The Veil

by Chloe Neill

  “That’s ridiculous,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “It would keep them from becoming wraiths.”

  “But it’s the Containment way.” The flame in her eyes shifted, simmered. “The best bet is to not end up here in the first place.”

  “Understood,” I said, and she nodded efficiently.

  “Anything new?” Liam asked quietly.

  Lizzie frowned, picked at a stain on her pants, brushed it aside when she realized it wasn’t coming out. “Two girls last night.”

  I guessed she meant wraiths, and it made me feel a little better that she still thought of them as something other than “it.”

  “Any signs of critical thinking?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but I didn’t see them before they were sedated. The girl tonight?”

  “Maybe. She didn’t attack when she first saw us. Ran instead. And we think she was trying to talk. Kept saying ‘contact’ over and over again.”

  Lizzie’s eyebrows lifted. “What does that mean?”

  “I was hoping you’d know. That have any connection to the Beyond?”

  She frowned, crossed her arms. “Not that I know of. Maybe she wants you to contact someone?”

  “Maybe. If so—if it’s a word, and not just a random sound—that’s big. That’s the first time a wraith has done that.” He glanced at me. “We should go back to the house tomorrow, take a look. Maybe we can find something.”

  I nodded. “Fine by me.”

  Lizzie fished something silver from her pocket. It was a stick of gum in its foil wrapper. “Splitsies?” she asked, offering it to us.

  Liam declined with a raised hand, and she held it out to me.

  I hadn’t had gum in ages. For whatever reason, that was one of the first things cleaned out of stores and convenience shops. “Yeah, please.”

  She broke it in half, tearing through the paper, and handed one to me. I popped it into my mouth, which watered at the sweet bite of sugar and peppermint. “Man, that’s good.”

  She grinned. “Isn’t it, though? Found a pack about a week ago. I’ve been rationing.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  Liam rose. “We should go. It’s getting late, and it’s been a long day.”

  “Lot of those going around these days.” Lizzie hopped off the desk, took a step closer. “There’s a lot of talk, Liam. The Paras are getting nervous.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. Something feels different.”

  “The Veil?”

  “Could be,” she said. “Hard to say in here. We can’t actually use our magic to find anything out. But there’s something in the air. Something coming. And it’s big.”

  He nodded. “Keep an eye out. You know how to get word to me.”

  “I do. Stay safe out there.”

  “I try my best.”

  “Nice to meet you, Claire Connolly. You be careful, too.”

  I nodded, and we walked outside, closed the door behind us.

  “They let a Para work at the clinic?” I asked.

  “As long as she swears not to do magic.” He crossed his heart. “She knows the Beyond, was a healer there. Can do the same work here. She’s good people.”

  “She seems like good people. Why are you trying to sell her to me?”

  “Because she’s a Para,” he said. “I’m just trying to broaden your horizons.”

  Paras didn’t lie to me, I thought, but kept the words to myself.

  “Let’s go to my place,” Liam said.

  My heart actually fluttered. “To your place?”

  “That granola bar didn’t do anything for me. You hungry?”

  If he had any mixed feelings about my going back to his place, he didn’t show them.

  This couldn’t be a good idea. Not when I was already so close to the edge.

  • • •

  A black cat sat outside Liam’s door when we reached the building. I decided I wasn’t superstitious, especially when he scratched it behind the ears, and it pressed upward into his hand.

  “You have a cat?”

  “No,” he said as the cat trotted away, presumably looking for greener pastures. “It’s a neighborhood cat, I think. I see her every few weeks. I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s a guard.”

  “Cats do their own thing,” I agreed.

  We walked inside, up the stairs, into his apartment.

  “I’m gonna change my shirt,” he said. “You want to make us a drink? There’s some ice in the fridge.”

  Maybe coming here hadn’t been the best idea, but I wasn’t going to turn down a drink right now. Not after the day we’d both had. I walked around the bar, checked out the stock. Rum, bourbon, vodka, rye. A small bottle of bitters, a bottle of Herbsaint. That led to only one conclusion.

