Knell Read online

  “That easy?”

  “For you, I’m sure it will be.”

  “Why do we want the brunette with the wrong tag?”

  “I’m assuming her name is wrong because she hasn’t had the guts to correct whomever made it, which means she won’t be able to withstand your rudeness or your beautiful face. Go British; she’ll be less suspicious of you that way.”

  “What about Australian?” Finn suggested, slipping into a decent approximation of an Aussie. “More exotic location, takes longer to get to and more dangerous once you get there!”

  “You’re not taking her on a trip, Finn, you’re just trying to get a key.”

  “Bet she could use a trip,” Finn lamented, Irish once again, squinting through the massive front window at the brunette standing behind the counter looking like she wanted to be absolutely anywhere else. “She looks sad.”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “Maybe I should flirt, instead of being mean?”

  “I trust your judgment.”

  Finn turned to look sideways at Veruca, making it clear he wasn’t sure that was a wise move on her part. She laughed, shaking her head before turning to lean into the car and pull out her props. Before long, they were hustling into the massive hotel, Finn three steps ahead, arguing nonsense into his phone while Veruca—clad in cat-eye glasses and a boxy jacket she’d picked up in a store while they’d been searching—trailed behind doing her best to look beleaguered.

  They went through the routine, Finn leading her into the elevator, mashing a button, mashing it again, and then sighing, cursing, and storming out. Veruca followed, holding herself as if she were afraid to take up too much space. Finn paused halfway when the brunette asked an approaching guest if they needed help, making it look natural and not like he was specifically waiting to speak to her. Once the coast was clear, he plowed up, stopping at the counter right in front of her, and then turned to give her his shoulder as he continued the tirade he’d been on.

  “No, Hamilton,” Finn said, his accent sounding to Veruca’s ear as exactly the sort of bitchy, bigwig London accent that would impress the girl, or at least confuse her if he pushed the attitude to its edge. “I will not accept six percent. My girl deserves twenty-five and anything less is an insult. No!”

  Finn sighed, exasperated, and brushed off Kristi with the incorrect name tag when she tried to offer assistance. Veruca caught her eye, shrugging apologetically, but making it look like she needed to be subtle about it.

  “The venues she plays have nothing to do with what she’s worth. You know kids these days: idiots. They don’t want large theatres and stadiums, and that’s not what she’s going to give them. Hold on.” Abruptly, Finn turned to the girl, slapping his hand on the counter as if he needed to get her attention.

  Her nose twitched like she was fighting off a snarl, but she spoke politely. “Can I help y—”

  “I need a key to the tenth floor, whichever room—Hamilton!” Finn turned away from her again, growling into the phone. “For fucks’ sake, I told you to hold, not to continue to blather on about numbers that you know for a fact I find insulting. Are you trying to insult me, Hamilton? No? Good. Now be quiet, I have to finish up with this thing. Key, tenth floor. I need to see my client.”

  “Your client?” Kristi asked, looking unsure whether Finn meant her or if he was still talking to the person he was berating over the phone.

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. You look young enough, if only just.”

  “I don’t know who—”

  Finn sighed, cutting her off viciously, and then knocked his hand against the monitor in front of her. “Then you look it up. Jesus, are you new? Martha, is she new?”

  Realizing he meant her, Veruca winced, stammering for a moment, before correcting him quietly. “I don’t know if—I’m Maria, sir.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Finn said dismissively. “Look, Kristi, it’s fine if you’re new, we all need to start somewhere, but I have places to be. My girl—my best client is playing a show in a few hours and I’m not paying this hotel loads of money to keep her from looking good doing it.”

  “I don’t know who your client is,” Kristi said, the strain of dealing with Finn starting to show on her face. “And we don’t give out guest information. Are you registered to the room? I can look up—”

  “Martha, get the card, show her the card. Get the black card—Hamilton, you stupid son of a bitch.” Abruptly, Finn turned on his shiny heals and walked back toward the elevators, pausing near the closest one and gesticulating wildly as if he was still arguing.

