Fractured flame firebird.., p.16
Fractured Flame (Firebird Uncaged Book 1), page 16
A handful of the bunnies that had followed me in ran off after Carina and wiggled their way under the door.
“Is she okay?” I asked Ray, who turned to me and shrugged.
“She’s just embarrassed,” he said. “She doesn’t like it when people see her tail. Thinks it’s too long. ‘Like a monkey’ is what she says.”
“That’s . . . crazy.”
“I know. I keep telling her she’ll grow into it, but she won’t believe me until it happens.”
“You saw those rabbits go in there with her, right? Please tell me I’m not hallucinating.”
He laughed and bent down to the ground, extending his hand to a rabbit that hopped up and then perched on his shoulder. I guessed that meant I wasn’t hallucinating.
“You’ve been blessed by our god,” Ray said as he stood. “You’re welcome, by the way. He wouldn’t have been able to send the teporingo if I hadn’t found you first.” He reached over to the rabbit on his shoulder and scratched it behind the ears. It let out a delighted chirp, and I narrowed my eyes at the both of them.
“If these rabbits are a blessing, why was the soul of my dead friend burning in the realm where I met them?”
“She wasn’t.” Ray shook his head. “The cave is more like a hallucination. It isn’t a real place, and certainly not one that harbors human souls. It’s a vision we call up when we need to talk to Popo, or when he needs to talk to us. It’s not like you can call a god on the phone. If he showed you your friend there, he was trying to tell you something about her.”
I had no idea what to say to that, beyond wishing this god had used words to communicate instead of some cryptic vision. But then, gods were sort of known for cryptic visions, and for not making much sense in general.
Ray bent over again to pick up something from the ground, the bunny hopping off him as he did.
I walked over to see what he was holding, but the object was unrecognizable. “What is that?”
“Glass. My father made his living crafting drinking glasses for tourists in Mexico. I use what he taught me to make weapons, forged in dragon fire. Inefficient heat source and fragile material, but the magical benefits are worth it. This one will be an arrow, once Carina gets over herself and comes back.” He turned to me with genuine curiosity in his eyes. “Will it get worse before it gets better?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s only eight now, so I’m not sure if she’ll be more mature in a few years, or if she’ll just find more reasons to—” He sighed. “I don’t know much about females.”
“Well, I don’t know much about dragons.”
“Fair enough.”
“But yes. I think the general rule of thumb is if she’s not a teenager yet, it will absolutely get worse before it gets better.” For a moment I wondered if that was what the coven had thought of me when I had refused to keep healing and gone to the Guardians instead. A rebellious teenager who would eventually come around. I hadn’t seen any of them in years, so by now they had to know that I never would come around.
Ray put the chunk of glass and metal down on the ground, and the small noise it made broke me away from my thoughts.
“Um . . .” I said. This conversation had gotten away from me way too fast. But at least I had made a tiny bit of headway on the whole “creatures of fire” mystery—one of them was a dragon. Good job, Detective Darcy. “Is she really your daughter?” I asked, hoping Ray’s answer would tell me whether he was also a dragon.
“Of course.” He looked at me as if my question had offended him.
“So, why don’t you just finish the arrow yourself?” I pointed at the lump of glass he’d been holding at the end of a metal rod.
“Her mother is the dragon, not me.”
“Got it.” I knew I should be asking what the hell Ray was at this point, but my curiosity got the better of me. “And her mother is okay with her skipping school to help her dad at work? Isn’t there some law against that?”
He gave me a cold stare. “It’s Saturday. And her mother is not around anymore.” His voice made it clear that line of conversation was over.
Damn it, Darcy. I had literally just checked to see what day it was. I needed to get my shit together. But Ray seemed to be annoyed with me now. He had turned away from me to walk across the room to a cabinet, where he pulled out a non-burnt t-shirt and slipped it on over the ashes he was currently wearing.
