Bertha sniffled. “Did you find anything?”
Loretta shook her head. “Once the fodden were cleared, the Bridge was accessible. But there was no sign of Sid.”
Loretta didn’t have to clarify what that meant. The fodden must have gotten him.
“Excuse me,” Bertha said. She stood and made her way to the storage room.
“What are you doing here, Loretta?” I asked, turning to the Exterminator. We’d been sorta-friends for a long time, but I knew she wasn’t here to ask me to lunch.
“We recognize you’re on a time budget,” Loretta said, her nictitating membranes working overtime. After a pregnant pause, I realized she was talking about my curse. “But new circumstances have arisen. We’re going to need more help.”
Charlie’s mouth tightened into a thin line, but, to my surprise, it was Oz who spoke up in my defense. I was too busy trying to figure out how Loretta knew about my curse.
“Lyla has already helped you,” he said. “When we spoke the other night, you didn’t mention anything about her help being ongoing. She already did what you asked.”
That’s it, I thought, relieved. I remembered Oz’s “put a bell” comment about Loretta. Who knew how long she’d been listening to our conversation the other night at Purgatory regarding my curse? One mystery solved. And as for the other…
“What do you need?” I asked. “The bugbear’s taken care of. So are the fodden.”
Loretta took the seat Bertha had vacated, crossing her long legs primly. The gills at her neck flared, causing Oz to startle.
Not so hot now, is she? I thought, feeling smug.
“Yes,” Loretta replied. “But we have a bigger problem.”
“Bigger than a bugbear?” I quipped, feeling punchy.
“Yes.” Loretta obviously wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “Creatures have been disappearing.”
My eyes flew to Charlie’s. Loretta didn’t miss his reaction.
“You know something,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
I nodded, thinking of Aki. Loretta leaned over the table toward us.
“Tell me everything.”
“What’s a kitsune again?” Oz asked, peering up at the facade of Aki’s condo building.
“A kitsune is a fox spirit,” I replied, hitting the buzzer one last time. Loretta had charged us with checking out the apartment while she continued her own investigation. She’d have more for me to do after we checked on Aki, I was sure.
“What’s a fox spirit?”
“Aki’s a shapeshifter. He has two natural forms, a fox or a human. He’s also super-quiet, super-fast, and super-good at all things thieving or spying.” As I talked, I rooted around in my too-large purse for Aki’s extra set of keys.
“Are you going to break in?” Oz asked, just as my hand closed on his rabbit’s-paw key ring.
“Nope,” I said, pulling the keys out and holding them up for him to see. “We’re using the old-fashioned method. Keys.”
“Oh,” Oz said, looking disappointed.
“What’s up?” I asked, as I unlocked the big front door. Aki lived in a recently refurbished loft complex in Lawrenceville, the coolest neighborhood in Pittsburgh at the moment. It had been a dump until a few years ago, but now the properties were flying into the hands of developers like homing pigeons to their mark. Hipsters had set up residence, and Butler Street, Lawrenceville’s main thoroughfare, was full of craft beer joints and cafés where the bartenders and baristas sported more facial hair and tats than the crew of a pirate ship.
Personally I preferred living in much quieter, more sedate Highland Park, but Aki had drifted from cool spot to cool spot in our city ever since he’d first come to Pittsburgh seeking shelter.
“It’s just weird, how you all live so normally,” Oz said, inspecting the neat rows of mail slots as I unlocked the inner door of Aki’s building.
“What do you mean?” I pulled open the heavy inner door and led Oz into the well-lit hallway, painted a very au courant shade of gunmetal gray with clean white trim.
“I mean, you guys are magic. But this guy lives in a condo.”
I snorted. “Where are we supposed to live?”
“I dunno,” he said, grinning ruefully at me. “Maybe under toadstools?”
“That’d be a bit of a squeeze,” I said, waving a hand in front of my substantial hips.
To my amusement, he stammered. “I just meant it’s weird you guys live like humans. It makes sense you do, since you were human. But a fox spirit paying condo fees? Seems odd.”