  I glanced back at him. “Sazeracs?”

  He looked impressed by the offer. “Go for it,” he said, then disappeared into the bedroom.

  I found two glasses, poured in a splash of Herbsaint, swirled it, drained the rest into the sink. It tasted like licorice, and a little went a long way.

  I left the glasses on the counter, took a silver shaker to the small refrigerator tucked into the kitchenette at the other end of the room. There was a plastic bin in the small freezer bay that held a block of ice, some of it already chunked into pieces. Functioning electricity at its best. I tossed a couple into the shaker, closed the door again, and stood up.

  My gaze passed the doorway to the bedroom, where Liam, clad only in jeans, pulled a T-shirt out of a drawer.

  His body was a riot of taut skin over hard-packed muscle, faintly gleaming with sweat. Broad shoulders that curved into strong arms, planks of abdominals that slid into a flat stomach and bridged a lean waist and sculpted chest. Every inch was solid, curving muscle, so that he might have been carved of stone . . . except for the jagged scar across his left arm, a band of puckered skin halfway between shoulder and elbow.

  I turned, walked stiffly back to the bar.

  Maybe I’d just make mine a double, I thought, adding rye, sugar from a small covered dish, and bitters to the glasses.

  Liam walked back into the living room, opened the small refrigerator. He looked inside, took out a glass pan, checked beneath the foil, glanced back at me. “Roasted chicken?”

  My stomach grumbled in response, and he grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He took two small plates from a cabinet, portioned chicken onto each one.

  I sat down on a bar stool, slid his drink to the spot in front of the next one. “Where’d you get chicken?” Meat, especially fresh meat, wasn’t easy to come by in the Zone.

  Liam walked over. “Moses has friends. I bring him electronics every once in a while, and he rewards me. I don’t cook much, but I have the skills to roast a chicken. But I do it at Eleanor’s. Her kitchen’s better than mine.”

  “I’m surprised Containment lets him keep all that stuff.”

  “They think he’s a hoarder. Which he is,” he added, setting a plate in front of me. The portions were small. And when I looked back at the pan, I realized he’d split up the last of it for us.

  “But that’s not all he is. Just another example of Containment not being attentive to the details.”

  He picked up a piece of chicken, took a bite, swallowed. “I didn’t think to ask—you want a fork?”

  “No. I’m good.” I didn’t need a middleman getting between me and my chicken. I pulled off a chunk of meat, closed my eyes to savor it. “Damn, Quinn. That’s pretty good. Thank you for sharing.”

  “Sazerac’s not bad, either,” he said, but he was frowning when he put the glass down. “Except that I’m not sure I like Sazeracs. I don’t really like the licorice flavor.”

  I laughed. “Then why did you tell me to make one?”

  He shrugged. “It’s as prewar New Orleans as you can get. And you seemed pretty impressed with yourself.”

  I harrumphed, turned back to my dinner.

  • • •

/>   We ate companionably for a while, talking about Paras, about the war. The things people in the Zone, or at least in the Quarter, always seemed to talk about. So when we’d devoured the chicken, and cleaned up the plates, I tried to switch up the topics.

  “So, what do you do when you aren’t, I guess, working?”

  We’d gone back to the bar. I nursed another Sazerac while he opted for bourbon on ice. “I visit Eleanor. Play cards with her and Victoria or Maria, whoever’s on duty.”

  “Does Eleanor cheat?” I asked, thinking of what he’d said about Moses.

  “Not with me.” He paused. “At least, I don’t think she does.”

  “Does she win a lot?”

  His eyes narrowed as he thought it through. “Actually, yeah. Damn. I gave her a chocolate bar last week.”

  “Well, that’s worth cheating over.”

  “I can get you one.”

  I shouldn’t have looked as eager as I did. “You can?”

