“Mine too,” he said. “Mine too.” He pulled Grateful into a hug, then prepared himself to break the news to Astrial.
Chapter Twenty
Silas both anticipated and feared what he was about to hear.
“Soleil was murdered.” Captain Manahan kept his voice low, his eyes darting toward his office door. “By Meredith.”
“Meredith shot her, but she said she was defending me,” Silas said.
“She didn’t just shoot her. She finished the job at Bojingles.”
“What?” Silas shook his head. “She was in my room with me when Soleil died.”
“Officer Brighton said Meredith visited with Soleil moments before she died, and he thinks he saw her put something into her IV.”
“She must have done it while I was sleeping before she came to see me.” Silas scrubbed his face with his hands.
“I trusted her. I really trusted her. Impeccable references.” Manahan stroked his chin. The fae looked tired like he’d been up all night trying to process the news about the detective he’d hired. “Of course I’ve got my people on this. We’ll find her.”
“She might not have been acting of her own free will. Alex has ways of controlling people.” Silas wanted to think she was under the influence of sulfralite, but she’d been in the room when Grateful had drawn the black powder out of Laina and Selene. As of then, she wasn’t infected. And he’d spent most of the days since in her company.
“Yeah, well, we can figure that out when she’s behind bars.”
Silas rubbed his palms on his thighs. “I’ll need to search her place.”
“You still have a key?”
“Yeah.”
“No sense bothering with a warrant then.”
“Right.”
“What about the book?”
“Grateful Knight says she knows someone who’s seenThe Book of Flesh and Bonein person. He might remember something about the spell. She’s taking me to see him tonight.”
“A vampire.” Manahan spat the word out like it tasted bad.
“How’d you guess?”
“Anyone who was alive long enough to read that book is either ancient or a friend of the last vampire who had it. Ancient or evil, or both.”
“She’s worked with this guy before. He might have a clue for us. After seeing that vampire stake himself in the chest, it’s time we spoke with someone from his coven anyway.”
Silas’s skin tingled with a sudden rush of air in the closed room. Manahan. He was on to something, his wide eyes and sparked intuition making the air vibrate.
“You ever think that vamp stabbed himself because he knew Meredith would shoot him anyway?” Manahan asked.
Was it possible she’d been playing him the entire time? Goddess, he needed a shower. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Be careful out there… but not too careful.” Manahan picked up his coffee and took a long swig.
Silas stood to leave. “You know better than to think I would be.”
At times like this,Silas wished he still had a zafka. After Alex murdered his last one and hospitalized Laina’s, Silas decided to leave the position unfilled temporarily. He didn’t want anyone else’s blood on his hands. But as he followed Grateful through an abandoned garage to a door with a conspicuous smear of red across the chipped paint, he would have liked to have had a decoy.
“You’d better let me go first. As a rule, vampires don’t love werewolves. You know, on account of your bite being fatal to them,” Grateful said.
