by Celia Kyle
Maybe there was something to the mating bond after all. She’d never felt more at home than she did next to him.
“Fine!”
They all jumped at the shout from the bottom of the basement steps. It hadn’t even occurred to anyone to see what their other roommate might be up to. The thumping of hurried feet chased up into the room, and Ryan pulled up short in the doorway.
His eyes were red as he tugged his jacket close around him, looking ashamed at being seen. For one brief moment, it looked like he was about to say something, but he just bolted through the kitchen in silence. The front door slammed, and the whole table sat stunned. That was about as official as it could get. Nathan and Ryan were off again.
Starting at the ceiling, the walls dripped to black, as if great tears were running down. In short order, the entire place was dark, sheathed in ebony.
“I know,” Kelly said with disappointment as she reached out to pat the wall. “I liked them together too.”
Twenty-Three
The rest of the juniors acted nice enough that it came close to making Aurora suspicious. Given the way she had behaved the day before, it would have been easy for any of them to take pot shots at her over trusting Paul. The trouble was that any one of them would have bought into it too. And it was likely they would have been even worse about it.
Heather, in particular, seemed decidedly quiet and was dressed more modestly than was her habit. Aurora smirked to herself, thinking what a bummer that must have been for some of the guys. They had been getting an eyeful just as much as Paul, perhaps even more because they were around her all day while the former lead investigator just breezed through occasionally.
“Ms. Rhonelle?”
She turned to find District Attorney Boyd Widarin standing in the door to his office. She hadn’t even seen him come in. Moreover, she was almost shocked he knew her name.
“Sir?”
“Join me for a minute?”
A little thrill ran through her. She knew what this had to mean, and so did everyone else in the room. It took a massive effort of will to keep from casting a glance around to take in all the envious faces, but she liked to think she was above that.
She was about to get that promotion after all. Keenan might have been lying when he dangled the job in front of her, but now she was about to become a full investigator in earnest. Or so she hoped.
“Close the door,” Widarin instructed when she walked in.
He looked impressive sitting behind his desk. He was a vigorous man in his mid-fifties, his silver hair swept back, revealing a low widow’s peak. He sat in shirtsleeves, with the cuffs rolled up and suspenders making his barrel chest look even broader.
“Take a seat,” he said with a tight, professional smile.
Pride welled up inside her as she settled across from him. As much as she didn’t want to get ahead of herself, she couldn’t help it. She could already taste the victory of making full investigator in under a year.
“You’ve done incredible work here, Ms. Rhonelle. Everyone in the building… Hell, everyone in Othercross knows it, and I’d say you have a lot to be proud of.”
“Thank you, sir.” She could feel her cheeks redden, but she kept her chin up. With all that lay ahead, she needed to leave such bashful habits behind.
“That being said, I have to admit that this whole Keenan debacle has put our office in a precarious position.”
Something in his tone dimmed the glow inside her.
“It has?”
“Oh, yes. Naturally, Paul’s been relieved of his position, but if we drag this out into a major trial, it’ll make the whole department look bad. Rumors are one thing, but pushing this into the public eye could shake people’s faith that we can do what’s right, especially if we weren’t even able to recognize a criminal under our very noses.”
“What are you saying?”
Widarin leaned back, folded his hands just under his chin, and locked his green eyes on her. “I’m saying, Ms. Rhonelle, that we’re not going to prosecute.”
All of her breath left her. How was that possible? Paul Keenan had murdered two men in cold blood and tried to break into the Treasury! Yet the department was willing to let him walk because of how a trial might tarnish their reputation?
“It’s politics,” he said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t expect someone your age to understand, but consider this your first lesson in how the real world works.”
Aurora sat stunned, unable to wrap her head around what he was saying. She understood—they were going to sweep the entire thing under the rug—but she couldn’t accept it. Her breakfast threatened to reappear all over Boyd’s carefully arranged desk.
“Now,” he said, leaning forward until his elbows rested on his desk, “I have a proposal.”
Her tongue was stuck to the dry roof of her mouth. “What’s that?”
“If you’re willing to keep quiet about how everything shook out, you’ll walk into Paul’s job. From junior investigator to lead investigator in a single step. How does that sound?”
“A-are you serious?” She actually couldn’t tell. The whole thing seemed insane.
“As a heart attack. Tit for tat and all that. Not only will you get the job, but nobody has to know that you were fucking one of the judges on your first case. All the secrets stay secret.”
That hit her like a sledgehammer. In one breath, he had rewarded her and threatened her—all without batting an eye. She was being bullied into a promotion.
“So...” He stood up and extended a hand across his desk. “What do you say?”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. The current was moving far too quickly and she was being swept along with it. Moving as if she were in someone else’s skin, she found herself on her feet, her hand in his.
“Excellent!”
He put his hand on her shoulder and walked her out of his office. She was in such a daze, she didn’t realize they were even moving until she found herself in Paul’s old office.
“Here you go,” Widarin said, sweeping his hand to present the space to her. “Make yourself at home.”
Then he was gone.
