Chapter 19
Tacita
Moving into room thirty-seven, I wait until the door clicks shut and it’s only Garrick and me–and the two dead bodies–before talking.
“Tell me what you know so far.” I move to the first victim. It’s a clean kill. Simple slice across his neck, deep enough to slice the artery, but not deep enough that it risked decapitation. This was professional, calculated, practiced.
“Both died around three hours ago, Charon tried to catch the souls. He managed to contain the first. The second took him by surprise and flew straight over the river.”
“Which was first? Did they see anything?”
“Twenty-Seven died first. Didn’t see a thing, he was sleeping according to Charon.”
I twirl to the second body, the one that died first. This was different. Stab wound straight through the eye. Less messy, more gross but quicker. The lid has been punctured, corroborating the sleeping story. Poor fucker didn’t stand a chance.
“How are they gaining entry to the rooms, Garrick?” I ask.
I have to admit, seeing the victims and determining the speed at which this assassin can clearly kill, it's a little unnerving to know I’m sleeping in the same building.
Immortal or not, I wouldn’t survive the brain injury, the slit neck is debatable.
My fear is only in part for myself, and the larger part is over the fact that Milo and Wyatt are very much human.
“We can’t determine how they’re getting in. There’s never forced entry. But if these two were asleep then they didn’t let the killer in.”
“Window?”
“Locked from the inside.”
“So, they are using the coded doors?”
“It would seem.”
Looking up from the victims, I assess Garrick through my mask, which I haven’t bothered to remove. It feels so good to be back in my true attire. The costume everyone knows me in. The faceless bringer of death.
Garrick’s standing by the main door. Arms folded across his chest, feet slightly apart. A quizzical look etches across his face, his brows knitting and his stubble-coated jaw ticking.
“Who knew we could have a full conversation without a single insult.” I chuckle as I realise we are in fact working quite well together.
He grunts a response I take to mean that he agrees.
I continue to ask him questions and he gives me all the information he’s gathered so far, and then asks driving questions back. Together we develop the timeline, determine the type of knife used on the second victim, and the likelihood of the implement used on the first.
The injuries inflicted leave no doubt that each was killed with a different tool.
Which is interesting in itself. And not common when it comes to serial killers.
Normally, they stick to their favourite.
Even with contract killers, who are trained in various ways to end lives, it is rare they use two different methods for a double kill like this.
“Theatrics aside, you're actually good at this aren’t you?” Garrick surprises me with the comment.
Snorting in response to the back-handed compliment, I rise from where I’d been kneeling to check the rest of Sixty-Six’s body in case there were any other injuries we’d missed.
“I didn’t get to my position on luck,” I snark. “Or theatrics.”
“So why the get up?” He sounds genuinely interested so I decide to indulge him.
“I can still be me when I want to be. You saw how the guards looked at me when I arrived. Half of them are scared and the other half believe in the hierarchy of power too much.”
“We have to have a chain of command,” he argues.
“I’m not saying we don’t. But I knew that I wanted to be the best when I signed up to start killing for a living.
I also knew I wanted my anonymity so I could still be a regular demon whenever I wanted.
Besides, how many of the realm would believe that Hades’s Assassin is a female?
” Garrick can’t see my face but my lips curl into a sly grin.
Some of the pompous assholes I had to work for when I first joined Hades's team would be shocked to their very souls to know just how far I outperformed anything they ever achieved, no matter how far Hades has pushed for reform.
“I’ve always thought you were female. The Death Bringer, I mean,” Garrick replies.
“You did?” I cock my head at him.
“Yeah. It’s in your attention to detail. The little things you do to those you bring in. Whether that’s the type of injuries they have, or the things they say you did as you captured them. And how thorough you are in arranging their finances.”
“You notice that?”
“Of course. You might deliver the worst souls to Tartarus but it’s my job to make their afterlife their living Hell. Most of the time I find that you’ve already done it before you bring them in.”
“I do like ensuring the rich bastards know their money is going to be well spent after they’re gone.
” Like Mr Albright, who I’d killed to get into the games.
I often loved to tie up my assignments money to ensure it went to help those who I knew they despised the most; whether that be women, children, or marginalised communities they wrongly screwed over during their lives.