Avoiding the elevators, I led Oz toward the stairs, marked Fire Escape, that no one ever used. “Well, I already told you most of us in Pittsburgh are misfit toys. We can’t depend on our magic for day-to-day stuff. And we do live in the same world as humans, so why not take advantage of human conveniences?”
I stopped in front of the door leading to the fourth-floor hallway and pulled it open. Like the entry hall, the walls here were painted gray, with expensive-looking dark wood floors covered in the center by a thick dark carpet runner.
“I get it,” Oz said. “But it still strikes me as odd. Especially someone like you working at a place like Purgatory.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, leading him down the hall toward Aki’s apartment. “And why does that strike you as odd?”
He cast me a long side-eye, probably knowing he was on thin ice. “It’s just that you’ve lived for so long. You must have so much to tell… so much knowledge to share. And you dance in a bar.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said. “But I love dancing. And I gave up crashing against human ignorance about three centuries ago, which is why I don’t participate in coffee klatches anymore. I don’t have anything to tell anyone that’s not already on Wikipedia. It’s not that the stories aren’t out there, it’s that humans don’t listen.”
“But still…”
“Oz. I dance in a bar because I like dancing in a bar. I like being with my friends; I like performing. It pays the bills at the same time that it gives me room to express myself. Not to mention, I don’t have to have a human birth certificate or a piece of paper from a university. The only real job I’ve had in years is Exterminator lackey, and I’m not sure how to put that on a résumé without an explanation.
“But the real answer is I like dancing. So drop it.” By that point we were at Aki’s door, painted the same gray as the rest of the doors. Only Aki’s sported about fifteen locks. I sighed and began tracking down the appropriate keys on the key ring.
Oz pursed his lips, obviously not happy with my response but willing to move the conversation on to other questions on what was probably an interminable mental list.
“Are Exterminators just in Pittsburgh?” he asked.
“No, there are Exterminators everywhere.”
“Who controls them?”
I unlocked another few locks as I talked. “Nobody, really. They keep their own counsel. But we all know the rules. Don’t end up in the papers. Don’t go on killing sprees. Don’t attract attention. They’re pretty simple.”
“Common sense,” Oz said, dryly, as I finally opened the last of the locks.
I pushed open Aki’s door, and I heard Ozan’s indrawn breath. Moving my eyes from him to the sight of Aki’s living room, I sighed.
It had been destroyed. There’d obviously been a massive fight, upturning just about every piece of furniture in the open-plan studio apartment.
“What the hell did that?” Oz asked, pointing at the granite work surface of the kitchen island, which had been smashed neatly in half.
“Someone Aki managed to piss off with his shenanigans,” I repeated. “But that’s pretty normal for Aki.”
Even now I was only a little worried about our ne’er-do-well kitsune. He got in this kind of trouble all the time and he always got out of it.
We picked our way into the apartment, avoiding broken furniture and crockery. It wasn’t till we’d rounded the
corner and saw the bedroom area that my heart grew heavy.
There was blood everywhere.
“Aki’s?” Ozan asked.
I gave him a sharp look. “What do I look like, CSI: Miami? I’ve got no idea whose blood it is.”
But if Aki had gotten in a bad-enough fight that someone had ended up hurt—and seriously hurt, judging by the amount of blood on the walls—his second port of call would almost definitely have been Purgatory. We were good at hiding people, and he’d have needed hiding if he’d gotten in a fight this bad.
Oz was picking his way toward the bathroom next to the destroyed bed frame, but the mattress—shredded in half—lay in the way. He bent down to move it and I heard a sharp hiss when he did so. He dropped the mattress back to the floor and sprang away, eyes wide.
“What?” I said, hurrying toward him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, as he helped me lift the mattress away from what he’d found.
I’d been expecting a body, even though the space was really too small. But what lay underneath it was almost as bad.
