Alchemy and Arson

by Lily Webb

  By that, she meant antagonizing them, but I couldn’t say I blamed her. If my entire family’s future were riding on someone like Hilda, I might’ve done the same thing.

  “But Hypnotic Tonics eventually opened, so there had to have been money coming in at some point, right?” I asked. Lorelei shook her head.

  “There was certainly money being made, but none of it was flowing back to me,” Lorelei said as she rummaged in one of her desk drawers. She pulled out a few sheets of paper that were stapled together and shoved them across the desk to me. It was the contract she’d signed with Hilda — which meant she’d lied to the Council and to most of Moon Grove by denying it existed.

  “If you look at the last page, you’ll see Hilda and I agreed to a ten percent share of any profits made. I saw precisely zero,” she said as I thumbed through the sheets. At the bottom of the third page, it was spelled out in bolded letters and clear language.

  “But if she wasn’t paying you, where was that money going?” I asked.

  “That’s exactly what I was trying to find out,” Lorelei said. “So I hired someone to help me get some answers.”

  I sat up straight as an arrow on the corner of her desk.

  “Who?”

  “His name is Marcel Desfleurs. He works for Grave Times officially but does lots of other work on the side. Maybe you’ve met him?”

  “Oh, I’ve definitely met him,” I said, ice trickling down the back of my neck as I spoke. Marcel had lied to me. He wasn’t keeping watch on Hypnotic Tonics because he wanted to — Lorelei was paying him.

  “Wait, I thought you were broke?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t paying him with money,” Lorelei said and another glacier of ice slid down my back.

  “Then how were you paying him?”

  “In information. Councilwoman Woods and I were deep in negotiations with the werewolf leadership,” Lorelei said. By that, she meant Tony Romano, though I wasn’t about to tell her I knew that too.

  “You were feeding Marcel insider information about the negotiations with the werewolves, weren’t you?” I asked, filling in the blanks. Lorelei nodded so slowly it was almost imperceptible.

  “What exactly were the werewolves bargaining for?” I asked.

  “A seat at the table. Though we never explicitly offered it, it was implied that by cooperating with us and agreeing not to stir up trouble the werewolves could find themselves in a position of real power for the first time,” Lorelei said.

  “And you were going to give it to Tony Romano,” I said. Lorelei smirked.

  “Perhaps you’re more talented than I gave you credit for, Ms. Clarke,” Lorelei said.

  “Thanks, I guess. But why would Marcel care about what was going on in those negotiations?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t him so much as it was his boss,” Lorelei said.

  Of course. I hadn’t forgotten that Lucien Bellerose, the land barren of Moon Grove and slippery vampire supreme, had once been involved in a power play for a seat on the Council himself. After he’d failed, he’d been lying low — but he clearly hadn’t given up yet. Sending Marcel to do his bidding was clever, I had to give him that; no one would be suspicious of a photojournalist for asking questions and taking pictures.

  It was obviously time for me to make another trip to the offices of Grave Times.

  “Are you going to print any of this?” Lorelei asked as she reached for the contract. She pulled her wand out of her robes and held the tip to the paper, which charred and curled as it ignited.

  “The truth will get out one way or another. You can’t burn all your secrets,” I said.

  “I had nothing to do with either of those fires, Zoe, you have to believe me,” Lorelei said. “Whatever you might think about my daughter, I’m not like her. I’m ambitious, absolutely, but not like that.”

  “I know you’re not,” I said and Lorelei looked like she might cry. She wouldn’t have told me any of this if she really had killed Circe and Hilda. She probably wanted to know who was responsible as much as I did — but she had a lot more skin in the game.

  “Thank you for the info, Councilwoman, and good luck with everything,” I said as I showed myself out of her office.

  As sorry as I felt for her, something told me once the truth came out in the ashes, she wouldn’t be occupying it for much longer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I stormed into the office of Lucien Bellerose, not bothering to exercise any caution or tact. Once more, Céline sat at the receptionist desk looking thoroughly bored. I couldn’t say I blamed her — after hundreds of years as a secretary, there probably wasn’t much of anything that excited her anymore.

  “Good evening,” she said as I approached.

  “Is Marcel in tonight?” I asked, cutting through the pleasantries. I didn’t have the time or patience.

  “Let me check,” Céline said and picked up the phone on her desk. She had a seconds-long conversation with whoever answered and gave me a half-hearted smile as she held the phone away from her ear. “I’m afraid he’s busy right now. Is it an emergency?”

  “Yes, definitely. It won’t be long, I promise,” I said. Céline relayed the information and hung up. She smashed the button on her desk and the door to my right flung open. Before I could get to the entrance, Céline was standing next to me.

  “I’m never going to get used to that,” I said. Céline smirked and ushered me down the hall toward the door that led into the Grave Times workroom. She didn’t try to make any banter with me, but I wasn’t complaining.

  “Here you are,” she said and tapped her badge to open the door. Just like last time, Marcel was standing inside waiting for me, though he didn’t look happy to see me.

  “Hey, Zoe,” Marcel said. “I got your email, sorry I haven’t responded. I guess it doesn’t matter now though, does it?”

