Dark Descent (Codex Blair Book 3) Read online

  Ice cream wasn't going to change the fact that I had no idea how to handle what had just happened, but I deserved it after that. I'd deal with this later.

  19

  The next morning, I woke early and made my way to Lillai's shop. I was incredibly nervous—the woman had never been kind to me. Not even one of our interactions could be described as having gone well.

  If I had my way, I wouldn't go to see her at all, but this was necessary. She was a prominent member of the magical community, a leader if that forum had been anything to go by. That meant she would know if anyone had gone missing, and I wanted to get a list to cross reference with Finn. I wanted to know exactly how many people had been attacked so that I could take Mal and Jakub to each of the sites.

  I only needed to bring Jakub with me. We were going to try and track the succubus, which he had seemed confident he would be able to pull off. But I didn't want to push Mal again; last night was an experience that I did not want to replicate. The emotional upheaval had been enough for one lifetime, and if I could avoid it at all then that was exactly what I was going to do. He would have to come too.

  I could only hope that he didn't want to talk about it later. But Mal seemed to be on the same page as me as far as avoiding emotional conversations—we'd had ice cream and talked about anything else under the sun. Mostly mundane things that there was no way he was interested in...it had been cathartic, though, to have a somewhat normal moment in my life. I had been able to pretend I was just hanging out with a friend and talking about the parts of my life that weren't magical.

  I pushed those thoughts away—it was time to return to the realm of magic and get back to business on this case.

  I opened the door to Lillai's shop, the sound of bells tinkled overhead, and walked inside. It was a store, which meant I didn't have to worry about being invited in—there was no way Lillai would have invited me in, so that was good.

  "Lillai?" I called into the store, nervous but determined. I walked towards the empty counter, certain she would show up there whenever she came out.

  "Who's there?" Her response came from a back room, but I recognised her voice.

  "It's Blair. Look, I know you probably don't want to talk to me, but it's important." I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, picking at a stray thread on my jeans. I hoped she wasn't going to just send me away, because that would be awkward. I couldn't just go away if she told me to, I had to get this list from her—assuming she would be able to put the list together. If she wasn't then I was going to be in a heap of trouble. I would have to come through every single report in the mortuary trying to find the ones that looked suspicious—mostly that would be young people dying of natural causes.

  How did that even fly as a cause of death? How was no one suspicious of that? Young people didn't have heart attacks, not on a massive scale. It always bewildered me how much everyone was willing to just close their eyes to what was going on around them, to ignore the magic that walked beside them every day on their way to work. For all anyone knew, the person they shared their lunch with was a witch, or a troll, or a vampire. There was no way of telling, and none of them were even trying to see what could very well be in front of them.

  Finn was the only one I knew that had taken in the knowledge of the magical world and not rejected it out of hand. Would he have if it weren't for me, though? He could have written it off as a crazy mentor—his previous boss had handed him the job upon his retirement, and told him that he had to keep it a secret. Finn hadn’t exactly done that. For one, he had told me about it. For two, he had assembled a task force of select officers that he had informed of the situation so that he could better combat it, instead of just cleaning up the mess after the event.

  Of course, I tried to take care of things before Finn found out about them. I didn't want a bunch of humans getting involved and mucking it up; they were just as likely to get themselves killed as they were to be any actual help in the matter. I did have to admit that Finn had done a good job helping in the situation with the vampires this past summer, but it was dangerous to let him get himself involved.

  A few more minutes passed, and I realised that Lillai still hadn't responded to me.

  Oh, boy.

  "Lillai?" I called again, craning my head behind the counter to see down towards the door I knew she had to be behind. I hadn't expected her to flat out ignore me, that just seemed childish.

  "Go away," she said through the door.

  I let out a frustrated breath, tapping a foot against the floor. So, this was how it was going to be.

  "Lillai, I need to talk to you. This will all go so much faster if you would just come out of there." I had little hope that it would be that easy to get her to come out, but I didn't know what else to say. I needed her to work with me, and I needed to find a way to get her to see that working with me was for the best. Without her, I wasn't going to be able to stop this succubus, and she had to know that. It was a risk, revealing myself to her, but it was a necessary one.

  At last, she came out from behind the door, glaring at me. She was an intimidating woman, plump, with naturally tanned skin and striking brown eyes, her black hair hidden underneath a scarf, and she wore a white blouse with a flowing multi-coloured skirt. She might have looked matronly if it weren't for the threat in her eyes.

  "What do you want?"

  "I need to know if—"

  "No, forget it, I don't want to know what you want. I want you to get out of my shop. Every time I see you, something goes to hell. You came here with Aidan and then he died, and don't think I don't know that it was you at Tyburn Tree."

  My eyes bulged at that. No, I hadn't known that she knew, I thought that no one knew. If Lillai knew about that, why didn't everyone else?

  "Because then they would laud you as a hero, when it is all your fault."