  Veruca took a second to watch him go, fixing a distraught look on her face before turning back to Kristi and smiling weakly. “I’m so sorry. He’s always like this, it’s not you. The company—I make good money, but you know. It’s a … lot of work.”

  “Well—no, it’s okay.” Kristi smiled, eyeballed Finn one more time, and then gestured vaguely. “I just—I don’t know what he wanted. I don’t know who he’s talking about.”

  “Oh, sorry. Uhhh, yeah,” Veruca shuffled the heavy garment bag, pretending she was trying to get to the messenger bag strapped across her chest, fumbling deliberately until she dropped the garment bag. “Dammit, dammit. Is he looking? Shit. Okay, look. I don’t know what they put her under. Might be under her stage name. Magna? She’s only here one night, and then she’s playing down in Seattle. Have you—oh! I bet they put it under his name. Pierce Windham? Look, he said tenth floor and maybe she’s not even checked in yet.” Gathering up the garment bag, Veruca tried to sling it over her shoulder, attempting to dig into the bag again, pretending to be searching through her things. “Sorry. Dammit. I’m not even his assistant. His stopped coming to work two days ago. I can’t imagine why.”

  “Would they have put it under someone else’s name?”

  “What?” Veruca asked, distracted, before muttering under her breath, “Shit, did I not bring it?”

  “I’m not supposed to give—we don’t give out information, but we have a lady staying, her name is Margaret. Is that her? Does 1019 sound familiar?”

  Veruca looked up, plastering confusion all over her face. “They used her real name? I didn’t think she wanted that. But yes, that’s it. Oh my god, you have no idea how thankful I am for this. Have you heard of her? I can get you tickets to the show—I mean, there aren’t, like, tickets tickets, but I can get you the location and make sure to tell her to say hi or something.”

  “I haven’t heard of her, sorry.”

  “Well, I mean, you’re a lifesaver either way. Can I get a key? We’ll go up and I can give her the outfit and maybe I won’t have to quit my job and live out of my car.”

  “Um...” Kristi hesitated, pursing her lips for a second. Sliding her gaze to Finn, she frowned, nodded, and then slid over to the key machine, smiling blankly at her coworker, who was intensely absorbed in something on his computer that Veruca doubted was work-related.

  “Here,” Kristi said. “It won’t open any of the rooms, but it’ll get you upstairs. I can call her and let her know you’re on the way.”

  “That’s okay. She probably won’t answer. She meditates before shows, shuts off all distractions and stuff.” Veruca rolled her eyes. “You know, showbiz.”

  “Oh, okay. Well. Good luck with your boss.”

  “I can use it. Have a good one!”

  Veruca pocketed the key, keeping up the pretense of awkward lackey until she and Finn were upstairs off the elevator and Veruca could see no signs of surveillance cameras.

  “Good call,” Veruca said as they approached the siren’s room. She could see the creature’s soul inside, far back and very still.

  “Thank you,” Finn said, giving Veruca’s ass a quick squeeze. “Which call?”

  “The name. Martha? Giving me the opportunity to correct you with a different one. Or am I giving your thought process too much credit?”

  “No, I knew what I was doing,” Finn said convincing
ly. Veruca grinned, deciding it didn’t matter if he’d come up with the idea himself or just latched on when she’d thrown it out there. “She was getting annoyed at me, though, so I figured she’d give you anything just to keep me from coming back.”

  “Well, then two good calls. Now, she’s in there, but I don’t know how amenable she’ll be to us knocking and asking permission to bring her to Fairy to speak to Ankyati. Should we call the boys?”

  “Is she alone?”

  “For now. I don’t know how long that will last, though.”

  “You think she’s got siren friends on their way?”

  “I don’t really think anything about her, I just know that you can’t count on anything staying easy.”

  “Except me,” Finn said, making Veruca nod.

  “The exception to every rule.”

  “I certainly am exceptional,” Finn purred, going for another grab. Veruca skirted his grope and hooked her arm into his, bringing him to the door and pausing in front of it. “We trying the easy way first?”

