Chapter 43 Arabella
Arabella
Winnie: You tied his shoelaces together? You ARE evil. Why didn’t you just ASK him for the hard drive?
“CAN YOU GET YOUR BONY ELBOW out of my ribs?” Komal moans.
“Where do you suggest I move my elbow? Off my arm?” Beth shoots back.
“We could move the computer to the coffee table,” Maisie suggests. “Then we could all see.”
“But the cord won’t stretch that far, and the Nevermore Bookshop wi-fi is so terrible because of all the weird magic in the air,” Mina points out.
“I’m not ‘weird magic’.” Isis sticks out her tongue. “That’s insulting.”
“Beth, move your elbow before I turn you into a beauty elixir.”
“Croak!” The shop raven – actually Mina’s husband, Quoth – flaps his wings dramatically, trying to make them all shut up.
“Quack!” Maisie’s duck hops around the room, not wanting to be left out.
“Ladies and birds! I know that being this close to me drives everyone mad with lust, but if you give me some room, I’ll be able to get this done faster.” Morrie types furiously. The Nevermore Coven doesn’t hear him over their bickering.
I stare at my phone, flicking idly through headshots of Sanctus members Morrie sent me, looking for someone I recognise.
Every face blurs together. I expected to feel triumphant after I pulled off this heist. It’s exactly what Gideon did to me all those years ago.
But I can’t stop thinking about his expression when he lay next to me, the way being in his arms felt like coming home.
The tenderness in his voice when he told me that he was giving Sanctus Club to me for the variety show.
He wants to knit our bones together.
He says he loves me.
I pull the torn piece of fabric from my pocket, running my fingers over the charred edge. His precious treasure. He kept this in his safe. He said that he’d grieved me, past tense, but if he kept this fabric and made the club from memory, did his grieving ever end?
Even though remembering me made him sad, he chose to live in that sadness every night so that he could keep one foot in the only world I existed in – his memories.
And I thought that if I asked him for the hard drive, he’d refuse me?
I don’t understand Gideon Blake at all.
For the first time since becoming a vampire, I’m confronted by the curse of our long life – that there is no end to suffering, not even the relief of time.
I spent a century and a half hating Gideon.
And he spent that same time turning my memory into something bold and useful – creating beauty from his loneliness instead of encasing it in spite.
Which of us is the greater evil?
“Morrieeeee,” Mina whines, dragging me back to the present. “Can you give us an update on what you’re seeing? Beth is clawing my arm off.”
“Sorry, I’m just excited to finally figure out who this husker is so we can deal with them.”
Beth does look excited – her face flushed, her skin glowing.
This is as much her revenge as it is mine.
She was thrilled when I asked for her help in my heist. She caught me as I collapsed at the doors to Sanctus House, dressed me in an absurd disguise that shielded my precious skin from the sunlight, and dragged me out the gates using her visitor ID and into Celeste’s waiting car.
Hopefully, it will all be worth it, and we’ll find out who burned her theatre and husked Danny and Patrick.
“Fine, fine. In the interest of saving your beautiful skin for my little games…” Morrie leans back in his chair.
“Most of this is information on the Sanctus members – personal, private data about some of the most important vampires in the world. Family histories, bloodlines, court affiliations, investment portfolios… it’s all here and protected by several layers of encryption.
Gideon’s clever, I’ll give him that. Not clever enough for me, but as well as being the Napoleon of Crime, I am also the Charlemagne of Clever, the Julius Caesar of Cunning, and the Marie Antoinette of Avarice—”
“Yes, yes.” Mina elbows him. “Can you stop with the epithets and start with the case-breaking info? We need a list of everyone at Sanctus who could potentially be our killer.”
“I’ve already forwarded headshots to Arabella. She’s looking through those for anyone she met in her previous career. Meanwhile, I’m looking for anything that jumps out as unusual, which isn’t as simple as you think, because I don’t know what I’m looking for, but hmmm… this is interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Beth leans closer.
