I heard Rayna before I saw her, those stiletto boots pounding out a sort of ominous sonata as she came down the stairs. Once she was in the living room, I could see that her face bore the victorious smirk of someone who had found exactly what they were looking for. Behind her, the forensics team filtered out, perhaps to gather more evidence.
But it didn’t look like they’d need much more. She dropped a plastic evidence bag with a .45 revolver inside on the polished granite counter. I rubbed my nose and tried to maintain an even expression.
“That’s not mine,” I said. “The guy—a young guy, brown hair, a suit, he planted it up there.”
“Points for the extra details,” Rayna replied. “But that’s what they all say. Miss Hunter, you’re under the arrest for the murder of Roan Kelly. You have the right to remain—”
I almost fell over. “Wait, what’d you say?”
Rayna bristled at being interrupted. “It would be wise to keep your mouth shut, Miss Hunter. Or not, if you want to confess to placing this gun under the floorboard.”
“The victim’s name,” I said, as I felt Kai put the cuffs around my wrists. “What’d you say his damn name was?”
“Roan—”
But that was all I needed to hear. Because I knew Roan Kelly well. One might say intimately. Because, once upon a time, he’d been part of my old crew. We’d been in love. My first love, you could say. And now, he’d turned up dead on the beach next to my house.
It might not have been Aldric trying to frame me.
But one thing was for damn sure. Someone was trying to set me up.
And, by all appearances, they’d succeeded.
6
Well, this wasn’t the best Monday I’d ever had, all things considered.
Rayna Denton removed the cuffs with a smug little smirk. With her French-manicured free hand, she dangled the plastic evidence bag holding the gun in front of me as if to say don’t go anywhere. I batted it away.
She placed her hand on her service weapon and said, “Don’t do that.”
“Funny, I was about to say the same thing to you.”
“You’re going to be a handful.” The evidence bag crumpled slightly as her fist tightened. “Don’t go anywhere.”
As if I was liable to go poof and teleport myself out of the holding room. No risk of that. That wasn’t even a thing, anyway. Magic, like all things, had laws that I’d come to learn over the past four years. Besides, I knew from a few prior brushes with the law that I was going to be here for a little while.
Unlike those times, however, I wasn’t sure I’d get away with it this time. Roan had been our little crew’s systems experts, finding backdoors and unpatched ports into mainframes. Evidence would disappear on technicalities, reports would be doctored to make chain of custody fuzzy. Little hiccups that made the charges get thrown out before a trial. Unfortunately for me, Roan was dead, and judging by the events of the past twelve hours, allies willing to bust me loose were in short supply.
From the looks of the holding cell, the FBI hadn’t had much time to set up shop in Atheas. This room wasn’t really a holding cell at all, but an old, converted hotel room. There was an outline on the wallpaper where a king-size bed had once shielded the wall from the outside light. The rest of the wallpaper was a faded and sun-bleached sort of tan. A pilling black carpet rounded out the budget aesthetic. Then there was the exit, which was next to a bathroom. The main FBI addition was a single, cheap security camera blinking in the corner of the room. I glanced over my shoulder, where the morning sun was creeping through the drawn blinds. Without anyone else in the room, I decided to check out the view. I peeked through the cracked and fraying plastic, finding myself about five stories up. There was no balcony. I could see Black Sea Holdings’ Headquarters maybe four blocks away.
So the FBI had set up shop in the heart of the city, not far from Aldric’s base of operations. No wonder the ancient vampire was so upset. That couldn’t have been a mistake. Atheas was a massive island, seventy-six miles across at its widest point. The southwestern portion was dominated by the city, population nudging closer to six figures every day. In the northwest were the suburbs—where, if the FBI had been at least pretending to lie low, they might have set up shop. The eastern sections of the island were a little bit more…wild and sparsely populated. That would have been my choice for establishing a new outpost. But they were coming in hot, sirens blazing and guns swinging, ready to stake their claim to this place.
I turned around when I heard a knock at the door. Well, here it was: the part where Rayna and Kai would grill me, tell me to clear my conscience. Maybe offer me a deal they weren’t authorized to make and that would never hold up. That sort of bullshit dog-and-pony show.
The hinges groaned, in desperate need of oil. In walked a short, gray-haired woman wearing a severe expression. She carried a crocodile skin briefcase. I couldn’t tell if it was a fashion statement or more of an intimidation tactic. Either way, it threw me off guard, and I hurried back to the folding chair at the table. It dawned on me as I sat down that the table was merely the desk from the hotel room.
The woman’s suit and briefcase were much too nice to purchase on a government salary. I hoped that meant she was here to help, but I was less than optimistic, given that it looked like she hadn’t smiled in this millennium. Even across the room, she stank of chain-smoking and stale perfume. She shuffled over and grunted as she set down the briefcase. The light splashed over the scaly skin, making it look alive, like it was lurking in a swamp and waiting for the right moment to strike.
“And you are?” I asked.
