CHAPTER NINE #2
Keen took his demon partner to the sea – or close to it, anyway.
Down by the docks, with their forests of tall masts rising above sleek, varnished hulls, crying birds wheeling avariciously overhead.
Ships’ bells tolling with the rhythm of the waves.
The scent of brine on the breeze, the lapping of water against wood.
A calm place. Definitely not a place for violence.
He found a bench looking out over the harbor and the boats bringing in the afternoon catch.
Not commercial boats; these were locals – potential witnesses – out for a fine day of fishing.
Soon, their catches would stretch out along the boardwalk, fat and glistening, to be weighed and measured and exclaimed over.
He studied his soporific partner, watching for signs that she was coming out of the Serenity potion.
She seemed quiescent, staring out at the glittering water, the sun behind them dipping fast toward the horizon.
A chill breeze blew from the west, the false summer loosening its grip as evening approached.
“I know what you did back there,” she said, her words slurred.
Keen grimaced. “You didn’t leave me much choice. Was I supposed to let you attack the revered mother?”
She snorted softly, petulantly. “No great loss. She’s probably our murderer.”
“So that makes it right to execute her? We are officers of the law, Inspector.”
“How very proper,” she said, giving him a burning side-eye. “Your demonhunter compatriots weren’t about to give me a trial, last time I dealt with them. No rights for the wicked, eh?”
It took some effort not to squirm with discomfort, though it shouldn’t have bothered him.
She had been an unrepentant arsonist, guilty of attempted murder, imbued with demonic power.
There were no laws protecting someone like her.
Yet somehow he knew she was right: The law had to be for everyone or for no one.
But he wasn’t about to admit that to her.
“It’s fortuitous that we’re here,” he said, changing the subject. “I believe Catarine’s brothers work the docks. We should question them, yes?”
There was a beat before she answered – Serenity muddled the mind. “Chief Dewey spoke with them when Catarine’s body was discovered. It’s in the report.”
Of course. “Shouldn’t we speak with them, too?” he asked, unwilling to admit that he hadn’t read the report yet. Not thoroughly, anyway. Stupid . “Perhaps they’ll be more forthcoming with us than they would be with the local PKs?”
She made a dismissive noise. Then, brightly: “I have a better idea.”
She stood abruptly and nearly tipped forward over the edge of the dock.
A hiss slid from her and he rethought reaching out to grab her arm.
“Your blasted potion better wear off soon,” she warned him, recovering her balance with a little help from her ebony cane.
She turned on him, fangs peeking from between her lips.
“I could use a drink, DH Keen. And I know just the place.”
Warily, he got to his feet. Havenside had many taverns and restaurants, but he knew she was going to suggest somewhere he wasn’t going to like.
The glee on her strange face hardly put him at ease as she spun her cane like she hadn’t a care in the world and started down the boardwalk, though at a noticeable list, assuming quite rightly that he would follow.
When he realized where she meant to take them, he stopped dead in his tracks. “You can’t mean…?”
She threw a look over her shoulder. “Come now, Keen. You are a demonhunter first rank, and I am a prestigious death speaker of some renown, and we are on official business. They won’t be able to turn us away. I guarantee it.”
He wanted to argue with her, but realized it was useless when she continued on toward the sprawling white clapboard building at the end of the docks. Maybe she was right. Maybe this time, he wouldn’t be turned away at the door.
Built right over the water, its crisp blue shutters open to catch the sea air, Grantham House was an institution in Havenside, an exclusive club reserved for yachtsmen and the town’s upper crust. It was a favorite haunt of men who could spend all day smoking cigars and lingering over brandies because their fortunes had been made a hundred years ago by ruthless opportunists no better than pirates, a place where the finest women sat in judgement over their peers, dictating who was in and who was out of their complex, albeit borderline incestuous, high society.
This was a world so far from Otherside, it may as well have been across the vast ocean, and Keen had once been made brutally aware of this truth in a most humiliating fashion.
The memory brought a tightness to his jaw.
For a brief moment, he’d thought graduating from the town’s elite school might grant him access, and he’d dared to bring his mother to Grantham House for a celebratory dinner.
As a chubby youth in his graduation robes, shabbily dressed mother on his arm beaming with pride, he hadn’t made it very far.
They’d been turned away on the steps by a scandalized ma?tre d’.
The humiliation had been complete when he’d slunk away sheepishly, his mother trying to laugh it off, right past a group of his classmates – Abigail Primm among them – and their smirking parents.
And now, here he was again, standing at the base of the broad, stone steps which led up to a wraparound deck of gloriously fine craftsmanship.
There were tables on the grand porch with the best views of the harbor, all full on this fine day.
The scandalized glances of the patrons burned like acid on his skin.
“Help me up the stairs,” Hero ordered, looping her arm through his. “I wouldn’t want to stumble in front of the looky-loos.”
He did as she instructed, escorting her as if she were a proper maiden and he a real gentleman. No one stopped him on the steps this time and he felt a flush of confidence. Maybe Hero was right.
Inside, the foyer was dim and hushed. The murmur of conversation, the occasional hoot of laughter and the clink of glassware drifted in from behind another set of doors.
Circular windows set at head height in the twin doors offered a view of the dining room.
The sparkle of fine porcelain dishes, silver cutlery and exquisite cut-crystal goblets winked enticingly.
Keen’s heart sped; he was closer than he’d ever been to forbidden paradise.
Hero slipped free of him and approached the hostess stand while he tugged his jacket straight and settled a hand on his saber hilt.
His uniform was his armor this time, and his ticket.
He was a demonhunter, first rank, accompanying an inspector, a death speaker.
A half-demon, disgraced ex-nun arsonist.
Currently harassing a white-faced hostess.
“No, I don’t have a reservation, you silly twit,” she said, not exactly yelling but not not yelling either. Hero pointed a long, sharp finger toward the doors. “You have space at the bar. I can see it from here. My partner and I will sit, have a drink, and no one needs to get hurt. Understand?”
“I – I don’t – we don’t allow, I mean…” the young woman gulped, the dark scattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks the only color remaining on her face.
“PKs don’t eat here,” she said faintly. Then, gathering courage like a comforting blanket, she pulled herself together, lifting her chin, and added with great dignity, “This is Grantham House, sir, not a – a common tavern!”
“Well, today it’s my house.” Hero bypassed the hostess and her elegant podium of oak and gold leaf, ignoring the woman’s sputtering outrage. Oleander, mortified yet emboldened, scrambled after her, not sure if he intended to stop her or join her.
Finally, the chance to rectify his past humiliation made his decision for him. Shadowing the towering inspector, he followed her through the doors.