Betrayals (Cainsville Book 4) (23 page)

“Wrong room,” he repeated.

“Yep.” I glanced down. “Was there a …?”

“Skeletonized body blocking the door? Unfortunately.” He looked around. “Okay, so let’s back up, away from the vision-inducing hell-room and—”

“Wait!” I said. “This way. There’s a window right around the corner. That’s where Gabriel found me.”

I led him through a doorway to see a figure coming through the broken window. I gripped his arm. “I’m seeing—”

“It’s not a vision,” he whispered. “Unless we’re sharing it.” He tugged me back along the passage. “You said Gabriel came through there?”

I shook my head. “He couldn’t fit, so that can’t be him.”

He turned off the light and we stood there, listening. Footsteps whispered across the floor. Then Ricky pulled me toward a doorway. We slipped in and waited.

As I listened, I picked up breathing. Fast, deep breathing, like someone trying not to panic. Three careful, light footfalls.

“Don’t take another step.”

I jumped at the voice—an unmistakable baritone.

“There is a gun trained on you,” Gabriel said. “You will raise your hands and take two steps back toward me.”

“I’m—” It was a girl’s voice.

“I do not care. You will step back or you will be shot, and it may not kill you, but I suspect a bullet doesn’t need to be cold-forged iron to be rather uncomfortable.”

We slid from our hiding spots. I took the lead now, my gun in hand. I peeked around the corner to see Gabriel crouched at the window. Moonlight flooded through. He caught my eye and nodded.

“Turn my way,” he said to the lamia.

She did. Then she said, “Hey, you don’t have a—”

“I said there was a gun trained on you. I did not say I was holding it.”

“That’d be me,” I said.

She looked over her shoulder. “Mat—Olivia.” She went still. Then she turned sharply to Gabriel. “Gwynn,” she whispered. “I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“Possibly because my name is Gabriel,” he said dryly.

“I-I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect.” She glanced quickly at us, nodding for Ricky, but then turned back to Gabriel and stared. “Th-thank you. For coming. To help us. We appreciate it.”

“
They
came for you,” Gabriel said. “I came for
them.”

“We need to get out of here,” she said. “Before the police join this party.”

“Which is, I believe, why Olivia and Ricky are crawling around in those tunnels,” Gabriel said.

“Yes, my—sir,” the lamia said. “I just meant … I’m sorry. I’m flustered.” She stopped suddenly. “The police. That means there’s a body, right? It—it’s not … Aunika?”

“Erin,” I said. “She’s—”

“I know her. We … we were on the streets together a few years ago.” She closed her eyes and looked sick. Then she asked, “Was it quick?”

“Seemed so,” I lied.

She nodded, her gaze down as she chewed her lip. I took my first good look at her. She appeared as a girl of maybe seventeen. Dark hair in a ponytail. No makeup on an olive-skinned face that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Grecian urn, with big dark eyes and a somber expression. Her outfit, though, was classic twenty-first-century teen: hoodie, jeans, and sneakers.

Ricky spoke up. “Considering the police are upstairs, and they conveniently arrived after we were summoned here by you,
you’re going to follow us and answer some questions. Hopefully, with responses we like.”

“Y-you think I called the police on you?”

I’d say that the shock on her face proved she hadn’t, but I reminded myself of what Gwynn had said. Remember these were fae. I could not take their expressions at, well, face value.

“If I framed their Mallt-y-Dos, the Cainsville fae would stomp me
and
all my sisters,” she said, “just to make a point.”

“You said you couldn’t get into the center,” I said. “But we just caught you using the secret route.”

“Which is blocked by cold iron at the door to Aunika’s office. I can’t use it to get up there.”

That was true. Of course, it raised the question … “If Aunika is so intent on helping the lamiae, why is she blocking her office and apartment?”

“Can I answer later? Please? The police—”

“—are otherwise occupied,” Gabriel said. “The longer we’re down here, the easier it’ll be for us to leave, allowing the first responders to clear the scene. Now you will answer Olivia’s questions or you will not contact us again.”

Melanie cast a sidelong look at Gabriel and finally said, “We don’t ever need to go into her office. The iron protects her against
other
fae. It’s a place to retreat if she’s threatened, a precaution all samhail take, warding their private quarters. In her apartment, it’s just the doorknob. We can get in if she lets us. As for why I was entering this way, I knew Mat—Olivia and Ricky were inside and I wanted to help them. I hoped I could do that without crossing her office threshold.”

