by Skye Knizley
Pandora stood beside her. “Who will you put on the throne?”
Raven rubbed her head and brushed back her hair. “I have no idea, Dora. It was going to be you. I can’t be here, do my job and find out who did this to Mother.”
“I could stay…”
Raven shook her head. “You tried to draw a weapon on me, Pandora. Even if I trusted you, Court needs a show of strength on the throne, once what you did gets out, no one will follow you.”
Pandora hung her head. “I’m sorry, Raven. I’m, just sorry.”
“Me, too. Take your people and go, when this is over, Mother will contact you, I’m sure.”
Pandora nodded and shuffled to the door with her childer behind her. Ash stopped beside Raven and gripped her shoulder. “Thank you, Ravenel. That is three times you have saved her. Saved us. She means well, but she doesn’t handle the responsibility of leadership like you and the rest of the family.”
He gave a half-bow and hurried to catch up with his mistress.
When they were gone, Raven sank onto the throne. She had no idea who to put in charge while Mother was sick, but someone had to do it. Nature abhors a vacuum and it wouldn’t be long before challengers to the throne came knocking. Someone had to be ready for them.
She sighed and ran through who was left that shared Valentina’s blood. There were many, but she hadn’t heard from most in years. Selena was holding down Boston, Isabeau was in New York, Madison wasn’t the right kind of temperament. After a few minutes, she picked up Pandora’s radio. Thad wasn’t going to like this.
*
“Are you sure it has to be me?” Thad asked. He looked uncomfortable on the throne, his feet almost didn’t touch the floor.
Raven looked at him. “Do you have a better idea? It isn’t like you have to sit here all the time, you can tend to Mother and any crisis that comes up until she’s better. How hard can it be?”
“No, I don’t have a better idea, but I don’t like this one. Why can’t you−”
“Because she can’t be here and out there trying to find who did this,” Dominique said. “You are of the blood, Childe. You are also respected throughout our world, I cannot think of a better choice. I am certain Valentina would approve.”
Thad stood. “Fine, but I’m not sitting in this thing. Someone can bring a chair for me, I’ll sit there. The throne belongs to Mother.”
“Whatever. Just keep the wolves back and call me with any news about Mother.”
“I’m sending over a spell sachet,” Aspen added. “Put it with her beneath her pillow. It should protect her from any more curses.”
“Will it lift this one?” Thad asked.
Aspen shook her head. “Sorry, T-dog. What’s done can only be undone, but I’m on it. I’ll call in a few magikal favors.”
Raven looked back at him. “Let us worry about ending the curse and finding who’s responsible. You keep Mom alive and make sure she still has a throne to come back to.”
Outside, Raven looked up at the sky and huddled in her jacket. It felt colder than it had when they arrived. That was to be expected as the night deepened, but something about the night felt wrong. It wasn’t just cold, it was a sort of chill that ran straight to her bones and made them hurt.
She nodded at the two guards on duty and clasped Aspen’s hand. They were halfway back to the Shelby when Aspen whispered, “I feel it too, Ray. Whatever did this is still out there, and it’s powerful. We’re talking old-school witchcraft.”
“Like what Riscassi was using when Xavier tried to usurp Mother?” Raven asked.
“Worse. That was a coven of two, barely a blip on the magikal radar. This is a dozen witches or more, all with power,” Aspen said.
Raven looked at her over the roof of the car. “Can we protect the Manor? Can you?”
Aspen chewed her lip, then, “I’ve done what I can. I’ll pit Faerie magik against witchcraft any day, but it won’t last long. We need a more permanent solution.”
Raven opened the door and slid behind the wheel. “Where did you get the new Faerie dust, anyway?”
Aspen joined her and gave a lopsided grin. “A friend in St. Louis managed to score me a few bags. He owed me a favor.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened out there?”
“Maybe.”
Raven started the car. “But not today?”
Aspen grinned wider. “You know the answer.”
Raven rolled her eyes and stomped the accelerator, making the car’s tires squeal. Maybe a roaring engine and reckless driving would make her feel better.
