Wicked Misery (Miss Misery) (14 page)

“Until today I didn’t think I had any enemies period. I guess people I took blood from for soul swapping would hate me, but only if they knew it was me and remembered what happened, and I did my best to prevent that.”

“It might have nothing to do with Jess anyway,” Lucen said. “She could just be a convenient scapegoat.”

“After all that’s been going on lately, somehow I doubt I’m a random pick.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “Focus. Who could pick a vanity addict out of a crowd?”

Lucen stretched. “Any of our races.”

“You,” Devon told me.

I scowled. “Me and the creepy guy like me. And the Gryphons.”

“Good thought with the Gryphons.” Lucrezia tapped a blood-red nail to her lips.

I doubted they were involved, but whatever. Unfortunately, my mentioning of creepy note-writer guy needed explanation, and the conversation was derailed for five minutes while I provided an abbreviated version.

“There’s someone with a motive,” Devon said. “We are allowed to discuss motives now, aren’t we? You said he got mad at you.”

“Yeah, but that seems a bit extreme.”

“But it’s a possibility, and if he knows your name, he could know where you live. Write it down.” He motioned to Lucen, who’d gotten out paper and a pen. “Who else?”

“We’re back to the magi.” Lucrezia ran a finger through the condensation on her beer bottle. “They hate all of us.”

Lucen pushed his seat back. “Agreed. Consider, the Gryphons put pressure on Xander because of the missing hearts. Xander put pressure on everyone in The Feathers. And whoever is doing it looked for a convenient human to blame. It’s not impossible that a magus could discover Jessica’s side business in trading souls.”

“No.” Devon threw his bottle cap at Lucen. “But would they be dumb enough to pick a fight? They’d know what they were doing by targeting the sylphs’ addicts.”

Lucrezia smiled. “Maybe the type of soluble magic in their blood gives the sylphs’ addicts the best-tasting hearts. All this killer wants is a tasty meal.”

I held the beer bottle high above my mouth, but it was empty. Just as well. I really needed something stronger.

The satyrs, Lucen and Lucrezia especially, were dead set on the magi being responsible. As they talked in circles over the next half hour, they could generate a million motives from the simple—one of them couldn’t suppress their appetite for human hearts—to the ludicrous—a war would boost the magi’s charm businesses and increase their influence with the Gryphons.

I listened quietly, my throbbing head in my hands. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Devon might be right about my creepy note-writer. Although I had a hard time believing my refusal to attend the Meat Matches with him could have driven him to frame me for murder, the facts pointed in his direction. Mainly that he was unstable and he knew who I was and could thus handle the logistics. How he knew about the addicts’ hearts, or if he was even involved in the addicts’ deaths, was unclear. But it was possible that he’d killed the Somerville men, and right now possible was the best I had. After all, somehow this guy had found out about me once, which meant he could have followed me before and done it again on Friday.

Chances were, he would enjoy killing people too. I wouldn’t put it past anyone who got off on the Meat Matches. They proved sadism was alive and well.

I raised my head when the satyrs’ conversation dulled. “We need the Gryphon reports. Bridget was hiding stuff when I talked to her about the murders. It could be the missing hearts, but it could also be more. We should also check my blood for magic.”

“That’s the easy part.” Lucen searched through a drawer by the cash register and tossed me a box cutter. “You’re right about the reports, too, but how are we going to get them?”

I flipped the cool steel over in my hands. Add another item to my list of things I wished I had with me—my lancet. Less blood loss, less pain.

“This Bridget—she’s your friend in the Gryphons?” Devon said. “Can you get the information from her?”

“I doubt it now. Bridget’s a very law-and-order kind of person. She’ll urge me to turn myself in and trust the Gryphons.”

Lucrezia yawned. “Tell her you’ll meet her. We’ll come along and convince her to help. Gryphons are resistant to persuasion but not unbreakable. Three of us together and it will be over like that.” She snapped her garish fingers.

“No.”

