Iron Night (25 page)

His back to the door, Ambrose stood at a long counter covered with various beakers filled with substances that reminded me strongly of the jar of rubber cement from my middle-school art classes, both in consistency and color.

At the sound of our footsteps, he spun around, yelling loudly, “May Vishnu ram each of his four damn hands up your ass, Maureen. When I said don't disturb me, I—” As soon as he caught sight of us, his voice ended on a gravelly choke, and the beaker he was mixing dropped from his suddenly slack hands. It crashed on the floor, and a soft pink haze rose from the puddle and hung in the air for a brief moment before disappearing. All color leached from his face as he just stared at my sister.

“Very good, witch. You know who I am,” Prudence purred as she walked farther into the room, removing her hat and setting it down daintily on the counter.

Ambrose recovered enough to bob his head frantically and say, in a shaking voice, “Of course, Miss Scott, of course. I'd met your younger brother, but”—defying his barrel-like shape, his voice pitched almost into a squeak as my sister began tugging off her black silk gloves, one finger at a time—“of course we all know what you look like.”

“I am pleased to hear that.” Prudence dropped her gloves onto her hat and walked closer to the terrified witch. She ran one finger along the countertop as she went, looking over the assortment of tiny, stoppered earthenware bottles and one closed box that lined the area behind the beakers. “My brother has questions for you.” She stood close to the witch, invading his personal space by a lot, and ran that one finger deliberately across Ambrose's stout stomach in a very clear threat. “I suggest that you answer them.”

“Certainly, certainly.” Sweat was dripping down his face. “Anything I know.”

Prudence looked over at me, indicating that the floor was now mine. I cleared my throat and was surprised at how heartless my own voice sounded when I said, “Tell me why the elves are tattooing and killing young men.”

“Uh . . .” The panic cleared from Ambrose's face, driven away by an expression of pure surprise. Whatever he'd been expecting or dreading me to ask, this hadn't even been on his radar, and for the moment he was caught too off guard to even remember to be scared. “Doing what, now?” he asked.

Prudence clearly didn't approve of the loss of the terror she'd worked very hard to establish, and she leaned well into his personal space. “My brother was quite clear.” Her finger stopped stroking his belly and suddenly dug in slightly, and his breath caught in a sharp gasp as she dragged it across, leaving a small line of blood. “I suggest you consider which is more valuable to you—the loyalty you have to your employer or your attachment to your intestines.”

Ambrose shook his head desperately, and words tumbled out of his mouth. “Tattooing,
killing
—listen, with no disrespect, I'm a dime-store potion witch. I've spent the last three decades mixing fertility potion after fertility potion for the elves because the money is good enough to put my kids through college and pay my mortgage. This isn't any of the great magic or anything that would require a death sacrifice.”

“Death sacrifice?” I asked, picking up on the last term.

Ambrose nodded, looking relieved that there was something he could fill me in on. “Yeah, that's what you tattoo something for. You know, you're doing something that breaks a few of the big laws of nature, you need a little help to grease the wheels, you put a sacrifice tattoo on a chicken, kill it, and you have the whammy you need, plus dinner.” He gave a weak smile, one that faltered and slipped away when his gaze darted over to Prudence's completely unimpressed expression.

This sounded useful, and I felt a tug of excitement, wondering if this was an actual lead at last. “And on a human? Like this?” There were a few pads of paper on the counter, and I pulled one toward me, along with a pencil, and sketched out a quick outline of a human form, then drew in my best effort at the tattoo bands, admittedly somewhat crudely. I pushed the sketch close enough for Ambrose to look at.

He gave it a long, considering examination, then looked up at me and said, in a carefully bland voice, “Not really an artist, are you?” He looked down again at my sketch, his large beetle brows pulling together in thought. He leaned forward cautiously, reaching for the pencil, watching Prudence out of the corner of his eye. After a moment she removed her finger from his stomach and shifted just a breath farther away from him, but it was enough to indicate permission, and he quickly ripped off my piece of paper and on a fresh sheet sketched out a series of designs, then pushed the pad back to me. “Did it look like any of those?”

