Page 5 of Capitol Matters (Marionette #2)

Tailing Nash down the stairs found the entryway cluttered with Hex members. Not just the core group. From the looks of it, they’d invited everyone. Grimm’s efforts to grow our numbers had yielded a team of almost twenty. I hadn’t bothered to learn their names or pay attention to what powers they possessed. Many were former Thorngate inmates—something I had no right to feel superior about—but there were myriad other reasons these cut-rate witches didn’t belong in our ranks.

The new recruits chattered loudly. They lined the walls where oversized cogs and gears turned, spinning shelves laden with potion bottles. Since the showdown at the gang’s failed job fair a few weeks back, they steered clear of me. I’d successfully established myself as the last person they should ask for help or advice. Ironic because, of the group, I was the easiest to get along with.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Nash greeted, fully in customer service mode. “May I interest you in some libations?”

From the back of the rabble, Grimm emerged. Since taking his own undercover position at the Capitol, he’d been away more than home. I hadn’t personally seen him in almost a week. No great loss, though it was a relief to find him in good spirits tonight.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Nicholas. Of course, we will indulge.” Grimm’s cool, blue eyes swept suspiciously over me. “Fitch, good to see you were thinking ahead.”

I was thinking ahead, all right. Directly ahead to the bar that would provide whiskey I desperately needed before tackling a one-on-one with my boss. Part of me hoped Grimm would have an alternate plan to rapid-fire murder, but the other part knew he rarely shied away from a body count.

The extended cut version of the Bloody Hex filed through the doorway into the bar portion of the Bitters’ End. Nash led the charge, humming a tune.

I stood aside, waiting with my arms crossed until I found myself alone with Grimm. He had taken a shine to formal wear recently, trading his beat-up bomber jacket and loose, brown locks for a tailored suit and low ponytail.

Once beyond the bar’s entry, the crowd dispersed. Newbies flocked to the dartboards, joined by Donovan and Avery. Ripley and Maggie took seats at the counter. Experience told me Ripley would nurse a scotch on the rocks all night while Maggie flitted about. Vinton found a booth and sat, silent as a statue. Apparently, it didn’t take much to occupy the pair of brain cells he had bouncing around.

Grimm and I lingered in silent observation until he spoke at last.

“Sorry I wasn’t able to connect with you at the Capitol today,” he said. “I can’t appear too interested, you understand.”

I nodded. No need to burst his ego bubble by telling him that if I’d seen him in the halls, I would have walked the other way. Between him, Holland, and now Maximus, I felt like I was drawn to be quartered, and they might start pulling at any moment.

“Did Maximus speak with you?” Grimm asked.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“May I see it?” He held out a hand.

“See what?”

“The list.”

My forehead scrunched. “How’d you know?”

Grimm’s lips curved in a smug smile. “Holding the confidence of a man in power has made me a powerful man,” he said. “Very little escapes my notice.”

Reaching into my pocket found Maximus’s letter worse for wear. It was crumpled with fraying edges and battered enough that Grimm frowned.

Ruckus from the bar area created ambiance as he studied the list. Nash had identified the potential victims as politicians, though I’d surmised as much. People with the authority to vote down the measure to open our city to the human public. A month ago, Grimm had given me a related mission to prevent the vote from passing. He’d said it would come up again and had been buying time ever since .

“He gave me four weeks,” I said, gesturing toward the paper.

“You seem concerned.”

“A little,” I admitted.

“Have you given any thought to your plans?”

I doubted he would appreciate my idea of a strategically hung chandelier or unlikely group road trip, so I shook my head.

“Fortunately for you, I have.” The arrogance in Grimm’s statement, and the sudden swell of his chest, drove a grumbling sigh from me.

He walked to the bar entry then put his fingers to his mouth for a shrill whistle. The general clamor quieted before he called out, “Donovan! Join us, won’t you?”

When Grimm turned back toward me, I shook my head. “Please don’t say anything. I don’t want him involved in the Capitol shit—”

“The Capitol shit is also our shit, as you’ll soon see,” Grimm replied. “As for your brother, I told you I would protect him, did I not?”

A half-hearted shrug was the best confirmation I could muster, but Grimm accepted it with a nod.

“Perhaps you could learn from someone who faces his problems as soon as they arise,” he said, “rather than wasting your time with carnal pleasures in another man’s bed.”

Heat rushed my face. I drew a breath but didn’t respond before Donovan came trotting toward us.

My brother looked from Grimm to me as I turned away. “Something wrong?” he asked.

Grimm clapped a hand on his back. “Quite the opposite, my boy.” He smiled. “Your brother has been given an important task with which he will need your assistance.”

I stepped back, caught in a shockwave. My cheeks burned anew as anger surged from my gut.

“What the fuck?” I shouted at Grimm.

