Conviction

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “You told me once that you’d found out Morgan was at Nightcap asking about you and Scath,” Flint reminded me. “And then there was the…situation with my mother’s artifacts, and the resulting change in Simon. Morgan seems intent on investigating you, and a sidhe doesn’t haunt oracles for no reason. And since you belong to me now, I thought it would behoove me to find out why Morgan is so interested in you.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to remind him that our relationship was temporary, but I held it back. This was one of the few times that relationship would work for me.

  “With that in mind, while I was in Europe, I asked around about our friend.”

  “Spit it out, what did you find out?” Peasblossom prodded.

  “Morgan’s mother was half-leannan sidhe. But her grandmother was a fury. Word around the court is both Morgan and her mother favored Morgan’s grandmother.”

  Dread curled at the base of my spine. Furies were spirits of vengeance, female creatures born from drops of blood that fell from a murder victim. There were different types, but they all shared a thirst for punishment, a deep desire to seek justice for the wronged. It was said that the furies were the ones who pursued oathbreakers in the old days.

  “Why is she at Marilyn’s?”

  “Details about that are very difficult to come by. Though I did find out that Morgan’s mother chose to fade just under a century ago.”

  Morgan’s mother had faded. The sidhe version of suicide, when they simply gave up on life. Faded away to rejoin the cosmic web. It was a very rare occurrence, one mourned by sidhe society as a whole when it happened.

  “Morgan took it very hard, and she…burned some bridges socially. Among them, her family’s position in the Queen’s good graces. Marilyn was the only one who would take her in after that. And, as you know, without the protection of a house, a sidhe can find the world very unfriendly indeed.”

  “What about the rest of her house?” I asked. “Surely they wouldn’t have turned their back on her?”

  “Well, now that’s where it gets interesting. According to my sources, Morgan’s house was heavily influenced by her heritage. The Queen herself staffed most of her enforcer positions—guards, bodyguards, torturers, etc.—from Morgan’s house. She also employed them to punish oathbreakers in very public, very ostentatious social events. Most of the court was terrified of them.”

  He rubbed a hand over his jaw, his eyes losing focus. “Then something dreadful happened. Something no one would talk about, not even hint at. Morgan’s house disbanded.” He shook himself, then his eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that almost made me step back. “Morgan’s mother wasn’t the only member of that house that chose to fade. At least seven members are dead.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said.

  Flint arched an eyebrow. “You’ll forgive me if I’m somewhat surprised to hear you express such concern. I’ve always gotten the impression you think a good sidhe is a dead sidhe.”

  “Suicide is never something to be glib or happy about. And given how rare it is, there must be a dramatic reason. What could have made her house disband?”

  Flint pointed at me. “I told you, no one will talk about it. No. One. Or perhaps what I should say is no one can talk about it. I was my most charming self, and I couldn’t get anyone to speak a word.”

  His most charming self. So he’d used magic, along with every dirty trick in the book. Yes, very charming.

  I stared into space, letting my mind replay what Morgan had said. “Morgan’s always hinting that there’s something I need to know, but she can’t tell me. I thought maybe she was under some sort of contract, but if it’s more than just her, that’s not a contract.”

  “It’s a geas,” Flint said grimly.

  “A geas?” Peasblossom scoffed. “No one does those anymore. They’re too hard to hold. And to lay a geas on not just one person, but an entire house? The amount of power that sort of thing takes is just short of a familial curse.”

  “It’s not just one house,” I corrected her. “If it is a geas that prevents people from speaking about whatever happened to disband Morgan’s house, then it’s true the amount of power necessary would be…well, I can’t think of any one person who could do it.”

  “Whatever happened was a long time ago,” Flint declared. “Centuries. Centuries ago, a geas would not have been so uncommon. And there are many who have lost power as the world has become more industrialized, more metal and technology, less faith, fewer offerings.”

  “All right, then centuries ago, who could have done it?”

  Flint rubbed his neck. “Either Queen could have done it. They have not only their own power, but the power of their entire court.”

  My stomach lurched, threatening to send the Coke back up my throat. “Are you saying…that you think the Unseelie Queen laid a geas on her people not to speak of what happened to Morgan’s house?” I didn’t add that Morgan’s reaction to Scath hinted at a connection. And Majesty had been sent by the Unseelie Queen. And Scath certainly seemed defensive of Majesty…

  “Where is Scath?” Flint asked.

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I couldn’t resist the urge to look behind me. It was silly, but I truly expected Scath to appear there. She did it often enough. She’d told me once she could always find me.

  That sounded more sinister now.

  I shook my head. “Wait a minute. How is any of this related to Andy? How does any of it explain why Morgan keeps interfering with him?”

  Flint leaned forward, bracing his arms on the bar. “Think about it. Morgan is part fury. Her house was full of punishers, people who sought vengeance or justice. When did Morgan become interested in Agent Bradford?”

  “The night of the auction.”

  “Specifically…?”

  I shared a look with Peasblossom. “After he confronted the kelpies.”

  “So Morgan saw a human man confront a group of monsters preying on a screaming teenage human.” Flint tilted his head, considering. “She saw him kill Bradan and walk away. If I remember correctly, Agent Bradford never backed down, never stopped arguing that he was on the right side of the law.”