CHAPTER FOUR
187 Franklin Street, Chicago, IL
Raven glared into her coffee cup as if it had offended her. Sleep had been fitful and now she was tired and there was a hint of headache behind her eyes. To top it off, the sun was out and obscenely bright, even inside the confines of the Vault, her favorite donut shop. She and Levac had shared so many nights at their counter it was considered their second office. The battered and scarred counter, brass plaque wall menu and 50s chrome-trimmed booths were as familiar as her own bedroom.
She’d dressed with the same haze clinging to her skull and only managed to match her black suede leggings with a sapphire blouse and black leather jacket because Aspen helped. Even with assistance, she’d forgotten her cross necklace and both her silver knives. She felt almost naked without them.
“Hangover? What did I tell you about tequila after midnight?” Levac asked around a mouthful of powdered donut.
Raven took a long swig of her coffee. It was too hot and burned her tongue, but chased the cobwebs from her forebrain. “No, not a hangover. Late night. Some joker attacked the Manor last night and Mom is down for the count.”
Levac leaned forward onto the table. “The Manor? Why didn’t you call me, is Valentina okay?”
“There was nothing you could do, Rupe. It was some kind of magik mojo. They cursed Mom and left her unconscious and wracked with disease. Thad and Aspen were able to administer a sort of cure, so she is hanging in, but not out of the woods yet,” Raven said.
Levac set his donut aside. “What can I do?”
Raven took off her sunglasses. “I wish I knew, Rupe. This isn’t our thing, there is nothing to shoot and no one to arrest. Aspen is trying to get a line on the people behind it, but for now we tackle the human case.”
Levac sat back and picked up his donut again. “Did you have a chance to take those runes to Marie?”
“No. It was too late and I was too damn tired. Then the shit hit the fan and I never got the sleep I wanted, either.”
Levac checked his watch. “I think if we wake her up this early she’s going to turn me into a newt.”
“At least,” Raven laughed.
“Lucky for you, one of us was actually working last night. I ran Mr. Paine through the database and got a hit. This license was used to rent a car at the airport and that car just happens to have GPS installed. The passkey came in a little while ago,” Levac said.
He finished his donut and started poking buttons on his phone. In a spray of crumbs and sugar he said, “Looks like the car is parked outside the Wallace-Knight Hotel.”
“Are you serious?”
Levac turned his phone so Raven could see the screen. “Everyone involved in this case makes Rockefeller look like a pauper in short pants.”
“They don’t, whoever is bankrolling this game does. Are you finished with your sugar?”
Levac dusted his hands off and wiped them on a napkin, then drained his coffee. He made a theatrical show of putting all his crumbs and napkin in the cup, then he stood and bowed. “Ready, mi’lady.”
Raven stood and smacked him on the back of the head on her way out. “A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed.”
*
113 West Washington Street, Chicago, IL<
br />
The Wallace-Knight, one of Chicago’s most prestigious hotels, was built in 1895. It was the tallest building in the city at that time and considered one of the first skyscrapers constructed in the city. Though times had moved on, the hotel hadn’t. Instead it had remained one of the city’s most desirable boutique hotels and still boasted furnishings from the late 1800s. Those with a desire to spend a weekend surrounded in the opulence of the time could do so, if their wallet was fat enough.
Raven parked the Shelby in a garage a few blocks from the hotel and walked with Levac to the hotel. It sat on the corner of a busy street in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast. As they got closer, Raven spotted three squad cars on the street, lights still flashing.
“I think we’re too late,” she said.
Levac shaded his eyes with his hand and followed her gaze. “I doubt they’re here for brunch. I’ll bet you a hotdog that Paine is dead.”
“I’m not taking that bet.”
Raven let her badge dangle on the outside of her jacket and approached the two officers standing outside. Both were new and looked far too young to be police. Raven thought they looked barely old enough to drive.
“Agents Storm and Levac, FBI,” she said. “Tell me the victim’s name isn’t Paine.”