“You weren’t exactly rushing to our aid,” I said.

“We know the tunnel exists, and we’ve used it in emergencies, but we avoid it when we can. Things happened here. To our sisters. A long time ago.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
“I can still feel it. I hear them. Crying and—” She broke off and rubbed her arms.

That was why she wanted out of here so fast.

“We’ll go,” I said.

“I need to make a stop once we’re out,” Melanie said. “My sister is waiting.”

“I’m sure she can take care of herself.”

“No,” Melanie said. “Actually, she can’t.”

M
elanie
led us nearly a half mile along the wharfs until we came to an empty building. As she tugged open a heavy door, I took out my gun.

“Pepper?” she called. “It’s me. I brought company.” She glanced over at us. “I’m hoping she recognizes you, but if she spooks, I’ll have to go after her.” She turned back to the dark room. “Hey, Pep? Come on out. I—”

A girl appeared in the circle of my penlight beam. It was the one from my visions—the one who’d chided me to help the lamiae. Yet it wasn’t. The girl in my visions had been younger than Melanie, smaller, too, with straight dark hair and a solemn face. All that matched this girl. But her expression wasn’t merely solemn. It was empty. And her eyes … She had a snake’s eyes, greenish yellow and slitted. She stared at us, unblinking. That empty gaze moved from me to Ricky. Then it landed on Gabriel.

Something flashed in those eyes. Life. Thought. Emotion. Enough to say someone lived behind the serpent’s gaze.

She walked toward Gabriel, and I could see him holding himself still, wary. She reached to touch his arm, and as he tensed, I caught her hand.

“Pepper, right?” I said.

Her skin was ice-cold and rough, like scales, though I saw only skin. As my fingers touched hers, she let out a sigh, almost a hiss of satisfaction, and her fingers wrapped around mine, her other hand reaching for my bare wrist. I started to pull away, but Melanie said, “Don’t! She won’t hurt you. It’s just … You’re warm. She can’t regulate her body temperature.”

Pepper laid both hands on my skin, her eyes slitting as she shuddered. I motioned for Ricky to take my gun. Then I clasped Pepper’s hands to warm them, and she melted against me.

“Pepper,” Melanie said, taking her shoulder. “We’ll get you warmed up. She doesn’t want that.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and awkwardly embraced the girl. As Pepper huddled against me, her one sleeve pushed up and I saw scales. I rubbed my finger over them.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

“Her glamour’s broken.” Melanie hesitated, and her voice cracked.
“She’s
broken.”

I rubbed Pepper’s shoulders, and she snuggled closer, her body warming as she absorbed my heat.

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“There was a man. A client. She’d been seeing him for a while, and he seemed fine, but I guess he was … what do they call it? Grooming her? He invited her to his place for a night. Promised her a lot of money. Only it wasn’t just him, and it wasn’t just a night. We didn’t find her for a week, and by then … Lamiae can handle a lot. We’re used to it. But sometimes …” She walked over and hugged Pepper. “Sometimes even we break.”

Melanie backed up, hands going into her hoodie pockets. “Aunika helps with her. We—the others and I—we feed her. We’d never expect her to … She couldn’t … Not after that. We can feed her our energy. It’s not enough to fix her, though. Nothing’s enough.” Melanie exhaled. “Anyway, that’s Pep. She’d
never hurt anyone. But she can
be
hurt. Easily. With this psycho hunting us, Aunika was trying to figure out a safe place for Pepper. Where he can’t find her, and where we won’t have to worry about her so we can focus on protecting ourselves until someone catches this guy. That’s what you’re doing, right? Trying to catch him?”

“Let’s get her someplace warm,” Ricky said, his first words since we arrived. “Do you guys eat?” He looked at Pepper. “Or I guess public places are out of the question, with those eyes.”

“She has contacts. Aunika got them.” Melanie squeezed Pepper’s shoulder. “Hey, Pep. Can you put in your contacts? We’re going someplace warm. Get you some soup, maybe.” Pepper’s empty eyes lighted as she dipped her chin in a nod. Then she hurried to a backpack in the corner and riffled through it.

“She doesn’t talk, but she understands,” Melanie said. “Aunika says she’s like a five-year-old. She can follow instructions. She just doesn’t always want to.” She forced a smile. “Right, Pep?” The girl was putting in contacts. When she straightened, her eyes were unnaturally dark but close enough to normal.

