Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1 (38 page)

Rose denied having anything to do with Mel’s kidnapping, and I had to believe her, although she was positively miffed that
her sister was back, because she really wasn’t that good a liar.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at Mel’s willingness and efficiency in trussing up Rose Wilkes like a rolled roast
before locking her in a cupboard.

Before Ziggi could circle back to his ‘
What did you mean by that?
’ huff I’d had another thought. ‘Where’s Sally’s letter?’ I asked Mel.

The small table in the hall was as bare as it had been when I’d first discovered Mel was missing, but Lizzie was on it, doing
what the adults wouldn’t have thought to and reaching under the couch.

‘Here it is!’ she cried, brandishing the envelope. She also recovered a five-dollar note, four two-dollar coins, a fur-covered
lollipop and a single hot pink stiletto belonging to a Barbie she’d long ago discarded as boring.

The dirt and crease-marks notwithstanding, the envelope was obviously expensive: the creamiest of cream fabric paper with
a raised ripple texture. There was no stamp, no name, no address for either recipient or sender. It had been closed tight
with a big glob of red wax, nothing imprinted in it, sloppily applied as if by an uncaring and inexperienced hand. It sure
seemed like Sally’s work.

Cracking the seal revealed an equally expensive-looking, badly folded sheet inside with a list of thirteen names, all in an
exquisite
script made almost unreadable by flourishes and curlicues that most certainly weren’t Sally’s style. But when your handwriting
is as bad as mine, you become a cryptology specialist; I could have had a great career as a pharmacist. Mercado White appeared
midway down. I recognised a few more old Weyrd families, and another few
nouveau riche
. One name in particular stood out. I wasn’t sure if I was surprised or not.

Then it was just a matter of convincing Ziggi to drive, even though what he really wanted to do was fight with me. He gave
in with ill grace and continued the silent treatment as soon as we got in the cab.

‘I’m sorry,’ I sighed. ‘I didn’t mean you’d done it on purpose, just maybe you’d been chatting to someone who might have chatted
to someone else, and in the manner of these things, it made its way to the ears of someone it shouldn’t.’

‘So now you think I’m some kind of
chatterbox
?’

I refrained from asking if it was his time of the month and settled for placating him the only way I knew how. ‘I should have
known better and I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, just as soon as Little Venice re-opens.’

‘Little Venice is closed? What did you
do
?’

Clearly I’d made things worse.

I assured him it wasn’t my fault – it really wasn’t, although I did give what might have been a slightly self-serving version
of the angelic visit to the café. He grumbled, but without any actual words of dissent or disgust, which was a clear sign
of thawing. As I was about to continue peace negotiations, my phone squeaked and McIntyre’s ID flashed up. I felt irrationally
happy and thankful she was returning calls at last.

But the voice wasn’t Rhonda’s.

‘Is this Verity?’ Soft, tentative tones.

‘Who is this?’

The woman sniffed, as if she’d been crying a lot. ‘Ellie – Ellen Baxter. We met at the morgue.’

The tattooed tech. Rhonda’s girlfriend. ‘Oh, hi. Where’s McIntyre?’ I asked. ‘I need to speak to her; we’ve got some problems.
Some new ones.’

‘She can’t talk; that’s why I’m calling.’ Her voice shook. ‘Rhonda’s sick.’

‘Is she okay?’ I said, wishing I could stop the words even as they left my mouth. I assumed my First Prize for Stupidest Question
of the Year would be in the mail.

‘No – she’s got throat cancer. She’s been admitted to the Royal Brisbane. She started coughing at home last night and couldn’t
stop. It was horrible; she was struggling to breathe, there was blood coming up, and—’

‘Shit. Oh shit.’ It felt like a hammer-blow to an already broken limb. ‘I’m so sorry. Is she—?’

‘She’s sedated. I don’t know when she can come home.
If
. If she can . . .’ She started weeping in earnest, and it took me a moment to work out she’d said, ‘I thought she was going
to die.’

‘Oh, Ellen.’

‘It came on so fast . . . I mean, she’s been ill, but she’s been having chemo – she’s been
responding
well. Then this . . . It got worse after she talked to that angel.’

The dying and the mad can see angels
. That day in her office I’d told her they hung around churches. She’d gone looking for them . . . ‘Ellie, what happened?’
I asked urgently. ‘Do you know which one – which angel?’

