AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“My uncledidn’tfund the grant,” Eli said, taking a seat of a chair that looked to be woven of wood and vine. “And he does not come here. The king has nothing to do with the threats. Of this truth, I am certain.”
Beatrice paced, seeming like a feral creature. Typically, she carried the calm of the grave. Austere and calculating were her default, not restless.
“What news do you have?” I prompted.
“Daphne has vanished. The imbeciles you sent to me identifiedheras their Baba Yaga.” Beatrice pressed her lips together. “They asked who I was.Me? I am the fucking queen of their kind, despite their denial of what they are.”
I blinked. I’d never heard her so talkative. “I thought you—”
“Daphneclaimed to be me!” Beatrice said, voice harsh and irritated. “I was . . . played. That is the word, yes? I was played. I thought she was lovely but harmless. And all the while, she was murderingdraugrand assigning the deaths to me by this deceit.”
I wanted to hug her. I stepped toward her to do just that, but I was not a hugger and well, she was an angry, armed, fangeddraugr.I paused.
“Have I grown complacent?” Beatrice met my gaze. “Have I lost my edge in the joy of finding family?”
“Frog freckles,” I muttered. Then Iflowed, and I hugged her.
After a moment she patted me on the back—much like a mother patting a gassy baby. I guess my great-times-great grandmother wasn’t a hugger either. For some reason, that made me hug her a second time. Then I stepped back.
“That was . . . pleasant.” Beatrice brushed her sleeves as if I’d left them crinkled or something. She seemed to re-center herself. Voice calm and expression implacable. “I dislike this.”
“Murder?” Eli asked.
“No, of course not.” Beatrice shot a disdainful look at him. “I simply prefer to own the murders I commit. They are strategic decisions to exert control and maintain order.”
He met my eyes, as if to say, “do you see what she is?” I didn’t think Eli truly objected to my growing closeness with Beatrice, but sometimes I felt like he had taken on the task of being cautious when I was not.
I nodded at both of them, and then I asked Beatrice, “And the grant?”
“That remains to be seen.” Beatrice smiled in a way that would make many a grown man quake; she was far from the knitting grannies of storybooks. My grandmother was a vicious—and proud—creature, and currently, she was livid. “I shall ask her that when we discuss these things. She did, however, leave the avian remains with your name on the package.”
Daphne wasn’t old enough to provoke a fight with Beatrice. The balance was tragically in Beatrice’s favor, so why provoke her? Why be so transparent in leaving crow heads, corpses, and what were the playing cards about? And why pretend to be Beatrice?
“It doesn’t track.” I rolled what Beatrice had said in my mind. “Hebert likely had her son injected. She says she brought him to Houston, but she spoke of him in present tense.”
“Did you feel his presence?”
“Wherever Christophe was, it wasn’t at the Hebert place.” I paused, pondering what I said next. How much was I trusting Beatrice? At this point, I guess I was as all-in as I got. My mother was at Beatrice’s castle, and I was confiding in her. “Hebert knew my name. Knew I was a witch, knew I worked with NOPD. Desk guy at her building says Hebert hosts SAFARI parties.”
I shook my head. I had an idea, a suspicion really. I held up my hand to Beatrice and texted my new friend Benjamin: “Have you seen this man?”
I did an internet search on my phone, and then saved and sent a picture of Tres.
“I cannot fathom a SAFARI member like her working with adraugr, even one as charming as Daphne,” Beatrice continued as soon as I looked up from my phone. “Although . . . motherhood can muddy the waters of even the dearest beliefs.”
“It made my mother scr—”
Beatrice cut me off. “Do not speak ill of Lauren.”
“Christophe was dying. Cancer,” I said, back on topic.
“And Daphne killed some of the Prague group. The so-called vampires.” Beatrice shook her head.
“A rose by any other name . . .” Eli murmured.
My phone chimed with a singular line: “Yummy Suit from NOLA? YES.”
I sighed. Tres was connected with more than information. “My guy in Houston saw Tres at the Hebert building.”
