Powers of Detection

Powers of Detection Page 7

by Dana Stabenow

  “The ones who broke witches, killed witches, tortured witches, shattered their lives.” I drained my glass. “The ones who preyed on children.”

  “You became an assassin to pay them back for . . . ?”

  “My mother. And for me.” I set my glass on the table. “Are you coming with me, Rainier?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Hunting.”

  He studied me for a long moment before he nodded. “I’m with you.”

  -

  I collapsed on a bench in one of the little parks that were sprinkled throughout Amdarh. Even in the city’s busy shop district, you couldn’t go more than two blocks without finding a plot of green that provided shade or a dazzle of color from flowers or the soothing trickle of a fountain.

  “The bitch is good, I’ll give her that,” I said, when Rainier joined me on the bench. We’d been hunting for two days—and two more men had died. One was an old man tending a shop for a friend who was ill. The other was a young Warlord who had shielded himself long enough to send a warning on a psychic thread. Despite men converging on the spot from all directions, the witch had still managed to slip past them.

  “Here.” Rainier gave me a glass bowl and a spoon he’d gotten from a food stand nestled in one corner of the park.

  “What is it?” I poked the spoon into the shaved ice in my bowl.

  “Flavored ice,” he said as he dug into his own bowl.

  I tried some. The ice, flavored with berry juice, was just the refreshment I needed after hours of prowling the streets. Halfway through, I started poking at the treat, my pleasure in it gone. Edgy. Uneasy. Worried about something I didn’t want to put into words.

  I sighed. “We’ve been hunting for two days, and we don’t know any more than we did when this started.”

  “You know more than you think,” said a deep voice—heavy silk with a husky undertone of sex.

  Rainier tensed, instantly wary. I looked over at the black-haired, golden-eyed man standing near the bench. I hadn’t seen him approach, hadn’t heard him, hadn’t sensed his presence until he wanted it felt.

  If you wanted to look at a prime example of a beautiful predator, Daemon Sadi was it. If you wanted to survive the encounter, looking was all you did.

  Daemon settled on the bench with the feline grace that, combined with that body and face, made a woman’s pulse spike—even when the woman knew what could happen to her if the Sadist became annoyed. He was a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince, the most powerful male in Kaeleer. He was also, may the Darkness help me, family.

  “You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon,” I said.

  “We are. Jaenelle and I came back to Amdarh for a day to visit the bookshops and pick up a few supplies before going to the cottage in Ebon Rih.” He paused, and his eyes got that sleepy look that always scared the shit out of me. “That was the intention anyway.” He looked at Rainier. “Surreal and I have a few things to discuss. Why don’t you take a walk?”

  “Lady Surreal and I are working together,” Rainier replied.

  I could have smacked Rainier for the subtle challenge in his voice. He knew better than that.

  “Fine,” Daemon said—and he smiled.

  Rainier paled. He excused himself and retreated. Not far. That Warlord Prince temperament wouldn’t let him back down all the way. So he settled on another bench where he could keep me in sight.

  “Are you going to share that?” Daemon asked.

  I handed over the bowl and spoon. “I thought you liked Rainier.”

  “I do. What does that have to do with anything?” Daemon took a spoonful of flavored ice before handing it back to me. “Mm. That is good.”

  “We are working together.”

  “Whatever you tell him is your business.” He studied the park and waited.

  “All right,” I finally said. “What do we know? There’s no reason for the killings.”

  “Just because you don’t know what it is doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” Daemon said, his tone a mild scold. “Consider the predator instead of the prey. She’s an opportunistic killer. She’s not hunting for a particular man or a particular kind of man. She strikes when she can, where she can. She attacks males who wear lighter Jewels, so the odds are she wears at least the Opal Jewel.”

  “But not a Jewel that’s close in strength to the Gray,” I murmured. “Her sight shield couldn’t hide her from me completely the one time I spotted her.”

  Daemon nodded. “So you know you can take her without getting hurt unless you’re careless. She also chooses males who aren’t prepared to defend themselves, which indicates she wants the thrill of spilling blood without the risk of their fighting back.”

  I huffed in frustration. “You arrived in Amdarh today. How did you figure all this out so fast?”

  He laughed softly. “I’ve been playing this game a lot longer than you have. Besides, Lady Zhara and I had a chat this morning before I came looking for you, and she gave me all the information she had about the killings.”

  A few weeks ago, the witches in Amdarh got their first taste of what it’s like to dance with the Sadist. After that unfortunate incident, I bet Zhara, the Queen of Amdarh, was thrilled to have a chat with Daemon.

  Then he looked at me. “Are you worried that you’ll find a mirror when you find her?”

  Damn him. He knew.

  “She’s not a mirror, Surreal. You never made a kill that wasn’t deserved. You took pleasure from the killing, but you never killed for pleasure. There’s a difference.”

  “You don’t know all the kills were deserved.”

  He just looked at me.

