Crown of Whispers Read online

  The cops I talked to, Beatrice thought dimly. She reminds me of them.

  Jasmine frowned. The harsh expression on her face turned careful. “Is she injured?” Jasmine asked Doran. “Has she hit her head, or bled from somewhere?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Dorian replied. He pressed his hands to Beatrice’s shoulders and squeezed reassuringly. “She may be in shock. This was a violation, of sorts.”

  Jasmine pursed her lips. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Don’t touch anything.”

  “Give me some credit,” Dorian replied dryly. But he didn’t move as Jasmine disappeared beyond the doorway once again. “I thought you would need answers more than anything,” he said to Beatrice. His tone was low and apologetic now. “Was I wrong?”

  Beatrice blinked furiously. She fumbled for the silver dollar in her pocket, tugging it out to play it across shaky fingers. Her hands were trembling too much for the nervous gesture though, and she dropped the coin almost instantly. Dorian retrieved it, tucking it gently back into her palm.

  The warmth of his hand reassured her somewhat. She let out a breath.

  “Cops,” Beatrice rasped. “I... I don’t like cops.”

  Dorian furrowed his brow. His hand tightened on hers, a moment before he lifted his fingers to his temple. Pain flickered across his face for some reason. “Je ne savais pas,” Dorian murmured. “Should I have known that?”

  Beatrice stared at him, uncomprehending.

  You know that, she thought. Or you... you should have guessed.

  Jasmine returned with a stiff, medical-looking blanket. She handed it off to Dorian. “Réchauffe-la,” she said. “Pull the blanket tight—it’ll make her feel better.” The detective settled down onto her knees, so that Beatrice found herself looking down at her. The posture lessened the implied threat of the detective somewhat and soothed the nervous flutters in her chest. “We weren’t formally introduced,” Jasmine told her. “I was a little busy dumping a very fine vintage on a vampire’s head. I’m Jasmine. What’s your name?”

  Beatrice dug down into her last reserves and forced herself to speak. “I’m... I’m Beatrice. He already told you.”

  Jasmine nodded astutely. “Well, as you might have noticed, Monsieur Moreau can be a bit of a jackass. I figured I’d just ask your name directly.” The detective’s voice was oddly soft now, with none of the fiery aggression from before. “I need you to tell me what happened, Beatrice. You can take your time, though. We’re not in a rush. The hotel’s not gonna get up and walk away on us.”

  Beatrice managed a desperate laugh at the joke, though it was far from the best she’d ever heard. Jasmine smiled comfortingly at her, and the situation became a little more surreal, a little less like her previous experiences with the police.

  The detective is putting on a mask, Beatrice noted distantly. This is Concerned Jaz.

  But there was a genuine hint of compassion shining through that mask—and it was this spark of sincerity that convinced Beatrice to let out her breath.

  She reached up toward the aluminum earring at her ear, and put on a mask of her own.

  Consummate Professional Trixie surged to the forefront, layering herself over Beatrice’s skin. That hideous panic dove down deep, temporarily subdued. Beatrice straightened in her chair, though Dorian still had his hands on her shoulders.

  “J'ai fait un cauchemar hier soir,” Beatrice said slowly. “At least... I thought they were nightmares. I saw someone standing in the corner, watching me. No one was there when I woke up, though, and I didn’t find anything out of place.” She took a deep breath. “I have wards up. I’m good at wards. They weren’t disturbed at all.” Beatrice frowned, forcing herself to think through the implications. “I was out all day. I came back to my room tonight. The wards are still fine. But I found... this camera, and that picture. I left them where they were. I didn’t move them or touch them.”

  Jasmine nodded, digesting the information. “It’s good you didn’t touch either one,” she said. “They’re probably our best bet for fingerprints. I’m not a tech, but I can bag them up and ask someone to process them. As far as wards go… I’m not the expert you want. But there’s only so many entrances and exits in this room. Did you open your window at any point? Would your wards have gone off if someone didn’t use the door?”

  Beatrice shook her head slowly. “It’s like a sauna outside,” she said. “I’ve had the air conditioning running full blast—I never once opened a window. Anyway, my wards still cover the windows. I know how attack surface area works. I identified all of the room’s points of entry when I was setting up.”

