Between Frames (The City Between Book 4)

by W. R. Gingell

  When I came back into the living room after washing the lunch dishes, there was a general stirring about the room; Zero slipping knives into his cross-chest sheathes, Athelas shrugging himself into his houndstooth jacket. Only JinYeong stayed where he was.

  “You’re just trying to keep me busy with the footage so I don’t try to sneak after you all when you go out, aren’t you?” I said suspiciously.

  “That was the general idea,” said Zero, without cracking a smile.

  Flaming condescending of them, I thought indignantly. Still, it was something to do that was at least slightly helpful, and it would be nice to see their faces if I turned up anything interesting or important.

  “Fine then,” I said. “I’ll liaise with Detective Tuatu and ask him about the rest of the footage.”

  “Don’t liaise,” said Zero. “You can ask him about it, but that’s all. You’re not our emissary, and he’s not authorised to tell you anything that isn’t about the footage.”

  “Rude,” I said. “I’ll ask him later, then. Maybe go visit him at the cop shop.”

  “Make sure you don’t accidentally come across anything you shouldn’t see while you’re there,” Zero warned. “I’ll be sure to ask the detective how well you behaved.”

  “I’m house-trained,” I said innocently. “No worries.”

  “Hm,” said Zero. “Perhaps JinYeong should go with the Pet if she goes on foot.”

  “Rude,” I said again, but by then no one was listening to me, because the house was getting uneasy around us. I said gloomily, “Flaming fantastic.”

  It was visitors again, dead cert.

  “We gotta do something about the amount of vermin in this place,” I said, not quite below my breath, as the linen closet door began to open.

  “JinYeong,” said Zero beneath his breath, “look after the Pet.”

  “Ye, hyeong,” JinYeong said, in resigned sort of way that was flaming rich, coming from him, and reached out to hook a finger into my collar. “Catchiga, Petteu.”

  He tugged me toward our usual couch, then shoved me lightly toward it until I sat down. Oh well. At least this time I’d be able to watch the show, even if I was being sent to bed like a good pet, so to speak.

  They came through the door one at a time, a guard first, then the golden fae and his female lieutenant, then two more guards.

  The golden fae looked around and locked eyes with me for the barest second, then passed on to JinYeong. With a faint curl to his lips, he made a dismissive gesture toward us, and all the sound in the room cut off abruptly.

  “Ugh!” I said, shaking my head. If I couldn’t hear my own voice, I would have thought I’d gone deaf.

  JinYeong said something rude in Korean and threw himself elegantly on the couch beside me. Ah. So the golden fae had done it, and included JinYeong in it.

  “That’s just rude,” I said, in disgust.

  JinYeong shrugged one shoulder, and said so that I could understand it, “What else did you expect?”

  “Is Zero gunna let him do that?”

  “It is not an insult to you,” he said.

  “Doesn’t make him any less of a prat, though,” I said. I caught the eye of the female fae and gave her a grin and a thumbs up. If she could hold her own with Zero, that was impressive.

  She looked amused, but wouldn’t acknowledge the gesture, which was probably sensible. Her boss was hard enough to deal with already.

  I pointed my chin at the golden fae, and asked JinYeong, “What’s his name, anyway?”

  JinYeong made a sound that was a bit like someone working up a spitball.

  “I didn’t ask what you thought of him, I asked what his name is. I can’t just keep calling him the galah in my head.”

  “Andwae?”

  “Well, I can, but I’ll probably call him that by mistake one day, and then if he doesn’t kill me, Zero will.”

  He said something about Zero that carried the faintest meaning that Zero wouldn’t let that happen.

  “Yeah,” I said, slightly comforted, “but I wanna know. Was that thing you…said…his name?”

  “Ne.”

  I snorted. “What, even his own mum hated him?”

  JinYeong made a hissing little laugh that he didn’t try to hide from the golden fae, and I saw the golden eyes flash.

  Disastrously clear, I heard the golden fae say, “They should have put that one down like his sister.”