  “Might as well,” Veruca said, knocking.

  The siren didn’t move for a moment, her soul still for just long enough that Veruca started to wonder if she wouldn’t ignore them completely. Finally, she got up and moved closer, pausing at the door for a moment before opening it without preamble.

  She was lovely, seemingly created from the sea itself to evoke thoughts of summer and the tropics. Her hair was long, wrapped in a loose, heavy knot at the back of her head, a swirl of deep blue with green and turquoise highlights. Her eyes matched the beach, a pale gold with flecks of dark brown, and her lips reminded Veruca of coral, orangey-pink and full. She was slim, but curvy, enticing in a way that only the fae truly could be. Veruca could see how men and women everywhere, regardless of their sexuality, would have been drawn to her kind, despite the danger.

  “Magna?” Finn asked, his best happy puppy-style grin in place despite her lack of proper greeting.

  The siren wasn’t swayed by his charm. “Yes.”

  “Hi! I’m Finn. This is my girl Veruca. We had a question for you, if you don’t mind?”

  “I do,” the siren said, pushing the door shut as she turned to walk away.

  Veruca reached out to hold the door open, clearing her throat, hoping the siren didn’t take offense at their audacity. “I’m sorry, but I must insist.”

  The siren paused, still facing away, and Veruca shoved the door open a little farther, taking a step over the threshold. “Really, if I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here bothering you, but it’s important and you’re involved, so here I am.”

  The siren, still facing away, took a deep breath, sighing out like it was the height of inconvenience to have to deal with Veruca and Finn.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Finn blinked, befuddled, lost, confused, and every other adjective that could describe the state of a person who was aware that something was different, unaware of what it was, but also not bothered by the apparent change.

  “That’s a pretty tree,” he said absently, pointing ahead. It was a pretty tree, though not in an unusual way. Finn just appreciated the fullness of the branches, the roundness of the top of it. It reminded him of the way a child might draw a tree, an idyllic version of something that so often grew awkwardly or strangely in a city environment.

  “What were we doing?” Veruca asked, the same calm confusion clear in her tone.

  Finn shrugged, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her close so he could kiss the top of her head. “Dunno. We’re near a hotel. Is it one of yours? Are we staying here? Did we drink too much? Maybe we had sex in a park. How’s your underwear? Still there?” Pretending he’d lift her skirt to check, Finn leaned slightly behind, sliding his hand down her body, wiggling his fingers excitedly as he went. Veruca didn’t stop him or pretend to be annoyed at his boldness, so he paused, leaning forward to get a better look at her expression. Acting the brainless perv wasn’t fun when she wasn’t enjoying it.

  “Something’s wrong,” Veruca said, looking around. “This wasn’t … what’s that?” Veruca jumped back, turning to face Finn head-on, her eyes fixed intently on his chest.

  Recognizing alarm in her behavior, he froze, scared to look down in case she’d spotted something horrifying crawling up his shirt to take up residence on his chest.

  “What?” he whispered, waiting impatiently for her answer.

  ****

  Finn’s soul looked different than when she met him; that was as designed. Since she’d taken part of her soul and slipped it into his, the lovely, humming knit cage within his chest glowed a little brighter, pulsed a little faster, and seemed to take on a rosy tint when she was near. The hue was one of the benefits of being in love and, while she’d never seen it in any of her previous partners, she had spotted it here and there, when souls of couples were in close proximity.

  This was the wrong sort of different, though, and Veruca wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  Tiny slivers of silver, needle-thin shards of power were hooked into his soul, barbed in such a way that Veruca wasn’t sure anything would be able to remove them. It alarmed her, especially considering she could not recall a single moment of time before she’d become aware that she and Finn were standing on a city street. She knew they were in Vancouver, knew they were on a mission from Ankyati, and that it was important they find a siren, but—

  “The siren,” Veruca said, growling wordlessly to herself as she took stock of her own soul. Sure enough, she had been infected with similar barbs, though the ones in her soul seemed weakened, like overheated metal that couldn’t entirely hold their shape. Taking a deep breath, she gripped the shards in her chest with her power, tearing them ruthlessly from her soul and envisioning crushing them in her fist, casting them into the ether and out of her life. The moment she did, the memory of what had happened rushed back, a clear visual that burst through her mind like fireworks.

