Cacy’s hand tensed in his as he whirled her around again. “Can you be more specific?”
“All I know is that her research involves how vaccines can be modified to boost people’s immunity to contagious diseases. It’s cutting-edge stuff, I guess. She’s pretty brilliant.”
Cacy’s eyes narrowed as she watched Galena and Moros, but she didn’t say anything else. The song ended, and Moros and Galena were now coming toward them. It was time to let Cacy go. But when Eli tried to let go of her hand, she held on.
“Listen,” she said softly, “I’m sorry about last night. But . . . I need you to know . . . it wasn’t just a ruse.” She squeezed his hand, and Eli got the sudden impression she was only saying a fraction of what was on her mind. Then she turned abruptly and walked back to her table, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the dance floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cacy was wound tight as hell by the time she made it back to her table. Her thoughts were on fire. First, she’d never seen anyone look as good in a tux as Eli did.
He was here with his sister. An immunologist. Apparently, a fairly prominent one. And that was the second thing that had Cacy on edge—Moros seemed really interested in Galena, and it raised her suspicions into the red zone. This could not be a coincidence; it had to be what Moros didn’t want to tell her when they met at Bart’s. It was all coming together in Cacy’s mind . . . Moros’s plans to meet with her father in Cambridge, her father standing in the Veil outside Eli’s apartment, the Ker looking in Eli’s window, and now this. Cacy felt like she was standing at the precipice of a huge cliff, about to tumble into something vast and dangerous.
She sank into her chair and reached for a glass of wine as Moros patted Galena’s shoulder and pulled out her chair before seating himself next to her. Cacy glanced at her siblings. Rylan and Aislin were watching Moros, too, but Dec’s eyes were scanning the crowd. “He brought friends,” he said quietly.
Cacy followed the sweep of his gaze and spotted a few Kere sitting at a table near the rear of the room. Luke looked slickly handsome in his tux. The female Ker next to him was wearing a god-awful flouncy pink dress, like she was doing her best to look soft and human. Her name was Jill and, like Luke, she had a fondness for illness. Hemorrhagic fevers, specifically. Next to Jill sat a young guy with brown hair. Cacy didn’t recognize him. He was either a Ker . . . or a very unlucky human.
“Since when do the Kere attend fund-raisers?” Cacy whispered.
Before Dec could respond, a gaunt, ridiculously tall man with huge glasses skittered up to the podium at the front of the room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in a low, nasally voice. “It is my pleasure to welcome you here tonight to celebrate excellence in higher education . . .”
As he talked, Cacy watched Eli. His hand was curled protectively over Galena’s as he listened to the speaker. Every once in a while, he glanced over at his sister with a worried glint in his eyes. Cacy sighed. He’d given her that look a few times, and it had felt amazing, like he would lay his life on the line for her.
“. . . and to show you how well your contributions are spent, please welcome Harvard’s newest brilliant addition to its immunology department, Dr. Galena Margolis.”
Galena rose to the sound of polite applause and walked to the podium. The audience quieted quickly, no doubt expecting yet another boring speech from a dry academic. Galena tapped the display on the podium a few times, and a three-dimensional squiggle appeared next to her, swirling slowly. It looked like some type of single-celled organism.
She smiled at it like it was a good friend and said, “When I began my research five years ago, I dreamed this day would come. Every night, I prayed for it. Every day, I worked for it beside my wonderful colleagues. Every spare moment, I thought about it. No matter what happened in my life, I clung to that dream. I was fortunate to have the support of my loving family”—her eyes found Eli’s—“along with the University of Pittsburgh, and I’m thrilled to be continuing my work here at Harvard and sharing my hopes with you all tonight. I am proud to have finally made enough progress in my research to be able to say this with some confidence: My friends, imagine a world without contagious disease.”
