Page 14 of The Mermaid’s Bubble Lounge (Sam Quinn #8)

FOURTEEN

The Face in the Mirror

I swallowed quickly and then took a sip of iced tea. “Yes. Of course.” I glanced at everyone eating. “It’s about the two killings at Fisherman’s Wharf, though. I don’t want to spoil anyone’s dinner.”

Benvair waved away the concern. “We’re all adults here. I hadn’t heard about a murder.” She turned to George. “Had you?”

He nodded, swallowing. “I did from Owen when he got home from work. I hadn’t heard anything earlier.”

Benvair turned back to me. “Start at the beginning.”

Looking longingly at the food I wanted to eat, I put down my fork and explained what had happened the last two nights at the wharf.

Benvair turned to Owen, so I snuck a quick bite of lasagna. “This isn’t something wicches can do?”

He shook his head. “According to Mom and a few crones at work, no.”

“Hmm.” Benvair nodded. “Lydia would know if it could be done.”

I didn’t know why her simple statement made my throat tighten.

I’d been worried, I supposed. I didn’t want Owen to be treated like a second-class citizen in his relationship.

Benvair believed dragons were the greatest creatures in the realms, so I worried that Owen, being a wicche, was given the kind of verbal slaps I was getting tonight.

Benvair’s complete confidence that Owen’s mom Lydia clearly knew everything there was to know about wicchecraft settled my heart.

Owen, who was sitting beside me, reached under the table and patted my leg. I swore, the man was an empath.

“I checked with Dave about demons,” I told them. “He said one could, but he’d checked The Bubble Lounge, and one didn’t. Apparently, he doesn’t need to rely on scent. Demons leave some kind of trace that other demons can see, which is interesting.”

Benvair took a sip of her wine. “And now you’re wondering if a dragon did it? No. We don’t kill that way and we’d never kill innocents like that.” Red fired in her eyes.

I held up a hand. “No, no. I wasn’t suggesting that. I was looking for your insight into the killing. Vlad says vampires can’t drain a body that quickly.”

“How do they know the bodies were drained?” George asked. “Does Russell have the autopsy report?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know. We spoke to him last night about the first killing. He was able to get the autopsy moved up, but they didn’t yet have the report. The nocturne has an informant in the morgue, though, who described the body as drained.”

“You mentioned a video,” George said. “Can we see it?”

“Sure.” I pulled my phone out and started to hand it to him.

He shook his head. “Just hold up your phone. We’ll be able to see it fine.”

Since Owen didn’t have enhanced vision, I stepped behind my chair so the angle would work better for him. Tapping the phone screen, I pulled up the video, hit play, and then held it for all of them to see.

“This is the second victim?” Owen asked.

I nodded. I knew when the killer dropped into the frame because all the dragons blinked and Owen flinched.

“Why wait?” Coco murmured. I questioned that as well. Why had the killer waited for the man to eat before he attacked?

When all the dragon eyes moved to my face, I put the phone back in my pocket and took my seat.

Benvair took a sip of wine. “I haven’t seen him, but I’ve heard that you brought Vlad back from Europe with you.”

“We did. This isn’t him, though. We analyzed the video this morning.

The killer’s hair is wrong and he’s too tall.

Vlad has scars on both his ear and his eyebrow from all his battles when he was human.

Both scars are on his left side. Clive says Vlad had his right side to The Bubble Lounge when they went to investigate. ”

Benvair nodded, deep in thought.

“So, the thought is that the killer was hiding when Clive and Vlad went to investigate,” George said. “Is that it? The killer saw Vlad and glamoured himself to look like him for the second killing?”

Shrugging a shoulder, I said, “That’s our current theory. The killer either doesn’t have a scent or he knows how to hide it because we couldn’t find it.”

“What did you find?” Alec asked.

“Based on the first murder and what appeared to be a vampire bite on the woman’s neck, we all assumed it was a vampire.

Clive and Vlad went to investigate. They scented no vampires.

I went the next morning when Nerissa called.

I was there before the cops. I went over both crime scenes, in the front and back of the club.

The only vampires I scented were Clive and Vlad.

There were lots of different merpeople scents, which makes sense, as they work there.

There were a million human scents, as it’s in a tourist area, and lots of cats, who are there for the fish. ”

“Did Clive and Vlad go together?” Benvair asked.

I thought a moment. “No. Clive was with me. He met them there.”

“Them?” She inquired.

“Oh.” Shit. “Yes. We have another visitor staying with us. They went together and then Clive met them there.”

“And who’s that?” she inquired.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be talking about that. Vlad made himself known by coming into the bar.” I tapped my forehead. “I’ve got a lot of secrets swirling around in here and I try to keep them.”

Owen swallowed a bite of bread and asked, “Is it possible the killer was a wicche before he was made a vampire? I mean, is that a thing?”

