Page 5 of Silk Skullduggery (Haven Hollow #40)

A few hours later, and I was right back to being worried and then fuming mad.

Lorcan had sent me a text a few hours after the first, saying that things at the office had gone on longer than he’d anticipated, and he was just going to bed down in the safe house in his office for the day. I’d been more than half convinced he really had been abducted, and I demanded he call me and tell me what was going on.

Instead, he’d sent me a picture of himself, looking frazzled and apologetic, in his examination room at his dental practice. His hair was mussed, and his sleeves were shoved back off his forearms, showing off the new watch he’d gotten at the auction. But the point was that he looked exhausted, which said a lot when you were talking about a vampire. So, while my initial fear faded, worry took its place. I told him to stay safe, and I would talk to him later that night.

Whatever was going on, we were going to get to the root of it. Too bad I was going to have to wait until Lorcan was finished at work, since I had to get to the store to relieve Maverick. What was shaping up to be a lousy day took a dive into truly crappy territory when I got to Wanda’s Witchery, only to find a couple of customers milling around outside, with the doors locked and no Maverick in sight. There was a hastily written sign slapped up on the inside of the door, promising that the store would reopen soon.

I could say a lot of things about my cousin, but Maverick wasn’t a flake. He tended to care too much about things, not too little, so for him to just go swanning off in the middle of his work day definitely wasn’t like him.

It looked like I was doomed to be spending my week worried about the men in my life. I slapped a customer service smile over my annoyance, but it probably came out like more of a grimace. The two women waiting outside the store took a quick step back as I hurried forward to open the door.

“Sorry about that, ladies. Please, come on in.”

They glanced at each other uneasily before the woman closest to the store shrugged and headed inside on my heels. As to my store, everything seemed fine, at least. No weird creepy crawlies, no mannequins moving around, no fire, no explosions. The only thing wrong in the place was the rapidly rotting silk that was still heaped up in the back room. It still made my throat tight to look at it.

While the customers browsed, I tried to discretely send a text message to Maverick. Why the spell would he have just abandoned the store like he had?

Close by. Helping Taliyah.

Well. That put a bit of a different spin on things.

It wasn’t that I’d ever thought it was particularly likely that Maverick had slipped out to grab an ice cream from Stomper’s Creamery on the corner, but I hadn’t thought it would be anything bad. But Maverick helping Taliyah could only mean one thing, really. Some kind of supernatural crime had been committed, and she’d asked for him as a combination of help desk and backup.

Unease made my stomach twist. Hollows were supposed to be safe, a place where the mundane and the supernatural could live together. Not in any ridiculous, twee togetherness fairy tale, but with everyone minding their own business and leaving traditional grudges at the door.

That certainly hadn’t been the case in Haven Hollow, but still. For something to crop up that Taliyah would drag Maverick in with only enough warning for a sloppily made sign, it certainly couldn’t have been anything good.

At least I had my customers to focus on. Maverick had left his coat behind the counter, so I knew he’d be back before he went home. I could wait for an explanation then.

A male customer entered the store and drifted over to my selection of athletic wear. Some of the track suits were enchanted for motivation. They wouldn’t make a person lose weight or anything like that, but the outfits would provide the drive to get out and exercise, and over time, that would help to build healthy habits.

I also had a few other sets of athletic wear that offered low-level healing and the other was like a supernatural sauna. I’d gotten the idea for the healing wear when Poppy and I had worked on a line of first aid products. Between her potions and my enchantments, we were fairly skilled at keeping people in once piece. The idea driving the gym clothes was to keep middle-aged people safe when they decided to get their high school bodies back and wanted to do so overnight. With the enchanted outfits, they were less likely to tear muscles, or drive themselves into a heart attack. The man kept circling back to the shorts and tank tops.

I was tidying up behind the counter for the third time to keep myself focused, when one of the female customers approached me with a smile.