The woman extracted a pair of reading glasses from a hidden flap in the briefcase. She thumbed through a thin file of documents without glancing at me. “Agnes Willsprout.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“Our mutual employer sent me,” the woman said in a flat tone that somehow still managed to be condescending. “It seems, Eden, that you are in quite the little jam.”
She set the file down on the pockmarked desk and looked around the room with a disdainful look. “We fought them for years. Yet here they are.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The Feds, honey.” She gestured at the bed. “And now they’ve set up in this hooker flophouse.” Agnes snorted. “The Golden Hind. An apt name, if there ever was one.”
I knew what she was talking about—both the hotel, and its namesake. The hotel had been closed by the time I’d arrived on Atheas, long since abandoned to a seedy low-level criminal element. But the ship it had been named after—that, well, that was more interesting. Sir Francis Drake’s fabled sunken ship, laden with treasure. There were those who believed he had buried it on this island, using the magical properties and sorcerers present to protect his prodigious hoard from fellow enterprising treasure seekers. It had attracted a fair number of would-be adventurers to the island. And no shortage of souls, since they would often die in stupid ways. A human soul wasn’t worth quite as much as a magical creature’s, but it still filled the quota just fine.
I said, “So how bad does it look?”
“Did you do it?” She gave me that severe look and then waved a wrinkled hand. “Don’t answer that. It doesn’t make a cow’s lick of difference to me.”
“I see.”
“Miss Hunter,” she began, like she was dictating a letter to her stenographer, “how bad things look is not the question. What we can do to make them look better is the order of the day.”
Good to know my counsel had a loose—or, more specifically, no—moral code. Hopefully her legalese and bullshit would weave its own sort of magic, able to twist the meaning of justice into something gross and not-at-all representative of the spirit of the law. Normally, I’d be against such miscarriages of justice. But, sitting here in this hotel-turned-flophouse-turned-FBI jail, all I cared about was getting the hell out of there.
Agnes finally sat down in the chair opposite mine. With a snap of her w
rinkled fingers, the camera in the corner went off. Her hands disappeared into the folds of the crocodile skin, emerging with a sizable stack of papers. From this stack, she selected a single sheet from the middle, like a magician choosing a card. She slid the paper across the worn wood and then tented her fingers together.
“You recall your original agreement with our mutual employer, do you not?”
I skimmed the document. I’d been slightly delirious—being revived and unceremoniously dragged out of the Elysian Fields will do that to a girl—but I did remember signing it. After all, the alternative—a return to death—hadn’t been all that appealing.
All the terms were there. Seven years of indentured service to Aldric, during which I couldn’t leave the boundaries of the island. Five souls per week, to be delivered each Friday, regardless of weather, health or other concerns. And, at the very bottom, a clause I didn’t recall: that, should my performance flag behind the “market standard,” the terms were renegotiable.
A tight ball of angry fear hardened in my stomach. I twisted my lips into a scowl and said, “This is a load of crap.”
“Is that not your signature, Miss Hunter?”
“Yes,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“And does it not seem that, given how the marketplace has shifted, your performance is no longer living up to the terms of your contract?”
“I don’t agree with that.”
Agnes plucked another paper from her mountain of legal documents. “But you can agree with one thing, Miss Hunter.” She pushed her glasses up her nose, and gave me a stern look. “You would very much like to get out of this place.”
Her fingers crept across the table, pushing the new sheet with it. The language was much like the last one—a one-page contract stipulating the terms of my employment. But this one had a couple key differences. One I was already aware of: the unreasonable weekly quota increase to seven souls. That would be a pain in the ass, but it was manageable.
What was untenable was the second change.
“Indefinite servitude.”
“Aldric has made a significant investment in your training and development,” Agnes said, finally calling him by name now that the camera was off. “It would be a shame for all that to go to waste.”
“You bitch.”
“Did you know the Persians used to reward those messengers who brought tidings of victory?” Agnes squared the bottom of the papers against the table before returning them to her briefcase. “But they killed those who returned bearing messages of defeat.”
“Thanks for the history lesson,” I said, still staring in disbelief at the new contract. Indefinite. That was just a fancy way of saying forever. The three remaining years were already a tough pill to swallow.
I might rather die than work for Aldric until the end of time.
“The lesson, Miss Hunter, is simple.” Agnes pushed a pen across the table. “The Persian empire crumbled long ago. For if you shoot the messenger, people tend to only tell you what you wish to hear. Not what you need to.”
“And what do I need to hear?”
“They have the murder weapon. They have motive. They have your skin fragments on the victim’s shirt. They have an eccentric woman who disappeared from the grid, changed her name, and lives alone on an uncharted island. Jury trial or no, you will hang for this.”
“Unless I sign,” I said.
“Now you’re beginning to understand.”
“I understand.”
“Then would you please sign the goddamn sheet so that we can both leave this forsaken trash pile?”