‘He wanted . . . She asked him to heal her – she
begged
, and he just laughed. He said we were all so
small
, so
unimportant
, that we weren’t
special, and one less of us would make no difference.’ Her tone took on an edge of righteous anger. ‘She’s
believed
, her whole life, despite all that anti-gay shit, and that’s what he told her! But then . . .’

I waited, letting her talk at her own pace. ‘He said everything had a price. That he’d help her if she’d help him.’

‘What was the price?’

‘The baby – the one you’ve been looking for. He wanted Rhonda to tell him when you found it, to tell him everything you’d
said, everywhere you’d been.’ She took a deep breath, then added, ‘She didn’t, you know, she didn’t tell him anything.’

‘She wouldn’t,’ I agreed. Rhonda McIntyre was a grumpy, tough old bat and I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that even if
she had known where the baby was, she wouldn’t give up the child’s life.
Any
child’s life.

‘Ellie, did she say anything about how the angel looked? Was there a gemstone on his breastplate?’

She paused, thinking. ‘Blue. She said it was blue.’

Brisbane’s own special boy. He hadn’t rummaged through her brain, which made me think the Arch was the only one who could
do that. She must have found Sapphire when he was alone, waiting for the others. The angel had pissed her off, so she’d made
sure Ellie told me everything, because she figured the worst thing she could possibly do was to set me on him. He’d made her
illness worse, but she’d put her revenge in motion. I smiled, strangely proud of her faith in me.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Ellen whispered.

I knew how she felt. ‘Stay by her side – be there when she wakes. Talk to her, hold her hand. She’ll know you’re around, and
that’s the best thing you can do for her. And let her know . . .’ I swallowed, hard, then said firmly, ‘Let her know I’ll
make them all bleed.’

She was bawling when I hung up, and I was pretty close myself. I
leaned against the headrest. Apparently the Universe felt obliged to add a few more concrete blocks to the load already on
my chest.

‘You okay?’ Ziggi asked.

‘No. No, I am not.’ Then I wailed, ‘Oh, shit, Ziggi, when will it end?’ I pulled myself together and gave him the side of
the conversation he hadn’t heard and we fell silent again, less uncomfortably now.

Then he circled back to David, his intentions good. ‘They won’t kill him, you know. They didn’t kill Mel. There’s no leverage
in the dead.’

‘That’s great. You should be a guidance counsellor,’ I snapped, and that was the end of our friendly chat. I closed my eyes
until at last he said, ‘We’re here,’ and I felt us pulling to a stop. When we got out of the cab, I went to the driver’s side,
reached in and wrapped my arms around Ziggi’s waist, muttering, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know.’ He stroked my hair just like my father used to before the world turned upside down.

Bela was waiting outside the rectory. There were another six Weyrd, lounging in the late afternoon sun, slouched against walls,
sitting on the loveseat in the front garden and hanging from tree branches – including Hairy Jerry and Monobrow Mike, the
pair who’d let Mercado White get away. They’d all let their glamours slip and were sporting the leathery wings, thick furs,
scaly skins and bone plates they usually kept firmly under wraps. Eyes glowed a little too brightly, some red torches, others
green and blue; ears were either overly developed or little more than niches set high on the sides of skulls. They watched
us – no, they watched
me
. The sun was behind the building, giving it a kind of halo.

‘I’m sorry about—’ Bela stopped when he saw my face. Everything had already been said when I’d called in the goon squad. He
cleared his throat. ‘You want company in there?’

‘Nope, I’ve got this. Just make sure all the exits are covered.’ I didn’t want any distractions, but mostly I didn’t want
anyone standing between me and whatever I had to do to get David back. The front door opened; Father Tony, his expression
sombre, stood aside to let me pass, then touched my arm.

‘This is a place of refuge,’ he said, as if reminding me to eat my greens.

‘Father, she bought wine made from the tears of children; they died during the harvest. Would you like me to give her a pat
on the head?’

His hand fell away. ‘Just . . . try not to . . . break anything. I don’t want Miriam to get upset.’ Behind me he closed the
door to sitting room rather reluctantly.

