A Local Habitation Read online

  “Out of my way,” I said, stepping between Peter and Elliot. There are times when I have a lot of patience, but there are things that don’t get better, or easier, when you let them wait.

  “Toby . . .” Alex began.

  “Now,” I snapped. “And stay here. I need to talk to you.” They moved without any further protest. Elliot, at least, looked somewhat relieved. I’m half-Daoine Sidhe; that means people assume I know how to deal with the dead. After all, of all Titania’s children, only the Daoine Sidhe can “talk” to the dead, using their blood to access their memories—often including the memory of how they died. We’re like the fae equivalent of CSI. Some races got shapeshifting or talking to flowers, and we? We got borrowed memories and the taste of blood, and people washing their hands after we touch them. Not exactly what I’d call a fair trade.

  I’m half-Daoine Sidhe; I’m also half- human. That does a lot to damage my credibility, but being the daughter of the greatest blood-worker alive in Faerie makes up for my mortal heritage. Lucky me. I’ve been trying to live up to my mother for my entire life. Because a crazy, lying idiot is the perfect role model.

  The Daoine Sidhe didn’t sign up for the position of “most likely to handle your corpses,” but we didn’t have to. Most fae don’t have much exposure to death, and they’re grateful when someone—anyone—is willing to play intermediary. Death doesn’t really bother me anymore; somewhere along the line, it just became a part of who I am. Coffee and corpses, that’s my life. Sometimes I hate being me.

  I dropped to my knees next to the body. “Quentin, come over here.”

  “Do I have to?”

  I paused, almost reconsidering. Sylvester asked me to let him follow me around for a while; he didn’t ask me to start teaching him the gruesome realities of blood magic. Then again, I don’t believe in hiding the truth from our children. It always backfires.

  “Yes, you do,” I said.

  Anger and fear warred for ownership of his expression before he sighed, moving to join me. The habit of obedience was stronger than his desire to rebel. Faerie trains her courtiers well.

  “Good,” I said, and turned my attention to Colin. Maybe it’s a sign of how many bodies I’ve seen over the past year, but I felt no disgust: only pity and regret. I sighed. “Oh, you poor bastard.”

  I was aware of the men behind us, but they didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was the body and what it had to tell me.

  Colin’s coloring was normal under the lines of his henna tattoos, showing no signs of lividity, and his eyes were still moist, almost alive in their blank regard. He’d died recently. He looked startled but not frightened, like whatever happened was a surprise without being unpleasant. At least until it killed him.

  “Toby . . .”

  “Yeah?” I lifted Colin’s hand, frowning at the ease with which his elbow bent. He was cold enough that rigor mortis should have set in already, but his joints were still pliant. That wasn’t right. There’s a point at which rigor mortis fades, replaced by limpness, but he wasn’t suffering from that, either; his body had normal muscle resistance. He just wasn’t in it.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know yet. Hush a minute, and let me work.” The punctures on Colin’s wrists were nasty, but not enough to be the cause of death. The skin around them was only slightly bruised; the trauma of whatever killed him wasn’t enough to rupture many of the blood vessels. There’s a lot of blood in the average body, but most of Colin’s was still inside where it belonged.

  The third puncture was nestled below the curve of his jaw on the left side of his head, surrounded by a ring of jellied blood. There were no other visible injuries. There was something else wrong with the body, but my eyes seemed to slide off it when I tried to look more closely.

  I frowned. “Quentin, look at the body. What’s wrong with it?”

  “You mean besides being dead?” he asked, with an odd half-stutter in his voice.

  “I know it’s hard. It was hard for me the first time, too. But I need you to look closely, and tell me what you see.”

  The first time—ha. My first time was one of Devin’s kids, back when I still worked there. He overdosed in the bathroom an hour before his shift in the front was supposed to start, and he wasn’t even cold when we found him. I helped three older boys carry him behind the bar and leave him for the night- haunts, and I was sick three times before morning. Devin still made me stand my watch, because duty was duty. I’ve never been that cruel a taskmaster . . . but Devin was my teacher, and I learned a lot from him. One of his most important lessons was that the hard things are best done quickly: face what you’re afraid of and get it over with, if you can. It hurts less in the long run.

