by Gabby Fawkes
“Are you telling me that night magic still exists?” I asked.
Nikolas nodded. “Yes. Invoking it is illegal, but there are underground groups that are drawn to its lures. But with all this sun vs. moon crap going on at the moment, the actual bad guys are going under the radar. Because of a constant need for an enemy — which I’m sure Freud has something to say about — the sun-class transferred their night-hatred over to the moon-class instead. We became the bad guys. Driven underground, away from the daylight.”
Huh.
I’d grown up ignorantly believing that suns and moons were naturally opposed. That there were innate divisions between us that the peace treaty was doing its best to manage.
“Hold up,” I said, as a sudden thought sprung to my mind. “Are you guys even nocturnal?”
“Nope. At least, not by default. We’ve only become that way because we had to.”
“Well, shit.” I rested my back against the wall, stunned. “So let me get this straight. You took on sun powers to make some kind of political statement?”
“Er…” Nikolas shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot.
“Then why hide your moon tattoo? Shouldn’t you be all out, loud and proud, and in everyone’s face?” I thought of Gus as I said it. He refused to quell his flamboyant gayness. It was one of the things I admired most about him.
Nikolas looked away evasively. I noticed his hands were now clenched into fists. Clearly, I’d poked a sore spot.
“Sorry, that was personal,” I said.
He shook his head. “I didn’t switch to make a grand political gesture.”
“You didn’t?” Maybe I’d been a bit hasty letting my lady bits get re-ignited for this guy.
“You know the Vanpari Five?” he suddenly blurted. He looked at me with intensity in his dark eyes. “The ones who just got sentenced to death by a sun court for murdering a Celestial woman?”
I recalled the TV report I’d watched in the canteen today. Nik had looked furious about the outcome. “Uh, yeah...” I said, not knowing where this was going.
Pain flashed in his eyes. “They’re my friends.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Really? That’s heavy.”
“But they were framed,” he added quickly.
Another bolt of shock hit me. “They were? How do you know?”
“I just do. The whole case is a farce. I had to come overground to clear their names.”
Just then, I remember the escaped Vanpari in Bear Mountain. The look of wild terror in the eyes. He’d looked scared for his life. And not even remotely like the vicious murderer the press had painted him as.
“I saw the one who escaped!” I cried.
Nik hushed me. “What? Where?” His eyes were wide with surprise.
“In the mountains back home.”
Suddenly, Nik grabbed my hand and pulled me into the pool house. He seemed completely rattled. I should’ve been more perturbed but I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I was holding hands with Nik!
As soon as we were inside, he let go and shut the glass door securely. I felt the absence of him immediately, longing to feel his cold, smooth skin against mine again.
He turned to face me.
“Okay. Tell me everything from the beginning,” he said. “You saw Elliot? Where?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. My mind seemed completely beffuddled from the sudden physical contact with him. I had to shake my head to get back my senses.
“Elliot? The Vanpari. Right. Okay. So I was in the forest in Bear Mountain. This was two days ago. I ran into the Vanpari kid.”
“Shit.” Nikolas grabbed his forehead with his hand. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
“He dropped something,” I said, suddenly remembering. “A medallion, I think.”
I reached inside my jacket pocket. The necklace was still in there. I held it out to Nikolas.
He touched it with his fingertips.
“Take it,” I said with a nod.
Nikolas clasped it in his fist. Emotion sparked in his eyes. Then he coughed as if clearing it from his throat. “Bear Mountain. How far away is that?”
“Like an hour drive north from here,” I replied. “But, Nik, calm down. You’re not going to run off to the forest and try to find him, are you?”
“Of course I am!” Nik replied. “He’s out there alone. Lost. On the run. He needs my help.”
He was starting to sound frantic.
I placed my hands on his shoulders to ground him. “He’s safe. Okay? I know those mountains like the back of my hand. They’re dense. Barely penetrable. Even if law enforcement tracked him that far they’ll have a hell of a time finding him inside. Trust me. With everything going on against the Vanpari right now, he’s safer there than anywhere.”
Nik paused and stared into my eyes. The worry shining in them made my heart skip a beat. He really cared about his friend.
“I have to help him,” he said meekly.
“You will,” I told him, firmly. “Just not right now. Not in the middle of the night.”
My admiration for Nikolas ratcheted up by a million percent. He’d switched to sun-class to help his friends. He’d left his home behind to come to the sunlight to fight for something he believed in.
Finally, Nik exhaled, giving in to my reasoning. He paced over to the couch and slumped down. His head fell into his hands like a stone.
I hesitated, caught between wanting to go over and comfort him and wondering how welcome such a move would really be.
“But what makes you so certain they were framed?”
“I just do,” he replied, looking pained.
“Why don’t you tell me? Offload.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous because…”
“Because it goes all the way to the top!”
He was getting frantic again.
“To the top?” I asked. “Do you mean… Geiser?”
I knew my step-dad-to-be was a shady dude, but to be actively involved in something like the Vanpari trials? In framing innocent kids of murder? What motivation would he have to get involved in that sort of shit?
