That’s why George had called the police on the dead witch. There was a human involved. He just hadn’t wanted to say so in front of Geena.
“A witch Monday,” I said. “And a human last night. Pretty quick.”
“What else do you know?” asked Adam. “Is the victim connected to Monday’s witch?” He rubbed his face. “And are they connected to the missing witches?”
“I don’t know. I gave Tony a heads-up about our Pasco murder when I told him about the dead witch.” Tony Montenegro was with the Kennewick PD and liaised with various supernatural groups—mostly because he was a friend of mine.
“This,” George said, “is going to be a political nightmare for the pack. Especially if someone tells the police about the missing witches.”
Adam nodded. “That’s for sure. What can you tell us about last night’s murder?”
“Not as much as I’d have thought in a place as public as a grocery store. We spent half the night out questioning anyone we could track down who had been at the store. We have some video of the victim, but nothing that shows the killer. The cameras that covered the area the body was found in were off.”
“Off?” Adam’s business was security. “As in someone switched them off? Who has access to do that?”
“It’s a closed system, runs only out of the security office. That office was locked up before the cameras cut out and during the murder. The cameras turned back on while the office was still locked, just before the clerk found the body. It was off for about ten minutes.”
“Any suspects?” I asked. “No one saw anything?”
“Sort of.” George had a funny look on his face.
“What?” asked Adam.
“Thing is, it is probably a red herring,” George said. “But one of the assistant managers went off shift about the same time our victim disappeared. He swears he saw the Harvester walking behind his car as he backed out of his parking place—which was not too far from where the body was found.”
“The who?” asked Adam.
“The Harvester?” I asked. “You mean like in that movie? Dressed up like a scarecrow wearing a cloak and carrying a sickle?”
“The assistant manager said it was a scythe. Said he was watching his backup camera when somebody dressed like the Harvester walked behind his car. But when he turned to look himself, there was no one there.”
“You believe him?” asked Adam.
George made a thoughtful humming sound. “The employee parking lot is big, well lit, and, at that time of night, mostly empty. We have the incident partially on camera. He definitely hits the brakes hard and stops for a bit before backing out. The security camera doesn’t have a good view of the area behind his car, though—it’s black-and-white and a bit grainy. The shadows around the back of the car were too dark. There might have been movement or maybe not.”
“The grocery store on Road Sixty-Eight,” I said. “Isn’t there a movie theater right around there?”
George nodded. “And they were having a special showing of The Harvester. It had just let out. Theater manager said a number of people came dressed as the Harvester.”
Adam exchanged a grim look with me. Jesse, Izzy, and Tad had gone to The Harvester last night. There were other theaters in town, but that one was their usual choice.
George said, “I have permission to take the two of you to the murder site and to the coroner’s office to get a look at the body. Thing is, your nose is better than mine, Mercy. You might pick up something.”
Magic, he meant.
We’d been getting ready to head to the seethe. I looked at Adam. “We should hit this before we go visiting the seethe,” I said.
“After we stop by your shop,” Adam said.
I frowned at him. “To do what?”
“You need Zee to look at your feet,” he said.
I frowned at him. “There’s nothing wrong with my feet.”
“Spider?” he asked.
For a minute I couldn’t think what he meant. Then a cold chill slid over my skin.
“Yes,” I said. “I think we’d better.”
8
“Well now,” said Zee, cleaning his hands with the gritty orange soap we used to get tough grease and other substances off. “You stepped on a spider-like half-fae creature and got punctured. And the vampire told you to have me check your feet.” He paused. “In a dream.”
“It sounds really stupid when you say it like that,” I told him, in an irritated voice that was meant to cover up the butterflies in my stomach. I suddenly really, really didn’t want him to look at my feet.
He dried his hands off and then looked at me. “I can’t help how it sounds, Liebchen.”
The phone rang, and he gave a hiss of irritation and his eyes flashed with real temper. “I am going to pull that thing out of the wall,” he growled. He looked at Adam and lowered his lids in consideration—the expression made him look like a fiend contemplating the next child he was going to eat.
“You,” he said, “and you.” He looked at Adam and then George. “Go out and answer the phone. Keep the people who come to bother me—”
“Customers?” said Adam dryly.
Zee brushed that away with a flick of his fingers. “Customers. Pests. Nenn sie wie Du willst.”
“Let’s call them customers, please,” I said. “They pay me so I can pay you.”
Zee snorted dismissively and waved his hands at my mate and George. “Go and tell them we are closed for an hour at least.”
I waited . . . hoped . . . for Adam to take offense at Zee’s tone. Then maybe I could delay Zee examining my feet.
Adam gave me a shrewd look, jerked his head at George—who was the one who looked stung by Zee’s attitude. When Adam closed the door behind him, it did have a bit of a snap, but he left me alone with Zee anyway.
And that was good, right? Because I needed Zee to look at my feet. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t want him to do it.
“I cannot do this,” Zee told me with a frown, “without a payment.”
Which was the beginning of negotiations. There were good reasons for the fae to bargain when you asked them for favors. Balance was very important for fae magic, and it ran in their blood and bones the way that the need for success ran in human culture. Despite the shard of hope I felt at his first words, it soon became apparent that Zee was feeling mellow. Or maybe he was worried about my feet, because he didn’t bargain very hard.
As payment for his doctoring, he demanded I tell him everything that had happened, starting with my bruised face and ending with me sitting on the cold concrete floor of the shop with my feet in Zee’s lap while he sat on the short mechanic’s stool.
I’d negotiated so I could leave out the bit about Sherwood because that was pack business and had nothing to do with the mess the vampires were in. I could probably have left out the part about the missing and dead witches—and the dead young man at the grocery store. But Zee was a useful source of information. The more I told him, the better the chances were that if he knew something, he could tell me about it.
“Spiders,” said Zee thoughtfully as he ran a grease-darkened finger over the bottom of my foot.
I had been getting more and more uncomfortable, almost jittery. My hands and butt were too cold from the chill concrete. The garage stank of burnt oil, diesel fuel, and rubber—which it always did, but now it made me feel as though I couldn’t breathe. The overhead lights were too bright. Mostly, I very much didn’t want the old iron-kissed fae to put his hands on my feet. Not at all.