I checked. They were all a series of interconnected knots, but as I scanned through them, the last one jumped out at me. I'd seen it too many times over the past several days to mistake it, and I tapped it hard.

“That one? Bit old school, I guess,” Ambrose said. Then, sounding almost reluctantly impressed, he continued, “The elves are pulling that shit? Well, I can tell you that no witch in the country did that for them.”

“How do you know?”

Sounding more relaxed, Ambrose explained, “Firstly, death sacrifices are a work-around. You don't need to be a witch to make one work. Making the ink, sure, that's a witch, but you could buy that. Must be half a dozen witches in the Scott territory alone who would sell it to someone. But to actually off a human with it, karmically that is not”—he gave a sudden glance to Prudence and then rephrased whatever he'd been about to say, finishing lamely—“a good idea. No sane witch would do that for someone else. You do that if your town gets firebombed by Nazis, not because some dick elf hired you for it.” I grimaced at what I was hearing. I'd been hoping that accidentally smashing the bottle of ink during the fight with Soli would've been more of a setback to their operation.

“Did your employer ever ask you to do that?” Prudence asked, and he flinched at the sound of her voice.

“Never,” he said, sounding subdued and frightened again. “Ma'am, this is what I do all day.” He gestured at the beakers on the table. “Fertility potions and more fertility potions.” He paused, then looked uncomfortable, his tongue darting out to run nervously over his upper lip. “Though lately she has asked me to cook the occasional roofie.”

That completely distracted me. “Um, roofies?” Worried, I asked, “What is Lulu
doing
to her patients?”

Ambrose frowned at me, looking annoyed rather than terrified. “Not her patients, dumbsh—” A subtle movement from Prudence reminded him of her presence, and he caught the word at the last minute, rephrasing it as, “Young man. No, those bakeless-oven gals are nice and desperate. They'll do anything already. Boss said it was Neighbor business. Anyway, my potion wouldn't hurt someone; just fogs the memory, makes the drinker nice and suggestible, gets them to do all sorts of things they would refuse to do under normal circumstances.”

That sounded plenty hurtful to me. “You made that for her? That's horrible!”

Ambrose looked surprised, and shrugged. “Leamaro asked for it; I made it. What she does with it is her damn business.”

“That is completely unethical,” I said.

“Sir, do I look like I'm a pharmacist? Because I am not. I just cooked what she asked for.”

“And didn't ask any questions.” Disgust filled me and I didn't bother to hide it.

“Not my job to notice things,” Ambrose said mutinously. Prudence made another small move, and he jumped a little, rushing to say, “But I may have noticed a few mornings in the past few months that the incinerator was used overnight. On something bigger than just some files.” Prudence just stared at him, and he hedged. “Might've had some bones shards left, like a pig or something.” She didn't blink, and he muttered, “Probably bigger than a pig.” One last glare, and he admitted, “Could've been a person.”

“Why would someone cut off a death sacrifice's hands? And the tongue? And genitals?” I asked.

Ambrose looked impressed at the list. “Every spell has more components and steps. The bigger the oomph, the farther you're trying to get from the natural workings, the more steps involved. But a death spell plus parts cut off? That's some serious shit.”

Prudence leaned in and said, very quietly in his ear, “Tell me what the elves want, Ambrose.”

“What they've always wanted, lady,” Ambrose said respectfully. “More elves.” He pointed again at the row of potions lining his table. “A human-elf cross occurs naturally. The potions just help it happen more frequently. The elves wanted more than just a half-blood, something that wouldn't happen normally, and my magic and potions were able to bend the rules a little to get them that—a cross between a half-blood and a full, with some extra help, gets you a three-quarter. But that's as far as it goes.” He shook his head. “The true elves are going the way of the Neanderthal. Some genes left in a hybrid, and maybe the hybrids will eventually stabilize a full population, but the real elves will be long gone. And no great loss, if you ask me.”

“And yet you serve,” Prudence said.

“Ma'am, it's a living.”

