Ryu poured us each a cup of coffee, and I reached for a croissant even though I’d already had breakfast.No point in going hungry, after all, my stomach sighed, contentedly.
“I don’t know what to say,” he answered, finally. “Jakes could have hidden something like that from Iris, especially if he was such a psychopath that he genuinely didn’t rate murder a big deal. But I’ve met Jakes, and he wasn’t a psychopath that I could tell. Although I guess that psychopaths don’t usually advertise themselves as such.” He shrugged. “But my gut instinct is that you’re right, and that Jakes didn’t kill the halflings. Especially since he was also murdered and that Gretchen and Martin were murdered after him.” He sipped his coffee slowly, as if drawing strength from his cup. “I just really don’t want to contemplate the idea that Jimmu is the one who murdered them all.”
“Well,” I said, “there’s no point in thinking about the repercussions of Jimmu being the murderer if we don’t even know whether we’re right or not. What we need to do is figure out how we prove whether it was Jimmu, and then we can take it from there.”
We drank our coffee in silence. I helped myself to another croissant.
“Lucky Jimmu went out today, isn’t it?” I commented, as Ryu poured himself another cup. He blanched at me.
“I knew I should have packed my cat burglar clothes,” he said, quaffing his coffee before standing up. “After all, I do look pretty hot in a ski mask.”
The lock clicked open with a snick, and we held our breath. When no one yelled at us from inside the room, we exhaled. I took another surreptitious look around the hallway as Ryu pushed open the door to Jimmu’s quarters.
We crept inside, closing the door after ourselves. Ryu turned on the lights and we looked around to get our bearings. Jimmu’s rooms were just like the ones shared by Ryu and me: a small bedroom with en suite bathroom and a small sitting room. And despite the fact that these rooms served as Jimmu’s only home, they were equally as impersonal as ours.
“Where’d you learn to pick locks?” I hissed at Ryu. “And why doesn’t Jimmu have better security? He doesn’t look the trusting sort.”
“I’m Nosferatu, remember?” Ryu grinned. He was loving this, I could tell. Since we’d left our rooms he’d radiated happiness. He might not like the exact circumstances, but he was definitely a man who loved action. “What kind of a nightwalker can’t pick a lock? And as for security, this is a public compound. Servants need to get in and out of these rooms, as do cleaners or maintenance. What you gain in overall security living in the Compound, you lose in privacy.” He pointed to the bedroom. “You look in there, I’ll look in here.”
I poked my head into Jimmu’s bedroom, making sure he wasn’t napping before I walked in. Something told me he always got up on the wrong side of the bed. But the room was as empty and anonymous as the sitting room. I started with the bathroom, which, except for an industrial-sized bottle of hair gel and a sliver of soap lying in the dish, was completely empty.
The bedroom wasn’t much more interesting. There were a few pairs of underpants, mismatched dark socks, and some wife-beaters in one drawer of the bureau. In the closet hung a few pairs of ripped-up jeans and a few T-shirts. I started to close the door, when I noticed that there was something on the top shelf.
I pulled the little armchair from the corner of the room over to the closet and stood on it to get a closer look. On the highest shelf, in the very far corner, I caught a glimpse of the edge of a steel box. I stretched out my hand, unsure whether or not I’d even be able to reach, and nearly grazed the lid. But just as I was about to make contact, I felt that tiny unmistakable frisson of power. I hesitated, deciding not to risk it.
“Ryu,” I called. “I might have something.”
He came in, dusting off his hands. “Nothing in there,” he said. “Jimmu doesn’t even own a magazine. He’s quite an exciting guy. What do you have in here?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “There’s a box up on this shelf, but I didn’t want to touch it. I think it’s whammied.”
Ryu grinned. “Whammied?”
“You know, magicked. I could feel the tingle.”
Ryu got up beside me and peered into the closet. He hissed, his fangs suddenly extended.
“Jane, get off the chair.”
I got down without hesitation. I took commands well, when they sounded like that.
