White Witch, Black Curse

Shaking my head, I moved forward and reached for the handle of Kisten's room. My fingers were pale and cold, looking like mine but not. Hypnosis was a false calm that would put off the panic until the middle of the night when I'd be alone. "I'm fine," I said, then pushed the door open. Taking a slow breath, I went in.

The large room was cold, the wide windows that let in the light doing little to keep out the chill. Arm clutched against me, I looked to where Kisten had been propped up against the bed. Kisten. There was nothing. My heart ached as I missed him. Behind me, Ford started to breathe with an odd regularity, working to keep my emotions from overwhelming him.

Someone had cleaned the carpet where Kisten had died for the second and final time. Not that there had been much blood. The fingerprint powder was gone, but the only prints they had found were from me, Ivy, and Kisten—scattered like signposts. There'd been none from his murderer. Not even on Kisten's body. The I.S. had probably cleaned his corpse between when I'd left to kick some vampire ass and my bewildered return with the FIB after I'd forgotten everything.

The I.S. didn't want the murder solved, a courtesy to whoever Kisten's last blood had been given as a thank-you. Inderland tradition came before society's laws, apparently. The same people I'd actually once worked for were covering it up, and that pissed me off.

My thoughts vacillated between rage and a debilitating heartache. Ford panted, and I tried to relax, for him if nothing else. Blinking back the threatened tears, I stared at the ceiling, breathing in the cold, quiet air and counting backward from ten, running through the useless exercise Ford had given me to find a light state of meditation.

At least Kisten had been spared the sordidness of being drained for someone's pleasure. He had died twice in quick succession, both times probably trying to save me from the vampire he'd been given to. His necropsy had been no help at all. Whatever had killed him the first time had been repaired by the vampire virus before he died again. And if what I'd told Jenks before losing my memory was true, he'd died his second death by biting his attacker, mixing their undead blood to kill them both. Unfortunately, Kisten hadn't been dead for long. It might only have left his much older attacker simply wounded. I just didn't know.

I mentally reached zero, and calmer, I moved toward the dresser. There was a shirt box on it, and I almost bent double in heartache when I recognized it.

"Oh God," I whispered. My hand went out, turning to a fist before my fingers slowly uncurled and I touched it. It was the lace teddy Kisten had given me for my birthday. I'd forgotten it was here.

"I'm sorry," Ford rasped, and my gaze blurring from tears, I saw him slumped in the threshold.

My eyes squinted shut to make the tears leak out, and I held my breath. My head pounded, and I took a gasping breath only to hold it again, struggling for control. Damn it, he had loved me, and I had loved him. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And it was probably my fault.

A soft sound from the threshold told me Ford was struggling, and I forced myself to breathe. I had to get control of myself. I was hurting Ford. He was feeling everything I was, and I owed him a lot. Ford was the reason I hadn't been hauled in for questioning by the FIB despite my working for them occasionally. He was human, but his curse of being able to feel another's emotions was better than a polygraph or truth charm. He knew I'd loved Kisten and was terrified of what had happened here. "You okay?" I asked when his breathing evened out.

"Fine. Yourself?" he said in a wispy voice.

"Peachy keen," I said, gripping the top of the dresser. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was going to be this bad."

"I knew what I was in for when I agreed to bring you out here," he said, wiping a tear from his eye that I no longer would cry for myself. "I can take anything you dish out, Rachel."

I turned away, guilty. Ford stayed where he was, the distance helping him cope with the overload. He never touched anyone except by accident. It had to be a crappy way to live. But as I rocked away from the dresser, there was a soft pull as my fingertips left the underside of the dresser top. Sticky. Sniffing my fingertips, I found the faint bite of propellant.

Sticky web. Someone had used sticky web and smeared it off on the underside of the dresser top. Me? Kisten's murderer? Sticky web worked only on fairies and pixies. It was little more than an irritant to anyone else, like a spiderweb. Jenks had begged off coming out here on the excuse of it being too cold, which it was, but maybe he knew more than he was saying.