“Fortitude?” Prudence turned to look at me. “Mother placed this investigation in your hands, so I ask you, little brother.” One fast move, and her hand was in what was left of Ambrose's hair, pulling his head far back, enough that he was yanked hard backward over her waiting leg, forcing his back into a steep arch. His whole body hovered off-balance, his feet pushed almost onto his toes. His shirt slid back, revealing a very pale stomach lightly dusted with wiry black hair, looking horribly exposed and vulnerable. The cut my sister had left before was a long, raw mark, and she reached past it and, very slowly and deliberately, raked all four fingers across his belly, leaving a trail of shallow cuts that sullenly oozed blood. She never looked away from me as she did it, and asked, in a perfectly polite and conversational voice, “Does he live? Or does he die?”

Ambrose made a high, helpless sound, too terrified to stay silent, but also too afraid to try to escape my sister's hold. I swallowed hard; the suddenness and the very controlled nature of my sister's violence had thrown me badly, but I fought to stay calm. I reminded myself of what Suze had said: I had to be smart about this, to act in a way that kept Prudence under control but also justified my actions to her in a way that she would respect and abide. I struggled to keep my face blank as I looked down at the frightened witch. I didn't like him. I didn't like how willing he was to cook something like a roofie potion with no concerns at all about how it was going to be used and on who, but I also wasn't sure that criminal indifference was enough to kill someone over—at least until I found out exactly how that potion had been administered.

Admittedly, I wasn't feeling too sorry about the man's bleeding stomach or the small, spreading stain in the crotch of his pants.

While I was figuring out what to say, my sister was looking substantially
less
polite. Her pupils were bleeding out, covering the blue of her eyes. Her fingers dug into his cuts, deepening them, and Ambrose cried out again.

“Sniveling rat,” my sister muttered, her lip curling. “All you witches—scampering and gnawing at the edges. Would the other rats care if a cat ate one of you?” She dropped her tone almost to a whisper and spoke into his ear. “Of course not. More cheese for them.”

Her fingers were flexing ominously, and I knew it was definitely time to derail this—if I could.

I made my voice as neutral as possible and said, “Witches are bought, Prudence. We should've been more aware of what Lulu was doing.” I looked directly into my sister's sociopathic eyes and gave her a reason she would agree with. “And a witch can be a useful thing to have, especially one who knows who is in charge.”

She paused, then nodded slowly, her pupils receding enough to show just a hint of blue. She let go of Ambrose, allowing him to fall into a boneless lump on the floor, staring up at us with the blink-free terror of a bunny facing predators. “True enough, brother,” she said mildly. Looking down at the witch at her feet, she sneered. “Tell me where the half-elf is today.”

Ambrose pressed his eyes closed and whispered, “I don't know—I swear by blood and bone that I don't know.”

Prudence leaned down, examining him like a bug that she was still contemplating crushing. I cut in, reminding her, “If she didn't involve him in the planning, she wouldn't have told him where she was. After last night, they have to know that we're looking where they don't want us to.”

Prudence clicked her tongue. “True enough,” she acknowledged, and nudged Ambrose with the tip of her high heel. “Find new employment, witch. And if you learn something new about Leamaro, something that might be of interest to me, you'll contact us, won't you?”

“Of course,” he slathered desperately.

“As it should be,” Prudence said, satisfied.

I still didn't like the look in her eyes, and I said, “If there's nothing else, Prudence, we should probably go.” I picked up her hat and gloves and held them out to her. After one last, almost longing look at the huddled wreck at her feet, she nodded slowly, but with an expression that was almost pouting.

We left the room. My heart was thumping wildly in my chest, but I was relieved that I'd managed to avert the maiming (if not outright murder) that I knew that Prudence would've preferred meting out in the interests of making an example of the costs of landing on her radar. Suzume was waiting for us in the hallway, her face very carefully arranged into an expression of emotionless obedience that was probably the best mask I'd ever seen her present. There was a set of folders tucked under her arm.

“Did you find something?” I asked her as she fell neatly into step beside me. Prudence's heels
tip-tap
ped behind us, an uncomfortable reminder of the very real danger she presented at my undefended back. We headed out the door, past the nurse who gave us a nervous look but added a professional smile as we went. Suzume had clearly taken the opportunity to work a little fox magic and smooth out our departure.