Ghost at the Feast: The Nightwatch Book 3

by Cassidy, Debbie

  I arched a brow. “You got some ID, Remington?”

  The corner of his mouth curved up. “Have you?”

  “Oh, for fucksake,” Kris drawled. “Put the damn guns down. It’s obvious we’re on the same side.”

  He was right. I lowered my pistol. “You looking for the Custodians? Hired by the family of a missing supe?”

  He lowered his gun, and Lark sagged in relief.

  Mai exhaled sharply.

  “You found their base?” He glanced over my shoulder. “I knew I was close. Could feel it.”

  “Yeah, we found it,” Kris said. “Empty.”

  His gaze was flat. “Shit. So fucking close.”

  “But we found a file with details on some of the supernaturals who were taken.” I pressed my lips together. Why did I tell him that?

  Mai turned to look at me like what the fuck?

  I shrugged and mouthed, I don’t know.

  But Logan was looking at me again. “You found files. I’d like to see those.”

  I looked to Mai and Kris.

  Mai shrugged. “I guess it’s cool.”

  I nodded. “Let’s get back to the van, and you can take a look.”

  “But first,” Mai said, hands on hips, “ID.”

  Logan pulled a badge from his pocket and held it out. It had an eagle symbol on it, his photo, name, and BH number. He was legit.

  “Now you,” he said.

  I held up my Nightwatch badge. “We good?”

  “Yeah.”

  I crunched past him and down the track. The snow was falling heavier now. “We best get to the town before the snow makes it impossible to drive.”

  * * *

  Lark steered the camper van off the track and onto the main road. Visibility was rapidly decreasing, and the world was a swirling white blanket.

  “You all right driving?” Kris asked Lark for the third time.

  “I got this,” Lark said through clenched teeth.

  Mai shot Kris an apologetic glance in the rearview mirror.

  I settled at the table in the spot closest to the window.

  Logan took the spot opposite me, and Kris slid in beside me, so close that our thighs pressed together.

  I pushed the file toward the hunter. “See who you’re looking for?”

  Logan yanked off his ski mask to reveal dark chestnut closely-cropped hair and a chiseled, stubbled face. He had the austere look, like Jay, of someone about to relay bad news. But then the glamour shifted, and his real features appeared—pale red skin, a generous mouth with tusks jutting up from his bottom lip, and flared nostrils. Troll feyblood. I’d seen several in my lifetime. Vicious and aggressive and not the most intelligent breed of feyblood, but this one’s eyes were sharp, clear, and filled with intelligence.

  He flipped open the file and began to rifle through the pages, his body language screaming tension. I’d seen that look before—this was no ordinary tension, this was desperation, which meant that this was more than a job. It was personal.

  He let out a ragged sigh when he was done. “Thank you.” He passed them back to me. “She’s not there.”

  She? “Who is she? Who are you looking for?”

  His expression closed off. “My mark is classified.”

  Yeah, he was lying. “Bullshit. You know your mark. Heck. I bet this isn’t even official business.”

  His jaw ticked, but he didn’t refute or confirm my statement.

  I sat back in my seat. “Look, I don’t give a fuck whether you’re working off the books or not, all I care about is finding these fuckers and shutting them down.”

  He ran a hand over his face. “I’m looking for my sister. She went missing two weeks ago. I was on a case at the time. Official business. When I found out she was missing, I dropped everything and went looking for her.”

  Kris winced. “Oh, dear.”

  “What?” I looked from Kris to Logan. “So, he decided to look for his sister, so what?”

  “He dropped a case,” Kris said, “which means you went AWOL, right?” Kris looked at Logan.

  Logan nodded. “Yeah. The chapter wasn’t interested in Brie’s disappearance. They said she’d probably taken off with some guy or something. But Brie always checks in. No matter where she is, she always calls me once a day.”

  Kris sighed. “Hunters have a strict code. If you take a case, you wrap it up. If you can’t wrap up, you do an official handover.”

  “Which can take days,” Logan said.

  “But going AWOL is punishable by death,” Kris said softly.

  I sat back in surprise. “Wow, that seems a little excessive.”

  Logan’s smile was mirthless. “I don’t care what happens to me. I just need to find my sister. Once I know she’s okay, I don’t care what they do to me.” He looked out at the blizzard. “I thought she’d be here. All the clues led me here.”

  And she probably had been. It was our fault she was gone. Our fault they’d moved.

  I turned to Kris to see my thoughts echoed in his expression.

  “Look,” Kris said. “A few humans have gone missing from Reverie, and we think the Custodians may have taken them. If you want to hang on for a bit, you can come into town with us to investigate. We’re going to run some labs on the samples we found, and maybe we pick up some clues.”

  “We can test your DNA against the samples we have.” I smiled reassuringly. “If there’s a match, we’ll know for sure she was here. If not, then we might find some other clue.”

  He sat back and blinked slowly. “That’s helpful. Thank you.” He looked confused by our offer.

  “You sound surprised.”

  It was Kris who answered for him. “Nightwatch hasn’t been known for their cooperation with hunters. In fact, we’re usually at loggerheads considering we do their job for free.”

