Stone Chameleon (Ironhill Jinn #1) Read online

  Mum turned to me, then, glaring daggers. It was a look I’d come to know well during my life. I thought for a moment she’d come back to me, but she shattered my hope. “My daughter. Is. Dead. His magic blood ruined her, tainted her so badly the world will always despise her. He said she should have a name of her people, that she should never know anything about him.”

  Her gaze went back to the pearls, her fingers stroking them absently. “Have you ever loved, Lou-the-pretender?”

  I flinched at the turn in conversation. “N-no.”

  “Good, then you might survive this life.” She lovingly stroked the spine of a green hardcover. “Love burns at first, right in the middle of you. Eats you up on the inside, and you want it to. The only salve that cools it is him. There’s exquisite pleasure in that pain.” Wetness filled her lashes, but didn’t break over. “And then the fire goes out, and you’re left burning, burning so hot it’s agony, wild and unstoppable, until it reduces you to nothing but husk and ash. And when you rise like the phoenix…”

  Mum turned to face me, appearing herself again in all of her haughty superiority. “Do you know what the worst part of love is?”

  I shook my head, my own eyes growing wet. She’d never spoken of such things, nothing personal, ever.

  “The worst part is that despite the pain, the loneliness, the agony so bad you don’t know how you survived it, you know that if he appeared before you again, even for a moment, you’d do it all over again for just one more taste of that exquisite pleasure. For one more second, one more touch, one more…kiss.” Clearing her throat, she added, “You’re better off never knowing love. It will kill you in the end. It always does.”

  Shock rang in my ears. She’d never told me she loved him, but I’d always suspected. Mum not only loved my father, but lived him, breathed him. He was her world, and when the fae destroyed him, they destroyed her along with him. My heart swelled as the heat faded from her eyes, and she turned back to her pearls. It was the most lucid I’d seen her in months, but just like that, she was gone again.

  “How many men have you been with?” she asked.

  I wiped my eyes. “Beg pardon?”

  “You heard me.”

  I blinked, confused about yet another rapid turn in the conversation. “I’ve been physically intimate with only two, but we never actually—”

  “Are you married?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Then you’re a whore, and whores are garbage, not like my sweet Lou. She would never spread her legs for a man who would have her and not marry her.”

  As I searched my addled mind for a response, she sighed. “She must have broken her promise to me, my little Lou-Lou Bean. She told someone her secret, and they killed her. Just like they did him, just like I said they would. I hate him.”

  The same sense of panic gripped me as it always did when she was cross with me. “I swear I didn’t, Mum. Someone found out, but it wasn’t my fault. I swear I’ll take care of it.”

  Her sharp chin jutted toward the door. “It doesn’t matter what you say. I know she’s dead in my heart or she’d have come home long ago. Now, I must ask you to take your filthy morals and leave.”

  Marion appeared in the doorway, no doubt responding to my raised voice. “She’s just confused, Lou,” she said, motioning me to the door with her hand. “Please don’t take it to heart.”

  How could I when she’d ripped it from my body again?

  Half-numb, I followed the nurse out and shut the door behind me. I stared at the flowered wallpaper and concentrated on breathing in and out.

  Focus. Calm. I needed to focus on something else to settle my emotions—the last problem I needed today was to cause an earthquake at Mayvern. “Did someone come to see Mum this morning?” I asked.

  “No, not that I know of. You’re the only one I’ve ever seen come to visit her.” Marion stood in front of me, resting her palm against my arm. “Is something wrong? I mean, more than the usual grief over forgetful loved ones? You’re terribly pale.”

  I shook my head and laughed because I didn’t want to unleash my grief in front of a virtual stranger. “No, it’s just…have you ever had one of those days when you just need your mum? I don’t think it goes away, no matter how old we get. I swear her door is more terrifying than any of the dangers I face in my job. Worse than hell hounds or dragons or vampires. I walk through that door, and I’m suddenly eight years old again, desperate for her approval she rarely gave me even before her illness.”

