The Thief

When nothing but a boatload of awkward silence followed, Jane cleared her throat. “Even though I may have intruded on something personal here, I’d like to examine you, Mrs. Carvalho. You’re due for—”

“That is fine. She leaves, though. Go. Go! Stupid girl.”

There was a further commentary in Spanish, and Jane was glad she couldn’t translate it. She was pretty sure there were some very private things in there—things that had nothing to do with medical situations, and therefore had nothing to do with her.

“Listen,” Jane hedged. “I’m just going to go get my stethoscope and give you two a brief moment. When I get back, though, if this is not resolved”—she glanced at Sola—“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, unfortunately.”

“Do it now,” the grandmother ordered.

“I’ll be right back,” Jane murmured.

As she stepped out of the room, she jumped. Assail was coming out of the break room and buttoning his shirt up at the same time.

“Is she okay?” he asked frantically. “Marisol’s grandmother?”

Hmm, Jane thought. Maybe the couple had been caught in flagrante?

“I think so. I just need to check her out.”

After he finished tucking in his shirttails, he seemed at a loss. “I hope…well, I hope all is okay.”

“Why don’t you go in there?” Jane smiled. “I think there might have been a family argument or something. Maybe you can help smooth it over.”

“I doubt that,” the male said with sadness. “I seriously doubt that.”

Jane frowned. “Hey, after I’m finished in there—assuming nothing is going south—how about I do our exam? And Ghisele is coming down to feed Luchas. I’m sure she’ll oblige for you—”

“I’m fine. But thank you—”

“That wasn’t really an offer,” she said gently. “More like a plan we’re going to work on together. You’re still my patient, even if you’re doing great.”

When he just shook his head and disappeared back through the break room door, Jane decided that it was a full moon even if the calendar didn’t know it. People be cray tonight.

As she went to reenter Mrs. Carvalho’s room with her stethoscope, somehow she was not surprised that Sola was marching out like she had lost an argument. And the woman was so upset, she didn’t seem to be aware of what was in front of her—so they ran into each other.

“Oops, sorry,” Jane said as she reached out to steady Sola. “My fault.”

The other woman jumped back so fast and so far, she nearly put herself through the concrete wall across the corridor.

In fact, she shrank back in fear, her eyes panicked, her face pasty as hell, her body shaking.

Okay, Jane thought. Sola’s grandmother was elderly and had had a fainting spell of some kind, but she had no acute issues that Manny had been able to isolate—so this high emotion was completely out of place. And considering what Sola had already been through coming here and standing by Assail when he’d been so compromised…there was really only one explanation, wasn’t there.

“He told you,” Jane murmured. “About what he is. Didn’t he.”

One of Sola’s hands dove into the open collar of her fleece, and she outed a small gold cross. “Stay away from me. Just stay away—”

“That doesn’t work, FYI.” Jane gave the woman a sad smile. “Makes for great scenes in movies and books, though. They’re not soulless, godless, or immortal. Trust me, I’ve seen more love here in this world, more devotion—and tragically, more death—than I ever did on the human side.”

Sola blinked. “Wait…what?”

“I’m not a vampire.” Jane flashed her flat canines. “See? No points. Never had ’em, never will.”

Of course, it was best to keep quiet about the whole ghost thing. That was not going to be helpful information to share at this moment.

“What—how…why are you here?”

Jane shrugged. “I fell in love with one. And he fell in love with me.” And then I died and his mother brought me back to life—it’s great to have demigods as in-laws. “I live here now.”

Sola put her hands to her face, as if she were trying to reassure herself that she hadn’t lost her mind. “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand how…”

“It’s a hard transition, I’m not going to lie. It was hard on me. But I’m not the only human here—Manny’s one.”

“Dr. Manello?”

“Mmm-hmm. He’s my brother-in-law, actually. Mated to Vishous’s sister, Payne. Manny’s just as human as you and I. And then Rhage’s mate, Mary—”

“Rhage. The big blond man.”

“Male. They go by the word ‘male,’ not man.” Jane glanced at the closed door they were in front of. “Look, let me make sure your grandmother is stable. And then how would you like to go for a little stroll with me. We can just talk.” She put her hands up. “You can trust me. I took the Hippocratic oath—I am sworn to do no harm, okay?”

It was a long, long while before Sola answered. And when the woman did, it was with a short nod of the head.

“Stay right here.” Jane took her phone out of her white coat pocket. “I’m going to text Manny and tell him we’ll be back in a bit—assuming your grandmother is all right. Then I’m going to break protocol and try to tell you what’s going on down here.”

FIFTY-TWO

“No,” Phury was saying up in Wrath’s study, “I don’t know the book’s origins. I’ve spoken to Amalya and she told me she would look into it further. Now, what is clear is that…”

As Phury continued to talk about the missing tome, Vishous went to get a hand-rolled and cursed as he patted his muscle shirt. And then the heating came on and he caught a cold draft on his ass cheeks that turned him into a grower, not a shower. Just as he was eyeing the exit, and wondering if he maybe could go grab a throw rug from the hall and use it as a kilt, Butch sidled over and took off his fleece.

“Here, my man. Use this.”

“Thanks, true.”

The cop nodded and leaned back against the pale blue wall. “Welcome.”

V tied it around his waist, using the body to cover his cheeks, and the long sleeves to hang in front of his hey-nannies.

“So we find the book,” Wrath announced. Like that was going to be as easy as locating a can of franks and beans in a supermarket’s Shit-Through-a-Goose aisle. “If it tells you how to manifest these things, it probably has a way to get rid of them, right.”

Not a question. More as if the King had decided how this was going to go. And Vishous liked that in a leader. He just had a feeling they weren’t going to get lucky on this one.

Then again, he was the only asshole without pants on in the room, so…

“Last item,” Wrath announced. “Turns out there was a complication with that civilian who was killed last night.”

“Other than the fact that he woke the fuck up after he died and tried to eat Vishous?” someone piped in.

“Is that where your bottoms went—”

“Not the complication I’m talking about,” Wrath said sharply. “Saxton, how about you tell the group what’s doing.”

The King’s solicitor stepped out of the crowd. Saxton was dressed not in the garb of the sword, but that of the pen, the male’s trim figure sporting a tweed suit the color of the Highland moors, a cravat at his throat.

Given that everyone else, except for V, was in black leather and weapons, he was like a GQ model walking into an MMA fight.

“Thank you, my Lord.” Saxton bowed to the assembled, his blond head dropping low. “The civilian who died last evening was named Whinnig, son of Stanalas. He and his bloodlines, on both sides, are members of the glymera, his mahmen having passed at his birth, may she rest unto the Fade. Although the attack was clearly random, it has created a trusts-and-estates issue. Whinnig had been recently named the sole heir of Groshe, his mahmen’s brother. I was in the process of settling things, having run into conflict with Groshe’s second mate, Naasha.”