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The fact that Larissa is the detective on these murders is a stroke of luck for us.
“I don’t have good news,” he says. He drinks another swallow of whiskey. I still haven’t touched mine.
“Tell me.”
He glances over my shoulder, but we’re alone, and no one will eavesdrop on us here. At home, it’s always a possibility. Grandmother’s superhuman hearing. At least that’s what she tells us. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she’d bugged all the rooms.
“Both victims had the cross carved into their foreheads.” He slips the folder toward me. I place my hand over it but take a moment to digest his words. To ready myself for what I’ll find because I know what it contains. It’s no less brutal when I open the folder, though, and look at the photographs. There are two, zoomed in close. At least I don’t have to see the rest of the butchering they did. It’s only their foreheads bloody and mutilated, bearing The Disciples’ signature. The sign of the cross.
“Christ.”
“Police are withholding that detail.”
I lean back in my chair. “The Disciples are back.”
“There’s more.”
“What more?” I pick up my glass and bring it to my lips.
“They’re targeting the Wildbloods.”
His words stop me. “What did you say?”
He takes out his phone, scrolls to something and turns it around to show me. It’s a photo of the front door of the Wildblood house. Barrett Cromwell is sanding it down, a can of paint ready at his side, but I can read most of what he’s trying to clean up. Someone spray painted a message on their front door. Their fucking front door.
…witch you can’t hide forever
Emmanuel looks as concerned as I feel. It’s absolutely not like him, and it tells me he has more of a stake in this than I realized.
“Someone was on their property. At their door, Azrael. Someone got that close to them.”
“I’m guessing there’s no security system in place.”
“Not apart from their spells.” He rolls his eyes. “Which aren’t going to keep them safe.”
“How do you know that?”
He takes a moment to answer. “I talked to Raven.”
I knew it. “What’s your deal with her?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking.”
“Well, I am asking it. You know the rules. You—”
“The message was for Willow, Azrael,” he says, turning the subject around absolutely.
The blood in my veins runs cold, and I have a sudden image of Willow, her eyes closed forever, her face desecrated and bloody. That cross carved into her forehead.
“Willow is safe at the house. No one can touch her there. I won’t allow it.” I don’t sound remotely like myself when I say it. I swallow the contents of my glass and reach for the bottle to refill it.
“You’re probably right that she’s safest at the house, for now.”
For now. He doesn’t need to elaborate. She’s safe until I fulfill my obligation as The Penitent. “Her sisters, though, are not.”
“Does Willow know any of this?”
He nods. I feel my forehead crease. She hasn’t said a word. But then I remember how jumpy she and her sisters were when I went into the sitting room. How quick Willow was to hide those letters from me.
“And the Wildbloods don’t know who is targeting them exactly?”
“They know about The Disciples, but that’s as far as I got. There’s more, though. I can tell.” He stands. “I’m going back over there.”
I study my brother. No, this is not like him at all. “Is that what she wants? Raven?” I add in case it wasn’t clear.
“I didn’t ask.”
Ah. There he is, the Emmanuel I know.
I stand too and nod. “Arrange for security. Don’t tell them. I’m sure the Wildbloods won’t agree to a Delacroix’s protection.”
He snorts. “No, they definitely won’t agree to that.”
“How was Bec, by the way? How did she seem to you?” I ask as I take some cash out of my wallet and leave it on the table.
“Good, actually. Better than she’s been in a while. She showed me her new dress,” he says as we head to the exit. “I’m sure Gran will shred it when she sees it.”
“I’m thinking to take her to a different doctor.”
“Oh? Your wife’s idea, I assume? Like the dress?”
“Doesn’t matter, does it? What do you think?”
“This one isn’t doing much for her, so it won’t hurt.” He stops, turns to me. “I don’t think she’s grown an inch in over a year.”
I nod, worry and guilt making it hard to swallow.
He pats my back. “It’s not your fault. You know that, right?”
I press my lips together and nod again in a way that is not convincing to either of us.
“I gotta go,” he says.
“Be careful, brother. The Disciples are zealots, and no matter what we think of their archaic way of thinking, they are dangerous.”
“So am I, brother.” He turns and walks out the door, not waiting for me to follow as he heads down the street in the direction of the Wildblood house.
