CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was never fun, dealing with the bereaved.
One never knew how a person would react to losing a loved one.
Would there be tears? Screams? Curses? Violence?
Hero had seen them all, which was why she usually left the task to someone else.
Anyone else. Getting emotional was a waste of time, and watching someone get emotional was a waste of her time.
Thankfully, the Grahams had had over a week to come to grips with the loss of their daughter.
She expected them to be reasonable by now.
What she hadn’t expected, when she and Keen met with the parents of Cole and Cassie Graham, was utter indifference.
“She was always a weak child,” the mother, Shelly Graham, intoned blandly from where she sat on her floral-patterned couch while Hero and Keen stood in the center of her living room.
She’d offered neither of them a seat. “Prone to flights of fancies and hysterics. She was never the same after her brother went into the Academy.”
“She was very close with her brother, I imagine,” Keen said sympathetically.
The mother held a small oval picture frame containing the solemn visage of a young, red-headed boy, and she clutched it now to her heart. Her indifference evidently did not extend to her baby boy. “Cole doted on her, protected her. She was always dragging him into her problems.”
The father, Mr Richard Graham, owner and operator of a small religious trinket shop in downtown Havenside, sat in a chair by the hearth, packing a pipe with utmost concentration.
Neither had been terribly surprised to find the two PKs at their door; it wasn’t the first time they’d been questioned.
“We told all this to the chief,” he said with a slight scowl. “What more do you want from us?”
“We’re only trying to better understand what happened to your daughter,” Keen said, “to make sure we haven’t missed anything. We know Cassie was distraught for her brother. Were they in communication at all? Surely the Academy lets him write to his family?”
“They do,” Richard said grudgingly, focusing on his pipe. “But Cole didn’t write to us. He only ever wrote letters to Cassie.”
“Was he angry at you for sending him there?”
“Of course not!” Shelly Graham snapped, finally showing some spirit.
At Hero’s sharp look, she subsided a bit.
“Well, not really. Not more than any child who needs a little guidance. That’s why we enrolled him at the Academy at Mother Francesca’s urging, to get his head straight.
He’ll be back on a righteous path in no time.
” This she said more to herself, nodding.
“I’m sure, ma’am,” Keen murmured. He cleared his throat and turned his cap in his hands.
“Did either of you happen to read his letters to Cassie? I mean, you had to want to know if he was well, didn’t you?
I’d understand perfectly if you read their correspondence.
Good parents look after their children.”
They had both looked a little uncomfortable at his first question, but his comments seemed to mollify them.
Very nice work. Hero held back, a tall, silent ghoul, and let him do the talking, though she kept her eye on the Grahams, assessing them.
The mother wasn’t exactly slovenly, but she was dressed in a housecoat and her hair was tied into a loose bun like she’d just risen from bed even though it was past noon.
The father wore tweed trousers with suspenders over a plain white shirt with ink-stained cuffs – not the clothes of a wealthy man, but not those of a poor man, either.
They had a house in Havenside, right on the edge of the tracks – the right side of the tracks.
They had no servants, no staff. A working family.
How had they sent two children to Clementine Preparatory?
“We both read all the letters Cole sent,” Shelly Graham admitted, throwing Keen a pleading glance. He responded with a kind smile and an encouraging nod. “But they were mostly gibberish. Those two, twins and all, they have their own language.”
There was a hint of jealousy in her voice that Hero recognized all too well. Hadn’t her mother hated the way Liam had chosen Hero’s company over her own? She’d always been trying to get her son to hate Hero too, but back then Liam had refused to turn on his little sister.
Ah, how times have changed.
“Perhaps he told her something important about his situation?” Keen prompted.
“His situation?” demanded Richard, whose indifference was beginning to swing toward anger. “My son got himself into his situation by his own reckless actions. Lost his scholarship and embarrassed the family!”
“It wasn’t his fault!” his wife wailed. “The other boys made him break into the chapel. Those entitled brats! They weren’t kicked out, were they? No, just our boy!”
Hero exchanged a look with her partner. Spots of color stood high on his cheeks. So, the Graham children were charity cases, too.
“I didn’t mean to bring up a touchy subject,” Keen said. “Trust me, I know what it’s like, going to Clem when you aren’t wealthy as a bishop. Everything is harder for us.”
Both parents stared at him, their demeanors softening.
“They were always so jealous of him – of Cole,” Shelly said eagerly, proudly.
“He’s…” And here she hesitated, giving her husband a look as if waiting for him to shut her down, but Richard Graham kept his eyes carefully averted.
She put her back to him. “Cole is special, DH Keen. He always has been. Goddess-blessed, some say.”
Hero’s interest was piqued. “Goddess-blessed?”
The Grahams reacted as if a ghost had appeared.
Shelly gasped, clutching at the arm of her couch as if she might fall off it, while Richard stood abruptly, his pipe falling from his hands to clatter on the stones of the hearth.
Hero knocked her cane against her hat in greeting, trying not to grin; the last thing they needed to see were her fangs.
“Pardon,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. ”
“S-s-sorry, Inspector. No, you didn’t. Goddess bless me. I just… I forgot you were there.” Shelly sagged against the back of the couch, fanning herself with one hand.
“I’d wondered if maybe you were a figment of my imagination,” the father muttered, stooping to grab his pipe.
Hero smiled. “You wouldn’t be the first to wonder such a thing. Now, you were saying.”
Shelly swallowed, her skin the shade of milk, and began to explain.
“So,” Hero said when they were finally free of the unpleasant couple. Shelly Graham’s explanation for her son’s specialness had gone on for some time. Goddess-blessed, indeed.
“So,” Keen echoed, slapping on his cap. “I suppose now we know why that shield is set against demons.”
“Or anyone with demon blood,” she amended, taking the lead as they marched down the sidewalk.
Back to her flat, for now. She’d set up an impromptu situation room in her rental, keeping all their more delicate work out of the stationhouse.
One entire wall of her living room was dedicated to mapping out their case, complete with a detailed sketch Keen had drawn – as well as he could while perched in a tree near the venerable Academy – of Bright Renewal along with maps of the town and surrounding countryside.
All the art supplies she’d purchased on the Havenside peacekeepers’ coin were being put to good use.
“I wonder if that’s why Sister Catarine had taken such an interest in children with demon heritage? For Cassie’s sake? Maybe her brother’s, too?”
“Possibly,” Hero granted. “However, her concern seemed to predate those two. She might have merely recognized the signs. We Goddess-blessed are a peculiar lot.” She let out a sarcastic grunt and shook her head.
“Goddess-blessed. What a joke. That mother might as well have pinned a target on her boy, calling him that.”
“Someone at Bright Renewal seems to have a particular interest in children with ‘bad blood,’ ” he said, the quotation marks clear by his tone. He fell silent, rubbing at his chin, his long strides matching hers. Finally, he spoke, albeit hesitantly: “Do you have any idea why that might be?”
Because of my bad blood? She tapped her cane along the sidewalk.
“My kind attracts Pandemonium. We can’t help it.
Put enough of us in one place and something huge and hungry will take notice.
A talented summoner could feed any number of powerful entities with a stable of demonkin.
” It had been done before. Many a fortune had been built with demonic help.
“But… children?” Keen’s shock was delightfully na?ve. “Who would countenance such depravity?”
“Humans think all demonkin are inherently evil.” She said it breezily, but inside her stomach clenched.
It made sense – so much sense. In the end, who would care about the sacrifice of a few “cursed” children?
The Grahams might have convinced themselves their children were blessed of the Goddess, but no one else would see them that way.
The end of her cane came down hard. “They are the perfect victims,” she said, and suddenly all she could see was fire.