"I have a feeling Pixie is going to be the one doing the interviewing,"
Adam said with a grin that faded as he looked at me. "Do you want to tell me what you were talking about to your father? Or should I tell you?"
I blinked in surprise. "You tell me? Er..."
Pulling out of his pocket a slim green gla.s.ses case, he waved me over to a corner of the room, where we could talk without being disturbed. Without saying anything, he popped open the lid and poured the apports onto my hand.
They were all green. My fingers closed around them as I looked up into his eyes.
Glacial blue, they gazed back at me with understanding. "You look so human, sometimes I forget that you"re half polter. Which means that in addition to having inherited the abilities to meld into shadows, move with increased quickness, and generate strength abnormal in mortals, you manifest apports in times of stress or great physical output. Those are yours, aren"t they?"
"Yes," I said, suddenly breathless.
"I figure it"s this way: when Spider left you upstairs, you were retching as the result of a headache. But you didn"t stay upstairs the entire time being sick.
You followed Spider down the stairs, sticking to the shadows, keeping yourself unseen as he met with Meredith, and sneaked down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. It wouldn"t have taken much effort for you to silently sneak up behind the men, knocking Meredith out, and killing Spider before he had the time to turn around."
The apports grew hot in my hand. I unclenched my fingers, placing the stones on the table.
"Then you pulled the bookcase down on Spider"s body, arranged the scene with Meredith, and sneaked back upstairs to the bathroom without anyone seeing you. With your quickness, the whole thing probably took...what, a minute? Two at the most?"
I cleared my throat, unable to say anything.
"You know," he said, giving me a considering look, "if it wasn"t for the apports, I would never have known the truth."
"That"s not quite what happened, although it"s close," I said, my emotions a tangled knot that sat heavily in my stomach. "I followed him downstairs after he tried to grab Pixie. He knew I"d seen him. All I wanted to do was warn him to stay away from her, but he must have figured I"d tell you about his connection to Bethany."
"Your cousin?" Adam asked. "What was his ... Wait a second. You said Spider was having s.e.x with her. Are you saying now that Meredith also had something to do with her death?"
I nodded, bile burning my throat. "They both raped her."
"Why, for the love of all that is good, didn"t you tell someone?" he asked, his voice rough.
"I didn"t know until we got here. It"s like I said: upstairs, in the room I went to lie down in, Spider gloated about Meredith and him having had s.e.x with Bethany. He said something that I didn"t pay attention to at first: he said she had cut her own throat. That fact was never made public, so it meant he must have been there when she killed herself. He and Meredith killed her just as surely as if they"d cut her throat themselves."
"You should have told me," he insisted.
"And what would you have done? It was his word against mine. I had no proof, no tangible proof, that he or Meredith had anything to do with her!"
"So you killed him in revenge."
There was a coldness in his voice, a coldness that stung. "No, I didn"t. As soon as I saw him with Pixie, I knew what he would do: he"d use and destroy her just as he did my cousin. I followed him to the bas.e.m.e.nt to warn him away from her. I kept to the shadows, and heard the two of them talking about Pixie as they went downstairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt. I admit that I coshed Meredith on the head; I wanted him out of the way so I could warn off Spider, but I guess Spider thought I was going to attack him, too, because I didn"t have time to say a word to him before he grabbed me and threw me up against the bookcase."
The memory of that moment a.s.sailed me: pain exploding in my head as Spider grabbed my hair and banged it against the bookcase, his eyes lit with an unholy pleasure, his mouth twisted and snarling.
I wrapped my arms around myself and sank to the floor.
"What was it you had that he said he"d have when you were dead?" Adam asked, squatting next to me.
I couldn"t look at him, speaking to my knees instead. "Amanita didn"t hear exactly what he said. It was actually "I"ll have her when you"re gone.""
"Meaning Pixie."
I nodded. "Until that moment, I wasn"t fighting back. Death seemed like such a pleasant escape from the sorrow of knowing my husband killed my little cousin. But he swore he"d have Pixie, and the next thing I knew, he was lying at my feet, dead."
"You ... er ... exploded on him? Like you did as a child?"
"It was in self-defense this time, but yes. Just as unintentional, though...and just as deadly." A sob rose in my throat.
"Let me see your head," Adam said, his face expressionless.
I leaned forward so he could run his fingers along the back of my head. I winced as he found the sensitive spots.
"You probably have a concussion," he said, tipping my head back to look deep into my eyes. "You have three good-sized lumps back there."
"Polters are strong," I said miserably, overwhelmed with sorrow-both for what had been and for what might have been.
"So strong that they can kill easily in self-defense," he said, nodding. "And so rather than tell me all this, you decided to frame Meredith for the murder."
I looked up at him, blinking away tears. "No, that was never my intention. I knew that as soon as the seal was lifted, I"d have to tell the watch what happened. I killed my husband. It was an accident, and done in self-defense, but I killed him. I am prepared to face the consequences of that. But I figured I had twelve hours to make you see the truth about Meredith."
He was silent for a few minutes. "Earlier, when you were talking about how sure you were that Meredith was a murderer, you weren"t referring to the death of your husband, were you?"
"No. But there was nothing I could tell you that you"d believe, especially if you knew I just killed my husband. I thought... I hoped that if the truth about Meredith was revealed, his connection with Bethany would come out. I had no idea that Savannah held the key to all that until she turned out to be a Guardian."
