Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

“Allow me to assist you.” Victor grabbed my hospital pillow, beat it to within an inch of its life, then gently tucked it behind my head again.

“Thank you.”

“Water?”

“Uh...” My reply didn’t matter, he was already pouring a glass from a pitcher.

Victor had been fussing since I’d woken up in the hospital bed ten minutes ago. I took the glass and sipped, needing to get rid of the gritty taste in my mouth.

In contrast to Victor’s overattentive-nurse act, Zee was sprawled in a chair in the corner of the room, his wonky top hat over his face, snoring lightly.

“Should we wake him?” I croaked, shuffling upright on my newly fluffed pillows.

“No. He’s been watching you since we arrived. Let him rest.”

“How long was I out?”

“Almost a whole day and night.” Victor pulled his chair closer and perched on its edge. His gaze tracked the IV line snaking from my wrist to the empty bag of fluids. Probably blood. “They gave you a concoction of blood types,” he explained, noticing where my gaze had wandered. “You didn’t appear to have a normal one.”

“Oh.”

My shoulder ached. I lifted the pale green paper-thin gown and found a thick bandage.

“Agatha threw a jagged fragment of glass, slicing an artery. She meant to kill.” He paused, then said softly, “It was close, Adam.”

I took a few more hasty sips from my glass. “I think maybe you guys are right. Humans are really bad at staying alive.”

“Yes, we were right.” He gathered my hand in his and brought my knuckles to his warm lips. “I’ve never wanted to be more wrong.”

“Is Agatha . . . definitely . . . uhm . . . ?”

“She has expired.”

“I’m sorry.” Despite her actions, they had once been friends.

“I am not.” A fierce but cold lethality made his gaze burn. “Should anyone hurt you, I will not hesitate to bring an abrupt end to their existence. It is time certain unsavory individuals became aware of that.”

Agatha had underestimated Victor’s feelings, and she’d paid the terminal price.

“Do you think Elion’s going to be pissed we left another body for them to explain?”

“Frankly, I do not care what they feel. Agatha’s death was necessary?—”

“Kitten!” Zee poofed from the chair, appearing in a shower of sparks at the end of the bed. “You!” He grabbed my feet through the sheet. “You’re alive! I am so mad right now.” I could tell, by the way he jerked my feet to emphasize his point. “How the fuck am I going to run the hotel if you’re dead? I can’t run it with him .” He freed one foot to fling a hand at Victor. “He’ll measure some fuckin’ thing too many times, so I’ll have to kill him and stuff his skinny ass up a chimney, then I’ll regret it the next day, fall into the bottom of a bottle like a bad-cliché trauma boy—because Tom enables that shit—and my story will end with me walking the earth alone, searching for a purpose in my empty life, selling sex to anyone who will have me just so my broken heart might feel again.”

Victor and I both fell quiet, and blinked.

Zee had really thought about this.

“That’s not going to happen, Zee,” I reassured.

He gripped my feet harder and glared. “It better not. The fanfiction will be fucking insane .”

“I suspect Adam would like his feet back,” Victor suggested, seeing me wince.

Zee plucked his hands free. “Right.” And with a huff, folded his arms. “Still mad.” He pointed at my feet tenting the sheets. “Cute feet, though.”

“I love you too, Zee.”

His whole posture softened then, and he sighed. “Yeah okay, I’m easy to love. But no more dying!”

“Okay.” It wasn’t as though I was trying to die, it just happened.

Zee and Victor were the best. They’d saved me, and they’d stayed with me. But I wasn’t sure that infiltrating the warehouse had been worth the almost-dying part. “Did we get the locket?”

“Yes.” Victor dug into a pocket and removed a golden locket on a chain. “Jimmy found this.” He dropped it into my hand. “Without its warded control, Cain will not be able to access the full extent of your power. And it also appears there was an unfortunate fire at Agatha’s workshop, weakening the structure, resulting in its collapse just a few hours after we vacated the area. Nobody will be making any further jewelry for Gideon Cain.”

That was... suspicious timing. I eyed Victor, and watched his tiny smirk increase by the tiniest of measurements. Oh, he’d gone back while Zee had watched me. No more Agatha de La Cour, and no more FaeMade ? magic gems. When it came to vengeance, Victor didn’t mess around.

I squeezed Victor’s hand. “I am so happy you’re on our side.”

“So... we have some good news,” Zee crooned. “Or bad news, I guess. Good for me, bad for you guys. Whatever. Uh... Seb escaped.”

Of course he had. “How?”

“Madame Matase went to check on him, after it had been a really long time since we tied him up. He sweet-talked her into loosening the ties and fled. He did not fuckin’ appreciate the SOS Hotel management’s tough love. Oh well. We’re better off without that scumball anyway.”

“We suspect he’s gone back to Gideon Cain,” Victor added.

Seb had given us good information, but his usefulness was definitely limited. “Oh well. Seb doesn’t know anything about us that Gideon isn’t already aware of.”

