by Lily Webb
My heart skipped. “He does? Why?”
“He says he knows you’ll believe him. For what it’s worth, I see nothing wrong with it, but you’ll have to deal with going down into the cells.”
“I’ve faced worse. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Is it okay if Umrea comes along?”
“A guard isn’t necessary, but sure, if it’ll make you feel safer.”
“Thanks, Mueller,” I said, and hung up before he had the chance to change his mind. A beat later, Holly appeared from her office attached to mine.
“So, what’s the scoop?”
“I’m going to visit Heath in the cells at the MGPD. He wants to talk to me, but I don’t know why.”
“What should I tell the rest of the Council? They haven’t stopped blowing up my phone asking for updates all day.”
“I don’t blame them. Anyway, tell them the truth. I’ll update everyone when I get back.”
Holly grimaced. “That won’t satisfy them.”
“Too bad. It’ll have to,” I said as I gathered my bag and wand off the desk. “Anyone who isn’t can take it up with me later — and trust me, they don’t know wrath until they’ve experienced it coming from a pregnant woman on the edge.”
Holly chuckled. “I know I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of all that.”
“Good, then make that clear to the rest of them.”
“Got it,” Holly said and disappeared back into her office to make calls to the other representatives.
I sighed and waddled toward the door. Outside, Umrea waited. “Come on, Umrea, we’re off on another wild goose chase. We’re going to see Heath at the MGPD.”
Umrea grunted her acknowledgement but said nothing else during our walk to the police station — maybe she remembered the way I’d snapped at her earlier that morning.
Ugh, why couldn’t this have waited just a few more weeks? Why did a major Council scandal like this have to break out while I was in the worst part of pregnancy — and why of all people did it have to involve Heath?
Even if he were innocent, something I wasn’t sure of myself, how in Lilith’s name would I convince the rest of Moon Grove to trust him or, by extension, the rest of the Council again?
Worse, what would happen if whoever prosecuted the case convicted Heath? There would have to be an election for a new Head Warlock, assuming the institution of the Council survived the scandal, and there wasn’t a single warlock in all of Moon Grove I could think of who could adequately replace him.
But I was putting the witch before the broom, because no matter how bad things looked, I couldn’t bring myself to believe Heath would murder anyone, much less his own son — the same man he’d gone out of his way and risked his reputation to spare from prosecution. It just didn’t add up.
Then again, if Heath didn’t kill Adam, who did? It was hard to argue with the evidence: When the lights came back on, Heath stood over Adam’s dead body with his wand drawn. Still, I’d spent enough time in this upside-down magical world to know better than anyone that things weren’t always how they looked.
There were plenty of other people in the room, some of them shadier than others, who might’ve wanted to hurt Adam. After all, Heath wasn’t the only person near Adam with the ability to use magic — Virgil, Wesley, Tate, and Morgan all just as easily could’ve attacked him — but I still didn’t know whether the killer had used magic on Adam in the first place, and that overlooked the fact that the gargoyles had confiscated everyone’s wands except for those on the Council.
By the time we reached the MGPD across the street, my head throbbed from thinking about it all. Mueller met me just inside the door with his arms crossed over his chest and a familiar grumpy hound look on his face. “Zoe,” he grunted and headed toward the back of the station, thankfully skipping the small talk.
Ewan nodded solemnly as we passed. I wanted to stop and ask him if Flora knew anything about this yet — her secret position on the Fairy Bureau of Investigation might come in handy in a situation like this — but I wasn’t sure if Ewan even knew about that part of Flora’s life yet, so I thought better of it.
We stopped at a locked, iron-barred door, and Mueller unhooked a chain of dozens of keys from his belt to search for the right one. “Gimme a second,” he mumbled. Traditional locks and keys seemed shortsighted for a prison that housed magical tenants, but I kept that observation to myself.
Finally, Mueller found the right key and put it in the lock. The door creaked open, and we entered a small landing that led to a steep set of stone stairs and disappeared underground.
“How charmingly primitive,” I said with a smile.
“Sometimes the old school way is the best way to do things,” Mueller said. “Come on, and whatever you do, don’t talk to any of our other guests or get too close to their cells. Some of them have an extended reach.”
A chill scuttled down the back of my neck like a spider. There was a very good chance that one or more of the guests Mueller had referred to were ones I’d put there in the last year — and I highly doubted any of them would be happy to see me again.
As if they’d sensed my fear, the twins shifted in my stomach, making me feel even more nauseous than I already did. I gripped the railing along the stairs to keep myself steady and rubbed my stomach with my free hand to soothe them as Mueller and I descended.
After what seemed an eternity, we reached another narrow landing that seemed to stretch on forever. Mueller, with his otherworldly werewolf’s eyes, could probably see in the inky darkness without a problem. I couldn’t say the same, so I pulled my wand from my robes and held it above my head. “Lumino,” I whispered, and the word echoed off the close walls hundreds of times as my wand’s tip flared to life and brought the thin hallway into soft focus.
Dozens of cells lined either side, each of them sporting different security features — probably designed to attend to the various threats that different paranormal patrons posed.