  Jasmine frowned at that. “Okay,” she said. “I’m just gonna work through this with you, since you’re more of an expert than I am. If there’s no other entrances or exits, that means that either someone walked through your wards and didn’t trigger them, or else they were already here when your wards went up. Is that a good assumption?”

  Beatrice’s heart skipped a beat at that suggestion. Consummate Professional Trixie dutifully buried the fear. “That’s... a reasonable assumption,” she admitted. The idea that someone might have been in here the whole time made her skin crawl—but she dispelled the thought forcefully. “I’ve had my Witchsight open here more than once,” Beatrice said. “I didn’t see even a hint of some other presence. That means... whoever they are, they’re either good enough to foil Witchsight, or else they’re good enough to bypass my wards. The second one is slightly more likely. It’s hard to set up really solid wards on a temporary abode. You want a proper home that you own, that you have full control over, in order to do that.”

  Jasmine nodded. She turned toward Dorian. “Hey, supernatural search engine,” she said. “What kind of juice does it take to walk through wards without leaving a trace?”

  Dorian closed his eyes. “I cannot tell you that for free,” he said. There was a pained reluctance in his voice. “Believe me, I want to.”

  Jasmine scowled. “I’m here because you asked me here,” she pointed out. “Are you gonna help, or are you just gonna stand there like a moron?”

  Dorian tightened his fingers on Beatrice’s shoulders. “Chaque secret a son prix,” he said. “I didn’t make that rule. And I don’t think any of us want to find out what happens if I break it, even for a good cause.”

  Jasmine knitted her brow at him. “C'est comme tu veux,” she said shortly. “I’ll figure it out some other way, then.”

  “No,” Beatrice said suddenly. “Wait.” She reached up to grasp at Dorian’s hand, on her shoulder. “You owe me a secret, Dorian,” she said. “For the one that I gave you.”

  Dorian gave her an utterly bewildered look. “You’ve never given me a secret, Trix,” he said. “I wouldn’t let you do that.”

  Blank confusion swept across Beatrice’s mind. Am I crazy? she thought again. The look on Dorian’s face was so sincere, so convinced. But every word of their conversation more than ten years ago was etched indelibly upon her mind, never to be forgotten.

  It had happened.

  “I gave you a secret,” Beatrice whispered. “You said you’d never tell anyone.” Her voice rose slightly, as she became more convinced, more incredulous. “You asked me never to give you another secret. I remember, Dorian. I remember every god damn word!”

  Jasmine reached out to grab Beatrice by the hand. “Woah,” she said. “You’re pissed, I get it. And I’m not saying I wouldn’t enjoy seeing someone strangle La Voûte a little bit. But how about we do that later, after we’ve gotten what we can from this scene, huh?”

  Beatrice swallowed down her fury again. Consummate Professional, she reminded herself. You’re a Consummate Professional. But the mask was starting to crack. For the first time ever, she wasn’t sure that it would hold through the hour.

  Dorian shook his head slowly. Astonishment still showed on his face... but a slow, dawning fear had wormed its way just beneath the surface. “I think... you’re right,” he whispered. Horror blossomed on hi
s features. “I owe you a debt, Trix. Mais pourquoi?”

  Jasmine snapped her fingers. “You too, Confucius,” she said. “Pay attention now; have your existential freak-out later. If there’s a debt, you can answer the question. Who’s out there that can walk through wards like this?”

  Whispers gathered around Dorian, rising with a sinister hiss. Beatrice felt the secret unfolding from his mind, unraveling into something coherent—

  Dorian covered his eyes and let out a strangled sound of pain.

  Beatrice scrambled up to catch him as he staggered back from the chair. Thankfully, the detective leapt up to help too—because Dorian was definitely too heavy for Beatrice to hold him up on her own. Between the two of them, she and Jasmine managed to steady him until he could catch himself on the table.

  “It’s missing,” Dorian rasped. “I know exactly who could have done this. But the information is missing. That’s never happened before—ça ne se peut pas.”

