Hal waves me over to his table. Surprisingly, tonight Will and Pace are elsewhere, so he’s sitting with three people I haven’t met yet. Hal introduces the guys as Batch and Eric, both big, solid-looking men. The woman, who is young and pretty enough to catch my attention, is Lace.
“We’re finally graced with the Mighty One’s presence,” she grins.
“Sorry – I’ve been meaning to get around to meet everyone, but there aren’t enough hours in the day,” I reply.
“All good,” Batch tells me, passing me a mug of homebrew and a bowl of curry.
“I wonder if the man will live up to his legend,” Lace says. She’s either mocking me or flirting with me – I’m not yet sure which.
I take a mouthful of the vegetable curry and blink in astonishment. “Damn! This is good.”
“Lucky,” Batch points out. “If you’d said otherwise I would have had to kill you.”
“Did you make this?”
Batch nods.
“And if anyone ever insults The Vegetable Curry, he goes all Hulk on them,” Eric smiles fondly.
“Luke’s a great cook too,” Hal offers.
“I’ll give you the recipe then,” Batch tells me.
“Ooh, he never gives anyone the recipe,” Lace points out. She winks cheekily at me, and I realize she’s definitely flirting. I glance between the four of them, wondering about the dynamics of the group.
“Your place for poker?” Eric asks her.
Lace shakes her head. “My parents’ll be up. Your place.”
“I share with Old Bat,” Eric points out morosely.
“Old Bat?” I ask around a mouthful.
“We call him Old Bat ’cause he’s old as shit and batty enough to be committed,” Batch explains.
“We can go to my place,” I offer. “I don’t share with anyone.”
“Why would royalty deign to share his abode?” Lace asks.
I roll my eyes and we head to my place.
*
Several hours later all four of them are drunk as skunks and virtually passed out around me. I haven’t been drinking, so it’s been highly amusing to watch them wipe themselves out. I’ve also cleaned up in the poker game.
What I have gathered so far: Lace and Batch are married. Surprisingly, since she keeps looking at me as though she’d like to eat me. She’s got a very deadpan sense of humor that reminds me, painfully, of Josi’s. Batch is boisterous and full of ideas that he has no shame about announcing in pseudo-poetic fashion. Eric and Batch are best friends from years ago – they escaped from the city together. Eric is gentler than Batch and Lace, and finds them both hilarious. Hal slots into the edge of the threesome with easy grace because he’s Hal and everyone likes Hal. I suspect Eric likes Hal a little more than the others do – in fact, I suspect he likes Hal more than he likes anyone.
And I like them all. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to meet them.
I leave them curled up on the couch or splayed over the floor and creep outside. Sitting on the front step, I spend a moment enjoying the fresh air and thinking about Josi. One month until the blood moon. I leave for the city in a couple of weeks – I have to make sure Ben has the antidote ready, and then I have to bust my girlfriend out of the asylum.
“You hustled us,” says a voice from the doorway and I see Lace emerging to sit beside me.
“No, you got yourself drunk,” I argue. “I won fair and square.”
She sighs dramatically. “We do tend to do that.”
“How long have you and Batch been together?”
“Three years.”
“You met here?”
“Yep. He swept me off my feet with a mended hoe and gardening gloves.”
“Just what every girl dreams of.”
She laughs a little. “Is this how you imagined your life?”
“Not once.”
“Me neither.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, until she asks, “I’ve heard you have a girlfriend in the city.”
My eyebrows arch.
“Josephine, immune to the cure.”
“God, everyone knows, don’t they?”
“Word travels fast when you live in a rat cage.”
I glance at her, surprised by the sudden bitterness. “You don’t like it here.”
“Not particularly, no. Do you miss her?”
I am asked this often. Asked about Josi often. It is as though no one can quite grasp the concept of leaving a loved one behind in the city. I’m not sure I even understand it. What if I had brought her here with me? Would she have been better off?
No, I decide. It would have been like putting a snake in with the rats; she would have eaten them one by one, and then perished herself with the weight of all those wriggling bodies inside her own.
“Yes,” I say simply.
“I miss Batch,” Lace murmurs. “I miss him even when he’s with me.”
“Why?”
“Because he loves those two idiots in there more than he loves me.”
And then she kisses me. Just leans right over and plants her mouth on mine. I jerk away, startled. “Woah. Lace, no – ”
“Sorry,” she breathes, standing up quickly. “But now I don’t have to lie.”
I watch her go back inside, not knowing what she means but knowing it’s bad.