On the floor, in a small puddle of blood, lay the thick, luxuriant tail of a fox. I’d know that tail anywhere.
It was Aki’s.
Chapter Thirteen
I lifted and dropped each of my hips once, twice, and then shimmied, the coins of my costume rattling ominously. Raising my arms to the heavens, I looked up as if in supplication as the last beats of the song pulsed from Purgatory’s speakers.
The crowd hooted and clapped as I forced my lips into a smile. I took my bows, sidling offstage into Rachel’s waiting arms.
“I’m sorry, baby doll,” she whispered into my ear. Tucking my long, dark hair behind my ears, she met my eyes. “You doing okay?”
“I will be,” I said, sniffling despite my words. “It’s not like any of us expected Aki to die of old age.”
“That don’t matter,” she said, her big dark eyes sad underneath their wings of purple makeup. “It still hurts. You go back to the dressing room and get cleaned up. We’ll get good and drunk tonight, for Aki’s sake. How’s that sound?”
I nodded, letting the tears fall. “Like a plan.” I gave Rachel a hug and watched as she drew herself up, putting on her own game face for the audience.
The show must go on.
The dressing room was empty when I got there, and for that I was glad. I lay back on the chaise we kept tucked by the door, shutting my eyes against the wave of grief that threatened to overwhelm me.
The fact was, Aki and I hadn’t even been that close. We’d always liked each other, but he was the sort who kept all but a very few at arm’s length. I’d known him for almost two centuries, however, and I’d been relying on him as a disruption of the steady rhythm of my life for a long time. We never knew when Aki was going to pop up with a crisis biting at his heels, or in need of shelter or for us to hide something for him. And he always knew what was going on, everywhere. He’d been my eyes and ears since I’d met him, telling me about the wider world in which I was afraid to walk for fear of being Bound.
And I’d liked him, despite the fact that his profession was being untrustworthy. I’d liked his humor and his sly fox face that somehow looked the same in either his human or his animal shape. Between losing Sid and now Aki, I felt like my life had gone significantly darker.
Someone knocked gently on the door and I called for whoever it was to enter. It was Bertha, looking as miserable as I felt.
“Hey,” I said, patting the chaise next to me. “You shouldn’t be working, babe. Take some time off, whatever you need.”
Bertha moved into the room, carefully squeezing herself next to me. “No, I’d rather be here. Being home just makes me sad.”
I patted her on the back, understanding what she meant. Oz had been surprised when I’d told him I had to dance tonight, but I did have to. Not least because it was my job, and I’d already missed one night chasing shadows. But also because I needed to feel normal again, even if it was just for the space of a few songs.
“I can’t believe Aki’s gone,” Bertha said.
“I know. He’s… Aki.”
“That fox had more lives than ten cats.”
I laughed, but it sounded as bitter as it felt. “No shit.”
“I went out to the Bridge today,” she said. “The fodden are cleared out, Exterminators did a good job.”
“And no sign of Sid?”
“No. He’s gotta be gone. Dead, I mean. He wouldn’t leave his home.”
I turned my patting into a one-armed hug, leaning my head against hers. “I’m so sorry, Bertha. We all loved him.”
She made a sound like a jet engine roaring, and I realized it was the troll version of a sniffle. “I know. Do you think their deaths are related?”
I shrugged. “It’s impossible to say. Aki was… Aki. He could have pissed off any number of people.”
“Yeah. Still, seems weird.”
“There’s a lot going on that’s weird,” I said, my voice grim. “Speaking of which, I’ve gotta go find my darling Master. I left him back here, but he must have gone out front.”
Bertha shook her head. “He’s not out front. I thought he was back here waiting for you?”
We stared at each for a second and then I swore and we both took off running for the front of the house.
Oz wasn’t anywhere—not at the bar, not at any of the low tables. I did notice Diamond glowering at me from one corner, but no Oz.
“Trey, you seen Oz?”
Our bartender nodded at my question, pointing at one of our fire escapes. “He went up the side stairs, with some kid.”
