Tera’s brow furrowed as she glanced from Megan to Greyson and back. “Really?”
Megan nodded. “I was there, I saw it.” Please believe me. I’m already having to lie to you, and you’re my friend and I hate that.
“That’s…well. I don’t see that there are any particles of that in his hair. It looks to me like somebody hit him with something.”
“The blast knocked free one of the finials,” Greyson said. “It flew into the back of his head.”
“Shit. This is just what I need,” Tera said. “If you’d given him to us last night we could have saved him.”
“I couldn’t, Tera. You know that. I couldn’t ignore his request, especially when I had no idea why you guys were after him.”
“Are…are you going to get in trouble for this?” Megan bit her lip. If this would cost Tera her job…and it was almost Christmas too. Never mind that Tera didn’t celebrate. Nobody should lose their job four days before Christmas, it was a crime against humanity—and witches were close enough to human, right?
Tiredness always made her sentimental. Or grumpy. Today it looked like sentimental.
“No. He’s right. It doesn’t sound like protocol was followed, so the ones in trouble will be the soldiers, not me. This wasn’t my affair anyway, I just stepped in because of you. No harm done. Except, of course, that now we can’t find out why he killed those witches.”
“Killed witches?” Greyson leaned against his desk and crossed his ankles in front of him, clearly ready to enjoy himself.
Tera colored. “Yes. Um, those witches who died, the ones I mentioned at the funeral? It looks like he was the one who did it, so…sorry about that. About suspecting you, I mean.”
“No problem.”
“But you have to admit you were a pretty likely suspect. It wasn’t exactly stupid of me to think you were behind it.”
“Of course.” Not a hint of sarcasm colored his voice.
“Well,” Megan said, clapping her hands together, trying to get her blood to circulate. The sleeves of Greyson’s shirt flopped from her arms. Her own clothes were being cleaned. “Tera, do you want some coffee or something?”
“I guess I’ll have water. Is Winston Lawden coming? He was here last night, right?”
“He’ll be here any minute,” Greyson said. “He said he was on his way.”
And he was. Winston arrived just after they’d settled Tera in a chair with a glass of water.
“Miss Green. What a lovely surprise.”
Tera raised her eyebrows. “Mr. Lawden. I have a few questions for you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t see what sorts of answers I might have. Greyson called me last night to inform me your witches had gravely injured Orion. He was dead by the time I got here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are you implying something, Miss Green?”
“Only that if one of your people killed my witches, you might know something about it.”
Megan choked on her drink, but Winston only smiled indulgently. “Miss Green, I can assure you I did not. I’ve recently discovered Orion was…acting outside his authority, shall we say? This had nothing to do with me.”
Greyson must have called him while she was in the shower or when he got up in the morning. Or maybe demons simply had plenty of practice at this sort of thing, which was likely. She knew how quickly Greyson’s mind moved. Usually she wasn’t too bad herself, but she just couldn’t seem to get it together this morning. The coffee actually seemed to be working against her rather than helping; she was starting to feel sick.
Two witches came to collect Orion’s body, their faces fixed in disapproving sneers as they pulled the sheet over his ruined head and lifted the gurney with a clang of metal against metal.
“This will still be investigated,” Tera said. “Just because we can no longer question Orion Maldon doesn’t mean we’re done looking into his actions.”
“I’m an open book,” Winston said. A whisper of cold wafted over Megan’s skin. His voice echoed strangely in her head. Was he dragging out his words, or was it just her? He sounded like a record played on too slow a speed. “Feel free to make an appointment to speak with me, if you must.”
“How about now?”
“Am I suspected? Are you declaring me so? Because if not, you can make an appointment, and if so, I’m permitted my own witnesses. Uninvolved witnesses.”
Megan’s cup fell from her hand. The couch was so soft…she could just lie down and go to sleep…
“Megan? Megan!”
Greyson’s hands on her shoulders, shaking her. Maybe a little more roughly than he needed to. She was just tired, is all. Didn’t it make sense that she would be, after everything that had happened? And they hadn’t ended up going to sleep until almost three. So much to do, so much to discuss…
“Le’me ’lone.” She brushed feebly at his arm, while Tera’s and Winston’s voices joined the chorus of concern and she heard pounding in the distance. Someone knocking somewhere…why couldn’t she open her eyes?
More voices. One sounded like Roc, which didn’t make any sense because Roc wouldn’t be here. He was with the other Yezer, in his little room that looked like Currier & Ives threw up in it.
“All of them…she took…destroyed…everywhere…” The voices sounded like faraway whispers, like television filtered up stairs and under a closet door. She used to like to play in the closet, when she was little…it felt so secret and safe in there. Just like now.
“Fuck! Meg, wake up, sit up, come on…”
“God, she’s so pale.” Gentle hands patted her cheeks.
“Is she breathing?”
“Shit, get…”
Hands on her shoulders, lifting her from the couch, then sliding up to cup her face. She mumbled feebly and tried to push him away. Just like a man, couldn’t he see she was tired?
His lips pressed against hers, forcing her to accept the kiss. “Go ’way,” she started to say, but when she opened her mouth his tongue slipped inside, along with a deep, low rush of burning power. It flew through her body, heating her from the inside, speeding her sluggish blood and making her gasp.
Her eyes opened, then closed again as she leaned forward, raising her hands to his shoulders, trying to pull him closer. Somewhere deep in her mind she remembered there were other people in the room, but it didn’t matter. She was waking up, unfurling like a butterfly, going from exhausted to normal to overheated with desire in the space of a few seconds.
Abruptly he pulled away. She reached for him, her eyes widening at the sight of his tense, pale face, but as she did, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.
Tera’s and Winston’s backs were politely turned, but she was dimly aware that she’d moaned, or something, and her face grew hot. Or would have, if it wasn’t already. Her cheeks stung. How hard had they actually hit her?
Worse than that was the little body next to Tera. It was Roc. And if Roc was here, something was very wrong.
Wreckage.
That’s all it was.
Megan blinked back tears as she took in the little doors hanging on their hinges, the broken furniture scattered across the shining floor. At least, it had shone once. Now blood, sticky and dark, slicked the surface and spattered the walls. It formed a clotted sludge in the crevices joining the floors and walls and in the cracks between the floorboards.
Roc righted a chair and slumped into it. “She took everyone,” he said for the tenth time, repeating the words over and over as if he could make sense of the event by describing it. “I managed to get away…I don’t know how.”
“She probably let you go,” Greyson said. He stood beside Megan, holding her hand, just staring around the room. Megan knew he was imagining his own Iureanlier, thinking of the destruction that could have been visited there the night before if they hadn’t acted quickly enough.