“Why are you here?” he asked as he started cleaning up his workspace. “You didn’t bring the boy—you don’t still think I killed his mother? I would never take away a child’s mother, not by choice.”
The way he said it, tersely, with his fingers gripping his tools just a little too hard—I believed him. And I felt like a bit of a jerk now for suspecting him of trying to take Noah from Becca, whether by murder or manipulation. The idea of it clearly struck a personal nerve for him as a single father, and as an orphan. A supposed orphan.
But that was the job. I took in a breath, focusing on what I came here to find out. “Is Noah a phoenix?”
He stopped what he was doing to look at me again. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because I think a phoenix had something to do with Becca’s death. The wings, the burning, and . . .”
“And what?”
“Her body was resurrected and healed.”
He raised his eyebrows at that. “If that’s the case, why do you care? You have her back.”
“Not really,” I explained. “She’s empty, a zombie. I don’t think her soul came back with her.”
“Well, you’re wasting time trying to track down the phoenix,” he said. “That wasn’t what killed her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because a phoenix’s touch only affects those already marked by death.”
“Huh?”
“A phoenix doesn’t kill. So Becca must have already been dying, past the point of no return, for one to have affected her like that.”
My brain was having a hard time processing this. It did make sense with what Etty had said about phoenixes being creatures of life and not death. But the burning had sure looked a hell of a lot like death to me.
Could there be two killers? Becca had seemed uncharacteristically sick at the club before she had gone on stage and burned. So without the phoenix, would she still have died some other way? Had someone poisoned her? Cursed her?
“If she’s been resurrected without her soul, it means whatever really caused her death might have consumed or imprisoned it,” Ray offered.
“Any idea what might do something like that?”
“Beats me. Maybe look it up on the internet?” Apparently he was done being helpful.
“Thanks,” I said icily. “I’ll do that.” My instincts told me to turn around and leave, to go act on what I had learned even though I had hoped he would tell me more. But those weren’t the instincts of an investigator, which was what I needed to be right now. “Look,” I said after a decidedly awkward pause, “can you just tell me what you and Noah are?” An investigator would have much better tact than that, but I would have to work on that part next time.
He sighed, dropping his tools to the ground with a metallic clang that sent adrenaline running through me for just a moment. And when he turned to look at me, I could see he was pissed. All the cavalier friendliness he’d shown me at Carina’s school was gone, and I hated that I found the change disorienting.
My best friend had been murdered—apparently, twice—and this man was still technically a suspect. Angry and suspicious and cold was how he should have been acting towards me this whole time. This at least made sense. But it was unpleasant, I had to admit, when he marched towards me, his entire body a threat, his face darkening as he loomed over me and said, “What am I? Is this a joke to you? I’m a person. A father.” He shook his head at me. “If someone asked you what you are, would you even know how to answer?”
“I’m human—” I started, and he laughed in my face.
“That’s not the whole story, and you know it,” he said.
I didn’t know it. Unless he was talking about my magic training. But that didn’t make me any less human. It couldn’t.
At the blank look I was giving him, he reached up and pressed the palm of his hand to the middle of my chest, at the base of my neck, where I had some skin exposed.
He closed his eyes and bowed his head, and then I felt it again. The same burst of heat I’d felt when I’d first seen him walk into the club. I’d mistaken it then for sexual attraction, but it definitely wasn’t that. Not at all.
It was the same magic I’d compulsively attacked him with at the playground, the same magic that had destroyed the sea monster when it had threatened my life. The same magic that felt like another entity entirely, even though it filled me completely, its very existence threatening to overcome everything I was and dangle me over the world like a puppet. And this time, it felt desperate, like something was fighting to restrain it.
Ray frowned. “It’s stronger than before, but still broken, fractured . . .” He paused and sniffed the air a bit. “Have you been wounded?”
