Orphaned Follies: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (Mortality Bites Book 4) Page 7

  So we’re on our own, I thought as I looked out the window of the lecture hall. Outside, heavy snow fell in a near curtain of white.

  My cell phone’s screen read Call Failed with the name Egya above it. I couldn’t reach him—or anyone, for that matter. Even the internet didn’t work, nor did any of the landlines in the Douglas Hall offices. Orange wasn’t kidding when he said we were cut off.

  I turned to see everyone milling about in the room. Well, everyone except Oighrig End. He was still lying on Deirdre’s bed. Sarah sat on the stage holding Tiny close, petting his gruff, black-furred neck. Jack was at the back, standing perfectly still. Remi paced the back of the room, the abatwas huddled together on the speakers and Deirdre stood at the back of room in her aggressive changeling stance. As for the rest, Jarvis, Freol and Orange sat on the outermost seats, as if they wanted to be as far apart as possible.

  There was something off about all of them, but especially Freol. It bugged me that he didn’t speak and didn’t seem to acknowledge me or anyone else. He just stared impassively at a space on the wall, still dressed in that funeral suit.

  Every now and then, one of them would look out at the falling snow with a heavy sigh. That no one could get to us was one thing. Now we were not only on our own, but our cellphones didn’t work, the internet was down … we were literally cut off from the world. When I was a young vampire, it was normal to find yourself somewhere far from others, alone and with no way to talk to anyone.

  But in the modern world, the constant ability to reach someone—anyone—became a part of who we are. We’re so used to being connected that when those tethers to the outside world are cut, we get nervous. These fae may have only been introduced to cell phones and the World Wide Web a few years ago, but they were used to these modern comforts and were just as nervous as any human would be about being cut off.

  Add to that a dead body lying on a double bed upstairs and, well, it made sense that everyone was shaken up. I suspected every time they looked out the window, they were trying to will the snow away.

  ↔

  No one spoke, no one looked at each other, and we might have stayed that way for a long time had I not thought out loud, Anyone here is strong enough to have killed him.

  “Including you,” Orange said.

  “Orange,” Sarah said in an admonishing tone, “you’re not helping.”

  “Maybe,” the ugly elf admitted, “but I’m also not going to let Miss Human over there play innocent.”

  “You know,” Remi said, stopping his pacing, “I am curious about you, Miss Darling. You claim to be a schoolgirl, but what Sarah and Orange told me is that you pulled out a checkbook from a very expensive purse and paid for three tickets like it was nothing.”

  “I’m rich,” I said. “I won’t apologize for that.”

  “Nor should you have to. We’re all rich here. Me: inheritance,” he gestured that it was my turn to tell them where my money came from.

  I put a hand on my chest and said in an exaggerated tone, “Me: none of your business.”

  “Fair enough,” Remi said. “But I have encountered many rich young ladies in my time, and none of them would so happily and fearlessly examine a dead body like you did.”

  “Like I said, I’m thinking of going into law enforcement,” I lied.

  “Please,” Remi said, “don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

  “And what exactly are you bullshitting about?”

  “Oh shut it, the both of you,” Orange screamed. “I’ve had enough of this. Law enforcement might not be able to make it to us, but we can make it to them. I’m leaving.”

  “You can’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because everyone needs to stay here until they arrive. We’re all suspects until someone with authority comes to sort us out. We don’t want one of us escaping when—”

  “Are you accusing me of being the killer?” Orange asked.

  “If the wig fits.”

  “Why you insolent, sniveling little …”

  I took a step toward him, fists clenched.

  Deirdre saw my aggressive stance and took a step forward herself.

  Big mistake, because as soon as the changeling showed her anger, Jack the giant stood up and took two massive steps toward her.

  From the way Deirdre moved, I was pretty sure she’d fought giants before. She tucked in real low and waited for Jack to swing. As soon as his arm was in mid-motion, she tumbled forward and to the left and gave the back of his knee a bone-crushing kick.

  He went down to one knee and with his other hand grabbed Deirdre’s legs. Evidently this giant had experience fighting changelings.

  Deirdre clawed at Jack’s hands, drawing blood as her powerful nails dug into his skin.

  They might have literally torn each other apart if Remi and I hadn’t rushed over to them. “Deirdre, enough!” I yelled, placing my hands on her.

  “Jack,” Remi said, “please stop this. Now.” Remi’s voice sounded like a battlefield command, and Jack immediately let go. So much for Remi bullshitting about seeing action. Only someone who had led troops in battle could have given such an unignorable command.

  As soon as the word “Now” left his lips, Jack let go.

  Pulling—as much as you can pull someone stronger than a rhino—at our respective fae, Remi and I managed to get the two warriors to opposite ends of the room.

  “Enough, Deirdre,” I said.

  The changeling was breathing hard, her fingers covered in green blood. That was the thing about Others: they didn’t bleed red like humans. Valkyrie bled yellow, dwarves a dust-colored brown, angels bled light and fae bled various shades of green depending on their type and powers.