  I frowned at him. “Hey, don’t knock the shitty pay and the crappy benefits.”

  Logan cracked a smile. “And you take longer to get the job done,” he said dryly.

  I smiled sweetly at him. “Unfortunately, we have protocols we need to follow.”

  “So do we,” Logan said. “Find the mark and complete the mission at all costs.”

  “Kinda vague, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe, but it allows for initiative and creativity.”

  “Ouch.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you. You’ve been helpful, and I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. This is about justice. These Custodians are dangerous, not only directly, but to the glamour that keeps us all safe. If we want to stop them, then we need to work together.”

  “Most Nightwatch don’t think that way,” Logan said wryly.

  “Yeah, well, we’re not most Nightwatch,” Kris said.

  “Good to know.”

  He grinned, and the action changed his whole face from austere to stunning even with the tusks.

  “Oh, fuck,” Mai cried. “Lark, we need to stop.”

  “I got this. Almost there,” Lark said.

  I glanced out the window to nothing but white. How was he driving in this?

  The van shuddered as we hit something, and then we came to a halt. The engine purred and died.

  Mai stumbled into the back of the van, hand on heart. “We made it. We’re here.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kris, Logan, and I headed for the police station while Mai and Lark made a beeline for the local school to use the lab equipment. The chemistry teacher was a feyblood, and Mai was sure she’d be able to sweet-talk him into letting them use the lab.

  Logan slipped naturally into his glamour, back to the somber-looking human façade humans would see if they looked at him.

  No one knew exactly how the glamour worked even though many had postulated. We were just glad it was there to hide the reality that was the supernatural world.

  The station was a quaint building with stone gargoyles peering down from the roof. Were they alive? Tris would know. There were
free goyles like Glory about, and some of them worked freelance as watchers. It would make sense for the police station to have watchers, but someone inside would have had to employ them. Vick, our contact, wasn’t high enough on the totem pole to have hired goyles … They were probably just stone effigies. Not live goyles.

  Kris took the lead as we entered the precinct. He approached the front desk, where a slender guy was tapping away at a computer.

  “Can I help you?” the officer asked.

  “We have an appointment with Officer Williams.”

  “Name?”

  “It’ll be down as Kris.”

  The officer frowned. “You’re two hours late.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Have you looked outside?”

  He glanced over my shoulder and then frowned. “One moment.” He picked up his phone. “Vick, your twelve o’clock is here.” He stood instantly straighter. “Oh, right. No problem, sir.” He put the phone down and pointed at the waiting area. “Officer Williams has left for the day, but Chief Constable Brass is taking his appointments. He’ll be right out.”

  Kris and I exchanged glances. Vick knew we were coming today. He wouldn’t have just left. Something was wrong.

  We moved away from the desk.

  “Something’s not right,” Logan said, echoing my thoughts.

  “Yeah,” Kris muttered. “Maybe we can glean something from the chief.”

  “But what the fuck are we gonna say to him? We can’t tell him why we’re really here.”

  Kris pressed his lips together. “Let me do the talking.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  A figure approached the barrier that separated us from the inner section of the station. Tall, broad, and silver-haired, the chief looked pleasant enough. He smiled as he passed through the security doors.

  “Kris?” He raised both brows and looked from Logan to Kris.

  “That’ll be me,” Kris said.

  The chief frowned. “I’m afraid I’m at a loss as to your case. There are no notes in Officer Williams’s diary.”

  Kris winced. “Yeah, it was a personal meeting. Vick and I go way back. I knew I’d be passing Reverie, so I arranged to meet.”

  The chief’s expression cleared. “Ah, that explains the lunchtime appointment.” He shook his head. “No problem.”

  “Is Vick all right?” Kris asked. “He didn’t call or text to cancel our meeting.”

  The chief sighed. “Officer Williams has been placed on paid leave for the next few weeks. He’s been … unwell.”

  The way he said the word unwell hinted at more than a physical ailment. He was referring to Vick’s state of mind. I guess the officer hadn’t been as discreet as he could about investigating cases that the PD believed to be solved.

  Kris smiled. “No problem. I guess I’ll catch him next time I’m coming this way.”

  The chief held out his hand. “No problem, good to meet you.”

  Kris shook the chief’s hand, and his silver cuffs peeked out from beneath his sleeves.

  The chief canted his head. “Interesting choice of jewelry.”

  Kris chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it is. I have a thing for silver.”

  The chief tapped the huge black signet ring on his index finger. “I have a thing for chunky rings.” He released Kris’s hand. “I hope you’re not thinking of traveling in this?”

  Kris shook his head. “No, we’ll wait till it stops.”

  “Good call. Don’t want to be peeling you off the road. There’s a bed and breakfast on Summer Street.”

  He shook Logan’s hand, too, and I caught sight of the eagle tattooed to the hunter’s wrist. Nice.

  We said our goodbyes and headed back out into the snow. We huddled beneath the awning as I dialed Mai and got nothing but static and then a dead tone.

  Crap. “Weather must be interfering with reception.”

  “What now?” Logan asked.

  “We go check on Vick,” Kris said.

