Darkness Divides (Sensor #3) (15 page)

Elros gave me a patient look. “That is different. Plumbing in various forms has been around for far longer than you think.”

“So you’re just against the more recent human inventions then?” I was trying to figure out where they drew the line.

“That is one factor we consider.” He nodded.

Before I could ask him to clarify his point he moved ahead of Nienna and me, walking stiffly. I decided to let the topic go. In this city, I didn’t have a lot of allies and didn’t need to create new enemies—especially among my guards. It was more important to find out who was behind the attack and Micah’s kidnapping.

We reached the center of the city and headed toward a house across the street from the palace. It was a two-story structure made of the same type of stucco as many of the others nearby, though this one was painted pale blue. The construction was solid and it looked inviting.

“This is much nicer than our place,” I observed.

Elros pushed the key into the lock before twisting his head to look at me. “The house belongs to Lucas and Micah. It is for their exclusive use when they visit the city.”

“Oh.” I felt a lump rise in my throat.

Lucas had a home here and I’d had no idea. He probably had a lot of homes and other things I didn’t know about. He’d been in my life for almost a decade and he was still a mystery to me. Standing in front of this house, I felt like an intruder. It should have been him who brought me here first or at least told me about it. Not that he’d had much of a chance. Instead of building our relationship like we should have been doing, we were being forcibly kept apart. This house was a reminder of that.

Elros studied me with unfathomable gray eyes. “If Lucas or Micah had escorted you, the fae might have allowed you to stay here. With both of them missing or unavailable…well, they thought it best to handle things differently.”

When he put it like that, it looked bad. Two powerful nephilim I had known associations with were currently AWOL. If they’d called Micah here for a favor, they’d probably wanted Lucas to come as well. His brother would have covered for him, but I had no idea what he might’ve said. Could I bluff my way through this? Suddenly, I felt really alone and out of my depth.

“I understand,” I said, attempting to keep my voice and face impassive. “Let’s just take a look inside.”

Elros went through the door first. I followed him into the foyer with Nienna coming in behind me. The layout for the house was fairly standard, with a spacious living room to the right and a kitchen and dining room to the left. Directly ahead of us was a set of stairs with a beautifully carved banister running the length of them and the open hallway above. The bedrooms would be up there, too—for Lucas and Micah.

I took a step toward them. “You said he disappeared sometime during the night, right?”

“He did,” Elros answered. “Micah was seen eating dinner at a nearby tavern the previous evening, but failed to arrive at a meeting with Cirdan early the next morning. The house was empty when they checked it soon after that.”

“Most likely they took him while he was asleep. With a nephilim as strong as him, that would be the best time to catch him off guard.”

Elros nodded. “Agreed.”

“I’m going to check the second floor. If there’s any evidence to find, it’ll be there.”

Neither of the druids said anything when I went up the stairs, but I could feel their eyes on my back. Their emotions flowed over me, a mixture of concern and doubt. I wasn’t in the mood to decipher them.

At the top, I took a look around. There were only two doors—one on the left and one on the right. Both of them were open. Every fiber of my being wanted to go to the right, but I took the left instead, entering Micah’s room. His scent still lingered heavily, surprising me with how easily I could pick it up.

A brief scan of the room revealed no signs of a struggle. The furniture stood upright and there were no holes in the walls or broken lamps. Everything was neat and tidy except the massive bed in the middle. Micah always made his after he got up, but the sheets and blanket on this one were a tangled mess.

I walked over and ran my hand across the mattress. There was only the tiniest trace of magic remaining and it wasn’t enough for me to identify. Just a tingle caressing my skin. He might have been flashed away, but there was also a summoning spell that could do the job if the practitioner was strong enough and had the necessarily materials—including a lock of his hair. I had no idea which had taken him.

A sweep of the rest of the room and the attached bathroom revealed nothing further. The culprit hadn’t had the decency to leave a calling card, ransom note, or anything else useful. I checked the desk by the window, both nightstands, and the dresser. The closet only had his clothes and an empty bag. If Micah had written down his progress during his investigation, he hadn’t left them here—or someone had taken them.

