2. Blane

CHAPTER 2

Blane

“ I s this the place?”

Vee checked the piece of paper with Wren’s address. “437A, yes.”

Sheikh Mahbrouk had found his missing sock stuck to the inside of his pants, the dog had been chauffeured back from the veterinarian, and now we had another mystery to solve. A more important one. Wren Gillebrand lived in the left side of a narrow duplex, a home built half a century ago and barely maintained since. Pale paint that might once have been blue or green or white or cream peeled from the siding in the glow of a yellowed streetlight, and skeletal weeds had taken over the front yard. Some were higher than my waist, while others were flattened. Had a second vehicle been parked there recently? One car remained in the driveway, a Prius with a dent in the trunk. Wren’s?

I exited my Bentley—a new addition and one that Joseph had chosen—and moved to get the passenger door for Vee, but she climbed out before I could open it. At least I’d tried to be a gentleman. It was surprisingly easy. Soon after I left Plane Three, I’d watched a bunch of old black- and-white movies for tips—my little sister, Aurelia, assured me that those men lived up to earthly ideals. Open doors, hold the umbrella if it rained, challenge a stranger to a duel if he insulted your masculinity. Although it seemed the duelling was considered a little old-fashioned now. The one time I’d issued an invitation, the fellow had asked me if I was on crack and then fired a gun at me without taking ten paces first. Of course, being immortal, I did have an advantage, and the look of shock as I’d sucked his soul out of his scrawny body had been mildly amusing.

Upon closer inspection, each half of the duplex had been subdivided into two, which meant Wren’s apartment was tiny.

“Upstairs or downstairs?”

Vee checked the metal plates by the doors. “437A is downstairs.”

The apartment was dark, which was relatively normal for this time in the morning, but when I knocked on the door, there was no movement inside. I tried again, harder, possibly too hard, because the upstairs window opened and a sour-faced chap leaned out.

“Shaddup, would ya? People are tryin’ to sleep.”

“We’re looking for Wren Gillebrand.”

“Who?”

“Your downstairs neighbour.”

“Oh, her. She took off hours ago. Slammed the damn door on her way out.”

“Was she alone?” Vee asked.

“Didn’t see nobody else.”

“Do you know where she went?” I considered it unlikely since he hadn’t even been aware of her name, but I figured I’d voice the question.

“Do I look like a psychic to you?”

I had to concede that he didn’t. The only true psychics were the five conquisitors, all female, and their powers only worked in limited circumstances. They’d escaped their celestial bonds in the late seventeenth century, and although physical gender reassignment had become a thing now, I couldn’t imagine any of them slumming it in a place like this. Delilah, in particular, was notoriously vain.

Anyhow, the man upstairs didn’t seem to expect an answer because he closed the window with a bang . Vee listened for a moment, head tilted to one side, a waterfall of turquoise hair cascading over her shoulder. She changed the colour every couple of months, usually to something outlandish. Pink, purple, yellow, green… Although the yellow hadn’t lasted long, probably because with her pale skin, she’d looked like a fried egg.

“He’s gone back to bed.”

Ah, yes, there was Vee’s enhanced hearing at work. When my Great-Uncle Tiberius had created vampires, he’d upgraded their senses to assist with their designated job as part of Plane Five enforcement. At least, that had been the plan. The system had fallen apart years ago, and now Vee spent her days relaxing in a Las Vegas penthouse and her nights roaming the city. At least she didn’t need to hunt for meals anymore. Her cop boyfriend provided drinkies on demand, a recent development that still baffled me.

“At least we know Wren left of her own volition,” I said.

Although I confess, I did feel slightly let down. At Club Dead and Tilt, I strived to maintain good employee relations. Joseph told me I wasn’t the most approachable person in Plane Five, but would it really have been so difficult for Wren to send an email?

“Did she?” Vee asked.

“The neighbour insinuated that she left alone.”

“There’s more than one way to coerce somebody into acting against their will. I only met Wren a handful of times, but she didn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d quit her job without notice.”

“You think she was forced into departing?”