  Jasmine furrowed her brow. “Mautadit,” she cursed. “This is officially way outside my expertise now.” She shook her head. “I’m gonna bag up what I can. Leave the hotel room as-is. Go stay somewhere else—some home, with proper wards. If you’ve got any other favors to burn, maybe call up a different witch and send them my way to look this place over with their Witchsight. You all see different things depending what you’re good at, don’t you?” She directed this last sentence toward Beatrice, who nodded reluctantly.

  Dorian gripped at Beatrice’s arm, straightening himself again. “I’ll call Simon,” he said. “He and Zoe will come take a look—”

  Jasmine’s face darkened abruptly. “If there’s anyone in this city I want to see even less than you, it’s your secretary,” she said bluntly. “Zoe tossed away whatever friendship we had the moment she cuddled up to that piece of shit vampire.”

  Beatrice bit her tongue to stifle the words that threatened to escape her. But Dorian fixed Jasmine with a cold expression.

  “You have done what you can, detective,” he said. “Therefore, I owe you a debt. You cannot afford the secret you deserve, but you may have a lesser version in its place.”

  Jasmine blinked at him, confused. “Is that some kind of offer?” she asked. “Okay… fine. I accept, whatever. Tell me your secret.”

  Whispers rose up around Dorian once more... and this time, they turned into a coherent whole within his mind, so that he was able to speak the secret in question aloud.

  “Zoe made friends with monseigneur in return for something to your benefit,” Dorian informed the detective. “If you wish to know more, you will need to ask someone with fewer rules.”

  Clear astonishment broke out across Jasmine’s face. She still seemed to be processing, even as Dorian tugged Beatrice toward the doorway.

  “Where...” Beatrice cleared her throat, still clinging to the last shreds of her Consummate Professional Trixie mask. “Where are we going? A home? A place with wards?”

  Dorian tightened his jaw. “On va chez moi,” he said. “Zoe warded my home herself. The only place safer would be her loft—but the Lady of Briars can come and go there as she pleases, and I would appreciate one less surprise on my plate right now.”

  Beatrice couldn’t bring herself to argue with that logic. The Lady of Briars might have offered her a moment of kindness earlier… but sleeping in the home of a faerie lord’s warlock seemed like a fantastic way to end up further into some inadvertent, arcane debt.

  “Wait,” Beatrice said suddenly, as they paused in the lobby for him to call his secretary. The implications sank in belatedly. “Your home?”

  I don’t need to be going home with Dorian, she thought hysterically.

  Zoe answered the phone call, however, and Dorian was momentarily distracted from their conversation. “There is a situation,” he informed her. “I would appreciate your help.” He paused significantly. “I expect I will be paying you overtime.”

  Chapter 7

  “I can only imagine what an evening this has been,” Simon Leclair observed to Beatrice.

  The Lady’s warlock had arrived with Zoe, not long after Dorian’s phone call. Zoe had remained behind to investigate the hotel room, while Simon insisted—politely but firmly—that he ought to escort Dorian and Beatrice back behind some proper wards. Currently, they were all three headed up the stairs to Dorian’s condo.

  “It’s not even ten o’ clock yet,” Beatrice muttered wearily at Simon. “Don’t jinx me, please. There’s plenty of evening left for things to get worse.”

  “Ah,” Simon said. “Vous avez raison. You are right, of course.” He worked a thread of bemused apology into his voice. “Well... I have known few people who are as thorough with wards as Zoe. You should be safe from whatever threatens, as long as you are inside.”

  Nowhere is safe, Beatrice thought distantly. That was what the Lady had told her. She tried to cling to that idea, to remind herself that this was still as good as it got, that there was no point in worrying over what-ifs and might-happens until she made herself sick.

  The pounding fear beneath her mask lessened very slightly. Beatrice knew it would be back—that as soon as she let her mask down, all of her worst, most hideous anxieties would attack her at once. But maybe, maybe, given time, she could find her way through it all.

