“Why?”
“I had information that he might know something about my mother’s murder.”
Albert frowned, disapproval written all over his face. I knew exactly how he felt about what he’d once referred to as my ‘side project.’
The muscle next to my eye twitched. I’d never liked Albert. He was a pompous jackass who cared more about rules and appearances than the mages and bounty hunters who were actually on the streets protecting the residents of the Triangle. But I had to respect him. He may spend all his time sitting in his office while the five discipulus mages beneath him handled all training and job distribution, but Albert had done good things for Durham. When Mom and I left the city, the Mage Council was undergoing an upheaval, with no true leadership and infighting that spilled over into the streets. Today, it was a smoothly run machine.
I continued before he could say something I would be tempted to make him regret. “While I was there, the demon was killed.”
“Who killed it?”
“I’m not sure. Someone fired an arrow. I was facing the demon.” I thought back. “We were in an alcove off the main room, but there was a balcony across from us. The window was open, so someone must have fired from outside.”
“Someone with wings.”
I shrugged. Albert would want to believe that, since it would mean only the demons or fae could be responsible. However, we both knew that there were plenty of spells that could give witches, mages, and even a magically null human the ability to fly for a short period of time.
“Samael made me a deal. Someone is killing high demons. He’d heard of me, knew I had a solid close rate on my cases, and gave me a chance to break the bond.”
Albert sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his rounded stomach. Unlike most paranormals, who practicallybreathedmagic, mages kept their power carefully hidden away. He seemed like a human who was working a nine to five and would go home to his wife and three kids, eat a dinner, make some boring conversation, and go to sleep.
What he didn’t look like was a man with enough power to level this building. But as a council member trained by Gabriel himself, he could likely do it. The thought made the back of my neck itch.
“And how close are you to solving these incidents?”
I tilted my head. Of course the slaughter of demons was an ‘incident.’ Only people with mortal lifespans could be murdered. Albert likely thought demons were simply being put down. Like animals.
And when exactly had I started feeling differently?
“I have several leads,” I said. “I’ll be getting one of the arrows analyzed today, and I’ve spoken to both the fae and the werewolves.”
“So your next stop is the witches.”
“That’s right.” I didn’t tell him about the knife or Selina’s reading, which tied it to either the witches or the fae. If he decided to get the mages involved in a bid to use these murders to further his goals, it could risk my ability to solve the murders myself and break the demon bond. I wasn’t lettinganythingrisk that. But I was walking a fine line. Ultimately, my loyalty was to the Mage Council.
“I want to be kept informed about every step of your investigation,” he leveled his watery blue eyes on me. “Are we clear?”
“Of course,” I lied. I may respect him, may even fear what the Mage Council would do to me if they thought I wasn’t being entirely truthful, but I feared the loss of my freedom more.
“There’s one more thing,” I said. “Someone’s buying witchweed in massive quantities.”
Albert went very still. “Who?”
“A witch called Beatrice Phillips.” I told him everything I knew and he leaned back in his chair, gazing up at the ceiling in thought. Finally, he nodded.
“I will put a red alert out on her name. She’ll be brought in by the end of the week.” Albert pulled a stack of documents toward him in a clear indication that I was dismissed. I got to my feet and hightailed it out of his office and into the elevator before he could change his mind and question me further.
Keigan was waiting for me as soon as the elevators opened on the 5thfloor.
“Danica,” he said, and I couldn’t help but smile as he held out his arm for me to take. I found his deep old-fashioned manners charming. Keigan had a way of smiling at you as if you were the only person who could ever possibly be worthy of such a smile. And when he talked to you, it was as if— for those few moments— no one else in the world existed. With my hand clamped around Keigan’s arm, I was able to ignore the sneers directed at me from almost everyone else.
“Tell me, Dani, how is your investigation going?”
No one else was allowed to call me Dani, and Keigan knew it. I laughed and gestured for him to follow me into an empty meeting room. He watched me as I paced from one end of the room to the other, giving him the highlights of everything that had happened so far.
He stroked his short beard, his brown eyes thoughtful. “You’ll be visiting the witches.”
“Yeah.”