That was the rational move. Everything Agnes had said was true: the Feds had a solid case. The ex-lover taking revenge, stashing the murder weapon in the house where she’d fled to survive a catastrophic breakup. One small hitch in that story, of course: I hadn’t fled. I’d died. Technically, we’d never broken up. Not that I still loved him, of course. Too much time and space had passed for those feelings to be much more than memories. But whether anyone would believe that I’d returned from the dead like Lazarus, well…
Still, I heard myself say, “Fuck the contract,” I said, and made a show of tearing the old one up. Or trying to. The enchanted paper resisted my attempts. If only severing magical bonds were so easy. After a few moments of futile struggle, I gave up and started on the new one, the result being much the same.
Agnes sighed and brushed away a strand of errant hair from her over powdered cheeks. “If you are done with the tantrum, then perhaps we can both leave.”
Soul-binds. What a pain in the ass. Unbreakable, other than via extraordinary and unreasonable methods that were beyond my comprehension and resources. At the bottom of the first contract, my bloody thumbprint stared back at me, mocking my youthful naiveté.
Should’ve taken your chances in the afterlife, dumbass.
“And are you beholden to Aldric?” I asked, glowering at the crinkled face, the gray hair, the power suit. “How did a human get herself entangled in our mutual employer’s affairs?”
“Money.” Her weathered hand tapped the new contract. “If you would, Miss Hunter.”
I could only imagine how fun Agnes Willsprout was at parties. But one thing couldn’t be denied: she was damn good at her job. Aldric only employed the best. Well, besides me. I was apparently second best, and paying a steep price for my failures.
With nowhere left to turn, I clicked the pen out. After signing my name at the bottom, I turned a dial, and a small blade replaced the pen’s tip. I cut it across my thumb and pressed it to the paper. A faint magical thrum coursed over my skin, binding my soul to the agreement. Later, whenever Agnes delivered the page to Aldric, he would add his own thumbprint, and our pact would be complete. After a moment, I took my thumb away and glared at the lawyer.
“Is that all?”
Agnes examined the completed contract and gave a satisfied nod. After slipping the enchanted document back into her crocodile skin briefcase, she snapped her fingers. The camera light sprung back on. “Our mutual employer would like you to understand something, Eden.”
“Which is?”
“Your current career trajectory will no longer be tolerated.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I tried to keep it cool with a flippant, “Oh?”
“There will be consequences if you don’t live up to these terms.” Her tone suggested she also knew about the unwritten terms: how I needed to get rid of the competition. Damnit.
“Tell our mutual employer there’s nothing to worry about.”
Agnes rose from the table and headed for the door. Before reaching for the handle, she looked back. “Coming?”
“Now?”
“No time like the present, Miss Hunter.” She patted the crocodile skin bag. “I have your bail money right here.”
“I thought you were clearing my name.”
“Honey,” Agnes said, with what almost looked like a pitiable expression, “a word of advice: no one’s going to look out for you but you.”
Which meant only one thing.
After I got out of jail, I was on my own.
7
I was free—except not really. Still, it felt good to be out of jail, even if it came with strings. A million dollars in bail meant I could leave the converted FBI Field Office without a police escort. But I wasn’t exactly cleared of the charges. And, from the disgusted looks of the gathered FBI agents in the lobby, they weren’t going to sit down and take it while a murderer walked free. They’d do their damndest to find the type of evidence that would lock me up forever. Between now and then, though, I was free to roam the island and try to clear my name.
“Don’t leave town,” Rayna said, waiting like a hawk by the lobby’s exit.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, giving her a little wave as I walked into the light. It was morning now, the pleasant, blue-skied, island type of morning that people believe will make them happier forever. But people in warm climes are no happier than those ha
cking it on the tundra. Misery lurks in the shadows of the sunshine, same as everywhere else.
My right shoulder throbbed, begging for some sort of relief. The cut gracing my palm was somewhat less irritating, but on a normal day, would have ranked a trip to the local hospital. I was thankful that Agnes had arrived before the Feds could grill me with questions. The torn sleeve and black, brackish blood caked to my skin like swampy mud would have been hard to explain. My sea-salt stiffened jeans cracked and chafed against my thighs as I walked up the trash-strewn sidewalk. Despite the FBI’s presence, this part of the city hadn’t really picked up. But it was early days: maybe in a couple years, they’d have palm trees and a health spa next door.
I wasn’t holding my breath. Aldric would probably burn the entire block down before he allowed the American government to encourage urban renewal on his turf. If there was a section of the city that was moribund and seedy, it was because he wanted that way—not through negligence. After all, but four blocks stood his shining headquarters, the tallest building on the island by about a hundred feet. Looming large over everything else in a not-so-subtle display of power.
I’d stick it to Aldric later. Fuck this new contract, and fuck him. I was going to figure out how to break the terms. But that was a long game, the type of thing that could take years. Short-term, I had a growing list of problems, and a limited time frame in which to address them.
The most pressing problem was the shoulder. Leaving the bite untreated for twelve hours wasn’t doing me any favors. I felt dizzy and slightly nauseous. Another twelve, and I’d be seriously up shit creek. If I even wanted to start investigating this murder to clear my name—and find out who set me up for the fall—I’d have to survive the week. And while a Reaper couldn’t be turned by a werewolf’s bite, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t have unpleasant side effects.
Rain Dance (Sunshine & Scythes Book 1) Page 5