“Yeah, but I’m fine. Don’t tell me you’re a vampire.” I stifled a groan. Anything would be better than a vampire. I hated dealing with bloodsuckers. Complete tunnel vision with them if you were bleeding. Worse than the men in the club looking at boobs.
“Where?” he asked sternly, not even bothering to answer my dumb question. If he were a vampire, he wouldn’t have had to ask where I was bleeding.
With a small frown, I gestured to my left foot, and he was on the ground taking off my boot so fast I almost lost my balance. Almost.
“What is this?” It came out almost a snarl as he ripped off my sock and pressed his rough fingers into the skin around the wound on my ankle.
I fought the urge to kick him, and instead I leaned against the workbench behind me so I wouldn’t fall on my ass once he saw the hole in the bottom of my foot. “A sea monster bit me,” I said. “After a palis tried to drink me. But it’s fine. It’s healing nicely, thanks to—”
“No, I meant the tattoo.” He twisted my foot over to look at it from a different angle. “And this blue stuff . . .” Reaching around me, he pulled a small knife off his workbench. “I need to cut it off.”
He brought the knife to my ankle, and I decided that now was an appropriate time to kick him if there ever was one. But his grip was annoyingly strong on my calf, so I leaned back to brace myself against the bench with my arms and lifted my other foot. The foot with the boot still on it.
I brought it up and planted it right on his chest, shoving him off me and onto his back. For the second time since I’d met him.
Only this time, I was totally cool with it. No way was he cutting anything off my body, and especially not from the part I liked most. Yes, the tattoo was damaged by the wound, but Miriam had told me not to worry before I’d left the apartment, said she could help it heal without a scar, and I desperately wanted to believe her now that my own healing abilities had apparently vanished. Plus, she’d been in my head for so long that she probably knew I would kill her if she was lying to me about it.
It was the only reason I’d consented to her leaving on a thin layer of the healing jelly after she’d come out of my bedroom ranting about how I wasn’t allowed to put on shoes yet. It had made my foot feel like a wet slug inside my boot, but it was worth it.
“Agh,” Ray grumbled in front of me as he moved to right himself. “Why do you keep doing that?”
“You take a knife to a woman without asking first, and you wonder why she fights back? Honestly, I worry for you. How have you made it this long without landing in jail?”
“Sorry,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he meant it. “It’s just, the tattoo—that’s the problem.” He stood up and cracked his back, then rubbed the side of his ass and winced. “Strong legs,” he remarked.
But I would not be distracted by flattery. “The tattoo is not a problem. It’s the symbol of my family.”
He looked surprised at that. “So . . . your whole family, everyone has the same tattoo?”
“Yeah,” I said. I thought it was pretty clear.
“So they were all witches too?”
“What? No—” I started, but then my butt started ringing, cutting me off. Becca’s phone.
I put it to my ear and heard Etty’s voice, rich and comforting compared to what I was dealing with now at Ray’s, and it immediately calmed me down a little. “Hey Darce, I have the little guy. I’m taking him to the club for now, since it’ll be a while before you’re home.”
“I can be back soon—” I said, but she just kept talking over me. She wasn’t very good with phone conversations. And now that I thought about it, I’d never met any fae who was.
“He seemed pretty attached to Baz’s old lady, didn’t want to leave. So I’m assuming you haven’t told him about his mom, and I’m gonna let you do that when you get here.”
“I—what about his dad? Does he know his dad’s dead?” I asked, suddenly wondering whether I should start saving up for a good child therapist.
“Weird old lady,” she continued, ignoring my question completely. “I hope she’s not going to be our new boss. Would probably make us dance in sweaters and socks. Baz was happy, though. He wants you to come to work tonight now that you’re awake and he doesn’t need to escape his own house.”
“Damn it.” I sighed. “Maybe. I don’t know.” I needed to figure out what I was going to do next about Becca before I could even think about going to work.
“I told him probably not, since you have to do that thing with Detective Crane.”
“What thing?”
