Darkest Misery (9 page)

Tom got his phone out. “We'll be here. Let us know as soon we can get in there and start taking control of Olef's belongings.”

I collapsed to the stairs as Tom wandered off to make his call and Andre headed into the apartment. All I wanted was to run back to Shadowtown. To hold Lucen and make sure he was safe. And Steph. And my mother. And hell, add Devon to that list, and anyone else I remotely cared about.

Maybe whoever had done this was just trying to prevent us from learning what Olef found out, in which case the others were safe. Or maybe they were trying to keep us too distracted to stop the furies, in which case they weren't. I couldn't take the risk. If the furies were behind this—and I couldn't believe anything else—then everyone connected to me and that damn prophecy might be in danger.

So as much as I wanted to run home, I didn't move. I had to get my hands on Olef's research. I had to find out what this mysterious key was. And I had to make sure Olef didn't die in vain. It was the best I could do to protect everyone.

Chapter Twelve

It was late by the time we called it quits for the day. Tom and I had boxed up every promising book and scrap of paper Olef had accumulated over the years. We'd even obtained the package his landlady had tried dropping off earlier. Alas, the package only contained tea he'd ordered.

Andre was reluctant to give us first crack at going through Olef's computer, but he'd been forced to relent because Tom outranked him. He was smart to realize, however, that Tom didn't share his investigative background, and Tom's interest in catching the murderer was only secondary to some other interest in Olef's files.

I tried to explain to Andre that everything was related, but by eight o'clock I had a pounding headache. I gave up on talking to anyone and kept to myself, organizing Olef's books and choosing any that looked promising to take to Headquarters to study.

I was pumped up with painkillers, uptight because of copious quantities of coffee and vaguely aware I was starving when I returned to Lucen's. He yanked open the door before I could fish out my spare key.

“Why didn't you call before you left?” He pulled me inside. “You have no bodyguards.”

Though I'd been fretting over his well-being all evening, I was also cranky, and his tone didn't improve my mood. “I'm fine. No one's going to attack me on the subway.”

“In Phoenix, you were attacked in a moving car, and you think someone can't hurt you on the T?” He crossed his arms.

I grumbled something that didn't even make sense to me because he was right. “I'm sorry. I'm tired, and once we got everything, I just wanted to go home.”

Lucen ran his hands through his hair in obvious exasperation. “I want to keep you safe, little siren.”

“I know. You do tend to be a little overbearing about it though.” I wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water.

Lucen followed me in. “Overbearing?”

“You're doing it now. You're hovering.” I turned around with my glass in hand to make my point. He stood only inches behind me, a solid satyr wall. Protecting me from what—his pet dragon?

“Sometimes you like me close.”

I poked him in the chest to get him to back up. “When you're not being overbearing, and loud, and doing things like threatening to lock me up for my own good.”

“When have I ever done that?”

I sat at the table with my water, wishing for that spiked coffee I never had. “There was a time, if you'll recall, when we were hunting Victor Aubrey.”

Lucen must have read my thoughts because he set two glasses and a half-full bottle of wine on the table. “I don't quite remember it like that, but if you're referring to the time you ran headfirst into a fury bar, you could have gotten yourself killed. It was not one of your best moves.”

“And you yelled at me in the middle of the street. Not one of your best moves either.”

“I didn't yell at you.”

“You got agitated and loud.”

He glared at me. “You ran. Into a fury bar. Chasing a serial killer.”

“And survived.”

Lucen shoved the wine bottle toward me. “Forgive me, Jess, if I'm the only one who realizes that might not always be the case.”

I poured myself a glass while he stormed into the living room.
I love him,
I reminded myself. Was that why we were both acting irrational? “Do you want some?”

“No. Yes. I think you're driving me to need some.”

I emptied the rest of the bottle into the second glass. “What happened after we left?”

Lucen had flopped on the sofa. “Not much. The news spread, and the meeting dissolved pretty damn fast. Fair to say, expect tomorrow to be a regular shitstorm if anyone bothers to show up.”

“Damn.” I handed him his glass and sat.

“What did you find at Olef's?”

Wearily, I filled Lucen in on my past few hours. Whether it was exhaustion or the lack of food, the wine was going straight to my head. Alas, it wasn't giving me a happy buzz, just cloudy thoughts and a dreary outlook.