And if they weren’t rich, I tended to carry out a little bit of my own torture before dumping their asses with Charon to carry across the river, or Garrick’s team at the gates of Tartarus.
“Being thorough doesn’t make me female,” I say, still slightly perplexed at Garrick’s assessment.
“True. Call it intuition or my skill in reading people, but I knew. I just never would’ve guessed that the biggest pain in my ass in these games would be the highly professional assassin to our Lord.”
That has me bursting into laughter. “Then you don’t know the real me at all, Officer.”
“Clearly not,” he replies, but the look that crosses his face this time says that he might like to.
It unnerves me, sends heat spreading over my skin, making it feel tight and my muscles tense.
“I think we’re about done here,” I say as a way to break whatever train of thought the Head Officer is headed down.
He shakes whatever thought he’d been having out of head and his standard grumpy demeanour returns. “Yes. Shall we return to my office? We can debrief Hades and then I can get you to your cell. And my team can clear the bodies.”
“Cell?” My eyebrows hit my hairline underneath my mask.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you off from firing off at me, did you?” He refers to the way he got me away from the crowd earlier. When I’d walked up to him to ask him about the murders, he’d told me to give him reason to take me away from the others.
I’d basically thrown a hissy fit. Making demands and throwing insults until he’d dragged me off.
It had been a great surprise to find my tactical gear in his office, which is where he really took me, instead of the cells.
“You could let me out now surely? It’s been a few hours.”
“Nah. Don’t want the others to think I’m going soft on you.” His tone gives him away though.
“Are you? Going soft on me?” I can’t resist pushing.
He seems to realise his words and practically growls at me. “You’re spending the night in the cells. So no, Goddess. I’m not going soft on you.”
Him calling me a goddess breaks my thoughts just a little.
I have no idea what kind of relationship seems to be building between us.
Most of the time it seems competitive, toxically so.
Other times our fighting feels kind of like a prelude to something else.
And that endearment he just called me definitely sings to that part of me.
I rake my eyes over the prickly panther. If he fucks as wildly as he verbally spars, I know I’ll be able to feel him on my skin for days. And that thought alone has me dampening in my panties.
Thankful that I’m wearing leather trousers, and not a dress, where he’d most likely be able to scent my growing arousal. I shift past his bulky form and head for the door.
“Come on then,” I say on a heavy exhale. “If I’m in for a shit night sleep we may as well get on with it.”
“I’m sure your boyfriend will come to your rescue before the sun's up,” he bites back.
My hand, which had been about to pull the door open, freezes. Whipping my head back round I glare at the head of Hades’s prison. “What?”
“The blonde buffoon. The one that doesn’t seem to know what a locked door is.”
Wyatt. He’s referring to Wyatt.
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s human.” I throw his species out there as a barrier.
“You certainly seem to be getting cosier with him.” The fact Garrick has noticed sets my teeth on edge, and my tail flicks in annoyance.
“Not at all, I’m here to do a job. I need the humans to trust me if I’m going to figure out who wants to blow this whole thing to Heaven.”
“Is he your main suspect then?”
“No…” I go to defend Wyatt but then I really think about it. “Wait, do you think it could be him? He’s a trained assassin, one of the top killers–at least by human standards–and he does seem to know how to get in and out of anywhere on the compound.”
Motherfucker. Have I missed all the signs? Has Wyatt’s incessant flirting and over-exuberant happiness fooled me?
“He is on my short list.” Garrick’s words deliver like a blow.
Not that I should care. I may have slept with him twice now, but I’ve been doing good at keeping my distance these last few days.
Still, my gut doesn’t want to believe that he would be the one killing the contestants.
Even though he seems to have little control over his mouth and has the energy of Hades’s and Khaos’s hellhounds, a feeling gnaws at me that Wyatt’s killing side isn’t this.
But then I’ve never seen him in any kind of fight. I’ve only seen his skills on paper. Maybe the next game will show me a different side of him.
“He’s on mine now too,” I admit, not trusting my instincts for the first time in centuries.
After our conversation about Wyatt, we leave the dormitories. Walking back outside and feeling the muggy evening air does nothing to order the muddled thoughts now raging around my head.