  We’ve known each other for centuries. I was a child when I met him, when he helped my mother and me. I’ll never know how closely he kept track of me after I began my career with a knife, but now I had no doubt, none at all, that if I’d become a killer in the same way the witch we hunted was, I wouldn’t be sitting here. He would have destroyed me long ago. I shouldn’t have felt relieved knowing that, but I did.

  “How do we find this bitch, Sadi?”

  “If you can’t find the predator, give the predator a reason to find you. Provide irresistible bait.” His smile was gentle and vicious. “The prey that seems the sweetest is always the one that got away.”

  -

  I crouched in front of the little Yellow-Jeweled Warlord. The miniature man. My irresistible bait. “You know what to do?”

  “Yes, Lady,” he said, his voice so subdued I could barely hear him.

  “I’ll be close by.”

  He nodded. “If she cuts me, will it hurt?”

  I looked toward the table tucked in the back corner of the coffee shop. Jaenelle Angelline looked back at me, her sapphire eyes full of something feral and dark.

  “Yes,” Jaenelle said gently, “it will hurt.” She pointed to the wooden frame that held the web of illusions she’d created to play out this game. “By itself, the illusion I’ve made of you will fool the eye, but in order to fool the hand when someone touches it, it has to be linked to you. While nothing will actually happen to you, you will feel whatever happens to it.”

  The little Warlord looked into those sapphire eyes. Whatever he found there gave him what he needed. “I will serve to the best of my ability.”

  Jaenelle smiled. “I know.”

  I gave the little Warlord one last, long look. He had a loose button on his jacket. It hadn’
t been loose yesterday evening when the boy and his instructor came to the family town house so that Jaenelle could build the web of illusions.

  Some of the tension inside me eased. It was such a little detail, but I’d be able to use it to tell when the switch was made and the illusion took the boy’s place out on the street.

  We took our positions. Daemon stayed in the coffee shop with Jaenelle. The boy’s instructor took his usual place at a window table. Rainier and I sight shielded before leaving the shop. He crossed the main street to tuck into a doorway near that corner. I crossed the side street, settling into a doorway just beyond the alley. The boy went to the corner to perform escort duties, leading ladies across the street.

  We watched, waited. So far, all the killings had taken place in this part of the city, but there was no guarantee the bitch wouldn’t start hunting somewhere else, no guarantee she’d come close enough to spot the bait.

  An hour passed. We watched. Waited. I tensed every time a lone female approached the corner, every time the boy offered his hand as an escort—and breathed a sigh of relief every time he stepped into the coffee shop to receive advice from his instructor. But every time the small figure left the coffee shop, it was still wearing a jacket with a loose button.

  I gritted my teeth. I trusted Jaenelle, and I could understand her delaying as long as possible before making the switch in case someone could recognize the illusion for what it was. But, Hell’s fire, why was she waiting so long?

  We were coming up on the two-hour mark, which would end the training session, when something drifted toward me on the air. Something that made me edgy, uneasy. I scanned the people going about their business, cursing when I lost sight of the boy as a carriage passed by. Then I saw him again. And I saw her. She came from Dhemlan, so there was nothing about her looks that would attract attention, but I knew it was she.

  They crossed the side street on the opposite side from me. I held my breath and hoped Jaenelle could still make the switch from boy to illusion before the rest of this game was played out.

  The witch said something to him that made him smile, brought out that bright-eyed puppy eagerness to please.

  They crossed the main street. He stayed at the corner. She continued up the street, toward the alley. Toward me.

  She glanced at the alley, then stopped and cried out, “He’s hurt! Mother Night, he’s hurt!” She looked around frantically. “Help me, Warlord. Help me. He’s hurt!” She darted into the alley.

  The boy stayed true to his training. A female had cried for help. He ran into the alley after her.

  And I saw the loose button on his jacket.

  I heard his panicked cry as I rushed into the alley.

  “Let him go, bitch,” I snarled, calling in the hunting knife.

  She whirled to face me, the boy held against her, a knife as mean as mine pressed against his neck.

  Her eyes danced with the glee of the kill. The smile she gave me was malignant.

  “Let him go,” I said again. I saw terror in the boy’s gold eyes, but I had to play out the game—and hope.

  “There’s no law against murder.” She pressed the blade against the boy’s neck hard enough to cut the skin. Blood trickled from the wound.

  “True. But it’s also not condoned when there’s no reason.”

  “He’s male. That’s reason enough.” She pouted. “You’re female. You should be on my side.”

  When the sun shines in Hell, bitch. “Let him go.”

  “All right.”

  She ripped the knife across the boy’s neck and throat. Blood sprayed the alley walls. Sprayed her. Sprayed me.

  I just stood there, frozen by the feel of warm blood on my face. We failed.

  “Why?” Before I finished with her, I was going to get an answer. “Tell me why you killed those men, killed this boy.”