At first, I thought her hair was so dark black that it shone with blue highlights under the store’s overheads. But as she got closer, I realized, no, her hair was just a very dark shade of blue. And in her smile, her teeth were very white, and a little too sharp to be human. A peek of pointed ears flashing through her hair confirmed it. She was fae, probably a nixie or a water fairy.

“Hello. I was hoping you could help me. Do you do custom orders?”

Already I was intrigued. It wasn’t every day that I got custom orders—mostly because everyone came in wanting pretty much the same things—clothes that made them feel good, enhanced their beauty, minimized their flaws. A chance to do something different, to create something new was intriguing, so I gave the woman my full attention.

“Yes, we do. What were you looking for?”

She smiled a little wider, and a second, clear eyelid flicked over her eyes. “Well, second question; do you make children’s clothing?”

Even more intriguing. “From time to time, yes.”

“Oh, that’s great.” The nixie laid her hands on the counter. Her nails were dark, but I didn’t think it was polish. There was also a thin line of skin between her fingers that made me think that they could be webbed when she wanted them to be. “My son just turned three.”

There was a pause, and I had no idea what to say. The last child I’d ever been around was Sybil, and she was born as an adult teenager, if na?ve. Before that was Astrid, and that was almost twenty years ago. The pause was becoming awkward, so I threw out a hesitant, “Congratulations?”

It seemed like a good enough answer, because she continued. “He takes after his mum, jumping in every puddle he can find. The water isn’t a problem, obviously, but they tend to be mud puddles, you see.”

I fought not to make a face. Toddlers were generally sticky, if my memory served me. Adding a wet, muddy obsession didn’t seem like an improvement.

The nixie nodded, like she knew what I was thinking. A strange sort of telepathy.

“Yes. Well, I was hoping you might be able to make a raincoat of some sort? Something to keep the muck off, at least.”

In my head, I was already running through potential materials and enchantments. It wouldn’t take much fabric, not for a three-year-old. Maybe something that would grow with him for a while, depending on budget.

“Why don’t you bring him in on Saturday? We can get some measurements taken care of and go over the details.”

She beamed. I didn’t know how someone with that many fangs could look so friendly. “That would be great. We’ll see you then.”

I could either sneak in a little early that day, or else Maverick could handle taking measurements. He had far more patience with squirmy children than I did.

The customers left, and I was just making a note of the nixie’s appointment, when Maverick came through the door looking like death warmed over.

Maverick was almost a century old, and didn’t look a day over thirty-five, but for the first time since I’d known him he looked tired, ragged in a way. And that… well, I wouldn’t worry about him. But I was certainly concerned adjacent, because I’d seen him throw himself into the jaws of a vampire to shield his younger sister, and he hadn’t looked as exhausted then as he did now.

There were circles beneath his sunken eyes, and he didn’t even make a snide quip as he slouched his way towards the counter to grab his jacket.

“What the spell happened to you?”

Maverick sagged a little against the counter. His stubble rasped against his palm as he scrubbed his hand over his face. “As far as we can tell from witness statements, a man was walking down Hennley Street and died.”

I blinked and shook my head. “Okay, that was a bit of a leap in the narrative. Died of what? Was he attacked? And why do we care—was it someone we know?”

“No,” Maverick said and gave me a look.

“So?”

“So, he was a young, presumably healthy man, who was walking down the street, and he dropped dead. Mid stride, from what we can tell.”

Cold prickled the back of my neck, and I folded my arms across my chest because I wasn’t sure why I was having such a reaction. “Just… for no reason?”

Maverick braced a hand on the counter and tugged his coat out to lay beside his hand. “Taliyah called me in because she thought there had to have been some magical attack that she couldn’t sense, something that could hide itself somehow.”

“Why did she think that?”

He gave me a look. “This is Haven Hollow.”

“Yeah but people can still die of heart attacks, even here.”

“It wasn’t a heart attack.”

“What was it?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. But witnesses all agreed that there wasn’t anyone near him when he fell. They assumed he tripped, up until he didn’t stand up again. Taliyah sent him to be examined by her guy.”

“Her guy?”

