Chapter 54

54

MINA

I felt awkward the second I walked in—not because I was having a hard time imagining murdering Garrett's grandmother, although I was, but because I was probably the first woman who hadn't worn pastels in this house for a decade.

Everything in her house that wasn't a dark warm wood was different shades of ivory, ecru, or eggshell, from her sofas that looked like no one had ever sat on them, the white roses in vases that we passed, all the way down to the two yappy dogs that came out to dance around our feet.

"Monet! Picasso! Settle down!" she commanded, and they backed off, following the two of us from a few feet behind.

"So you, uh, know who I am?" I asked her, following her to her spacious kitchen's breakfast nook. She gestured for me to take a seat, so I did. I had no idea where Sylas was, but I didn't feel particularly in danger currently.

"I know you're the reason Garrett's had to go into hiding. But, unlike the others, I think you can be reasoned with." She set a kettle to boil. "Chamomile?" she asked.

"Sure. Why not."

I watched her putter around her kitchen.

"You're not the first, you know," she commented. "I've been around the block."

"The first to . . . ?" I wondered out loud.

"To want to get ahead," she said, as the tea kettle whistled. She took it off the heat and poured a generous amount into a white mug for me. "I've seen a lot of girls here in my time. Saying things. Most of them untrue. Some of them, though...maybe? Garrett's grandfather had an uncle. He was...rough." She set the mug in front of me.

Nothing about the moment belied the fact we were talking about sexual violence.

"Drink up," she said, pouring herself a mug, and sitting across from me.

I got a slight sense of déjà vu, as I picked up my mug and pretended to take a sip.

I wasn't going to drink a goddamn thing anyone associated with the RRP gave me, ever again.

She gave me a smile with thin, pink, lipsticked lips, and took a deep drink from her own.

"But here's the thing, sweetie. Most of those girls were just looking for a check. So," she said, reaching into the pocket of her pantsuit to bring out an ivory-colored checkbook. "How much?"

"I don't want your money," I said.

"Nonsense. Everyone wants money. Let's just nip this thing in the bud, shall we?" she said, bringing out a pen as well, and dotting its tip on her tongue .

"One million dollars," I said, picking a number out of thin air. Her eyebrows rose, but then she gave a weary sigh and opened her checkbook up. "No—wait—four," I pressed, curious what she would do, and how high she would go. "Five," I said, watching her eyes.

"Don't get greedy," she said and tsk ed. "You're not buying a racehorse."

She started writing my name across the top of the check in swooping letters.

"And just what do you think me being assaulted by your grandson and his friends should be worth?"

That made her pen stop in its track. "Playing helpless after you've played house isn't a good look." And then she glanced up. I followed her gaze quickly, and saw a tiny black spot in the ceiling's corner.

We were being watched—and there was no way they were going to let someone who knew as much as I did out of here alive.

I took my mug and flung the tea at her.

She gasped and sputtered, and then the color drained from her face, making her look as pale as the rest of her belongings.

"I—" she said, then began to rise up. "You slut!" she shouted, coming for me across the table—before collapsing with a gasp. She rolled off of the table and hit the floor with a sickening crunch.

"Oh shit!" I hissed. "Sylas?"

"My queen," he said, from the space around me.

"Did I just kill Garrett's grandmother?"

"No," he said. "I slowed time, switched your mugs, and neither of you noticed. However, I knew you wouldn't drink anything she gave you." He was on the verge of coalescing .

"Don't—we're being watched," I said, pointing up to smile and give whoever was manning the camera stream a cheerful wave.

Sylas laughed, and I knew he was speaking only for me. "This place is very interesting. I killed several security guards, both upstairs and down below. But there are things there I want to show you."

I stood up and took Sylas's invisible hand to help me step over Garrett's grandmother. "Let's hurry—I'm sure they've called the cops."

He pulled me through the mansion to a library full of leatherbound tomes, and I let go of his hand to clap mine. "Oh my gosh—this place has a secret room!" I ran to the wall and started pulling books down and trying to twist sconces off of walls.

"It does," Sylas said, making a portal in the wall for us to go through.

"Ugh, you're no fun, Mister Smoke," I said, faking a pout, before walking into a dimly lit hall set behind a bookcase. It went down and looped in on itself. There were hieroglyphic looking symbols carved on the walls all around us—and etched into the floor. "What the fuck?"

"They're not real," Sylas said, in a tone of disdain.

"How do you know?"

"If they were, I would be able to read them."

I snorted. "It's an interesting design choice for sure though. Lot of commitment, for some rich white people in the club-urbs. "

Sylas got us through another locked door, into a wider open space, although the walls still verged on amusement park. There were marks on them, too, of where...pictures had once been? And been taken down?

"And this is where the ceremony takes place," he said, drifting over to a table where there were a row of sticks with sharp points all carefully laid out, beside an old ornate gun safe. "I can sense the remnants of the dye for their marks at the end of these."

"And I can still smell the bad decisions in the air," I said, jerking my chin at the safe. "What's inside? Flintlocks, for ceremonial duels?"

Sylas reached into the safe's door with a hand, worked the dial, then opened it up, revealing a small bag. He stroked a hand through this, and said, "It's ash."

"That needs to be locked up?"

He opened the bag and poured it through his fingers, and it reminded me of the sand dropping in the hourglass on my arm. "It's magical too. Ever so slightly."

I was listening hard for sirens, but didn't think I'd hear any down here—and then I realized we hadn't crossed a bank of screens here yet. I was certain they were streaming feeds offsite, but there had to have been someone here, too, keeping an eye on things, before streaming technology. "Sylas, can you go back upstairs and trace the wires in the walls? Even if the cameras are all wireless now, with a house this old, with its pretty plaster walls, they wouldn't have pulled the old wires out—there's a chance we missed a room."

"My queen," he said, and disappeared at once, returning almost instantaneously. "You are so smart. Come with me."

He opened up a portal.

I stepped through it into a small room as Sylas wrapped a screaming Garrett Reid into his shadows.

The walls here were lined with stacked portraits, rolled up rugs, framed medallions, a few trophied heads of rams—all sorts of old world bullshit. It was probably everything they'd taken out of the ceremony room to hide, and one of the walls had a few flatscreens. Garrett's dead grandmother was clearly visible in one of them.

Garrett was leaner than the other boys in Trent's crew, and he'd always reminded me a bit of a hyena, quick to be opportunistic and cruel—probably because he felt untouchable, since his family had all this Hitler's-bunker bullshit here.

I took a moment to survey things, then rounded on Garrett after steeling myself, making it very clear we were on my schedule, not his. "Hey, Garrett, long time no see," I said, walking up to stand in front of him. "Meet my new boyfriend—Garrett, this is Sylas, the Nightmare, and Sylas, this is one of the guys who raped me."

Garrett kept fighting Sylas's smoke. "Shall I let him talk?" Sylas asked.

"Sure. Why not."

Sylas kept Garrett hovering, while peeling the portion of himself blocking the man's lips aside. "This is supposed to be a panic room!" was the first thing he shouted.

"Huh," I said, making a show of looking around, before coming back to frown at him. "Seems like it's working."

"You killed my grandmother!" he shouted, trying to reach me with a hand.

"I've been informed that technically she killed herself. Plus—I wouldn't even be here if not for you."

"What did you do with my guards?" he howled, still struggling .

"That, I can answer," Sylas said, opening up another portal. The scent of death washed out, making me gag. I couldn't see what was inside of it, but Garrett could—he stilled immediately. "And they all had these on them. I found that quite interesting," he said, flicking palm-sized chunks of skin tattooed with wolves to land at Garrett's feet. "Would you care to explain its significance to us?"