“That’s right.”
“Then you should know”—he paused as a surly looking man dressed in a cap and threadbare work clothes walked between us without sparing either of us a passing glance—“that out here, a gentleman’s or gentlewoman’s word is never refuted.”
“Oh, goddess,” I groaned, wanting to slap my palm to my forehead. I was so sick of the high and mighty toff who thought they were above the law simply because of their status in life, which was often due more to chance than true worth.
“But,” he whispered and leaned in so close that I drowned in the scent of his earthy cologne, “that is not to say we should blithely just believe.”
His green eye winked.
“Constable Hatter, have you something in your eye?” I asked innocently, with just a hint of acerbic laughter.
He chuckled, the sound big and thunderous, calling attention to the both of us.
Fighting my own grin, I turned up my nose and sniffed. “Fine. I will only question a toff once and then make a note to fact check those lies once they’ve turned their backs.”
“Now you’re learning, Detective.”
I rolled my eyes. After several more minutes of walking, I looked up at him. “So Alice was the original keeper of the bauble?”
“Mmm.” He nodded. “And she’s also who we’re headed to see.”
I frowned, taking a quick minute to study our surroundings. We weren’t headed toward residences, but rather deeper into the business district. The structures were mostly ramshackle things that looked like they’d been built a century ago and never updated. Many of the buildings were lopsided, leaning too far to the left or right, with doorways built of brick that looked ready to crumble at our feet with one too-strong gust of wind.
Most of the shoppes around here were of the food variety—cupcakes and tea shoppes, candy shoppes, cupcake and cake shoppes—sugar, basically—though there were a few potions stores along the way as well.
One in particular caught my eye. Green fog swirled from the door of the Crypt. The wooden placard hanging above the door was etched with the design of a coffin with a single thorny rose lying atop it. The door opened, and a man dressed in tweed from head to toe and wearing a leather mask around his eyes walked out, carrying a black leather crop in his hands. Aware that he was being watched, he looked up and smirked lasciviously at me, licking his upper lip in a clear invitation for sex.
My lip curled. “The hells kind of place is this?”
“Why, Alice’s shoppe, of course.” Hatter sighed, and the sound of it made me think he wasn’t near as enthused to enter the place as crop man had been.
Crossing the cobblestone street full of brackish puddles of water, I said, “Something tells me this isn’t your first time in this place.”
His jaw clenched, and his shoulders gathered. Anger clearly palpable in his words, he said, “No, it’s not. And if I were you, Detective, I’d keep my breathing shallow in there.”
That wasn’t cryptic at all. I had many more questions, but now was not the time to ask them.
Squaring my shoulders, I yanked open the door, pointedly ignoring tweed boy as I sailed in. My nostrils were immediately assaulted by the thick, cloying stench of patchouli incense. Coughing the choking cloud of it out of my lungs, I waved a hand across my nose. “Holy balls, that stings.”
Hatter said nothing but merely stepped to the side and extended an arm for me to proceed him to the counter.
Gagging had prevented me from taking in the full glory of the place, though as I did so, I really wished I hadn’t.
A man in a horse-head costume was corralled inside of a padded leather pen. He hung over a wooden post, with his lily-white arse on full display, while another person dressed in black leathers from head to toe landed one swat after another on it. With each crack of the whip to his ass, the horse-headed man neighed. He didn’t moan, groan, or cry out. No, he really neighhhhhhed for all he was worth and wiggled his bum faster after each strike, and it didn’t seem to me that it was because he was in pain.
I wished I could say that was the strangest thing in the shoppe, but there was a long, dark corridor behind the horse fetishist, and blood-curdling screams echoed out from beneath its many closed doors.
I instantly recalled Hatter’s premonition of a horse’s head and was now more convinced than ever that what he had wasn’t a curse at all. This had to be what he’d seen, which told me we were on the right track.
Hanging from the ceiling were many chains of varying length, some thin and delicate and connected to swings, others fatter and broader, supporting flat beds that looked capable of holding a ton of weight, if not more.
