Between bites and feeding the kitsune, Lilah explained that she hadn’t been able to pick up any new information the night before. Since Dreamcatching didn’t open until eleven, she’d decided to swing by and see if we’d come up with any new theories ourselves, leading to the morning’s perilously awkward encounter. I told her about the nightmare Soli had apparently sent me, and Lilah was suitably horrified.
“You need to talk to someone about that,” she said. “Someone who has dealt with skinwalkers before. Have you called your sister?”
“Not since it happened,” I admitted. “But she was pretty clear earlier that it’s just dream projections.” Though I would privately admit to a few qualms myself about the word just in that sentence.
Lilah apparently was in agreement. “That still sounds creepy. How long can she keep doing that? Can you even stop it?” She turned to Suzume. “Do you think Fort should talk to a witch? They might be able to cook him up some kind of magic Ambien.”
We both looked over at the fox, currently licking egg off of her whiskers. She paused, considered, then gave a small yip.
“Is that a yes or a no?” I demanded, and she moved her shoulders in what I assumed was an attempt at a shrug. “Suze, I’m trying to have a conversation with you here. Can you please change?” Suze’s golden fox eyes narrowed, and she very deliberately turned around in her armchair and began grooming her tail.
“This is kind of awkward,” Lilah noted, and I nodded. The sounds of Suze’s licking filled the room. The subject of the skinwalker’s ability to mess with my REM cycle apparently shelved, Lilah and I returned to the issue of how to track down either Lulu or Tomas. With no new information, the conversation very quickly just became a verbal chasing of tails.
This was different from a literal chasing of tails, which Suze decided to do under the table while we had our conversation. It was somewhat distracting.
When my phone rang I lunged for it, certain that Prudence had finally closed in on her quarry, but it was Matt instead.
“Fort, I’m at Iron Needle,” Matt said, his voice low and tense, not bothering with any preamble. “There’s a guy walking out the front door, and he has bandages on both wrists. He’s got a shirt on and I can’t see the shoulders, but this could be a possible victim—he’s in the right age range.”
Adrenaline immediately shot through my veins. “Is he alone?” I asked.
“No, he’s with a woman. I just took a picture, let me send it to you.”
When my cheap flip-phone had been destroyed a few months ago, Chivalry had taken the opportunity under the guise of a birthday present to upgrade me to the sleekest and smartest of phones that he could find, and had delivered it with every bell, whistle, and shiny new app that could be installed. So I was able to check Matt’s photo without even hanging up on him, which turned out to not be a great thing because as soon as the photo filled my phone’s screen, both Lilah and I responded with extremely loud and knee-jerk curses.
The photo was a distance shot, done as surreptitiously as possible with a small camera phone. But what we were looking at was unmistakable—that was Soli, walking in Beth’s skin, and the young man beside her with bandages on his wrists and an almost sleepwalking expression was the changeling stock boy from Dreamcatching, Felix.
Suze bounced onto the table with agile grace, glanced down at the screen, and immediately jumped off and ran into the bathroom.
“Fort? What? What is it? Do you recognize them?” Matt’s voice over the phone sounded very far away.
Lilah’s eyes were huge, and she’d wrapped her hands over her mouth, clearly afraid to say anything that would be overheard. I cleared my throat awkwardly and stuttered, “Um, yeah, Lilah’s with me, and she recognizes the kid. He’s, um, one of the members of the cult.” Matt was quiet, and I pushed forward quickly. “Matt, can you follow them?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I’ll tail them.”
“Don’t lose them,” I said, unable to keep the urgency out of my voice. “But don’t . . . don’t try to talk with them or anything. Don’t let them see you.”
“I know how to tail, Fort,” he snapped, then, “Listen, I’ve got to get off the phone. I’ll talk to you when I can.”
He hung up. As soon as she saw me end the call, Lilah took her hands off her mouth and her words tumbled out. “That’s Felix. Why would they be using Felix? He’s a changeling, not a recessive. Why would that woman be with him?”
