Freya took the photograph. “I’ll ask around. See if anyone knows any of those boys she was with that night. But I’m sure Molly’s fine. She’ll probably get back this afternoon.”
chapter twenty-four
Angel of Death
When Ingrid arrived at work on Monday morning, in the stack of interoffice mail she found a memo from the mayor’s office informing her that due to limited funds, the city council had cut the library budget again, which meant cutting more hours from the schedule. They were running on fumes as is. The mayor had included a personal note asking for her support of the plan to sell the library during the council meeting at the end of the summer. His smugness and condescension were infuriating. She balled up the letter and threw it across the room.
It was an awful way to begin what was already an awful day; the only redeeming factor was the fact that Caitlin had called in sick, so at least she would not have to hear every excruciating detail about Caitlin and Matt’s night of love. While she did not have Freya’s gift for affecting her surroundings, her coworkers understood enough to steer clear of her that day. She was not in the mood to perform her usual witchy duties either, and told Hudson to let everyone know to come back tomorrow instead.
Ingrid busied herself with steaming and studying the Gardiner prints and communicating with her source, whom she had sent scans of each page for review. She had gone through the whole set and found dozens of those scroll-like key tags; they were everywhere in the entire plan, and their meaning was still a mystery. Just to be sure, she had consulted one of the architects who frequented the library to make sure it wasn’t a design key they had used in the past. He had confirmed that he had never seen anything like it before.
She rolled up the piece of paper and put it aside for now. From the front office, she heard a cold, clear female voice say, “I’m sorry but I insist that she see me.”
A few minutes later, when Hudson walked into her office, his face was vacant, his eyes glazed. “You have to make time for her,” he said in a flat voice. He left the room and a beautiful blond girl let herself inside, walking with a confidence and a carriage that immediately put Ingrid on the defensive.
Her visitor was about eighteen years old, with hard green eyes and long thick platinum hair that fell down her back. She smelled of power and pampering and the cushion of wealth that surrounded those who were accustomed to the most lavish privilege. Ingrid noticed immediately that there was something more to this girl. She was one of the Fallen. A Blue Blood, an immortal vampire, one of the lost children of the Almighty.
“You’re not from here,” Ingrid said sharply. “And I don’t like my friends to be played with like toys. Your people might have been granted exemption to practice your brand of sorcery but I won’t have it in my library, especially if you’re looking for help with your cause. It’s a hopeless one, if you ask me.”
“Relax, Erda, I’m not here for redemption,” the girl said, taking a seat across from her desk and looking around contemptuously at the shabby surroundings.
“Good, because that’s certainly out of our jurisdiction.” Ingrid frowned, annoyed that she had been called by her true immortal name. The Beauchamps hardly used their real names anymore; they had gone out of fashion and it would draw too much attention, something the Council had warned them not to do. Of course, Freya had stubbornly kept her name all these long years, which was just as well since it was pretty, like everything else about her sister.
“And so what can I do for you, Madeleine Force?” Ingrid refused to do the same and addressed the child by the name given the vampire in her heavenly past. They were in North Hampton now, in the early twenty-first century. None of that mattered anymore.
The girl settled back on the chair and crossed her tanned legs. “You know who I am.” She looked around with a smug air. “Interesting choice of environment, the armpit of the Hamptons. But this isn’t really the Hamptons, is it? Clever use of a disorienting space. Lucky I had a friend who can sniff them out somehow. Took us a while but we found this sad excuse of a town. That honky-tonk bar at our hotel was quite the scene on Friday night. You should tell your sister to cool it down a bit. I don’t mind getting spilled on once, but three times in one evening is too much even for my hardworking dry cleaner.”
Ingrid bristled. “What do you want, Mimi? That is what you’re called these days, isn’t it? I read the tabloids.”
“I want the same thing you’re doling out to the legions of unworthy. Help.” Mimi lost her cool façade for a bit, and her face became grave as she tugged the hem of her skirt over her knee.