The keen expression on Devon’s face fell. “What’s your idea then?”

“I don’t know.” I just knew there was no way in hell I was turning a friend—even one who wanted to arrest me—over to the satyrs to break. They all seemed way too fond of the idea. Turning a Gryphon into an addict was rarely accomplished, but it gave a lot of prestige to the pred who managed it.

Of course, an addict Gryphon didn’t stay an addict Gryphon long because either their friends discovered it and healed them, or they mysteriously disappeared from the Gryphons, called into the depths of Shadowtown to be at their master’s side. Kind of like a living, breathing piece of edible art.

“Are you going to bleed for me, little siren, or no?”

Grimacing, I slid the razor from the safety and drew the blade along my fingertip. Lucen handed me two tissues. I smeared the results along one, and washed my finger off in the bar sink while the satyrs examined my blood.

“Ah, will you feel that,” Lucrezia said. “Velvety.”

I shut off the tap and applied pressure to the cut with the second tissue. The satyrs were rubbing their fingers together over my blood. Each pred race seemed to have their own methods for sensing magic—satyrs felt it, goblins saw it, sylphs smelled it and harpies could taste it. I had no clue how or if furies could detect it because I’d never traded for a soul with one. Gryphons, on the other hand, had to use a complicated system of spells to parse blood’s magical properties. “What do you mean velvety?”

“Your magic gives your blood a different texture than Gryphon magic.” Lucen wiped off his hand. “Gryphon magic leaves the blood silky. Yours is soft but rougher. Velvety, as Lucrezia said. It’s different from theirs and different from ours.”

“But will it show up as pred or human magic when the Gryphons examine it?”

“Depends on what kind of analysis they do,” Lucen said. “It’ll confuse them for sure.”

Interesting. Bridget had accused me of colluding with a pred, so what kinds of magical traces had they found in the victims? And could they tie any of it to my blood directly—say, if my bandage had been found in the Somerville apartment? Or was the blood sample I’d taken from Greg their sole connection between the vanity-addict murders and the Somerville murders? The throbbing in my head picked up the tempo. “We need those reports.”

“We gave you an idea for how to get them.” Devon gave me a pointed look.

“No.” I met Lucen’s eyes, and he shrugged. Anger surged through me for a second. Why was I looking to him for help? He was just like them. Given that he was now on Dezzi’s shitlist for offering me the satyrs’ protection without her consent, he could probably use the prestige of addicting a Gryphon. If I wanted to save Bridget’s uptight ass, it was up to me.

“Fine. I’ll ask for her help.” And if that failed, I needed to come up with a better idea fast.

“Keep your conversation quick,” Lucen warned me. “And turn off the phone again when you’re done so it can’t be traced.”

Bridget picked up on the third ring. “Jess! Where are you?”

“In hell. Look, I need your help.”

“I’m trying to offer it. Turn yourself in and—”

“That’s not an option. Bigger problems are brewing. I need you to do something for me.” There was shouting in the background, male voices, crashing and banging. It sounded like the building was collapsing. “What’s going on?”

“A salamander got loose in the charm lab, and it’s streaking through the building, setting everything on fire.” In typical Bridget fashion, she made it sound no more annoying than a hangnail. “Jess, I can’t do anything for you until you come in.”

“Not happening. I need the files—”

“Where are you? Tell me. We can help. Did a pred make you do this?”

I hung up.

Lucrezia absently braided a clump of her hair. “Should have told her you’d meet her.”

“I’m not letting you turn her into an addict to get these files. My ass can rot in jail before I betray a friend like that.”

Devon coughed. “Although your ass is very nice, and I’d hate to see it locked beyond my reach, it’s not the only one on the line.”

“Yeah, I’m aware of that. But just because I didn’t make it into the Gryphons doesn’t mean I’m about to stand by while you plot to enslave humanity.”

“Humanity’s going to be screwed far worse if we don’t figure this out before the fighting begins,” Lucen said. “You’d be sacrificing one to save many.”