“They’ve just changed the pattern,” I said grimly. “Or we were wrong about the pattern to start with. Maybe we missed a bunch of murders. Lilah, have changelings been going missing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Her hands were shaking, and she shoved them through her hair. She closed her eyes, thought a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think anyone went missing, but I can’t be sure. They’re on the fringes of the community. I know only a few, and there are at least a hundred, probably more, that are under thirty and were taken from their parents.”
The bathroom door slammed as Suze emerged. She was in human form again and had clearly dressed in a hurry. Pants and shirt were on but she was barefoot, and even though it was completely inappropriate under the circumstances, my brain couldn’t help noting that she hadn’t bothered with a bra. And that the room was a bit on the chilly side.
“Time to drop the speculation,” she said, pulling her hair back into a quick ponytail. “Soli is with the sacrifice this time, and they know that we’re looking for them. I don’t think they’ll be worrying about laying a false trail. Your sister hasn’t found any of them yet. It’s up to your detective now.”
As if she’d summoned him, the phone rang. Matt was calling, and I immediately answered it. “Matt?”
“Lost them,” he said, his voice clipped. “The girl was driving and they ran a red light. I was two cars behind—there was no way I could follow them.”
“Shit.” With that lead down the toilet, there wasn’t anything left except to try to move Matt out of the line of fire. “Can you go back to the tattoo place? Just watch it.”
“With a possible victim out there, you want me to get back on the stakeout?” Suspicion was heavy in Matt’s voice. “What does your friend know?” Then, even more ominously, “Fort, I’m looking at this photo again and I’ve got to say, this girl is a dead damn ringer for that vegan ex of yours. What the fuck is going on here?”
My stomach dropped—Matt had met Beth only a few times in passing, but apparently it had been too much to hope for that he wouldn’t recognize her if he stared at a picture of her skin long enough. I couldn’t think of any way to smooth this over, and the fact was that we needed to put together some kind of plan quickly. I gave up and went for the most cliché way to escape this conversation. “What? Matt? I can’t hear you! My reception sucks!” And I hit the End button.
Suzume gave me a slow shake of her head. “Really smooth, Fort. Not suspicious at all.”
“I’ll worry about that later,” I told her. “Right now we need to figure out something to do. Lilah?”
Lilah was currently sitting on the edge of Suzume’s bed, her face pressed into her hands, not exactly inspiring confidence. She didn’t look up. “I don’t know,” she moaned. “Felix is one of us. I hired him. Tomas gives him rides home after work sometimes. We all chipped in to get him a birthday cake when he turned seventeen. How could they even think of using him?”
“You can have your crisis of faith later, Keebler,” Suze said, derision glittering in her eyes when she looked at Lilah. “Right now your boss is planning on murdering the stock boy, and you going to pieces is not helping.”
I tossed a glare at Suze and dropped down onto my knees in front of the shaken half-blood, putting my hands around hers and gently tugging them down to reveal her paper-pale face. Whatever she’d thought the Neighbors capable of, it clearly hadn’t been the murder of one of their ow
n. “Lilah,” I said, as soothingly as I could, rubbing her cold hands. “If we can’t stop it, Felix is going to die really horribly.” She flinched visibly, and I squeezed her hands hard. “You need to help us, Lilah,” I urged. “Is there any way you know to get either Tomas or Lulu’s locations? Anything you haven’t tried yet?”
She looked at me blankly; then understanding slowly filled her golden-brown eyes. There was something just a little harder about her gaze; one last illusion, one last, toughest belief she’d had about her extended family had just been stripped away. She nodded once. “I can get Dr. Leamaro,” she said, her voice low and rough.
“Meaning?” Behind me, Suze crossed her arms, and looked distinctly disbelieving.
“I can get Dr. Leamaro to come to my apartment,” Lilah said, her voice getting stronger, more grimly certain with each word.
I stared. “Why didn’t you do that before?”
Lilah gently dropped my hands and stood up, pacing across the room. “Because I’ll need to lie to a friend well enough that she believes me and calls Lavinia.”
