The Nightmare Charade (10 page)

As if to prove this point, one of the policemen ordered me to hand over my schoolbag. I did so, hoping I didn't have any contraband I'd forgotten about inside it.

With the weight of the bag gone from my shoulders, the flash drive grew even heavier. Where to hide it? I scanned around, hoping for a likely place, but there was nothing.

Deciding to bide my time, I glanced over at my mom. They'd placed another spell on her, hoisting her into the air. Her arms were pulled out to her sides with her legs hanging limply together. Her head careened to one side, lank hair haloed around her face. She looked dead.

I turned away from her, unable to bear the sight.

A few minutes later, four of the policemen shepherded me off to the main parking lot. Shepherding was indeed the right word, considering all of them were werewolves and I felt as frightened as a baby lamb. Just before we reached the parking lot, I spotted a single potted plant at the corner of two walkways. This was my last chance to dump the flash drive. I just had to hope that no one else discovered it and that the plant would be enough to shield it from the rain.

I reached into my pocket and waited until we drew near. Then I casually tossed it in. I held my breath, convinced one of the policemen behind me had noticed, but no one called for a halt. By the time we reached the waiting black sedan, I was breathing easy again.

The police station, known as “the Rush” by most of the people who worked there—and the people who made frequent visits—was located a couple of miles west of Arkwell Academy in the abandoned Rush Sanitarium for the Criminally Insane. A sign posted outside the barred gates into the sanitarium read:

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

BY THE IGAM ETANES CORPORATION

NO TRESPASSING

As far as I knew that sign had been there since 1957 when the original sanitarium was shut down by the State Department for unsafe conditions and suspected abuse of patients. The Igam Etanes Corporation was the front used by the Magi Senate to hide magickind-owned businesses and organizations.

This wasn't my first time coming to the Rush, just the first time I was made to feel like a criminal myself. The police officers escorted me inside in the same four-man block formation they'd used at the school. I was asked to turn out my pockets and submit to a pat down. Ironically, I was allowed to keep Bellanax. None of them had a clue how powerful it was.

We walked through the cathedral-like main room of the station, full of desks set in haphazard rows and angles and policemen talking on the phone, plunking away at computer keyboards, and even a couple fielding in-person complaints. Most everyone stopped what they were doing to observe our march through the room and down the hall on the left to the first interrogation room.

A queasy feeling struck my stomach as I stepped inside. The place looked like it had once been the sight of an ax murder. Rust-colored stains covered two of the walls like some kind of weird impressionistic art. A moldy ceiling drooped low in the center, and the tiled floor was cracked and flaking off in places.

“Sit down and don't touch anything,” one of the policemen said.

“Like what?” Besides the table and three chairs in the center of the room, the only other object was a camera perched in one corner. I studied it as I sat down, drawn by the way it was moving side to side, as if some drunken operator was messing with the controls on the other end of the feed. Then I heard the faint elevator music playing in the background and realized the camera was swaying to the beat, another victim of the animation effect.

The policemen shuffled out of the room before I could ask how long I was going to be stuck here.

The answer to that question turned out to be hours. Despite the command not to touch anything, I tried the door only to find it was locked. Glowering, I turned and faced the camera. “It's a good thing I don't have to pee or anything.”

The camera didn't reply.

Finally, an indeterminate time later, the door opened and Lady Elaine stepped inside.

I stood up, my anxiety spurring me. “This is insane about my mother. She did not kill Titus Kirkwood.”

“Insane or not,” Lady Elaine said, “Moira is in serious trouble this time. We need to do everything we can to help her, and that includes being careful with your attitude. Understood?”

I swallowed, thoroughly scolded, and nodded. At least she was on Mom's side still. That was good.

Lady Elaine came around the table and sat down in the chair next to mine, like she was my social worker and I some juvenile delinquent. She reached out and patted my shoulder. “We'll get through this. I promise.”