“You're sure it's the furies?” Lucen set his glass down.

I yawned. “Who else would it be? Olef doesn't strike me as the sort to have enemies, and he scrawled my name on his wall.”

“The message could be unrelated to the cause of his death. It could simply have been his last attempt to convey information he thought you needed.”

I put my glass next to Lucen's and pulled my knees in. “Possible, but you can't really believe that. He's dead because of me.”

“Not because of you.”

“Yes, it is.” My inebriated brain pulsed with the logic headache. “It all goes back to me. I should have figured things out sooner. I should have stayed away from the furies way back when. This is all my fault.”

Lucen pushed hair out of my face. “You're not making sense anymore. The only fault here belongs to the people who are orchestrating bad things. You, apparently, are part of the key to stopping them.”

JESS USE KEY

I winced. Olef, what the hell did you mean?

“Tom suggested Olef might have been killed because he knew stuff, or simply because whoever did it knew it would disrupt our momentum.”

Lucen continued to play with my hair, draping it behind my neck. “Could be.”

His touch felt so good that my eyes closed involuntarily. “If the furies are interested in me, and they want to torment me, they could come after other people I care about next.”

“I thought the cops were keeping an eye on your family.”

“They are, but no one's keeping an eye on you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

I grabbed his hand, and he let go of my hair. “So can I.”

“So we're back to this?”

I didn't have the energy to respond, so I settled into the cushions. Olef was dead, Lucen was being a stubborn pain in the ass, and I should not have had that glass of wine no matter how badly I wanted a drink. I'd been reduced to an emotional disaster. All I wanted was to curl into a ball and wish for everything to go away.

In a way, I got part of my wish. Unfortunately, the bit that disappeared was my hope—hope of accomplishing much at the meeting the next day.

I'd slept poorly and spent the morning paging through the books we'd collected from Olef for anything about a key, but I discovered nothing. My mood was as dark as the sky when I arrived at the hotel.

Peeling off my rain-soaked windbreaker, I clomped down to the meeting room with the other Gryphons. The preds had all beaten us there today, which was a relief after Lucen's worry that people wouldn't show up. Eyff had come alone this time, and Devon was missing, taking care of other business for Dezzi.

“How do we proceed at this point?” Ulan asked. “Without this magi who supposedly had all the answers, it doesn't seem we have much to do.”

I flung the windbreaker down on a chair. “We find the answers he left us clues about. Olef must have gone through a great deal of trouble to write something about a key. Does that mean anything to anyone?”

Judging by the blank faces, the consensus was apparently no.

I rested my head in my hands. “Does anyone know anything, or did you all just show up here to antagonize each other?”

Ingrid cleared her throat. “Jessica, perhaps you want to let someone else do the talking today. You are still upset.”

No shit. I bit my tongue.

“We came here to discuss information and credible theories,” the goblin said. “I've yet to see sufficient proof that would induce us to share anything.”

I raised my head. “One person's been kidnapped. Another murdered. You don't think that's proof enough that something is up?”

The conference room door flew open, and an irate Xander stormed in. Every tiny feather on his head stood on end, and his gold eyes shimmered with emotion. “Why has she been released?”

His question was directed at the Gryphons, and I frowned in confusion.

The answer to Xander's question, however, came not from the humans but from Eyff. “Because she's innocent.”

“None of you are innocent, harpy.”

Xander's language was so similar to what he'd once told me in regard to my magic that I almost snorted. Perhaps luckily, I was too confused to find his comment funny.

Lucen took my hand under the table, questioning me with his eyes, but I could only shrug.

It was Tom who finally answered, cutting off Eyff and Xander's verbal sparring. “She was brought in for questioning only. There's not sufficient evidence to hold her.”

“Hold who?” I demanded.

“Lei.”

Xander pointed at Eyff. “That monster's lieutenant murdered Olef.”

Eyff's feathers were as ruffled as Xander's. “If you had any proof of that, she wouldn't have been released, would she? Her feathers are the same color as yours, magi. Take a look in the mirror. Maybe it was you who killed Olef.”

“You're going to turn this around on me?” Xander laughed incredulously, and his thugs shifted position uneasily behind him. “Lei was seen in The Feathers yesterday morning. Now, I ask you, why would a harpy be out so early in the day, and why would she be in The Feathers unless she had a nefarious purpose?”