  Like gum, chocolate had also been cleaned out of closed stores and empty houses. And what remained hadn’t fared well—chocolate, heat, and humidity weren’t a good mix.

  “Eleanor gets shipments sometimes. One of my cousins—her granddaughter—lives in D.C., sends her things sometimes.”

  “I wouldn’t say no.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He rose, walked to a small cabinet near the cane sofa.

  “You asked what I like to do. I like music,” he said. He opened the cabinet, revealing hundreds of vinyl records. He flipped through them, pulled one out, slipped it from its paper, and placed it atop the record player. With two careful fingers, he put the needle into place. As Liam set the record’s paper sleeve aside, a man began to sing soulfully about love and desire. His voice was whisky-rough, as if love had done the damage.

  Liam turned back to me. “Would you like to dance?”

  “I—what?”

  He stalked toward me like an Irish warrior, held out a hand, his eyes blazing like jewels. I stared at his hand—the wide palm, the long fingers—then up at him. “Is that a good idea?”

  “No,” he said with a smile. “But I haven’t danced in a long time, and you look like you can move pretty well.”

  “I was born and raised in New Orleans,” I said, hopping off the stool and slipping my hand into his. “Of course I can.”

  Liam drew me toward him, kept one of his hands linked to mine, settled the other at my waist. Gaze on mine, he began to sway in time to the music. And he was pretty damn good at it. He could keep a beat, had just enough funk to keep the dance from feeling like a seventh-grade cotillion, and just enough self-control to keep it from feeling like a bawdy night on Bourbon Street.

  I didn’t know how long the song actually lasted—probably no more than three or four minutes. But when I dropped my head to his chest, and his arms came around me, it felt like the song could never be long enough. His arms made a wall between me and everything else in the world.

  The song ended, and silence fell like heavy rain. He released me, walked to the bar, put his elbows on it, ran his hands through his hair. He looked like a man in war, in battle. He hadn’t said it yet, but it wasn’t hard to guess why.

  “It’s because I might become a wraith,” I said. “Because you think I’m a monster.”

  “No,” he said, looking back. “I believe you can learn to control yourself, your magic. That’s why I’m helping you. But if anything goes wrong . . .” He paused. “If anything goes wrong, I’d be the man who puts you in prison. And that’s not fair to you.”

  I looked at him for a long time. I was becoming used to the idea that I had magic I could use, power that wouldn’t kill me. But in that unfolding moment, I’d have given it up in a heartbeat. I’d have flipped the switch, handed the power to someone else. But that wasn’t one of my choices. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what my choices were, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t find them here, tonight, while we tortured ourselves with touch and want.

  “I should go,” I said, and walked to the door. “I can find my way back.”

  “Claire,” he said, following me to the door, but I shook my head.

  “I’m a big girl, Liam. I don’t break easily, but there’s only so much I’m willing to bend.”

  As I walked down the stairs, I hoped he’d take that to heart.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Rain fell through the night. By the next morning, the weather had cleared and the day had blossomed beautifully. Cornflower blue sky with fluffy white clouds, cool temps, a light breeze. If there’d been any tourists left in the Quarter, they’d have filled the streets, the tables at Café Du Monde, the shops along Royal and Bourbon.

  I adjusted the clock sign on the front door. I’d told Liam I’d go with him to check the wraith’s house, see if we could find anything. I’d guessed we’d be gone for an hour and a half, and I hoped that was right—and that there wouldn’t be a run on twine while I was away.

  Liam’s truck puttered its way down Royal. He sat in the cab like a king, pulled over to my side of the street. His window was rolled down, elbow on the doorframe and one hand on the wheel. He glanced at me, took in the blue and gray tunic and dark leggings I’d paired with knee-high boots. I’d braided my hair, so it lay across my shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said when I climbed into the truck.

  “Hey.”

  I’d been nervous about seeing him today. The sense that I was nearing the edge of an emotional cliff kept haunting me. Unfortunately, that didn’t make me want to see him less—exactly the opposite.