  The alley was suddenly filled with hatred, with fury . . . and bitter hurt. That was the other thing I’d sensed in that first room but couldn’t quite recognize.

  I knew that feeling, too. Didn’t matter. Not with that boy’s blood on me. “What happened, sugar? Did your lover walk away after taking all he could stomach from you?”

  Her fury drowned out the bitter hurt. “He didn’t walk far.” She pouted. “But the males in the village were so angry about him dying like that, my aunt commanded that I stay in Amdarh for a while. They exiled me, a Queen’s niece, from my own village because of that bastard.”

  “That doesn’t explain killing the men here.” Something wasn’t right. Broken heart or not, something wasn’t right.

  “They’re all the same!” she shouted. “They make you feel special until the contract ends, then they walk away.”

  “The man you killed was a consort under contract?” No wonder the men in the village were pissed off. If he’d fulfilled his contract, a consort had the right to walk away without repercussions.

  “He was better than the other ones I’ve had, and I wanted to renew the contract. But he refused. The bastard started packing his things the minute after the contract ended.”

  “Guess he just didn’t want to spend another year in bed with a snotty little bitch.” I studied her. She wasn’t nursing a bruised heart. A bruised ego, maybe, but not a bruised heart.

  That malicious gleam filled her eyes again. At that moment, I hated her with everything in me.

  “I can do anything I want with a male,” she said. “No male is going to make me feel special, then walk away. Never again. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Now that’s where you’re wrong.” I smiled. “As you pointed out, there’s no law against murder.”

  Before she even thought to run, I created a Gray shield bubble around her, trapping her.

  “Everything has a price,” I said softly. “I’m calling in the debt for the men you killed here in Amdarh—and the boy.” Especially the boy. “You like splattering the walls with blood and gore, sugar? Well, now’s your chance.”

  I gave her one moment to realize what was going to happen. Then I fed all of my own fury into my Gray Jewels as I unleashed their stored power and slammed it into her. Her body exploded, a storm of red mist and white bits of bone swirling in a Gray bubble. I thrust a rapier of Gray into the mind I could still sense in that mist, breaking her power, finishing the kill. There would be no ghost or demon-dead to haunt this alley.

  Then it was done. Debt paid. But the price for stopping that bitch was much, much too high.

  “Surreal.”

  Grief tightened my throat, but I obeyed the command in that deep voice and walked to the mouth of the alley . . . where Daemon waited.

  “You played the game well,” he said. “Why didn’t you splatter her over the walls? You wanted to.”

  “After what she’d done, it didn’t seem fair to have men spend a couple of days scrubbing her off the bricks.”

  He looked into the alley. “Leave the bubble. I’ll take care of it later.”

  I nodded, feeling heartsick. “All of this because males are trained to serve, to please.”

  “Hardly,” Daemon replied dryly. “That was her excuse. I’ve seen her kind too many times over the years. She liked inflicting pain, and she liked having control over the person while she did it. She didn’t kill any of those men because they were trained to serve; she killed them because they had the right to walk away from someone who wanted to hurt them.”

  He was right. I knew he was right, but . . . “I guess I should—” I looked down at my clothes. />
  No blood.

  I turned and looked into the alley. No blood sprayed on the walls. No small body.

  “No one can create an illusion the way Jaenelle can,” Daemon said softly.

  No small body in the alley. “When . . . ?”

  “She made the switch the first time the boy came back into the coffee shop for instructions. She needed him on the street just long enough to hone the details in the illusion.”

  Jaenelle would pay attention to the details—right down to a loose button on a jacket. Which meant I’d watched an illusion for most of those two hours and never known the difference.

  Relief made me dizzy, weak. Daemon put his arm around my shoulders and led me to the coffee shop. Rainier entered the shop just behind us.

  The little Warlord sat on a chair at the back of the shop. He looked shaken, but he was safe. Whole. Alive.

  “Hmm,” Jaenelle said as she gently probed the boy’s neck. “Swallow now. Does that feel sore?”

  “A little,” the boy replied.

  Caught by those sapphire eyes, he didn’t look shaken anymore. A bit dazzled, but not shaken. Jaenelle had that effect on males.

  “Hmm,” Jaenelle said again. “There’s no damage, no injury. But I think a bit of medicinal care is still required.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Medicine?”

  I guess bravery only goes so far.

  “Mm. A dish of flavored ice twice a day for the next three days will take care of the soreness.” Jaenelle’s eyes sparkled with laughter. “Can you handle that?”

  The boy grinned. “Yes, Lady.” He bounced off the chair and came over to stand next to Rainier and me.

  “Now,” Daemon said, slipping a hand around Jaenelle’s arm to coax her to her feet. “Since everything is settled, my Lady and I will take care of our shopping and resume our honeymoon.”

  “Daemon is going to teach me how to cook,” Jaenelle said, smiling at him.

  “Oh, how”—brave of Daemon—“nice,” I replied.

 

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