To my surprise, what I said actually seemed to rev him up more. “But you’re not immediately saying no, Fortitude, which is what is important.” With a clear effort, he forced the enthusiasm down and got serious again. “A succession is coming. We all know it, and we’re all bracing for it. If Prudence rules when Madeline is gone, then things for the witches are definitely going to stay bad and probably get a lot worse. But you stopped your sister from killing a witch, even one who had done some pretty morally gray things. So I want you to see more of us, Fortitude, and be aware of us and what we can do and how we could live. Because you could be a voice for where we could go, and for changes in the way things have been done.” That was definitely enough to make me uncomfortable, and I opened my mouth to explain that whatever hopes he was pinning on my ability to convince my sister to do something she didn’t want to, he was so barking up the wrong tree, but he held up a hand to stop me and my jaw snapped shut again. He just looked so very painfully earnest. “That’s all I wanted to say for today. Now, about your murderer problem. Just get me at least a cup of Matias Kivela’s blood, and a few hours for everyone I need to drive down. Let’s say, my house a bit after eleven tonight?” He wrote down an address on the back of one of his business cards and slid it across the desk to me. I glanced down at it, noticing that unlike most doctors, Sassoon had very legible handwriting.
I considered, then accepted that I really did need this compass thing. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on Sassoon. “All right.” I paused, then had to ask. “You’re not going to tell me not to tell my family about your big plans?”
All of his activist fervor from before was back under control, and Sassoon gave that cool smile that made me remember my earlier vestigial high-school desire to punch him. “You know very well that if you tell them, Prudence will see me dead as soon as possible.”
That was certainly unfortunately true, but still. “You’re pretty confident about my ability and desire to keep my mouth shut.”
“I’m a gambler. Besides, you protected Ambrose, who had done far more than me to deserve death,” the witch said dryly, then turned to look at Suzume.
“You aren’t so sure about the odds of my keeping this to myself, are you, Sabrina?” Suzume’s voice was amused, and she was clearly feeling peppy enough to start assigning nicknames. From the expression on Sassoon’s face, he not only caught the reference, but was highly offended by it. Again, Suzume’s instincts for antagonization were proving flawless. “Well, don’t fret. You’re being so nice and useful for us today—it would be a shame if Prudence ripped your arms off.”
That seemed like a solid exit line if I’d ever heard one, and so Suze and I showed ourselves out of the office and back to the Fiesta.
“Okay, so that was a bit more complicated than I expected,” I said to the world in general. Then I looked over at Suze, who was fiddling with her seat belt. “Think he’s worth working with, or should we see if the Vermonter can cook up that compass he was talking about?”
“Fort, your sister has the kind of attitude and outlook that I’m going to very politely refer to as unionbusting. Valentine stuck his neck out pretty far to try to recruit you, which to me suggests that he’s desperate because not many witches have been willing to sign up for his cause. They might agree with him on every line-item issue, but they’re not going to risk death by vampire.” She shrugged, not looking overly concerned at this assessment. “He needs you a lot right now, because he thinks that you can save the movement he’s trying to put together. If he promised to make you a compass, he’s probably going to just about kill himself to make sure that this is the best damn compass that any witch could give you. I don’t see the Vermont subwitch having that kind of motivation. Use him as long as he’s useful, and if he starts becoming a problem, just report him to your sister and she’ll take care of him.”
“Yeah, that’s nice,” I said sarcastically. I wished fervently that I could decide whether I liked Valentine Sassoon or thought he was a jackass, since I was sure that would help sort out my feelings about the likelihood that at some point my sister was going to show up on his doorstep in a killing mood. “Seriously, Suze, is what he’s saying about the witches right?”
“Fort, if you’ll listen to me for once, you won’t even go there.” There was a clear warning in Suzume’s voice.
“Suze.”
“Fine, yes,” she snapped, sounding pissed. “The witches have a bit of the short end of the stick.”
“If things are so bad here for them, why wouldn’t they leave? And why would others actually be trying to get in?” I tried to think through what Sassoon had told me again.