  * * *

  The blizzard swirled, making it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of us. But Kris knew his way around town, and ten minutes later, we were knocking on Vick’s door.

  The house was a terraced affair, one of those narrow buildings that looked like it had been squashed to fit in a gap between two larger structures. A battered gate opened onto a slender path. There wasn’t even a porch to huddle under.

  The door opened to an unshaven man with red-rimmed eyes. “Kris?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Fuck, of course. Our meeting.” He stepped back to usher us in. “Fucking grim out there.”

  Warmth enveloped me as I stepped into the hallway. The door closed, shutting out the elements. Logan stamped his feet on the mat to dislodge the snow clinging to his boots, and I did the same.

  “Come into the kitchen,” Vick said. “Kettle just boiled. I’ll make tea.”

  I followed Kris down the hall and into a brightly lit kitchen that was all clean lines and chrome.

  Vick obviously liked the minimalist look. I was all for the cottage kitchen feel myself, but each to their own.

  “Vick, what the hell is going on?” Kris asked.

  Vick busied himself with the teapot and tea bags. “Nothing. I fucked up, that’s all. I thought … I thought the cases were unsolved, but they’re not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Vick ran a hand through his hair. “Everyone is back. All the people who went missing. They’re back. I …” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I fucked up, and I don’t know how I could have thought the PD was doing some sort of elaborate cover-up. I’ve been working long shifts and not sleeping.” He looked over at us and smiled wearily. “It takes a toll.”

  “So, there are no missing humans?” Logan asked with a frown.

  Vick blinked across at him. “Um … No, there were some missing reports, but it turns out it was a hiking trip. The bus didn’t come back on time, and the families got worried and filed reports. The missing people got home eventually, and the cases were marked solved.”

  “But you told Jay that people were still missing and that the PD was acting as if nothing was wrong.”

  “Gemma Blackshaw, the wife of one of the missing people, called me to chase up the case. That’s how I found the files in archives marked solved. She was adamant her husband was still missing, but everyone acted like it didn’t matter.”

  “But he wasn’t missing?” Logan asked.

  “No. Turns out he had a lover. He moved in with her two towns over.” He poured hot water into the kettle. “It would have helped if the person who filled out the reports had mentioned the hiking trip, or that the six people who’d gone missing had been together at the fucking time. Bloody newbies.” He leaned back against the counter. “And now I look like a complete twat for kicking up such a fuss. They’ve put me on paid leave so I can get over my little mental breakdown.”

  So, no case here. No link to the Custodians. That was good, right? Then why did it feel wrong?

  “Hold that tea, Vick,” Kris said. “We need to get going.”

  Vick frowned. “I’ve pissed you off, haven’t I? I fucked up, and now the Watch won’t take any intel I provide seriously.” He groaned. “Fuck my life.”

  Kris patted his shoulder. “Nah, you’re good. We have another case we need to focus on, though. At least we know there are no missing humans involved now.”

  “Humans?” He shook his head. “No, the missing people were tainted, like me. Did I not call and tell Jay that?” He looked confused.

  I sighed. Well, that was the nail in the coffin. “No, that’s fine.”

  It was a stretch to think the Custodians would hurt humans, considering they advocated humanity’s right to live without supernatural intervention. But it was highly unlikely they’d hurt tainted humans like them. Humans they felt an affinity toward.

  I lightly touched Kris’s arm. “We need to get back.”

  He nodded. “Take it easy, Vick, and get some rest.”

  Vick no
dded. “Yeah, thanks … Thanks …”

  We left him to his tea and dove back out into the blizzard. We were done here. It was time to get back to Scorchwood.

  * * *

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Lark said. “We can’t drive in this.”

  The sun was about to set, and the world outside was a blizzard of cutting flakes of ice.

  Logan’s motorbike was parked outside of town, hidden in the brush. He was stuck with us until the storm passed, and he did not look pleased about it. He looked like a man of action, one who preferred not to sit still for too long. The leg jiggling was a dead giveaway.

  “Did you get a match on the blood?” Logan asked.

  “No,” Mai said. “But that’s a good thing. It means they didn’t hurt your sister.”

  He looked out the window. “Or it means she was never there.” He tucked in his chin and muttered, “Maybe I fucked up.”

  “The blood we found was all tainted,” Lark said. “No pure human blood.”

  “The people who went missing weren’t human,” Kris reminded Lark.

  I sat back in my seat. “The missing people aren’t missing, so they don’t relate to our case.”

  “I need to get back on the trail,” Logan said.

  Kris studied him for a long beat. “And how exactly did you find a trail that led you here?”

  Logan’s jaw ticked. “I have certain abilities.”

  Mai perked up. “Care to elaborate?”

  He sighed. “I can find things. Clues fall into my lap, people tell me pertinent facts, stuff like that. Back at base, they call it finder’s luck. Except with Brie, it’s as if something is clouding the trail. Every step has been harder.” He pressed his hands to his thighs. “I need to get back on the trail.”

  “And you will,” Mai said kindly. “We’ll drive you back to your bike as soon as the weather clears.”

  “In the meantime …” Kris rubbed his hands together and headed for the kitchenette. “We need food.”