by Amber Benson
“Morrigan!” Caoimhe shouted at her, the intensity of her reprimand rippling through the room.
“I didn’t touch Coy,” I said, though I wasn’t able to muster much energy, my frustration already having given way to exhaustion. I was tired of always having to defend myself—and just plain tired, too—and this once I knew I was totally innocent; no one could throw any of the responsibility for the two murders in my direction.
“But I don’t really care if you believe me or not,” I continued. “I have nothing to prove to you or to anyone else.”
Freezay winked at me.
“Now as I was saying—”
There was a knock at the door, interrupting Freezay’s train of thought and freeing Morrigan from having to answer immediately.
“Now what is it?” Freezay moaned under his breath, striding over to the door and throwing it open.
Zinia Monroe was standing on the other side, her hand raised as if she meant to knock again. Her blond hair was in a messy bun on top of her head, her Mao jacket mussed from her having worn it through the night. She had a pair of black thick-framed glasses perched on her sharp nose, a silvery chain hooked on to the end of each temple and looped around her neck, keeping them in place.
“Yes?” Freezay said, frustrated by the interruption.
Zinia ignored his uncivil tone, looking past him at me.
“I need help in the kitchen. I’m sure everyone is hungry, and since one of my servers is dead and the other is MIA, I’m short staffed. Can you help me out?”
“I can help you, sure,” I said, standing up—I couldn’t have come up with a better excuse to get out of the hot seat if I’d tried.
“Well, come on then,” she said, beckoning me forward. “The food isn’t going to sit there all day waiting.”
She spun on her heel, marching back the way she came. I shot Freezay a questioning look, but he merely nodded his head for me to go on.
“I’ll see you ladies later,” I said, heading for the door. I expected Runt to follow me as she usually did, but the pup was out cold, her back rising and falling gently as she slept. I didn’t have the heart to get her up; she was still little and needed her sleep to grow properly, so I left her where she was, softly snoring away.
Morrigan glared at me as I walked past her—boy, was I persona non grata around here or what?—and Caoimhe kept her eyes fixed on her lap, ignoring my exit as she recovered from her angry outburst. My dislike of Morrigan wasn’t as strong as my disgust for Yum Cimil, but it was close. At least she was openly hostile, letting me know exactly where I stood with her. Yum Cimil never said a goddamned word, which was, somehow, even worse.
I closed the drawing room door, leaving the insistent sound of Freezay’s questioning behind me, and took off in search of the kitchen. Zinia hadn’t had the patience to wait for me, so I found myself adrift in the semidarkness of the corridor. Luckily the smell of buttery garlic and roasting chicken was enough of a sensory road map to get me where I needed to go. I followed the umami tang of sautéing butter down two long hallways and through a small glass-enclosed atrium until I came to a large rectangular kitchen. Zinia Monroe stood in the middle of a sea of beige tile, a thin human figure pressed up against a Moroccan-tiled island, her hands lost inside a heavy, blue clay bowl full of dough.
“I’m making chicken and dumplings,” she said, conscripting me into her culinary world without any further explanation. “Grab that pot holder and take the top off that pot.”
I did as she asked, picking up a thick yellow potholder from the tile counter and walking over to the ginormous, 60-inch biscuit-colored Viking Range. Zinia followed behind me, the blue clay bowl in her arms, and while I held the top of the stainless steel stockpot aloft, she began to drop globules of fluffy dough into the boiling liquid.
“It’s nice to have your help,” she said, her words coming in a staccato burst like gunshot from a semiautomatic, “but I really wanted to get you alone.”
I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as she continued to lob dough balls into the slowly thickening liquid.
“I have what you’re looking for.”
She spoke so nonchalantly it took me a moment to understand what she was actually saying.
“Constance and I were friends … It’s how she got the job here,” Zinia continued, finishing up with the dumplings and gesturing for me to put the top back on the stockpot.
“We had a plan. Then we hit a snafu and now I don’t really know what to do.”
Zinia set the mixing bowl in the porcelain double sink to soak, then pumped some almond-scented liquid soap into her hands, washing the remains of the dough from her skin.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why? What the impetus was for us doing this?” Zinia asked as the hot water sluiced over her hands.
“Okay,” I said, not sure what the correct response was in this situation. “Why’d you do it?”
Zinia picked up a dishtowel and dried her hands, turning back around to look at me.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you, if you’d like,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and daring me to say no. “Then we can figure out a way to get the book back to you.”
“Uhm, it’s nice of you to want to give me back the book you stole—” I started to say, but Zinia cut me off.
“Oh, I’m not giving it to you,” she said matter-of-factly, her eyes magnified by the chunky black frames she wore. “It’s a trade.”
