Chapter 9 #4
I slid carefully down, unwound the wire from both nails, then checked both Mathi and Eljin were clear before dropping through the skylight. After pulling it closed, I sliced the wire away from the latch and walked down to Mathi, who now stood midway down the room. Eljin lay face down at his feet.
“Thanks for the rescue.” I handed him the wire. “But how come you were already on your way back?”
“Got a message from Dawson. The woman Eljin met was not his sister.”
The anger that swept through me was so fierce, lightning rolled down the knife’s blade and struck angrily at the unconscious man. I pulled it back quickly enough that it didn’t physically touch him, but the anger remained within, a festering darkness that wanted satisfaction.
I stuck the knife back into my purse and rubbed my arms. “Then who is she? Do we think it was Carla in disguise?”
“It wasn’t Carla. Her name is Camille Allard, and she’s married to one René Allard. They have no children, and she’s definitely not a decorator.”
I stared at him for a second, not quite understanding. “Where does Eljin fit in, then? Are they having an affair?”
Amusement stirred through his expression. “Is tea or chocolate deprivation affecting your thought processes right now? Eljin here is René.”
“But—” I waved a hand. “How? Even if he did usurp the identity of the Eljin in that article, the age difference is vast. How the hell could he have gotten around that?”
“Dawson’s still digging, but it’s easy enough to alter records if you have the money and the right forgery contacts.”
“Speaking from experience, are we?”
“Not personal experience, no.”
He roughly pulled Eljin’s—I really couldn’t think of him as René right now—arms behind his back, and quickly bound his thumbs together.
When that was done, he rolled him onto his side, bent him in the middle, and used the remaining length of wire to bind his thumbs to his ankles.
Eljin wasn’t going anywhere without our help.
“Is the wife aware of what he’s doing?” I asked. “Did Dawson speak to her?”
“He spoke to people in the know over there. René and Camille run a discreet but very profitable information collecting service.”
“But...” I repeated, my mind refusing to compute the whole situation. “What woman in their right mind allows their husband to long-term fuck another?”
“One who understands it’s nothing but business. Apparently, sex is their preferred means of mining information, because both René and Camille are dream thieves.”
I nodded. “He did tell me he could get a sense of a person’s past, their dreams, and their motivations, but I just hadn’t followed it through to a logical conclusion. He did say he found me extremely difficult to read.”
“Which is no doubt why they resorted to drugging you.”
“No doubt.” I paused. “I take it their fees are rather high?”
“According to Dawson, their fees start out steep and rise to exorbitant, depending on engagement time and the information required.”
While I was well aware that sex had been used as a means of stealing information for centuries, I’d never expected it to be used against me.
Fury stirred anew, and lightning danced across my fingertips; it was all I could do not to unleash.
Although, given he remained unconscious, unleashing now wouldn’t have been half as much fun.
I sucked in a breath and fought for calm. “I’m obviously a long-term target, which means we’re dealing with someone with very deep pockets.”
“I think it more likely we’re dealing with an overall body of someones, especially if, as we suspect, his employers are connected to the Ninkilim.” He rose and met my gaze. “I contacted Cynwrig. He’s sending Bodhrán here to pick up Eljin once we have finished questioning him.”
“I’m not sure that is the best option right now. Not given Cynwrig’s penchant for disappearing people.”
Mathi smiled. “Then you had best talk to him, because the man is, rather understandably, furious on your behalf.”
“I’m furious on my behalf, but that doesn’t mean I get to kill the bastard.” I lightly toed the still unconscious man and saw his muscles tense slightly. He was waking.
“Oh, Cynwrig doesn’t intend to kill him.” Mathi paused. “Well, I don’t think he does. But tucking the man deep underground for a century or two? More than possible.”
I snorted but didn’t reply as Eljin continued to wake. Though his eyes didn’t open, the small movements of hands and legs suggested he was testing the strength of his bindings.
“You’re bound with wire,” I said. “You won’t be getting free unless I release you.”
“And you can certainly forget the idea of any sort of freedom in the mid to long term,” Mathi added.
