Page 32 of Odder Still
I cringe. “We can forget this ever happened.”
He laughs again, the sound just as warm and vibrant as before. He lifts his whiskey bottle. “Unfortunately, I’m not quite that drunk. Yet.”
I clink my empty glass against it.
Tavish finishes off the whiskey and flops backward into the grass. The shift in his weight rubs his calf against the side of my bare foot, his skin so close beneath the fabric of his pants that I can almost feel it, soft, smooth, scented in his honey soap and littered with tiny freckles.
I dig my fingers into the grass. I want not to want Tavish. It makes no sense. This is not the time, not the place. He is at most a passing fancy who will choose to stay in Maraheem while I flee home.
But that doesn’t stop him from being gorgeous or sweet or funny, and it doesn’t stop my heart from thudding just a little faster when his lips part in a sigh. Or, maybe I only want Tavish because it’s been years since I had the courage and charm to pull a stranger into a back alley of the nearest village, him always too drunk to notice or mind my Murk heritage, and me too drunk to care that he would shun me the moment we were sober.
Tavish can’t see that heritage either. But neither would it bother him.
I tip my head back, staring at the ceiling. I can almost feel the way the water-strewn light ripples across my face, can almost imagine that for this single moment we are the only things in existence. Can almost dare myself to kiss him, even knowing that it’ll be a terrible idea whatever the outcome.
My heart stutters as a tall, black-clothed selkie plunges into the pool above us. Instead of swimming or thrashing or transforming, he sinks slowly, bubbles streaming from his mouth. His hair splays around him, but it can’t mask the glow of the purple stone wrapped to his neck. Purple—the color of ignits that release paralyzing energy. Most likely the bodyguard still lives, but by the looks of it, not for long. Not unless the ignit’s energy runs out, or someone removes or deactivates it.
My fingers twitch. But I shouldn’t go charging through a place that isn’t mine to rescue someone I’ve never met, not when the more I involve myself in this mess, the longer it might keep me here, away from my pets, my life, my home. Tavish shifts at my side, his leg sliding against mine once more, and the parasite echoes the motion by drawing up a stream of recent memories, each one boasting Tavish’s smile, his laugh, his kindness to me. My chest tightens. But he’s safe at my side here. Staying put is the best thing for us both… right?
Another paralyzed, black-clad body falls into the pool. I recognize her immediately, her figure slight and fluid compared to the man’s, and her gracefully curved eyes stretched wide.
I scramble to my feet. The world sways, then steadies.
Tavish groggily rubs one eye. “What is it?”
“Sheona—she’s in the pool—she’s not moving.” I yank him up as I speak.
His pinkie finger trembles, but he seems instantly awake. He tightens his hands around mine. “The stairs we passed coming here lead to the room across from the pool. It’s two flights up.”
“Bolt the door once I’m gone.”
“I’m coming with you.” He jogs after me, his cane clicking at twice its normal speed and his footfalls light, like he’s prepared to take back any wrong step in an instant.
I glance at Sheona’s sinking body. The last of her air slips from her unmoving lips. In the time it would take me to force Tavish to stay, she could be dead. Besides, Tavish is no child. He has a right to place himself in danger, no matter how much I wish he wouldn’t. “Keep behind me.”
We rush out of the garden, down the hall, and up the stairs. The first landing opens to a staff corridor near Tavish’s room. He urges me onward, to the floor above it, where everything is a little too huge, too impeccable, too lifeless. We leave the staff chamber through a foyer and cross the hall to a set of double doors. They’re locked by the same scanning system that guards Tavish’s room.
Light bursts chaotically through the machine before peppering out. The crystal tubes and tiny grooves where the ignation normally flows hold little of the iridescent fuel. What remains slips slowly toward the floor. It leaks under the crack beneath the door, its rainbow flare gone pure silver.
I shove my shoulder into the door. Sparks leap from the lock, and it jerks open, the rest of the ignation pouring out its front. The liquid drenches the rolled-up sleeve of my robe and trickles down my forearm, soaking into my fishnets. A chill runs through me.
I burst into the room.
Its marble-tiled floor stretches beneath a ceiling so high it seems to lose itself in the darkness, and little, silver lights shine down from grooves in the walls. The pool extends along one end, its lily pads floating peacefully beneath large, white flowers. The drowning bodyguards still sink beneath the gently rippling water.
In the room’s center, a different kind of execution takes place. A gagged woman in an elaborate nightdress lies on a pure-white sofa, her hands bound to the wooden curls of the sofa’s back. Her head bobs lethargically as her eyelids flutter, her cheeks slack and her brow tight like she’s trying to think away the lump on her temple. The expression differs so vastly from what I saw in the boardroom that it takes me a moment to recognize her as Raghnaid.
Below her silken slipper-clad feet, a person in a hooded cloak paints the bright red symbol of a fish. The symbol they found beside Alasdair’s corpse. My gut turns, solidifying the dread I’d been gathering there since hearing that first radio announcement. Alasdair’s murder was never about him. It was about the Findlays. And there are other Findlays.
Findlays I would prefer to keep living.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lament of the Sober
Perhaps I offer: I will be your moon.
For you I will rise and for you I will fall,
