She Dies at the End (November Snow #1) (17 page)

“Is Birch available?” she asked as she got her breakfast together.  “It’s kind of important.”

“I’ll call his office,” Pine answered, reaching into his pocket.

About ten minutes later, Birch appeared in the kitchen dressed in an impeccably tailored suit and sporting a black wig that caused November to do a double take. 
How did he cover the eyebrows?  Mascara?

“I like your green hair better,” she said with an amused smile.

“I do, too, young one.  However, I have several meetings with humans today, and they seem not to take me seriously enough with my natural hair,” the fairy responded.  “Pine, please give us the room.”  Pine obeyed without a word.

“Lord William informed me of last night’s . . . unfortunate incident.  I am sorry for my role in your deception,” Birch said by way of apology.

“It’s alright.  It’s not like you had any choice, and he told me you had advised against it,” November said.  “I don’t really have any anger to spare for you anyway,” she added sardonically.  “Anyway, I assume Lord William has already thought of this, but I wanted to make sure that Lady Esther had been moved.  Apparently knowledge of her survival is more widespread than he thought, and if whoever planted the medallion is working for the bombers, she could be in danger.”

Birch raised an eyebrow.  “Yes, I’ve already made those arrangements.”  He paused.  “I must say, it speaks well of you that you are concerned for her safely in spite of your justifiable anger toward her husband.”

“It isn’t
her
fault,” she replied.  “I keep seeing her in her bed.  Is there something that can be done for her pain?” she asked.

“She is in pain?” he asked with concern.

“I’m not sure, but I think so.  I doubt she's the type to complain for herself, you know?  And she looks . . . forlorn when she's awake.”

“I’ll look into it,” he said.  “So do you think the spy planted her medallion?”

“I think whoever had it done was counting on me being angry and hurt enough to change sides, maybe to run away or to refuse to help with the investigation, or perhaps just to make me more cooperative if they succeed in stealing me away.”

  “Plausible.  Or could it have been someone with a more personal motive to disrupt your . . . romance?”

November shrugged. “You mean Ben doing it to try to break us up?  Maybe.  It seems like a big risk to take for a flirtation.  He would have had to break into Lord William’s quarters to take it.  And the actual planting of the note and the jewelry was done by one of the cleaning crew, enthralled of course.  She looked seriously out of it.  Again, that seems like a lot of trouble to go to over a little jealousy.  Honestly, I don’t think Ben even likes me that much.  I think to him it’s just a way to pass the time and get on Lord William’s nerves.”

“Perhaps it is a little extreme to do this over a crush, but stranger things have been known to happen.  Young vampires can be very erratic.  That’s why they are not permitted to live alone.  And this certainly succeeded in getting under Lord William’s skin.  Do you know which member of the crew it was?”

“The one with blond hair and a crooked nose.  I think her name is Carly?” she answered uncertainly.

“I’ll have someone look for her.  If she’s disappeared or been killed, that would be an interesting development,” he said casually.  November winced at his nonchalance, hoping against hope that an innocent woman hadn’t died over her.  “In case you’re wondering, we’re going over the surveillance cameras, but I don’t expect to find much if it was in fact the mole.  I’ll let you know if we make any progress.   Please keep me updated about anything you discover in your own . . . explorations.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Until next time,” he said, striding purposefully out of the kitchen.

November finished her breakfast just in time for Savita’s arrival.  November endured another apology full of sympathetic eyes.  “Now I understand why you looked so concerned every time you saw us together.  I should have paid more attention to that.  I guess I just didn’t want to see it,” she told the vampire.

“Love is intoxicating,” Savita replied.  “Especially first love.”

“Yeah, it was,” November agreed.  “I think I might have been more in love with love than I was with him.”

“It does happen that way sometimes,” the vampire replied.  “Now that the secret about Lady Esther has been revealed, I’ve brought you the evidence from the Montana attack so that you may examine it.  This one is quite upsetting, I must warn you.  In addition to my sister-in-law’s grievous injuries, two young fairy children were killed,” Savita said quietly.  “Fairy children have an empathic bond to their parents,” she continued.  “The parents literally felt their children die from their workplace far away from the blast.” November shuddered in sympathy.  “It is so difficult for fairies to have children.  Their fertility has been harmed by something, perhaps human pollution, perhaps something else.  Their parents had tried for two hundred years before they had the twins.”  Savita’s eyes filled with bloody tears, which she wiped away with a handkerchief.

November shook her head.  “How awful,” she said.  “What is wrong with these people?” she asked, not for the first time.  “What can be worth all this suffering?”

“I don’t know,” Savita replied.  “Evidently you and I are not sufficiently ruthless to understand.  Dogwood did not seem to be privy to the ultimate goals, unfortunately.  He was just being paid to follow orders, and he was promised carte blanche on his recreational slaughter for assisting in the bombings.” 

November braced herself and got to work.  She took notes on every detail she observed.  She grew numb, seeing the explosion over and over.  It looked like a group of vampires and fairies had been having a party when one of the servers had detonated.  He was a fairy with long orange hair and a far-off look in his eye.  He whispered something to himself just before all hell broke loose.  November watched it over and over trying to make it out.  Just when she was about to give up from exhaustion, she made out his strange little prayer and whispered, “Revelation.  Revolution.  Rule.”

Savita looked at her strangely as Em came out of her trance.  “What did you just say?” she asked with unusual intensity.

“The bomber in Montana.  Just before he detonated, he whispered something, like a mantra.  I’ve been trying to make it out for an hour.  It was three words: ‘Revelation. Revolution. Rule.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

Savita paused before answering sadly, “When my brother Luka ran for the throne against our father, that was his campaign slogan.  He lost in a disturbingly close race.  It appears that either he has decided to dust it off in order to motivate his cannon fodder, or someone finds his ethos very inspiring and is using it.  I find the former more plausible. I doubt he would take kindly to being plagiarized.”

