The Severed Thread (30 page)

I moved in a daze as I headed for the stairs, trying to process the impossible.  My berserker had spoken!   It said actual words instead of the usual roar and screech.  What the hell was that all about? 

A hand touched my arm and I recoiled. 

“Are you okay?” Samantha asked, concern written all over her face.  I sagged in relief. 

“I need to get out of here.”

Samantha took me home, plying me with questions about what had happened.  I filled her in on my eye-opening encounter with Harvey.  I wasn’t ready to talk about my suddenly verbal berserker yet. 

“I’m sorry Abigail,” she said softly.  “I can’t believe that he threatened you like that.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said.  “I was never in any physical danger.  If anything, he was the one taking risks.  If my beast had broken free, he would now be nothing more than quivering little bits of flesh strewn all over the lounge.”

“And you would be on your way to a new permanent home in a padded cell.”

“Good point.” 

By the time she pulled into my drive, I was feeling together enough to at least reassure her that I was okay. 

“You seemed really upset at the club, are you sure you’re okay?” she said as I reached for the door handle.  “I can come in for a little bit and we can talk.”

“I’ll be fine, really,” I assured her, unfolding myself from the passenger seat.  “There are two wolves lurking around here somewhere, so if I need anything, someone is close by.”

“Like you said earlier, you are not in any physical danger, it’s the mental danger I’m worried about.  I don’t think you should be alone.”

“I just need to sleep and then meditate in the morning.  I promise, I’ll be fine.”  I knew she meant well but I needed to talk to Naris and I couldn’t do that until she left.

She finally consented to leave and I made my way inside the house.  As soon as I saw the lights of her car exit the driveway I called out into the stillness.

“Naris.”

“I am here,” he said from behind me.

“It spoke to me,” I whispered, my hands shaking.  “No, no, that’s not right,
she
spoke to me!”  I couldn’t very well keep calling her an it when she could talk.  An
it
didn’t talk.

“Who?”

“My berserker!”  Wasn’t he listening? Who else would freak me out like this? 

“Ah.”  He didn’t seem surprised. 
Why
wasn’t he surprised?

“That’s it?” I yelled.  “That’s all you have to say?”

“What would you have me say?”

“I’d like for you to tell me why you are not surprised!”

“Why would I be?”

I gave him a mutinous look.  He wasn’t getting away with that this time.

“Abigail Lassiter, your berserker is sentient,” he said chidingly.  “That should not be new information.”

“I knew she understood a certain amount of things but why is she suddenly speaking?”  I was pacing, unable to figure out why she would choose now to talk to me.  After all, she had been around as long as I had and she had never spoken before.  Berserkers who spoke were the stuff of legend.

“The elves prior to the plague were able to communicate with the vessel of their inner rage.”  I blinked at him in surprise.  I had been so caught up in my shock that I hadn’t thought of that.

“Yes, but I’m not an elf from prior to the plague.”

“No, you are not and yet your beast spoke to you.”  He looked like he was waiting for me to figure something out.  And it took a moment for the implications to sink in.  I thought back to the flicker of understanding that had flashed through my berserker’s eyes when I did my last large scale containment repairs.  Was it possible?  Was I the first elf to have spoken with their beast since the plague had hopelessly cut us off?  I collapsed onto the couch and leaned my head back against the cushions.  Naris settled next to me and took my hand in his.

“Abigail, I was sent to you for a reason,” he said as I looked at him.  “Nothing extraordinary that happens in your life will ever shock me.”  He placed a cool hand on my cheek.  “It would be more surprising if nothing amazing happened.”

Chapter 27

My eyes felt heavy and gritty.  I blinked several times, taking a bleary eyed look at the ceiling while trying to figure out why I was awake.  A two-tone bong resounded through the house.  Was that the
doorbell?
  I rolled over and groaned, looking at the clock beside my bed.  It rang again, this time a staccato, bong, bong, bong-bong.  It was only six-thirty – who the hell was ringing my doorbell at this hour?  Seconds later the phone on my bedside table vibrated.  I snatched it up and looked at the Caller ID.   My eyebrows furrowed as I read the name – Jamison.  It was one of Jonathan’s wolves that could be regularly found guarding my door.