“Madeline Scott isn’t exactly benevolent, but she’s not bad,” Suze noted. “She at least prevents most interspecies warfare or predation, which is pretty different from a lot of other areas, where it’s just a question of which gang controls your area, and whether they want to kill you or recruit you. Some places are even worse—Des Moines is basically Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature, with each individual looking out for their own skin, and your neighbor can go fuck themselves.”
The knowledge that putting one foot outside the boundaries of my mother’s territory would require the escort services of Chivalry had been enough to keep me solidly inside New England for my whole life, but I’d always assumed that it was just because I was a young vampire. Now I rethought my view of the wider world, and realized that things were even more complicated than I’d previously known.
“So Valentine is pinning his hopes for a brighter tomorrow on me.” That was enough to induce an instant headache, and I rubbed the heels of my hands hard against my eyes. The witches were so, so screwed. “Suze, everyone seems really interested in me all of a sudden.”
“That’s natural, Fort,” she said soothingly. “After all, your milk shake brings all the boys to the yard.”
I gave a deep sigh. “I value these chats we have. But, seriously. First with Lilah, now with Valentine, I’ve got people thinking that I can somehow protect them or change things after my mother is gone.” I blinked my eyes open again and turned to face Suze, staring at her beautiful, opaque black eyes, and I felt a small but insistent flutter of suspicion. “Do the kitsune think that as well?” I asked, feeling like the familiar assumptions of my life had suddenly been replaced by a set of fun house mirrors.
Suze looked amused rather than offended, and the blunt honesty in her voice steadied me. “My grandmother sees the value in having a foot in both camps, Fort, but if you think that’s my sole reason for hanging out with you, think again. The kitsune have the closest ties to the vampires. We’ve seen enough to know that your influence on Prudence is about as substantial as an ant’s on a hippopotamus.”
Wasn’t that the damn truth. I perked up slightly at the other implications in that small speech. “So you’re hanging out with me primarily because of my rugged male allure?”
“Maybe because of your scrappy puppy-struggling-out-of-a-cardboard-box appeal.”
“I’ll take that,” I said. That cleared up, I put the key into the ignition and started the Fiesta. It died. I started it again . . . and it died. Third time, and this time it caught. I shot a triumphant look to Suze, who returned it with a withering expression of Get a new car. I ignored that. “Now, let’s go see a ghoul about a cup of blood.”
Chapter 6
Celik Funeral Home was just like every other funeral home I’d ever seen—tastefully decorated in neutral colors and rigorously dusted antiques, with careful plaques on each room (OFFICE, VIEWING ROOM, RESTROOM) and black-suited employees who had all perfected a facial expression that combined I can’t wait to help you with whatever question you have with I’m so sorry for your loss.
Dan had previously been the only ghoul I’d ever met, and I’d assumed that he was on the short side. But in the first minute of stepping inside Celik Funeral Home, I met about four different ghouls, and I discovered that Dan was actually on the tall side for his species. Most of them just bar
ely topped five feet. I wondered if their height made it hard for them to find suits that fit, or if some entrepreneurial ghoul had gone into the tailoring field.
Catherine Celik, a tiny woman in her late sixties, ushered us into her office (the sign on the door listed her as registered embalmer and funeral director, and also listed half a dozen other Celiks who held similar, though junior, positions). We were quickly settled in wingback chairs and asked whether we wanted drinks.
“One of my granddaughters is fetching the item you requested,” Catherine said, with no implication whatsoever that someone calling her up and asking her to extract a cup of blood from a two-day-old corpse was out of the ordinary. Maybe it wasn’t. While my mind wrestled with that possibility, the ghoul was extracting a thin manila folder from the pile on her desk, which she handed to me. “We also prepared these for you.”