  Well, I hadn't said that out loud. "How did you...no, never mind, it is not my fault. I didn't have anything to do with that necromancer up and deciding to destroy the city, I didn't want to be involved at all. Aidan dragged me into it, I didn't want anything to do with any of this, and I don't like you blaming me for his death. I've got enough going on there without you piling on, thank you very much."

  I might blame myself for Aidan's death now and again, but it wasn't her place to do it. I couldn't let her walk all over me.

  "You show up again and now there's a succubus attacking my people. You are the common thread."

  "Well, if you'd been paying attention, you'd also know that I'm the one taking care of things. I'm the one protecting people. I don't want accolades, I just want to do my damn job."

  She glared at me for a long moment. "I want you to leave."

  "Well, I'm sorry, but that isn't happening until I get what I came here for."

  "And what is that, exactly?"

  "A list. I need to know who is missing and when they went missing." I realised that it was a tall order, but even if I just got a list of names, I would be happy. Shoot high, get what you want, after all.

  "You expect me to give you a list of people within the community? Get out of my shop." She looked at me as if I was the one doing the killing.

  "Are you kidding me right now? I'm not hurting anyone, I'm helping them. Why do you find that so hard to believe?"

  "Because death follows you like an old friend."

  That stung.

  I pulled in a deep breath and glared at her.

  "I told you, this will all go a lot easier if you just work with me here. I want a list of people—no, wait, let me finish—so that I can cross reference it with my friend at the police. We're going to figure out how many people have died and see if we can find any pattern to it so that we can hopefully stop any future killings. Now, please, tell me why that is bad?"

  She glared back at me, wanting to fight me on this, but not finding anything she could say. At long last she spoke.

  "Come to the back. I will try to compile a list with you and we'll see where it get
s you. I just want to be rid of you."

  I wanted to point out that there was no reason for her to be so short with me, or that there was no reason we couldn't work together. If she was amenable, we could do more to protect the community, but she was so set on hating me that there didn't seem to be any hope of that happening. I would have loved to work with her, she would have knowledge of the community that could have helped me, perhaps she could have even helped me to understand more about myself as a mage.

  There was no use crying over spilled milk, though.

  I followed her into the back room, and stood while she sat at her desk. She hadn't offered me a seat, though there were two in the room, and I didn't want to be rude. She wanted me out of there as soon as was possible, and I wasn't going to force the matter anymore than I already had.

  "It's a difficult list to make, as I don't track the goings on of the community. The most I can get you is who didn't show up to the meeting that wasn't otherwise accounted for."

  "Lillai. Do you really expect me to believe that you didn't start looking into things as soon as I left that meeting? You're better than that."

  She glared at me, which only told me that I was right. I would have expected no less from her—she was a leader of the community, she cared about their wellbeing, of course she would want to know if anyone was missing. And she would have tried to track them down herself if she had turned up anyone. Which meant that she had all the information I was looking for, she was still just trying to keep it from me.

  "Fine," she said through gritted teeth. She reached into a drawer and pulled out a readymade list containing names, dates, times, and locations.

  Exactly what I had needed.

  I let out a frustrated sigh. "Why are you being so difficult? I told you that I'm only trying to help, and still you seem intent on deceiving me."

  "You are not Aidan, you have not earned my trust, and I doubt that you ever will."

  "I find it hilarious that you trusted Aidan, but refuse to trust me. All I have done is try to keep this community safe."

  Without acknowledging that, she shoved the list at me. "Now get out of my shop."

  There was nothing left to say, so I did as she asked.

  20

  The next stop on my list was to see Finn and cross reference the list that Lillai had given me. It was a little hard to find parking that early in the morning, but I managed it.

  I had Lillai's list tucked into my bag as I trudged into the building. I wasn't feeling my best anymore—seeing Lillai had taken a lot out of me. That woman could be cruel when she wanted to be. I still didn't understand why she hadn't had a problem with Aidan but she had such a big one with me. I could understand being wary, but she had never given me a chance to prove myself. Strike first, ask questions later, that seemed to be her preferred method of dealing with things.

  "I'm here to see O'Malley," I said to the receptionist.

  She gave me a look, I knew I didn’t look like I belonged there, but otherwise didn't say anything. I had been here a few times now, to consult with the department when they needed it, or to see Finn. They were used to me coming in, no longer as frosty as they first were, but the receptionist didn’t want me there.

  Get in line, lady.

  She picked up the phone and pushed a button, letting Finn know that I was there.

  I waited, not taking a seat on the bench this time, until he came out to collect me.

  He had told me once or twice that I didn't need to go through the receptionist, I could just go and knock on his door, but I didn't feel comfortable with that. I didn't want to imagine what kind of dark look I would get from the receptionist if I did that.

  Finally, he came out.

  "Hey, Blair," he said, smiling at me. Oh, good, he wasn't in a mood today.

  "Hey," I said. He waved me on, and I walked behind him back to his office.

  "What's up?"

  "I have a list," I said, pulling the piece of paper out of my bag. "It's all the people that have gone missing in the magical community lately, that couldn't be accounted for."