  “You think Morgan sees Andy as a kindred spirit?” I asked.

  “One of the people I talked to in Europe said that when Morgan’s house was in power, they actively pursued new members. Apparently, they had a particular fondness for lawmen whose pursuit of justice didn’t always fit within the lines.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “From what I’ve gathered, Agent Bradford would have been very appealing to them,” Flint pressed.

  “No, you’re wrong.”

  Flint retreated to the table beside the couch and picked something up. When he came back, he tossed the file on the kitchen island. The label bore Andy’s name, neatly printed in small black letters. The same file he’d tried to give me before.

  “I’m not reading that. It’s personal, and if Andy wants me to know—”

  Flint ignored my protest and flipped open the file. Before I could turn away, he slapped a hand down on the first photograph and slid it to the side, fanning out the stack of photos.

  So many photos.

  “Oh, Andy…” I took a step closer. I couldn’t help it.

  The boy in the pictures was young. Some of them showed him as a teenager, which was the only reason I knew the pictures of the four-year-old were him too. The teenager was the missing link. The skinnier, harder Andy. The one with brown eyes that stabbed at me from the photo, his chin thrust out with defiance that dared me to judge him for the mug shot. The accompanying report for assault and battery.

  An expression that dared me to pity him for the earlier pictures.

  “You need to see this,” Flint said gently. “You need to understand.”

  “I saw the scars on his back.” I lowered myself into one of the kitchen chairs as if I were made of glass and would shatter if I sat too quickly. I lifted one of the photos, and choked
on a small sob. “I didn’t want to press him about it.”

  Flint didn’t comment. He just stood there as I went through the pictures. Read the arrest reports for Andy’s biological parents, and finally for Andy himself. I’d seen anger before. I’d seen people overwhelmed by it, people—human and Other—who’d lost themselves to that fury, did things that none of us wanted to believe anyone was capable of, let alone ourselves. It never got easier. Seeing the consequences of that rage.

  “He tried to protect his little brother.” I held one particularly heart-breaking photograph. Another boy who resembled Andy so closely they might have been twins.

  “He tried.”

  I put the pictures and reports back into the folder, one by one. It gave me time to think, time to tuck my emotions back into a little box in my mind where I could save them to go through later.

  “I don’t understand what any of this has to do with the case.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true. Agent Bradford stands accused of murder. This,” he put one hand flat on the file, “is as relevant as a match at an arson scene.”

  “No,” I ground out. “This,” I pressed a finger on top of the file, “is as relevant as a bloodline. This can tell you where he came from, but it can’t tell you where he’s going. This,” I jabbed the file again, narrowly missing poking Flint’s hand, “tells me how far he came. How hard he fought—how strong he is. If anything, the fact that he became an FBI agent—one with an exemplary record—after all of this, tells me he’s not a murderer.”

  “Well, what it should tell you is that Agent Bradford is an ideal candidate for someone recruiting vigilantes,” Flint said, a hint of exasperation in his tone. “This kind of pain and anger doesn’t just go away, Shade. You know that. It needs an outlet.”

  “And it has an outlet,” I argued. “Andy is a cop. He channels all of this into finding criminals and making sure they’re punished—the right way.”

  “And when he encounters a particularly monstrous criminal that the law can’t or won’t punish?” Flint countered. “What then? And let me remind you,” he said, seeming to sense my coming objection, “that I’m one of the criminals Agent Bradford tried to punish. He knew I was guilty of murder, he had me in a cell, and then he had to watch me walk right out again. He was there. I saw his face. Just like I saw his face after I bought you at auction. And I can promise you, Shade, it was not lost on him that if he’d succeeded in keeping me in jail, then I never would have been at the auction that night.”

  I refocused my attention on my soda. I needed time to think about all this. I needed to think without him looming over me, watching me.

  Flint settled into a chair beside me. “My understanding is that Morgan’s house was so dedicated to finding the best members, the ones most closely aligned with their values, that they recruited from all species. Including humans. And they were known to share power with them.”

  “Share power?”

  Flint nodded. “They had artifacts they would give to those they felt could handle them. And in some cases, they even went so far as to use artifacts to add new recruits to their own bloodlines. Formally and magically.”

  “They used artifacts like your mother’s.”

  Flint looked away. “Yes.”

  I stared at the file. For a long time, I couldn’t look away.

  “It’s not just a physical pain, when your own parent attacks you,” Flint said quietly. “It’s the rejection. The betrayal. It’s watching someone who’s supposed to love and protect you above all else in the world turn against you. Seeing them use your suffering to improve their lot in life. That kind of pain is bottomless. It lights a fire inside you. And that flame attracts monsters.”

  He put a hand on my shoulder. “Andy’s father—the one who took him in—did everything he could for him. By all accounts, he was a very good man. But the line between justice and vengeance is so thin. It’s easy to step over it and not even notice until it’s too late to go back.”

  I shoved the file away. “It is never too late to go back.”

