Nita crossed her arms. She felt a little bad, because it was her fault, but not really because he’d betrayed her to Henry. And no one betrayed Nita and got away unscathed.
“How long will it take before you look convincingly human?” she asked.
He sighed. “Of course that’s what you’re curious about.”
She shrugged.
“I’ll probably be able to get by later today, wearing a coat. But it will take a while for my skin to really grow back.”
Fascinating. She’d love to dissect a kelpie one day. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how unique and interesting it would be. A chemical analysis of the mucus-y substance that gave them their illusions would be illuminating—she wondered if it could be artificially replicated and used by regular people for disguises. She could make a killing on the black market with it. And it would certainly be a good way to change her face and regain the anonymity that video online had taken from her.
She hid her hands under the table, so no one would see them subconsciously reaching for a scalpel as her mind went through all the various dissections she wanted to perform on him.
Adair considered her for a moment. “Before we talk about why you’re here, I need to know something.”
Nita’s eyes narrowed, suspicious. “What do you need to know?”
His gaze was steady. “Do you regret any of your actions over the past few days?”
Nita opened her mouth to tell him no, to bluff her way through with brash confidence, the way she always did.
But the words died in her mouth. Because the truth was, she’d made mistakes. She’d miscalculated, and she’d fucked up. And while she acknowledged that to herself, while she took her mistakes and accepted them as experiences to learn from, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words aloud. Admitting her mistakes felt like showing weakness. She’d been okay admitting fault to Kovit, because she trusted him. Adair, she didn’t trust.
But she could see it in Adair’s eyes. Lying wouldn’t work here. He didn’t want her to bluff, to use brash confidence to fake competence. He wanted to know her thoughts, and if she didn’t admit the truth, she had a feeling she’d be shown the doorway before they could have their chat.
“I made some mistakes. If I had a chance to do it over, knowing what I know now, I’d change some of my plans,” Nita admitted, the words sticking a little in her throat. “But I don’t know that I regret the choices I made. They seemed right at the time, and I learned a lot from them.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I see. Anything else?”
She snorted. “You want me to apologize for the hot water.”
“That would be nice.”
Her smile was bitter. “Why don’t we just agree we both made mistakes. I shouldn’t have burned your skin off, you shouldn’t have sold me out to Henry.”
He considered, his swampy eyes strange and unreadable, before inclining his head. “Very well. We both made mistakes.”
Nita could hear his unspoken but you made more. Which she couldn’t argue with.
“You told Diana you were here because of something to do with the Dangerous Unnaturals List?” Adair asked, changing the subject.
Nita nodded. Of all people besides Kovit, Adair probably had the most invested in getting rid of the list. It was only a matter of time before kelpies were added and Adair was murdered. He’d kept his species off it with information and blackmail and who knew what else, but it was a stopgap, not a solution.
“I might have an idea to get rid of the list.” Nita let out a breath. “But I would need your help.”
“Of course you need my help. You always need my help.” His tone was mocking, but his eyes were calculating. “Tell me more about this opportunity.”
Here was the sticky part. This involved telling Adair her plans for herself too. And she didn’t know who he might sell that information to.
Was it worth risking her own safety and her own plans to help Kovit?
She felt a bit bad even thinking it. She knew Kovit would gladly help her at whatever risk to himself—he had already. But she couldn’t help hesitating, because nothing in the world was worth more to her than her own safety.
But she deemed the risk worth the reward, so she took a breath and spoke. “I’ve captured Fabricio Tácunan. I’m going to use him to break into his father’s company and steal all the files.”
Adair tilted his head to the side. “And?”
“And I want to make a trade with INHUP. Dissolve the list for the contents of those files.” Nita met his eyes. “You and I both know that every black market player, every corrupt politician, everyone who has something to hide and the money to do it hires Tácunan Law. With all that information to trade . . .”
“You want to take the list down?” Adair gave her a skeptical look, and then his face cleared. “Ah, no, you’re not that altruistic. You want to use it to blackmail black market players so that they stop hunting you. The list is just a side note to help Kovit out.”
She winced at how easily she’d been seen through. “There’s no reason I can’t want to do both.”
“Won’t work. Trading information for taking down the list, I mean.” Adair sighed softly. “You think I haven’t thought of something like that before? I can tell you secrets that would crush dynasties.”
“But all of Tácunan Law?”
Adair leaned back. “They’re even less likely to take that deal.”
“Why?”
“Because to make a deal so big it would take down the Dangerous Unnaturals List . . . Do you know how high up in INHUP you’d need to be to make that deal?”
“And?”
“And the people that high in INHUP all use Tácunan Law.” Adair leaned forward. “Rather than dealing with you, they’d be more likely to murder you so word of their crimes doesn’t get out.”
Nita stared, her mind blanking for a moment.
Of course. Of course they wouldn’t want to make that deal.
Nita had known that forces in INHUP were corrupt. She’d been paying for Adair’s protection with the names of corrupt INHUP agents. Someone in INHUP had tagged her phone and sold her GPS location on the black market.