“Okay, Pepper,” I said. “We’re going to take you in a special car where even the seats heat up. Does that sound good?”

Her enthusiastic nod said it sounded very good. I mouthed, “Sorry,” to Gabriel—in case having lamiae in his Jag wasn’t quite what he had in mind—but he only waved for us to head out.

It was past dawn. Breakfast time. I offered to find a place that would still serve soup if that’s what Pepper wanted, but Melanie said she’d be fine with anything hot. We stopped at a diner. Pepper got a steaming bowl of oatmeal and a large hot chocolate, and settled into the corner of the booth, blissfully warming her insides as we talked to Melanie.

The first big question was, how’d she know who we were?

“Rina told me about you before she died.”

“Rina—that’s one of the victims, right?”

Melanie ate a mouthful of oatmeal before replying. From the bliss in her eyes as she ate, hot food didn’t help just Pepper.

“She’s one of the two girls who died. We call them girls. Or sisters. It’s about assimilating. That’s what Aunika’s mom said. Use the human words so we fit in better. Talk like teenagers so we fit in better. Anyway, the two girls who died were Rina and Steph. We use human names, too. Like most assimilated fae. But I guess you knew that.”

A long drink of her coffee. Then she continued. “You met Rina and Steph. Or they met you. You wouldn’t have known what they were. It was months ago, back when that stuff about your parents came out.”

“The girls outside the apartment. I was trying to find a place to stay, and I saw them by the street, and then in an alley, where they were threatening …” I trailed off, not wanting to speak ill of the dead.

“Threatening a bogart,” Melanie said. “Rina told me. It was a territorial issue, and those two could be …” She shrugged. “Some of us are more aggressive with other fae. Rina and Steph would rattle their cages, which is what you saw. When Steph died—she was the first one killed—Rina came to me. The two of them stuck together. They were
theegateers
—from the same family—like me and Pepper. They kept apart from the rest of us. But then Steph died, and Rina wanted me to get Aunika to contact you.”

“Me?”

“She knew who you were, after it all came out a few months ago. Other fae were talking, and she realized you were the one who’d caught them with the bogart. She wanted your help.”

“Because I’m an investigator?”

“No, because you’re Matilda. Rina thought you could intercede on our behalf with the Cainsville fae to get their help stopping the killer. Which I know you can’t,” Melanie added quickly. “So I put her off by saying I’d think about it. Then she disappeared, and we discovered she was dead. Before I could decide what to do, Aunika disappeared, and I heard you’d been to see her. When you left that message for me, I looked you up and learned that you’re a private investigator. I’d been trying to decide whether to phone you back about Aunika and the murders, to see if that’s what you’d been talking to her about.”

“It was,” I said. “The Cŵn Annwn asked me to look into the deaths.” Which wasn’t completely true, but I didn’t want to admit I’d seen it in a vision.

Melanie looked surprised. “Why are the Cŵn Annwn involved?”

“Because it’s the murder of fae,” Ricky said. “That’s what they do, right?”

“Yes. Sorry. I just … I didn’t think they’d bother with us.”

I asked what she knew about the murders. Even less than we did, it seemed. She had no idea the killer was Ciro Halloran. As for Lucy Madole …

“I don’t know what Lucy was doing when she was killed. It’s near our territory, where we hunt.” She flushed. “I mean, where we work. One of our sisters thought Lucy might have been lured there by someone pretending to be us. Another wondered if she was mistaken for one of us. She’s lighter-skinned than Aunika and looks young for her age. But now Aunika’s missing, and there’s no way the killer could make that mistake twice. And there’s Erin …” Her gaze lifted to mine. “They’re looking for us, aren’t they? Going after anyone who can lead them to us.”

“Did Erin know what you were? You said you knew her from the streets.”

“We did. She was Aunika’s first big success. She didn’t know what we are, though. We’d discussed it—me and Aunika. There’s only so long we could keep coming around before Erin would wonder why none of us got any older.”

“Could Aunika have already told her?”

Melanie shook her head. “She’d have warned us. But if Lucy’s dead and Aunika’s missing and now Erin’s dead … They’re the three humans who knew us best. The killer must have thought they knew where to find us. We went underground after he killed Rina and Steph. We’re being careful. We stopped working, but we can’t do that for long. Some of the girls are already getting weak. No matter what I say, they’re going to feed, and once they venture out, he’ll be waiting.”