  It came so easily through the soundproofing he’d put up that I knew he meant it to be hearable to us—well, to JinYeong, anyway.

  There was a moment of molten silence that made it very clear to me that JinYeong and I were the only ones who had heard the remark: outside our bubble that had fractured with the words, Zero was still discussing something with the female lieutenant, and Athelas sat back, observing it all with a faint smile.

  JinYeong’s profile, all white and burnt-sockets for eyes that glittered straight ahead without seeing anything, hovered in front of my own face, impossible to look away from.

  I felt as though I’d been shaken to my core. It hadn’t occurred to me that JinYeong could be hurt—that he had any kind of personhood in him that could be cut to the heart or pinched to the quick. He was just a vampire—just one of the psychos.

  I saw a blur of movement, and instinctively grabbed at JinYeong’s hand. If I hadn’t been still running on vampire saliva, I probably wouldn’t have caught it. JinYeong’s head turned at once, dark, liquid eyes focusing on me, and two bared incisors snarled far too close for comfort.

  “You better not,” I said, low and threatening. I didn’t know what to say that would actually stop him, so I fell back on sarcasm, as usual. “If I bite you back in self-defence, I bet I know which one of us Zero’s gunna blame.”

  “Nwa,” he said, but there was some warmth of colour back in his face.

  I tipped my head at the golden fae, who stood with his fingers just touching his sword and his balance all forward and low like Zero had taught me from my first training lessons. “He’s just waiting for you to go after him. He wants to kill you.”

  “Pft,” said JinYeong, a dismissive hiss of air. As if he hadn’t just looked like someone stabbed him through the heart. Painstakingly understandable, he said, “I would kill him in a moment.”

  “Yeah, but then I’d have more mess to clean up,” I explained. “And that’s a pain in the neck. Anyway, I think Zero wants some info out of him before you tear his throat out.”

  “Very well,” said JinYeong, his fingers relaxing within mine. “Then I shall kill him next time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Just make sure Zero doesn’t see. I’ll help you hide the body.”

  I let go of his hand, and he didn’t try to lash out or get up, so he must have been appeased. Still, by way of distraction, I spent the rest of the meeting poking him and leaving dirty marks on his trousers until he snarled at me, and by the time the fae were moving toward the linen cupboard door, Athelas had ceased to pay attention to them and was amusedly observing us instead.

  When the last fae guard disappeared from the room, sound abruptly opened to us again, and Athelas said, “What a novel way you have of spending your time, Pet!”

  JinYeong glared at me and dusted his trousers off, but I bounced up, ignoring him.

  “What was all that about? Are you going out again?”

  “JinYeong, stay with the pet,” said Zero, without answering me. “We’ve some business Behind.”

  It must have meant something to JinYeong, because he looked interested as well as faintly satisfied. He spoke in Korean, and Between whispered the meaning of, “So you got it from them at last,” in my mind.

  I glanced between Zero and JinYeong. “What’s Zero got?”

  Had he got the information he had wanted out of this exchange? There was no way: I didn’t trust the golden fae to give anything useful at this point.

  “Good pets,” said Athelas, “do not ask questions to which there are inconvenient answers.
”

  “I know, I know,” I grumbled, sitting down again. “I’m not supposed to ask, and I’m not included.”

  “I’ve not noticed,” said Zero dryly, “that it makes much difference what you’re not supposed to do.”

  “Rude!” I said. “I’m always an obedient pet!”

  “I’ve not noticed,” he replied again, even more dryly, “that you’re always obedient. JinYeong, I’ve dealt with the banshees but I’ll need to ward the house later. Make sure the pet doesn’t play with anything she shouldn’t touch.”

  “Ne,” said JinYeong, unusually obedient.

  He must have seen me rolling my eyes, because he cocked one eyebrow at me as Zero and Athelas left, mouthing, “Wae?”

  I just shrugged at him, but when the shifting of Between was done, I jumped up from my seat. “I’m going out.”

  JinYeong shook his head. “Andwae.”