When Fabricio had fled Nita’s mother, he’d gone to INHUP, but he’d known how corrupt they were and had tried to ensure that he’d be able to escape by having new documents made before he got there. He, of all people, would have had intimate knowledge of how many INHUP agents used his father’s company, and he was more mistrustful than Nita had ever been of INHUP.
Adair was right. There was no bargain she could make that would convince INHUP to take that list down.
“I’m sorry about Kovit, Nita,” Adair said, interrupting her thoughts.
Nita blinked. “How did you know?”
“Why else would you suddenly be looking to take the list down?” His smile was ironic. “It’s not for you, and I’m pretty sure Kovit’s the only thing besides yourself you care about.”
“Oh.” She looked away. “Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “Can you get rid of his information? Prevent him from going on the list? I know you have a lot of contacts in INHUP, especially in the Dangerous Unnaturals List section.”
He was already shaking his head. “It’s not possible.”
“I can pay.” Nita’s voice was tight. “I’ll have all of Tácunan Law’s information at my disposal soon.”
“It’s not about paying. It’s just something I can’t do.” Adair gave her a bitter smile. “If I had that kind of power, my life would be a lot easier. But even I have my limits.”
“Ah.” It had been worth a try.
He sighed and rose. Diana, who’d been standing off to the side, rushed to help him up. “I am willing to make you another offer, if you actually manage to steal Tácunan Law’s information.”
She blinked. “What offer?”
“You’re still looking for your father’s killer, right?” Adair stumbled over to the counter with some effort. Diana reached o
ut to help him, but he brushed her hand aside. He came back to the table with a printout of a picture.
The picture had Zebra-stripes in it.
Nita’s eyes widened. “This is . . .”
“Is that him? The vampire you’re looking for?”
“Yes.” The picture had been blurred—it was a group shot, but all the other faces in it were blacked out. All the people were wearing semiprofessional clothes, but the style made her think older. She didn’t know her fashion styles well, but shoulder pads were the . . . seventies? Eighties?
Zebra-stripes was smiling in the photo, a normal, almost human smile, his white-and-brown-striped hair parted to one side as he draped his arm over the shoulder of one of the blacked-out people.
Adair smiled slightly. “So that is him? Interesting.”
“Who are the other people?” Nita asked.
Adair just continued smiling.
She sighed. “What’s the price?”
“This one has . . . a lot of interesting information. The price will be high. You won’t be able to pay it without getting something from Tácunan Law.”
“I see.” Nita considered the picture a moment before she met Adair’s eyes. “Well, I know how much everyone will want that information. And if—when—I succeed, I’ll have a lot of it. So since we’re talking business, I’d like to hire you for something else too.”
Adair raised his eyebrows. “Confident in your success, aren’t you?”
Nita shrugged. “People who don’t believe in their own plans never succeed.”
“Indeed.” He tapped a claw on the table. “What do you want, then?”
“I want you to find someone reliable to alter the video of me healing online to make it look like it’s a fake. Or even someone respected in the black market circles to point out things in the video that make it look like a fake.”
“You want to discredit the video?” he mused, and nodded slowly. “I know someone. The video is already up, altering it now would look suspicious. But he’s considered an expert in the field. If he said it was fake and pointed out why, his word would carry weight.”
“And you can make him say it’s fake.”
“For a price.”
“I figured.” Nita smiled softly and rose. “Well, think about what you want from Alberto Tácunan’s databases. I’ll be in contact.”
Nita turned to go, and Adair called, “Oh, Nita.”
She turned back. “Yes?”
“Our other deal still stands.”
Nita blinked. “Other deal?”
“Our information exchange. If you find out why Fabricio, the doted-upon heir to Alberto Tácunan and his fortune, is so desperate to go into hiding, desperate enough to sell the person who saved him on the black market”—Adair cocked his head—“if you find me those answers, I’ll tell you how the Dangerous Unnaturals List was created. How a list that is so blatantly about killing and selling certain valuable unnaturals for profit got legalized.”
Nita tilted her head. “Will that information help me now?”
He considered. “It might. I don’t know. But even if it doesn’t, you want to know, don’t you?”
She did. The idea of secrets fascinated her, and the information was one more piece of a giant puzzle that she was trying to piece together. She felt like she was starting to dissect a body, and Adair was offering her a bone saw. If only she let him use her scalpel in return.
“Fabricio’s been reticent,” Nita admitted. “But if I find anything out, I’ll make that trade.”
He smiled, thin and clever. “Good luck, Nita. Say goodbye to Kovit for me.”
Then Diana helped him to the back, and they vanished into the depths of the pawnshop.
Eleven
NITA LEFT THE PAWNSHOP, miraculously managing not to trip on anything or break anything. Outside, the sun shone blue and bright, the crisp spring air making her tug her sweater tighter. The scent of just-bloomed flowers and freshly cut grass mingled together with the garbage from a craft brewery just up the block and the pervasive odor of car exhaust.
Nita couldn’t trade with INHUP to eliminate the Dangerous Unnaturals List.
