There were as many good reasons to take the case as there were to dismiss it. In the negative column: The deposit of five grand would barely meet the working expenses and overhead (which, according to our business plan, each week’s income required); I estimated that it would take at least forty hours to close; though Chancy promised another five K by week’s end,she hadn’t brought it with her. The other reasons to turn down the case were the people I would have to interact with to close it. Including my ex. Most important, EJ and I had been at that damn party.
But, bottom line, the woman’s storyfeltimportant. Chancy’s missing friendfeltimportant. And Chancy herselffeltimportant and possibly in danger. Precog stuff, not paranoia. That was why I let Chancy’s money remain on the desk. That was why I didn’t ask for EJ to toss her out.
Due to events in my childhood, I had a little—very little, in my estimation—precognition. I wasn’t a seer, but I had pretty good hunches. Except when I didn’t, like when I met my ex. Why hadn’t I had a flare of precog then, when I really needed it? And when I really needed it, why did I always miss the mark, like the prior night, when Corry got drugged and dragged off?
I dropped the labradorite duck and the green frog into the box with an annoyed clatter and shut the desk drawer a tad too forcefully. I smiled at Chancy to lessen the impact of that unrestrained irritation.
I said, “My brother was running late but he’s here now. We’d like to ask some questions about the event Ivy vanished from and obtain as much social media information as we can. He’s the IT guy.”
EJ stepped in front of Chancy. Even though she could not have seen him enter, she didn’t hit him with a fire amulet, scream, or even start with surprise. She stood, smiling that properly educated, finishing school smile, and shook his hand.
Knowing thatOjoswould record and film the entire conversation while also tracing the subject’s whereabouts for the last year up to now, I joined them at the more comfortable sitting area and let EJ take over the dialogue. In his hands it would be a conversation, not a cantankerous interrogation.
His first questions led in to why Chancy had chosen Everhart Investigations and then he said the words I had been wanting to say. “You neglected to mention in either your email or this conversation one very salient relationship. Ivyanna had just ended a contract with Karson Marrazzo, Angie’s ex-husband, the most powerful vampire in Chattanooga.”
Yeah. That.I focused on Chancy.
She didn’t reply at once, but she didn’t seem flustered by the question. Instead, she seemed mildly surprised that EJ brought it up.
“Because,” she said, “according to the ‘Witch Web,’ you were there. At the party. You know everyone there. You were there with Ivyanna. With her former vampire partner. Who better to take my case?” As she spoke, her mild surprise became genuinely perplexed. “Right?”
Vampire partner…Karson Asshat Marrazzo. Who, along with the princess and prince—EJ and me—had been at the party where Ivyanna had disappeared. Also present had been the hostess—the queen—her entire cabinet, family and friends, our parents, and Edmund the First of Europe. My childhood crush.
“Good point,” I murmured. The Witch Web was on one of the dark internets for vamps and witches only, and was something a well-placed former blood servant might have access to. It didn’t make her lies less valid. But it did show us why we had no choice but to take her case, even if it had been pro bono.Well, damn.
Parts of my own personal history sucked, but my ex-husband, Karson’s betrayal was years ago. And as for the other vampire who had once been part of my life, I had gotten over the childhood crush on Edmund decades ago. Eddie the Great’s first reappearance in the U.S. in decades hadn’t sparked a recurrence of the passions from my eight-year-old self.
We had met, done the air-kiss thing, and then been quitecomfortable together at the queen’s reception, as much as the three-hundred-plus-year-old vampire emperor of Europe and a covenless witch could be. We had laughed, shared a memory or two, and generally carried on like old friends. Unfortunately, that budding friendship and the queen’s party where Eddie the Great had visited, now slid in adjacent to this case in ways that would embroil the family, the coven we had left behind, our vampire bodyguard currently sleeping by day, and possibly the Dark Queen herself.
That.
Thatwas why it was important.
“Your thoughts?” EJ asked, from the chair he had taken when Chancy left. “Due to our tangled relationships, any of them would land this case in our laps whether we want it or not.”
“Family, coven, and clan connections were the major reasons I agreed to the case, but it’s a casesoperfect for The Firm, that it’s almost as if it was manufactured for us,” I said.
“Mmmm,” he said, thoughtful, his tone too soft, too unemotional for a twenty-three-year-old.
I said, “Ojos, place under file list, ‘Reasons to take the case.’ One: the local vampires are part of a blood clan under the jurisdiction of the Master of the City of Asheville, Lincoln Shaddock, our grandfather. Two: there is a possible connection to Edmund the First, Emperor of Europe, impinging on the bond and fealty between Eddie the Great and me. Three: the presence of my ex-husband near the time of Ivyanna’s disappearance. Four: Ivyanna’s last known location was at the reception for Edmund the First of Europe, at the Official Residence of the Dark Queen”—I took a slow breath—“our godmother.”
“Five,” EJ said. “A party where we were present by royal summons. Family. Politics.Ojos, end dictation.”
“Yeah,” I said. “This whole thing feels like an arrow pointed right at us.”
“Feels orfeels?” EJ asked, accenting the second word.
“Both,” I said reluctantly. “I wish Walter were awake to bounce things off of.”
I didn’t wish for Walter often. I kept a wall between us, because he was the price of our independence, and I would never make payment for my freedom easy on anyone again. And Walter didn’t like us much, for reasons I had never known or understood, so keeping my distance was easy, if annoying. I mean,why didn’t he like us?
“Why did Edmund come to the U.S. last week?” EJ asked, his eyes moving over the wall of screens with the client’s and the subject’s info. “He hasn’t traveled in years until the supposed ‘quick stopover’ last week to visit the queen and Consort.”
“And ourgrampa,” I said, my voice echoing the problematic relationship we had learned of long after we were born. Grampa wasn’t the fuzzy-happy-snuggly grandfather figure some kids had. Instead he was the fanged vampire Master of the City of Asheville, NC, and associated hunting grounds, including Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we lived.
“Let’s say it wasn’t a ‘wild hair’ visit, which we never believed anyway,” EJ said, “and that Eddie was here for an important political reason. And because there was a reception, the kind where invitations are fought over, Ivyanna got in.”
For relatives and clan members of the queen, like us and our baby sister, who was still in university, attendance at the party had not been optional. Ours had been a command performance, one that even being on our own, living in the mundane world, had not been one we could avoid.