“Heath is at the end in one of our maximum-security cells,” Mueller said, pointing into the darkness not even my wand’s light could penetrate from where we stood.
“Maximum security? Is that necessary?”
Mueller scowled at me; the look was much more intimidating than usual thanks to the harsh shadows my wand’s tip cast over his face. “He’s the most powerful warlock in Moon Grove and he’s accused of murder, Zoe. So yes, it’s necessary.”
I gulped and followed Mueller silently as he stomped off into the darkness without a care in the world. Though I knew I had nothing to fear, I couldn’t stop the shiver that started at the base of my neck and rippled down my back and to the tips of my toes.
We passed so many cells that I quickly lost count, but the good news was that they all seemed empty — until we abruptly reached the end of the hallway and came face-to-face with a hulking, solid steel door.
Mueller raised his ring of keys to the light. “You should step back while I open this. It swings out and there’s another barred door behind it. You can talk to him through that.”
“I can’t go in?”
“Not now. Sorry,” Mueller said as he continued searching. I took a few steps backward, but not far enough to miss anything. I’d just placed the tips of my toes back on the solid ground when I heard a sound that sounded suspiciously like sniffing.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve smelled you, but I would recognize your scent anywhere, Zoe, ma chérie,” a silky voice thick with a French accent cooed from behind me and I screamed and whirled to point my wand’s tip in its direction. A pair of bloody eyes like hot coals in the night raked over me through a tiny slit carved into a steel door not unlike the one that held Heath.
“But what’s this?” the vampire asked and raised his nostrils to the slit to suck in the air. “You smell… different, somehow. There’s a hint of new life.” He drew in another deep whiff. “You’re expecting, aren’t you? C’est magnifique. The scent suits you.”
“Shut it, Valenti
ne,” Mueller ordered and stomped to the door to slam the cover of the slit shut. I stood staring at the space where Valentine Delacroix’s bloody eyes had been a moment prior, unable to gather my thoughts.
“Oh là là! That’s no way to treat a king, monsieur,” Valentine’s voice echoed from inside his cell, but Mueller ignored him.
It’d been nearly a year since I’d seen King Valentine, when he’d attacked and nearly killed me in Moon Grove’s graveyard, and I couldn’t say I was happy to have had another encounter.
“It’s a real tragedy about your friend, Ms. Clarke. Power corrupts even the greatest of men. I should know,” Valentine said and laughed.
“Ignore him. He’s just trying to get into your head. It’s what he does,” Mueller said and pulled me by the arm away from Valentine’s cell.
“Has he been down here the entire time?”
Mueller nodded. “We don’t know what else to do with him. He’s obviously far too dangerous to be free, and there’s no other facility that can safely hold him.”
As far as I was concerned, he could spend the rest of his eternal life rotting in his cell. I shuddered at the thought of how exactly Mueller had kept Valentine alive for the last year since he couldn’t feed. Instead, I focused on Heath.
Mueller finished opening Heath’s cell, and when I spotted him sitting with both hands chained to the far wall, it almost broke me. The sparkle of life and mischief that normally colored his eyes had vanished, replaced by a look of total defeat.
His head shot up at the noise of the cell door opening, and when he saw me standing with Mueller, Heath jerked to life and moved as close to us as his chains allowed. I glanced at Mueller, hoping he’d get the hint to leave us alone, but he shook his head.
“Sorry, no can do. What if he were to hypnotize you or something? You could free everyone down here, and then we’d have a real problem on our hands. Besides, anything you can say to him you can say in front of me. We’re on the same side here, right?”
I nodded. Though I would much rather have talked to Heath alone, I understood the need for caution. “Fine.”
“Here, have a seat,” Mueller said and pulled a wooden stool from the corner in the shadows. I gratefully lowered myself onto it and breathed a sigh of relief as the pressure on my feet dissolved.
“Zoe, I’m so glad to see you,” Heath said, on the verge of tears.
“Likewise, though I’m sure you’ve seen better days.”
He chuckled at the joke despite the situation, and a glimmer of his old joyfulness returned momentarily until he remembered where he was and why. “I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. You do, don’t you?”
I grimaced. “I’m not sure. I want to, believe me I do more than anything, but I can’t ignore how things looked.”
“I understand. You’re right to be skeptical. I would be the same way if our roles were reversed.”
“I don’t doubt it. The thing is, I feel like I know you pretty well now, and I’m having a hard time believing you’d murder your son, especially when you risked a lot to keep him out of trouble.”
“Thank you. I’m so glad to hear you say that. You more than anyone else should know that I don’t have it in me to hurt anyone, much less the ones I love.”
“So why don’t you tell me what happened then?”
“I can’t explain it, really. No matter how many ways I think of to tell the story, I know how crazy it sounds.”
“Try me. I’ve seen some crazy stuff before.”
Heath smiled, his eyes crinkling. “Without a doubt. Okay, I’ll give it a shot, but just hear me out, no matter how bizarre it gets, okay?”
“Deal.”
“Good. I’m sure you noticed the sudden temperature drop in the chamber moments before Adam’s death, right?”