  Seeing her blood-stained hands, I had a thought. When I had examined the body, I only saw red. But whoever killed Oighrig End did so in an extremely violent manner. There was no way you could inflict so much damage on the man without hurting yourself. And that doesn’t include anything he would have done to try to escape.

  Murder victims don’t just lie there. They scratch, punch, bite, throw things. The murder scene should have had a bit of non-red blood around, but it didn’t.

  That meant one of two things: either Oighrig End wasn’t killed in Deirdre’s room, or the killer was human.

  ↔

  Of course, that’s what I thought. Convincing seven people I was right was another thing.

  “All I’m saying is that there would be a couple drops of green blood somewhere.”

  “But there weren’t,” Remi said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “So that means either you or I are the killers, given that we bleed red, or he was killed somewhere else.”

  “Are you serious?” Orange yelped. “I don’t see how you can make such assumptions with what we know.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, looking at the others, “but we should at least look in everyone’s rooms and—”

  “Look for what?”

  “Clues.”

  “Clues?”

  “Yes, because the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced one of you bastards is trying to frame the poor, innocent UnSeelie Court girl.”

  “Because there was no green blood,” Sarah said, not so much asking a question, but digesting the clues.

  “Exactly,” I said. “I’m starting to think it was Mrs. Peacock in the library with the candlestick.”

  “Who the hell is Mrs. Peacock?” Orange growled.

  “No one,” I said. “Just a human joke.” I looked at Remi for backup, but evidently he didn’t find me humorous at all.

  “OK, so we shall walk into each other’s room and look for clues,” Sarah said.

  “That’s what I propose,” I said.

  “Very well,” Sarah said, standing up. “Where shall we start?”

  “Jack’s room is on this floor. As good a place as any.” I looked over at the giant, who grunted the same way a walrus might warn us to get out of his territory.


  Spotless Rooms and Dirty Kitchens

  We started with the downstairs, me leading the morbid procession. Our first stop: the giant’s room. It was very neat, considering how small the room was compared to his grand stature. The only thing of note was that his mattress was on the floor, presumably because he was too big to sleep on a bed frame.

  I looked around the room and, other than the mattress, saw that Jack had a bottle of Oban whisky in his room. No green or red blood, no sign of a struggle, no murder weapon.

  Next.

  We went from room to room, and outside of finding nothing, the only surprising thing was how neat everyone was: made beds, folded clothes, toothbrushes in toiletry bags, toothpaste caps on. These fae, unlike my UnSeelie Court changeling of a roommate, were immaculately tidy. And as for the one human, he even had the next day’s clothes laid out on his bed. Uber tidy, but then he did have a butler, so …

  “This is going nowhere,” I said after we walked out of Sarah’s room, the last one in our macabre game of Clue.

  “See,” Orange said, “I told you.”

  “You did,” I said, nodding in agreement.

  I guess the ugly elf had prepared for a retort, and me agreeing surprised him. “Ahh, thank you?” he said, more as a question than a statement.

  “But just because we didn’t find anything doesn’t mean the killer isn’t one of us. All it means is the killer is smart. Which, in this case, means dangerous.”

  “Indeed,” Remi said. “Tell me, young lady … as one who wishes to go into law enforcement, what do you suggest we do now?”

  “Well, I guess a detective would interrogate the suspects.”

  “I agree,” Remi said, “but given that we all are suspects, how does a detective interrogate him or herself?”

  “She or he doesn’t,” I said, “but if we have several detectives, then that’s another story.”

  ↔

  We all gathered once more in the lecture hall, where a simple plan was outlined: we would all question one another and write down our answers. Then we would read out our notes so that everyone got each other’s answers. Think of it as speed dating, only substitute finding a murderer instead of a date.

  Using an egg timer to keep each interview under ten minutes, we lined up several chairs into two rows, and then, armed with notebooks and pens, we started one of the most awkward multi-level cross-examinations of all time.

  ↔

  The first person I interviewed was Sarah. I started with the obvious question: “Where were you after dinner?”

  Her dog let a huff, as if that was a stupid question.

  Sarah, on the other hand, was kinder. “My room. I was quite exhausted with the day’s preparations and, well, as exciting as it was to be in Professor End’s presence, I was glad to crawl into my bed.”

  “Is this your first time in Douglas Hall?”

  She tilted her head, giving me more ear than face. “Yes, other than the two visits when we were deciding on the lecture venue.”

  “Given that you haven’t spent much time here, how did you get from the dining hall to your room?”

  Again her dog Tiny snorted. This time Sarah put a hand on his head as if to say Relax. “Tiny guided me.”

  “That’s quite impressive for a dog,” I said, giving the canine a dirty look, “no matter how smart or well-trained.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said with an embarrassed smile, “Remi LaChance was kind enough to escort us to our room.”

  “Escort … and leave?” I asked.

  “Of course. What are you trying to say?” Sarah set a hand on her chest. Her dog let out a little growl just to punctuate her indignation.

  “Just that Remi is an attractive man, and—”

  “He may be attractive, but I fear that doesn’t really factor into my considerations when choosing whom to bed with.” She looked at me head-on as she spoke, removing her sunglasses and widening her eyes so I could get a good look at them.