The blonder of the two officers shook his head. “Sorry, Agent Storm, I’d be lying if I did. Fourteenth floor, Lieutenant Mauser and Sergeant Murtaugh are already up there.”
“It’s bad,” said the other one. “Real bad. I’m thinking about the security guard gig I was offered, maybe the Miami docks won’t be so bad…”
Raven looked him in the eyes. “Your first is always the hardest, rookie, it gets easier. If you still feel the same way in six months, then make a change.”
He smiled, but it never reached his eyes. Whatever he’d seen, it had upset him greatly. “Yes ma’am. You better head on up, the Lieutenant said you would be coming.”
Raven moved through the doors with Levac beside her. The lobby, though smaller than most of the city’s modern hotels, was the most attractive she’d ever seen. The red and white-patterned carpet was a throw-back to the Victorian era, as were the potted plants and polished wooden chair rails along the walls. The registration desk was beneath the long staircase that rose to the mezzanine, between the antique wrought-iron elevators and the common area. A handful of guests were seated on the overstuffed chairs or Victorian sofas, chatting, drinking coffee or working on laptops that cost as much as a small car.
A bellman stood outside the elevators, hat in hand. He was an older man with a whiskery mustache and runny eyes above a nose only a Gnome could love. He smiled and pulled back the elevator door.
“Fourteenth floor, Miss?”
Raven motioned for Levac to get aboard. “Yes, please.”
“Knew it right away, I did. You have the bearing of a police woman, and no mistake.”
He had an English accent with just a hint of Scot for good measure.
Raven tapped the badge hanging between her breasts. “And I’m wearing a badge.”
She joined Levac, and the bellman followed. He closed the gate and gripped the control handle with one hand. “Aw, now Miss, you can’t blame a lad for trying, can you? The wages here aren’t much without tips.”
He moved the handle and the elevator began to rise accompanied by the whine of the motor somewhere above.
Raven wasn’t used to an elevator without music, and she found herself humming to herself as she watched the floors go by. She’d been doing it for five or six floors before Levac leaned over and said, “Girl from Ipanema.”
Raven stopped. “Was it?”
“It was, Miss, and the version from the Elysium, if I’m any judge,” the bellman said.
Levac grinned. “We’ve heard it in elevators so many times, it’s stuck in your head.”
Raven rubbed her forehead. “Give me a break, Rupe, it’s been a long few days.”
“You may have some nightmares after this, Miss. I’m sorry to say it, but things are grim up there on the fourteenth. Mr. Esposito fought, fought like a tiger, Miss, but he lost. It’s as if he was fighting the devil himself,” the bellman said.
He stopped the elevator at the thirtieth floor and pulled back the door. “Off you get, Miss. The police are at the end of the hall on your left, room 1423.”
Raven pulled a ten out of the wad of cash she’d stuffed in her pocket before leaving and handed it to him. “Thank you for your help, Mister…”
“Shaw, Duncan Shaw, Miss. Thank you, Miss,” the bellman replied. “Just ring when you want a lift to the lobby, I’m at your service.”
He closed the door and Raven walked with Levac down the narrow corridor. Like the lobby, the hallway was decorated in Victorian style with a plush runner of green and white, walls of real wood polished to an almost mirror shine and gas lamps refit to hold low-watt bulbs that flickered like candles.
Two patrolmen were standing in the hallway outside room 1423 with Lieutenant Mauser, who looked like he’d eaten something that didn’t agree with him. He had one hand stuck in his waistband and a pained expression. But then, he always looked like that.
“You’re late, Storm,” he growled around a soggy cigar.
Raven arched an eyebrow. “I don’t report to you, Lieutenant, and nobody bothered to call me or Levac. What’s the scoop?”
Aspen’s head poked out of the room. She looked as tired as Raven felt. “My bad, Ray, I forgot my phone at home somewhere. This one’s ours, it matches with the one you picked up last night.”
“Asp? Why aren’t you at the lab?” Levac asked.