I glanced at her, uncertain. “If you don't think she did it, then how come she's being charged? You're advisor to the Consul. Can't you just tell the Magi Senate she's innocent and get her off?”

“It's not that easy, I'm afraid.”

“Why not?”

Lady Elaine exhaled, her thin nostrils moving in and out. “Because I have no proof.”

I scowled, digging the pads of my fingertips into the tabletop. “Since when does that matter among magickind?”

“Since—” She broke off as the door swung open.

Detective Valentine stepped inside. “Hello again, Dusty.” Once more, he was carrying a dark green folder tucked beneath his arm.

I sat up from my slouched position, glaring. “I can't believe you're investigating my mother.”

“Neither can I.” He shut the door behind him, and then sat down directly across from me, placing the folder on the table between us. He acknowledged Lady Elaine with a slight bow of his head, but otherwise his attention remained focused on me. “And before you ask,” he continued. “I did not know last night that we would be arresting her today. That would've been bad form not to give you warning.”

“No kidding,” I said, but I wasn't sure I believed him. That was an awfully quick turnaround. “So what happened in the last fifteen hours to make you think my mom could do something so terrible as commit murder?”

Valentine cocked an eyebrow, the gesture borderline mocking. “You mean so terrible as executing the man who kidnapped her only daughter, tortured her, and then left her to die?”

My stomach gave a hard dip, the sensation like going over a hill too quickly in a car. Not only did they have some kind of “evidence” as Lady Elaine indicated, but they also had motive. A pretty good one, I realized, my mind spinning. Titus had indeed done those awful things to me. When he was being murdered, I was in a coma, the doctors, healers, and everyone else uncertain if I would ever recover from the injuries I'd sustained preventing the island from sinking.

All at once, I was there again, racing across Lyonshold, fire and debris raining down around me from the burning fissure ahead, a deep hole rent through the island by a spell designed to sink it. With Bellanax in my hand, with Bellanax in
control,
I'd jumped headfirst into the last of those fissures, my body falling into the flames. Bellanax had kept me from being burned alive, but it couldn't protect me from all the magic around us that the sword was absorbing into itself to keep the spell from reaching completion. It was so much magic it should've killed me. It almost did.

Mom must've thought it had
, I realized, picturing it easily. My mother, so strong, and fierce, and stubborn. I knew she would do anything to keep me safe, but would she also go to any length to avenge my death?

I pushed the thought away, afraid the answer would bite me like a poisonous snake.

Staring over at Valentine, I hardened my resolve. “My mother is innocent.”

Valentine pursed his lips. “You are entitled to your opinion. But it has no bearing on why you are here. I simply want to review the events leading up to the attack on Lyonshold.” He idly drummed his fingers against the table. “Given the trauma you sustained, you were never asked to provide an official statement. It was an understandable oversight, but it now must be corrected.”

“What about Eli and Selene? They were there, too. So was Paul Kirkwood.”

“Yes, I know.” Valentine opened the folder, revealing a stack of papers inside. The top one bore the title
The Lyonshold Incident
. A picture of the island, post attack, filled most of it. “We will be speaking to all of them, in time. But your statement is the most relevant. Now, if you'd like to start at the beginning, when you first realized that Titus Kirkwood was planning the attack.”

I shook my head. “No deal. First I want to know why you think my mom killed him. Then I'll talk.”

Beside me, Lady Elaine made a noise. It might've been shock, but it sounded more like amusement. Or perhaps encouragement. Either way, I kept my gaze focused on Valentine. Around my wrist Bellanax heated into life.

“Excuse me?” Valentine sat up straighter. “Are you saying I have to
bargain
for your statement?”

“Yep. Either tell me what I want to know or I plead the fifth.”

Valentine cleared his throat. “We are magickind. There is no fifth.”

I tapped my foot on the floor. The sharp rap of my boot against the tile would've been a lot more effective if not for the rhythmic
creak
,
creak
,
creak
of the camera still swaying along to the song.

