White Witch, Black Curse. Ким Харрисон
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and I continued to leaf through the information. “The neighbor kid who mowed their lawn said that Mia told his mom she wanted a lot of kids but had to space them out, five years apart,” I said. “That would go along with Holly being a banshee. You can’t have two kids around like that. Hell, a banshee usually has a kid once every hundred years or so, so if Mia is thinking another one in five years, she must have a really good way to keep from killing people to support her daughter’s growth…”
My words drifted to nothing. Either that, or someone with her who knew how to abduct people in a way so that they never went reported as missing. Someone like a homicidal maniac capable of serial murders. Sort of like Remus—someone who would enjoy hunting people and bringing them back for his wife and darling baby to drain. That might be why Remus was in good enough health to beat up an FIB officer, feeding his two tigers well enough that Mia could plan on adding to her little family. This was really not good.
Edden was quietly waiting for me to come to just that conclusion, and I closed the file. Numb and feeling sick, I glanced at Jenks, out cold, then to Edden, silently waiting. “I’m not doing this,” I said, dropping the packet on his desk. The draft shifted Jenks’s hair, and the pixy grimaced in his drunken stupor. “Banshees are dangerous—apex predators. And I thought you didn’t want my—excuse me—our help.”
At my blatant accusation, Edden reddened. “Who is going to bring her in, then? The I.S.? I talked to them this morning. They don’t care.” His eyes went everywhere but to mine. “If we don’t bring her in, no one will,” he muttered.
And he would want justice, seeing that she had something to do with his son being in the hospital. Frowning, I slid the file back off Edden’s desk and onto my lap, but I didn’t open it. “Next question,” I said, my tone clearly stating I wasn’t taking the job—yet. “What makes you so sure the I.S. isn’t covering it up?” I wasn’t about to get on the I.S.’s bad side for a paycheck. I’d done that before, and was smarter now. Yeah, it had felt great showing up the I.S., but then Denon took my license and I was stuck riding the bus again.
Edden’s expression went tight. “What if they are?”
My face scrunched up, and I fingered the file. Yeah, it left a bad taste in my mouth, too.
“According to the woman I talked to at the I.S.,” Edden said, “there should be a trail almost eighteen months long on this woman, starting with several simultaneous deaths at the time of Holly’s conception and continuing on to today. That’s probably when the Tilsons were murdered. Ms. Harbor is devious, clever, and has a tremendous knowledge of the city. About the only thing going for us is that she won’t leave Cincinnati. Banshees are highly territorial and dependent upon the people they’ve been siphoning off for generations.”
I bobbed my foot and looked at the essay I had written. “Why did you ask me to write this if you already knew it?” I asked, my feelings hurt.
“I didn’t know it yesterday. You were sleeping, Rachel,” Edden said dryly, then hid his slight guilt behind a sip of coffee. “I talked to Audrey something or other in records this morning. She was going to make me fill out a year’s worth of forms until I dropped your name.” A faint smile replaced his concern, and I relaxed.
“I know her,” I said. “You can trust what she said.”
Edden laughed, making Jenks mumble in his sleep. “Especially after I promised you’d babysit for her.” He ran a hand over his mustache to hide a smile. “She was kind of cranky. You witches aren’t at your best before noon, are you?”
“No,” I said, then my smile faded. Audrey had three kids last I checked. Crap. I was going to have to have Jenks help me; otherwise they’d railroad me into a closet or trick me into letting them eat candy.
“Audrey said Mia’s net of people is probably so intricate that she can’t risk leaving Cincy. If she does, the deaths to support the baby will be fast and easy to find, rather than the carefully chosen, hidden ones.” He hesitated, and a flash of worry for his son crossed his face. “Is that true? They already killed an FIB officer. That wasting disease was probably Mia, right?”
He was too far away for me to reach out and touch his hand in support, but I wanted to. I really needed to visit Glenn and look at his aura. It wasn’t as if I could help him, but I’d like to know if that’s why he was still unconscious. “Edden, I’m sorry,” I finally said. “Glenn will be okay, and we will find them. They won’t be allowed to think they can do this with impunity.”
The older man’s jaw clenched, then relaxed. “I know. I just wanted to hear from you that we have a chance and that they didn’t hop a plane and are in Mexico, sucking the children there dry.”
From under my scarf came a high-pitched sigh, and Jenks mumbled, “On the eleventh day of Christmas, my lover gave to me…”
I nudged the stack of files. “Hush, Jenks,” I said, then pulled my eyes to Edden, softening my gaze. “We will get them, Edden. Promise.”
Jenks’s mumbling grew loud, and I felt uneasy when I realized he was apologizing to Matalina. That was a hindsight better than what the drummers had been doing with the piper’s pipes, but his heartfelt whining was almost worse.
“Then you’ll help us?” Edden asked, rather unnecessarily, I might add.
It was a banshee, but with Ivy’s help—and a lot of planning—we three could do it. “I’ll look into it,” I said, trying to drown out Jenks’s vow that he would never touch honey again if she would get better. This was getting depressing.
Edden, too, was glancing at my scarf as he rummaged around in a top drawer. He found what he was looking for, and extended his fist, palm down. “Then you might need this,” he said, and I reached for whatever it was.
The smooth feel of crystal fell into my palm, and I jerked back. Heart pounding, I stared at the opaque drop of nothing, warming fast against my skin. I waited for my hand to cramp up or the stone to feel fuzzy or move or something, but it just sat there, looking like a cheap, foggy crystal that earth witches sell ignorant humans down at Finley Market.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, feeling squeamish even as the tear did nothing. “Is it one of Mia’s?” It seemed to wiggle in my hand, and it was all I could do not to drop it, but then I’d have to tell him why, and then he might take it back. So I blinked at him, my fingers going stiff in an open cradle.
“We found a stash of them in a glass flower vase, disguised as decorative stones,” Edden said. “I thought you might be able to make one into a locator amulet.”
It was a great idea, and I dropped the crystal into my coat pocket, deeming I’d held the squirmy thing long enough. My held breath slipped from me, and the hesitant, almost belligerent embarrassment he was hiding gave me pause until I realized he had taken the tear from evidence.
“I’ll give it a try,” I said, and he grimaced, eyes lowered. I had to pick up my brother at the airport, but I might be able to squeeze in a stop at the university library as well as a charm shop for Jenks before that. A locator charm was devilishly hard. I honestly didn’t know if I could pull it off. The library would be the only place I could find the recipe. Well, besides the Internet, but that was asking for trouble.
My scarf was now spouting poetry, waxing lovingly about Matalina’s charms in beautifully poetic to downright lustful terms. Giving the stack of papers a push, I flicked off the light. Jenks let out a long complaint, and I stood.
“Come on, Mr. Honeypot,” I said to Jenks. “We gotta go.”
I flicked my scarf off him, and the pixy didn’t move apart from huddling into a ball. Edden stood up, and together we eyed him. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this. Usually when Jenks got honey drunk, he was a happy drunk. This looked depressed, and I felt my face lose its expression when I realized Jenks was saying Matalina’s name over and over.
“Oh crap,” I whispered as he started making promises he couldn’t keep, asking her to