Sighing, I left the room and stepped back into the hallway. The doorway across from me beckoned like a beacon. I couldn’t resist taking a peek. Lucas’ smell didn’t linger the way Micah’s did, but I managed catch a faint whiff. I moved over to a bed as large as the one in the other room and pressed my face into the duvet. Lucas’ familiar musky scent wafted over me in the barest caress. Someone had washed the sheets, but not the top blanket. The underlying mattress also held his scent.

I closed my eyes and pretended that he was still close. That he wasn’t locked up in Purgatory and possibly getting tortured at this very moment. He’d told me last June that it wasn’t my fault, but I knew better.

When Lucas and Micah asked me to stay out of the battle to stop the demon prince, I should have listened. How was I supposed to know an archangel would show up and do away with the damned thing? Remiel had waited until we were all injured or dying, but he’d eventually come and taken the demon out. For risking my life, Lucas had been imprisoned. My opinion on the matter didn’t concern the archangel who’d taken him.

I had to figure out how to save him. There was no way either of us could survive fifty-nine years of this and not be half-insane or worse. I just had to keep my mind open to any possibilities and be willing to do whatever it took. Lucas had sacrificed for me—I could do no less for him.

“Melena?” Nienna called out. She was coming up the stairs.

I pushed off the bed and straightened the cover quickly before rushing out of the room to meet her in the hallway. No need for her to catch me having a mini-meltdown.

Nienna’s gaze moved past my shoulder. “Find anything?”

“Nothing useful.”

“We should go then,” she said, giving me a concerned look. “There is much work to do and the elders wish to see results sooner rather than later.”

Chapter Fifteen

“This is it.” Nienna led me through a heavy wooden door.

We entered the room where we’d be spending a lot of time over the coming days. It was inside the palace on the main floor. The stucco walls were painted plain white and there were no windows. The only furniture inside was a wood table and a few chairs—plus a couple of kerosene lamps for lighting. It was simple and perfect for what we needed.

“When will people start arriving?” I asked

“Not long, perhaps in the next ten minutes or so. We didn’t give them a lot of notice, but they’ll answer quickly to an official summons,” she said, adjusting the cowl on her robe. Both druids seemed rather fussy about keeping their appearances tidy.

Elros walked into the room a few minutes later.

“The first group is on their way,” he announced. He’d had to cut his lunch short to meet with the elders and had just returned. “I’ll direct them to you as needed.”

He went back out and stationed himself in the corridor. They’d set up a row of chairs along the walls and he had a checklist in hand. I had to give the druids credit for at least being organized.

Nienna moved off to a dark corner and faded into it, keeping to an earlier promise to stay out of the way unless needed. I pulled my notebook and pen out and took a seat. When the first person walked in, I saw it was a troll. Just my luck.

“You can take a seat.” I waved her to the chair across the table from me.

She waddled her way over to it, leaving a trail of stench in her wake. At least I’d had practice dealing with her race and knew what to expect.

“Your name?” I asked.

She gave me a dirty look. “I ain’t tellin’ ya that.”

“You were told to fully cooperate with me, were you not?”

Nienna stepped forward and put her hands on the table. “Answer her questions or face a punishment of the elders’ choosing. Your choice.”

Something told me the fae weren’t signatories of the Geneva Conventions. Whatever they’d do to the troll, it wouldn’t be pleasant.

She bared her razor-sharp teeth at me. “'Tis Zena, if ya must know. I’m the only one in the city who goes by it, so 'tis all ya need.”

Fair enough. She wasn’t lying, so I wrote down “Zena the troll” in my notebook.

“Where were you when the attack first happened?”

“Preparin’ meatworm pies.” The expression on her face turned sorrowful. “I spent days gatherin’ the ingredients and they got ruined by the blast. Found a few of the worms wigglin’ around afterward, but they didn’t taste as good on their own.”

Why did her race always have to test my appetite?