  “The kelpies were practically designed to be Agent Bradford’s nemeses,” Flint said. “They prey on the young and the isolated. They’re unapologetically sadistic, taking the time to terrify their victims before they kill them. And what’s more, he was able to kill one of them to save a child, and he walked away a free man. A man still on the right side of the law—in his eyes. You have to see how easy it would be for Morgan to encourage that. To guide him to a place where there were more kelpies, where they found their victims.”

  I held up a hand. “So you think Morgan recruited Andy the way she would have recruited someone to her house centuries ago. This was some sort of test, to see if Andy continued pursuing justice against the kelpies.”

  “I think Morgan misses what she used to be, the way so many who’ve lost power do,” Flint said. “And more than that, Morgan’s house wasn’t just about power. They believed in what they were doing. They pursued criminals and oathbreakers because that’s who they were. That was their purpose.”

  “But according to the witnesses, Andy didn’t shoot Raichel because she was hurting anyone. He thought she was trying to kidnap a kid, but it turned out it wasn’t a kid. It was a fifty-year-old jockey. Mickey was very clear, Andy saw he was a grown man, heard him say he was fine, and he killed Raichel anyway. Which does not sound like justice.”

  “Then maybe you’re right, and Siobhan set the whole thing up,” Flint suggested. “Morgan could have sent Andy there with the intention of policing the kelpies, but that doesn’t mean Siobhan couldn’t have noticed his presence and built her plan around it.”

  I frowned. “So, assuming Siobhan did set Andy up…Morgan, with her desire for proper justice, wouldn’t like that.”

  “She certainly would not.”

  Peasblossom landed between us. “So if Morgan is mad that Siobhan set Andy up, why set him up again by luring him to the scene of Deacon’s murder? And why punish Deacon for Siobhan’s scheme?”

  “If Deacon helped to frame him, then in Morgan’s eyes, he’d deserve to die too,” Flint said slowly.

  “And now Andy’s missing, and if she was the last person he saw…”

  “Maybe Morgan is hiding him,” Flint finished.

  Chapter 12

  My phone went off with a text message alert when we were halfway to Marilyn’s. I shifted in the bucket seat of Flint’s tiny sports car, digging in the side pocket of my waist pouch to get my phone. My heart pounded, and I said a short prayer that it was Andy, calling me to tell me where he was.

  “Is it him?” Flint asked.

  My shoulders slumped. “No.”

  “That’s Kylie’s number,” Peasblossom said, pointing at the screen from her perch on my shoulder.

  “Thank the Goddess.” I swiped my finger across the screen to answer. “Kylie?”

  “We just finished processing the second scene,” the half-ghoul said, skipping the pleasantries. “I’m still going to need some time for the full autopsy, but it seems pretty cut and dried so far. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet earlier, but if you have time now, we’re ready.”

  Her voice was professional and just this side of curt. The stab of disappointment in my gut forced me to acknowledge that part of me had been holding out hope that she would call to say they’d found exculpatory evidence. Maybe they’d found someone else’s fingerprints on the gun, or evidence of a spell to make Andy black out.

  “We’re packing up, but we’ll be back at the lab by—”

  “Actually, Kylie,” I interrupted, “are you still at Marilyn’s?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Could you just stay there? Flint and I are on our way. We need to talk to Morgan again.”

  “Did Vincent already call you?” Kylie asked, a hint of surprise in her voice.

  “No. Why?”

  After a pause Kylie said, “Wait till you get here, then I’ll explain what we’ve found.”

  I nodde
d, realized she couldn’t see me, and answered, “Okay.” Now it was my turn to hesitate. “Is it good news?”

  “It’s not as bad as it could be,” Kylie hedged. “You said Flint is coming with you?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t look at Flint. He probably couldn’t hear Kylie, but if he got the notion we were talking about him, he could make me tell him anything that was said.

  “Where’s Liam?”

  I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes. “That’s a long story. We’ll talk later?”

  “All right. How far out are you?”

  “Ten minutes, maybe?”

  “I’ll find Vincent and we’ll get everything ready for you.” She hung up without waiting for a response.

  I slid my phone back into the pocket of my waist pouch, staring out the windshield at the grey sky. It was three o’ clock now, but the sun was so muted by the clouds, it could have been later.

  Not as bad as it could be, what did she mean by that? Any evidence that pointed to someone other than Andy would be good.

  Flint didn’t ask me any questions. I gathered he’d figured out what was going on easily enough from my side of the conversation. And the nice part about him driving was that he didn’t need directions. The magic that turned uninvited humans away from Marilyn’s property wouldn’t do any good against him.

  When we reached our destination I spotted Kylie and Vincent’s van in front of the main house. Vincent waited in the driver’s seat, and he looked over as Flint drove up the driveway. He seemed to steel himself before climbing out, as if bracing to deliver unpleasant information.

  Or maybe I was just paranoid.

  The familiar sight of his unkempt hair and tweed wardrobe was less comforting than usual as I drew closer. He groped to button his dark brown overcoat that draped him like a blanket over a pale blue dress shirt that probably never saw a hanger. Vincent greeted me with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Mother Renard, I’m sorry I was unable to meet with you earlier as we’d planned.”