That green fog was everywhere in here, swirling around our ankles like charmed cobras, and I felt the tingle of its magick whip through my bones as the smoky stuff made contact with my skin.
Hatter had told me not to breathe too deeply in here, but I couldn’t keep myself from dragging heavy whiffs of the stuff deep into my lungs. My siren’s true nature made this place an intoxicating experience to my already sensually heightened nerves. I inhaled again and trembled as need moved like claws through every inch of me, making my skin prickle right up to the crown of my head and down to the soles of my feet.
I clenched my hands into fists, trying hard to shake off the languorous stupor of want and desire now crowding my insides.
I looked at Constable Hatter, who had his lips pursed and was very slowly breathing in and out with deliberation and care.
This was going to be so much fun. I could just see it—panting and sweating and moaning during my interrogation. How wonderful.
The door behind us opened again, and a gaggle of women—clearly woodland nymphs judging by their bark-like skin and twiggish hair—came barreling in, laughing and clinging to one another’s necks as they kissed and fondled each other. They headed in the direction of the swings.
“Alice has been a naughty girl,” I finally said in a kittenish and husky drawl. Dammit all to hells, I’d be happy to leave this place ASAP. It was hard enough being a female detective in a man’s world. It would be doubly so with this dark magick making me act like the nymph I truly was. It’d taken me years to tone down the sexual predator that always lurked inside of me.
I nibbled my bottom lip, counting slowly to ten in my head. I could do this. I was no youngster, unable to control her baser instincts.
Hatter, who’d remained stoic ’til now, gave me a heated look. But not of desire. Whatever this sex magick was, he seemed completely unaffected by it. “You have no idea.”
Then, fisting his hands by his sides, he walked in the opposite direction of the nymphs and horseboy, heading to the left, where the sex shoppe turned into more of a potions shoppe. I followed, and we passed row after row of wooden shelves lined with vials of glittering, glowing substances.
Most of the stuff I didn’t recognize. The black anemone and labulum coral I absolutely recognized.
Picking up the glowing teal coral trapped inside glass, I tapped a finger against it. Hatter glanced at me askance, a question marring his brow.
“This is some hardcore stuff,” I said. “I once gave this to a sailor who’d come too close to my home.”
I couldn’t help but shiver when Hatter moved into my space, leaning in so close that I could feel the heat of his words brush against the shell of my ear as he asked, “And what happened to him?”
If he had leaned in any closer, I’d have done what I’d been wanting to do to him from the moment I met him. I wet my lips provocatively, curling them into a dangerous smirk when his eyes widened. The predator in me wanted to play with the prey in him.
But I was no longer that woman. He’d shown me another way. He’d saved me from my own demons.
Holding tight to the memory of my dead lover, I clamped down on the beast inside of me. I would not suck Hatter dry. My siren days were behind me.
Labulum coral was harmless to merfolk but deadly to leggers. Just a shaving of the s
tuff on the tongue was enough to make humans experience many hours’ worth of sexual high. But if too much of it was ingested, it could cause explosion of rapture that one could actually perish from. It would stop the heart cold.
I drew a breath, and that terrible magick swirled through every inch of me again, obliterating my newly born resolve to be good.
Digging my nails into my palms, I willed my pulse to calm by biting my tongue. Hard. I was trying. By the goddess, I was trying to control the madness, the desire to latch my nails into his starched collar, drag him to my mouth, and suck the very soul out of him.
My smirk was wicked as I said, “He died, of course.”
Hatter’s hot gaze traveled the length of my face, and I wondered how it was that he couldn’t sense my being on a razor’s edge.
My heart hammered hard in my chest. I’d consumed so many men, pulled them down into the depths of Davy Jones’s locker, clung tight to their bodies as their lungs screamed for air and they shook and quivered in my preternaturally strong grasp until they were forced to take that last and final breath that sealed their doom.