“A trade?” I asked, beginning to worry where all of this was leading.
She nodded, fixing me with an unreadable stare—one that only made me more nervous about what I was getting myself into.
“I’ll return the book to you,” she said, “if you return Frank to me.”
twenty-one
Frank.
I wondered how one name could bring up such mixed emotions inside me.
When the Devil and my sister had planned their hostile takeover of Purgatory and Death, Inc., they weren’t privy to the fact that my old boss, Hyacinth, and her devious Japanese Water God partner, Watatsumi, were parasitizing them. Their intent: to steal Purgatory for themselves—and Frank had been their secret weapon.
Along with Daniel and me, Frank had been one of three possible Death-in-Waitings that could legitimately take control of Death, Inc., and Purgatory if my dad had stepped down from the job or been killed. Unbeknownst to us, Hyacinth and Watatsumi had plucked Frank out of human obscurity and brought him into their fold, keeping his existence a secret. Daniel and I had thought we were the only two possibles competing for the job, so when Frank appeared on the scene, it was a total shock.
While the Devil and my sister did all the heavy lifting, physically hijacking Death, Inc., and doing battle against the combined forces of Purgatory and Heaven, Hyacinth and Watatsumi sat biding their time, waiting until just the right moment—when all the Devil’s forces were engaged dealing with my Harvesters and Transporters down in Hell—to break into Purgatory and try to kill me, thus installing Frank as the new President and CEO of Death, Inc., so that through him they could control Death for their own selfish purposes.
Needless to say, we foiled their plans, but I still felt a lot of righteous anger toward the guy (Frank) who’d helped destroy my family and ruin the best and only relationship I’d ever had. Though he wasn’t even the worst of the offenders, he’d willingly gone along with the bad guys, using his access to me in order to further their agenda. Oh, he was also the dude who’d finger-banged me in the New York City Subway station—and that one act had ended my relationship with Daniel.
“And why do you want Frank so badly?” I asked Zinia as she stared at me over the tops of her glasses.
The kitchen smelled amazing, the chicken and dumplings simmering over the stove, but it was tainted for me now that Zinia had brought the ghost of Frank into the room.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, dropping her hands to her sides. “I know you think he’s a bad boy, but I’ve known
him his whole life. That horrible little man, Watatsumi, and his Valkyrie bitch cohort—may she rot in Purgatory forever—took advantage of him.”
I kept my indignation in check, holding on to it to use later as fuel for my righteous anger, but I knew lashing out at her right now would only cut off my nose to spite my face. Besides, there was a little truth to what she was saying about Frank. He had been manipulated by Hyacinth and Watatsumi—and even the Devil and my sister—but that didn’t excuse his behavior; he’d made his choice and now he was languishing in Purgatorial prison, paying for his participation in the crime. I didn’t feel sorry for him, but I understood where Zinia was coming from.
“You give me the book, and in return I get Frank released from Purgatorial prison,” I said, repeating the demand just to be sure I had it right.
Zinia nodded, relaxing now she realized I was seriously considering her offer.
“I don’t know why that book is so important to you, but Constance said it was the best bargaining chip we could have,” Zinia said, using an index finger to push her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose. “It’s why I sold my restaurant and took this job.”
Zinia was in over her head. She’d done something she thought was right, but now that there was all this fallout—and death—she wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. If Constance hadn’t been killed, I’d have been having this conversation with her instead and it would have gone very differently. She would’ve had the upper hand because she knew exactly what the book was for and why I needed it so badly. Zinia was a different kettle of fish entirely. She wanted me to walk her through this, help her to figure out why things had gone so wonky, and in the end, get Frank released and make everything okay again.
“Maybe if you explain to me how this all happened, we can figure out a way to get us both what we want,” I said, my gaze flicking around the kitchen, checking to make sure no one was spying on us.
Zinia nodded, happily letting me guide the thrust of the conversation.
“How did Constance know Frank?”
I liked that the kitchen was the warmest place in the house, the gas stove adding a welcome toastiness to the atmosphere, but Zinia was starting to look a bit overheated, the apples of her cheeks an unnatural pink, so I eschewed comfort for fresh air and opened one of the double-hung windows.
“Thank you,” she said, pushing a tuft of blond hair out of her face. “I do feel a little peaked.”
“So, tell me how Constance knew Frank?” I prodded, curious as to what her story was going to reveal.
She nodded, leaning back against the tiled island.
“I should probably start with me and then move on from there,” she began, wiping the sweat from her upper lip. “Most people don’t know this, but I had a son. I knew he was different, special even, from the very first moment I held him in my arms. And as he grew up, I was proved right.”