“What makes you think I would help you? The treaty between our kind doesn’t cover that sort of thing, you know that. Plus, I’m bound by our restriction, if you know your history.” Ingrid bristled.
“Oh, I don’t need your silly magic. Oliver had to talk me into meeting you, even. Apparently he’s met your sister before. Not that she remembered him last night, the sad sap. He was so disappointed.” She leaned over the desk and drummed her manicured fingernails in expectation.
Ingrid steeled a desire to swat her hand away. “So if you don’t need my magic, what are you here for?”
“I need to get a soul out of the Underworld. Trapped below the seventh circle by a subvertio. I’ve already tried and failed once before. I don’t mean to let it happen again.”
“You know the rules. Once the soul has been bound to Helda beyond the seventh, it is hers forever.” Ingrid sniffed. “You’re wasting your time; it’s impossible. Those are the laws of the universe.”
“But there’s got to be a way. A barter, an exchange, something,” Mimi said, desperation creeping into her voice. “I thought you might know. You guys have been around the longest.”
The witch sighed. The Fallen and their problems did not concern her. But Ingrid knew that if she did not get rid of this pesky vampire Mimi was likely to use her powers in the glom to cause disturbance and havoc around town—if she hadn’t already. Ingrid had her staff to worry about, not to mention the rest of the community. Sure, the rebel angels had been cast out of Paradise, but they had been practically given mid-world: they ran the whole show down here, while Ingrid’s people had been banished to the fringes. Mimi Force had no business toying with the Kingdom of the Dead.
“Please, Erda. I’m begging,” Mimi said, tears suddenly springing to her eyes. “I love him. I can’t lose Kingsley. If you have anything to share, anything that can help . . . I would be in your debt forever.”
Ingrid sighed. “Fine. There is a way to recover a soul beyond the subvertio. The Orpheus Amendment. Do you know it?”
“I thought that was just a myth,” Mimi scoffed.
“Sweetie, you’re a myth yourself,” Ingrid snapped. “Helda made an exception once, and since then the Orpheus Amendment has stood. Same rules apply. One look back and it’s over.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll take that risk,” Mimi said. She stood up and shook Ingrid’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Oh, and one more thing I forgot to tell you. The Orpheus Amendment demands a sacrifice in payment for the release of a soul,” Ingrid said.
“A soul for a soul,” Mimi nodded, looking sly. “Don’t worry, I was already aware of that part of it. I would never descend into Hell unprepared.”
Ingrid hoped she had not made a mistake in helping the young vampire. The Fallen could be a dangerous enemy and she was glad to see her go. In the end Mimi Force had wanted the same thing from Ingrid that her human counterparts did: a way out of an impossible situation. Ingrid could only point in the right direction. The rest was up to them.
chapter twenty-five
Finger-Pointing
Aside from the recent death of the socialite and Bill Thatcher’s bludgeoning, there had been no murders recorded in North Hampton since its settlement. Freya did not watch the news unless someone had the television set to a news channel, nor did she read the newspapers, so she did not know that Mol
ly Lancaster was officially a missing person until Sal happened to mention to her the following week that the boys who were with Molly that night at the bar had been brought in for questioning by the district attorney.
“Wait—you’re telling me they think those boys had something to do with Molly’s disappearance?”
“Where have you been all week?” Sal scoffed, shaking the paper at her. He was better after his bout with what had turned out to be the flu, but his cheeks were still red and his eyes runny. He also seemed to have lost part of his good humor. When he returned to work he was short-tempered and easily annoyed.
Freya didn’t answer and continued to mix coltsfoot and columbine together for a new concoction. Bran was still away; they had been able to speak to each other briefly the other evening, but the connection had been bad and all she heard was gurgling and hissing from the wire. He felt farther and farther away from her every day. She had tried hard to avoid seeing Killian again, although he appeared in her dreams every night. If only she could see Bran again, but he would not return for a few more weeks.