Cacy sat bolt upright in her chair. As Galena talked about her research and its potential, how her method for creating customized automutating multicure vaccines might end viral and bacterial outbreaks forever, Cacy realized exactly why Moros was interested.
Eli’s sister was about to put a serious dent in the death industry.
In the last fifty years since the great floods, new viral and bacterial illnesses had emerged every year, mutating at rates that prevented development of effective vaccines. Nearly a billion people had died. This wave of early death had created a boom for the Ferrys and the Kere, filling their vaults with gold from the Keepers of the Afterlife, letting them live in luxury while the rest of the world teetered on the brink of disaster. If Galena had really discovered the way to create vaccines that mutated right along with the illnesses for each specific person, she might cut the worldwide death rate by at least a third. That meant a major, immediate loss of income for the Kere.
And the Ferrys.
Trying not to be too obvious, Cacy looked over at her siblings. Aislin’s body posture was even more rigid than usual. Rylan was staring at Moros. And Dec . . . he was staring at Galena with an intensity Cacy had never seen before. She knew her siblings well enough to know they understood the significance of Galena’s research. What wasn’t clear: Had they known about it ahead of time? And how did they feel about it?
Galena finished her speech, and the applause was significantly louder this time. Eli stood up, holding his arms out to Galena. She stepped into them and accepted his hug with a sweet, relieved look on her face. Cacy tried to ignore a twinge of envy. She knew that being in Eli’s arms made a person feel safe, and she could use that feeling right now.
Waiters carrying their loaded trays came up the paths between tables, and everyone settled into conversation.
“Well,” laughed Rylan, raising his eyebrows. “That was interesting.”
Dec cleared his throat and sat back. Every line of him was practically vibrating with tension. “Very. I’m out of here.” He drained his wine in one gulp, set his glass on the table, and stalked out of the hall. As he passed by the tables in the back of the room, Cacy noticed that the Kere were gone, too.
Without a word, Aislin rose to her feet and crossed the room. Moros saw her coming and stood up. He had a charming, relaxed smile on his face, but his eyes were intense with emotion as he watched her approach. After a slight bow, he held out his arm and escorted Aislin out of the room.
“What is that about?” asked Cacy, her hands closing hard over her knees. It would be just like Aislin to try to make some sort of slimy deal with Moros. When one vulnerable mortal was poised to singlehandedly deliver a massive financial blow to some of the scariest and most powerful creatures in the known world, that deal might involve breaking some of their ancient rules. Like only Marking someone who was fated to die. Like not interfering with the course of human events. If Aislin was able to negotiate directly with Moros to kill Galena and keep their profits high, she might be able to get the family shareholders to overturn their father’s succession decision and put her in place as the CEO.
A perfect corporate coup.
Rylan couldn’t possibly be oblivious to Aislin’s plotting, but he showed no signs of anxiety as he picked up his fork and speared a potato. “Cacy, I wanted to talk to you about Deb and Peter.” He gave her a sidelong glance.
“I already know they’re gone,” she said quietly. “Aislin called me to headquarters today.”
“Did she tell you we suspect foul play?”
Cacy nodded. “She said she went with you to escort their souls.”
“More like she insisted on coming with me.”
Cac
y stared at a twinkling blown-glass squiggle hanging from one of the branches of the centerpiece. Had Aislin not trusted Rylan to go by himself? Or had she been afraid Deb and Peter might say something incriminating? At that exact moment, Eli glanced over at them, and his eyes met Cacy’s. She suddenly wished everything else would disappear and leave her alone with him, if only for a few minutes. But with this new—and utterly mind-blowing—complication, it didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon.
Rylan chuckled, a stark contrast to his dire statement of a second ago. “He looked at you that way at the funeral as well. Any chance you’re off the wagon?” She’d told Rylan all about how she’d sworn off men when he’d tried to set her up with one of his bodyguards.
“No. I’m still riding it.” She tried to smile, but it felt painful.
Rylan took a sip of wine and put his arm around the back of Cacy’s chair. “You could do worse.”
