“It wasn’t a story I could tell over the phone,” she said quietly. “Even if I didn’t need Tarvers’s permission.”
I looked at her, meeting her green-eyed gaze and taking her hand in mine.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted, “but I will find her. In the Queen’s name I swear it.”
This human had tortured a kid into insanity and murdered over half a dozen people, simply because they weren’t human as she understood the term. And for her curiosity. I knew that when I met her, I’d have anger enough to fuel an inferno.
But no one had seen her and there was no official address; how could I find her? I stiffened as the answer struck me, accidentally pushing Mary away.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I just thought of a way to find her. I’ll see you at your game thing tomorrow?” I asked, sliding out of the booth.
She looked up at me, her eyes unreadable. “Okay,” she agreed.
I gave in to temptation and leaned in to press a quick kiss to her forehead.
“I’m sorry, but I think I need to act on this now,” I told her as she smiled sadly at me.
There were no official government records of her address—but I worked for a courier company.
UNFORTUNATELY, I didn’t actually have a key to the office, though I did at least know the alarm deactivation code. Fortunately, the semi-industrial area Direct Couriers was headquartered in was utterly deserted at nearly midnight on a Friday night, and the superior senses reflexes of a changeling had made learning to pick locks a breeze during my years of disreputable wandering in the South.
Needing to take my gloves off to do it hurt, but at least I was fast.
I opened the door quickly and stepped in to the sound of the beeping security alarm. I’d been given the code to activate it if I was the last to leave, and the same code calmly disarmed it. Trysta’s computer was turned off, and I booted it up, watching the door nervously in the darkness. I didn’t need a light, and the dark helped conceal me from any passers-by.
I’d picked up Trysta’s password almost by accident, watching her keystrokes one morning, and I quickly typed it in once the computer booted up. The computer rejected it, and I cursed aloud. She’d changed it, but what to?
It was one of those “include a capital, a special character, and a number” passwords, and after a moment, I tried again—switching out the 4 at the end for a 5.
It worked. With the computer booted and logged in, I fell to searching for the archive I knew existed—a list of every name and address we’d ever delivered to.
If I was very, very lucky, we’d delivered something to her. When I found the directory, I searched for Dr Sigridsen, but I got no hits. Tried again with just Sigridsen and started to figure I was out of luck, until I figured to try one last thing.
There were four Elisses in the directory. Two had full last names, one was Elisse R., and the last was Elisse S. A scattering of deliveries across the years Direct had been active, and an address change for the first package less than a year old.
I wrote down the new address and shut off the computer. I slipped out of the office as quietly as I’d come in, reactivating the alarm and locking the door as I left. Bill would be confused when he looked at the alarm records showing the deactivation on Monday, but there were no other signs I’d been there. I could live with a confused boss.
It was too late to take the bus and too cold to stay out much later, but I didn’t want to wait. This woman was actively involved with the cabal, a key to the mission the Queen had given me, and a potential threat to anyone who encountered her.
I checked the address, shrugged, and called a cab.
THE CAB DROPPED me off outside a small detached home in a newly built suburb in the central north end of the city—I think the sign had called it Panorama Hills. I paid the cab driver cash and pulled my coat around myself, scoping the house out from the outside.
Nothing suggested this was the home of a university professor turned serial killer. The front lawn showed neatly kept in the light from the streetlamps. No light escaped from the house, though as I walked toward the front door, I realized that was because every visible window was completely covered in heavy drapes. There was no way light could leak out.
It was quite possible there was someone home, and I was starting to wish I’d picked up a weapon somewhere. Sparks of anger in my veins and a warmth in my hands said I wasn’t defenseless, but I figured it would probably be easier to just shoot someone.
I stopped outside the door and sent Mary a quick text. “If I don’t call by dawn, check out this address.”
That sent, I tucked the phone into my back pocket and kicked the door in. Brilliant yellow light spilled out into the night as I walked into the house. A sudden sense of danger hit me, and I dove sideways as a shotgun blasted through the space I’d been standing in. I hit the ground and rolled back up to my feet. A steely gray-haired woman was running toward the front of the house—but the shotgun had been triggered by a laser tripwire and didn’t look to have a second shot.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman demanded, yanking an ugly-looking pistol from a cabinet behind the wall.
Before she’d lifted it to fire, I’d crossed to her and quickly broken her wrist, sending the pistol careening against the wall—thankfully still on safe; I could feel the cold iron in the clip. I barely even noticed the surprise on her face at my speed.
“Dr. Sigridsen, I presume,” I said calmly, breaking her other arm as she tried to hit me, and shoving her back into her living room. She stumbled and landed on a couch.
“You’re one of them,” she spat. “One of those fucking monsters.”
“Monsters, huh?” I said. “One of the people in this room tortured a nineteen-year-old boy. It wasn’t me. Can you say the same?”
“I was studying it, not torturing,” she spat. “Anything that abnormal should be studied, to understand it, use it.”
“Studying involves kidnapping a student and repeatedly attempting to kill them?” I snarled as I advanced on her.
“That monster shouldn’t have been among real people,” she told me. “I saw it—it would have turned on them eventually. It looked at my students and saw food.”
“I’ve never known a shifter who saw people as anything but people, actually,” I said conversationally.
“What did it matter?” she demanded. “It had a solution. What happens to you, monster, if I were to inject you with cancerous cells?”
I froze, just out of reach of her. That explained...a lot. “They’d die,” I said flatly.
“Well, they didn’t do that in me,” she snarled. “I could have found a cure, saved millions, but you monsters had to interfere!”
“It doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid,” I told her. “Nothing you could have learned by torturing that boy could save you. And those that could would never help a murderer.”
“Hah! There was one who could,” she answered. “What do you know?”
“I need to know what you did with the container of vampires you brought into this city,” I told her bluntly, and she laughed in my face.
“So, you know how I first served.” She laughed. “What makes you think I’d surrender my saviors?”
“Because, Dr. Sigridsen, your ‘saviors’ eat people to live,” I told her, a sinking feeling in my stomach. Blood magic could cure cancer, easily. It also left the “patient” almost entirely enthralled to their healer.