  “No, not really,” I said and closed the door behind me. Marcel crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me sideways, his skin glowing in the light from all the computers in the room.

  “Something on your mind? You seem a little, well, intense this evening,” Marcel said. Had he really not heard about the drama in the town hall earlier that afternoon? With all his snooping in other people’s business — and that was just the stuff I knew about — I found it hard to believe.

  “You played me,” I said. Marcel laughed and shook his head, his brows creased like he didn’t understand.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You had an ulterior motive working with me, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “I’m really not following you,” he said.

  “The other night, when we went to Pupperoni Pizza to get dirt on Tony, you didn’t go just because you wanted to help me, did you?” I asked.

  “Well, no, of course not. I don’t do anything unless there’s something in it for me as well,” Marcel said. “I’ve never led you to believe otherwise.”

  “That’s true. I’ve learned a lot in the last couple of days, and none of it really makes you look good,” I said.

  “Pray tell, what exactly did I get out of our little rendezvous?” Marcel asked, his French accent slipping on the last word.

  “What you wanted all along: photographic proof to discredit Tony Romano and ruin the negotiations he was working on with Circe Woods and Lorelei Riddle,” I said. “And you lied to me about it to make it seem like you were doing me a favor.”

  “It’s true that I saw a golden opportunity with you, and I won’t apologize for taking it,” Marcel said and I scoffed. He really was just as conniving as his boss.

  “You can beat around the bush all you want, but I know you’ve been working for Lorelei Riddle. That’s why you were hanging around Hypnotic Tonics and why you had the photos of Tony inside the shop after hours,” I said. “You two were trading information.”

  “She told you that, did she?” Marcel asked. He seemed genuinely surprised — though I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or afraid — either way, it didn’t
matter. I had the truth now, or at least part of it, and I needed the rest. I wouldn’t fall for his slick words and smooth operation again.

  “She did, among other things. I can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together sooner, but it should have been obvious from the start. Lucien Bellerose owns and runs this magazine and he doesn’t want anyone other than the vampires coming to power, so I don’t doubt for a second that’s why you took the job with Lorelei,” I said.

  “And if I did, would you blame me? I’m hundreds of years old, Zoe, I didn’t get this far in life without being a little cold and calculating,” Marcel said.

  “That’s putting it lightly. Based on all this, why should I believe you had nothing to do with torching Circe’s house that night? In fact, why should I believe anything you say?” I asked. Marcel opened his mouth to argue, but I talked over him.

  “I think Lucien put you up to it when you told him how friendly Circe had gotten with the werewolves!” I shouted. “I saw the way you moved, how quickly and silently, when you were tearing through the woods in the Werewolves’ Quarter. You could easily have been running around while the curfew was in place with a tube of Wild Fyre and no one would’ve seen you.”

  “Nice try, but you haven’t thought this through, Zoe,” Marcel said. “First off, where would I have gotten Wild Fyre? I wasn’t the one getting tonics on the sly from Hilda, and I’ve never known a vampire who was eager to cozy up to flames,” Marcel said.

  Neither had I, but that was beside the point.

  “Beyond that, why would I incriminate myself by showing you the photos I’d taken of Tony at Hypnotic Tonics if I was later planning to blow the place up? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for me just to light it on fire without telling anyone I’d been hanging around?” Marcel asked.

  “Because you were trying to use Tony as a scapegoat. He already looked suspicious after his outburst at the Council meeting and you had the photos to prove he was in some sort of shady deal with Hilda,” I said.

  Marcel shrugged.

  “You knew that discrediting Tony and pinning Circe’s murder on him would make all the Council’s negotiations with the werewolves fall apart. But you couldn’t spread the suspicion about Tony yourself, so you used me to do it while getting even more compromising photos of him,” I said.

  “When you put it that way, it does sound like a brilliant idea,” Marcel said like he hadn’t already thought of it.

  “And then when the suspicion was out there, you blew up Hypnotic Tonics to take out Hilda and Sage because they were the only ones who knew the truth and their deaths would really make it look like Tony was on a revenge spree,” I said.

  “But the plan fell apart when Sage Snow survived and came forward with accusations against Lorelei Riddle. That was when you knew you were busted because Lorelei was in on it too.”

  “It’s unfortunate that Lorelei admitted I was working for her, but at least she only told you,” Marcel said. “I would hate for you to spread that around and end up with egg on your face.”

  “What are you talking about? You can stop pretending, I know what you did,” I said.

  “No, you have no idea,” Marcel said. “Think of me, Lucien, and Grave Times what you will, but none of us is so brazen as to take the lives of our fellow citizens.”

  “And that’s what everyone else would think too, which is why you resorted to the use of Wild Fyre because you knew no one would suspect a vampire of using something like that. I’ve been in Lucien’s office, I know he collects all kinds of ancient books, so it was probably him who made the Wild Fyre in the first place,” I said.

  Marcel laughed and shook his head.

  “I will say, you have an active imagination, Zoe,” Marcel said. “But you’re wrong on almost every count.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me the truth? All of it,” I said.