  “Zero didn’t say I couldn’t go anywhere,” I argued. “He just said you have to go with me if I go.”

  “Shilloh,” he said, sitting down on the couch.

  I didn’t need to use my Between hearing to work that one out—he said it so often that I knew that meaning without assistance.

  “You’re a pain in the neck,” I said accusingly.

  “Ne!” said JinYeong smugly, crossing one leg over the other.

  “Well, you shouldn’t be so flaming proud of it!” I retorted. “Fine; I’ll call the detective over instead.”

  I don’t think Detective Tuatu would have believed that I was allowed to look at the footage and discuss it with him if he hadn’t seen JinYeong as soon as he walked through the door.

  He nodded warily at JinYeong, who smirked at him, and said, “I don’t suppose I could have a cuppa, could I?”

  “I’ll even get you some biscuits,” I said, heading for the kitchen. “I wanted to ask you about the rest of the footage and stuff.”

  The detective followed me. He was probably put off by JinYeong’s unblinking stare. “The rest of it?”

  “Yeah. I mean, the bloke obviously knows where all the cameras are, so—”

  “We noticed that, too,” Tuatu said grimly. “I’ve had someone combing over the rest of the footage for the last couple of days, but we haven’t been able to pinpoint anyone in all five lots of footage.”

  “How’d he get the info on the cameras, then?” I demanded, filling the kettle.

  “From the security company, perhaps. I’ve got someone looking into that, as well—I might have more answers for you—for them—tomorrow.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “That reminds me. I wanted you to have a look at one of the clips—the one of the woman getting murdered. I thought I saw something there, but I’m not sure.”

  Not to mention the dead guy who was walking around. I wanted to ask about him, too, but not in front of JinYeong, who had followed us, slowly and softly, into the kitchen. That they already knew about it, I was fairly certain; that they wouldn’t want me to know about, I was absolutely certain about. Maybe I’d have to text my questions.

  Detective Tuatu nodded wearily, and I wondered how many times he’d looked at the footage himself. Just enough to get nightmares, or enough so that it was all a flat jumble of nasty that wasn’t quite real?

  “I’ll bring the biscuits,” I said, by way of cheering him up, and JinYeong made a sulky complaint from his side of the kitchen island. To him, I said, “You’ve still got blood in the fridge. Stop whinging.”

  “Blood?” said Detective Tuatu, startled, as I grabbed the biscuits and my coffee. “There’s blood in your fridge?”

  “Yeah, it goes bad if you leave it out,” I called over my shoulder.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said, catching up with me at the top of the stairs. “Where are you getting blood from?”

  “A couple hospitals, mostly,” I said. “Not too much, though; JinYeong usually goes out and gets a bit of fresh stuff whenever he’s too hungry.”

  There was an eloquent silence behind me before Detective Tuatu sighed and said, “Why do I even ask?”

  “Dunno,” I said cheerfully, switching on the monitor. “Woulda thought you’d know better by now.”

  I put the biscuits down beside the keyboard on his side and kicked a chair toward him. “Sit down. I’ve got to find the right clip and the right part of it. Plus I’ve got some other questions.”

  “Can’t wait. What are the other two up to?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno. They’ve been leaving the house without telling me where they’re going, these days. Sometimes they’re going to crime scenes, but I’m pretty sure this arvo was about something else. It’s got something to do with Zero, and they’re telling me diddly squat.”

  “You think it’s something to do with those…people who were at the latest crime scene?”

  “Definitely,” I said, scowling. I’d liked the fae little enough when they came with a previous job offer for Zero; I liked them far less now that they were playing games with Zero and actively making life annoying for me. I brought up one of the files, and to my surprise, it was the right one straight away. “Here, this one. It’s just before she gets done in.”

  Detective Tuatu leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows against the desk. “What do you see, anyway?” he asked me.

  “That’s what Athelas asked me, too. Why are you lot so concerned with what I see? I’m just a pet.”

  “You’re not a pet, you’re a girl. And I asked you that because what I see is different from what they said they could see.”

