City of Villains

by Estelle Laure

Jack Saint.

  “No,” I say. “Only his daughter.”

  “Ah,” Jack says, when the door to the chief’s office swings open. “There she is. La Grande Dame.”

  The chief strides out of her office and my breath catches, along with everyone else in the station. She’s dazzling in a cream-colored suit, tailored to her thin body, her signature stilettos clicking as she travels the distance between them. “It’s all right,” she says to the officers following closely after her. “I can handle him.”

  “Ma’am.” One of the officers hesitates and the chief waves him away.

  “I told you I’m fine. This is an old friend of mine.”

  “Charlene,” Jack Saint says, his body relaxing slightly at the sight of her. He is so tall and so thin, his grace is surprising. He moves like a crooked shadow, every feature so pointy any one of them could cut glass. But even from here I can tell his eyes are warm and sad, the gentle blue of island beach water in a magazine. He bends to kiss the cheek the chief has offered him. Hellion repositions himself.

  Meanwhile, Bella is leaning precariously out of her chair as she watches them with rapt attention, focusing on every word.

  “You’re going to fall over,” I whisper.

  She waves me off like I’m going to make her miss something with my talking, but then she does nearly slip off the chair and rights herself with a quick glance and half smile in my direction.

  And we must have missed something, because now they’re sitting down and the chief seems to be answering a question.

  “I’m going to do precisely what I always do,” the chief says. “I’m going to do my job.”

  The station is silent, all eyes on Jack Saint and the chief.

  “Last night, Hellion came home without Mally,” Jack says. “He came home upset.” He thrusts his phone in the chief’s face and she looks without moving. “She calls me every single day at two forty-five p.m. on the dot to tell me of her plans, and yesterday she did not, and then Hellion…” His voice catches. “She is never without Hellion.” He stops and composes himself. “We have agreements since her mother died. She never breaks those agreements. I have been trying to go through the proper channels, trying to get help, but no one will listen to me. Something has happened to my daughter and I want you to find her and bring her back.”

  “Jack,” the chief says soothingly, running a hand along the back of his suit, “it’s only been a day. Give it time. She’s a teenager. Everything will be fine. I know it’s been difficult since you lost Marion.”

  “She’s all I have left,” Jack says, taking the chief’s hand and gazing deep into her eyes. “She’s everything.”

  Hellion makes a cooing noise and pecks gently at Jack’s ear.

  For a moment it’s as though Jack and the chief are somewhere together, alone, not in a station at all. No phones ring. No one types or speaks. The station is utterly silent. When Jack finally breaks eye contact and ducks his head, it’s like he’s a great dinosaur bird and not a man at all. “What happened to her, Charlene?” he says. “Is someone holding her prisoner? Monarch has become so unruly and dangerous, and we have luxury while many do not. Her behavior has been less than ideal.” He hesitates. “She’s made enemies. And if she’s wounded and there’s no one to help her?” He lets his head fall onto his hands. “What would become of me? It has only been one day, it’s true, but I know my daughter and she would not do this. They say the first forty-eight hours are the most important. Please, Charlene. I am a lonely man, living in a tower, and I have but one thing I care about. One. And she is in danger.”

  Hellion caws and stares at the chief as though daring her not to take Jack’s plea seriously.

  Jack reaches into his inside coat pocket and pulls out a picture. He places it on the table and slides it over the wood, closing the small space between them. “Mally,” he says, tapping the picture. “She doesn’t care for anywhere but here. Monarch. She wouldn’t leave it by choice.”

  The chief sits up straight, reaches for his cheek. “I’m going to do my best to help you find her. You have my word. She will come back,” the chief says, firmly.

  This sends a thrill through me. The newspaper articles I’ve read say that when it came to the murder of my parents, she was like a dog with a bone, that she wouldn’t stop until she had solved the case, even when it ran cold and seemed there would never be an answer.

  The certainty in her voice seems to have the same effect on Jack as it does me.