She read the headline story: Derek Adam, Miles Ashleigh, Jock Pemberton, and Hollis Arthur had been brought in for questioning. Witnesses who were at the North Inn the night before the Fourth of July told the police that Molly acted out of character that evening, dancing wildly and “flirting with every boy in the place.” She had left the bar with Derek in Jock’s car with Miles and Hollis in the backseat. Through his lawyer, Derek declared that he and Molly had gone down to the beach to make out, but that he had left her there because she told him she had to meet someone else at the beach, a story that no one, including the reporter who intimated that the boys were lying to save their skins, was likely to believe. The boys ranged in age from nineteen to twenty-three years old, rich college kids whose families had deep North Hampton roots. The lead police investigator on the case, Matthew Noble, would not make any comment.
“Those poor boys,” Freya murmured.
“Boys?” Sal huffed. “They’re gonna fry. Who’s going to believe they just left that girl down at that beach? Please, you know they killed her and hid the body. They’re guilty.”
Freya looked up. She hadn’t realized she had spoken out loud and wondered why she felt sympathy for the suspects. Then she realized: she believed them. Molly had taken an Irresistible potion, a concoction that could never bring about any harm or violence to its taker. Freya had seen to that when she made it; it came built in with a powerful protection spell to make sure this sort of thing never happened. Whatever happened to Molly that evening had nothing to do with the love potion, which meant it had nothing to do with the boys she met at the bar.
She was certain the boys were telling the truth, that they didn’t kill Molly. But how could she prove it?
She tried to recall whom she had seen at the bar that evening, if she had picked up anything, any sign of distress or intent, but she wasn’t Ingrid, a seer, someone who could peer into a person’s future, into their lifeline. If Ingrid had been there, would she have seen what type of darkness would soon claim Molly? But who knew if Molly was even in danger? She was an adult; what if she just decided to disappear on her own? It was possible. Could everyone just be jumping to conclusions?
“I think we better put these away for now,” Sal said, picking up the laminated potions menu. He read the newspaper over her shoulder and pointed to the damning sentence in the middle of the paragraph, reading it aloud. “ ‘The girls said that there must have been something in Molly’s drink that made her so wild. Some kind of crazy potion.’ Hear that, Freya? Some kind of crazy cocktail from the North Inn made her act slutty, they’re saying. They’ll come after us for sure.”
“No, they won’t.” Freya shook her head, aghast. How could anyone believe that? Besides, how could anyone think a cocktail could lead to her disappearance? It was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? She tried to remember what happened that night—she could picture every moment clearly, saw Killian enter the bar, snuggling with her a little too close behind the counter; she saw herself making the potion, Killian by her side. Could it be possible that she had put in too much vetiver root? And if she did, what of it? It wasn’t a harmful herb; it was only there to enhance the drinker’s desirability. It seemed highly unlikely that it could cause any harm. Of course, magic was unpredictable, and there was a possibility that something might have gone wrong. But she had seen nothing in the boys’ spirits that night except for raucous enthusiasm for the evening’s delights and the usual schoolboy excitement caused by the presence of pretty girls. If one of them was a killer she would have seen it. She always did. Except for Bill Thatcher. No one had solved that particular murder yet and the police seemed to be as clueless as they had been when it happened. There was no hope for his wife, either. Maura’s family was talking about pulling the plug.
All right. She had to try harder to remember. Who else had been at the bar on Friday night? It was all a blur; there was a blank haze over her memory, perhaps a side effect of the guilt she felt for cheating on Bran. She felt sick, like she wasn’t herself. She should have paid attention. Maybe if she wasn’t so busy making out with Killian all weekend she would have noticed something. Now Molly had disappeared and boys whom she had joked with and liked were under suspicion.
“You’ll see. We should keep our heads low. Only a matter of time.”
Freya felt a darkness settling into the room. “You think my cocktail killed her, Sal?”