  “You sleep okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Pretty good. I thought about my father a lot.” Feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, I looked out the window so he couldn’t see the emotion in my face.

  We drove through the Garden District and back to Fourth Street to the colonnaded house where we’d found the girl last night.

  Liam parked on the street, and I followed up the sidewalk and into the house.

  We’d left the door open, and rain had dotted the wooden floor. “You want upstairs or down?”

  “I’ll go upstairs,” I said. “I’ll call you if I find something.”

  He nodded, walked down the hallway.

  I took the stairs, which were covered by a thick, carpeted runner. Several rooms led off from the landing.

  The first two had been bedrooms for young boys, judging from the paint color and baseball-themed wallpaper border. No furniture, no toys. They’d left in the exodus, probably. Packed everything up, including the children, and gone in search of safety.

  There was a small bathroom, covered in old-fashioned pink tile, a pink sink, a pink bathroom. The owners had been into vintage, maybe. Or just hadn’t had the chance to upgrade before they’d moved out.

  I walked to the third door, pushed it open, and walked into another world. The room had been stripped of furniture and belongings from whoever had lived here before. But the wraith had made it her own. There was a roundish pile of blankets on the floor—probably where she’d slept. Food scraps in another—chunks of rotting vegetables, a few late berries, energy bars, empty water bottles.

  I rose and walked to the doorway, called his name. “Liam.”

  I heard him step into the doorway behind me. He walked in, spun in a slow circle as he surveyed the room.

  “She was living here,” Liam said. “It’s safe, it’s secure. Think about the fact that she ran away from us.”

  “But if she was able to evaluate that—if she could gauge whether she was in danger—why not just go home?”

  “Maybe she didn’t have a home to go to. Or she thought they’d be in danger from her.”

  That was depressing.

  “Let’s look around,” he said. “See if you can find anything that will tell us who she is or where she came from.”

  I nodded, moved to the pile of bedding. That was the nest, the spot where she slept. It made sense that it would be the most secure.

  Great theory, but totally
wrong. The blankets had feathers, leaves, crumbs. But nothing that wouldn’t require forensic equipment to analyze.

  I rearranged the blankets—it seemed only fair not to disturb her spot, even though she wouldn’t be coming back—and took a step backward so I wouldn’t step on it. The floorboard slipped under me with a squeak.

  I glanced down. The end of the board was lifted just a little. Accident, or intention?

  I got down on my knees, pulled the store keys from my pocket. There was a flat bottle opener on the key chain. As Liam moved silently beside me, I wedged it into the board, pried it up.

  Something jumped out. I screamed, jumped back . . . and watched a tiny mouse scurry across the room.

  “They don’t make wraiths that small, Connolly.”

  I laughed nervously at the joke. “That scared the crap out of me.”

  “So I saw. What else is in there?”

  I wasn’t thrilled about sticking my hand in this time, but I bucked up, reached in, and pulled out a purple Crown Royal bag, the kind with the yellow stitching. I opened it into my hand. There was a house key, a small rock, and a driver’s license.

  “Hello, Marla Salas,” I said, looking down at the picture of the smiling blond girl. She was twenty-three, and her address was only a few blocks from here.

  I looked up at Liam. “She hid this stuff, Liam. She put it together, and she put it somewhere she thought was safe. She was thinking.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, standing up again. “She was. And now we’ve got her address. Let’s go see if anyone’s home.”

  • • •

  The house was a small bungalow with a roofed front porch, dormer windows above it, in a pale pink color. The trim was warm and yellow, and the house was in remarkably good condition. Music was coming from inside. It sounded like Big Band jazz from the 1940s. The music, the cheery paint color, brightened my mood. Someone was making a life there. It was always awesome to see that.

  Liam stopped when we reached the porch, stared at the house. “I don’t do this often.”

  I looked at him. “This?”

  He glanced down at me. “Make notifications. Someone’s in there, probably someone who knew her. That means we’ll have to tell them what’s happened to Marla.”