  For the first time since he burst into the room, Jack Saint seems to calm; only the bird on his shoulder is agitated. “You think that the Great Death ended magic and that the Troubles are over, but there are those who hold ill will.”

  The chief flinches the tiniest bit, then nods to one of the officers who has been standing nearby, waiting for the sign. “Good night, Jack. We’ll be in touch. Meanwhile please go with Officer Henshaw. He’ll help you fill out the relevant forms.”

  Jack Saint allows himself to be guided toward the door. He stops and gives the chief a hound-dog stare. “Forget our past. Forget the Troubles. Just please help me find Mally.”

  “Of course, Jack,” the chief murmurs, then she rises and glides across the floor, into her office, leaving the door open.

  No one moves until the chief’s secretary, Mona, who has been off to the side with her clipboard, says, “All right, now. Everyone back to work.” Then she disappears inside the office and closes the door firmly.

  The second she’s gone, a slew of gossipy conversations start up among those left in the station.

  I try not to crane my neck, but I want to see what’s happening behind the glass walls of the chief’s office. The shades are down, but I can feel the intrigue seeping from the bottom of her door. Bella and I share a look, and then she pushes her glasses back up her nose and flips open a file, crossing her legs and letting one bounce, pretending she’s not as interested as me.

  I try to focus on the Mad Hatter again, but the words and locations swim across the page nonsensically.

  Mally is missing.

  I just saw her at school yesterday.

  She was fine.

  I can’t imagine anyone approaching her or taking her off the street successfully. From everything I know about Mally, she would tear someone to pieces before she would ever allow herself to be hurt. And Hellion? How did anyone get past him?

  I roll up the map and surreptitiously drop the file onto Jeanette’s desk, and then go back to my dull filing. At least then my thoughts about Mally can roam freely. I try to think about where I usually see her. She slinks around Wonderland a lot, not talking to anyone, never dancing. She lurks around the halls at Monarch High. Other than that, I never see her except when her limo rolls in and out of the school parking lot like some giant black snake. I’ve gotten used to her, to the grudging respect she shows James and Ursula and me. If something terrible could happen to her, why not us?

  But would Flora or Fauna or Merryweather take vengeance on her? They carry knives. Maybe they aren’t the pastel sweethearts they seem. Maybe they’re capable of worse than she is.

  After a few minutes with people going in and out of the chief’s office, the door opens and Mona bursts out.

  Mona bursts everywhere. She is always in a hurry and has a nurturing way about her, but also lacks patience and sometimes seems as if she’d like to box a few ears. She’s been here for more than twenty years and was assistant to the chief before this one. Within days of starting my internship it became obvious the whole place would fall to pieces without her. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to walk in here and not see her in one monochromatic outfit or the next. Today she’s in an emerald-green blouse and forest-green skirt. Large green beads flank her throat, and two jade hoops decorate her ears. She fusses with her clipboard then peers around the room.

  “Oh, good,” she says when she sees Bella. “You. The chief would like to speak with you.”

  My stomach flops in on itself with envy
and I feel my face reddening as Bella stands. She looks around and says, “Me?”

  Mona nods an affirmative and scans the room again. “And you.” She points and everyone turns to look. “Yes. You!” She looks down at her clipboard, then back up. “Mary Elizabeth Heart, correct?”

  Me. She’s pointing at me.

  “Well, why are you sitting there like a bag of sand? Come on!” She motions again and a whole new set of internal gymnastics gets under way. I have to tell myself to calm down, to get a grip, to be professional, competent, unemotional, but all the blood in my body is rushing around so fast I feel like I’m about to combust.

  Bella waits for me and we cross into the chief’s office together. As I step through the doorway, I trade in the smell of coffee and paper for that of a pleasant musky perfume. The inside of the office is all hard angles, lots of white. There are no plants except a lone cactus near the one window looking out onto city rooftops. Rain splats against the glass. The room would feel empty except for the walls, which are absolutely plastered in photographs and awards.