  Dorian reached out to squeeze her shoulder again, as he pulled out his keys and headed for the door to his condo. Those light, reassuring touches had become automatic gestures for him over the course of the night—Beatrice wasn’t even sure Dorian knew that he was engaging in them. But the fear of whoever—whatever—had been in her room had temporarily overcome Beatrice’s fear of rejection, and she simply didn’t have the energy to shrug him off. Those touches were comforting, and she couldn’t bring herself to give them up... even if she had to pay a heavy price for them later.

  “Please come inside,” Dorian told Beatrice quietly, as he took her hand in his. Beatrice wasn’t actually certain whether the resulting tingle was the feeling of his warmth or the feeling of the wards parting to let her inside. Either way, she shivered. Dorian frowned at that and wound his arm lightly around her shoulders. The scent of hot chocolate and cologne suffused her, calming the edge off that underlying tempest of emotion.

  Simon lingered outside the door for an extra moment, before nodding at them both. “I’ll head back to help Zoe where I can,” he said. “Her Witchsight is much better than mine though, I’ll admit.”

  Beatrice knitted her brow. “I didn’t realize Zoe was a witch,” she said. “Or... that you were, for that matter. I thought you both drew your power from the Lady of Briars.”

  Simon ran his fingers back through his hair, suddenly a bit flustered. “I assumed you already knew, given your review of the office,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but...” He sighed. “Yes, we’re both witches. I’m a Sagittarius, and Zoe is a Scorpio. The Lady simply gave us both a more primal form of magic, on top of our own.”

  Beatrice remembered the bloody phantom thorns she’d spied climbing the walls of Dorian’s office. That image made sense now—Scorpio had natural dominion over blood and darkness, among other things. It was part of why vampires feared them so badly.

  Jean Belmont’s odd alliance with La Voûte’s secretary made more and more sense, in light of that information.

  “We should be well insulated against vampires in particular, then?” Beatrice asked Simon slowly.

  “Very well insulated,” Simon agreed gently. “Monseigneur himself wouldn’t dare to pass these wards uninvited.”

  Beatrice let out a long breath. The knowledge was comforting.

  “Thank you for your help tonight,” Dorian told Simon. “This was not your responsibility.”

  Simon gave him a faintly pained look. “Must you say those words to me, monsieur?” he asked. “I thought we were friends by now. You know that I am obliged to keep tally for later.”

  Dorian laughed. It was a low, rich laugh—not something Beatrice had o
ften heard from him, even when they’d been closer. “Shall I apologize for offending you, and make it two favors that I owe you?” he asked Simon. “I am bound by distasteful rules, Wanderer. It is in my best interest to make sure I acknowledge genuine debts to my friends when they occur.”

  Simon shook his head ruefully. “I would not want to be bound as you are, monsieur,” he said. “It sounds quite terrible. At least the Lady can, ah... sometimes be reasoned with.”

  Dorian shrugged. “I have learned to make do with what I have.” He glanced down at Beatrice, who didn’t return his look. “I think we will settle in. Bonne soirée, Simon.”

  As the warlock departed, Dorian closed the door behind him. The wards in the walls hummed lightly at the very edge of Beatrice’s senses, though she hadn’t opened her Witchsight to see them. Their constant presence was something of a relief.

  Dorian’s condo was a neat, pleasant sort of space. He’d always had a preference for clean living, but his rise in fortunes had also contributed to a few older, more expensive pieces of furniture, which Beatrice took in with equanimity. Oddly, the sight of an old, familiar bookshelf in the corner reassured her—she remembered it from his previous apartment. At least one very little thing in Dorian’s life hadn’t changed since she’d left.

  “Je pense qu'on mérite un verre,” Dorian observed, with his arm still carefully looped around her shoulders. I think we deserve alcohol. “Do you still drink whiskey?”

  Alcohol, Beatrice’s therapist had informed her, was not a healthy long-term way of dealing with her constant anxiety. Most of the time, she avoided it during her attacks, worried that she might become dependent on it. At the moment, however, alcohol was successfully dulling the worst of her rising hysteria.

  Dorian had offered top-shelf booze from his cabinet, but Beatrice had enough self-awareness to insist on the cheap stuff. Expensive whiskey was the sort of thing you savored. Cheap whiskey was for numbing your misery.