  Quentin swallowed and looked down, scanning the body. He frowned, confusion breaking through his disgust. “Is there something wrong with his hands?”

  I looked down. Colin’s hands were webbed, like a Selkie’s should be, curled at his—

  Oh, no. Oh, root and branch, no. Stiffening, I said, “Yes, Quentin. I think there is.”

  The fae don’t leave bodies. That’s a lot of how we’ve stayed hidden all these years. When we die, the night-haunts carry us away, leaving behind illusion-forged mannequins to fool human eyes. The signs of Colin’s heritage should have been gone, replaced with apparent humanity by the night- haunts. They should have been gone . . . but they weren’t. His fingers and toes were webbed, and his eyes were brown from edge to edge. Except for the punctures at his wrists and throat, he could have been playing some sort of tasteless joke.

  But he wasn’t joking; he was dead, and something was very wrong. The night-haunts never leave a body long enough for the blood to chill. So why hadn’t they come for Colin? Why was he still here?

  “Toby?”

  “It’s okay.” I patted him on the shoulder with a suddenly clumsy hand, aware of how cold the comfort must seem. “I think this may be why Sylvester sent us here.”

  “I don’t think he knew . . .”

  “I know.” I pulled my hand away. “Go see when Jan’s getting here.” I didn’t want him to see what I was going to do next. I may not like lying to the young, but even I have my limits.

  Quentin nodded and stood, trying to hide his relief as he turned toward Elliot. “Sir? Where is your lady?”

  “April went to get her,” Elliot said, voice low and numb.

  “How long?” I asked, without looking around as I dragged my forefinger across the wound on Colin’s left wrist. Sometimes being Daoine Sidhe is the most disgusting thing I can imagine. Those of us with skill at blood magic can taste a person’s entire past in the weight of their blood. It makes us excellent counselors and better detectives; it also means we spend a lot of money on mouthwash. After a while, the taste of blood never really goes away.

  The blood clung to my finger. I stared at it. The last time I rode the blood, I wound up so bound to a murdered pureblood that I almost followed her into death. A little paranoia was natural. Careful not to glance behind me—I didn’t want to know if Quentin was watching—I slid the finger into my mouth and waited.

  Nothing happened. The blood was sour and curdled, and there was nothing in it that spoke of life or death or anything else. I leaned forward, Quentin and the others forgotten. The existence of a fae corpse was jarring and unnatural, but not being able to ride the blood was just plain wrong. Nothing I’d ever heard of could empty blood of its vitality like that. This time I used the first three fingers of my right hand, dipping them into the blood at his throat and sucking them clean. Nothing. Colin’s memories, his self, the things that should have been waiting for me, those were gone.

  There was no possible way for this to be good.

  I looked up to find Quentin staring at me, expression somewhere between horror and fascination. I met his gaze without blinking, deliberately licking a wayward drop of blood from my lower lip. He was going to have to deal with some of the less attractive aspects of being Daoine Sidhe one of th
ese days. After all, he was one, too.

  Peter blanched when I licked the blood away, but Alex just watched, seeming fascinated by the gesture. I flushed, fighting the urge to duck my head, and looked to Quentin. “Have you had any training in blood magic?” I asked.

  “A . . . little,” he admitted. “I’ve never . . . not with someone that had . . .”

  “There’s a first time for everything. Come down here.” He shook his head before he could stop himself. I nodded firmly. “Yes. I need you to confirm what I’m getting from him. You’re supposed to be helping me. So help.”

  He knelt reluctantly, asking, “What do I . . . do?”

  “Touch his right wrist. Get some blood on your fingers.” That was the only wound I hadn’t tried yet. Amandine may have been the most powerful blood- worker in the country, but I’m still just a half- blood. It was possible that Quentin, even young and half-trained as he was, would be able to pick up on something I’d missed.