“What that hell is going on out there?” I grumbled into the phone.

I heard what sounded suspiciously like a stifled chuckle before a deep baritone replied, “Ms. Lassiter, Agents Smathon and McCabe are outside.  They seem anxious to speak with you.”  I noticed the inflection change when he said ‘anxious’.  Something must have developed in Jason’s case.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said, suddenly alert.  “Can you tell them I’ll be right down?”

“Will do,” was his only response before the line went dead.

I leapt out of bed and hustled to the bathroom – three minutes later I bounded down the stairs with freshly brushed teeth and my hair thrown in a twist.  I opened the door in a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt with what I hoped was a genuine appearing smile pasted on my face.  My confidence stumbled and my smile quickly withered around the edges when I looked at the agents – McCabe appeared grim and Smathon smug.  Not a great combination.  Whatever they were here to discuss, I wasn’t going to like.  I took a deep breath and tried to regroup as I fought the impulse to shut the door and pretend they weren’t there.  I was enough of a realist to understand that shutting the door was completely pointless.  It would just start the doorbell and phone ringing again.

“Good morning agents, won’t you come in?”  I stepped back from the door and swept my arm into the foyer.  As they moved past me into the house I noticed that out on the porch Jamison was texting on his phone; updating the pack-master about my early morning visitors, no doubt.

I turned back to my uninvited guests.  “I’m guessing by your expressions that I’m not going to enjoy what you have to say.”

“Several witnesses place you at The Holwer last night.”  I blinked.  Ah,
alright
.  Talk about absolutely no lead-in and
was that even a question?
  I decided to answer as if it were anyway. 

I nodded slowly, “I was there with Samantha last night.”  I saw McCabe’s eyes sweep to Smathon before he continued.  I was guessing that they already knew the answer to the question before they even asked it.  They just wanted to see how I would respond.

“Several people reported seeing a woman with silvery-blonde hair having a heated disagreement with a man at the Howler around eleven forty-five or so.  The man fits the description of Harvey Kelton.”  I didn’t need him to tell me who fit the description of the blonde woman.  They wouldn’t be here unless they suspected it was me. 

“Was the woman you?”  I was getting a bad feeling about where this was going.

“Yes,” I admitted, unable to keep the hesitation out of my voice.  “What is going on?  Why do you care if I had a disagreement with Harvey?”

“Because at a little after three this morning a patrol car found him sitting on a bench, holding his head in his hands about four blocks from here.”  McCabe was looking at me intently as he relayed this little tidbit but I wasn’t getting the problem.  Why did they care if he was sitting on bench in the middle of the night?  It was odd but surely not against the law.

I must have looked perplexed because Agent Smathon stepped in to clarify with an ugly smile on his face.  He seemed to be truly enjoying himself and that made me even more apprehensive. 

“He had been positioned on the bench with his hands palm up on his lap holding his decapitated head.”

“Oh my God!” I gasped.  I could feel the color drain from my face at the visual that evoked.  Unfortunately, now I understood.  I had envisioned Harvey sitting on a bench bent over, elbows on his knees maybe, holding his very attached head in his hands.  You know, like someone with a headache.  Not for one second had I considered what Smathon had just described. 

I put my arm across my roiling stomach.  Harvey’s death in and of itself was not overwhelmingly upsetting because admittedly, I detested the man.  But decapitated?  Who would do that?  The same person who had casually gutted my brother in my driveway, that’s who.  The thought made my skin crawl but what really freaked me out was that I suddenly realized why the agents were really here. 

They were here because
I
had opportunity.  It happened right down the street.  Not to mention I also had an apparent motive since we had had a public disagreement the night before. 
Shit, shit, shit-shit, shit!

“I think I need to sit down,” I said as I turned to go into the living room.  They followed without comment.

Smathon started in with the questions as soon as we were seated.  “What were you arguing with Mr. Keltan about, Ms. Lassiter?”

