Page 20 of Hexbound
"What?" Guthrie demanded.
Demons?A little chill down Verity's spine, however, remembered that smell, as if her inner self was trying to warn her about something.
Conrad's dark-skinned fist curled over the axe at his side. "The Crows don't hold no truck with the Shadow Dimensions."
"Don't they?" Bishop looked supremely disinterested in that statement. "What was the state of the room when Mr. Murphy's body was found, and what did the body look like? I presume itwasfound?"
Silence. Deafening, thundering silence.
Then Mercy spoke. "The smear marks on the walls are from Murphy's curses. He's a hex witch of formidable power and could strip a man's skin from his bones with one flick of his wrist. But... something deflected the curses. The chair where Murphy had been sitting was burned to its seat, and the body was slumped over the desk. It looked almost normal until one lifted his head off the desk." Mercy paled, which was a damned unusual sight indeed. "It looked as though something had eaten his face."
Bishop arched a brow at Guthrie. "And you think Verity did this?"
"What are we supposed to think? He wasn't scheduled for a meeting and the entire house was guarded. Conrad himself was sitting at the door when it all happened, and he didn't see or hear anything unusual. Not a sound, not even the smell of burning. No signs of break-in, and the windows were barred from the inside." Guthrie shot her a glare. "The only person who could have possibly entered unseen was our Verity."
"While I agree that Miss Hastings has unusual talents, she's not the only person who could get into a locked and guarded room."
"Oh?" Guthrie challenged.
"I myself could do it, as well as at least four others whom I know."
"And who, precisely, are you?" Guthrie demanded, sinking back into his chair, his hands curling over the armrests. "Some kind of theft specialist?"
In answer, Bishop slowly stripped his leather glove off his left hand, revealing the four rings that circled his fingers, their glittering obsidian stones winking in the candlelight.
Nigel almost leapt out of his skin. "G-grave Arts!" he stammered, scrambling back against the wall. "He's a sorcerer!"
That catapulted them all into action. Verity caught Mercy's arm as the girl reach for her blades, and shook her head sharply. Their eyes met and Mercy's hand slowly relaxed on the blade, but her green eyes were wary when they returned to Bishop.
Guthrie's nostrils flared. "Order?"
"Of course." Bishop nonchalantly slipped his glove back on, as if this sort of thing happened on a daily basis. "I'm an adept of the seventh level."
Conrad's fingers clenched around his axe. "What I want to know," Conrad said, shooting her a look, "is how, precisely, you come to know 'im. You been conspiring to get out, Ver?"
"No. God." She waved a hand. "Bishop was the target. Murphy made me steal a relic from him. When the commission tried to kill me, he was the one who saved me. We've cut a deal. The Order won't crucify me if I help him get the relic back."
"We could stop them from touching you," Guthrie said, like a rat seeing a way in.
"No, you couldn't. And I'm fairly certain none of you could stop him from walking out of here, just in case you're planning on burying the evidence." She rolled her eyes.
"That depends." Guthrie stood, aiming a faint smirk at Bishop. Cockiness was his stock in trade, but she knew him well enough to see that he was sweating. "There's five of us and only one of him."
"The only person here who could cause me any consternation is the girl." Bishop tipped his head toward Mercy, who watched him with glittering eyes. "But she's untrained, isn't she?"
Verity, despite her alliance with him, took a half step closer to Mercy. For if trouble erupted, Bishop was the sort to take down his most dangerous enemies first. And how the hell had he known about Mercy's talents? Mercy could kill with but a clench of her fist.
It's what he does, said a whisper in her head.Like recognizing like.
"I'm not going to hurt her, Verity," he said. "I have no intentions of hurting anyone."Unless provoked, seemed to hover in the air.
"So we're at an impasse," Guthrie said. "We don't know who killed Murphy, and there ain't no sign of Murphy clearing this theft, except for Verity's word on it, as it ain't in his ledger. Now you come nosing—"
"Wait!" Verity hovered in the middle of the office.Ledgers!What if Murphy had kept a secret one? It went against the Crow code, but if Murphy were skimming, and he didn't want anyone to see.... "One second." Verity slipped around the desk and dragged a chair out of the corner. She withdrew her knife from her sleeve and used it to pry up one of the floorboards. "I always wondered why there were scratches on the floor here, and I once caught Murphy trying to pretend he hadn't been hiding something in this corner."
The floorboard came loose and Verity caught her breath, dragging out three old, heavy-set books. Not as thick or well-used as Murphy's ledgers, but... secret ledgers. Full of dates, jobs, figures....
"He did write the job down!" she said, rifling through it and finding the last entry. Then she realized that there was no mention of Mercy, or how much the commission would have given Verity. Damn it!