Protecting my brother looked a lot like corrupting him—roping Donovan into mass-scale murder as my unwitting sidekick. I wouldn’t allow it. The guilt would bury me alive.

Grimm’s expression went flat, almost weary. “Fitch,” he said my name on a sigh, “if you’ll hear me out—”

“Hell, no.” I shook my head. “I don’t need help with a goddamned thing.”

Over the older man’s shoulder, one of the polished brass wheels on the wall stuttered mid-revolution. The shelf it ferried tipped, letting glass bottles slide off to shatter on the floor.

Grimm glanced at it, then heaved another breath. “Fitch, you’re causing a scene.”

“Is this because I don’t have a plan yet?” I asked, pressing toward him. “It’s only been a few hours, for fuck’s sake!”

Donovan’s wide eyes met mine. “What are you guys talking about?”

I flapped a hand at him. “Stay out of this, Donnie.”

Another wall-mounted cog ground to a halt, dumping more bottles. They crashed into the growing puddle on the floor and raised a low cloud of smoke.

“What’s there to plan, anyway?” I asked Grimm. “I’ll kill them. That’s the plan. ”

“Kill who?” Donovan asked.

I scowled. “You didn’t hear that.”

“You aren’t killing anyone!” Grimm’s voice crescendoed over mine.

The bar fell quiet. Hex members scattered about the space stopped in place and stared.

Muttering another curse, I turned my back to block their view.

Directly across from me, Grimm tapped his foot. Even his biker boots had been replaced by square-toed loafers. I barely recognized him these days.

“As I was saying,” Grimm turned his gaze to Donovan, “Fitch has been asked to remove a small number of people from the public eye. I’ve made arrangements with a local storage facility, where those people may be kept alive —” he fixed me with a pointed glare— “until they are no longer a threat.”

Donovan’s sharp nose wrinkled. “What does that have to do with me?”

Grimm faced him with a practiced, pleasant look. “They will need tending, of course. You will be responsible for ensuring they have food, water, and that their waste buckets are emptied daily.”

Waste buckets? I shuddered.

Even the isolation cells in Thorngate had toilets. One I’d briefly considered drowning myself in when my nightmares bled into waking terror too many days in a row.

“We’re talking about people, right?” I asked. “Not like, a bunch of hamsters?”

Grimm’s expression soured. “I would say a few weeks of discomfort is preferable to the alternative. Judging by your temper fit, you agree.” He waved, unnecessarily, to the puddle of acid eating a hole in the hardwoods.

“I have questions.” Donovan raised his hand.

“So kidnapping, then?” I cut in. That was not a skill currently on my resume. “I nab the people and haul them off to cold storage where Donnie… tends to them until the vote. Then what?”

Grimm smiled like a teacher pleased his flunky student understood the lesson. “Then the job is done,” he said.

“Why, though?” I asked.

“Why what?” Grimm countered.

It was time for the real questions now. This was a lot of effort to spare some people Grimm couldn’t possibly have cared about. And he certainly wouldn’t go to such lengths to keep my hands clean.

“Why keep them alive?” I asked. “You’ve never minded murder before.”

Disappointment clouded the older man’s features. Apparently, I understood the lesson but still managed to fail the test.

“You should know by now that whatever Maximus Lyle wants, we want the opposite,” he said. “If he wants these unfortunate souls dead, we want them alive.”

I tipped my head, doubtful. “Maximus is gonna notice if the people he thinks I killed suddenly reappear one day. It’ll take him all of two seconds to figure out who and how.”

Grimm didn’t falter. If anything, his confidence increased. “That’s very forward-thinking of you, Fitch, but you shouldn’t be concerned,” he said. “All you need to do is bring the people to Donovan, and all he needs to do is keep them secure and alive.”

My brother and I shared a wary look. I supposed this did work as a way of keeping Donovan out of harm’s way. A “bunch of politicians,” as Nash had put it, were far from the most dangerous citizens in our city. Certainly less menacing than the thugs Donovan might encounter while in the company of the Bloody Hex.

“They’ll have seen us, though,” Donovan chimed in. “They’ll know what we did.”

Grimm waved a hand toward the bar area. “We happen to be in the proximity of an exceptionally skilled alchemist who is more than capable of formulating a draught that will erase a few weeks of memories. And blur faces better forgotten.” He winked at Donovan.

Pleased as I was about a nonviolent solution, I remained skeptical. Too bad Grimm hadn’t been around to offer the same reprieve to the night janitors at DiaLogix Labs.

“Memory potions aren’t cheap,” I told Grimm. “I assume you’re paying?”

The older man’s smile spread. “Why should I, when you could simply add them to that hefty bar tab you’ve been whoring yourself out for?”

The taunting arch of his brows made my neck prickle, and I turned aside.