*
I get what she means now, and yep, it’s bad. Apparently Lace toddled off drunkenly to bed and told her husband that I’d just kissed her. So Batch came around and started yelling that he wanted to fight me. When I asked Lace about the large man who seemed to think I’d grievously insulted him, she simply said she wanted to make him jealous to see if he still loved her. Needless to say, I got pretty pissed. But when I looked at her pleading face I couldn’t help but pity her, so I agreed to go along with it.
Now instead of being on my way to the city, I’m forced to face Batch in the ring for the honor of a woman I have no interest in.
“Private bout!” Quinn announces. “As you all know, Batch wouldn’t normally be eligible to fight Luke without having won several bouts prior, but because an insult to his honor has been made – namely, Luke having kissed his wife – Batch has the right to challenge Luke directly. If Batch wins, he takes Luke’s place in the hierarchy.”
Great. Now I sound like a philanderer. The whole bloody crowd is abuzz with it. I glare at Lace but she just gives me an apologetic shrug.
Batch moves into the circle, looking extremely aggressive.
I sigh and move to meet him.
*
Josi sits; I pace. I can’t stop. I am bursting out of my skin. I have more energy than I’ve ever had. Josi looks the opposite. There are dark hollows under her eyes.
“They better hurry this up,” she snaps. I can hear her rage and I like it. It stirs something inside me, something primal. I’ve already compartmentalized the grotesque sight of my violence so that it can’t yet touch me.
The door opens to admit Shadow. His eyes dart between us and I can see quicksilver fear in them. It makes me cold. “They think you did all the murders.”
I am awash with the most intense relief I have ever felt.
Josi stands so quickly the chair goes flying behind her with a slam. “No,” she snarls. A she-wolf. She would have made a great mother.
“They know about the virus in his system,” Shadow says. “Ranya’s been spying for Quinn and she’s told him everything about Dodge’s tests. They pieced it all together – they knew even before this morning.”
“Fuck,” Josi whispers. She starts pacing now, while I remain still. “They don’t have any proof. There’s not a single scrap of evidence.”
“He was at the scene this morning.”
“So was I!” Josi says. “Being at a scene first means nothing.”
“Josephine had nothing to do with any of it,” I tell Shadow woodenly.
“They think she did. They know someone’s been covering things up.”
“They’re wrong.” They’re right.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she mutters to herself. She’s still trying to find a way out of this.
“What doesn’t?” Shadow asks.
But the door opens again and this time it’s Quinn. “Out, Josephine,” he orders her. “But don’t go too far.”
“What about Luke?”
“He stays.” Quinn folds his arms.
“Go,” I tell Josi. “Do what you promised me.”
I can see her wanting to cross to me, but instead she strides out. Shadow goes with her, and I am alone in the cell to contemplate what I’ve done.
*
I have to move fast, before word spreads. Quinn let me out because he underestimates me. He thinks Luke’s the only dangerous one. So I’m going to take advantage of that.
But before I have a chance to get going, Shadow grabs my arm.
“What?”
“The plan?”
I eye him up and down, not trusting him anymore. All he does is exactly what Quinn and Raven tell him to. Actually I’m not sure I trust anyone right now.
Just Luke.
“Let me help,” Shadow says, and there’s something in his voice that surprises me. It’s desperation. What does Shadow have to be desperate about?
I breathe out. “We get Luke’s parents out of here. Round up the team. Move the start date of our mission forward.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Will you help me, or are you gonna run and tell Quinn and Raven?”
Shadow gives me this look that says I’m supremely stupid for even asking.
That’s when we hear Quinn start his interrogation. Even though there’s no time, we both return to the small window, unable to help ourselves.
“This is a right mess you’ve got yourself into,” Quinn says.
Luke doesn’t reply. I can’t help feeling like he needs a lawyer, if only there was one. And if only there was an actual legal system. I recall, abruptly, the lie he told me about his past job as a state prosecutor, and I give a burst of laughter.
Shadow looks at me like I’ve completely lost it, which is very possible.
Raven arrives, moving to watch the interrogation, too. She looks me up and down and says with a sneer, “Dead woman walking.” There are bruises around her neck from where Luke held her last night, and even though she’s a complete bitch I still can’t help feeling a bit concerned for her. She just seems so … lonely. Even when she hurts people, it’s kinda like she’s just trying to be around them. It seems incredibly pitiful to me, suddenly.
