Page 51 of Hexbound

Trask froze.

"And I didn't like you the moment Agatha told me about you. Being impolite to Miss Hawkins only exacerbates the intensity of such an emotion.Don'ttempt me."

Verity didn't quite know when he'd appointed himself guardian of her reputation, but it was rather interesting to realize that Bishop didn't like hearing slurs against her. Interesting, and... surprising. She'd been alone for so long, just her and Mercy, fighting their own battles. The very idea of someone else trying to do it for her.... She didn't need him to—she could take care of herself—but... it gave her a strange sensation in her chest.

Bishop stripped off his waistcoat and folded it in a neat pile atop his coat. He rolled his sleeves up, and Verity couldn't stop her gaze from sliding over him like a caress. My, my. She hadn't truly realized how large he was. Muscle rippled in his shoulders, and the shirt strained over that well-indented chest. But it was the faint hint of scars up the inside of one forearm that caught her eye.

"Now, we know you were hired by a demon to wipe Verity's memories of a particular meeting away from her." Bishop turned his full attention to Trask, and Verity was suddenly very glad that he wasn't looking atherlike that. An iceberg didn't seem as cold as Bishop right now.

"A demon?"

"Noah Guthrie," Bishop said, "who is currently serving as a vessel. Don't try and pretend you didn't know. Agatha's too good a teacher for you to have missed that particular lesson."

Trask ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking. "Aye. I knew. Could smell it on him. He paid well."

"What else did he want you to do?"

"Just wipe the lass's memory, and alter Murphy's once they brought us the Chalice."

"Murphy was killed," Bishop told him, "in a room that was locked, with a guard on the door. It's the one thing that's been bothering me for a while."

Trask's gaze sidled sideways.

"You were there," Bishop said, "weren't you? And you wiped the guard's memory."

Trask said nothing, his lips pressed firmly together. But Verity went very still. She'd not thought about it. But how, precisely, had the demon killed Murphy without Conrad realizing? She set her fingers to her temple, frowning at the slight ache that grew there.

"Trask, it's been a very vexing month for me," Bishop said, grabbing the fellow by his collar and squeezing. "Trust me when I say that I would really,reallylike to hit something right now. The only problem is that I'm not entirely certain I would stop if I were to begin."

"Fine!" Trask held up his hands, starting to look nervous. "I didn't know he were going to kill him."

"Who?"

"Noah Guthrie," Verity said, the details beginning to fill themselves in. "Murphy would have let him in. He always thought he could handle anything. And Conrad... he's the best of the Crows. Murphy would have been too confident."

"So Murphy hands over the Chalice, demands his coin, and gets his throat cut?" Bishop asked.

She pressed a hand to her temples, which were suddenly aching. "No. Murphy wasn't a fool. He sent me off with the Chalice. Once the money was paid, Murphy was going to give Noah the address where I was."

"So Murphy tells the demon he doesn't have it, and the demon kills him. Trask wipes Conrad's memory, and then...." Bishop's head turned back to Trask. "Then he goes after Verity, with Trask by his side."

"That's when I was attacked."

It was starting to come back to her, in flashes that skewed her perception of the world around her. Nausea rose in her stomach. She felt that knife shove itself into her side as she'd stood there in the street, so cocky while she asked the demon's henchman for the code that Murphy had told her. The one that would have indicated the Crows had been paid, and hence she could hand over the Chalice.

Trask swallowed. "Look. I just did as I were told. He had these... men... with him that weren't really men. They were all wearing—"

"Masks," Verity whispered, seeing it again. "One of them stabbed me when I demanded to know where Murphy was."

"Keep talking," Bishop suggested, a muscle in his jaw ticking as his fists curled in Trask's collar.

"We got the Chalice, but the girl vanished somehow, then ran. That's all I know, I swear it!"

Bishop let him go, and Trask touched his throat, swallowing hard.

"What happened to the Chalice?" Bishop demanded.

"Don't know. I was starting to get a bad feeling about all this, so I cut out of it. Didn't need the money that bad. The demon let me go."