  The siren hadn’t made a move, hadn’t swiped or punched, or even seemed terribly interested in their presence when she’d attacked, but when she’d sung, Veruca had felt it. Bits of her soul had exploded outward, silver shrapnel, hooking into Finn and Veruca with an aggression that didn’t match the fine, melodic tone flowing from her throat.

  Turning as she let the note die, she’d looked Finn over with mild interest and then sighed and spoken dismissively.

  “You’re going to forget you had any business with me, forget you ever knew me, saw me, thought of me, or heard of me outside of my career. You’re going to walk out my door, down the elevator, out through the hotel’s front door and wander down the road some, stopping when you find something that you find intriguing. Once you do, you won’t remember any of this happening, and you won’t have any interest in whatever you came here for. Go.”

  Finn, being a genuinely affable fellow, had cheerfully agreed, “Right!” and then turned happily and headed off to do exactly as she’d asked. Veruca remembered pausing for a moment, feeling in her soul that something wasn’t right, but not having the ability to explore that thought. Then, she’d followed Finn as he’d done exactly as the siren wished.

  So, there they stood, on the sidewalk, admiring a tree that apparently had caught Finn’s eye.

  “Dammit,” Veruca muttered, finishing the job of pulling the hooks of soul from her chest, watching them disintegrate in midair like ash, rather than rush back toward the siren as every other bit of soul she’d ever touched had done. That, in and of itself, was something she wanted to investigate, but hadn’t the time.

  “What?” Finn demanded again, still frozen with nerves, confused and wondering what Veruca had noticed that he couldn’t. The shards of the siren’s soul in his chest weren’t damaged like the ones in hers, with the exceptions of the bits hooked into the little twist of her soul that resided there.

  Those were disintegrating, weakened and likely would have disappeared on their own before long.

  “You’re fine,” Veruca assured Finn,
working at clearing his soul of the siren’s influence. It was messy, tough work but she knew how to manipulate a soul and loosen the threads just right to unhook the power that was asserting itself over her man. It helped that, being a necromancer, his soul was more flexible and resilient than most, more used to being separated from the whole and reattached after some time had passed. The marks the siren’s orders made faded quickly, Finn’s soul looking untouched almost immediately as she worked. “Just give me a few moments. Then we need to call the boys.”

  “What boys?” Finn asked, still stock-still. “The Beach Boys? Hardy Boys? Boys of Summer?” Breaking out enthusiastically into Don Henley, Finn did a little jig with his hips, making Veruca snort and chuckle. From what she could remember, he didn’t have all the lyrics correct, but it didn’t stop him from giving it his all.

  When the last bit of spare soul was unhooked and out of his own, Finn trailed off, looking perplexed and a little insulted.

  “You okay, darling?” Veruca asked, pressing a hand to his chest, watching him process the memory of what had happened as it came back to him.

  “That was rude. We just wanted to talk,” he mumbled, turning to eyeball the hotel, even though they couldn’t see much of it from their place down the street.

  “I don’t believe we’re going to have any luck talking to her.”

  “Can’t we go in with ear plugs or something?”

  “Then how would we understand what she’s saying back?”

  “Ehm,” Finn wondered, wrinkling his nose in thought. “Oh! We’ll do it like Odysseus. You can strip me naked and tie me to the bow of a ship. I’ll talk to her that way.”

  “Naked?” Veruca asked, turning to hook her arm in his and lead him back toward the car. “I’m not sure he was naked.”

  “He was Greek, right? They were always naked. They loved being naked.”

  “I don’t know if you’re all that up on your history, Finn.”

  “Well, I love being naked.”