“Philemon and Agnes were talking about their boss brainwashing young people.  What would they find inspiring about that slogan?”  November asked, rubbing her temples.  She had a wicked headache from her hours of labor.  Savita handed her a cold can of cola.  “Thanks,” November said, smiling.  The telepath had learned her young assistant’s habits pretty well over the previous weeks.  November usually wanted sugar after working.  Back at the carnival, Neil had always kept her well supplied.

“There are a number of reasons,” Savita began to explain.  “There are many supernatural creatures who view us as superior to humans and resent the measures we have to take to preserve our anonymity.  They resent having to enthrall people.  They resent having to always feed without killing in order to avoid having bodies to hide.  They resent having to follow laws made by humans in order to avoid attracting attention.

"Additionally, there are fairies who rather despise human beings, or at least human governments.  They blame humans for their declining fertility and the diminishment of their race.  There are those who think we were much better off when humans lived a more primitive life.  There are those who would have us take over, rule the world to serve our own interests, manage the human population like livestock.  There is also the fact that many of our young ones see little opportunity for advancement in our old-fashioned form of governance.  If you are not born to a powerful family, it takes a very long time to acquire wealth, power, or respect.  This is a legitimate complaint.  Luka is extremely charismatic.  He’s probably been working on this for decades.  I must speak to my brother and our father.  And you should take a break.  Excuse me.”  Savita packed up the evidence and sped out the door.

November headed up to the kitchen for lunch, listening to some music on her phone.  She sighed, realizing for the first time that almost every pop song known to man is about sleeping with or breaking up with someone.  After lunch, she settled down in the library with a book, rocking out to Lily Allen.  Em found the singer’s attitude toward her exes rather empowering and hilarious.  Adèle cheered her up a bit as well.  Her rest was interrupted when a vision overcame her with a sudden violence. 

Agnes rigs an explosive vest with an air of experience, packing the silver shrapnel while wearing thick, black gloves.  Philemon sits across from her, talking on a cell phone.  “Yes, the martyr is ready.  He’s been working in the household over a year.  They haven’t bothered to search him in months.  They invited him to their ridiculous Thanksgiving party.  Why Milton feels the need to celebrate a human holiday is beyond my comprehension.”  He pauses, listening.  “Yes, Agnes is finishing the vest.  We’ll have it to him in plenty of time. Yes, sir.  Of course.”  He hangs up, turning to his compatriot.  “The party’s on.  No delay.” 

November came around curled up on the couch, clutching a pillow hard enough to leave handprints.  She leapt up and ran out of the library, frantically looking for Savita or William.  She ran into Ben and Zinnia first.

“Hey, where’s the fire, birthday girl?” Ben asked with a grin.

“I need to talk to Lord William,” November said.  “I need someone to find him for me.”

“Would have thought you’d be avoiding him,” he replied.  “I heard there’s trouble in paradise.”

“Shut up, Ben,” Zinnia snapped.  “I told you to lay off.”

“Yes, it’s over between me and him.  That’s not why I need to see him,” the seer said with annoyance.

“What is it?  What did you see?” Ben asked with evident curiosity.

“You know I can’t tell you that.  Now where is he?” she practically yelled in exasperation.

“Is there a problem?” asked Pine, appearing out of nowhere.  He was quite good at that.

“I need to talk to Lord William,” November explained. 

“He’s in a meeting.  He gave orders not to disturb him,” Pine answered.

“I know what he’s meeting about.  He’ll want to know this, trust me,” she said.

Pine studied her face.  “Come with me,” he said, leading her toward the official wing of the house.  “Not you,” he commanded when Ben and Zinnia moved to follow.  He shepherded her through several locked doors and into what could have almost passed for a normal office building were it not for the armored window shutters and overabundance of security cameras.  Pine ushered her into a conference room then knocked on the door of the office across the hall.  When the door opened, she could practically feel Lord William’s anger; it was like heat rolling out of an oven.  Pine quickly explained the reason for the interruption.  He then returned and led her into his master’s inner sanctum.  Pine, ever discreet, did not remain to hear her secret.

The office was large and beautifully appointed, of course.  Lord William, Savita, and Birch were huddled around a circular conference table that sat opposite the Lord of California’s desk.  William had a look on his face that said, “This had better be important,” as he covered up the notes they had been making.  November found this more than a little irritating, as the last place she wanted to be tonight was in the same room as William Knox.  She would hardly fabricate a reason to wallow in humiliation.

Wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible, she cut to the chase. “I just had a vision of a conversation regarding a planned attack on someone named Milton that will take place at a Thanksgiving celebration.” 

William then pulled out a chair for her.  “Tell us every detail,” he directed, and she obliged him.

After a very thorough debriefing, November fled to her bedroom, Pine at her side, glad to be dismissed from their brainstorming session.  She had no interest at the moment in knowing anything about the plans they were making in order to win this apparent internecine war.  She was exhausted from her visions and from the strain of having to sit so close to William talking business when all she wanted to do was punch him in the face or jump into his arms, or perhaps both.  She collapsed on her bed with a heaving sigh, running her fingers through her hair with aggravation.

Right on cue, Zinnia appeared at her door.  “First human ever to set foot in Lord William’s office, eh?” she asked as she flopped down on the floor beside November’s bed.

“Yeah.  I feel really special,” November replied sarcastically.

“How was it?  Being around him?” Zinnia asked, gazing up at November with her electric blue eyes wide with concern, per usual.

“Awful.  I just tried to keep my mind on the work, but I felt so awkward.  I felt like everyone was afraid that I was going to make some sort of scene.  So I just put on my stoic face.”