I considered Vlad, a vampire who was a day-walker because of his wicche mother. “Yes. It’s a thing. I think that’s why certain lines of vampires have enhanced gifts. Clive has superior mental skills, as do the others in his line. Other vampires could have different enhanced gifts.”

“Can fae be turned?” Coco mused quietly, looking down at her plate.

Benvair glanced to the side, taking in her granddaughter and then returned to her plate and her own thoughts.

“I don’t think so,” I told Coco. “The vampires always talk about how incompatible their magic is with the fae.”

Benvair nodded. “The fae are life. Vampires are death. I can’t imagine any member of the fae sitting still and allowing a vampire to turn them.”

I took a sip of iced tea. “And I’d assume the moment they died, they’d end up back in Faerie, where I can’t imagine the queen allows the undead to wander.”

Owen grinned at that.

“All right,” Benvair said. “Given he has the ability to create a glamour, our killer is a supernatural, but he’s neither a wicche, a demon, nor any kind of shifter—”

“Wait.” I didn’t realize until I’d done it that I’d interrupted Benvair. Oops. “It could be a shifter who’s also part wicche or part fae.” I turned to Owen. “Wicches can glamour.”

He nodded. “Sure, to greater and lesser extent. Just like with vampires, some wicche families have a gift for glamour.” He changed his eye color to lavender, like Meri’s, and then changed it back.

“I can do little things, like changing hair and eye color for short periods. I couldn’t change my entire body to mimic someone else’s, though. ”

I turned back to Benvair. “I’m sorry. I interrupted you. You were saying?”

She looked as though she was deciding whether or not to let it slide. Thankfully, she continued her thought. “So, it seems as though we’re looking for a vampire with enhanced gifts, a shifter with a magical lineage, or a member of the fae.”

“One who doesn’t have a scent trail,” I added.

Tapping her finger on her lips, she considered.

“The fae rarely remember they have noses. They are magical beings who can do almost anything. Scent is beneath them. Shifters sniff. The fae are too good for that,” Benvair snapped.

“The idea that one not only thought about his scent but did something to cover it seems far-fetched to me.”

“And whatever it is,” I said, “it has the ability to hide in plain sight. Clive and the other vampires heard something on the roof. Clive went up and found nothing—didn’t see, didn’t sense, and didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. Can you think of any type of being who can do that?”

Alec growled low in the back of his throat. We all turned to him. He shook his head as though trying to dislodge an unwanted thought.

“I remembered something.” He gestured to my plate. “You eat while I talk.”

I didn’t need to be told twice.

“I’m not good with time,” Alec began. “I was down in that cell forever. Maybe a few years ago, I was awake while everyone around me slept.”

“Why?” Coco asked, her food forgotten.

He stared at the fork in his hand for a moment, clearly uncomfortable.

“I was in a lot of pain. I’m good at disassociating, so normally I could still sleep, but not that time.

Anyway, I knew the sights and sounds. I knew when guards changed shifts, when she’d come down, when food was delivered.

It was quiet. Well, no. It was never completely quiet.

There were snores, and grunts, and farts, but it was a down time when nothing was happening. Most slept. Some zoned out.

“I was on the ground, staring down the dark passage between cells, trying to force my mind past the pain when he appeared. I hadn’t heard him coming down the steps.

Even vampires make some noise: the grit of dirt on the soles of their shoes, something.

I’m never surprised. Living as I was, I became hyperaware of any movement, any sound around me.

He didn’t walk down those stairs. I know he didn’t.

“The silhouette of a man appeared at the end of the row, a shadow in darkness. He stopped at each cell, seemed to study who was inside, and then moved on soundlessly. When he got to mine, I turned my head and looked up.”

Alec swallowed, his anxiety rising. “He was emaciated.

Eyes sunken. Lips pulled back from blackened teeth.

What stood out to me, though, was that his skin was dark, like mine.

Most of the vampires and fae I saw were white—well, fae are usually more gold or sometimes green, but you get what I mean. This guy had skin like mine.

“He stared down at me, shook his head, and then moved on.

I watched him. When he got to the cell with the troll, he roared, just like a troll does, and then smashed the cell bars.

The troll in the cell shot out into the passage, roaring and bouncing off the bars, racing for the stairs.

Other cells were broken open and more prisoners ran or limped out.

The guards came and it was chaos, people getting beaten bloody, but also prisoners running out.

“My cell was at the end of the passage. No one came near it. No one broke it open. I just watched the brutal beatings from the stone floor of my cell.” He paused.

“What I just realized is that the face he’d shown me as he looked down at me was my own.

I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror since I was eight.

After I was rescued and we were in Drake keep, I saw myself for the first time in twenty years and I panicked.

It was the same as that man who’d started the riot.

He’d stared down at me that night, wearing my face. ”