Chapter Twenty-Nine
What the hell is this?” The girl called Sophie demanded, her voice ringing out in the little cave of a room, causing Lee to jump and almost turn himself inside out as he twisted to face her.
He had been bent over the body on the floor, which was surrounded by what appeared to be a thousand shards of glass and a single lantern.
The latter had been knocked on its side, but still shed enough dim yellow light to make the glass sparkle like diamonds and to shine golden bright in Lee’s eyes.
It made him appear even more fearsome than his transformed state usually did, but the girl did not seem intimidated.
Or impressed.
“You wouldn’t try this shit if Lia was up,” she said, coming into the room. “She’d have your hide for it—maybe literally!”
The girl named Jen entered behind her, along with the one called Kimmie.
They had to do so one at a time, as the passage outside was less of a tunnel than a crack in the earth, which seemed an odd setup for someone in his line of work, I thought, looking at the dead man on the floor.
The narrow opening might help with defense, but would almost certainly prove a trap in a crisis.
Unless…
I began examining the small space.
“You scared me half to death!” Lee snapped at Sophie.
“Why? You’re the one with the dead body.” She bent to get a better look at it.
He was still there, or most of him. He was lying face down, but she did not have to strain to turn him over, as the damage was evident. A bloody shirt, a shattered rib cage, a missing heart. And the smell of his attacker...
I saw her nose twitch, but knew she was getting nothing.
The small workshop had contained rows of wooden racks along the walls, holding hundreds of bottles that were now smashed, the contents absorbed by the sand underfoot, their smells rising in a thick miasma.
That was especially true now, with more people shuffling about and stirring up the potion-filled dust, but it had already been overpowering.
More so even than the market. Some of these concoctions were the same as those sold there, but others were more illicit and far more powerful.
The latter had already eaten halfway up the walls, like mold; they had caused the surface of the earth to bubble up beneath them like paint under a remover; they had puddled on the floor, mixing with the dead man’s blood, and yet I couldn’t smell even that.
They had blotted out everything in their magical profusion.
Except for the voices. The many people who had spoken words over the potions, had mixed their magic into the ingredients, bringing them to new life and new purpose, shouted loudly enough to have caught my attention from halfway across the complex.
I had quieted my mind when we arrived to allow me to think, but focusing on the potions had turned the volume back up.
I looked away, annoyed, as Sophie reached her verdict.
“Gross,” she announced.
“He hasn’t been dead for that long,” Jen murmured, her eyes closed and her hand extended. “Maybe an hour at most. He’s on the cusp, but…” Her eyes opened again and met Sophie’s. “He’s still fresh.”
“Oh, God,” Sophie said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Lee demanded. “And you shouldn’t be here! Any of you!”
“Neither should you. Kimmie saw you sneaking off—”
“We weren’t sneaking. Chay snuck. We were going after him to bring him back before anyone saw!”
“Oh, is that what you’re doing?” Sophie looked from him to the mutilated corpse on the floor.
“Do you guys have any money?” Jace piped up, looking hopefully at the girls.
“Why do you need money?” Jen asked, but Sophie’s eyes widened.
“You absolute losers!” she gasped. “You Changed with no extra clothes or a way to buy some? You know, we ought to let you run home with it all hanging out! It would serve you right!”
“Do you have any or not?” Lee demanded harshly.
“Don’t take that tone with me! You’re in enough trouble—”
“That tone? That tone?” he squared up with her, nose to nose. “Who the hell do you think you are? You’re not my Lupa—”
“But I knew where to find her,” she said sweetly.
“—and you’re not even involved in this. This is clan business!”
“And we’re not clan?” Jen demanded, looking up from where she’d knelt by the body to examine it.
“No! You’re—”
“Freaks?” Kimmie asked quietly from beside the door.
Lee had his mouth open, halfway through his comment, but at that, he shut it. And just stood there, staring at her. And at the tears welling up in her eyes.
“How long have you been following us?” Chayton asked, looking between the girls.
“Long enough!” Sophie snarled. “And in these tunnels, sounds carry!”
“Look,” Lee said, and then he just stood there, as if he did not have any words to follow it.
“Is that really what you think?” Kimmie asked, moving forward. Her hair was in a smooth chignon today, making her look older than her years, but the expression in her eyes was that of a lost child. Or a betrayed one.
“No, I mean,” Lee looked around, but the other boys were avoiding his gaze. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then how did you mean it?” Kimmie’s voice was soft, not accusatory like Sophie’s, but she was clearly hurt and wanted an explanation.