She slapped his chest lightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looked down at her, his brown eyes soft. “It means I think you’ve been lonely, and Eli seems like a very nice young man. It looks like he cares about you. Maybe you should get to know him a little better.”
In spite of herself, she smiled. “I would. I mean, I want to. But after tonight—”
Rylan’s expression hardened. “Are you worried about who killed Father, or are you worried about someone trying to stop Dr. Margolis?”
“Both,” Cacy said, her eyes wandering back in Eli’s direction.
Rylan fingered the stem of his wineglass. “If you knew I was taking care of it, could you relax and allow yourself to have some fun for once?”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Maybe.”
“Well then, I’m handling it. But I could use more information. Have you uncovered anything in Father’s files? Maybe who he met with in the week before he died. His financial records. Any hint of where he stood on this Dr. Margolis thing. It must have been on his mind—and his agenda.” He obviously remembered their father’s soul had been near the Harvard campus in the Veil. And he clearly recognized the implications of Galena’s scientific discoveries. But there were things Rylan didn’t know—the Ker looking in Eli’s window, for one. He also hadn’t heard their father’s final words to Cacy . . . Protecting the future is more important than righting the wrongs of the past.
She knew exactly where her father stood—on the night of his death, her father had told her what he wanted her to do. He wanted Cacy to worry less about figuring out his death and more about protecting Galena. She was almost certain that was what he’d been trying to tell her. Patrick Ferry had a reputation as a calculating, ruthless Charon, but in the last fifteen years, he’d also plowed billions into charity and been unrelenting about obeying the rules of the treaty. About making sure what happened was meant to be. Cacy thought she knew why, too. Her father wanted to make sure he got to Heaven. He’d been trying to get back to Cacy’s mother.
Cacy looked up at Rylan, so strong, so burdened by managing a complicated corporate and supernatural empire, possibly while his own COO was trying to undermine him. Part of Cacy wanted to lay everything in her big brother’s lap, just hand it over to him and focus on Galena. But part of her also wanted to figure it out herself—she wanted to prove she was worthy of the responsibility her father had given her. Like everyone else, Cacy didn’t know why he’d trusted her with managing his estate or protecting Galena, but she did know Patrick Ferry never did anything without a reason.
She hugged Rylan. “I have to finish going through his records. He didn’t talk to you about Dr. Margolis and her research?”
Rylan shrugged. “I guess he wanted to keep that one to himself until a decision was made.”
She’d suspected something like this before, but now she knew exactly what Final Decision must have meant. Her father had been planning to meet with Moros to decide what to do about Galena Margolis. “Did you know he was planning to meet with Moros in Cambridge the night of his death? That’s where he was headed when he was killed.”
Rylan’s arm grew tight around her shoulders. “How do you know all this?”
“After I talked with Debra, I met with Moros,” she admitted.
Rylan turned to her and clutched her shoulders. “Cacy, you are getting in way over your head. He could be responsible for all this. Do you know what he could have done to you?”
She bowed her head and pulled away. “I can handle it. I’m a grown-up, Ry.”
He chuckled and put his hand on her shoulder again, and this time it was warm and protective. “But you’ll always be my little sister. You haven’t been swimming in these waters as long as I have, Cacy. Compared to me, you are a child. I was at Father’s side for nearly eighty years. Long enough to see what Moros is capable of. He may not be able to Mark you, but he can hurt you in ways you can’t possibly imagine, no matter how much you think you know. Chances are we’ve got a conspiracy on our hands, and it could involve absolutely anyone. Even if Father was Marked by Moros or one of his Kere, I’m betting someone at Psychopomps bribed his driver and deleted the footage. Please, let me handle this.”