“And you’d enjoy every moment of it.”

He leaned toward me. “Be wary of anyone who prefers fighting and violence to sex.”

Much as I had to admit there was logic to that, it didn’t sway me.

I held the phone close to my chest, scrolling through my contact list. What else could we do—break in? Even if we could, the files were probably locked in some database inside Gryphon headquarters.

“The database!” The satyrs all turned to me like I was nuts. Steph’s name and number stared at me from my phone. Of course. Before she’d gone to work for the hospital’s IT department, Steph had worked for the data security company that managed the Gryphons’ IT needs. It was a long shot, but maybe Steph could hack into their servers or something. I’d never understood the appeal of sitting in front of a computer for hours, but back in college Steph and her friends had made a sport out of it.

Aware that I was being stared at, I bit my lip while Steph’s phone rang. As soon as she picked up, I cut her off. “Steph, hush. I have a huge favor to ask.”

“This can’t be good. What kind of mischief are you up to now?”

“I’ll explain in person. Can you meet me?”

Steph whined. “I have to finish making dinner so Jim has it when he gets off shift. I’m making chicken Florentine and apple dumplings, and they’re highly temperamental.”

“I’ve been framed for murder. Your chicken can’t possibly be as temperamental as I am.”

“What? Are you in jail? Have—?”

“Not in jail yet. Can you meet me at a bar called The Lair? Like now?”

“You’ll have to give me an hour.” Steph swore. “Where’s the bar?”

“Shadowtown.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Nuh-uh.” In my mind’s eye I could see Steph shaking her head at me, brown hair and earrings flying. “Shadowtown? Are you out of your evil little mind? No way in hell—”

“You’ll be safe, I promise.” I glared at Lucen, who rolled his eyes and gestured for me to get on with it. “I’ll meet you at the Shadowtown T stop. Please.”

“Shadowtown. You want me to enter Shadowtown around sunset? You’ll be in my debt for three forevers if I live.”

“I know. But you’ll be fine, I swear.”

Steph sighed. “All right. Because I owe you still. I’ll see you at the T in about an hour. Anything I need to bring besides enough firepower to take down a small country?”

I closed my eyes and thought of everything I wished I had on me. It was all locked in my apartment. “Just your fabulous self, your laptop and any of your old hacking crap.”

“I haven’t hacked anything worthwhile in years. I’m a good girl now. What do you need me to do?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Fine.” She sighed again, more heavily if that were possible. “But this had better be fun.”

“More fun than Boston going up in flames, which could be your alternative.”

“What?”

“See you.” I hung up to the sound of Steph yelling at me. Well, that ought to keep her from chickening out.

Chapter Eleven

Devon and Lucrezia took off with the promise of returning in an hour or whenever my friend arrived. They didn’t like my plan—not that there was much of one—but only because it meant they couldn’t go after a Gryphon. At least that appeared to be the crux of their grumbling.

The bar door shut with a clatter, leaving behind a gust of wet air that blew through the room and sucked the last bits of life out of me. I stared at my hands, at the bandage covering my dragon bite and the blood drying in a crusty line around my fresh cut. If I was a wreck already, what kind of shape would I be in by Friday?

“Coffee?” Lucen didn’t wait for my answer but started preparing it.

Dazed, I wandered to the bar. I set the bread knife down, and he tossed it in the sink. If he found my paranoia funny, he kept it to himself.

“I know you’re all hot and bothered about a magus being behind this, but I think my creepy stalker is the most likely culprit.”

Lucen said nothing, just set two mugs on the bar. The coffeepot chortled away. It was such a relaxing sound, especially combined with the light rain falling on the windows.

I wrapped my fingers around an empty mug, lulled for the moment by the peaceful noises into believing I could catch a killer that had eluded the Gryphons, a killer that possibly wasn’t even human. “You said the magic that would be involved to warp my gift would be rare, and so it’s likely that whoever cursed me might have cursed my note-writer. I should find them.”