Ryu’s hands hovered on either side of the box as he concentrated. I felt the hairs on the back of my nape rise, and my bangs twitched slightly as the power swirled around him.
Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably about thirty seconds, he chuckled, sounding very pleased with himself.
“Whammy, indeed.” He grinned, lifting the box off the shelf and jumping down from the chair.
“You’re a clever clogs, not touching that,” he said, as he set the box down on Jimmu’s bed. “If you had, you would have blown up not only yourself but a substantial section of this part of the Compound.”
“Great,” I said, dryly. “Thanks for telling me. So how did you open it?”
“Boxes are my specialty,” he said, grinning lecherously. “I’m good at opening things.”
And I’m living proof, I thought, not taking the bait. “What’s in it?”
“Let’s find out,” he said, undoing the little latch at the front of the box.
We both peered inside. “Oh, crap,” said Ryu. I gagged.
Inside the box was a Ziploc bag. At first I thought it contained dead mice. Then I thought it was dead hairless mice. Then I realized what it was.
The bag was full of ears.
Protected as they’d been by Jimmu’s shield, they were untouched by decay. They’d also been sliced off cleanly, with surgical precision. Neither detail, however, made them any less grotesque. Mashed up together in a bloody heap, they struck me as so vulnerably, individually human—from the slightly thickened helix of one to the prim little pearl earring bejeweling another. I think I would have preferred them rotten and unidentifiable.
I sat down on the bed, heavily, my stomach heaving. Ryu shut the box and then got back on the chair to replace it. I watched, taking deep breaths, as he wiggled his fingers in front of the box’s clasp. When he was finished, he put the chair back where it was supposed to be, and then took my hand and led me to the door. We walked out of Jimmu’s rooms, after Ryu checked to make certain no one was in the hallway, before frog-marching me back to our own quarters. Where I bolted for the bathroom, just barely making it to the toilet before I spewed up both croissants and my coffee.
Ryu held my hair out of my face with one hand, stroking my back with the other. He murmured to me quietly, as if settling a horse. I couldn’t stop retching—every time I felt a little better I’d think of Joe Gonzalez from Shreveport. One of those ears had been his. All he’d ever done was grow really nice tomatoes, and for that his ear was in a Ziploc bag while he moldered in the ground.
Eventually I got control of myself, and I sat back into Ryu’s arms. He held me, still whispering a steady stream of calming nonsense into my ear. I stood, with his help, and went over to the sink where I brushed my teeth and splashed cold water on my face.
We curled up together on our big bed, with me clinging to Ryu I was so scared. It had all seemed like this cool mystery before, while the names of the deceased were just that: names printed on slips of paper. But seeing those ears, I knew this was real. Those names represented real people—all dead—and I’d been face-to-face with their murderer that very morning.
I’d been next on the list.
I pressed my eyes shut and I felt myself trembling. Ryu held me tightly, gently kissing my face, whispering to me to come back to him. But if coming back to him meant taking part in his fucked-up Court, I’d rather stay out here in la-la land, thank you very much.
“Does it help if I tell you that you were right?” he asked, when I’d finally stopped trembling.
I thought about that one—it was tempting. “Maybe,” I answered, eventually.
“Well, you were right.”
I opened one eye, meeting his golden gaze. “How right was I?”
“Totally, completely, and utterly correct,” he said, mock-seriously.
As usual in my world, humor worked where nothing else could. Not that I was capable yet of laughter.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, opening both eyes.
He frowned. “I have no idea,” he replied. “This is too big for either of us, especially since we still don’t really know what is going on.” He thought. “Let’s just get through tonight. I’ll make some discreet enquiries at dinner, and tomorrow we can start fresh. But for tonight, I think we’ve both had enough.”
I thoroughly agreed—I’d definitely had enough for one night. Or for the rest of my life, really. I was beginning to see the downside of my mother’s world, to say the least.
Ryu looked at his watch. “It’s two now. So we have about six hours until dinner. Elspeth will be here around five to help you get ready.” He pressed himself up to me. “What should we do?” he asked, his fangs leering at me.