After we’d coasted to the gate and were allowed to stand up, Anyan handed me my duffel from the overhead carrier then pulled out his own bags. From which he dug out his cell phone and made a call. He made no attempt to hide his half of the conversation.
“Hello, Carl? It’s Anyan… Yes, I’ve brought three others with me. A pureblood, whom I trust,” Anyan said, giving Ryu a look that clearly challenged the baobhan sith to be anything but trustworthy. “And the one I told you about, Julian, as well as Jane. Yes, Mari’s daughter.” I felt a stab of pain at the mention of my mother’s name, but I kept it under control.
“We’re heading straight to Borealis. We’ll check in with you and Cappie when we get to the hotel. Will she be at the site?… Okay… Thanks, Carl. Bye.”
I perked up, wondering if we’d meet this Capitola woman. She’d helped us during our last investigation, and I had all sorts of questions for her. Like where she got that name.
And who she is to the barghest, my libido thought petulantly. I ignored it.
Anyan flipped shut his cell and slipped it into his back pocket. “Okay, we’re good to go. We’re here officially. That said, remember not to show off, Ryu. Alfar lackeys aren’t popular here.”
“I’m no one’s lackey,” Ryu replied huffily.
“Whatever you say, Chief. Just don’t go flashing your powers.”
“What about me?” I interrupted. “Am I an Alfar lackey?”
“You’re fine, Jane. They know about you already.”
I am the “victim’s daughter,” after all, I thought sadly.
We headed to the rental car place to pick up our wheels. Ryu had, of course, ordered something luxury, another large SUV. Anyan was driving, since he knew the terrain. Ryu, the little shit, took stock of Anyan in the driver’s seat and therefore opened the door to the backseat for me. I ignored him, however, and hoisted myself up into that passenger seat, next to the barghest. Ryu watched me with dark eyes that only got angrier when Anyan yelled from the front for him to stop lollygagging and get in the car.
The drive from Chicago to Borealis, the far western suburb where my mother’s body had been found, was about fifty minutes. There was tons of construction—apparently a normal occurrence—on the tollway, but we’d arrived with the last of the flights, around midnight, so traffic was light.
None of us made much conversation on the way. O’Hare was well outside Chicago, so there wasn’t much to sightsee. Just a string of strip malls, with all the same stores, repeated over and over again. Occasionally the strip malls mixed it up by being an outlet strip mall, but those, too, contained the exact same stores as the full-priced versions.
One thing there wasn’t, at all, was water. I’d never been this entirely inland before. Even when Ryu and I had gone to Quebec, it hadn’t felt landlocked because the Territory was infested with streams, rivers, and lakes. Illinois, however, felt like a desert to my selkie blood. And the farther west we went away from Chicago and Lake Michigan, the more I felt the absence of real water. I kept peering out the window and shifting about, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of being landlocked.
“You’ll be fine,” Anyan rumbled beside me. “We’ll find you water. The Fox River runs through Borealis, and Lake Michigan isn’t too far away.”
“Sorry?”
“You’re twitchy. I figured you could feel the lack of water. But don’t worry, we’ll find you something wet.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It does feel… weird.”
Anyan smiled. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, and the scruff made his tanned skin even darker. His teeth gleamed white in the darkness.
“That’s the trouble with water, as an element. On the one hand, it’s strong as hell, yet water-elementals get so tied down geographically. But we have Julian, as well, as a backup. We’ll make sure you stay strong.” I turned my head slightly to catch Julian smiling at me. He gave me a friendly wink and I felt myself relax.
Shutting my eyes entirely, I rested for the remainder of the trip to Borealis, until I felt us exiting the tollway. We drove just a few miles through a rough-looking strip of dive bars and long-closed businesses before we hit downtown Borealis. There were a few short streets of tawdry glitz—Borealis housed a riverboat casino—and then we were at a nondescript chain hotel, right next to the train station.
After having insisted there was no way we’d need reservations, Anyan looked decidedly sheepish when we arrived at the hotel to find it was almost entirely booked. Especially because I’d immediately demanded four rooms, cutting Ryu off before he could ask to share with me.