That death’s rattle was a drug to a siren. It was our entire reason for being. We lured men to their deaths to get our next hit, to feel the power of that final breath course through our body like pure, uncut devil powder. I’d cared not a whit for the desecrated frames I’d left behind. It’d only ever been about that final kiss.
Without thinking, I raised a hand and gently feathered my fingers along Hatter’s sharp cheeks, using the tinniest taste of my power—the call, the siren’s touch that turned men to putty in my hands.
Hatter trembled, eyelids fluttering as he leaned into me.
Just one kiss… one little taste to take the edge off .
A feminine clearing of a throat hooked our attention, forcing us to look up.
Freaking out, I jumped back from Hatter as though scalded. I hadn’t had thoughts like those in decades, hadn’t craved the feel of that final kiss, hadn’t wanted what I’d wanted just now.
I needed to get the hells out of the shoppe.
I swallowed hard, breathing shallow and ragged as I hugged my arms to my chest and stared at the source of the timely interruption. Hatter shook his head as though shaking off a stupor. His palm landed on his chest, and his jaw clenched. He refused to look at me.
And well that he didn’t. I didn’t trust myself right now.
Standing in front of us was the woman of legend herself.
Alice hadn’t aged much since the last time I’d seen her. She was still just as stunning as she’d been then, with her dusky colored skin and impossibly deep-blue and kohl-rimmed eyes. She wore a navy-colored dress with slits up both sides of her legs that didn’t stop until they came to her waist. Even so, the bottom of the gown was far more conservative than the top, which had a plunging neckline that also ended at her waist. Her wild halo of icy-blond curls fell in silky waves down her bare arms to where the dress’s neckline met the side slits. Threaded through those curls were ice blue ribbons, in the exact style of the one tucked in a baggie in my back pocket.
She gave us both a red-lipsticked smile. “Detective. Constable,” she said in the smooth, sultry drawl of a woman confidant in her own skin. Then her gaze shifted to Hatter, and she smirked. “Back so soon? And with a female. What games are we to play tonight, lover?”
Lover? What the hells? And here I’d thought Constable Hatter was a buttoned up, stuffy, vanilla kind of guy.
His jaw clenched as his nostrils flared. “I’m here on business today. Nothing else.”
“Oh.” She crossed her arms, looking innocent and lovely. How that was possible, dressed as she was and surrounded by the sounds of sex and the sensual play of music streaming in from who knew where, I wasn’t sure. But Alice had always been a study in dichotomy to me.
“Well, I’m happy to help. Come to my study for some tea?” She blinked innocent, beguiling eyes back at us. The woman could give even a siren a run for her money with the skill and ease of her sensuality.
Again, the sweep of fog curled around my flesh, and again, I felt the call of sex resonate through my bones. My legs felt unsteady, and my pulse quickened a little. Hatter’s clean scent of soap and man was doing a number on my senses. Wetting my lips, I wished I could beg off and let Hatter handle this interrogation alone, but there was no way.
The man in question clamped down on my elbow, gripping it tight, and nodded once. “Aye. But clear the magick from the room before we do.”
His thumb traced a hot, circular trail on my elbow. It was all I could do not to shove him up against one of the shelves and see just what kind of kink he was really into. I blew out a heavy breath, rolling my shoulders. If I had to stay here much longer, bad things were gonna happen.
Pouting prettily, Alice nodded. “Well, all right then. Just make yourselves comfortable until my return. I’ll be back in two shakes of a tail feather.”
The moment she’d gone, I turned on Hatter. “You could have bloody warned me about this place, Constable.”
I rubbed my brow so hard that I felt like I was scraping my skin off.
He finally dropped his hand, and it sucked so hard that I totally didn’t want him to. I knew this was just the side effect of whatever crap was being pumped through the ventilation system, but it’d been so long since I’d released my inner siren.
Not since the day my lover had died.
My heart clenched in agony as the hated memories tried to resurface. I clamped down on them desperately. But in my mind, I saw his sea-blue eyes, saw the flare of pain in them, and then the blood. The blood was everywhere, too much to stem, too much to fix. In one day, I’d lost him.