I flipped open the file, revealing a grisly collection of Matias Kivela’s autopsy photos. I was grateful that lunch had been a few hours ago. “That was very . . . thoughtful of you. I’m sure these will be useful.” Or, I’m sure they would’ve been useful if I’d had any idea what I was doing, though I supposed that if I hit a brick wall, I could just stare at the photos and hope that a brilliant deduction would strike me, like I was the star of a police procedural.
Suze peered over my shoulder and made a small, unimpressed noise. Over what, I had no idea, but then she turned to look at Catherine and said, “It must bother you,” with a nod to the pictures.
“Oh, well, when you’re in the business, you end up seeing just about everything,” the older woman said comfortably.
“No, no,” Suze said, and I noticed the sly gleam in her eyes and braced myself. “Seeing good meat treated like that,” Suze said, completely straight-faced.
All this got her was a very chiding look from Catherine. “Really, Ms. Hollis. The metsän kunigas are hardly on our menu. The condition in which Mr. Kivela arrived here had no influence on us save for the state of the bill we will produce.”
I couldn’t help the unwilling curiosity that comment stirred in my brain. “But . . . if he’d been a human . . . you would’ve . . . eaten him?”
“Of course,” Catherine said patiently. “After all, he would hardly be needing his organs where he is going, and waste is so shameful.” There was apparently quite an expression on my face, because she made a little tut tut sound at me. “Really, Mr. Scott, there’s no need for that look. I can assure you that we take the utmost care when harvesting. A kosher supervisor would be hard-pressed to find fault with our methods.”
“Oh no, I’m sure . . . ,” I responded automatically, then, unable to stop myself, qualified, “Except for the source of your meat.” The conversation was interrupted at that point when the door opened and a young woman, about my age and looking like a minus-fifty-years version of Catherine, walked in. She was dressed in yet another black pants suit and was carrying a very incongruous ice chest, the thick plastic kind used for small picnics.
“Ah, Karli, thank you,” Catherine said as her granddaughter set it on the desk. The older ghoul opened the lid, and the moment the seal popped, my nose practically began twitching as my salivary glands went into overdrive, as if I’d suddenly walked past the open door of a KFC (the greatest ongoing threat to my vegetarianism). Catherine tilted the container so that we could see that it contained a plastic container, the same kind used by my favorite Chinese place for take-out soups, filled with blood. The soup container was packed tightly with several bags of frozen peas, but there was still a little surface movement on the dark liquid from being carried up, and the inner sides of the container were coated with a thin layer of the red fluid from the slosh. I found myself weirdly curious at the patterns it made, and for a second I pictured myself running a finger around the inside of the brim, gathering the fluid up just like leftover batter after making a cake. That was finally enough to set off my internal alarms, and I forced myself to look away from the container and back up to Catherine, who was still blithely talking. “You said over the phone that you only needed a cup, but I had my nephew gather a full pint, just in case.”
“I appreciate that, Ms. Celik. Ah . . .” I forced myself to peek down once more, but fortunately the strange urge was gone, and I was able to consider the rest of the ice chest’s contents. “Now, about the peas . . .”
She smiled, revealing what were almost certainly not the teeth she’d been born with. I wondered if it was racist to find a ghoul with dentures weird. “Yes. I find that they work just as well as ice packs. It should keep everything cool for a few hours. If you need it to last longer, simply throw in a bag of ice cubes. Just be careful not to freeze the blood—I doubt you really want to have to thaw it. When you’re all done, give the chest to Dan and he’ll drop it off the next time he comes by.”
I reached over and closed the top of the ice chest firmly. My reaction to the blood was still creeping me out, and I felt a part of me relax as the seal was locked back into place. I grabbed onto Catherine’s last comment like a life preserver back to safe conversational territory. “Oh, you know Dan?”
Now she looked distinctly amused. “I’ve known Daniel Tabak since he was in diapers. Do pass the peas along to him—I know his father always frets that Dan doesn’t eat enough vegetables.” That expression must’ve been back on my face, because the old woman now looked extremely amused, and gave me a little needling. “If you’re going right home, I’d be happy to have Karli go and fetch Dan’s portions for the week. He usually picks them up from the butcher shop, but I’m happy to save him a trip.”