“Course not,” Sal sniffed. “I don’t know what you put in those drinks, but they are potent. Lots of people been talking, mostly about how good they make them feel, how they’ve met the love of their lives in our little bar. But I think people here are going to want an answer. And those are rich boys. Their parents are going to find every scapegoat they can. You be careful, maybe take a few days off.”
chapter twenty-six
The Worm Turns
A week after Freya was encouraged to take an unwanted leave of absence, Ingrid was contemplating quitting her job altogether. And without it, what would she have? For Ingrid, if work was unbearable there was no reason to live. She never had much of a home life in the first place and she missed her sister’s sparkling company. Before Freya met Bran, Ingrid could count on her sister for movie nights, the occasional dinner or two. But ever since the engagement Freya was hardly home, even with Bran away in the city or on trips so much. Ingrid wondered about that; she thought Freya would miss him more, but she had the same red cheeks, dreamy expression, and late nights whether he was in town or not. Maybe they were having a lot of . . . what did they call it? Phone sex? Ingrid shuddered. Lately Freya had seemed out of sorts and agitated, however, so maybe the separation was beginning to take a toll.
As for where Joanna had gone, Ingrid could not even hazard a guess. Her mother was somewhere her cell phone service did not reach apparently, since calls to Joanna went straight to voice mail. Ingrid could always use the underlayer to probe for her location, or maybe send Oscar to look for her, but Ingrid had a feeling her mother wanted her privacy.
Ingrid never felt lonely, not when she had so many books to read and such good friends at the library, a job that she had looked forward to every morning for the past seven years. She knew that her mother believed that she was wasting her time, her skills, her intellect, her everything, working in some pokey small-town library, and that Freya thought it was all so incredibly boring. But to Ingrid, her library was her home; yet for the last several weeks she had been going to work with a heavy heart, and she wondered if maybe her mother and sister were right. If maybe it was time to quit. Practicing magic again had returned excitement and purpose to her life, but she did not have to do it in the library. She could set up her own clinic, a proper one, with an office, a schedule, and a receptionist. There were so many things she could do with her magic other than cure nightmares and help women conceive.
On a lighter note, since the Fourth of July, however, Ingrid had noticed there was less of that gray
darkness in people’s spirits. Maybe it was dissipating from the town; even that weird toxic sludge in the middle of the ocean had stopped moving, and the latest reports said it looked as if it were finally shrinking. Although the latest news reports said that a similar mass recently reappeared near the Alaskan coastline.
She parked her bike and chained it to her usual post. Hudson’s bike was already in its place. The door was open, the lights were on, and everything was bright and orderly. “Good morning,” she said, trying for cheerfulness as she walked to her desk.
“Morning.” Hudson yawned.
“Hi, Ingrid.” Tabitha smiled. She was only in her second month and enjoying every minute of it, even the wretched morning sickness and the inability to eat anything but tea and crackers and still look puffy.
There was nothing from Caitlin but stony silence. Ingrid ignored it, as she didn’t much care what the latest drama was in that particular romance novel. For the past week Ingrid had had to endure Caitlin’s prattle about how she and Matt were going away for a romantic weekend later that month, to a bed-and-breakfast in Martha’s Vineyard. Caitlin had regaled Hudson and Tabitha with the details of her trousseau—lingerie, champagne, the works. Hudson had fun modeling the nipple covers, while Tabitha gave too-earnest pointers on the advantages of lubricant and other erotic accoutrements including a much-too-detailed description of various handcuffs, metal rings, and electronic devices. It was right about then that Ingrid had begun to question her commitment to the job. Either she would have to fire Caitlin or quit herself. But she could not take one more day of the entire office sending the girl off to romance nirvana with condom banners flying.
When Caitlin left the room, Ingrid texted Hudson.
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He swiveled around, a wicked grin on his face. He motioned to Tabitha to shut the door. “You haven’t heard?” he whispered.