And in a fit of anger, I shoved Hatter back. He blinked, looking shocked, but not terribly surprised by my outburst either, which made me feel a fool. I pinched the bridge of my nose and shuddered, feeling the call surging like a wave through me, making even my bones tingle and ache.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, fighting to keep myself together.
“As you wish,” he said steadily, and I hated myself.
I would not lose it in front of him, would not sink into the darkness of depression again. I’d lost everything that day—my life, my hope, the beat of my heart. It’d been a year and a half since it’d happened. I should have been over it. But losing part of one’s soul wasn’t something you could get over in a day, a year, or even a lifetime.
But none of that was Hatter’s fault. Blowing out a heavy breath, I shook my head. “I’m sorry, okay. Dammit, why do I keep needing to apologize to you? Just…” I raised a hand slowly. “Please, don’t touch me while we’re here. I can’t explain to you why. Just trust me.”
His thrust out his jaw, and after a minute, he again said, “As you wish, Detective.”
Detective . I knew why he’d used my title rather than my name, and though I should be glad of it, I wasn’t. At all.
Alice returned seconds later. With a flick of her fingers, she bade us follow.
I trembled with relief when we walked through the door of her study and I no longer smelled the enchantment of sex weaving through the air. Plopping into a seat, I crossed my legs, gripping my shell tight in my fist as I breathed slowly in and out. I needed a swim in my waters, desperately.
Hatter took the seat beside me, his movements elegant and refined as he reached for the teacup and saucer Alice handed him.
I shook my head when Alice offered me a drink as well.
Getting straight to business, because that was the only way I had found to avoid the demons that constantly plagued my thoughts, I reached into my pocket and withdrew both sets of baggies.
Sliding them across the desk, I asked, “Do you know what these are, Alice?”
The beautiful woman glanced down, sparing neither baggie much of her time. Shrugging a gracefully sloped, dusky-brown shoulder, she said, “Of course. The ribbon is mine. The other is a claw.”
“They were found at the scene of a
murder,” Hatter interjected.
Alice’s eyes widened, looking startled for a half of a second. But then her calm façade smoothed back into place.
I thinned my lips, my “weird-dar” going off with bells and klaxons.
“I hope you’re not implying I had anything to do with that messy affair?” She pouted her pretty red lips.
“Baiting a client with sex isn’t going to get you off the hook, lady,” I snapped, catching Hatter’s frown from the corner of my eye.
Whatever. If he got pissed yet again because I was “harassing” the witnesses, he could just take a flying leap off the nearest cliff. I didn’t trust Alice, and this was my case to solve. He was just here to guide me through this nonsensical world.
Something felt off. I’d been working the beat long enough to know when something wasn’t right. And something was definitely not right. Alice’s shock had felt too practiced, too fake.
“Why was your ribbon found at my crime scene?” I pressed harder, refusing to let the woman off easily.
Alice turned those intelligent eyes back on me and smiled grimly. “I don’t know.”
My eyes narrowed to thin slits. “So that’s it. You don’t know,” I scoffed, not buying it for a second.
Alice’s jaw clenched.
Hatter cleared his throat, snagging Alice’s attention. Setting his tea and saucer down, he asked, “And the claw? Do you recognize it?”
“Why should I?” she snapped.
And just as I was about to yell from exasperation because I knew he’d let her off as easy as he’d let off Potts, Hatter snorted with derision.
“You and I both know, Alice,” he chewed out, “the kinds of characters that float through these doors. Don’t play coy with me. I saw the way you glanced at it. You know whose it is, so tell me now, or I’ll sit here all day until you do.” His voice was low, his words a hot, hard shiver of authority.
Well, hmm… So Hatter had a backbone after all. Not quite so prickly anymore, I settled back on my chair, awaiting Alice’s answer.
She glowered at us both. “Ask Cheshire.”
“It doesn’t belong to him,” I said. “I have that on good authority.”
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