  She smiled and laughed, her stance relaxing. “Oh yes, I’ve had several of those days over the years. I lost mine a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry.” I exhaled hard, sending some of my distress with it. “She thinks I’m dead, Marion.” And a whore, but I left that unsaid. It stung more than it should have, settled into my mind like a hungry disease. “Every other time I’ve visited she talked about me as if I was still her good little obedient girl, and that I could handle. But now…she really thinks I’m dead. But it’s her who’s dead, isn’t it? She’s not my mum anymore, not the one I need and want her to be.”

  Marion pulled me in and hugged me as another tear rolled down my face. “It’s the nature of the disease, Lou. Tomorrow, she may believe you’re alive again. It’s terrible, heartbreaking, and unpredictable, especially with your mother. She’s not suffering the physical decline most Alzheimer’s patients exhibit. She has moments when I almost believe she remembers everything and chooses to forget. Maybe it’s her way of dealing with her new reality, when she’s lucid and realizes something is terribly wrong with her. Once you accept that she won’t be the woman you remember, it will become easier to visit.”

  Unable to speak, I nodded and fled the building on swift feet. On top of everything else, I didn’t have the emotional room to grieve the loss of my mother. Once I drove away, my delusions of her would rebuild until a time when I had fewer axes waiting to drop on my head. I needed my mum, if only the one who existed within the confines of my memory.

  I’d dream of us playing chess together and having picnics by the Kindle River on summer afternoons. We’d talk about poetry and philosophy. After her passionate outburst, I’d also imagine her happy in the arms of my jinn father, for however brief a time. I wished I’d have known her then, to see her free and smiling, unburdened by my curse and the task of keeping us alive before I could do it myself. It would always linger with me, whether the constant stress had caused her condition.

  Although part of me wanted to believe she’d concocted my death out of a delusion, unease settled into my mind. Did she really see a stranger in her bathroom? Or had her befuddled mind concocted it as a coping mechanism to explain my absence? If someone had planted my death in Mum’s head, they would rue that decision.

  Chapter Nine

  At noon, I pulled into the underground parking lot of IPC and headed down to the basement to see Harper. Upon pushing open the door, I found the healing tank empty. Rachel must have moved her somewhere to sleep. A small tapping sound drew my tired gaze over my shoulder. A blue face pressed against the glass of Dr. Courian’s tank.

  I drew in a sharp breath, slapping a hand to my chest. “Bloody hell, why must you do that?”

  Kicking his flippered feet, he propelled himself to the surface far above my head, laughing the instant his head broke the surface. “The look on yer face is enough.” He mimicked my shocked expression and burst out laughing again.

  Arms folded together, I ascended the stairs at the left side of his enclosure so I could talk to him, or possibly strangle him—I hadn’t decided which. After my visit with Mum, I leaned toward the latter. “How’s Harper?”

  “Fair, I s’pose,” he said, flashing a toothless grin that reminded me of an old man who hadn’t put his false teeth in, though no wrinkles disturbed his blue scales. “Took a might bit o’ mendin’ and a pile o’ sugar, but she’ll work another day once her restin’s done.”

  I smoothed out my black slacks and leaned a
gainst the railing, arranging my thoughts to get the best response from the mysterious kelpie. “Are there any water creatures you know of that can manipulate water into shapes, can take the form of a person, and can traverse dry land any distance from water?”

  His amusement disappeared beneath a scowl. “It be Saturday, Lou Hudson. Go home and rest. Those who do naught but work find ’emselves an early grave, they do.” His sucker-tipped fingers curled over the edge of the glass. Nictitating membranes closed over his black eyes, and the gills at the sides of his throat opened and closed. “Yeh hearin’ me, girly?”

  I enjoyed his choice of endearments about as much as I liked being stabbed in the forehead with a pencil. “If I don’t figure out who’s killing vampires in Ironhill, I’ll be in a grave before the week’s end without the company of my heart. If you won’t help me, just say so instead of wasting my time.”

  The heels slowed my annoyed stomp down the metal steps. Before I reached the bottom, water sloshed over the edge above, soaked one side of my hair and the left shoulder of my blouse.