Aurora stood completely stunned, looking around at all of Paul’s possessions. His books on the shelf, his awards lined up neatly on the wall. A picture of his parents even sat at the corner of his desk.
This is wrong.
The whole thing smacked of something more than politics. She couldn’t express exactly how, but she had a feeling in the pit of her gut. And, if she was learning anything from Dane, it was that she needed to start trusting her instincts. If she felt something was wrong, then something definitely was.
Her self-confidence was growing, and she knew she was better than this. Not just jumping all the steps into a job she wasn’t qualified for, but being pushed into it by some warlock in a position of power.
That’s right! Boyd Widarin is a warlock!
In a flash, she was out the door and sprinting down the hall. Running until her lungs ached, she cut down the street until she stood panting, directly in front of the Othercross Morgue. She straightened her outfit and waited until she wasn’t gasping for air. What she needed now was the air of authority.
For a moment, she almost wished she had waited until she had a card with her new title on it. The only problem was, by then the man she had come to see would be six feet under. Squaring her shoulders, she strode up the steps and into the lobby.
“Can I help you?” the dim-eyed vampire behind the desk asked.
“Yes, I’ve been sent by the Judiciary to see the body of Griffin Finch.”
He rolled his eyes up from the magazine he was leafing through and eyed her, from pearls to shoes. She was glad she’d worn one of her smartest outfits that day. There was no way she could have known that morning how handy it would wind up being.
“Gonna need to see some ID.”
He didn’t seem impressed by her junior investigator status, but it did the trick. She was waved i
nto the hands of a large, dull-looking orderly who led her down the hall. In short order, she stood in a white tiled room, waiting for the orderly to open a stainless-steel door in the wall. Pulling out the rolling metal slab, he flipped back the sheet so she could see Griffin Finch’s gray, lifeless face.
“I need the room.” Channeling as much authority as she could into her voice, she managed to get the orderly to leave, and then she was alone with the body.
Don’t think about it, Aurora. Just do it.
She closed her eyes tightly and began to create that golden pool inside her. It started small, but she kept working on it, teasing it up to full power and letting it radiate into every corner of herself. It filled her until it felt ready to spill over in a dazzling cascade of pure life-energy.
It was powerful—far stronger than she had ever felt before—and she didn’t give herself room for doubt. She simply reached out, laid her hands on the dead man’s chest, and willed the full force of her necromantic energy into Griffin Finch. It was far more than he deserved.
With a shudder and a breath through the deep slit in his windpipe, his eyes flicked open. When he saw her, that crooked smile oozed across his face.
“I was wondering if you were gonna show up.” His voice raked through the gash, but the words were clear enough. At least it was better than the horrible watery gurgle Abernathy had managed.
“We need to talk,” she said. “Sit up.”
He did and turned to face her, leaning back against the steel door just above his own. As much as the sight of this career criminal made her sick, she knew he wouldn’t be able to lie to her. Once reanimated, it was impossible.
“Would you mind covering yourself up?”
Finch looked down, and seemed surprised by his own nakedness.
“Oh, sure.” Tugging the sheet around to cover himself, he looked back up at her with a raised eyebrow. “Better?”
“Much.”
“No accounting for taste,” he shrugged. “I don’t suppose you have a cigarette?”
“I’d like to get down to it, if you don’t mind.” She pulled out her phone. Flicking it on, she started the audio recorder and clacked it down at his feet.
“Nice phone,” he smirked. “If I had anywhere to tuck it away, you’d have to watch out, young lady.”
“Cute,” she said with a curt smile. “Now, let’s get started. Who hired you?”
“Direct,” he said, nodding in approval. “I like that. Paul Keenan, but you know that part. Don’t you?”
“I do. He’s also the one who cut your throat.”
“He is. And old Abernathy too. Quick hand with a knife. Those things are his specialty.”
Aurora shuddered, remembering the army of them sailing at her and the ones they’d pulled from Dane’s chest. “How does it make you feel to know the Judiciary isn’t pressing charges against him for murdering you?”
“What?” Finch’s face darkened.
“That’s right. The man who killed you is going to walk free. D.A. Widarin knows everything, but is refusing to prosecute.”
“That son of a bitch is in on it.”
As soon as the words wheezed from him, Aurora felt a crackle up her spine.
“Tell me.”
“He’s the one who got Keenan moving. The whole thing was in layers. Paul offered me a deal. He’d drop the latest charges against me if I’d steal the... whatever the hell that was. But ultimately, I handed it off to good ol’ Boyd. He was gonna use it to break into the Treasury. It was a pretty good plan, if you ask me. Until they came back to clean up the loose ends, that is.”
“What was their plan?”
“The potion I stole—forget the name—knocks out gargoyles specifically. I guess Abernathy told Boyd all about it at some hoity toity University party, which is what gave him the idea in the first place. Trouble is, Boyd doesn’t have as much brains as he thinks. That damned Treasury is practically infested with gargoyles. Any real thief knows that.” He reached up as if to brush his lapel, only to realize again that he was naked.