Grimm chuckled. “Of course, I will handle all the arrangements. And payment, if necessary.” He nodded at us both. “With that settled, I have news for the rest of our group. Would you boys care to join me?”

We followed him into the bar, where I found a seat at the counter a few stools down from Ripley and Maggie.

Donovan returned to the crowd at the dartboards, but the games had paused in anticipation of Grimm’s planned speech. Some kind of monologue was a given in the presence of a captive audience; the man loved little more than the sound of his own voice.

A knock on the copper-topped counter summoned Nash, who slid a drink over to me.

“You read my mind,” I told him and took a sip.

In the middle of the room, Grimm stood surrounded by the gang’s newest members. Those of us with longer tenure kept our distance, and I heard Avery whining about the interruption of what he’d thought was a night off.

“Gentlemen!” Grimm crowed to his followers. “Things have greatly progressed since you joined our illustrious organization.”

I snorted into my glass.

“You have maximized citywide closures by looting to build quite a stockpile of weapons and materials and, I dare say, we’ll never go hungry.”

Scattered laughter came from the recruits.

Grimm carried on. “You have made our presence known, a task that would have been impossible if left to our previously marginal numbers. For that, I thank you.”

Everyone applauded. Everyone being the dozen or so hangers-on circled around Grimm.

Down the bar, Ripley rattled the ice ball in his glass of scotch. He murmured something to Maggie, who draped over his shoulder, so attached she looked ready to crawl inside his skin.

“Vinton?” As quiet fell, Grimm beckoned to his most loyal follower.

The bald man rose to weave a path through the group to stand at Grimm’s side. Literally at his right hand like a dog taught to heel.

“I am pleased to say your command of these ranks has come to an earlier end than expected,” Grimm told him. “A position has opened in the Capitol morgue, and I have made preparations for you to fill it.”

“Ah, fuck.” I guzzled the rest of my whiskey.

Necromancy was a highly regulated magic. Like healers, most necros were pressed into Capitol employment. The subpar ones ended up in mortician work, but a few elites worked in the Capitol building assisting the investigators by questioning murder victims postmortem. Grimm slotting Vinton in that role ensured the blame for even sloppy kills wouldn’t fall on the gang.

The bald man didn’t appear the least bit surprised. He was typically in the loop of Grimm’s schemes and, since being given the authority to run the gang in Grimm’s absence, even more so. This was likely not news to him.

“It will be my honor, sir.” Vinton gave a stiff salute.

“Lord,” I grunted.

“So, who’s gonna run the gang?” One of the towheaded Everett twins spoke up. Ethan and Ezrah—because the fact that they looked the same wasn’t confusing enough, their names needed to be damn near identical, too. It was the shaggy-haired one. Ezrah, maybe? He was an aeromancer and always looked a bit wind tousled.

Grimm’s smile swept across those gathered. “Avery will.”

The conjurer froze. The colorful balls he’d been juggling slipped from his grasp to disappear in simultaneous puffs of smoke. He recovered and flashed a cheesy grin.

Down the bar, Ripley groaned.

I arrived late at realization and was stunned enough to repeat, “ Avery? ”

“That’s what I said.” Aggravation edged into Grimm’s voice.

“I wouldn’t trust him to keep a houseplant alive,” I said, “much less make sure these rookies stay out of harm’s way.”

The new recruits grumbled, probably at being called rookies since most of them were decades older than me.

Grimm pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting. “Mister Farrow, I believe you have enough on your plate without involving yourself in this.”

“You asked me to stay,” I reminded him.

“But must you give me cause to regret it?” Drawing a deep breath, Grimm turned to Avery. “Mister Hale, we’ll discuss this in depth later. For now,” he spread his arms in a grand gesture to the room, “let’s enjoy the night.”

A soft clunk on the counter drew my attention to a fresh whiskey sour and Nash standing behind it. Lifting the cocktail skewer from the glass’s rim, I pulled the cherry off with my teeth.

“Your buttons are crooked,” I told the bartender mid-chew.

He looked down to where his shirt gapped across his chest. Blush was barely visible through the bristles of his ginger beard. “You couldn’t have said something earlier?” he asked, chagrined.

“Just noticed.” I shrugged.

While Nash corrected his wardrobe malfunction, I watched the gang members abandon Grimm to swarm Avery instead. The conjurer preened, smoothing the sides of his hair and grinning. He was a handsome devil, but a devil, nonetheless.

But what was about to be Grimm’s problem might have been my boon. I’d wondered what small potatoes I could give Holland to encourage her faith in me. I’d hoped to avoid implicating the gang, but I’d negotiated for my brother’s freedom, and there were few sacrifices I wouldn’t make for his sake. If that meant diming out some nameless Hex members that their newly appointed leader Avery would hardly miss, so be it.