  “How d’you mean, it’s different?” Even Athelas had said he saw the same as me, and he had more of a reason to be weird than Detective Tuatu did. “It’s video surveillance—it doesn’t change.”

  “I don’t know,” said Tuatu. “But if you’re seeing what they say they see, they shouldn’t have had you watching this footage.”

  “You mean the bloke reaching in with his hand and tearing out hearts?”

  Detective Tuatu sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That’s really what you see?”

  “Yeah.” I frowned at him for a while, and then asked, “What do you see?”

  “That’s the thing,” he said. “When I watched it the first time, I thought I saw a knife.”

  “There’s no knife.”

  “Yeah,” he said dryly. “I was beginning to think that. What is it instead?”

  “Told ya. He literally punches them in the chest and pulls out their hearts. It’s flaming disgusting.”

  The detective looked a bit sick. “I knew there was something weird about it, but I had to look at it by myself because the others wouldn’t believe me if I tried to tell them. Even when I slowed it down to frames and looked them over one by one, I couldn’t get a grip on it. It’s like there’s a fuzzy patch in my brain with a little bit of information missing, and every time I go to check on it, I forget what I’m looking at until I’m looking at another frame with all the blood.”

  “Flamin’ Behindkind,” I said. I pulled out my phone and tapped on the photos Morgana had sent me. “Oi. What do you see with this, then?”

  “Looks like one of the North Hobart houses to me.”

  “Who do you see standing outside the house?”

  “A bloke with more muscles than fashion sense. Looks like he’s checking out the house.”

  “Just one bloke?”

  “Are you telling me there are two people in this photo?”

  “Yeah. And one of them isn’t a bloke, either. It’s a Behindkind with a moth sorta head.”

  Detective Tuatu sat back in his seat with a hopeless gesture and slumped there for a few moments. At last, he burst out, “How am I supposed to do any type of effective police work in a world like this!”

  “Yeah, it’s a pain in the neck,” I said.

  “Every time I think I might have a handle on it, something else comes up. I don’t even know enough to know what I’m missing.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said comfor
tingly. “But there’s gotta be some way of fixing stuff like this—or at least of making it possible to see people like this.”

  “If even a camera doesn’t capture them, what can technology do?”

  “Breathe, it’s gunna be fine. We’ll sort it out. Get a Behindkind who knows about electronics or something, I dunno.”

  “Are there…are there fae like that?”

  I shrugged. “Bound to be. And we’ve got a computer here nowadays, so Behindkind must be able to use technology. Well, my Behindkind, anyway.”

  “Did you set it up?”

  “Nah, I don’t know much about computers. JinYeong kidnapped some techs.”

  Tuatu, sounding exasperated, said, “I knew it! As soon as those two came into work with dark circles to their knees and saying they couldn’t remember what happened last night, I knew it was something to do with that lot!”

  “He kidnapped police geeks?”

  “A woman in a Doctor Who t-shirt and a man with a woodcutter’s beard?”

  “That’s them.”

  “Yeah. Do they know they could have just asked?”

  “Probably. If it helps, I don’t reckon JinYeong bit either of ’em.”

  “That’s a real comfort.”

  “It should be,” I told him, grinning. “Otherwise they might start getting a bit peckish too, if you get my meaning.”

  The detective went a bit pale. “Oh. Oh. How do I know if—”

  “Told ya. They start getting a bit peckish. From what Zero told me when I was bitten, you would have noticed by now.”

  “The vampire bit you?”

  “He’s bitten me a few times now. So long as I don’t bite him back, it’s fine.”

  “Yeah, sounds perfectly normal. What are you doing?”

  “This bit,” I said, rewinding the video. “This is the bit I wanted you to see. It’s weird.”

  I’d seen it the first time I watched it: a kind of flicker to the scene. Or maybe not a flicker so much as a hesitation. I rewound the last few seconds; played them again, and the bloke flickered again, just for a millisecond.

  “That,” I said, pointing at the screen. “What’s that?”

  “A corruption in the file, we assumed.”