“I think we should try to find out. Does she have family? A boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

“She has a brother. Kayden. He picks her up from Tilt on occasion.”

“Where does he live? Do you have a phone number? Maybe in her employee file?”

“I tried calling before we left, and he must have changed his number because it was out of service.” But Wren would have his new contact details. Perhaps she’d noted them down somewhere? Otherwise, I’d have to pay him a visit in person—Joseph would dig up the address. He was good at that sort of thing. I scanned the apartment windows, but they were all closed. “Do you know how to pick a lock?”

“No, do you?”

“How hard can it be?” I reached forward and slid two bobby pins out of Vee’s hair, then bent the ends a bit. Would that work? This was where bringing Joseph along would have given me an advantage—he’d know how to break into an apartment. He spent his spare time studying the habits of Plane Five’s least desirable citizens. “They do this all the time in the movies.”

“Movies aren’t real.”

“Shhh.”

I poked the first wire into the lock and wiggled it. Was there supposed to be a click or something? At least the neighbour had returned to bed. The second wire didn’t make much difference, and I began to wonder if Vee was right, a thought that pained me. I didn’t enjoy failure. It reminded me of my childhood. Perhaps a YouTube video might provide a few practical hints? A man could find anything on the internet, or so Joseph said.

Ten minutes later, I realised that lock picking was more complicated than I thought. Turned out some oddballs actually did this for a hobby, which was an interesting revelation. Cylinders, plugs, shear lines, driver pins… I was on the third video, learning about tension wrenches and rakes, when I heard the first whoop of a siren nearby. Very nearby. Right outside Wren’s apartment, in fact.

Well now, this was awkward.

“Sir, is there a problem here?”

What were my options? I could slide through a portal to another plane, but that might cause more problems than it solved, not least for Vee, who’d be left behind. Hold on, where was Vee? I hadn’t seen her since the end of the first instructional video.

“Sir, is this your home?”

Or I could namedrop Detective Callahan—he’d know I had a good reason for attempting to break into Wren’s apartment.

“Sir?”

Or I could bullshit.

“Yesh, this ish my home.” Did I sound drunk? Alcohol didn’t have much of an impact on my immortal soul, so I channelled one of the idiots who’d been lurching around the dance floor in Club Dead earlier. “I losht my key.”

“Sir, I’m gonna need to see some ID.”

I patted my pockets, stalling. My ID was an excellent fake, but a fake nonetheless. The US government didn’t hand out social security numbers to beings from other planes. They had annoying rules about birth certificates or equivalent documentation. And even if I possessed the required documents, I was so old that they would have been chiselled into stone or inked onto papyrus.

“I think I left my?— ”

“I found it, honey!” Vee appeared from the darkness. “I found the spare key.”

She brushed past me and slotted it into the lock, deftly removing the bent bobby pins with her other hand as she did so. A jiggle, a click , and the door swung open. She turned to beam at the cop.

“Are you here to look for the loose dog, officer? I haven’t seen it today, but it was running around yesterday morning.”

“Uh, no. I don’t know anything about a dog.”

Vee wrapped her arm around my waist and stared at him, expectant. “Then why are you here?”

“We received a report of… Never mind. I see there’s been a mix-up. You have a good evening, ma’am. Sir.”

Vee pulled me inside Wren’s apartment and closed the door, and we waited in silence as she listened. After thirty seconds, she nodded.

“He’s gone.”

“That’s a relief. Things could have gotten awkward if I’d sucked out his soul.”

“What? You wouldn’t…?”

“Relax, I’m kidding. Where did you get the key?”

“It was under a broken flowerpot in the backyard. I figured that seeing as Wren lived alone, she might have hidden a spare for emergencies. Or it could have belonged to the grouchy guy upstairs. We had a fifty-fifty chance.”

Reasonable odds, and what was life without a little risk?

“Good thinking.”

“Picking locks was harder than you figured, huh? What happens if you lose a key in Plane Three?”

“We don’t have traditional locks. If a resident acts out, we bind them using cosmic string.”

“How does that work?”