Nik stood up and went over to a desk. He pulled out a box file and beckoned me over. I paced across the stone floor tiles and joined him at his side. He turned on the desk lamp. Light gleaned off a photograph. It looked like it had been taken by a telescopic lense, like the type a P.I. would use.
“What is that?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat begin to quicken.
The grainy photograph was of a café, looking through the window at two people sitting at a table. One was unmistakably Geiser. The other was a Celestial woman with blond hair and delicate wings.
“Recognize anyone?” Nik asked.
He flicked to the next photo. Same café. Same couple. Slightly different angle.
As he poured through the images, I suddenly gasped. I knew who the woman was. It was Carmella Reed, the woman who’d been murdered, supposedly by the Vanpari Five.
An unpleasant feeling began to squirm in my guts. “Carmella Reed knew Geiser?”
“He more than knew her…” Nik said, flicking to the next photograph.
In this one, Geiser was leaning over the table kissing the woman.
I grabbed the image. My eyes fell to the date. The photo was just a month old.
Immediately, I started freaking out. Geiser had been with my mom and this woman at the same time — this now very dead woman. I’d watched enough True Crime shows to know that the boyfriend was always suspect number one, and their likelihood of being the killer went up exponentially if they had such an obvious motive as cheating on their partner!
My heart raced in my chest. I was on the verge of hyperventilating.
“My mom’s marrying a murderer!” I squeaked, my voice pitching up like a chipmunk.
I was so loud, Nik’s owl familiar squawked in alarm. Quick as a flash, Nik turned and cupped his hand over my mouth befo
re I could scream the word murderer again.
“Shhh!” he warned me, his dark eyes penetrating into my soul.
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. Then I forced myself to breathe more slowly.
When Nik could tell I was done freaking out, he removed his hand.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said.
“You goddamn sure as hell should have!” I contested. “Man, I knew he was a creep. He gave me the heebeegeebees.” I shook the photograph of Geiser and Carmella Reed kissing. “Now I know why!” I stage-whispered. “He’s a frickin’ murderer!”
This was all too much to take. I walked over to the couch and fell into it. My mind was swimming.
“So Geiser was having an affair with Carmella Reed,” I said, putting the narrative together in my mind. “He knows it’s not going to look so good from a PR perspective to have two woman on the go at once. Mom is clearly the better choice in the public’s eye because she’s a Mage, a mother, and also, you know, not a lap dancer.”
“Right,” Nik affirmed. He came over and sat beside me, eyeing me with caution.
I scrunched up my face with disgust. “So he had her killed? Rather than, oh I don’t know, break up with her like a normal fucking person would do?”
“Dead people can’t talk,” Nik said, exhaling sadly. “Why do you think the Vanpari Five got death sentences?”
I felt a tightening in my chest. This was all too horrifying to accept. Gesier being a psychopathic murderer was one thing, but framing a bunch of innocent kids in the process was totally sadistic. And then there was my mother. She was sharing her bed with a lunatic!
“Why did he choose them?” I asked, searching Nik’s eyes as I struggled to comprehend it all. “Why a bunch of kids?”
“Plenty of reasons. First off, they’re Vanpari. We all know that most people automatically assume Vanpari are violent. Then there’s the club Carmella worked at. It had a reputation for letting in underage boys. They’d all visited it the weekend before the murder, so it was easy for the prosecution to prove the connection. Third, they’re young enough to be susceptible to the types of interrogation tactics that elicit false confessions. And finally…” He took a deep, sad breath. “It’s more salacious. A better story. Why accuse one Vanpari when a gang of them is just so much worse? What better way to whip up hysteria about the moon-class and the Twilight hours? Geiser has a pretty good PR firm pulling the strings behind the scenes, you know.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “This is so screwed up.” I looked up at him with concerned eyes. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“We?” he asked.
“Well, duh,” I replied. “I’m part of this. He’s about to become my step-dad. We need to expose him.”
Nikolas’s lips twisted to the side. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to get involved. I have protection. You’re vulnerable.”
“Protection?” I asked.
“My mom,” he replied.
Of course. Mayor Storm was the moon-mayor. She was in the parallel position that Geiser wanted. If — or when — he got into power, he’d have to cooperate with her. I recalled Heidi telling me they were family friends. Perhaps it was more of a case of keep your enemies close?
“So what, you’re some kind of spy?” I asked.
He nodded slowly.
I whistled air out between my teeth. This was a lot to take in. I wasn’t sure yet I fully understood everything. But what I did know was that Nikolas Storm hated William Geiser just as much as I did.
“Look, you need to sign me up to the anti-Geiser brigade,” I said with determination. “I need to stop that asshat from winning the election and marrying Mom. Besides, I’m totally well placed to get evidence. What’s better than a spy in the pool house if not one under the same roof?”
I grinned to show him just how confident I was. But his expression remained grim.
“This isn’t a game, Theia. We’re talking about a really dangerous, powerful man. Who knows what Geiser’s capable of if he finds out?”
I looked out the window at the mansion. It looked so tranquil, beaming warm yellow light out the windows. But I knew that it was hiding dark secrets, and one very twisted soul.
