Page 51 of Mystic Justice
I glared. ‘When I said you’d been bad, I wasn’t talking about Betty.’ The moment I’d walked in and seen his face I’d recognised him, despite the fact that his features had now aged. I shifted my weight onto the balls of my feet and called up my magic, letting it hum through me. I was ready if he decided to run or fight. ‘You’ve been attacking imps, Mr Merrick, and stealing their tails.’
He grimaced. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘That.’ He made no move and his eyes flickered over me, no doubt reading my intentions to bring him down if he did. ‘If I may make one little suggestion before you arrest me?’
‘Go on.’
‘Call Lord Volderiss.’
I didn’t want to let down my guard to get my phone out and dial the vampyr Symposium member. Volderiss liked me well enough, he’d take my call and answer my questions, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the prize. ‘You call him,’ I shot back instead.
The handsome vampyr gave me a small smile. ‘Right you are. No need to get cranky. I’m moving nice and slowly.’ He picked up the receiver of his desk phone, speed dialled Lord Volderiss and put him on loudspeaker without any prompting from me. It was telling that the lord was speed dial number one.
‘Gideon, what do you need?’ Volderiss’s voice cracked out. Again, interesting. First-name basis, and he didn’t ask what Merrick wanted but what heneeded.
‘Your immediate presence at Botany would be most helpful,’ Gideon said with faux cheerfulness. ‘I have a rather crankyInspector Wise on my hands and she has High King Krieg with her.’
‘Krieg? What’s he doing there?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Gideon said. ‘You can ask him when you’re here. If you dare.’
‘I’m already on the way. Tell Wise to give me ten minutes to get to you and I’ll be there in five. We can get the jump on her if we need to.’
Gideon looked at me ruefully. ‘Ah. To show my good faith to the Inspector, I put this call on speakerphone.’
Volderiss huffed. ‘Next time tell me that at the beginning of a call. Wise, I’ll see you in five minutes.’
‘I look forward to it,’ I drawled. ‘But if you try and get the jump on me, now or ever, I won’t hesitate to make you dust.’
Next to me, Krieg smiled.
The Connection was the police and the Symposium was the government. The Symposium gave the Connection their orders, and the Connection was supposed to police corruption in the Symposium. There was no precise separation of powers in the Other and that made it a murky place where only the strong survived and thrived. At no point could anyone ever consider me weak or I’d be a dead woman walking.
Gideon winced as he hung up the phone. ‘You shouldn’t threaten Lord Volderiss. He doesn’t like it.’
‘He shouldn’t threatenme.Idon’t like it.’
‘He didn’t mean to – not directly.’
As Krieg moved closer to take up his preferred place slightly behind and to my left, he pulled out a blade. To anyone else it would have been a sword but he would probably have called it a dagger. ‘You hired Krieg as your bodyguard?’ Gideon mused. ‘That seems like a good idea, in the circumstances.’
I rose an eyebrow. ‘Which are?’
He smiled again; I didn’t trust anyone who smiled that often. ‘I’ll let Lord Volderiss enlighten you.’
Silence fell. After a beat, I broke it. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard.’
He looked at me. ‘Perhaps not.’
We fell silent again. Gideon slumped back into his leather, big-boss swivel chair that he’d just been being bouncing on with such abandon. ‘Are we going to wait in silence,’ he said. ‘Or…?’
‘Where were you on the night of Moss Hollings’ kidnapping? Tuesday the first of July?’ I asked.
He blinked. ‘We can go back to silence, if you want?’
‘Answer the question.’
He frowned faintly. ‘I thought you were here about the tails?’
‘My visit has more than one purpose.’