  He did as I told him, shivering the whole time. I put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. “It’s all right. You’re doing fine. Now put your fingers in your mouth.” He shot me a terrified look. “It’s okay. I’m right here.”

  “But what am I supposed to do?”

  “You’re supposed to put your fingers in your mouth.” He flinched, and I continued, “Then you’re supposed to swallow. The blood can’t hurt you; it’s just a conduit for the magic.”

  “All right,” he said. Screwing his eyes closed, he shoved his fingers into his mouth, and swallowed. There was a pause before he opened his eyes, licking his lips automatically, and said, “When does the magic start working?”

  That was what I’d been afraid of. “You didn’t see anything?”

  “No. I just . . . it was just blood.” He frowned anxiously. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “You did just fine, Quentin. It’s not your fault.” I looked toward Elliot. “Did you people move anything in here? Touch anything?”

  Elliot flinched, replying, “No, we . . .”

  “Good. Who found the body?” Peter raised his hand. I nodded. “When?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago.” His voice was steady, but I could still hear the low humming of his unseen wings. He was close to panic.

  “Were you alone?”

  “For about five minutes. Then Alex came in.”

  “Did you see anything unusual when you entered?” When he shook his head, I turned to Alex. “How about you?”

  “Nothing. I got here, we called for April, and she went for Elliot.”

  “Now she’s getting January. I want this area closed off. Who else is in the building?”

  “April and Jan, and Gordan.” Elliot’s eyes lingered on my bloody fingers. The Daoine Sidhe have always had a lot of control over the leadership of Faerie; I think it’s largely because the other races want to keep us where they can see us. People who can talk to the dead are sometimes hard to trust.

  “And no one else?” My conviction that they knew more than they were telling me was rising. The men in front of me looked upset and nauseated . . . but not surprised. They weren’t surprised by what had happened to Colin.

  Something was lying in the shadows by the water cooler. I frowned and started in that direction, even as Elliot began to answer.

  “We’ve been a little light on staffing recently.”

  At least he had the good grace to sound embarrassed by the lie. I shot him a sharp look, saying, “Well, looks like it’s getting lighter, doesn’t it?” as I crouched by the water cooler and reached into the shadows, pulling out a well-oiled sealskin. I ran it between my fingers, checking it for damage, and stood, brandishing it as I turned back toward the group.

  “This is Colin’s skin,” I said. “Have you ever heard of someone killing a Selkie and not stealing their skin? Because I haven’t.” Selkie skins can be transferred from person to person, turning the almost purely mortal into full-fledged Selkies. They get passed down in the same families for generations; a stolen Selkie skin is worth its weight or more in gold.

  “No,” Elliot said, voice growing quiet. “I haven’t.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  Peter swallowed hard, asking, “Is he . . . ?”

  “Yes. Very.” I allowed myself a small, hard smile. “Trust me on this one.”

  “But his hands . . .”

  “And his eyes,” I said. Peter looked away. I was finding it hard to dredge up sympathy for his squeamishness—after all, he wasn’t the one with blood on his lips.

  Quentin tugged on my arm, and I looked toward him, asking, “You okay, kid?”

  “I think I’m going to throw up.” He managed to sound both humble and embarrassed about the idea. Not a bad trick.

  I tried to sound reassuring as I said, “That’s okay, it’s normal the first time. Elliot, where’s the bathroom?”

  “Down the entry hall, to the left,” Elliot said, sounding shell-shocked.

  “All right. Come right back, okay?” Quentin nodded and took off at a run, heading for the promised bathroom. I just hoped he’d make it in time. His pride would never let him forgive himself if he didn’t.

  I waited for his footsteps to fade before turning back to Elliot, saying mildly, “If anything happens to him, I’ll hurt you in ways you’ve never imagined. You know that, right?”

  “Of course. Is the boy . . .”

  “He’s my assistant.” I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, looking at the smear left behind. If I didn’t know better, it would have looked like lipstick.

