Page 52 of The Umbra King

“Researching Aurora Raven,” he replied. “Have you met her yet?”

“Ahh,” Lauren said knowingly. “Briefly. He has never been interested in an inmate’s life before Vincula. Why now?”

Sam nodded. “She is The Butcher. Caius despises what she represents, but he’s drawn to her. I believe his desire will border on obsession before long.”

Lauren sighed. “I can tell she is not what she seems. Let me know what you discover.”

She turned and opened the door to her own bunker and blew a kiss over her shoulder. Sam scrubbed a hand down his face and headed to the only place he knew where to start: Aurora’s place of employment.

“I have trackeddown four more people who say she saved them,” Dume told Keith and Kordie. They sat at the back of Whiplash in a dark booth, drinking.

“I knew it,” Kordie whispered. Her voice wobbled. “I knew she wouldn’t kill innocent people.”

“That’s why the Scales of Justice didn’t send her to hell,” Keith said excitedly. “Sheislike a supermystic, only more gruesome.”

Dume saw Keith shiver. The way Rory displayed her victims was disturbing, and that was something they would unpack later. But with everyrealvictim he spoke with, a little more weight lifted from his shoulders.

Rory was his oldest friend, and he refused to believe she would murder someone without cause. “Her last victim was an undocumentedMerrow, and they found an entire room full of empty jars in his apartment.”

Keith whistled. “Damn. If they were empty, I bet Rory set the souls free.” Dume thought the same thing. “There’s no telling how many people he would have killed.”

“Or how many he already did,” Kordie added.

“What do you know about Aurora Raven?” a deep voice rumbled across the room.

All three turned their heads to see a large man with a blonde bun, glaring at the bartender. Dume rose from his seat and approached the man. “Why are you asking about Rory?”

The man turned his threatening gaze to Dume. “Rory?”

“You asked about Aurora Raven.” Dume folded his enormous arms across his chest. As anAatxe, he was big, but this guy was huge. “She goes by Rory.”

The man looked Dume up and down. “You know her.” It wasn’t a question.

“What do you want with her?” Dume asked again.

“I would like to speak with you,” the man replied instead of answering the question.

Dume’s jaw ticked, but it wasn’t in his nature to be hostile. “Come with me.”

He led him to their booth in the back and introduced him to Keith and Kordie. “We are—were her best friends.”

“Are,” Keith corrected, narrowing his eyes at Dume.

“My name is Sam,” the man said. “I need to know everything you know about her, including why she murdered thirteen people.”

“Why?” Keith asked. “She’s gone, and she isn’t coming back until we’re long dead.”

Sam motioned for Kordie to let him sit, and she scooted as far away from him as possible. “It is to help her.”

The three went still. “What do you mean ‘help her?’” Kordie asked. “There is no way out of a prison sentence. She’ll be in Vincula for five-hundred years.”

“I am aware of how long her sentence is,” Sam said flatly. “What do you know?”

They all looked at each other, silently agreeing to let this man in. “I have been investigating the murders,” Dume began. “So far, five people have said Rory saved their lives from her so-called victims. The first one found us here, defending Rory tooth and nail. I tracked down the other four. Her last victim was an undocumentedMerrow, and there were dozens of empty jars in his apartment. We think Rory set the stolen souls free.”

Sam’s face had the emotional range of a dial tone. “Is that so?” Dume gave a curt nod. “And what of the others?”

Dume frowned. “I can’t announce to the realm I am investigating a closed case. I must be discreet, and that’s not easy.”

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