  Bella, who is already seated in one of the chairs, looks startled when I thump down next to her. She’s leaned forward, hands fidgeting in her lap. I’m trying to be graceful, I swear, but in this room I feel bulky and clumsy and dirty. I focus on the chief, who scans us both. I take the opportunity to scan her back. The closest I’ve gotten to her since I was a kid is when I opened the letter inviting me to intern on the Monarch Murder Squad.

  Up close, the chief is as regal as she is from a distance, with bones like a deer and pin-straight black hair. Her nails are painted red, makeup precise and designed to complement her Japanese features to great effect. She’s stunning and somehow frightening at the same time.

  I half expect to find a picture of us on the wall like the one that’s on my own: us at that famous press conference, me holding on to her leg as she shields my face from reporters, but there’s nothing there. She has solved so many murders, my story is probably nothing to her. The chief has been in the middle of every criminal investigation for ten years. No, not in the middle. In charge of.

  Pictures of her shaking the president’s hand.

  Of her with Monarch’s own prize boxer.

  With the city council.

  The mayor.

  With everyone’s favorite actor.

  At press conference after press conference, in front of microphones.

  “Well,” she says, jolting me back to reality with her smooth but steely voice. “Ghosts forbid my blood pressure should ever descend to nonthreatening levels.” She nudges at the glass in front of her, and Mona immediately materializes with two more glasses and a pitcher of water, and fills all three, offering to Bella and to me.

  I take a sip of the water. It’s the perfect temperature, cool and inviting, and I realize I’m parched.

  The chief slides a picture of Mally Saint across the desk toward us. School pictures, even when they’re decent, always seem a little creepy, especially when they show up on a missing poster or a news story, but this one stirs something else in me. The cruelty with which Mally stares into the camera is breathtaking in its intensity. Her generous mouth is reddened, black lines her narrowed eyes, and her black hair points down sharply, but more than that, her eyes declare war on the world and everything in it.

  Chief Ito exhales and looks from me to Bella. “The Scar. Ten square blocks. You would think it wouldn’t be as much trouble as it is. And yet…” She makes a steeple of her fingers. “It used to be called Wonder.” She looks between us. Of course we know this. They renamed it the Scar after the Midcity Riot, to acknowledge the wound left by all those deaths. “Sometimes I think renaming it is the source of the problems we face today. The Scar is so much darker, don’t you think?”

  “Ma’am,” I say, because some response seems required.

  “How many in that high school these days?”

  It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me.

  “I believe it’s about fifteen hundred, ma’am.”

  She nods. “We used to have more, but so many people have left the Scar now. You know Mally?”

  “No, ma’am,” Bella says. “Although I know of her. She has been known to ride around in a limousine. Makes a person stand out in the Scar, ma’am.”

  “I’m sure it does. Mary Elizabeth?” the chief says. “Anything to add about Mally Saint?”

  “No, ma’am. I only know her from across the room,” I say, then add, “We are often in the same room.”

  “I hadn’t seen Jack Saint in many years.” The chief seems not to have heard what I said. “It took me back, was…unexpected. I went to Monarch High, you know, and I hadn’t…Well, that was another life, wasn’t it?”

  “You went to high school in the Scar?” I blurt. I figured she had gotten shipped off to some important boarding school in Switzerland or something. I can’t imagine her dealing with those long hallways and boring classes.

  “I did go to Monarch High, although it’s hard to remember now. It was so very long ago.” The chief runs her index finger across her forehead and searches my eyes. “So now this,” the chief says. “The Scar at the center of everything again.”

  “Ma’am?” Bella says after the chief is silent for a few moments, seemingly lost in memory.