"I told you I would do whatever I could to see that your cousin"s rapist was caught," Adam said gently, putting an arm around me. "The watch would never have let them get away with it."
I made a frustrated gesture. "Thus far the watch hadn"t connected the two of them to her, and I had no proof, nothing to convince them. And before you say that wouldn"t matter, please remember that I did tell you Meredith was a murderer-but you demanded proof, and that was the one thing I didn"t have."
I ran my hands through my hair, my throat tight with unshed tears. "I had no choice, Adam. I just had no choice. I had to take the chance that I could prove the truth about Meredith before the seal was up."
"We"ll let that point go," he said.
I moved out of his supporting embrace and gave him a weak smile.
"Thank you. For...everything."
"I"m not the monster you seem to think I am," he said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand. I took it, his fingers warm as they wrapped around mine. "I won"t say that if I had been in your shoes I would have done exactly the same thing, but I do see your point. I think you need to learn to trust people more, however. Especially me."
"Have you seen this?" I let him pull me to my feet, then held up my hands. On the outer edge of each hand there was a faint crescent-shaped scar.
Adam frowned at them. "Did you injure your hands?"
"Not exactly. I was born with six fingers on each hand. My mother had the doctors take the extras off when I was a baby. She wanted me to fit in, you see."
His pale eyes watched me with consideration.
"She"s never understood that no matter how human I look, I will never fit in with either world. I"ll always be on the fringes of both the mortal and polter worlds."
"The Otherworld is more forgiving of those who don"t conform than the mortal world is," he pointed out.
"But even it has limits. A wergeld-bound exterminator who killed her husband ... I don"t know, Adam. I think even the Otherworld is going to have issues with me."
He squeezed my hand, his fingers rea.s.suringly solid. "You"ll handle that, too."
The sun was shining brightly two weeks later. The sky was blue, the birds sang happily, people on the streets outside the building that was the local headquarters of the Akashic League paraded up and down the streets, enjoying the warmth of a sunny summer day.
"Stupid bright sun," I muttered to myself as I jogged down the steps to the sidewalk. "Stupid singing birds. Stupid happy people."
"Man, she"s really cranky. Is she going to be like that all day? If she is, someone had better book another appointment with my therapist, because it"s sure to traumatize me."
I gritted my teeth at Pixie"s cheerful voice and stomped my way down the sidewalk to the parking lot, trying desperately to ignore the voices of the three people following me.
"Pixie, my dear, you"re just going to have to get used to Karma"s little ways. It won"t be easy, but I"m confident you can do it."
"Tortured," I heard Pixie say.
"Eh?" my father asked.
"It"s Tortured Pixie. I told that you before the trial. Deus, do you have Alzheimer"s or something?"
"No, but I do have an itchy sweet tooth, and I see an ice cream place.
Want some?" Dad asked in unusually good humor.
"OK, but you"re buying."
Dad shot Adam a meaningful look before following Pixie into an ice cream shop.
To my surprise, Adam looked intensely uncomfortable. "I think this is the point where I"m supposed to ask you out."
His declaration startled me out of my blue funk for a few seconds. "Oh, please-I"m not in the market, and besides, I didn"t think you were ... er ...
free."
"Nita isn"t my girlfriend, if that"s what you"re thinking." He made a wry face. "She was a few years ago, but the relationship more or less fizzled out with me gone so much of the year. We"re now what is ubiquitously referred to as "just good friends." "
"Ah. Well...I"m not looking for a romantic relationship, not that you"re offering one. Just ... er ... so you know."
He nodded, resignation evident in his face for the few moments it took to walk to my car.
"Oh, come on, Karma, you should be celebrating," he suddenly said in a disgustingly cheerful tone.
I glared at him as I unlocked the door. "Celebrating? I was looking forward to a nice quiet jail cell, where I could spend my time reading and making license plates, and not having to work for the Akashic League anymore.
You can celebrate; you"re sitting pretty with the League confirming your ownership of the house. But for me... double wergeld, Adam. Double wergeld is unprecedented in the League! It"s never been bound to anyone before!"
Tiny little laugh lines appeared next to his eyes. "Yes, but you"re free. And I know the involuntary manslaughter verdict rankles, but it"s a h.e.l.l of a lot better than murder. So they slapped another wergeld on you; it"s not like you"re unused to it."
I looked upward for a moment, praying for patience. "Oh, no, it"s not a big deal. It just means I am going to be at the beck and call of the League for the rest of my life. I get to spend long, endless years doing whatever they demand."
"Ah, but you won"t be alone during those long, endless years." The laughter in his voice was rich.
I banged my forehead a couple of times on the roof of the car. "I was sure the League home would take Pixie back. I never thought they"d insist that she stay where she is. ... I killed my husband, for Pete"s sake! I can"t be a good model for an impressionable girl to be around!"
Adam laughed at the sob that accompanied my words, his hand warm on my shoulder as he gave it a sympathetic squeeze. "They seem to think your experiences make you the perfect person to handle Pixie. I have every confidence that you"ll handle both Pixie and the double wergeld with aplomb.
Besides, I"ll be here to help when you need it."
"I have a horrible feeling you"re going to regret uttering those words," I said, straightening up to rub my abused forehead. Despite my glum warning, I felt a little spike of hope. I"d coped with a lot in my life...How much trouble could one teen and jobs every now and again for the League be?
Famous last words, people. Famous last words.
end.