“In all honesty, I’m not certain of the mechanism.” I waved a hand. “I just picture the energy wrapping around them, and it happens. We should look for Kayden’s phone number. Do you think the upstairs neighbour reported us?”

“No, he’s snoring right now. But I saw drapes twitch in the apartment block next door, so I’m guessing there’s a bored insomniac who likes to watch over the neighbourhood.”

I switched on a light. If someone had watched us enter the building, it would be strange if the place stayed in darkness. Wren’s home was small and neat, a reflection of her personality, decorated with functionality in mind rather than style. There were only four rooms—a bedroom, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a living-slash-dining room. I spotted a calendar pinned to a corkboard beside the refrigerator.

“Wren didn’t expect to leave tonight. She had this evening blocked out for work, and a dental appointment at nine thirty tomorrow. Then lunch with Caria. Any idea who that is?”

Vee shook her head. “She never mentioned the name to me. There’s milk in the refrigerator, leftovers as well. Either she’s intending to come back soon, or she ran with little thought at all.”

The bedroom told another chapter of the story. The closet was open, drawers too. Items of clothing were scattered on the bed as if she’d discarded them in her hurry to pack. Toiletries were missing from the shower, and there was no phone charger in sight, no laptop, no purse. She’d taken the essentials and left the rest.

A heart-shaped Post-it was stuck to the mirror.

Yoga with Caria, 2 p.m. Friday.

“Caria must be in Wren’s yoga class, but there’s no indication of where it takes place.”

“She goes to the Fitness Factory at the community centre on Madison. Cheap à la creep, she said.”

“What does that mean?”

“The classes are good value, but a bunch of weirdos take advantage of the low joining fee. The week before last, a sleaze kept making lewd comments about her downward-facing dog.”

“Could he be involved in this?” I gestured at the empty apartment. “Maybe he followed her home?”

“I doubt it. The instructor threw him out, and he was so busy yelling obscenities that he didn’t look where he was going, fell down the steps, and got hit by a truck in the parking lot. The EMTs seemed to think he’d be in the hospital for a while. Wren actually considered sending a ‘Get Well Soon’ card—out of guilt, I assume—but I guess I must have looked aghast because she quickly changed her mind.”

“Maybe I should start offering gym memberships as an employee benefit?” At a facility that vetted its members to avoid creeps. If Wren wanted to contort herself into awkward positions, she should be able to do that in peace.

“Have you ever considered opening a gym?”

“Exercise isn’t really my thing.”

“The six-pack just…happens?”

“I have good genes.”

“Well, I—” Vee paused for a moment, a finger to her lips. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Footsteps. There’s somebody outside.” Another pause. “No, two people.”

Now I heard it too. The metallic scrape of someone fiddling with the lock, and they had either a key or considerably more practice with a set of picks than I did because a moment later, the front door opened with a creak .

“Wren?” I whispered.

“No, they’re men. Stay or go?”

Vee tiptoed over to the bedroom window, and we both let out a breath of relief when it slid smoothly open. Now we had a decision to make. The window was around the corner from the front door, which meant we could sneak out into the backyard unseen, wait for Wren’s visitors to leave, and then follow them. Alternatively, if we hid in the bathroom, we could jump them and ask a few questions. Vee and I could easily overpower two men, even those who thought they were tough guys. We’d both been blessed with strength and speed no human was able to match.

But would they talk? Joseph informed me that some mortals had a stubborn streak, no matter how much pain was inflicted. And with curious neighbours above and to the side, we’d have to keep the interrogation quiet.

If we hung back and followed, who knew where they’d lead us? Were they common or garden burglars? Or up to something more nefarious? With Wren missing, the latter seemed quite possible. But daylight would soon be upon us, and whenever the sun’s rays touched Vee’s skin, her epidermis began smoking. She wouldn’t be able to join me on an escapade across the city.

“Are we leaving?” Vee asked, tapping her watch. She swung a leg over the windowsill as footsteps came closer, leather-soled shoes on laminate. “Would you mind making a decision? Any time today is good.”