  “My apologies.” The chief refocuses on us, opening a file folder and turning it so we can see its contents. Even from where I sit I can see Merryweather Holiday’s name listed. They did file a report when Mally cut the brake lines. “Mally Saint has gone missing and I know of at least three people who would say that’s a good thing. And you’re exactly right, Bella. People in the Scar are…resentful, shall we say, of people of means. That, too, is problematic in this situation.” She sighs. “The point is, I wouldn’t normally focus on something like this, but with everything that’s going on right now, with this Mad Hatter situation and the shenanigans that are positively infiltrating this town despite my best efforts to date…” She tightens her jaw. “The last thing I need is drama over a girl who’s probably in a hotel room with someone she met in some club last Saturday night, picking up parasites from the questionable bed linens.”

  We sit, waiting. I wouldn’t dare interrupt her, even though the likelihood of Mally Saint softening up long enough to go anywhere with anyone these days is slim to none, never mind kissing or doing anything at all on a bed. I can hardly imagine her thawing long enough to sleep.

  “Now,” she says, “I’m told you’re excellent at finding things, Mary Elizabeth.”

  “I haven’t done anything except find a few sets of keys, someone’s lost lunch…”

  “Never argue with someone who is pointing out a truth. Humility is unnecessary.” The chief straightens her jacket as though my words have wrinkled it. “It’s also tiresome.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I am good at finding things.”

  “Not surprising. You’re Legacy. I believe in Traces.”

  Traces. Hints of what we once were or would have been if magic hadn’t expired.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turns her attention. “And you, Bella, are good at solving puzzles. Mally was last seen at the…” Here she looks to Mona.

  “Wonderland,” Mona offers after consulting her clipboard again.

  “Right. That dump.”

  I try not to take that personally. Aside from the fact that my boyfriend and best friend would be a lot happier if I were there right now, Wonderland is where I spend most nights and weekends. I hold the croquet pinball record, and it’s the only place in the Scar where we can hang out and listen to live music or whatever. Plus the owner, Dally Star, is a friend.

  My palms are sweating.

  “For the purposes of finding Mally Saint, I’m reassigning you to each other.” The chief straightens the papers on her desk to punctuate her statements. “After that, I’ll reassess. I think you’re going to be of vital importance here, Mary Elizabeth.”

  Bella looks at me, then back to
the chief. “Excuse me, ma’am, but does that mean I’m no longer assigned to work with Officer Gaston?”

  Chief Ito pauses and says, “It does.”

  “Well,” Bella says, brightening. “I suppose it’s not all bad.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I say before I can stop myself.

  “Oh, dear,” Mona says.

  “Oh, nothing,” Bella says, patting my hand. “No offense intended. It’s just you’re an intern, and you’re seventeen.”

  “And you’re what? Twenty-one, tops?”

  “Ladies,” Chief Ito says.

  We both remember where we are and stop arguing. I’m nearly breathless with indignation, but I fight to calm myself down.

  The chief stares at both of us sharply. “Mary Elizabeth won this internship with her skill and insight, and I’m going to need you to trust my judgment. I think I’ve earned that, don’t you?”

  Bella nods. “Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.”

  “You’ll have to learn to get along. It’s something I’ve been considering for some time now, and this gives us the perfect opportunity. The Scar needs more support than the force on the street can provide, and we all know they aren’t going to take it from outsiders. I’m hoping if they feel your presence, perhaps more Scar citizens will want to join up and serve in their beloved neighborhood. They need detectives present and attending to their issues. The Scar has become too insular. It has created a vigilante climate. I can’t have that. You should look at this as a unique opportunity. I don’t need to tell you both the doors that will open to you should this be a successful endeavor.” She puts up her hand as though to stay any further discussion. “It’s decided.”

  She glances at her watch, then back at us.

  “You need to refresh. Get food. Bathe. Come back when you’re done with your morning classes tomorrow, Mary Elizabeth. In the meantime the first course of action will be to—”

  “—interview the students whose parents have already filed reports against Mally,” Bella finishes. “Merryweather Holiday, Flora Honeydew, and Fauna Redwood are the girls in question…” She looks as though she’s startled herself by speaking. “I believe.”