Unbound

“Tell me you aren’t right there at the edge with Brennan?” Muriel’s sweet exterior was gone. This was the vampire that had gone toe-to-toe with Nyx and survived. Her doll-pretty exterior was a façade; her coquettish charm was a ruse. Muriel was every breath the monster Nyx was. “Tell me, Evvie, and we’ll discuss it further.”

Eavan wanted to argue, but there wasn’t anything that she could say without lying. “No more club trips without you.”

“I’ll stand by you if you want to be mortal. I’ll help you if you want to be glaistig.” Muriel’s more familiar, kinder expression returned. She widened her blue eyes in a pleading way. “I just don’t want to see you regret whichever it is because you were being foolish.”

If I stop, what happens to the next Chastity? Eavan didn’t bother saying that though; Muriel wouldn’t be swayed by that concern any more than Nyx would. Family first. That was how the Others thought, and mortals weren’t family.

3

Cillian walked toward Dorothea Dix Hospital on his nightly mind-clearing stroll. He’d spent the past several hours going over his file, but still had no clue how to get closer to Brennan or how he got the unknown powder he cut his coke with. Whatever the silvery talcumlike material was, it wasn’t matching anything on the periodic table or the existing databases at the Crypto Drug Administration.

The drug was appearing in other areas around the country, and Brennan was the closest thing to a source that the C.D.A. had found. The I-85 and I-40 intersection tended, like many such interstate crossings, to be a drug-heavy region. Durham had a definite heroin business. Volumes of marijuana and cocaine slid through, but those weren’t issues for the C.D.A. Crypto Drugs dealt exclusively in the chemicals that utilized or targeted the Others that hid in mortal society. Brennan’s powder was an anomaly even in an organization established around coping with the unusual. The C.D.A. didn’t like anomalies.

Or lack of results.

No one in Brennan’s immediate circle seemed approachable. None of the victims was around long enough to be of use. The only one who seemed like a potential in was one woman Brennan kept circling, but she seemed to be stalking the drug dealer when he wasn’t stalking her.

So I stalk the stalkers.

Cillian thought about the dark-haired girl. Eve. He’d stared at her picture frequently enough that he’d begun to feel like a perv. He wanted her not to be a victim or a criminal, but he couldn’t find any evidence to suggest which she was or any logical way she wasn’t one of the two. Nice girls don’t flirt with drug dealers. Nice girls don’t spend inordinate amounts of time at strip clubs. He was pretty sure of that—except everything else he could find on Eavan made her seem like a nice girl. She worked at her jobs for short periods, but her employment records were all flattering. She was average: modest clothes, nondescript reading habits, no odd purchases, not a single unexplained trip; in sum, there wasn’t anything at all that would flag her as criminal.

Still thinking about Eve, he let himself into the apartment he’d rented.

Just inside the door, he stopped. A cream-colored envelope sat propped up against a book on his kitchen table. No one knew he lived here other than his supervisors, and they weren’t the sort of people to leave notes with calligraphic lettering on his table.

A quick search of the tiny apartment revealed that he was alone. After donning a pair of gloves, he carefully opened the letter. Mr. Owens, If you’d like to resolve the D.B. problem you’re having, contact me. Nyx. Under it was an address in the historic district and a meeting time that was just late enough to be private.

Several hours later, Cillian parked up the block from the address on the note; he glanced again at the sheet of lilac paper sealed in the bag on his passenger seat as he cut off the engine. The paper, the calligraphic writing, the lavender scent on the paper—it wasn’t covert. It didn’t seem apropos of intrigue.

At least not any sort I’m used to. Prior to this assignment, he’d worked in the research and clean-up divisions of the C.D.A.

He closed the car door quietly and made his way up the flagstone path. A woman sat on the front porch. She looked to be in her thirties at most. She was stern, eyes too flat, smile too calculating; everything about her was predatory in the true sense of the word. Whispers of caution rose from that instinctual part of the mind: walk carefully, mind the escape routes.

“Mr. Owens, so nice of you to visit.”

“Nyx?” His voice was steadier than his emotions. He’d walked into altercations that resulted in hospital visits, but this beautiful, polite Southern woman in a semi-public location was setting off the same sort of alarms usually reserved for the truly unsavory.