  Most irises, even those belonging to blind people, were a cloudlike kaleidoscope of green or blue or brown around a black pupil. Sarah’s eyes weren’t that at all: her irises were less cloudlike and more fractal, as if they had been made of a crystal that exploded from the pupil out. Each shard was the standard green and blue common to eyes, but they possessed a light halo of red.

  “They’re … they’re amazing,” I stammered.

  “So I’ve been told,” she said. “When I first went blind, all I heard was how unique they looked, how beautiful I was because of these dead things in my skull.”

  “You weren’t born blind?”

  She shook her head. “I lost my sight in an accident when I was eight, and all the magic in the Seelie Court could do nothing to make them work again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Can I ask what happened?”

  “You can ask,” Sarah said, “but only my friends know what happened, and we are not friends. Not yet, and given your demeanor, I doubt ever.” Those words, as harsh as they were, weren’t said to hurt my feelings or insult me—they were just matter-of-fact.

  “True, and I apologize for overstepping my boundaries. What happened to you when you were eight has little bearing on what’s happening now,” I said. “Just one last question: Did you know anyone here before the event? Either after the gods left, or during your time in the UnSeelie Court.”

  “Humph,” she said. “That’s like asking an Australian if they know a George from Melbourne. The Seelie Court is—well, was a vast domain.”

  “I know, but indulge me. Have you ever met anyone here prior to this event?”

  “Other than Orange from my work at FSA, no.” And as if the little timer heard her “no,” there was a ding, indicating it was time to interview the next person.

  Egg-Timers and Alibis

  The next few interviews were a montage of useless information.

  ME: So Orange, where were you at the time of the murder?

  ORANGE: Cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.

  ME: Strange. Isn’t that the abatwas’ role?

  ORANGE: And pay them overtime? Do you have any idea what Oighrig End’s speaker fee was? Let alone renting this hall? I cut costs wherever I could.

  DING!

  ME: So Snap, Crackle and Pop, after the dinner, where were you?

  ABATWAS: Answer in such a furry of high-squeaked noises that I can’t understand a word.

  ME: OK, let’s try that again. Thumbs up for YES, do nothing for NO. After dinner, were the three of you together?

  ABATWAS: Three thumbs up.

  ME: Good. Were you cleaning up?

  ABATWAS: One thumb up, two nothings.

  ME: OK. Crackle, why were you cleaning up when your two friends here were doing nothing?

  CRACKLE: Gestures that the other two were sleeping.

  ME: Orange said he cleaned up because he didn’t want to pay you guys overtime.

  ABATWAS: Thumbs up, and then the three of them rub their thumbs and forefingers together—the universal gesture for penny-pinching.

  DING!

  ME: Remi, did you see anything?

  REMI: Nope. I retired as soon as after-dinner drinks were done.

  ME: Went to bed?

  REMI: Straight to it.

  ME: Anything else I should know?

  REMI: Nothing comes to mind.

  DING!

  ME: Jarvis, did you join them for dinner?

  JARVIS: Sadly, no. I prepared Mr. LaChance’s clothes for the next day and retired at around 7pm.

  DING!

  ME: Freol Garfum, where were you after the dinner party ended?

  FREOL: (Silence)

  ME: Mr. Garfum?

  FREOL: (More silence)

  ME: You don’t speak, do you?

  FREOL: (Even more silence)

  DING!

  My last interview was with Jack the giant, and I swore that even if he admitted to killing the professor, I’d proclaim him innocent just for saying something other than that he was
in bed.

  “And what about you, Jack? Where were you? And please don’t say you were in bed,” I started to ask the giant, but stopped when I saw what hung around his neck.

  With him seated, I could actually see the giant up close. While I had noticed something around his neck before, I hadn’t seen what it was. Now I saw it: a single silver chain as thick as a thread of silk. At its end were two heavy, intertwined silver rings.

  The size and obvious weight of the rings should have been enough to snap the thread on which they hung, but I knew the thread would never break under the weight of the rings.

  They would never break under the weight of anything in this world or any other.

  But that wasn’t something I could deal with now. Now I needed to finish my questioning. “Jack,” I repeated, “where were you?”

  Jack let out a sigh so heavy it literally blew my hair back, and gestured that he had been sleeping.

  “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  He shook his head, but his eyes lit with a thought. He gestured for me to follow, and took me to the stairwell leading to Deirdre’s room. There he took two steps up, showing me how he literally was too large to climb up.

  Talk about an O.J., gloves-don’t-fit-the-hand alibi.

  Wind-Downs and What’s Next

  My interviews were straightforward enough. When it came time for me to be questioned, most of what people wanted to ask me had already been asked and answered.

  Why did I attend?

  “To support my friend.”

  How was I able to purchase the tickets?

  “I’m rich. And no, it’s none of your business how I got my money.”

  Had I ever heard of Professor Oighrig End before?

  “Is the fact that I practically fell asleep during his lecture answer enough?”

  Perhaps the most original question came from Orange, who asked me in that vile tone of his, “How do you like being friends with a changeling?”