitchen, putting the bloody clothes in a trash bag. While I could save the outfit if I really worked at it, I didn’t care enough to try. Already, I’d resolved it would be the last time I’d ever dress up outside of a wedding or a funeral. From there, I picked up my landline phone and called over to Valentino’s to arrange for someone to tow my car from the Kelley estate back to my place.
To my great displeasure, Nina picked up. “Garcia residence?”
“Nina. How’s everyone doing?”
“Fine enough,” she said in a high tone. “What can I do for you, Judah?” I told her about the tow. “Of course. You’re familiar with the fee?”
“I’ll warn you, I’m a lousy tipper.”
“Wonderful. I’ll tell him to calculate the tip for you.” She hung up.
My next call was out to the Paint Rock Medical Clinic. Doc picked up on the second ring. “Paint Rock Clinic?” he said expectantly.
“Doc, it’s me.”
“Judah! Where have you been? I’ve been calling your cell all day.”
“It’s kind of a long story,” I told him. “But my cell is dead. I’ll forward you the new number as soon as I get one. Did you find anything useful on Annie?”
There was a slight pause and a shuffling sound, presumably as he moved somewhere more comfortable to finish up our conversation. “Her core body temperature was incredibly low. Impossibly low, I’d say, for someone who’d been at room temp as long as she was. And I had to thaw out her organs, Judah. She was literally a block of ice inside.”
“What else?”
“Well, she’s not a zombie, if that’s what you’re asking. Or, wasn’t in the traditional sense, before you shot her in the head.”
“I said I was sorry!” I exclaimed. “And anyway, that was Doctor Kalma and not me.”
“Water under the bridge, Judah,” Doc said excitedly. “I did some digging and came back with some information. Just after the Revelation, up in Finland, some supernatural researchers claimed to have come into contact with some similar creatures. There were fae involved. Something about necromancy. There’s some jargon...”
“This is starting to sound a little familiar.”
“Necromancy is one of the least studied varieties of magick.”
I shifted the phone against my ear with a sigh. “That’s because it’s illegal.”
“Magick of any kind isn’t inherently bad or good. You’ve said that yourself.”
“Yeah... But there are kinds that naturally lend themselves to abuse. You know that. How many schedule one drugs started out as legitimate medical treatments?”
“If you ask me,” said Doc, “some of them still have their uses. Cannabis, for example, is actually less harmful than caffeine.”
“My badge is going to forget I heard that,” I said. “So there’s necromancy involved. Great. What’s that got to do with an ice giant?”
“No idea. Putting everything together is your department, agent. I just cut people open.”
“Thanks, Doc. Keep me posted.”
He promised he would and we hung up.
I rubbed the back of my aching neck. My whole body felt gross and I decided I needed to get cleaned up. I trudged down the hallway to the bathroom where I washed all the initial blood and gore off of me in the sink and then ran a hot bath.
Like most people, the bathroom is where I do my best thinking. But that day, I could barely wrap my brain around where I was. I hadn’t realized just how sore and tired I was until I sank down into a tub full of hot water. I tried to work the case in my head, to make some progress since I was technically on the clock. But I’d been on the clock doing something since before sunrise the day before and, honestly, I really needed a nap.
No! my brain screamed, and I jerked awake. You’ve got to stay busy, Judah. What haven’t you looked into yet? What’s the connection between fae-based ice giants, necromancy and a porno directing vampire or a nightclub owner?
My eyes fluttered closed in thought. I held a picture of the room in my mind’s eye and, as much as I hated to, I tried to imagine the scene. I placed cameras around the room, moved the crew and equipment into place. It took some doing, but I put Annie’s body back together and made her beautiful again, doing my best to re-imagine everything from her point of view.
I slipped under water in the bathtub and held my breath. Harry had mentioned some thugs in leather broke his jaw. One of them might have decided to teach Harry a more permanent lesson rather than just throwing him out of the club. But it didn’t make Kim a target, and it didn’t explain everything else. Dammit, I had to be missing something, something important.
A sudden noise made me open my eyes. I sat up out of the bath, not sure if I’d actually heard anything. My eyes were sagging and my brain was pounding. It could be just my headache playing tricks on me. But then there it was again, the distinct thud, thud, thud of footsteps in the hallway. Sal did say he would drop by later and he has a key. I probably just didn’t hear him come in.
The footsteps came down the hall and stopped in front of the closed bathroom door. Something in my gut told me it wasn’t Sal. I reached around, feeling for something I could use as a weapon and grabbed the only thing within reach: a plunger. Curse my knack for always getting into trouble when there isn’t a chainsaw nearby.
There wasn’t time for me to get out of the bath and go in search of a better weapon. As soon as I grabbed hold of the plunger, the door exploded inward and the towering form of Sven charged in. He reached for me, his eyes wide and bloodshot, thick lip curled up in a snarl. I didn’t even get a chance to smack him with the plunger. For a big guy, Sven was fast. He barreled into the tub on top of me and pushed me back under water, holding me there.