“What the hell is going on, Beth?” He tried to roll onto his back—which would have been very uncomfortable, given how he was tied—but Mathi planted a foot in the middle of his spine and kept him still. “Why have you bound me like this? I’ve done nothing—”
“Nothing except lie about who you really are and why you’re really here.
” I stepped forward and touched his neck.
The lightning sparking from my fingertips brushed the skin, and he tensed briefly.
Though it was tempting to let that lightning dance across his body, I once again resisted and reached for my pixie magic instead.
“You will answer every question we ask, you will not shout for help, and you will make no attempt to escape.”
The magic surged through me, then stopped dead at the point where my fingers touched his skin. It didn’t run into him; it certainly didn’t command him.
Either he was wearing some sort of protection against my magic, as Mathi had suggested, or there was elf in his background somewhere. “Where is it, Eljin?”
“Where is what?” His confusion looked real, but then, this was a man for whom deceit was apparently second nature. “Beth, this prank is really getting out of hand. Please, just—”
“René,” I cut in. “The game is up. You have one chance, and one chance only, to come clean with us. Where is the charm protecting you from my magic?”
“There is no charm. I’m quarter elf.” Amusement touched his lips, though his eyes were cold. Calculating. “If you don’t release me, I will yell for help.”
“Feel free,” I said. “I pay the wages of those downstairs, so they’ll be more inclined to listen to me than you.
Besides, we both know that if you were taken into IIT custody, you wouldn’t hold on to life for very long.
Your employers aren’t going to risk any sort of useful information leaving your lips, and Carla is very adept at killing those held in high security, having already killed four prisoners. ”
His gaze narrowed. “You lie.”
“The one thing Beth cannot do is lie successfully,” Mathi said.
“We not only know your identity, René, but we also know the woman you met in London this weekend is in fact your wife rather than your sister. We know the business you both run. What we don’t know is who employed you to steal Bethany’s memories. ”
“If you’ve hurt Camille—”
“You’ll what? Hurt us? Kill us?” I snorted. “In case it’s escaped your notice, you’re trussed up tighter than a duck’s ass. You can’t help yourself, let alone her. Now answer the goddamn question.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me?” he echoed. “As you’ve already noted, that’s probably my fate anyway.”
“At least with us, you have a chance of life after imprisonment, depending, of course, on what happens when Lugh gets wind of the situation. He’s rather protective of his little sister, in case you never realized it.”
He didn’t immediately reply, his gaze sweeping the two of us. There was little in his expression to give away his thoughts. “Carla hired me.”
“Carla is a general, not the leader. We want his name.”
“Well, I can’t give it to you.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” I asked.
“Both.”
The fury rose again, and before I realized what I was doing, the wind swept him up from the floor and flung him back against the wall with enough force to send plaster dust spiraling through the air.
I wanted to do more. I wanted to rip the air from his lungs and leave him gasping.
Wanted to... I sucked in a breath and forced the black tide back down.
This wasn’t who I was, even if it was who my father wanted me to be. Although it did make me wonder, if I ever did go down that path, would the pixie blood curse still apply? Maybe I needed to ask someone, just in case temptation ever overwhelmed restraint.
I eased the wind’s pressure a fraction but didn’t actually release him, leaving him dangling halfway up the wall, head facing down. The man had been drugging me, after all. He deserved a little discomfort.
“In case you have forgotten,” I said, my voice surprisingly even, “I can control the air—the same air that you’re currently breathing. If you want to keep on doing so, you might want to start answering questions.”
“I can’t tell what I don’t know, Bethany, however much you might wish otherwise. I never know the identity of my employer. It is safer for them; safer for me.”
“What about Camille?” Mathi’s voice was flat, which—to anyone who really knew him—was Mathi at his most dangerous. “If she handles the invoicing while you are out on contract, she must have access to detailed financial and identity records.”
Eljin snorted. “You, more than anyone, Mathi, should know how these types of transactions run—burner phones, payments diverted through various shell companies, no direct contact with the contractor.”
I crossed my arms, not believing him for a second. “Every high-priced whore has a pimp who—”
“I’m not a whore,” he cut in angrily.
“Well, the definition of a whore is someone who engages in sex for payment,” I drawled. “Is that not what you were doing with me?”
“A whore is someone who engages in temporary liaisons. I am more a professional escort—”