It was the look in her eyes more than the context of her statement that tipped me off about what she meant by the term portions, and I nearly fell over myself to try to avoid that scenario. “Oh, no, no, we’re making a few stops tonight . . . and I’m sure Dan doesn’t mind the trip.” There was a small giggle behind me, half smothered, and I had a feeling that Karli was enjoying the sight of a squeamish vampire just as much as her grandmother was. Frankly I was impressed that Suze wasn’t joining in for once. “Well, this has been so helpful. You’ve really thought of everything, but I’m afraid that we really do have to go.” I grabbed the handle on the ice chest with one hand and Suzume’s elbow with the other, and continued spewing social niceties as I backed out. Catherine and Karli’s matching smiles were the last thing I saw before the front door finally closed behind us. Back outside, the temperature dropping, I gave Suze a very unfriendly look as she finally let out the snicker at my expense that she’d been suppressing out of some vestigial sense of solidarity.
“Lots of help back there, Suze. Thanks for that.”
“Anytime, Fort,” she said, ignoring my sarcasm. From her point of view, of course, she probably thought that she had been helping. There was a short pause as we began walking to the car, but then I had the distinct feeling of being closely observed. I glanced over, and saw that Suze was eyeing me with an unusual intensity—an intensity that she usually reserved for bacon products. “Do you have any plans for dinner tonight?” she asked abruptly.
Even after the previous conversation, and my very creepy reaction to the blood container, I was definitely more than ready to eat, but her question surprised me. We’d eaten dinner together plenty of times, but there was something just a bit formal in Suze’s phrasing, and it made me cautious. “Not as yet. Why?”
“We’ve got a few hours to kill before we have to get the blood over to Valentine Sassoon’s.” Her eyelids became heavy, and the smile she gave me was slow and had a lot of undertones, all of which I was more than willing to explore. “Have dinner with me.”
I was certainly not going to turn down an invitation like that, and I rushed to tuck the ice chest safely into the trunk. Suze got into the passenger seat and immediately began issuing directions.
An hour and several stops later, Suze directed me to pull up in front of a wholly unfamiliar brick town house on the South Side. The sun had set, and the lights were on in the town house, wit
h shapes moving behind the window shades.
I gave a heavy sigh. “So clearly we aren’t heading back to your house.” I would’ve picked up on that earlier (since we were in a completely different neighborhood), but I’d been following her directions through three separate stops for dinner, wine, and dessert. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but clearly my hopes for the evening were about to be completely dashed.
“Just grab the stuff,” she said as she snagged the wine and the gourmet brownies.
I grabbed the other bags—one roasted chicken, one vegetarian quiche, and an assortment of sides—all at Whole Foods prices. I made a firm mental note to clarify all dinner plans with Suze before I willingly shelled out the big bucks ever again. I wasn’t saying that I expected sex in exchange for buying dinner, just that I would’ve suggested a different venue—like Pizza Hut.
Suze hushed me as we walked up to the door, so I must’ve been muttering something along those lines under my breath. I shut my mouth tightly while she rang the bell, though I could’ve saved myself the trouble, since it just dropped again when I saw who opened the door.
Suzume’s twin sister, Keiko, looked very unhappily surprised to see us, but Suze shoved the container of brownies into her hands and trilled loudly, “Keiko! Thanks so much for inviting us!”
Keiko’s boyfriend, Farid, walked up behind her, wearing bright blue scrubs and looking befuddled. “Honey, we had dinner plans?” he asked.
With her back to him, Keiko’s expression was murderous, but Suze gave a patently false, “Oh no. Did you say next Wednesday, Keiko?” She shot me an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, Fort. And here I made you spend all afternoon making your famous quiche!”
I felt that was pushing things a bit far, especially given the clearly marked Whole Foods bags, but Farid jumped in anyway with a loud, “No, no, tonight is fine! I’m on night shift, but we have time for dinner!”
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