“I’m in the best place to do it,” I said more firmly. “I’m living right under Geiser’s nose. I can help.” I nodded at the medallion Nik was still clutching tightly in his hand. “I can help you track Elliot, too. You said you wanted to go to Harriman and find him, right?”
He nodded. “But I can do that alone. Now I have something personal of his, I can put a tracker spell put on it. It’ll lead me right to him.”
I shook my head, growing a little exasperated. “And then what?” I asked. “Even if you did convince him to come back and testify, what’s to say anyone will believe him? They didn’t before. What’s different now? The fact you have a few photos?” I shook my head. “That’s not enough. You need more evidence. And I’m the one who can help you get it.”
Nik didn’t look so convinced. “How? A murderer isn’t exactly going to leave a paper trail in a nicely labelled file in the study, is he?”
“No. But there’ll be something. There’ll be more somewhere. We need enough evidence to really nail him. A photo won’t be enough. Even if we have a Vanpari boy’s testimony to back it up.” I looked into his eyes. “Give me a couple of days, okay? See what I can get out of him. Then we’ll go to Harriman and find Elliot. Deal?”
He held up the medallion. The small silver crescent moon spun, catching the light. Nik took a heavy breath. Finally he nodded. “Deal.”
10
There was a lot going on in my head as I went inside the house and tiptoed up to my room. The fact my step-dad-to-be was a murderer being the most pressing of them.
I desperately wanted to call Gus and offload. He’d only been out of reach for a day but already it felt like too long.
Once I reached my room, I slumped into bed and stared up at the ceiling, my mind spinning. I’d already been less than thrilled about coming to New York, gaining a step family and starting a new school. Now I’d signed up to a whole covert spy operation to bring down the establishment. Talk about keeping my head down and getting through senior year.
I heard a knock on my door. I sat up and groaned. It was probably Heidi.
“I’m in the middle of homework!” I shouted.
The door handle rattled.
I leapt up and hurried for the door as it began to open, ready to slam my palm against it and shut it right in Heidi’s nosy face.
But it wasn't Heidi. It was Geiser.
I froze with surprise as he marched right in.
“Uhh, come on in?” I said.
Having him standing in my room felt so wrong. From the expression on his face, I knew right away that this wasn’t a friendly stop-by. He knew I’d been out during dusk. What else did he know? That I’d been chatting with Nik? That I knew he was a murderous asswipe?
A feeling of disquiet swept through my body. My pulse quickened with dread.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I want you to stop upsetting my fiancée.”
I frowned. “What? What did I do?”
Geiser had a stern, parental expression on his face. I was so not in the mood for it. I’d known him for precisely one day. It was way too soon for him to pull the stand-in dad routine on me. Not to mention the fact I was almost an adult and the days of a stern talking-to having any effect on me were way in the distant past. And, you know, him being a murderer and all.
“Emerald told us about your behavior at school,” he said.
I sighed. Of course she had, the little snitch. So much for helping me out with some friendly advice. Bet she couldn’t wait to get her cell phone out and show Mom my pink-pantied wrestle with the Baphomet.
“Why do you insist on carrying that stupid thing around with you?” Geiser sneered, nodding his head to where my bow lay across my bed.
I fe
lt a sting in my chest. “It was my father’s.”
“It’s a security blanket. Stop acting like a baby and grow up.”
His words were so cold and harsh they were in complete contrast to the schmoozing of yesterday. It was like he’d had a personality transplant over night. I guess psychopaths could do that, switch their charm on when it suited them.
“Everything she does, she does for you,” Geiser continued. “Do you understand that?”
I raised an eyebrow to convey my disagreement. “You mean like how she kept you a secret from me?”
“That was to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? Getting upset about how quickly she forgot Dad? Because springing it on me at the last second only made it worse.”
“Your mother is only ever trying to do what’s right for you.”
I scoffed. “Clearly you don’t know her very well.”
Suddenly he grabbed me. His hands tightened on my arms, his fingertips like little pincers digging into my flesh. He slammed me back against the wall, knocking the wind out of me. I “oofed” with pain.
“You’re only here because of her,” he sneered.
A sharp ache radiated from the place he had hold of me. Panic fluttered in my chest. I faltered. “What do you mean?”
“I love your mother, Theia. But that feeling does not extend to you. The last thing I want in my life is a stupid, ugly, dirty, uncivilized Elkie daughter. Do you know how bad that looks for my publicity? In this political climate?”
I was stunned. So I’d been right, even if I hadn’t expected my suspicion to be confirmed so soon. The gifts and schmoozing had all been an act. He hated me just as much as I hated him. The cold look in his eyes was terrifying. I bet it was the same look he had in his eye as he watched his victims die.
“You’re a dick,” I told him.
At my words, a strange evil smile spread across his lips. “If you make any trouble, Theia, I have ways of dealing with you. So don’t tempt me.”
He shoved me one last time against the wall, then marched out of my room.
I slid down the wall, panting. William Geiser had just threatened to kill me. Before, I’d thought Mom was marrying a jerk. Now I knew for certain she was marrying a violent, murderous psychopath.