  “Fine, fine, come back.” Dr. Courian waved from above. “Yeh have a way a suckin’ the fun outta life, yeh do.”

  I returned to the top and resumed my previous position against the metal railing with renewed enthusiasm, wringing out my hair. “What do you know?”

  “Like an excited sprite on Menner’s Morn, y’are.” He shook his head and hoisted himself to sit atop a broad leaf that reached the surface from the bottom of his tank.

  What on earth was Menner’s Morn? A holiday of sorts?

  “I ken plenty of water folk, but none so as yeh said. Water sprites be close, but they dinna look like water, more like the kelpie, only smaller and nastier. Nor can they last outta water or tell it what to do.” He stared at his fingers where they rubbed against his perch. “There was once a race, but they’re no longer, and I dinna speak o’ them.”

  Anxiety coiled a little tighter around my throat, but I couldn’t find the will to ask him who he spoke of. “How about hearts? Are there any creatures you know of that would leave a trail of water behind, that views hearts as a delicacy, or perhaps a trophy?”

  “Humph.” The scalloped fins leading back from his small ears ruffled. “Water demons’d eat the dead, but they wouldna leave a scrap ta be found. The Nixes’d drown a man, but wouldna be found far from the mother’s grand sea. ’Tis a puzzle, ’tis.”

  For the first time since I’d known him, he appeared to answer me without riddles and taunts, and without a hint of amusement. Would wonders never cease?

  I pressed my newfound luck. “How much do you know about Lord Isaac, Dr. Courian?”

  A series of clicks and clucks in his language flew at me in rapid succession. I didn’t need to understand the words to know they weren’t pleasant. “I know he’s a disgrace to the homeland, he is.” He spat into the water. “The bastard child of a whore, wearin’ the cloth of his clan after they sent ’im away because of his damnin’.” His thin arms flailed wildly about his head. “Bah, ta hell with ’im.”

  I made a mental note never to ask him about Isaac again. Who else would know about their apparent feud, and why hadn’t I caught wind of it before? Curiosities for another day.

  Since I’d satisfied my duty, I went on to other matters of concern resulting from last night’s shenanigans. “One last question, and I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you do in there. Do you know of any culture, race, or religion that greets a person by placing their palm on someone’s throat?” I reached my left hand up and demonstrated how Amun had touched me on my neck. “Like this?”

  Skin paled to a ghostly blue, Dr. Courian’s fins flattened against him the way a cat would pin its ears back. He leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “Yeh dinna want ta speak o’ them, girly, when we know naught who could be listenin’.” He tapped a long finger against his temple. “’Tis an invitation for death, ’tis.” Pressing a finger to his lips, he disappeared into the water.

  “Helpful. Very helpful.” I slumped against the railing under the weight of more questions than I’d begun with. What had happened between the kelpie and Isaac to make him react with such ferocity? More importantly—to my inquiring mind, anyway—what species struck fear into him, someone I’ve never known to be afraid of anything? He couldn’t have meant the jinn. It wasn’t a death sentence to talk about them, only to be one, and as far as I knew, I was the last of my kind. Or was I?

  The room seemed to tilt in my perception, and I gripped the railing harder. If Mr. Bassili was jinn, maybe there were more. How many breeds of jinn were there? I knew so little of my ancestry, I didn’t know what abilities my own people could have, nor why the powers had destroyed all records about us. If I was earth, I had to presume he had an affinity for air?

  I stopped the tiny thrill beginning in my stomach before it took root and turned into something vaguely resembling hope for others like me. Rolling my eyes at the silly notion of surviving elementals, I descended the steps. It was wishful thinking and nothing more.

  After looking in on Harper in one of the recovery rooms—snoring in a deep slumber Rachel would have induced for healing, a bag of sugar water attached to her intravenously—I went up to the third floor to get my camera and a notepad. Blake’s door stood open a crack, flooding light into the unlit corridor.

  I pushed it open farther and peered inside. The tall man stood with his face hovering above a file he’d set on top of the cabinet, his back to me. I’d judged his age to be late thirty-something. The state of his ash-blond hair and his rumpled suit made me wonder if he’d slept in his office.