“So he didn’t have enough?”
“Worse!”
Finch began to laugh like a maniac, and the sound of it hissing through his cut throat made Aurora’s stomach tighten. She gripped the edge of Finch’s slab and bore down on keeping herself together.
“What happened?”
“That idiot took it over there in a goddamn atomizer. Can you believe it? You need a better distribution system than that if you’re gonna knock out that many guards!”
Aurora recalled Ronun’s comment about needing to use a fog spell to disperse the potion to affect all of the gargoyles. Mr. Abernathy must have left out that small but important detail when discussing the potion with Boyd. Maybe that was why he’d been killed. Or maybe, and this seemed more likely to Aurora, he’d become suspicious of Boyd after the attempted Treasury break-in.
“What a fucking clown,” Finch said with a cackle.
“Language!”
The thief started at the sharpness of her command.
“All right! Jeez.” He reached up and gingerly touched the edges of his wound. “I don’t suppose I could get that cigarette now?”
“I don’t smoke,” she said. “Those things will kill you.”
“Not a problem for me anymore. Is it?”
Aurora leaned back and regarded Finch. He was bound to start fading soon and slip back into the house of death.
“Let me see if one of the orderlies has one. You’ve earned it.”
“Atta girl.”
Twenty-Four
“Surprise!”
As soon as Aurora and Dane crossed the threshold into Hollow House, it exploded with light and good cheer. After all the changes and upsets in the last week, she jumped nearly a mile high and then crashed down into a broad, unguarded laugh.
The main room was packed—her roommates, of course, all four of her brothers, and a profusion of faces that only ever seemed to come into her life when Kelly felt like celebrating.
“What are you all doing here?”
“What does it look like?” Ronun cried. “We’re celebrating!” He raised his glass and turned to the guests. “To the return of the hero!”
“Now, now,” Aurora said, waving them off with a smile. “Cut that out.”
“Nope,” Kelly laughed. “You cracked this thing wide open and landed those two rotten sons of bitches in jail. Don’t you dare say ‘language,’ to me because that’s what they are.”
“Fair enough,” Aurora conceded with a smile.
“And promoted to lead investigator,” Rhys piped in, looking as proud as his saturnine nature would let him. “In less than a year. I have to say, you beat me with that one, sis.”
“That’s not all.” Dane warmed the spot between her shoulder blades with the flat of his hand and looked down at her with immense affection. “Tell them.”
The entire room seemed to lean in at once. Ever since Aurora had carried her recording of Finch’s resurrected testimony into the OCJ, it had been a hail of announcements. The public scandal of murder and skullduggery, a flurry of arrests and interrogations as the overseeing authorities tried to find out just how far the corruption ran. All of it culminated in Aurora being elevated to her new post.
“It’s nothing,” she said, her habitual humility getting the best of her.
“Don’t be so modest,” Tiffany said, hovering just off Rhys’s side. “You’ve earned the room to crow a bit.”
“They’re honoring us with a ceremony,” she blurted. “Dane and I are receiving commendations for going above and beyond the call of duty. We just came from a meeting with the external review bureau.”
There was a moment of silence and then Kelly buckled over in delight.
“Ho. Lee. Shiiiiiiit!”
She stretched up to howl at the ceiling, and the room descended into a profusion of cheers and applause. For someone who had spent so much time living at the fringes of her own life, Aurora blossomed
under the unmitigated attention.
“Can I just say one thing?” She held up her hands, and eventually the raucous glee died down enough that she was able to take the floor.
“Here.” Dane offered his hand, ushering her to step up on the coffee table. While she was reticent to put her shoes on it, she cast the fussy part of her nature aside and assumed her little stage. The house even dimmed the lights and threw a spotlight on her.
“You’re all being so nice, but I just want to say that I can’t take all the credit for this. I never could have done it without Dane. He sniffed out Paul in the first place, plus his faith in me helped me find the courage to make some really scary leaps.”
“Here, here!” Ronun clapped.
“But it’s not just him.” When she looked at her brothers, a thin sheen of tears crept into her eyes. “Rhys, Duval, Lock and Onyx, you were there when I needed you, and you came without a moment’s hesitation. I’m not always the easiest to get along with, I know that, so thank you for being patient and always believing in me.”
None of her brothers were particularly emotional men, but Aurora could see in their faces that if they opened their mouths, their voices might just crack. And there, in her usual hovering spot by tall, lean Rhys, was someone to whom she owed a lot.
“Tiffany. Um. I have so much to thank you for. When things were really dark, you shared that sunshine you always carry around inside you. Even if you dress all in black…” There was a light ripple of laugher, but Aurora held the room.
“Without you, I might have lost the man standing next to me, but you were resourceful, determined and kind. And that saved Dane’s life. So, thank you.”
“All right, enough with the speeches.” Kelly made her way to the coffee table, holding up a shot glass brimming with tequila.
Without hesitation, Aurora plucked the glass from Kelly’s fingertips and fired it back in one glorious toss. It was so far from the way she had been at the last major gathering, the room fell into chaos again.
