A Local Habitation
Page 37

Well, he wasn’t going to be doing anything as an equal anymore: he wasn’t going to be arguing about whether Klingon was a language, or confusing visiting changelings by wearing a human disguise when everyone else had shed theirs. It was starting to look like the ALH retirement plan was “get found dead in the back room.” Punctures broke his skin at the wrists and throat, dispelling the illusion that he was only sleeping. He was never going to wake up.
I knelt, touching his throat, and winced as I felt the lingering warmth of his skin. Blood and a thin film of dust covered my fingers: pixie-sweat. That gave me a time of death. Pixies stop “dusting” when they die, and the glittery traces they leave behind dissolve quickly. He couldn’t have been dead when the lights went out, or the pixie-sweat would have already faded.
The lights came back up too easily to have been sabotaged, but it made no sense for whoever had killed Peter to have also killed the power. The body would have gone undiscovered for hours, maybe even days, if we hadn’t needed to restart the generator. The killer could have had time to make a clean run of it . . . unless they knew that turning off the generators would lead us to the body, and were hoping to lead me—or maybe Jan—straight to Peter. This could have been a trap or a sick display. And, either way, someone wanted us to find the body.
Things were not looking up.
I pressed my fingers to my lips, sampling the blood. Pixie-sweat masked the normal copper taste in a veil of ashes and burnt sugar, cloying, but no more unpleasant than usual. I wasn’t hoping for much, and I wasn’t disappointed. There was nothing in the blood—no life, no memory, nothing. It was empty.
The room only had the one door, plus the small, heavy-glassed window: logically, no one could have left once I was inside. Unfortunately, we were in a faerie knowe, where logic didn’t always apply. I stood, backing out of the room and closing the door behind me. Peter could wait a while—the dead are patient. “Quentin?”
“Here,” he said.
Good. I hadn’t left them to be slaughtered. Pulling the door shut, I turned. “He’s dead.”
Quentin nodded. “Now what?”
“Now we start to work.” I turned toward Jan. “Is there any other way into this room?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Just the one door.”
“Could April have gone inside without using it?”
“Not while the power was out,” said Jan firmly.
“Right. Quentin, set the wards.” He turned to blink at me, surprised. I smiled thinly. “Call it practice.” Practice, and avoiding a headache. As a pureblooded Daoine Sidhe, Quentin’s wards would be stronger than mine, and they’d cost him a lot less.
Nodding with sudden enthusiasm, Quentin stepped over to the closed door and raised his hands. The smell of steel and fresh-blooming heather rose around him, and the outline of the door flashed red, then white. Lowering his hands, he turned to look to me, as if for approval. I flashed him a thumbs-up, and he beamed, looking briefly, deeply, pleased. That was apparently exactly what he’d wanted. At least one of us was happy.
I turned my attention back to Jan. “We’re going to need to move the body, but we can’t do it alone. Let’s go find Elliot.”
“All right,” she said, nodding.
We’d only gone about ten yards when we heard someone running down the intersecting hall ahead of us. I pulled Jan to a stop, signaling for Quentin to get her against the wall, and started forward alone. It could be just another of the locals—but it could also be something worse, and none of us were armed. The best I could do was try to find out without getting us killed.
I had almost reached the corner when Gordan ran into the open, skidding to a stop as she spotted us. She’d obviously left whatever she was doing in a hurry; grease stains smeared her shirt and arms. “What are you doing here? And what are you doing to Jan?”
“Keeping her out of the basement,” I snapped.
“Gordan, it’s all right,” said Jan. “I don’t want to be wandering around alone.”
Gordan’s hands were clean, unlike the rest of her. “What happened?” she demanded. She was glaring, but the bulk of her fury seemed reserved for Quentin. Poor kid.
“Peter’s gone,” Jan said. Gordan’s scowl collapsed, eyes going wide in a suddenly young face. I couldn’t ignore the question there, no matter how much I wanted to.
“He’s dead,” I confirmed, moving to join Jan and Quentin against the wall. “We found him in the generator room just after the power went out. The killer wanted him found.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” Her voice had gone shrill and brassy. “That’s two of us since you got here! There’s almost no one left! Why haven’t you stopped this?”
I put my arm out to stop Quentin even as he started moving forward. “Down, boy.”
“But, Toby—”
“I know. Calm down. I’ll handle it.” He glowered. I turned to Gordan. “We can’t do anything until we know what’s going on. If you’re not going to help, I suggest you leave.”
Gordan stared at us, shivering. I stared back, outwardly calm and inwardly seething.
Finally, Gordan shook her head. “You’re right. But these are our friends . . .”
“And we’ll do our best. But I need to know that we’ll have whatever help we need.”
“You will,” said Jan. Stepping forward, she took Gordan’s hand with surprising tenderness and led her down the hall.
“Come on, Quentin,” I said, and followed, Quentin half a step behind. That was how we progressed through the knowe: Jan at the lead with Gordan leaning on her arm, me just behind, and Quentin following. Three of us jumped at every shadow, while Gordan just walked blindly on. Two deaths in a day seemed to have been a bit too much for her.
Terrie was in the cafeteria when we arrived, standing by the vending machines. Her hair was tousled, and she was yawning, still marked by sleep. Quentin perked up, smiling and waving as if we hadn’t just found a body on the floor of the generator room. I repressed a bolt of bitter irritation, aimed more at her than him. How dare she rest while people were dying?
Jan let go of Gordan’s arm, calling to Terrie, “Peter’s dead. Stay here while I reboot April and get Elliot.” She turned and left, moving too quickly for me to tell her to stop.