  Sometimes I wish I didn’t know better.

  “You’re Daoine Sidhe, aren’t you? Both of you?”

  No, we just like the taste of blood, I thought sourly. Unfortunately, some races in Faerie would mean that. “Yes, we are. His blood is purer than mine, but I’m Amandine’s daughter.” He nodded at my mother’s name. I felt a pang of regret. Mother would have been able to coax the secrets from Colin’s blood. I was sure of it.

  “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “No. His blood isn’t telling us anything.” I leaned down and closed Colin’s staring eyes, letting my fingers rest on the lids. “Nothing at all.”

  “Nothing?” Peter whispered. The Daoine Sidhe don’t brag, because we don’t need to. My mother was so strong she could taste the death of plants. She could never stomach maple syrup; she said it tasted like trees screaming. The blood should have told me something, even if it wasn’t anything I could use. For it to tell me nothing at all was impossible.

  “Nothing.” I stood, resisting the urge to wipe my hands on my jeans again. It wouldn’t get them clean, or take the taste of blood out of my mouth. “The blood’s empty.”

  “But why didn’t the night-haunts come?”

  “I don’t know.” The obvious next question was “so what good are you? ” and I didn’t know what my answer would be.

  He didn’t get a chance to ask. Jan rushed into the room, clipboard clutched against her chest, with a tiny white-haired woman following a few steps behind.

  “Elliot!” Jan cried, voice shrill and angry. “Elliot, what happened?”

  He turned toward her, expression grim. “They got Colin, Jannie,” he said. “I’m so sorry. They got Colin.”

  She stopped, raising a hand to her mouth. She was either one of the best actresses I’ve ever seen, or she hadn’t done it. “Colin?” she said, anger fading, replaced by sudden, bleak despair. “Oh, no. That can’t be right, Elliot, it can’t; I refuse. Look again. You have to be wrong.”

  “I’m sorry, Jannie,” he said, and opened his arms. She threw herself into them, shuddering, and they clung to each other. My presence was forgotten; I had no place in the landscape of their grief. Even Alex and Peter looked away.

  The white-haired woman stepped around them and stopped in front of the corpse, studying it for a long moment before she said, “He’s dead.”

  “Yes,” I said flatly. Sylvester said he was worried about his niece not c
hecking in. He never said anything about people getting killed.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, studying her. Most people are upset when their friends die; this woman looked interested, and not all that surprised. That was unusual. She was roughly five feet tall, with a blaze of white hair cut in spikes that did nothing to hide the squared-off tips of her ears. Her figure matched her height—slight, lissome, and easily overlooked. Judging from her scowl, that happened pretty often; it wasn’t the sort of expression you master in an instant, even when your friends are dying. Lines cut through her face like scars through granite. They weren’t wrinkles; she wasn’t old enough for that. They were just lines, indelibly ground into the shape of her.

  “Damn,” she said, raking her hands back through her hair. “I liked him.”

  I glanced to Jan and Elliot, and frowned as I saw that she was sobbing on his shoulder. What a great thing to see in a leader: hysterics. I shook my head, looking back to the white-haired woman, and asked, “Who are you?”

  “What?” She looked up at me, her scowl deepening until the lines on her face became caverns. “I’m Gordan. Who the hell are you?”

  “October Daye.” I don’t normally flex my titles, but this time I added, “Knight of Shadowed Hills. I’m here by order of Sylvester Torquill, the Duke—”

  “Duke of Shadowed Hills, yeah, we know the drill,” she said, interrupting. “We’re not totally uncivilized out here in the boonies, you know. Have you got any credentials on you?”

  “What?”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “I’ve already shown my credentials to your Countess, but given that you’ve got a corpse here—an impossible corpse—do I really need to prove it? I’m Daoine Sidhe, I’m a licensed PI, and I don’t exactly see you getting any better offers.”

  “So you’re here to fix all our problems? Well, that’s just peachy, princess. What the fuck took you so long?”