He nodded. “He’s kind of the supernatural coroner. Maybe he can get to the bottom of it.”

Maverick started checking his pockets, touching the zipper on his jacket. It took me a moment, watching him fidget and try to ground himself, to realize that my cousin was actually shaken. I’d never seen him like that. Maverick was often times moody, snide, arrogant, and had a chip on his back the size of Rhode Island. But he was a steady hand in a fight, and he didn’t spook easily.

His unease triggered my own. It was one thing, to think of a person just… dropping dead like that. But the fact that Maverick had seen it, and had been affected by it, that was a whole other thing.

Maverick didn’t do concern. So, this was new. New and unwelcome. It added to the uneasiness ticking down my spine like cold fingers. “Are you okay,” I asked grudgingly.

Maverick stiffened, the corner of his lips tilting up into a horrible parody of his usual smirk. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s hardly my first corpse.”

Well, at least there was annoyance to go with the uneasiness. If I threw every negative emotion into the cauldron of my body, maybe something productive would happen.

Before I could ask any follow up questions, Maverick continued.

“I took a look at the body, obviously. The guy Taliyah goes to is good, of course, but who knows what magical traces might have faded by the time he gets around to inspecting it?” He slid his arm into one sleeve, the motions jerky and uncharacteristically uncoordinated.

Fine, if he wanted to play that game, then I knew the rules just as well. “What did you sense?”

Maverick paused. His jaw tensed, the muscles jumping. “Nothing.”

I frowned. “There was no trace of a hex or a curse?”

He shook his head, hard enough that shoulder length hair flared against his face. “No, you don’t understand. I didn’t feel anything . The body felt drained.”

“Vampire?”

He shook his head. “Not like in a vampire attack, not drained of blood. Drained of… of life.”

I gripped the counter hard enough that my fingers hurt. My heart was picking up, kicking against the inside of my ribs, and a sour taste lingered at the back of my mouth. “What?”

Maverick’s eyes were far away. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t my store, not in that instant. He swallowed hard, his voice quieter than before. “There was this scraped out, hollow feeling to the body and that just… well, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

“Because the guy was young, healthy, and suddenly he’s just gone. But I didn’t get the feeling that it was by natural causes. And there wasn’t a mark on him that might hint to more… unnatural causes.”

For a long moment, there wasn’t any sound in the store other than the buzzing of the lights overhead, which were suddenly obnoxiously loud. Like there were bees trapped in the ceiling.

Maverick abruptly realized he still only had one arm in his coat, and hastily shrugged it all the way on. “Taliyah headed over to the guy’s house on Madden. She wanted to see if he lived alone, or if anyone knew his next of kin.”

The street name landed like a slap. “Wait, Madden Street?” Maverick nodded. “I was there yesterday and… an old man had just died, in his sleep. Paramedics were taking him out of his house. The neighbors said he went in his sleep.”

“Hmm,” Maverick started.

An odd, squirming unease moved in my belly. “The man you saw—was he a little shorter than you, dark hair, maybe wearing a sweater?”

Maverick’s gaze sharpened on me. “Why would you ask that?”

The unease swelled, until I felt like there were snakes squirming around in my stomach. “The neighbor I was talking to, the one who told me what he knew about the old man dying, that’s what he looked like—sweater, shorter than you and darkish hair.”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s how I’d describe the guy who died.”

I nodded. “Well, he lived right next door to the old man.”

Maverick shook his head. “What are the odds two neighbors passed away a night apart from each other?”

“Stranger things have happened?”

Maverick stared at the counter, frowning. “If they ruled the old man’s death to be one of natural causes, it wouldn’t have fallen across Taliyah’s desk necessarily.”

“So?”

He looked up at me. “So, both deaths might have been related, but no one would have known that—one death would have been deemed mundane and the other one, less so.” He paused. “If they are related, no one would have realized it.”

“And you think they are?”

He nodded as he slipped his phone out of his pocket. “I need to call Taliyah.”

The store felt very empty, and a little dark, after Maverick had left.