“I thought he knew something about Jason’s murder.  When I asked him about it, he denied knowing anything.  Then instead of his usual attempts to ingratiate himself, he took a completely different track and threatened me.”

“Threatened you how? What did he say exactly?”

Exactly?
I had to think for a minute.  “He suggested that if I wasn’t careful, something bad might happen to me.”

“What did you think of that?”

“Harvey is…,” I stumbled over the word, “
was
a slime bag.”  And no, I did not feel the slightest bit bad speaking ill of the dead.  “But, I always considered him more talk than action.  I accused him of being involved, or at least knowing something about what happened.  I wasn’t afraid of him initially because he had always seemed more interested in getting into my pants than anything else.  But last night, he was different.  He was more aggressive and confident than I had ever seen him in the past.”  

“After you left the Howler, where did you go?”

“Home… here.”

“Can anyone vouch for that?”

“Just the guards at the door.”

“We already checked on that,” Smathon said.  “They admitted that while they do perimeter checks they don’t keep someone continuously posted at the back of the house.  You could have slipped out and been back without them knowing.”

“Could have done is different than actually doing,” I felt it was necessary to point out.  “I never left the house.”

Smathon opened his mouth to comment further but was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.  I left the agents to wait in the living room while I went to get the door.  My eyebrows rose in question as I ushered Corbin into the house. 

“Jamison texted the pack-master,” he said. 

“Ah,” I nodded in understanding.  I had suspected that was what Jamison was doing but not that Corbin would show up. 

“Remind me to thank him later.”  I kissed Corbin on the cheek in greeting.  “Come on, my
guests
,” I muttered, “are waiting in the living room.”

“Agents, this is my lawyer Corbin Greenbranch.  Corbin,” I said, waving in the general direction of the sofa, “this is Agent McCabe and Agent Smathon.” 

“So, you decided you needed a lawyer,” Smathon all but sneered when everyone was again seated.  “If you didn’t have anything to do with Mr. Keltan’s murder, why the lawyer?”

“As you must have noticed, I haven’t had an opportunity to call anyone.”  He knew that.  What was wrong with him?  “Since he’s here now, let’s continue, shall we?”  Smathon opened his mouth to speak again but Agent McCabe put his hand on his arm interrupting.

“What time did you get home?” McCabe asked.

“Around one-thirty or so.  We left the club and Samantha dropped me off.”

The questions went around and around, finally ending with a warning from Agent Smathon not to leave town.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured him as they were leaving.

I shut the door on the two men and leaned my forehead against the door.  This was not good. 

“Anything I need to know,” Corbin asked softly from behind me.

“You don’t think I had anything to do with this do you?” I breathed, turning around to face him. 

“No,” he said, sounding like he thought I was an idiot.  “But, you have to admit that there are a number of out of control things going on in your life at the moment.  I was more thinking along the lines that you might have additional information about
why
Harvey was killed.”

I thought about what I wanted to say.  I must have been quiet too long.  “I can’t effectively help you if I don’t know what is going on,” he said softly, looking a bit hurt.

“I’m not trying to keep things from you,” I said, putting what I hoped was a reassuring hand on his arm.  “Truthfully, I’m really not sure if I know why he was killed other than I was questioning his involvement in Jason’s murder.”

“You think he was involved?”

“Yes,” I nodded.  I knew he was.  “He essentially admitted to knowing what was going on but only after I prodded him a little.  He was more aggressive, more confident than usual and got angry that I was questioning him.  He grabbed me and I have the bruises to prove it.”  I grimaced as I remembered the sour scent of his breath on my face as he shouted. 

“He told me I was asking for trouble with my questions and that I had better watch out, or I might find myself just as dead as Jason.  He went on to assure me that he would make it a point to enjoy the pleasure of my company first.”  Corbin’s nostrils flared in anger at that little tidbit.

“How did it go reigning in your berserker?”

“It was touch and go for a minute or two,” I admitted.  Well, at least until my berserker decided she didn’t want both of us to be locked up in a padded cell.  “But as tempting as it was, he isn’t the one pulling the strings.  He’s a puppet or at least he was.  An expendable one apparently, if what happened to him this morning is any indicator.”