The lumpy chairs with their over-stuffed cushions were in the same position, but only one was occupied. Eleanor Aviva wore
a stylish wrap dress of blood-red, and a new handbag nestled in her lap. Around her neck was a fetching iron collar to dampen
her powers and keep her from disappearing.

She smiled, stroked the choker. ‘Ms Fassbinder, lovely to see you again so soon. Do you like my latest accessory?’

‘Did Mercado know that you were a fellow client of the Winemaker?’

‘No small talk for little Verity Fassbinder!’ She laughed, and it wasn’t especially unpleasant. ‘My dear, did Mercado strike
you as one to keep his mouth shut if he could save his own skin by giving up someone else’s?’

‘Good point.’

‘His ancestors were weasels, you know.’

‘How appropriate.’ I sat across from her on a chair that felt like concrete sculpted to look soft. The discomfort helped me
concentrate, dulled the throbbing anxiety slightly. ‘So.’

‘So, indeed.’ She eyed me as if time was on her side.

‘So, you know more than you’ve told.’ I stared, trying to detect anything untoward, but for all intents and purposes she was
an attractive, elegant middle-aged woman with great taste in handbags. Was she too young to be a contemporary of Magda Nadasy,
or was that just another cunning glamour?

‘Most people do.’

‘How about I ask questions and you answer in a full and frank fashion?’ Much though I wanted to hurt her, that wouldn’t have
done any good. What my acquaintance with Eleanor Aviva had taught me so far was that she didn’t spook easily. She’d waited
confidently as the whole Winemaker scandal came to a head around her and brazened it out. After Magda’s death she had probably
thought it was all over. ‘Feel free to offer any insights to help me or make your peers consider you more favourably.’

‘Oh, you sweet thing.’ She laughed again. ‘Ask away.’

‘You were a client of Madame Nadasy’s?’

‘Yes, but I wasn’t aware it was her. I always dealt with that urchin.’ She sighed. ‘I know it was naughty, but I hadn’t had
anything like that in such a long time. The road to hell is paved not with good intentions but with nostalgia. However, my
dear, I don’t think this track will get you very far.’

‘And you’d suggest?’

‘What would you give for information relating to Vadim Nadasy and his little pet?’

‘I’m just the hired help. I can’t make any deals about your fate.’

‘Ah, but our darling Zvez— . . . Bela will listen to you. We both know that.’

I was aware of no such thing, but I kept my lips sealed as I thought furiously. If I could use her delusion for my own ends,
I would. ‘If what you tell me pays off, then I’ll put in a good word.’

‘Can’t say fairer than that.’ She sat up straight. ‘You wondered, no doubt, why Nadasy didn’t kill Baker himself.’

‘You know I did.’

‘Did you know there was a woman’s body – in addition to the males – found in Baker’s house after it was blown up?’

‘Yes, Dusana’s.’

She shook her head. ‘It’s the only body that counts, really.’ She grinned, and her teeth were bright white and terribly sharp.
Why is it always the teeth?

If Dusana hadn’t died . . .

As if reading my mind, her smile widened. ‘Everyone assumed it was her, but it was, I think, some friend of the pool boy,
the gardener or the tennis instructor. Someone no one looked for, someone mistaken for the lady of the house. But whoever
it was, it was
not
Vadim’s daughter. And no one investigated too closely because dear Anders greased the right palms in the right manner.’

‘She’s
alive
?’ I asked.

‘Mr Baker was fed up, you see. He knew he’d never get away with killing her – he was as terrified of Nadasy as the rest of
us – but he wanted to do
something
. His wife had gone out of her way to humiliate and torment him and he wanted to start over, but on his terms. Beginnings
are
so
hard, that’s why we always try to go back to them, to change them, make things move differently. To make things go our way.’

‘So what did he do?’

‘He paid someone a fantastical sum to cast a spell to enchant the girl, to make her into something more . . . static . . .
more
manageable
. . .’

‘And Nadasy?’

‘Oh, he confronted Baker, threatened him – Anders is a horrible little man, but he’s stubborn. He let Nadasy know that Dusana
was
alive, but he said if
he
died, she would too. That was his bargaining chip, you see; that’s how he was able to keep Vadim at bay. He tormented him
with the knowledge that without Anders, he’d never find his darling daughter, never have the chance to release her. Hope is
so corrosive, isn’t it?’

‘And that’s why he stopped asking the Council to punish Baker.’