“Ming called me this morning and asked me for the assist, Pocock just moved to nights. How could I say no, it’s ours anyway.”
Raven pushed past Mauser’s bulk and ducked beneath the police tape. “Get back in the field and out of the basement? I can’t imagine why you would do that. What have you found?”
Though this room was also a suite, it was about half the size of the one at the Elysium, but no less luxurious. Where the Elysium had been high tech and flashy, the Knight was classy. The sitting room was designed around the window and the view of the city, with a pair of wingback chairs and a wide sofa big enough to nap in the glow of the afternoon sun. Beyond the living area was the bedroom with a plush king-sized bed, two antique nightstands, a man-sized mirror and a dresser with a high definition television hung above it, and an attached bathroom that looked big enough for six people.
Paine’s body, at least Raven assumed it was him, lay amid the remains of a wooden coffee table that had been crushed during the fight. Like Carmichael, the skin of his face was removed leaving bare flesh and muscle that glistened like wet, raw hamburger. His designer dress shirt was torn open and his chest was covered in more of the strange sigils, as were his thighs between his silk boxers and socks. More was written in the carpet in the blood by his right hand.
Aspen snapped one of the deceased’s sock-garters and shook her head. “Not much, Ray. There are signs of a struggle, the table is broken the chairs were pushed back and there is a crack in the bedroom window with blood around the impact area. I took a sample for the lab, but the shape matches a bump on the vic’s head so I don’t think it’s from the killer. His face was cut off with what I would swear was a kitchen knife, maybe a paring or skinning edge, and the sigils were cut with a nail. I don’t have a cause of death yet, but time was around midnight.”
Raven squatted beside Aspen, who was wearing a purple and black plaid skirt, stockings, black bowling shirt and her lab coat. “Nail? Like, fingernail?”
Aspen mimed hitting something with a hammer. “Nope, like the kind you build with. The tip is pointy, not sharp, which is why the wounds have that jagged look to them.”
Raven chewed her lip and looked over her shoulder at the door, which had no signs of forced entry, then at the w
indows. “Any sign of forced entry? A window or anything?”
“No,” said a new voice.
Raven turned to see Detective Lee Murtaugh wiping his hands on a bath towel. Murtaugh was a tall, thin man with a shaved head and easy smile. He’d taken over as Homicide Lead when Raven left. “I checked all the windows and there is no adjoining door. My guess is that the vic knew his killer,” he finished.
Raven stood. “Good to see you, Lee. Are you okay, you look a little grey around the eyes.”
“Yeah… yeah,” he said. “I’ve just never seen anything like that, I tossed my cookies−”
“At least he didn’t get it all over the crime scene,” Mauser said from the doorway.
Raven didn’t turn. “Lieutenant, I don’t need you, do you think you could go darken someone else’s day?”
She heard Mauser harrumph and winked at Murtaugh.
“Are you−”
Raven interrupted him. “Dismissing you? Hell yes. Your cigar smells like an old bathroom rug, stop stinking up my crime scene and find something else to do.”
“You know, Storm, I have your boss on speed dial,” Mauser said.
“So do I, Lieutenant. Good day to you and your cigar.”
“You’re a real piece of work, Frost should have fired your ass a long time ago. Let’s go, boys, leave the Fed to screw up another case.”
Raven heard Mauser’s heavy footsteps recede followed by the two patrolmen.
“Thanks, Ray,” Murtaugh said. “You know, if you’d stayed you would probably have his job.”
Raven shook her head and looked back down at the victim. “My ass isn’t fat enough for the chair. Besides, someone has to handle the weird ones. I hear you and Gibson are on those now.”
Murtaugh shrugged. “Trying to be. Our closure rate is nothing like LeStorm’s.”
“I hate to interrupt, but I think I found something,” Levac said.
Raven looked where Levac was examining the wall that divided the wall between the sitting area and the bedroom. He photographed what looked like a white smear on the wall, then dabbed at it with a napkin from his pocket.