“It’s records of emails sent between Gideon and Augustin Durant.”
Komal leans forward. “What did you say?”
“These emails go back to the start of the Sanctus project. A lot of it is arranging meetings with the council about the planning application, which is all perfectly above board. But here…” Morrie taps the screen.
“Gideon has sent a significant amount of money to Augustin Durant for ‘Consulting Services’. It looks as though Durant used that money to bribe members of the council to approve the Sanctus Estate planning application.”
Komal leaps into the middle of the rug and starts turning in wild circles, her arms flapping at her sides.
“What are you doing?” I snap. “Are you possessed by a demonic chicken?”
“This is my victory dance,” Komal yells. “After all these years of torture from that prick Augustin Durant, after all of my projects being delayed or denied or stonewalled by his stupid pretty face, I finally have something to get him with.”
“Komal,” Dora says softly. “You can’t use these emails against Durant.”
Komal freezes mid-twerk. “Oh, I’m using them. That corrupt wanker is gunning for the mayor’s job, where he will make my life miserable. I’ve earned this.”
Mina shakes her head. “We all want to see Durant toppled from his throne, but if you go to the press with this, you’ll expose all of Sanctus Estate as vampires.”
“No, I won’t. Maisie can write the story. She’ll keep all the vampire stuff out of it.”
“I can’t do that.” Maisie hugs James Pond to her chest. “That’s not the actions of an ethical journalist. This story would get into the wider media, and they’d demand my sources.
I’d have to give up these files with all the private information about vampires, or say I don’t have a source.
Not only would it throw the Argleton Gazette into disrepute, but I’d never work again. ”
“Why are you pretending to be an ethical journalist now?” Komal shouts. “Remember when you wrote that exposé about the supposed witch’s curse on that lovely old cottage so Dora could buy it at below market value?”
“That curse is real,” Maisie cries. “Once, I was having tea at Dora’s house when the shelf over the sink came crashing down without either of us touching it. What’s that if not a curse?”
“Mike’s shoddy handyman skills?” Beth asks, one eyebrow raised.
“Remember when you implied people got listeriosis from drinking your ex Mark’s cider, and he had to close down the family mill and move away?” Isis adds.
“That was performing a public service! I’ve sometimes abused my journalistic powers, and every time I’ve said I’ll never do it again.
” Maisie clutches James Pond to her chest. “But if I break this story, every human journalist in the country will be looking at Sanctus. One of them will uncover something. There’s too much at risk, especially with the killer still at large.
Don’t forget that Arabella lives there.”
Maybe not, once Gideon discovers what I’ve done.
“I’ll make sure that no one finds out…” Komal’s face falls. “Oh no, you’re right. It would expose everyone.” She flops onto the sofa. “It’s not faaaair.”
“You know,” Beth says. “Arabella’s friend Alyra was my first client yesterday evening for her weekly at-home facial scrub and beauty elixir infusion.
She said she saw Durant outside the Sanctus gates.
He was very angry, yelling all sorts of insults and foul things at the gates, as if someone was listening to him. Perhaps it’s related?”
Interesting. I noticed a few missed calls from Alyra last night, but with everything going on, I didn’t think it was urgent. Maybe she overheard Durant say something that she couldn’t repeat in front of a human. I locate Alyra’s name in my phone and hit call. It connects on the third ring.
“Alyra, I’m sorry I missed you last night. I wondered if you could tell me what you know about Augustin Durant—”
“Arabella.” Gideon’s voice forces my heart into my throat.
He sounds scratchy, wary. I guess I can’t blame him.
I should have done this all differently.
“Gideon?” I force myself to remain calm. All around me, members of the Nevermore Coven turn towards me, faces rapt with interest. “Why do you have Alyra’s phone?”
“Because I’m standing over Alyra’s body in the Midnight Garden. She’s been husked, and the killer has written MINE, ARABELLA on the path in her blood.”