Suze shook her head. “You and Fort are so alike,” she said in a tone that definitely was not implying a compliment, and reached down and pulled on a pair of socks. “This is definitely not the time to get panties in a twist over honesty. Do it now; apologize later.”
I didn’t like the tone of her voice, and I wouldn’t have phrased it that way myself, but at this point I was in agreement with Suze. But I kept as much of that off my face as possible as I said to Lilah, “Let’s head to your apartment, then.”
• • •
“So, how are you going to flush out Lulu?” I asked as we drove to Lilah’s apartment. She’d taken a cab to the hotel, and now we were all one rather awkward group in the Fiesta, with Suze choosing to stake out the backseat with the bags. I would’ve felt more confident in this plan if Prudence was on her way as well, but by the time the brainstorm had happened it was already ten a.m., and on a perfect blue-sky day like today my sister was already holed up in her hotel room.
“I’ll tell her I might be miscarrying,” Lilah said.
I nearly rear-ended the car in front of us, and the Fiesta’s brakes squealed and threw all of us forward against our seat belts.
“Fort, when this is all over, we are playing some fucking poker,” Suze griped behind me. “Recognize a goddamn lie.”
“Yeah, definitely not pregnant.” Lilah eyed me.
I could feel an impending question about her waistline, and I cut it off. “Why would Lulu care if you’re pregnant?” I asked. “People are squirting out seven-eighths babies now—why worry about a halfsie’s baby?”
Lilah shook her head. “You aren’t understanding the mentality. This generation is what might make us a sustainable breeding population. Any of us who get pregnant, as long as it isn’t with a human, is valuable to them. Besides, I’m going to bait the hook with something good, something I know she won’t be able to resist.”
“If she’s hanging out with the Ad-hene, she probably won’t buy a story about her favorite kind of incest,” Suze noted dryly.
Lilah made a face. “Not that. But I’ve been getting the hard sell on one of the three-quarter boys lately. Cole’s a jackass, but I went out with him a few months ago, just to shut everyone up for a while. He showed up wasted, ended up sleeping on my couch for the night. If I say now that I actually had sex with him, the person I’m calling will believe me.”
“Who are you calling?” I asked. “You obviously don’t have Lulu’s direct number or you would’ve already handed that over.”
“Peggie,” she answered. “She’s a half-blood like me, and we’ve been friends since we were toddlers. But when I left after high school, she stayed. She’s not quite a true believer, but if I call her with this and say that I don’t know whether I wanted to keep the baby or not, I know she’ll act for the community and call Dr. Leamaro.”
All these crosses and hybrids were sloshing together in my head. “What would a halfsie and a three-quarter produce again?”
“A five-eighths,” she said readily, unintentionally highlighting exactly how creepy this whole situation was. “Not as good as a three-quarter but definitely better than a half-blood. Dr. Leamaro won’t risk one being lost.”
“Punch the gas, Fort,” Suze said. “I have officially topped out on the amount of fractions and pregnancy talk that I can handle for the damn day. I’m really ready to start kicking ass instead.”
“Fair enough,” I muttered, inching the speedometer upward.
• • •
Lilah lived on her own in a cramped one-bedroom apartment, furnished with the best in space-saving Swedish interior design. She’d placed the call as soon as we’d arrived, and since then Suze and I had been crouched uncomfortably in Lilah’s coat closet, waiting to spring into action.
“How long has it been?” Suze hissed loudly, managing to elbow me in the kidney as she shifted position.
“Two hours,” I snapped, checking my watch in the sliver of light from the cracked door. “Shut up.” I kept shifting my weight, trying to stave off pins and needles.
“This isn’t going to work.” Suze had gone very much on record as a doubter of this plan.
I had a lot of her doubts, but it had become clear that this was our best shot at this point, and I poked her with my own elbow and made a shushing sound.
“Guys, a car just pulled up.” Lilah had been positioned at her front window since she placed the call, and I could hear the jumble of fear and adrenaline in her voice. “Door is opening . . . Yeah, it’s Lavinia, and she’s alone. She’s got her medical bag. She’s coming up the walk.”