  He frowned. "I had hoped you were coming to tell me the whole situation had been cleared up and I could relax."

  "Come on, Finn, how often does that happen?"

  "With you? Often enough that I'm obviously too comfortable with it."

  I grinned. Finn had a point, most of the time I could handle the situations that came up without his help, but this time I needed him. I was glad that I could take care of most things without him—I didn't like to involve him. It was for his own good. I was also glad to hear that he was getting comfortable with the idea of letting things go and waiting for me to come to him.

  It might not be the smartest move for the department, but it made me feel better to think that he wasn't running around playing at Ghosthunters.

  "How many?" He reached out a hand, gesturing for me to hand him the piece of paper.

  There was still a part of me that was reluctant to hand it over. I had already asked for his help earlier when I'd had him take me to the mortuary, but it just felt more official now that I was enlisting him. I didn't want to bring him into this, but I didn't see any other options to get cold hard facts.

  This was a list of missing people, not dead people. I needed to find out how many the succubus had killed, because she obviously was not hoarding bodies.

  I handed it to him with a sigh. "Twenty," I said.

  He grunted. "That's a fun number if I've ever heard one."

  I shrugged. "It's the number we have to work with. Are we heading to the mortuary or the file room?"

  "I don't see a reason to go to the mortuary again. You don't need to see their bodies to know what happened to them."

  I frowned, not exactly disappointed that I wasn't going to the mortuary, but more disappointed in Finn that he didn't think it was necessary. Perhaps I humanised the victims too much, but I wanted to remember what I was fighting for. I wanted to remember that it wasn't just the rage that pushed me, that there was something more to all this.

  "OK, fine, file room it is."

  We both got up and walked out of his office. There were a lot of hallways to walk down, and a few sets of stairs, to get to the dingy room in the basement where all the files were kept. I didn't know why they didn't have an updated system kept on computers, but I suppose I should be thankful for the low-tech system they used in this place. Less of a chance for me to blow things up.

  He put the list on a table, checked it, and began rummaging through a few drawers before he pulled out the first file.

  "Here you go, first one," he said as he handed it to me, then went back in to pull another file for himself.

  I opened it and began thumbing through the documents. It didn't take long to figure out that this had been a death in a magical fight, but not one with a succubus. I sighed and put the file down. I could already tell that this was going to be an unpleasant experience—I didn't want to read about how a bunch of mages had died. Part of me wanted to tell Finn that he needed to do it himself and just tell me which ones were the victims we were looking for, but I knew that wasn't fair.

  No matter how long he had been doing this, there was no way he had isolated his feelings from his jobs. I just didn't see that as a possibility for someone as caring as Finn.

  "What are we looking for again?" He turned to look at me.

  "Young mages that died from natural causes," I said.

  It was a lucky thing that no matter the death, a police report had to be filed for it. If they only recorded the murders, I would have been out of luck.

  "OK," he said.

  I checked the list for the next name and began looking for the proper cabinet to start digging in.

  "So how are you and Michael?" I tried to sound nonchalant.

  "Blair," he said, warning me off.

  "What? You haven't said two words about the guy since last summer. I am dying to get more details."

  "What is there to say? I'm very so
rry he ended up vampire bait, but that isn't my problem. He's good now."

  "Oh, that’s not at all what I was talking about, and you know it."

  "Can you not just drop this?" He let out an exasperated sigh, snapping a file shut. "I don't want to talk about it."

  "But that's exactly why I want to talk about it," I said. "If you didn't care, you would just tell me about him and that would be the end of it. But you care, which is so weird, because you never care."

  "Ouch. I care all the time. How dare you?"

  I snorted. "Yeah, you care about all the men and women you sleep with. I'll believe that when I see you stick around for more than a few weeks."

  "I dated Elizabeth for a month!"

  "I'm surprised you remembered her name, you saw her three times!" I laughed, shaking my head. I pulled out the file I was looking for and began to thumb through it. "You cannot seriously count that. She was out of town for most of the month."

  He grumbled a few incoherent words to himself.

  "What was that?"

  "Nothing," he said, smiling up at me so that I knew whatever he had said had not been kind.

  "What about Andrew? He was sweet. I'm surprised you didn't keep him around."

  "He was clingy," he said with a scowl. "He texted me all day when I was at work and was annoyed any time I didn't respond within five minutes. And apparently, five minutes is a long time to go without a response, did you know that?"

  "I did not. I don't text people."

  "Do you know how hard it is to check your phone when you're out in the field working an important case? It's bloody unprofessional, is what it is."

  I giggled. Listening to him rant about his prior partners was one of my favourite things to do, second only to watching him interact with them. Finn was a notorious rake, always going after a new person on almost a weekly basis. You couldn't say that they didn't know what they were getting into either, but everyone always seemed to think they would be the one to change him.

  It would be hilarious...well, no, it was to me. People should believe what they are told by a person, not decide that they're suddenly going to change just for them.