She paused, frowning.
“Would you like a glass of water? I’m parched.”
“Sure,” I said, waiting as Zinia got two glasses from one of the oak cabinets and set them down on the island. She retrieved a pitcher of water from the refrigerator and filled the two glasses, each one breaking out in an opaque sweat.
She handed me mine then downed hers, refilling it again immediately.
“I don’t know why I’m so thirsty,” she said softly, more to herself than to me. “I think it’s nerves. Where was I? Oh, yes, my son had an aptitude for magic—not the kind of magic people like you do, but the traditional kind: pulling rabbits out of a hat, sawing beautiful women in half, disappearing from locked boxes. He was an amazing performer, a joy to watch and so gifted.”
Zinia paused to down more water, her face still that unnatural shade of pink.
“When my son was nine, I took a position as the personal chef to the world famous aerialist, Alina Petrovosko,” she continued. “She was close to retiring, and this was to be her last tour across America. It was a phenomenal experience for Harry—that was my son’s name—and he was never happier than that year we spent with Alina. She was lovely, as were the rest of the performers, taking Harry under their wing and encouraging him to work on his act. It was magical.”
“What happened to him?” I asked—though I already knew Zinia’s story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“Harry met another boy, the son of a horse trainer, who was a little younger than him and they quickly became inseparable. There were other children traveling with the circus, performers’ children, but Harry and his friend, Frank, were too busy with their magic act to notice.”
Zinia took another gulp of water, a little of the wetness streaking down her chin.
“A number of the smaller children traveling with us caught chicken pox while we were in Des Moines. Harry had had it the previous summer, so he was one of the few who didn’t get sick.”
She paused, collecting her thoughts.
“No one knows what happened that night. When he didn’t come back to the trailer for dinner, I got worried. I knew I was probably just being overprotective, but he was my only child, so I got security and we searched the encampment. Nothing. He’d disappeared. They found him the next day in one of the big cat cages. A place he knew never to venture by himself—”
“But what about Frank?” I asked, worried she was going to say he was somehow responsible.
Zinia shook her head.
“Sick as a dog with chicken pox. I often wonder had he been with Harry that night if all the horror would’ve been avoided.”
“Did Frank know what your son was up to?”
“He said that Harry wanted to talk to the big cats like he could,” Zinia answered. “Of course, I thought it was a joke, that these conversations he was referring to were imaginary … It was only later, much later, that I understood what Frank’s true nature was. I had no idea he could work magic, not the pretend tricks that Harry did, but the real thing.”
“So he was the only link you had to your son,” I said and Zinia nodded, her eyes wet.
“We stayed in touch over the years. When he was fourteen, his father died and I offered him a room at my house,” she said, “but Frank chose to stay with the circus. He was very dear, calling me every year on Harry’s birthday, and I would see him whenever he came through town. He was my second son—one I didn’t give birth to, but that I loved as much as if I had.”
“And Constance?”
“She was part of the Purgatorial Review Board that oversaw Frank’s case,” Zinia said. “It’s an old story. A lonely young woman meets a man, falls in love with him just as she comes to believe he is wrongly convicted of a crime—”
“He wasn’t wrongly convicted,” I interjected, but Zinia held up a hand.
“It doesn’t matter what you believe. She loved Frank and would’ve done anything for him. She came up with the plan and found me,” Zinia said. “Explained the supernatural world, that it existed and the part that Frank played in it … Then she told me what had happened to him. It made so many things clear to me: the conversations he’d claimed to have had with the big cats, for one thing, and a lot of other little pieces of oddness I’d gleaned about him over the years.”
“Where is the book, Zinia?” I said. “Someone killed Constance for it and I’m really scared they’re going to come looking for you next.”
“It doesn’t matter what happens to me,” Zinia said, swallowing hard, her eyes red. “You have to promise me that you’ll help Frank. I’ll do anything you want if you’ll just help him.”
I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but if freeing Frank meant getting the book back, I was sure Jarvis and I could come up with something—a work release program maybe?
“All right,” I said, letting out the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding. “I’ll help him.”
Zinia grabbed my hands, her papery thin skin hot to the touch.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, kissing both of my cheeks as a line of salty tears
ran down her face. “You have a good heart.”
“Not always,” I said, but her happiness was infectious and I smiled. “But this time, yes.”
“I have to get you the book,” she said, remembering she had half of a bargain to fulfill. “It’s not here, but I have it, hidden away. Will you meet me by the obelisk in the Assyrian Gardens in ten minutes? It’s just past the pool. I’ll go straight there.”
“Of course,” I said, watching as she scurried over to the walk-in freezer on the far side of the room and slid open the door.