I’d been just as promptly denied.
Apparently, there was a wedding reception at the giant brewhouse/comedy club/bar and nightclub complex next door to the hotel. Everything, even the suites, was taken except for two rooms. Ryu looked like he’d won the lottery as the receptionist handed over the two sets of keys. But I had other plans.
“Halflings bunk together!” I sang, grabbing Julian’s wrist and pulling him toward me. He looked a bit startled, casting Ryu a slightly panicked look. I know it wasn’t fair to Julian to use him as a buffer between me and Ryu, but I didn’t really care. Plus, to be honest, I wanted to get to know my fellow halfling better. We’d spent so much time together, but none of it alone. I was curious about Julian, not least because I wanted to know what kind of life he led as a halfling surrounded at all times by purebloods.
Anyan shrugged, quickly handing me the keys to one of the rooms. “Whatever you want, Jane.” Ryu looked like he wanted to protest, but Anyan kept talking. “We have two choices: hit the hay, or head over to the site. Cappie’s gang’s been hired to clean it, so they’ll be there all night. It’s up to you what we do, Jane.”
Part of me wanted to crawl into the hotel bed and act like none of this had ever happened. But I knew that wouldn’t work.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said finally. “Just let me drop off my stuff and brush my teeth.”
Anyan nodded and headed into his room, while Julian headed into ours. But Ryu lingered.
“Jane,” he said. “Please.”
I stopped and turned.
“I’m sorry,” he said, although the begrudging way he said it made it sound less than apologetic.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, too, Ryu.” I meant I was sorry it was over, sorry it had to end this way, sorry he didn’t get any of that…
“Can’t we talk this through?” I knew what he really meant was could we share a room.
“No, Ryu. And we need to go.” I met his eyes, letting the force of my resolve show through in my own black gaze.
He didn’t look happy, but he acquiesced. We walked away from each other to our separate habitations.
Julian was already using the bathroom, so I set my bag down on one of the beds, immediately stooping to dig out my toiletry bag without pausing to rest. If I rested, I’d think, and if I thought, I’d lose my nerve.
I really didn’t want to see the place where my mother had died.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was after two in the morning when we arrived outside the same sort of nondescript strip-mall clinic that Conleth had been kept in for so many years. This one, however, wasn’t burned. As Anyan had explained again in the car, by the time the halflings of Borealis had raided the lab, the staff had cleared out. They’d murdered all their test subjects, but hadn’t bothered to hide any of the evidence except for paperwork. Everything else was left intact. Whoever was in charge was taunting us.
There was a battered old Ford Explorer in the parking lot, covered in bumper stickers and with a vanity plate that read “TRPTICH.” Anyan smiled when he saw the car, and I figured it had to be his friend Capitola’s. I had to blink a few times at the bumper stickers on her car, because they kept… shifting. Then I realized they were glamoured. At first, they’d said things like “Keep Illinois Clean,” but when I exerted a wee bit of force I could see messages like “Halflings Do It Wholeheartedly.” I couldn’t help but laugh, despite the circumstances. It wasn’t that the stickers were very witty, but more that I was shocked to see anybody proud to be a halfling. My time at the Compound had made it very clear halflings weren’t making the Alfar A-list anytime soon.
Anyan parked our rental car next to the Explorer before turning to me. “You ready, Jane? We don’t have to do this now,” he added when I paused. Ryu kept silent, as he had been since we left the hotel. Julian was always quiet, and tonight was no exception. I sometimes forgot he was there, to be honest.
“No,” I answered Anyan, trying to add some steel to my voice. “Let’s get it over with.”
We got out of the car and headed toward the door.
Again, just as we’d found at Conleth’s lab, there was a small entryway that looked like any other clinic’s reception area. But through the doors, all pretense of a proper clinic had been dropped entirely. There were Perspex-looking cells with gurneys inside them. Horrifying-looking surgical tools were lying around willy-nilly alongside more serious medical equipment.