“Yeah, but I thought it was just pregnancy chills. You felt that too?”
Heath nodded vigorously. “It wasn’t just you. That’s why I drew my wand. I couldn’t explain why, but I had the feeling that something bad was about to happen. Every hair on my body was on end.”
“Me too. So far, you aren’t telling me anything too weird.”
“Well, stay with me, because this is where it gets strange. As the candles were flickering, I swear to you and to Lilith on my honor that I saw someone or something moving near Adam, but before I could figure out what it was, everything went dark. There wasn’t anything I could do, and when I heard his scream, I…” he trailed.
“So, what are you saying? That someone snuck over to him in the confusion?”
Heath shrugged. “I’m not sure. They could have. Like I said, I didn’t get a good look at anything, but I could tell from the way he’d died — with no blood or signs of physical harm — that who or whatever attacked him did it with magic.”
“How? Aside from the Council, no one in the room had wands. The gargoyles confiscated them all—” I cut myself off as I realized what Heath was getting at. “Wait, you aren’t suggesting someone on the Council might’ve done this, are you?”
“It’s a strong possibility. The only other person in the room who could’ve used magic was Virgil, Adam’s lawyer.”
“I didn’t know demons had any magical capabilities at all.”
Heath nodded. “They do. They’re one of the more powerful paranormal species, which is part of the reason they rarely mingle with other paranormals. They’re frequently discriminated against and sometimes attacked.”
“Why?”
Heath shrugged. “Superstitions aren’t unique to non-magical individuals, Zoe. There’s an unfounded belief that demons aren’t trustworthy, that they’re self-serving and treacherous. None of that is generally true — there are a few bad apples among them just like with everyone else — but the fact remains that they are wielders of powerful dark magic.”
“I think we’re jumping the broom here. We know nothing at all about Adam’s past before he showed up in that dungeon with me. Who’s to say he doesn’t have enemies in the Brotherhood who might’ve wanted to take him out before he could spill the beans about them?”
Heath nodded. “That’s also possible. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t. I’m as clueless as you, but I need your help now more than ever, Zoe. This case will undoubtedly come before the Supreme Court of the United Supernaturals and there’s—”
“Wait, what?” I interrupted. “There’s a paranormal Supreme Court?”
“Yes, for this very reason. Corruption also isn’t unique to the non-magical, so we created the Court to handle cases that involve leaders of paranormal communities, since the local governmental bodies couldn’t rule fairly in such cases.”
“Interesting.”
“That’s probably not the adjective I’d use to describe them, but that’s irrelevant now. The point is, I know how this case looks for me, and I know I didn’t murder Adam, but if I’m locked in this cell, how am I supposed to prove it? Zoe, I think someone is trying to frame me, someone powerful.”
I almost fell off the stool. The thought hadn’t occurred to me, but the more I considered it, the more it made sense. The Council and the offices of the Head Witch and Warlock had been targets more than once during my time in Moon Grove, and what better way to wreak havoc in town than by framing the Head Warlock for the murder of his son?
“I need you to be my eyes and ears. Can you do that?” Heath asked, bringing me back to the present.
I nodded. “Of course. What should I do?”
Heath considered the question for a moment. “Talk to Morgan, Adam’s ex-wife. She was present during the conference this morning, and I think she’ll have the most insight into what was going on in Adam’s life for the last few months. I’m not sure if whoever is behind this wanted to hurt Adam solely or hurt us both, but she’s as good a person to start with as any.”
“Yeah, okay. What should I tell the rest of the Council? They already know I’m here speaking with you.”
“Some who aren’t fans of mine will no d
oubt raise the point that there is a certain strain of evil within the Highmore family and try to use that history to paint me in the same light,” Heath said, and I shivered at the thought of how both Adam and Seth had gotten tangled up in dark magic. “There’s no denying the darkness in my family, Zoe, but everyone on that Council should know better than to believe I’m part of it. I’ve spent my whole life proving it. Tell them to remember that.”
“Got it. For what it’s worth, Heath, I believe you. I don’t think you did this,” I said, and Heath allowed himself to shed a single tear.
“Thank you. That means the world to me.”
“I should get going. I want to get out in front of this before we lose control of the narrative.”
“Good thinking. If anyone in the press asks, tell them you’re in contact with me and my representatives and you have no further comment. And try to keep your conversations with Morgan and the others private. The less of this story the press have to work with, the better.”
“Understood. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Please do, and thank you again, Zoe. I already owed you my life, but this time I might yet pay with it.”
“Not on my watch,” I said and left the cells with my head high, determined to find the truth. Not even Valentine’s jeers could slow me down. Heath had believed in me and given me everything I had in Moon Grove, and I owed it to him to return the favor.
I’d talk to any and everyone who knew Adam to find whoever was behind his murder — and I’d make sure the culprit traded places with Heath.
Chapter Five
When I opened my bedroom door the following morning, I realized Beau had already left for work. Grandma Elle, however, sat on the couch waiting for me with Luna, my talking cat, in her lap, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, and the morning’s edition of the Moon Grove Messenger in the other.