She let out her breath. Was she just supposed to let Kovit die? Give up?
What else was there to do? It wasn’t like she could stay here thinking of new plans forever. They had one week. And the whole black market was still after Nita, hunting for her to rip her apart and sell her body. It wasn’t like she could move freely.
She needed to go to Buenos Aires and steal Fabricio’s father’s information.
Once she did that, she’d have more options. Once she knew everything about everyone, once she had all the power that information could afford, once she could trade information like currency to eliminate the threat against herself, she’d find a way to buy Kovit off the list too.
Adair had said that Tácunan Law was full of information on higher-ups in INHUP. Surely she could use it to blackmail them to take Kovit’s name off the list?
Her hand made Y incisions with an invisible scalpel as she slowly walked back toward the subway stop, mind whirling. The fresh spring air blew her frizzy curls in the wind a little, and the bright sunlight made the brown of them seem almost orange.
Blackmail was always risky. Especially with INHUP, which could, for example, add her to the Dangerous Unnaturals List. Or put out an arrest warrant.
The black market could assassinate her in a dark alley at night. But in the light of day, there wasn’t as much they could do without the authorities getting too involved. She supposed they could pay off the authorities. So could Nita, in theory.
Once she had that information.
But INHUP was a problem. Would continue to be a problem. Not just the Dangerous Unnaturals List, which was questionable at best.
She used to be a fan of the list. She’d thought it was a good thing to make it legal to kill monsters without repercussions. No vampires getting off on legal technicalities or unicorns escaping murder charges for lack of sufficient evidence.
Of course, in practice, the list hadn’t worked that way. Her father’s killer should by all rights have been on the list, but he wasn’t. INHUP knew who and what Zebra-stripes was, and whether by blackmail or something else—something Nita intended to find out when she caught him—he still hadn’t gone up on the list. She couldn’t keep Kovit off the list, but her father’s murderer was going to get away.
She thought of Kovit, living with a sword of Damocles above his head his whole life, one wrong move away from being found and murdered by INHUP, whether he’d committed a crime or not. Adair’s words from yesterday haunted her. What if there hadn’t been a list? Would there be zannie doctors who could diagnose your pain instantly? Just because zannies could get their food from torture didn’t mean they had to. An emergency room would suffice. But they chose to. Kovit chose to hurt people.
Would he still if the list was gone?
She didn’t ask herself what could have been, because Kovit was right. Asking what-ifs about people stole their agency for the choices they made in this life. But what could be. That was another question. If the list went away and Kovit was absolved of any crimes he’d committed under it, what would he do? Would he continue to hurt people or would he walk within the lines of the law? If there were stakes, real stakes, real consequences for his actions, would he change?
She didn’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.
But as long as INHUP and its list were there, neither of them would ever find out. INHUP had destroyed Kovit’s life as surely as the mafia family he’d worked for had.
Her eyes hardened, and she thought about all the ways INHUP had ruined her own life. How they’d buried evidence about her father’s murderer. How someone in INHUP had sold her cell phone GPS location online and sent hundreds of black market hunters after her. This entire mess in Toronto was squarely INHUP’s fault. If INHUP hadn’t betrayed her, she wouldn’t be murdering people in mall bathrooms or making deals with murderous kelpies.<
br />
INHUP was as much Nita’s enemy as the black market.
She made a new plan.
She’d been planning to use the information she got from Tácunan Law to destroy the black market hunting her. But there was no reason she couldn’t use it against INHUP too. Adair had said their higher-ups would have blackmailable information in there.
Nita stood under the bright sunlight and looked up, a wild, angry smile crossing her face.
She was going to destroy everyone who’d done her wrong. The black market would grovel at her feet.
And she would annihilate INHUP.
Twelve
NITA WAS ALMOST BACK to the subway station when she pulled out her phone and texted Kovit: you done?
The response came a minute later. Yes. Waiting for you in the cafe across the street from the station.
Nita pocketed her phone and headed back, trying not to become swamped by the hugeness of her plans. Destroy INHUP. It would be a feat that the world would never forget.
If she could pull it off. That was one hell of an if.
She let out a breath. Nita was the girl who had destroyed el Mercado de la Muerte, burned it right to the ground. She was the person who had evaded the black market’s capture, who’d killed everyone that had tried to take her down.
INHUP was just one more thing she was going to destroy in her quest for the life she wanted.
She turned back onto the street with the subway station and immediately noticed the café Kovit had mentioned. It had a little teapot-shaped sign, and the facade was painted the pale blue of a baby shower. It looked like the kind of place little old ladies went to coo over small children and gossip over scones.
The inside proved Nita’s intuition right. It looked like the living room of an old woman’s house, all doilies and teapots on shelves. Cute tables with flower-patterned tablecloths and framed pictures on the wall of cats.
The whole place was packed with people. Wall to wall, they stood around, lined up for the counter. A petit East Asian girl with a high ponytail offered samples, and in the corner, a news team was packing up their cameras while a Sikh reporter chatted with an older white woman who was probably the owner.
When Villains Rise Page 7