Eyff took a couple calming breaths. “Why would she be so stupid as to allow herself to be seen if she were there to commit murder, you idiot?”

I glanced between the Gryphons, who were trying futilely to calm everyone down, and the satyrs. Eyff's logic was sound, and goodness knew Xander had a history of baseless accusations, but they both raised good questions. Why
was
Lei in The Feathers?

Also, why had no one told me she'd been brought in for questioning?

“Eyff, let him rant,” Dezzi said in her typically soft but firm way. “You accomplish nothing by slinging insults with him here.”

I heard the slight emphasis she placed on “here” and winced internally. Dezzi might argue for better sense to prevail, but far be it from a pred not to seek retaliation for a believed wrong or slight. I'd known today wasn't going to be easy, but my control over the meeting was more fleeting than I'd feared.

When Dezzi's subtle suggestion was ignored and more insults went flying, I couldn't take it any longer.

“Enough!” I raised my hands in exasperation, for all the good it did. It required several more attempts by multiple people before Xander quit ranting. “We need to move on and start considering how we might find the remaining Vessels before the furies get to them.”

Xander sat, glaring at me. “This isn't over. You of all people should be aware of what was lost with Olef's death.”

Mental note: next time, bring a hip flask to this meeting.

“Oh, I'm sure it's far from over,” Claudius said, far too cheerfully. “As Jessica has pointed out, one abduction and one murder so far. I'm sure we have much more—dare I say it?—
foul
play to look forward to.”

I slammed my hands on the table. “Are you seriously making jokes about this?”

Xander, Eyff and Ingrid were all on their feet again, but it took me a moment to realize the screaming I heard was my own. The thread of composure that had been holding me together had snapped.

“A good, intelligent person—which is obviously more than I can say for you—is dead.” My hands trembled, and I balled them into fists. “Hundreds of people died right in this damn city. Thousands in Buenos Aires. Maybe thousands in Sydney too. And who knows how many more will follow if we can't find a way to stop what's coming—something we needed Olef for. So if you're not going to contribute anything useful, then you can get out.”

My voice died away in the silence. I could feel everyone's gaze pressing down on me, but my eyes were locked on Claudius.

Feed on that anger, you smirking asshole. I hope it gives you indigestion.

“Jess.” Lucen placed a hand over mine, but I was beyond being calmed.

Once more, Dezzi tried to be the voice of reason. “We are all stressed, and we all cope with stress in different ways. I think it would be good if we all assumed helpful intentions.”

Both Xander and I snorted.

Great. Now I had something in common with that birdbrain.

“Jessica.” Tom cast a pleading look at me. “Please sit. We all need to do our best to get along.”

“I do not get along with people who make jokes about my dead friends.”

I'd lost it. Even as I spun around and stomped out of the room, I was well aware what a bad idea it was. I mentally yelled at myself to stop, but I couldn't. Like the day I'd found out what the Gryphons had done to me, I moved on autopilot, pushed too hard by my temper to regain control. I saw what I was doing, knew it was a bad idea and was powerless to prevent it.

A couple chairs lined the deserted hotel corridor, and I collapsed on one of them. Footsteps approached a moment later. I hoped for Lucen, but when I raised my head, I saw Tom.

“You need to get your temper under control.”

“Yeah, well, you'd know about it, wouldn't you?”

Tom stepped away and leaned against the opposite wall, studying me. “I have had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of it before. Between you and Xander—”

“Do not ever lump me in with Xander.”

“Then stop acting like him.”

I jumped up. “I am not. He's making baseless accusations. I'm pissed off about some satyr jackass making jokes about dead people. It's not the same.”

“Not in the specifics, but you're both derailing the meeting.”

I couldn't argue with that so I ignored it. “Why didn't anyone tell me Lei was brought in for questioning?”

“Can we discuss this later? We should go back inside.”

“I cannot go back in there yet or I'll punch Claudius. So why not?” I crossed my arms.

Tom pushed off the wall and paced, hands in his pockets. “I spoke about your involvement in the investigation with Ingrid, and on further reflection we agreed that it wasn't the best use of your time. You should be training. At the most, your part in the investigation should be focused on reviewing the information we obtained from Olef to decipher his message to you.”