My heart thudded in my chest, and I could feel Suze tense beside me. Both of us were positioned so that we could peer out of the partially opened door. Lilah had drawn back from the window—we’d all agreed that it would look less suspicious if she wasn’t waiting right at the door, especially since she wasn’t supposed to know that her friend had called in the doctor. When Lulu’s loud, impatient knocking filled the small apartment and Lilah moved to answer it, I carefully thumbed off the safety on my Colt.
Lilah pulled open the door, revealing Dr. Lavinia Leamaro, and exclaimed loudly in fake surprise. I winced at the sound—the theater had not lost any true daughter in Lilah, and the lie was written clearly across her face. But Lulu wasn’t looking at Lilah’s face—those brilliant green eyes that were such a surprise against her dark skin were fixed on Lilah’s stomach, and for the first time I truly understood what Lilah had told me so many times.
When I had met Lulu, she had seemed normal enough—professional, if a little light on medical ethics. But now I saw the raw avarice on her face when she looked at Lilah’s belly, and whatever mask she’d worn had dropped, revealing a base fanaticism that was fundamentally repellent to me.
“You should’ve told me earlier, Lilah! It took that Peggie forever to get a message to me.” Lulu stretched out her free hand toward Lilah, grasping and feeling at her flat stomach, not even aware of the way that Lilah flinched at her touch. Her voice was thick with satisfaction. “It’s Cole’s, she said. You good girl. Your mother always said that you’d come around eventually. Now I’ll just check you out—” And, not releasing either her medical bag or her grip on Lilah, Lulu walked farther into the house and pushed the door closed with her foot.
That’s what Suze and I had been waiting for—the final confirmation that no one else was coming inside, and that Soli hadn’t been lurking somewhere. Lilah threw herself backward at the same moment that Suze and I burst out of the closet, managing to avoid tripping over each other. I held the gun on Lulu, and she froze in the middle of the room.
“So glad you could make it,” I told her. Would I find the tool that she’d used to slice Gage apart in that innocuous medical bag? Anger bubbled up in me, and my voice was as cold as any of my siblings could
boast. “I have a lot to ask you,” I promised her.
Comprehension dawned on Lulu’s face, followed immediately by a contorting rage. Ignoring the fact that I was aiming a gun right at her head, she turned and made a lunge for Lilah, a wordless shriek of anger ripping out of her throat. Lilah barely pulled back enough to avoid Lulu’s grasping hands, and Suzume tackled the older half-blood to the floor. Lulu was fighting hard, driven by an anger that seemed to have almost pushed her past the point of sanity, struggling not to escape but to get at Lilah, and doing it with so much energy that Suze was clearly hard-pressed to subdue her. I turned the safety back on and shoved the Colt into Lilah’s hands, hoping that she wouldn’t drop it, and waded in to help Suze. It took both of us to wrestle her onto the ground, and after several breathless minutes when Lulu still wouldn’t stop fighting, Suze was eventually left with no other option than to throttle her into unconsciousness.
From her own overnight bag, Suze produced a bag of wire ties, bungee cords, and thin but strong cord. I did my best not to overthink her possession of that particular bag of tricks. Lilah had a nice wooden office chair in her bedroom, and the three of us (mostly Suze, with me attempting to reproduce her best knots and Lilah showing a complete Girl Scouts epic fail) tied Lulu to the chair. Clearly uncomfortable with her role as Judas, Lilah retreated from the bedroom, while Suze and I sat down to wait.
We didn’t have to wait long. In a few minutes Lulu woke up and immediately began screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Try all you want,” Suze said lazily. “Lilah’s neighbors are only going to notice that her TV is on very loudly today.” Once again, Suze’s fox tricks had proven extremely useful. Lulu stopped screaming and stared at them, her whole body quivering with rage. I couldn’t help but be amazed at her reaction, even as I kept my face stony—my reaction to waking up tied to a chair would definitely have been pants-wetting terror, not foaming anger.
Iron Night Page 28
