Page 26 of Roses and Murder
I understood. Basselt was a protector. He had been a bodyguard to the Theran prince. I thought what happened had been a terrible accident, and it wasn’t his fault, buthedid and his people did.
Basselt wanted to protect me and it was honestly nice because the man who sired me was blackmailing me to get a serial killer off his streets.
“If you get hurt, I’ll murder you.”
Basselt just smirked at me.
“I won’t. They can’t tell a Theran from a human when we are wearing your clothes unless they see us shift and I’m way too good for that.”
“Thanks.”
I needed to rope Neco in and then we needed to talk to an expert. The leading experts on bedroom diseases in Guttertown were the Madame, Athan, and Tarja. I could grab the Madame when I got Neco.
I was under no grand assumptions that the Madame wasn’t going to make this as mortifying as possible unless I was crystal clear I was asking about the Ghoul and not for me.
Iwas hoping I didn’t have to knock on Neco’s door. I wasn’t going to hit a kid, but I especially wasn’t going to smack Rowena if she assaulted my tits again because she guessed I was the one who fucked up her brother’s face. Yeah, Neco still thought I was Lance and was a complete psychopath about his sister. He’d toss me through a wall and then gut me in my sleep.
Plus, I just really liked that kid, even if she hated my guts.
Neco was eating breakfast with Panas and Beck when I found him. Panas was one of those men who spoke even less than Neco did, but he didn’t really have to. If he needed to terrify someone, he could do it with a look. I also knew he was mostly a gentle giant because he watched us sometimes.
“I have intel on the Ghoul. We’re going to need to talk to the Madame, Athan, and Tarja,” I announced.
“You don’t have little birds like the Madame and you couldn’t work without me yesterday. How did you get any information I don’t already have?” Neco demanded.
Yeah, I knew about the Madame’s spies. We might get more intel out of her than just bedroom diseases because she knew shit about everyone. I also wasn’t outing Basselt, even if I was pretty sure Neco wouldn’t hurt him.
Basselt was keeping my secret, and I wasn’t going to go around blabbing his without his consent.
“Do you want to catch the Ghoul or do you want to interrogate me? Just trust me.”
Neco Argent didn’t trust anyone. The only person he’d never questioned was his momma. He wasn’t asking me any more questionsnow,but he was going to pester me later. Especially since there was literally no way to tell from the crime scenes that the Ghoul was sick or Trevils would have done it by now.
“Mom should be getting out of the bath in a few,” Beck said. “She usually has her breakfast after that and then does the books. She doesn’t like being disturbed when she’s messing with numbers because if she messes anything up, they are going to figure out we’re all cheating on our taxes, but she loves chatting while she eats.”
Ah, fuck. The books. I needed to get that done.
“I’m dreading doing ours,” I said. “The rest of Nestran knows about the Bloody Mary and our singers. They are trying to recreate both. Their patrons are coming here and eventually, they will send a spy to try to steal my recipe. The Barons are going to know we’re making more money and want their cut of my profits, even though they’ve got nothing to do with it. I’m going to have to get creative, but not so creative they know I’m lying to them.”
“Same,” the Madame said, joining us from her bath. “My business is booming because yours is. A lot of the men who think they would never pay for sex go to your tavern to try the Bloody Mary and hear your singers. They get drunk and then start lusting after the pretty girls singing. Most of them end up over here.”
“What can you tell me about bedroom diseases?” I asked.
Oh, the Madame waspissed.I should have phrased thatmuchbetter.
“Mostly that if you have one, you shouldn’t have been in my bath with my son!”
“Not me. I think the Ghoul has one, and it’s bad.”
“Symptoms?”
“No idea, just that he smells bad. Like, worse than a Baron normally would.”
“It might not be a Baron then. There’s one called Black Paranoia I haven’t seen in Guttertown for a long time that attacks the body and mind. It’s not really a bedroom disease, though. Itcanspread in the bedroom but that’s not the only way. You can catch it from the pustules on the body or just from getting sweat on you. Guttertown figured out the cure, and the Barons forced us to give it to them. It’s one of the cures they keep to themselves unless they need something and a lot of people outside of Guttertown think our healers aren’t as good.”
Neco had stopped staring holes in my head like he was fully planning on asking later how I’d figured all this out. The Madame had just thrown a wrench into our entire theory, but she might have given us a major clue as well.
“There was no sign of a struggle. That’s why we thought Baron. If someone broke into your house with a disease like that, you’d just run unless it was worse if you didn’t.”