A child. The words echoed in her ears. She didn’t feel like a child. She hadn’t felt like a child since her mother died and left her alone with her grieving father. Rylan had been too busy climbing the corporate ladder to pay much attention to what was happening at home. Aislin too. And Dec had just been promoted to Chief at the Chinatown EMS station when their mother died. They hadn’t been the ones who helped their father stumble to bed after drinking bottle after bottle of whiskey to numb his pain. They hadn’t borne the responsibility of making him happy again. She might only be twenty-five, which was young for a Ferry, but she was no child. Cacy brought her wineglass to her lips, staring into the sparkling ruby depths. “Message received, Rylan.”
Cacy walked the soft gray streets outside Eli’s apartment building. She was still wearing her party dress, which had been stupid, because she’d started shivering as soon as she’d entered the Veil.
She wasn’t allowing herself to go into the building—or into the real world. She wasn’t allowing herself to stalk Eli, no matter how badly she wanted to. But she was too worried about him and Galena to go back home. She’d called Moros as she left the fund-raiser and demanded another meeting. Until then, she would stand guard. She wasn’t sure exactly what she would do if a Ker showed up, but she would figure it out. She was prepared to involve the Keepers of the Afterlife if she had to.
Her high heels kept sinking into the squishy sidewalk, so she leaned against a bench and pulled them off. A soft, slurping sound on her right made her instinctively duck behind the bench. Someone was coming through a portal.
Another Ferry.
But there were no souls around here who needed to be guided to the Afterlife.
A shimmering ring was hovering about half a block away, and from it emerged one of the last people she would have expected to see. He lowered the ring to the ground and stepped over its boundaries before picking it up and compacting it in his hands. His gaze raked the area around them but didn’t slow as it passed the bench where Cacy was hiding. He hadn’t seen her.
Still looking back and forth, he climbed the steps to Eli’s apartment and sank through the front door of the building. Cacy stood up, stunned.
What the hell was Dec doing?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
When Eli got to the EMS station for his shift on Sunday evening, Dec was waiting for him.
“I need you in my office for a minute, Sergeant,” he said, then he turned and walked down the hall.
Eli followed, steeling himself. He was going to get transferred—he just knew it; he’d been thinking about it all weekend, trying to force himself to be okay with it.
After the fund-raiser the night before, where he’d danced with Cacy, held her in his arms again, seen her gorgeo
us smile, and listened to her say words he’d needed to hear—that it wasn’t just a distraction, that she wanted him, too—he’d understood this would be painful.
He wondered if Dec would give him a chance to say good-bye to her, or if he was going to ship him off to another station immediately.
Dec gestured to a chair in the corner of his cramped office. “Have a seat, Eli.”
Eli sat. Dec remained standing. His expression was somber. “I’ve talked to Len, Manny, and Gil. They said you had a few things to say about Cacy that night at Bart’s. Len said you were bragging about how you planned to fuck my little sister while I was too drunk to notice.”
Eli shot to his feet before he could stop himself, blood pounding in his ears. “They’re lying, sir. I’d never say that about any woman. And Cacy—”
Dec stepped forward, looking Eli hard in the eye. “What about Cacy, Eli? Anything you want to tell me?”
Eli looked away and sank back down in his chair. “I would never hurt her, Chief. And I have more respect for her than I can say.”
“You’re saying my night supervisor is lying. You’d swear to it.” Dec’s voice was quiet but dangerous.
“I would swear to it.” Eli kept his gaze rooted on Dec’s boots.
“Then tell me what happened.”
Eli sighed. As much as he hated Len, the asshole was a decent paramedic, and Eli had no desire to ruin a career. “Just stupid guy talk, sir. I can’t really remember.” He pointed to where he’d hit his head.
“I think you remember more than you’re saying. But it’s damn honorable of you to protect them after what they did to you.”
Eli’s head shot up. “What?”
Dec smiled grimly. “Someone overheard you and told me what happened.”
Eli sagged with relief. He could deal with being transferred, but he didn’t think he could live with Dec thinking he’d said those awful things about Cacy.