  I cleared my throat. “Blake?”

  “Yeah?” His head whipped around, his stance changing from defensive to relaxed. “Oh, it’s you,” he drawled.

  “Brunch at Lindie’s cancelled this morning?”

  He dropped into his chair, setting his elbows down amongst the metropolis of paper littering his oak desk. His pallid complexion worried me. “Wasn’t up fer it this mornin’. Just catchin’ up with this damn paperwork.”

  Liar, liar.

  Holding up a white envelope, he flashed a tired grin. “This soothed the soul better than a cup of whiskey, tell ya what. You really get twenty grand for one job?”

  “Is that the envelope from my office?”

  “Nope. That Bassili feller dropped it off a few minutes ago. Couldn’t sing your praises enough. Way to land a big one, Lou. Guy’s a total money bags.”

  I stepped in and shut the door, to which he huffed out a sigh. “Why didn’t you answer your cell last night?” I asked. “I could have used the help. Were you avoiding me because of the conversation we need to have about how we operate our business?”

  He had call display, so he’d have known it was me. “No, the hell, I was not avoidin’ you.” Groaning, he tilted his head back and rested it against his leather chair. “The girlfriend got a little peed off with me last night. Wrecked my place, scratched up my truck, and stole a load from the safe before she took off. Wasn’t up to talkin’ or doin’ shit. Pardon my French.”

  Perhaps Mr. Bassili hadn’t arranged for my friends to be absent when I called after all? I sat down in the chair in front of his desk. “Oh, Blake, that’s horrid. Have you called the police?”

  “Nah.” Blake shrugged and appeared even more exhausted than he did a moment before. “More trouble to write her up than write her off.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d said that. I’d never asked him what he’d done to his long list of ex-girlfriends, but more than a few had ended up that way, so I imagined the women had caught him in a compromising position. He liked his wallet full and his women loose, which had always disturbed me. We were opposites in almost every way, but he’d kept the business side of things running tickety-boo, so I let him be most of the time.

  “How much damage did she do to your house?” I asked. “Do you need somewhere to stay while it’s repaired?”

  A grin broke his melanchol
y, all wolf and no sheep. “You offerin’ your bed?”

  And he’s back.

  I rose to my feet and went to the door. “We will talk about some things, but I have a bunch of murders to solve first. Sic the media on me again without warning, and we’ll come to blows, Blake.”

  Hunching in his chair, he stared at me the way a guilty child might look up at a parent who’d caught him sneaking a stray dog into his room. “Yeah, I hear ya. Guess I take it a bit far at times.” He fisted the envelope, no doubt fantasizing about ways to spend it. “What if Lord Fanghead comes here lookin’ for you?”

  “As I told Simon, you let him come. He’s old, Blake, and powerful. He’ll take this place apart whether I’m here or not, and anyone who gets in his way will either be dead or wishing they were. You need to order everyone to stand aside if he comes for me.” I pulled open the door and stared into my own thoughts.

  “Can’t do that, Lou.” It almost sounded heartfelt instead of a man concerned he’d lose his bread and butter.

  “You have to.”

  Chapter Ten

  Camera in hand, I descended the embankment toward the scene of the first body I’d stumbled upon a month before. I’d been hunting a river nymph who’d been tipping canoes over in the name of a good laugh. Him, I’d sent off with a stern warning. Death didn’t come to those who practiced mischief and not mayhem.

  Once I made it to the edge of the Kimble River, I walked along the trail worn by cyclists and deer to the steel train bridge where the young male had lain with his ribcage gaping. With so much time gone by I didn’t imagine anything remained to be found, but I needed to look all the same, for my own sake.

  I checked my cell phone to see if Dom had returned one of the fifteen messages I’d left since the morning, but he hadn’t. He needed to get his rear out of bed before I drove to his geek’s paradise apartment in his grandmother’s basement and dragged him out by his ear. Either that or sic his grandmother on him. I needed to discover Mr. Bassili’s secrets, since he seemed to know all of mine, and Dom could manipulate the internet with more skill than anyone I’d met.