It took a moment for my stomach to settle before I could ask the next question. “You live near the blast site, correct?”

Our first step was to question the survivors who lived closest to the attack. Even the smallest details could help paint a picture of what might have happened.

She nodded. “Most of me home is underground and we was jus’ far enough from it ta survive.”

“Did you see anyone doing anything outside in the hours leading up to the blast? No matter how unimportant it may seem, I need to know.”

“Well,” she said, yanking on her braid, “A few of me neighbors was workin’ on their gardens. Some folks walked by on the street, but I didn’t catch who they was. A group of children was out playin’ too. That’s all I remember.”

I jotted it all down. Maybe none of it was important, but only by interviewing other witnesses could I be sure.

“Did you notice anyone acting strange in the days leading up to the blast?”

Zena stared down at the table. “Nothin’ worth tellin’ here.”

She was hiding something. “You need to tell me everything.”

“But it has nothin’ to do with the blast!” she cried out.

“We’ll be the judges of that,” Nienna said from her spot across the room.

“It’s jus’ that I caught Six Fingers spyin’ through my window. He was jus’ soft on me is all.” She looked down at her lap.

“Six Fingers?” I asked.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Cuz he had six fingers—three on each hand. He died in the blast. 'Tis not good to talk about the dead.”

I could detect a note of sadness as she spoke the last part. There might have been more to the Six Fingers story, but I doubted it had anything to do with the blast.

“Did you notice anything else strange or anyone acting suspicious aside from him?”

“Nay, that was the only thing.” She spoke the truth.

I wrote down the details on Six Fingers and told her she could go. All her answers had been specific enough that I didn’t think she’d been compelled. Other than not wanting to talk about the dead guy, she’d been completely honest. The troll shuffled a lot faster going out than she had coming into the room.

“That’s it?” Nienna asked.

“She told me everything I needed to know. We have a lot of people to go through and there was no point wasting any more time on her.”

The druid stepped into the soft glow of the lamplight. “But you didn’t even ask her if she had anything to do with the blast!”

“Asking something like that just puts people on the defensive and makes it more difficult to talk to them. If Zena had something to hide, my senses would have picked it up with the other questions. Trust me. I’ve done this many times.”

“If you say so.” She moved back to her dark corner.

A male goblin came in next. He had brownish-green skin, ears that pointed far out from his head, and a nose that could have taken my eyes out. My senses had picked up that the nastier creatures lived on the outskirts of the city. I’d suspected I’d have to deal with them first.

“Your name?” I asked after he climbed up into his seat.

“They call me Gator.” At least he didn’t give me trouble over the question.

“Okay…Gator,” I said, scrawling it down.

He grinned. “It’s cuz I been killin’ and eatin’ gators since I was five. First one I caught…I yanked his jaws open and broke em’ good. I ate his tongue first cuz that’s the best part.”

Whether he volunteered this information to intimidate me or just to be boastful I didn’t know, but he hadn’t lied. Goblins were rather strong creatures as adults and could probably manage it. I hadn’t met their children to see what they looked like. At this point I was fairly certain I didn’t want to meet them if he’d been capable of killing an alligator at such a young age. That was just…disturbing. Never mind the tongue-eating part.

“Why don’t you tell me about the morning of the attack?” I asked. Sometimes giving a generic question yielded better results than a specific one.

“Well,” Gator said, scratching at a nasty cut on his arm, “I was on the chamber pot when the first blast hit.”

“Chamber pot?” I asked.

Nienna came up behind me and whispered in my ear. “Everyone here calls them chamber pots instead of toilets. They never did adopt the new terminology for them when the fae installed plumbing in the city. In this man’s case, though, it probably was a real chamber pot.”

“No,” he said, wagging a finger at us, “technically, it’s a cauldron. I won it from a bet against a witch a few years ago. Makes her mad knowin’ I’m shattin’ in it every day.”

“Right.” I wrote down a brief note, summarizing what he’d said. “Where did you go to avoid the secondary blast?”