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"Yeah, it was. The scars they left on her body will be there forever. I'm hoping to help ease the scars in her heart."
"And OIA let her stay on?"
"It's a long story," I said, sighing. "Someday, I'll tell you the rest. Right now, I'm trying to help her adjust. To have fun even though she's… well… dead."
"Don't you mean undead?" Chase asked.
I grinned. "Definitions are a slippery slope."
After another awkward pause, Menolly returned from the kitchen. She paced the length of the dining room, her boots clipping a staccato beat against the hardwood. "Here's the deal. I know that I reported everything that seemed out of place. If there's an inside man, then he's damned good at hiding. I can smell undead like you can smell pussy—"
Chase blinked.
She snorted. "Oh, don't give me that innocent look. You've been sniffing after Camille's ass ever since we arrived. I don't really care what you're thinking, as long as you don't touch. She doesn't want you, and the sooner you accept that, the better. My point is, I can ferret out undead. I can also pick up on some demons, though I'm on a learning curve there."
She leaned over his shoulder and tickled his neck with her hair. "I recognize the undead because I am one of them."
As her hand landed on his shoulder, nails digging in ever so softly, Chase paled. "Yeah, so I understand."
Menolly blew on his ear, tickling it with her tongue before flashing him a dark smile. Chase managed to look both terrified and turned on at the same time.
"Good." She sauntered back to her chair. "What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm the only member of the ooo-spooky set at the Wayfarer. There aren't any other undead there. And if the killer is a demon—whether from the Subterranean Realms or somewhere else—it has to be one of the races I haven't learned how to read. Most of those are Greater Demonkin."
Another awkward pause, and Delilah's purr stopped. She twitched her nose, her whiskers brushing my hand, and her fur started to ripple. Quickly, before we reenacted a mishap I didn't care to repeat, I plopped her on the floor next to my chair. The air shimmered and Delilah stood there, blinking.
"Sorry," she said, stretching her neck. With a quick lick of her hand, she said, "Didn't mean to do that."
"Don't apologize," I said. "Menolly knows better than to scare you."
Menolly grinned and stared at the ceiling.
I tapped my goblet with a spoon. "Attention—now that the excitement is over, can we get back to business?" I looked up to find Chase staring at Delilah, his eyes dark and unreadable. Pointing toward his notebook, I said, "What else have you got for us?"
He flipped open the binder. "There's one other thing. The person I was talking to at the OIA left his station for a moment, and somebody took his place. Guy with jet-black skin and silver hair—dangerous-looking dude. He gave me a message directed at you specifically, Camille." Chase swallowed. "He said he'd twist my balls off if you didn't get it."
The look on his face was priceless, but I couldn't even dredge up a smile. My pulse started to race, and a flurry of images flickered through my mind, dark and passionate. Shit. I knew exactly who Chase was talking about.
"Trillian is working for the OIA? That isn't possible. They wouldn't hire him." I glanced over at Menolly and Delilah, both of whom were frowning.
Chase stared at me, a scowl on his face. "You know who this guy is?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "He said, and I quote, 'Rumor has it something big is going down in the lower depths. There's a new ruler, and he's far more ambitious than the Beasttägger was. Don't count on help from home.'"
The skin on my arms rippled. "The last I heard, the Beasttägger was in charge. Promotions down there come at the expense of a superior's life, so the Beasttägger probably whispered hello to the point of an assassin's knife. Did Trillian say anything else?" On one hand, I prayed he'd sent me a personal note. On the other, any step closer to that dark, murky pool from which I'd barely managed to extricate myself would be asking for trouble.
Leaning back in his chair, Chase stuck his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. He said, 'Tell Camille that Shadow Wing's in charge now. And he's on the warpath.' That mean anything to you?"
Menolly sucked in a deep breath, and Delilah let out a little "Oh" of fear. I returned Chase's stare. "Shadow Wing? Are you sure?"
He nodded. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." He grimaced. "Strike that. You're probably best friends with one."
I sank back in my chair, all thoughts of Trillian slipping to the side. Shadow Wing's name was well known throughout Otherworld. A powerful demon overlord, he'd risen through the ranks in the lower depths with a ruthlessness that defied understanding. Nothing stood in his way. He went after what he wanted, and he never failed. His name had been feared in OW for hundreds of years, though from a distance.
According to everything I'd heard about him, Shadow Wing made it abundantly clear that he thought humankind should be razed to the ground. Father had told us that the OIA had been begging the Court and Crown to pay attention to the growing unrest for years, but the Queen was too caught up in her opium dreams to care. Now, with Shadow Wing in power, both Earth and Otherworld were at risk.
"I'm thinking OIA may not want to even consider this, but do you think there's a chance that Jocko's death might have something to do with Shadow Wing?" I glanced at my sisters, wincing.
"Oh crap," Menolly slumped back in her chair. "That's the last thing I needed to think about."
Delilah blinked. "Maybe we're overreacting? Maybe it's just a random strike by some idiot demon who got himself trapped Earthside?"