There was a sudden burning pressure in my chest that forced my mouth open as I struggled against him. I gulped water into my lungs instead of the lifesaving air and choked on it. Even with all my magick thrown into my muscles, I couldn’t budge him. Believe me, I tried. I kicked and punched. Once, I scratched him so deep blood poured down his arm and plopped into the tub, turning the water red. The guy was like a rock and I was already tired and drained. The edges of my vision turned black and every pump of blood through my temples built up pressure in my skull.
Sven stayed glued to me, eyes wide and unblinking. Tears streamed down the side of his face and his lips worked to form the words: “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Twenty
I came to on the bathroom floor, water all around me, gasping and coughing. The burning pressure was still in my chest, and it felt like someone had just punched me in the neck. The coughing forced my shoulders up off the floor and I turned on my side only to vomit up mouthfuls of bloody water.
That’s about the time sound came back to me and I heard a loud crash in the living room. Fighting the pain, I jerked down a towel, stumbled to my feet and staggered down the hall, wrapping the towel around me.
The scene was confusing. Sven was there, being held on the floor by a big, brown wolf I recognized as Sal. He had his jaws closed around Sven’s arm, which was a bloody mess along with much of the rest of Sven. Sven was punching Sal in the snout with his free hand. The punches weren’t particularly effective since they were coming from a position of panic and fear rather than of malice.
“Stop!” I screamed and then ran over to pull on Sal. I jerked on the wolf’s shoulders as hard as I could but it was no use. I couldn’t move him, not unless he wanted to be moved. “Let him go!”
Sal growled at me and shook his shoulders, sending me back. Then, as I stumbled back into a chair, he turned and let out a fierce bark in my direction. The message was clear: Don’t interfere.
I’d distracted Sal just long enough for Sven to get the upper hand. He landed one good fist to the side of Sal’s face, sending the wolf spiraling. Sven scrambled to his feet but, instead of jumping on Sal and showering him with more punches, the big man scampered behind my overturned kitchen table and hid there, blubbering like a baby. “Please! Please save me!”
I seized my discarded handgun from the stand next to me and jumped forward, throwing myself between Sven and Sal, pointing my gun at Sal’s bared teeth. “Stop it or so help me, Sal...”
Sal’s whole body spasmed. Bones cracked. Skin and fur fell away as Sal shifted back into his human form. The whole process took less than a minute. When he was once again bipedal, Sal cracked his neck and said, “Get that gun the hell out of my face.”
I held it steady, afraid he would charge as soon as I did as he asked.
He pointed at Sven. “He just tried to drown you. Why are you defending him?”
“Because it wasn’t him.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t him? I found him standing over you, his hands around your neck. I pulled you out of the water.”
“Sven,” I shouted behind me. “Get out here.”
“No!” Sven shouted back. “He’ll kill me!”
“Damn right I will!”
“Shut up, Sal,” I said lowering the gun. I picked up the jeans he’d gotten out of when he shifted. They were a bit ripped up, but they’d work for now. I tossed them to him. “Nobody’s killing anybody.” I turned and jerked Sven up by his shirt. As I’d proven before, I wasn’t strong enough to lift him, but he didn’t resist when I pulled upward. He was trembling and had wet himself. I guided him around the table and shoved him toward Sal as Sal finished buttoning them up. “What were you saying to me while you held me under, Sven?”
Sven blubbered something incomprehensible. I pushed him closer to Sal. “I’m sorry!” he screeched. “I was saying I was sorry. I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. But he made me... My master makes me hurt people.” Sven turned to Sal and got down on his knees, which was the only way Sven was ever going to be shorter than Sal. “He has my friend.”
“What friend?” Sal growled.
I shrugged.
Sven hung his head and pulled his knees up, rocking back and forth. “The Master is in my head. He makes me hurt people. He makes me. I don’t have a choice. I don’t want to.”
Pity ached in the pit of my gut. I had read about this but never seen it. Free will was something a lot of people took for granted. Free people got to make choices. They chose what to wear, what to eat, who to make friends with... The thrall of a vampire was no longer capable of those things. Crux had taken all of that away. It was a form of magick, similar in nature to the control an alpha werewolf exercised over his pack. The two were interconnected in mind and body. I had seen Chanter use his magick to make unruly werewolves stop and pay attention when needed. He’d even used it on me once when we first met. A strong mind could fight it. But Sven didn’t have that kind of mental strength. Perhaps that’s why Crux had sought him out. Who better to ensnare and enslave than a huge, mentally delayed man?
“This man is enthralled to a vampire,” I told Sal. “He can only exercise so much control over his own actions. If Crux ordered him to hurt me, he really didn’t have a choice.”