  “Fine. You’re on the right track, but you got off too early. Yes, it’s true that Mr. Bellerose wasn’t happy when he found out the Council was entertaining the werewolves with negotiations,” Marcel said. “He saw it as an indirect threat to the advancement of the vampires, and as a personal slight based on his prior negotiations with another member of the Council.”

  “Opal Cromwell, yeah, I know all about that one,” I said. “I was the one who broke the story on that.”

  “Yes, exactly. So, naturally, Monsieur Bellerose asked me to dig up anything I could to help throw a wrench into those negotiations — and to find out what the werewolves and the Council had agreed on, if anything,” Marcel said.

  “And?”

  “I never got the answer. That’s been the problem all along,” Marcel said.

  “How is that even possible? You’re connected to all these people in some way and you’ve been taking photos of some of them for weeks, so how could you not have found out what was going on behind the scenes?” I asked.

  Of all the things he’d told me so far, this was the hardest to believe.

  “Now you can imagine my delight when Lorelei came to me and asked for my help,” Marcel said. “Finally, I had a way into the inner circle.”

  “And someone to feed you information straight from the werewolf’s mouth,” I said. Marcel nodded.

  “I thought so too, but nonpayment seems to be a chronic issue in this town because Lorelei never told me anything I didn’t already know,” Marcel said. “Every time we talked she strung me along with enough vagaries to make me believe she’d eventually have something for me, but she never did.”

  “Wait, are you saying you don’t think she knew anything at all about the negotiations?” I asked, growing more confused by the second.

  “No, she definitely knew, I just don’t think she wanted to tell me the truth because the negotiations were doomed from the start and were already crumbling by the time Lorelei and I started working together,” Marcel said. “All thanks to the Blood Moon and the curfew.”

  “What?”

  “When Tony lost his temper and accused the Council of discrimination, whatever they were working on died right then and there,” Marcel said. “And as far as I can tell, Lorelei and Circe were never on the same page when it came to how to handle the werewolves anyway.”

  “I can believe that. Lorelei doesn’t seem like the most open and warm kind of person,” I said.

  “No. Warm and open people don’t exploit others for their own gain by dangling a loan as a carrot on a stick,” Marcel said. “But I don’t think it was Lorelei who ultimately pulled the plug on the negotiations. I think it was Circe.”

  “Why? And how do you know this?” I asked.

  “I have photos,” Marcel said.

  “So you’ve been snooping on other people without their knowledge?” I asked.

  “Like I said, some call it snooping, I call it intelligence gathering,” Marcel said, his eyes flashing. He really was slippery.

  “Who? And why didn’t you share these with me before?” I asked.

  “They’re of Tony, though you might not recognize him in a few of the frames,” Marcel said.

  “What do you mean —” I asked, but Marcel disappeared in a blur of motion and came back seconds later with another stack of photos — this time of Circe’s house on Moonbeam Lane. My heart dropped into my stomach.

  “Go ahead, look through them. When you’re finished, we can discuss who’s really at fault here,” Marcel said.

  Like a moving picture book, I flipped from one photo to the next and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was an eerie red tint to the photos thanks to the Blood Moon, making the bald man standing outside Circe’s house that much more obvious. It was Tony Romano.

  “You followed him that night?” I asked.

  “Of course I did. After I got those photos of him inside Hypnotic Tonics after hours, I knew he was up to something and that it was only a matter of time before he gave me another bombshell,” Marcel said. “Little did I know that’s literally what he had in mind: firebombs. Keep looking.”


  I flipped to the next photo and squinted to make out what was going on inside it. In the same place where Tony had been standing in the last photo, there was now a man twice his size with a full head of hair and what looked to be a glass vial in one hand.

  I gasped and dropped the photos, sending them fluttering down to the ground around me like snow.

  “Tony killed Circe,” I breathed, still unable to believe the words as they left my mouth.

  “Exactly. He burned Circe’s house down for calling off the negotiations. Based on what I’ve learned since then, he wasn’t associated with the most savory people and I’m willing to bet he had a lot riding on whatever deal he was supposed to strike with the Council,” Marcel said.

  “Maybe some sort of windfall in order to pay back people he owed money to? Or some other perks in exchange for debt relief?” I asked. The image of all the cash sitting on Tony’s desk at Pupperoni Pizza flashed through my mind, which made me doubt it was money he needed. But if not money, then what?

  “I don’t know. I still haven’t been able to find the answer, but that’s exactly what I’ve been doing these last few nights,” Marcel said. “So when Hypnotic Tonics went up in flames yesterday, naturally my first inclination was to look into Tony Romano.”

  “Wait, back up, you still haven’t told me why didn’t you show me these photos the last time I was here,” I said.

  “I needed to know I could trust you first,” Marcel said.

  “Trust me?”

  “Yes. I knew I needed help to bring Tony down, but I couldn’t go showing these photos to just anyone. Obviously, I didn’t want to go to the police with them either because, like I told you before, the werewolves are infamous for protecting their own,” Marcel said, smiling.

  Had I been wrong about him this whole time? While I thought he was stirring the pot for a salacious story for Grave Times, he’d actually been working two steps ahead of me to figure out why Tony killed Circe.