“It’s just… you’re not Weres—”
“I am,” Sophie said. “Oh, but I’m a freaky sort of Were, so it doesn’t count, right? God!” she looked disgusted. “You’re as bad as Arnou—”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Is it?” Her hair was a red halo in the lamplight, but her expression was far less angelic. “Sounds the same to me. Those bastards don’t give a shit about us, or anyone who isn’t High Clan with a lineage going back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And I have news for you: you don’t qualify.”
“I know that!”
“Uh-huh. But you want to, don’t you?” She got even closer. “If you’d been High Born, you’d be just like them, looking down your aristocratic nose at all of us, and drawing back when we pass, so our stench doesn’t accidentally cling to you—”
“Shut up!”
“—and let people know you had anything to do with such scum.”
“You’re not scum,” Andy said.
“Tell him.”
“I did,” Jace said. “I’ve been telling them all—”
“Yeah, you’re so perfect!” Lee snarled. “You’re the one who ran away in the first place and got us all in trouble!”
“Hey!” Chayton said.
“It’s true!”
“It is true,” Jace agreed. “But not ‘cause I wanted to be more normal. I wanted to be more freaky. Strong, like you. Able to protect instead of being protected all the time.” He looked around. “If there’s any more of that freak potion, I’ll down it right now.”
“It’s not a freak potion,” Lee said. “It just reveals our true nature—”
“Tell it to the clans,” Sophie snapped.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Andy asked, alarmed, as Jen suddenly grabbed the corpse by the eye holes, and sank her fingers in knuckle deep.
“Trying something.”
“Shit!” Chayton said. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“Relax,” Sophie said, although she looked slightly green. “She’s just trying to see if any brain activity survives. Sometimes, necros can pull memories even out of dead brains if they’re—”
“Fresh.” Andy said, looking pale.
“—haven’t been dead that long,” she agreed.
“Memories? Like who did this?” Jace said, looking intrigued.
“Shit!” Chayton said again, as if it was the only word he could remember.
“You’re a Were,” Sophie snapped at him. “Act like it! And you’re the ones who started this!”
“You’re, uh, you’re not gonna tell anyone, right?” Andy asked.
“Why? Worried that your Alpha wouldn’t be happy? Then maybe don’t go searching out dead bodies!”
“We weren’t searching—”
“I was,” Chayton said, swallowing. “Only I didn’t know I’d find this…”
“What did you expect to find?” Jen asked, her eyes closed. “And what was his name?”
“Does that help?” Jace asked.
“Sometimes,” she murmured.
“Ludovic,” Chayton said thickly. “Ludy. He was a reseller. Made some potions, sold others, including Punch when he could get it, and occasionally dealt in body mods. I thought he might know something about whoever killed that guy in the grocery. Lia’s out of it right now, but…”
“You wanted to find him for her,” Jen said softly.
“How?” Sophie asked. “You’re not an investigator.”
Chayton shrugged uncomfortably. “No, but being on the streets, you hear things.”
“Like what?”
“Like everybody’s scared. And not just because of the war. There’ve been other bodies found recently, three or four over the last month, and those are just the ones I know about.”
“Three or four? Like the guy at the grocery?”
“No, like this one.” He looked down, then quickly away.
“Hearts ripped out. And other people who just… went missing. Not that they don’t down here all the time, but every time it happens now, people don’t think, hey, maybe he moved on.
They think, hey, maybe he got his heart ripped out, and we just haven’t found the body yet. ”
“I don’t know,” Jace said thoughtfully. “The other body was Reaped, right? But this one… he’s mostly still here. And he’s just a mage. He doesn’t have anything interesting anyway.”
“But maybe he did in his stash,” Chayton said.
“So the Reaper is removing the competition?”
“Bro, like I know!”
“It sounds like you knew a lot, but didn’t tell Lia,” Sophie accused.
Chayton shook his head. “I was going to, but everything happened so fast, and she got hurt before I had the chance. And she… she looked bad, okay? And Cyrus—I’ve never seen him like that. I thought, if I could take something off their plates, maybe… it would help.”
Sophie’s face softened, and she reached out to touch his arm. “You still shouldn’t have gone alone. What if somebody ripped your heart out? Then we’d have to tear this place apart looking for him.”
Lee snorted.
She rounded on him. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, screw that,” Kimmie said, surprising everyone. “My family used to do that,” she explained, when they all looked at her. “Say things under their breath, or imply stuff, and then refuse to cop to it.” She looked back at Lee. “You’re better than that. Say it.”