Page 94 of Blackwicket
Ramsey indicated Thea James with a tip of his chin.
“I was a child when the Authority began collecting unlicensed Curse Eaters,” she explained, clutching the stole tight. “I’d been acquired by the Bobbit family.”
I met a Bobbit woman, Inspector Harrow had said.
“He realized what I was, lost my paperwork, then sent me to live with a sympathetic couple on a farm far west with a new name: Theadora James.”
“You and Victor know each other.”
“I came to Nightglass because Barrick needed someone less volatile than his son to keep an eye on things,” she confirmed. “I’d never met the Inspector, but rumors travel fast. I knew he was a wild card, zealous about his father’s work. He was different then, not much cuddlier, but he had life in his eyes. Now he’s frozen over. Sometimes I worry the only warm thing left in him is hatred.”
The involuntary blush pinking my cheeks caught Thea’s sharp attention, but I interrupted her comment as it formed.
“So you’re an Authority informant, like Cora?”
Hearing Cora’s name shook Thea profoundly, a visual quake of shock jostling her. Her reaction was genuine, and I regretted my callousness.
“I’m so sorry, Thea, I wasn’t completely sure whether…”
“We weren’t,” Thea cut me off stiffly. “Not officially. Cora lied to me, I didn’t know she was Authority. But I’m not. I was here for Barrick, to help him undermine the Authority’s plans,but they caught on. Couldn’t do much, because on paper he was doing it all right.”
“But they found a way,” I said, knowing the end.
Ramsey cast his eyes to the ground, the delivery of his next words difficult.
“Grigori took care of the problem for them,” he said.
“What they didn’t account for was Victor,” Thea’s tone carried no affection, but was free of the fear and revulsion I’d previously sensed regarding the Inspector. “He ripped through the Brom enclave in Devin. Scattered them to the four winds, then continued to come to Nightglass under the charade of being there for a good time, but he was out of control. The Authority attempted to rein him in, give him some work to do outside of busting heads.”
“He mentioned he was here to investigate the disappearances,” I replied. Victor was likely aware of the Authority’s attempts to handle him and, true to form, had turned this to his advantage, agreeing to stay in the very location he already wanted to be in.
“We’re both concerned he’s involved,” Ramsey remarked, the gentleness in his wording revealing his awareness that Victor meant something to me. Why else would I have known these details about his life if he hadn’t confided them? And a man such as Victor didn’t confide easily.
“He is,” I said bluntly. There was no point in concealing information.
Thea narrowed her eyes, “How do you know?”
“Victor isn’t here to bully the Brom, and I’d wager my life that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the people who disappeared.” He hadn’t cared that I’d found their clothes, their bones. It occurred to me he’d always known and was merely waiting to verify I hadn’t been connected. “He knows what Grigori was doing, knows William is on the same power trip, and he intends to put an end to it tonight.”
“He wants to avenge Barrick?” This alarmed Ramsey.
“That’s been done,” I said, taking the initiative to walk into the night toward the car, which remained running, its tailpipe steaming. “This is retribution for what he was forced to endure, and insurance that it’ll never happen to anyone else.”
Thea was working to keep up, her heels sticking in the gravel.
“What are you saying? Slow down, Eleanora!”
I didn’t heed her, continuing my clip, heart pounding. I was going to share Victor’s deepest tragedy, but it was necessary.
“Victor is Thomas Nightglass. Grigori used him to perfect the practice of soldering a Drudge to a human soul.”
“That’s impossible,” Ramsey exclaimed, his barking voice enraged, horrified at the implications. “It would have killed him! Not a single known person survived that joining for more than a few weeks at best, and all of them went mad!”
I wasn’t ready to confess Thomas had assistance, that I’d unwittingly become the final link in the alchemical equation that allowed the merger to succeed and endure. I was in a precarious position as it was.
I reached the car, grasping the handle to yank the door wide, but I didn’t enter, not yet. “The Drudge you saw today, Thea. One of them was Victor. He was protecting Jack.”
“Which one?” The question was shrill.
