A Local Habitation
Page 30

“Yes, Toby.”
“Screw around on me and I’ll send you back to Shadowed Hills so fast you won’t have time to blink.”
“I’ll do whatever you say.”
“Damn straight, you will. Now shut up and let me think.” I leaned against the wall, standing quietly as we waited for Jan to return. Quentin did the same, imitating my posture either unconsciously or by design. We’d just had time for me to start becoming really uncomfortable about the bodies when the door at the top of the stairs opened, and Alex stepped uneasily inside.
“Jan said you wanted these?”
He was balancing four paper cups on a small tray. He looked understandably unhappy about being there; the basement had become the company morgue, and these had been his friends. His expression of unhappiness deepened when he saw my scowl.
“Where’s Jan?” I asked.
“April called her to help Elliot with something. She said I could . . . look, what do you want me to do with these? I can go. I just . . .” He sighed. “I wanted to help.”
He looked so contrite that I thawed a bit, and motioned for him to come down, ignoring Quentin’s deepening scowl. “Fine. Bring those on over here.”
“Sure,” Alex said, giving the room another uneasy glance before descending. Quentin met him at the base of the stairs, taking the tray away and leaving him blinking. No one does imperious quite like a Daoine Sidhe. “Is that everything you needed?”
“For the moment.” I took the first cup from the tray, gesturing for Quentin to follow me over to Barbara’s body. Having Alex there served at least one purpose; Quentin didn’t like him, and that meant he’d be too busy standing on his own dignity to argue when I told him what to do.
“What are you going to do with the water?”
“We’re going to try waking the blood.” I started scraping dried blood from Barbara’s wrist and adding it to the water. Quentin stiffened, but as I expected, he didn’t protest. Dignity is a wonderful tool sometimes.
Alex swallowed, looking sick. “Why?”
“The blood has to be awake for us to ride it.” The water had taken on a pink tinge. I returned the cup to the tray and picked up the second. “If it works, we may be able to see the killer.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We try something else.”
“Why can’t Jan do it?”
“Because Jan isn’t the daughter of the most powerful blood-worker in Faerie, so she probably couldn’t wake the stuff up in the first place.” I tried to focus on what I was doing. “My mother could do this without breaking a sweat.”
“Right,” said Alex. “So were you able to . . . get anything . . . from Colin’s blood?”
“No, because there was nothing for us to ‘get.’ ” I passed the second cup of bloody water to Quentin. “Here.”
Alex frowned. “Nothing?”
“Nothing. The blood was empty.” I grimaced. “And before you ask, no, it’s not supposed to work that way.”
“So how do you know this time will be any different?”
“I don’t. I’m a half-blood and Quentin’s untrained, and this blood is old enough that I might not get anything under normal circumstances . . . but it’s worth trying.” Pinching my nose, I gulped down the contents of my cup. Quentin did the same with his.
All I got was the bitter, watery taste of diluted blood. There wasn’t a flicker of memory.
Quentin coughed and dropped his cup on the tray. “There’s nothing there.”
I sighed, putting my cup next to his. “It must have been too old.” He didn’t have to know that I was lying. I crossed to Yui’s cot and folded the sheet back, saying, “Maybe three weeks will make the difference.”
“You’re going to try again?” Alex asked.
“Have you got a better idea?” I picked up the third cup, scraping the blood off Yui’s right wrist. “If so, please share. I’m all out of good ideas.”
“Not really. I just . . . I want this to stop.”
“Yeah, well, if I were you, I’d have left by now. Gone somewhere safer.” Like the middle of a minefield.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” I handed Quentin his cup, started preparing my own.
“It’s a little hard to explain.”
“Doesn’t Terrie want to go?” I asked. Quentin looked up at the mention of Terrie’s name, suddenly interested.
Alex flinched. “Not really. That’s part of it.”
“Have you tried explaining that staying here might be fatal?”
“We don’t see each other much,” he said, uncomfortably. “It makes it hard to explain things.”
“She works the night shift, and she found the first body, right?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding startled and a bit wary. Not a good sign. “How did you know?”
I looked at him blandly. “Jan told me.”
“Right.” He sighed.
“If you see her, let her know I want to talk to her.”
His eyes widened. “Why?”
I expected his reaction: no one wants to hear that someone wants to talk to their relatives as part of a murder investigation. What I didn’t expect was the expression on Quentin’s face—for a moment, he looked like I’d slapped him.
“Calm down,” I said, directing the statement to both of them. “I just want to ask her a few questions. I’m not accusing anyone of anything.” Yet.
Alex calmed marginally, saying, “If I see her, I’ll let her know.”
“Good.” I sipped the bloody water instead of gulping this time, trying to linger. Quentin saw this and did the same. Not that it did any good; the blood was as empty as Barbara’s. I spat it back into the cup. “Well, that was useless.”
“Nothing here, either,” said Quentin. He was starting to look green around the edges. The magic wasn’t working, but he was still tasting the blood.
Alex peered at us. “Are you going to throw your cups at me if I say you look like hell?”
I considered for a moment, finally saying, “I won’t.”
“I might,” Quentin said.
“I’ll risk it. You look like hell. Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?”