“Here’s what we have,” Quinn sighs. He places a tablet on the table to record the conversation. “Four murders. Reports from Ranya, our doctor, stating that she’s witnessed several interactions between you and Dodge, our scientist, revealing that on your last visit to the city you were injected with a drug called Zetemaphine, which was an early form of the drug used to cure anger. The same drug that made your girlfriend Josephine act violently to the point of multiple murders.”
I can feel the stares of both Shadow and Raven burning holes into my skin.
“The first two murders in The Inferno were committed directly outside this same woman’s house, and she was first to find Batch’s dead body. If you had committed the murders, it would make sense that Josephine might want to cover that fact up,” Quinn goes on. He pauses briefly, seeming at pains to go on. “You laid it out nicely for me, Luke, when you explained that to convict someone we need means, motive and opportunity. Your drugged state would imply you had means. Even without it, you had means. We all know your combat capabilities. You had ample opportunity to make the kills. Your drug-induced states would explain why you didn’t hide the bodies – you didn’t know you were killing anyone until it was too late. As for motive … It all seems very obvious, with a bit of perspective.”
“What’s he talking about?” I demand. My face is so close to the glass my breath makes condensation and I have to wipe it away.
“Last year you admitted to having kissed Lace,” Quinn says.
I freeze.
Luke says nothing.
“You were challenged by Batch to a fight in her honor. So we now have motive for you to have killed both Lace and Batch.”
Luke clears his throat. “And what would that be?”
“You killed Batch because you were in love with his wife. You then killed her in a lover’s quarrel.”
“And the two this morning?” he asks, strained.
“Lace’s parents.”
“Oh god,” I whisper. I hadn’t known who they were. By the look on his face neither had Luke. His lips are pale as chalk.
“Isn’t it true that May and Ronan went to your house last year and threatened you for having endangered the relationship between their daughter and son-in-law?”
Luke swallows. He looks like he’s about to be ill. “Yes. They told me to stay clear of their family. But it was all fine after Batch and I fought. We sorted it out. There was no … animosity between any of us.”
“Maybe that’s what you thought. But it was clearly otherwise. We have motive, means and opportunity, and we have statements from our doctor. And we have common sense. There were no murders in this place before you came along, Blood.”
And with that, he stands and leaves the room.
Quinn and Raven start discussing something but I can’t hear them. I am lost in Luke’s expression, in his eyes. My hands press against the glass and everything around me disappears except the sight of him. He looks to his left, then his right, as though he has heard something but isn’t sure what. His neck cranes until he’s gazing at the wall behind him. A deep terror enters his gaze. Slowly he stands, staring at this one spot.
“What’s wrong with him?” I whisper, barely aware that I’ve said it aloud.
Shadow takes my hand.
In the room, Luke punches himself in the jaw. He does it again, harder and harder. Then he walks to the wall and smashes his head straight into it.
I scream.
He does it again, and I can see blood smeared on the concrete.
Shadow flings the door open and charges in, tackling Luke to the ground before he can smash his head a third time. He tackles the much younger man to the ground and Quinn races in to tie Luke’s hands with rope. Luke is screaming and he sounds just like the Furies. Shadow and Quinn manage to tie him to the chair.
I try to go to him, but my feet won’t move. I am too shocked, or too scared. I can’t bear to see him like this.
Raven watches too; instead of looking at Luke I look at her. There is no sympathy in her gaze. I stop feeling anything at all for her except hatred.
*
I wanted this, didn’t I? I wanted his complete destruction. For not loving me, but for more than that. For looking at me and seeing something to be pitied, something to scorn, something to laugh about. He was above me, somehow, with his looks and his disdain. Always better than me. I wanted him and I couldn’t have him, so instead I wanted to destroy him so that he’d always know he wasn’t above me – not in the ways that count.
I wanted it and now I have it.
The ruin of a beautiful, powerful creature.
And I realize Luke’s destruction has absolutely nothing to do with me. Just as his life never did.
*
There’s a bird staring at me. It’s just sitting there, on the ledge of the back wall. I move toward it. It doesn’t blink, just trains those small, black eyes on me. It tilts its head.
A black crow.
It knows me. It knows me. And I know that I must be mad, because I am the only one who can ever see it.
I want it dead, but I only want that for a moment. Because as I realize that what I really want is my own death, I feel a sense of kinship with the bird. A connection deeper than any I have ever know, as if this creature is aware of everything that I am and have been, everything that I could be or yearn for. I wanted life badly enough to sacrifice the safety of others. Here is my punishment for that.
The crow, I think, is here for me. Just as all the birds are. For my end.