“Oh, right, that’s what I was calling to tell you. He wants you to meet him now at . . . Sweepers Headquarters? I think. Didn’t feel right giving him Becca’s number to reach you. I’ll text you the address. He’s already on his way.”
This was just getting better and better. Part of me wanted to be annoyed that I was being told rather than asked to do all these things, but another part of me was happy to have help moving forward.
I still wanted to get more out of Ray, but who knew how long that might take?
And anyway, it would probably be better to meet him somewhere away from his knives. In public. I didn’t know what he thought the problem was with my tattoo, and I didn’t care. He wasn’t touching it.
“Thanks,” I said to Etty as I eyed Ray warily. “I’ll meet you at the club when I’m done, and we can take the kid home together. But tell Baz I’m not working tonight. He can complain all he wants—he won’t fire me.”
“That’s okay, I’ll find someone to make drinks. Have fun with sexy jelly boy,” she teased, and I groaned inwardly. Miriam had probably told her what had happened, and now I would never hear the end of it. I hung up the phone without responding, and Ray spoke before I could.
“Noah’s dad is dead?” he asked in a hard voice, looking me straight in the eye.
“Yes. Becca torched his place the day she died.”
“Damn,” he growled. “I didn’t think she’d gone through with it. I was at the club that night to try to talk her out of it.” After a small punch of frustration to the wall, he looked back at me with brightness in his eyes. “So, Noah’s parents are both dead and he needs a new family?” he asked innocently, and I immediately regretted the last two minutes.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I seethed.
He lifted his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine—look, I don’t want to hurt the boy. Or you. I just want to help.”
“If that’s true, you can prove it by waiting until I ask for your help,” I said, then spun away from him to leave. I dearly hoped I would never need to ask.
16
The world felt wrong as I walked towards the Sweepers’ office building. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was on my way to ask polite questions to the people who had been trying to kill me. The people who, at this point, I assumed had something to do with both Simeon’s and Becca’s deaths.
My legs felt heavy, plodding along, crunching slowly on the salt that had cleared the sidewalks of ice by now, even though Miriam’s jelly had effectively numbed the pain from my wounds. My body was trying to keep me from doing this, and for good reason.
The Sweepers were a can of worms, I knew that much, but I had no idea how many worms were about to jump out at me, or whether they would be gummy or bloodthirsty. This was the life of an investigator, though. Shining light into dark places instead of blindly guarding against them.
And as much as I wanted to help Becca and get revenge on whoever had killed her, I had to admit I’d been avoiding shining light on this particular dark place the whole time.
In the past year, while I’d been watching and waiting and seething, I had always imagined Simeon’s killer as the blond assassin, smelling of roses and herbs, who had actually killed him—the blond assassin I’d witnessed cut off his head before it rolled to my feet, eyes still shining at me with false promises. It had never occurred to me that she might have been working for a group so large, that the motive could have been so . . . impersonal. And now, with all my theories turned on their heads and yet another person I’d cared about dead, I didn’t want it to be for the same reason.
If Becca had been killed by the same people who had killed Simeon, that meant she was dead because of something I had done, even if I couldn’t fathom what.
So I hadn’t wanted to believe the Sweepers’ attempts on my life had anything to do with my friend. But that was stupid of me, and cowardly, and I was glad Adrian was competent enough to realize what needed doing even when I wouldn’t. It was nice, feeling like I kind of had a partner again to check my bullshit, and I started to feel nauseous when I remembered what had just happened between us. When would I stop ruining everything good in my life?
The nausea faded quickly when the scent of coffee and sweet cinnamon invaded my senses. I was only one building away from the Sweepers—I could see their dumb sign with the dumb broom on it—so I ducked into the little cafe next door and relished in the comfort of the aromas and my good luck. I was going to do this, yes, but I wasn’t going to just walk in the front door like everyone in the building wouldn’t immediately turn their heads and train their weapons on me. That would be just as stupid as my avoidance.
