Fire Me Up
Page 29

"Maybe she's just trying to avoid you," Jim suggested, eyeing a plate containing a half-eaten sandwich that had been carelessly tossed onto a table bearing bottles of water. "Maybe you're a social pariah. Maybe word has gotten out to all Guardian mentors that you've got a badass demon in handsome dog form and a dragon who practically makes you drool when you look at him."
"I don't drool when I look at Drake." Jim cocked aneyebrow at me. "I don't! I was just hungry, and that chicken smelled yummy. And thank you for the lovely vote of confidence, but I don't believe Moa is trying to hide from me. If she changed her mind about meeting with me, she'd tell me. I think. Maybe I'll try the front desk and see if she left word for me there."
It wasn't until I had the bright idea of trying the room number that she'd mentioned earlier that the truth struck me: There was something about Europe—or rather, me in a European country—that was damned. Cursed. Bad to the bone, baby.
"What's going on?" Jim and I stopped about twenty feet away from the door to what I assumed was Moa's room. A small crowd of hotel maids, a couple of conference attendees, and police officials blocked the hallway.
The person in front of me turned. It was Marvabelle, drat my luck. "Why, if it isn't Ashley. Hank, look. It's Ashley and that talkin' dawg of hers."
Hank gave me a weak smile before hurriedly stepping out of the way to allow two men bearing a stretcher to pass.
"Is someone hurt?" A horrible feeling filled the pit of my belly, wrestling with the chicken and tapenade and crunchy Chinese noodles that had been served with lunch. "It's not Moa, is it?"
Marvabelle gave me an odd look. "Now, fancy you knowinI that. Hank, fancy her knowin' that."
"Oh, god," I said, fighting a bout of nausea as the men bearing the stretcher reappeared. A heavy black wool blanket was draped over the person on the stretcher, not in a keep-away-shock sort of way, but in a covered-head-to-toe way. "She's dead, isn't she? Moa's dead."
"Yes, she is. Killed, they say, by person or persons unknown." Marvabelle looked me up and down, her eyes glistening with an unholy delight. The sight of it added to my already nervous state. Someone had killed Moa? Lovely, elegant Moa? I looked around at the now scattering crowd of people, the maids standing together in a tight clutch, speaking almost soundlessly, the police disappearing back into the hotel room. The few remaining GODTAMers drifted past me. Who on earth could want to kill Moa?
Marvabelle's nasal voice pierced my horrified musings. "It's said that a woman and a big black dog were the last to see the Guardian alive."
My mouth, which I admit has a tendency to hang open when people more or less accuse me of being an accessory to murder, if not the murderer herself, did, in fact, gape slightly for the passing of a few seconds while I stared in disbelief at Marvabelle.
"The police will detain you for several hours in a small, windowless room. You will receive a sliver there," a man said as he strolled past.
"Oh, no, not you again," I growled, glaring at the back of the head of the blond Diviner named Paolo. I would have followed him and asked him just what it was he had against me, but at that moment a policewoman stepped from the hotel room and glanced toward where we stood.
"The police are going to detain you for several hours— is that what that man said?" Marvabelle asked at the top of her lungs, shooting a triumphant glance toward the policewoman. "Could that be because they realize that you, Aisling Grey, were the very last livin' soul to see that poor Guardian alive? What is it they say about the last person to see a person before they are killed, Hank?"
The policewoman pulled out a notebook and riffled through the pages before snapping it shut and starting toward us.
Hank had the grace to Look ashamed as he sidled past me. "Come along, Ma. There's that panel on water scrying you wanted to see."
"I'm sure it is somethin' about the last person to see a murder victim bein' the likeliest person to have killed them," Marvabelle said as Hank led her away.
Despite the policewoman bearing down on us, I felt obligated to set Marvabelle straight on a few things. "Look, I've been a murder suspect before, so it's nothing new and exciting. Been there, done that, figured out who the real killer was." Jim's cold nose nudged my hand. I turned to face the policewoman. "Um. Hi. I expect you'd like to talk to me, huh?"
"You are Aisling Grey? You will please to come with me. We are wishing to question you about the death of the woman named Moa Haraldsson."
I'll say this for Paolo—his interpersonal skills might not ever enchant me, but he's damned uncanny when it comes to predicting my immediate future.
By the time the police released Jim and me (the former having been ordered into silence, since I was not up to explaining to non-Otherworldians just how I came to have a wisecracking Newfie), a pale moon shone weakly in the night sky.
"I am so hungry, I could eat a skrat," Jim complained as we emerged from the depths of the police station. Worn out by the five hours of questioning, I stopped on the steps outside, sucking the tiny puncture wound on my thumb. Jim slid a glance at me. "How's the finger?"
"Fine now that Detective Lakatos finally trusted me with a needle so I could dig the sliver out." I stopped sucking my thumb and looked around, my stomach growling audibly. "I'm hungry, too. Since we've long since missed the dinner banquet, I suppose we could stop at a fast-food place before going back to the hotel. What's a skrat?"
"House spirit. Looks like a wet chicken. You'd think that Detective Lakatos could have fed us."
I shrugged and started down the stairs. "I didn't expect food, but a cup of coffee or tea might have been nice."
Jim snickered as I hesitated on the sidewalk, unsure of which way I'd stand the best chance of finding a taxi. "Maybe she didn't offer anything because she was Lakatos intolerant. Lactose. Detective Lakatos, Get it? Ha! I kill me sometimes."
"If only," I said at the same moment a long black limo purred to a stop beside me. A tinted window slid downward with a soft electric hum.
"Would you, by any chance, be looking for a ride?" Drake asked.
I made a little face at him. "Why am I not surprised to see you?"
He smiled as the door nearest me clicked open. Inside I could see that Drake was not alone—Gabriel grinned at me from where he sat, next to a haughty Chuan Ren. "Perhaps you know it is because I would never leave my mate in a position of vulnerability? Then again, if you did not persist in following this foolish course of action, you would not have found yourself in such an untenable position."