“Kid?” I asked, confused. We didn’t have any age requirements at Purgatory, since it was pretty common to have practically ageless beings who looked like children running around wanting a few drinks and a show. But we also wouldn’t refer to such creatures as “kids.”
“Yeah,” Trey said. “Never seen ’im here before. He wasn’t human; he came down here like he owned the place. But I don’t know what he was.”
“Shit,” I said, moving toward the side exit just as the magic struck.
Oz was Calling, loud and clear, and the jinni in me was frantic to get to him. She reached out to the Node, opening my channels wide before I could even think, and next thing I knew I was standing in the alley behind Purgatory.
I stumbled, almost crashing into the brick wall of our neighbor as I regained my sea legs. Apparating was something only the most powerful jinn could do, and I’d never done it before—Oz had some Will behind his Calls, that was for sure.
As I was shaking my head to clear the cobwebs, the sound came on all of a sudden, only then making me aware I’d apparently pressed the mute button.
I heard the sound of fighting behind me, and Oz chanting my name.
He was doing a good job, my Master was. For a confused couple of seconds I watched him fight, dishing out a fast uppercut to the jaw that sent one young man reeling while his next punch fended off the second. But I’d gotten there just in time. The kids weren’t human, however human they looked. They were too fast and immediately came back at Oz despite receiving blows that would have felled a normal teenager.
My jinni kicked in right then and next thing I knew I was pulling one of my swords from my little pocket of Sideways, yelling as I charged the boys attacking Oz. Before I could get there, however, the cavalry arrived in the form of one large shape that descended from an upper window of Purgatory, separating into two shapes as it hurtled toward us.
Trip and Trap.
The spider wraiths fell on their targets like bombs. Trip’s hands went around one boy’s skull, breaking his neck. Never one to miss an opportunity, she also pulled, separating his head neatly from his body with a sickly ripping sound.
Trap took the tougher target, who dodged before the wraith could land upon him. The teen ducked the sticky web that Trap shot out of his butt, and managed to pivot neatly on his heel to climb up the wall next to him. Trap went
to follow but Oz shouted for him to stop. When I looked over at my Master he was staring in horror at the head of the boy on the ground, his eyes trailing up to where Trip greedily drank the blood spurting from the neck stump.
When Trap joined her in feeding, Oz vomited copiously and loudly into the drain near his feet.
“Welcome to our world,” I mumbled, walking toward the head on the ground, then bending to pick it up by the hair. The kid had had vampire blood, all right, but also human. His fangs were more like seriously vicious canines than the double row of shark teeth a full vamp sported, and his skin wasn’t their eerie pinkish-gray but that of an abnormally pale human.
“What the hell?” Trey’s normally languid southern drawl sounded sharp from behind me. I turned to see him and Charlie gaping at us from the entrance to Purgatory.
“Trey, go get a tarp,” I called. The bartender looked at where Trip and Trap were huddled, sucking noisily, and turned without a backward glance.
“What happened?” Charlie demanded of Oz.
“I was in the dressing room, and I got thirsty. So I went to the bar. I was just about to order a drink when this kid came in. He looked right at me and indicated I should follow. So I did.”
“You followed an unknown dude into an alley?” I asked, my voice adequately expressing my feelings on the wisdom of such a move.
“He was a kid!” Oz said. “I figured you’d sent him to give me a message or something. Why would anyone else even know I’m here?”
Why indeed? I thought. Today was getting curiouser and curiouser.
“When you got to the alley the boy attacked?” asked Charlie.
Oz shook his head. “Yes, but not to hurt me. The other boy was here, waiting for us. They wanted to take me somewhere. I wanted to know what the hell was going on.”
“They were trying to abduct you? Why?” Charlie asked.
“How the hell should I know?” Oz asked, his voice rising slightly. His eyes shot to Trip and Trap, and he turned decidedly green. “And we can’t ask, because your buddies murdered the poor kid before he could talk.”
Jinn and Juice Page 11