“All right,” I said, unable to take the silence any longer. “If you don't tell me what I want to know, then you're going to have to force me to talk.” With magic at their beck and call, they could do it easily, but I had a feeling that Valentine would want to keep things smooth, especially since I was a minor. At least, I was hoping he did.

With perfect seriousness, Lady Elaine said, “I would be careful here, Detective. She is Moira's daughter, after all.”

“So I'm gathering.” Valentine rubbed his thumb over his bottom lip. “Very well. I don't see how a little information will cause any harm.”

You don't know the Dream Team, buddy
. Sometimes being underestimated was the most powerful weapon of all.

“There are three reasons why I am certain your mother is guilty,” Valentine continued. “Number one, she had means and motive to commit the crime. The motive, as I already made clear, was you. For means, we need to look no further than the fact that she is a Nightmare.”

I bit my lower lip, my heartbeat quickening. For a second, I thought he was referring to the one way of killing only a Nightmare could do—draining a person of all the fictus they possessed. Only, from what I understood, this didn't kill the person in a traditional sense, but left them soulless, neither living nor dead, just … done. But that couldn't be what had happened to Titus. I would've heard about it before now.

Carefully, I said, “How do you mean?”

“The prison cell Titus Kirkwood was being held in was a magically restricted ward. All magic is blocked using a spell very similar to The Will.” Valentine paused for effect. “And as I know you are aware, The Will spell was completely foolproof against all magical beings except for—”

“Nightmares,” I finished for him. It was true, and my mother had loads of experience working magic inside such barriers. Our magic was fueled by fictus, the very stuff of imagination, and imagination could not be controlled or predicted by any force, even a magical one. Acid began to burn its way up my throat, and I swallowed it down. “My mother isn't the only Nightmare in existence.”

“True, but of all the known Nightmares in the area, she is the only one with no alibi.”

I frowned at the way he said “all of the known,” as if there were lots of Nightmares running around our little town of Chickery, Ohio. But that just wasn't true. There were only three—me, my mother, and Bethany Grey. I had been in a coma, and Bethany was locked up in a prison cell right here at the Rush. She'd been here for months prior to the attack on Lyonshold. She was a known Marrow supporter, serving out her time for crimes committed aiding Marrow in his quest to break The Will spell. In both our cases, there was no need for Valentine to confirm an alibi. So who was he talking about? I started to ask him, but he didn't give me a chance.

“However,” Valentine said, the condescension in his voice whisper-light, but unmistakably present, “I suppose it's possible that some unknown Nightmare came in from out of town just for the sole purpose of breaking into the magically secured facility and murdering Titus Kirkwood.”

I bit down hard on my tongue, fighting back an angry reply. My insides began to seethe, and Bellanax was so hot around my wrist I thought my skin might scald. But I'd caught the warning in Lady Elaine's quick glance. I needed to do what I could to help my mother, and right now, that meant information and not losing my temper. I had to learn everything I could. The Dream Team would need it for our own investigation. Finding the man who freed Marrow was important, no doubt, but freeing my mother was even more so.

With applause-worthy civility, I said, “What are the other two reasons you think my mother is guilty?”

If Valentine was surprised by my self-control, his expression didn't show it. He continued on, not missing a beat. “We found DNA evidence linking your mother to the crime scene.”

I blinked, a weird sense of d
é
j
à
vu coming over me. Or more like temporal displacement. I felt as if I'd been transported from the magickind police station into a TV police procedural. Words like “DNA evidence” didn't belong here where the emphasis was always on the magical.

Valentine tilted his head. “You do know what I mean by DNA evidence, yes?”

My shock snapped back to anger, and I placed my hand over the silver band on my wrist and began to twist it. “Of course I do. But since when does magickind do things the ordinary way when it comes to police work?”

“Actually, magickind has been mimicking ordinary procedures for years,” said Valentine with a flash of teeth. “It's just we very rarely find any at our crime scenes. Most of our bad guys kill people in ways that do not leave physical evidence behind.”