“Uhm, so...” Zee glanced at Victor, who glanced back at him in a ping-pong of uncertain gazes. “There’s more.”

“What?” I asked.

“He took Tom Collins.”

“Oh dear.” Tom knew everything —every little secret, every flaw, every hiccup, every weakness—everything. Gideon had tried to get Tom before, via Agatha. We’d stopped her then, but not this time. Had Seb’s mission been about getting his hands on Tom all along?

And poor Tom.

I suddenly felt very ineffective, here in this public hospital wearing nothing but a thin gown. “We need to get back to the hotel.”

I clambered from the bed, carefully dressed, and with the help of Victor’s voice on the staff, discharged myself. The eye-watering hospital bill was not helping my wound throb any less.

After catching an Uber back to the hotel, we pulled up outside to find Noreen Greene in a gray and pink skirt suit and floofy blonde hairdo waiting on the front porch.

“She can keep right on walkin’,” Zee began, shoving open the cab door.

Zee had a habit of throwing gasoline on an already roaring fire and although there wasn’t much Noreen could do to us to make our situation worse, we really didn’t need her poking her nose up chimneys or into flower beds. “It’s alright. I’ll talk with her. You two go inside.”

“Adam Vex.” Her mouth pinched around her sour voice. “The demon and the vampire.”

“Who also have names, Noreen.” I joined her on the porch.

She sniffed, and lifted her chin. “May we speak inside, Mr. Vex?”

“It’s nice out here.” The sun had set during our ride back to the hotel, and the air was cooler than of late. Plus, I’d had my fill of enemies inviting themselves in only to cause headaches.

I gestured at the porch chairs for her to sit, then sat beside her and took a few quiet moments to soak up the hotel’s evening atmosphere while she fussed about getting comfortable. Zee and Victor loomed nearby, reluctant to leave.

“Mr. Vex.”

“Noreen.”

“This is a delicate matter...” She eyed my two chaperones.

“I’ve had a tough few days. My shoulder aches. I’m all out of patience. Say your bit now or leave and go on your merry way. Either way, I’m struggling to find the heart to care.”

She tutted and lifted her heavy bag onto her knees. From inside, she took a folder and handed it over. “These are copies, of course.”

Still a little confused as to why she was here, I opened the file. Photographs of Gideon Cain spilled out: Gideon Cain meeting with Agatha; Gideon Cain outside a trailer at a Brink Security Dine and Fight event; Gideon Cain at the aquarium lab. “What is this?”

“This is everything Agatha de La Cour’s lawyer sent me upon news of her demise, with instructions to give a copy to you.”

“Oh.”

Why would Agatha give what I assumed to be her “insurance policy” to me? Unless she’d always suspected Gideon would kill her, and I was her vengeance? Except... we’d kinda killed her first. Oops.

“The information in there is..“ She took a deep drag of air and sighed out hard. “Well, it’s career-making or potentially life-ending. If Mr. Cain realizes I have this, I doubt I’ll be around much longer. Do you have a cigarette?”

“A... what? No.” I skimmed the documents, but they made little sense to me. Victor then reached over my shoulder and collected the folder from my hands.

He proceeded to flick through them. “Hm.”

“Do you have a cigarette?” Noreen asked him.

“No. And neither should you, if you cherish your health.”

“Oh, I don’t smoke.” Noreen tittered a frantic laugh. “I just... It feels like I should.”

She was clearly worried. Maybe even scared. “You didn’t have to bring this to us. We wouldn’t have known if you’d just hidden it away.”

“Why would I do that, when you’re the only one in this city who stands up to him—to Cain, I mean? Nobody else has the balls, Mr. Vex. I’ve done some things, twisted a few stories, did as he told me for long enough. I’m afraid of him. I admit it. But you’re not. So you’re either mad, or more powerful than you look.”

A little of both. “Well, uh... thank you.”

“I am going to run this story, Mr. Vex,” she said with fervor. “But if it doesn’t go to press... if I disappear, you know why, and it’s up to you to finish this—finish him .”

Noreen Greene had been working for Cain this whole time, but she hadn’t wanted to, and that made all the difference. “We’ll see what we can do.”

“Shit is about to become real, Mr. Vex. Gideon Cain owns this city. There’s nowhere to hide.”

“Actually.” I smiled. “Our rooms are sixty bucks a night and you’re guaranteed a safe stay.”

“And there’s free apples,” Zee added jovially.

Apples? “Uhm.” I caught Zee’s confident grin. “No, uh... Is there?”

“Isn’t there? Then where the fuck did the apples in my room come from?”

He had apples in his room? “I don’t know, Zee.”

“Forget the apples.On the plus side, there’s no Wi-Fi”—he counted on his fingers—“no annoying work calls, no humming air-con... it’s out of order... and definitely no gremlins.”

“Sixty dollars is a small price to pay for safety,” Victor added.

Her gaze lingered on the folder tucked under Victor’s arm, then drifted across the street. Her options were to stay with us, or step outside the wards where Gideon held all the power. “Then I suppose you have a new guest.”