Not Quite Human

Chapter 16

Margie Maggie Dale Inn stood among the crowd and watched them look at her work in horror.
She wasn't here out of stupidity. She knew they wouldn't find her — wouldn't even think to look for the killer among the onlookers, because no one expected the killer to linger. And she wasn't without protection. She had allies now, like-minded people drawn together by shared purpose. Standing here, watching the crowd recoil, gave her a particular kind of satisfaction that was difficult to describe and impossible to replicate.
Henrietta lay in the centre of it all, in a pool of her own blood, her face barely recognisable beneath the burns and deep lacerations, her limbs arranged beside her. It had been thorough work. Personal, too, in its way — Maggie had never especially liked Henrietta — though that wasn't the point anymore. This wasn't petty revenge. This was preparation. A small drop in something much larger.
She glanced up and noticed a woman and a boy making their way through the crowd toward the scene. The woman's face was familiar — the daughter of a family her love had killed, if she wasn't mistaken. A shame there had been survivors. What irritated her more was the woman's expression: no fear, no revulsion, just a cool, assessing look, as though what lay on the ground were nothing remarkable. Maggie found that deeply annoying. Her work deserved a reaction.
The boy, though.
A blood fey. She hadn't expected that. She watched him interact with the woman, mildly irritated by the dynamic — the woman seemed to be the one in charge, which struck her as absurd. He was blood. She might be powerful, but there was an order to these things. She filed the boy away in her mind. He might be useful, in time. He had no real reason not to join her cause, once he understood it properly.
She gave Henrietta one last look. She had enjoyed that far too much — the way Henrietta had fought so hard at first, and then, when she understood she couldn't win, had begged. That had been the disappointing part. She should have kept fighting. A death like that was no death worth having.
Maggie walked away at a leisurely pace, chuckling when she passed a cluster of humans nervously whispering about Jack the Ripper.
The comparison was insulting, honestly. Jack had been a small, bitter man taking out his frustrations on the most vulnerable targets he could find. Not even a powerful fey — the only reason he'd managed what he did was because humans were defenceless against him, and he was too weak now to even manage that, rotting away in Taroth where he belonged. Maggie was in an entirely different category. And no one would catch her. Not until she decided it was time to be caught.
Neil stared at the scene and felt the colour drain from his face.
He'd heard the rumours, of course — everyone in Sailee had — but he'd assumed they were exaggerated. They weren't. If anything, the reality was worse. He could feel something dark clinging to the air around the dead woman, something that pressed against his skin unpleasantly. He tugged at Nerezza's sleeve, wanting to be somewhere else before his stomach made the decision for him.
They continued toward the café, the mood entirely gone.
On the way, Neil walked into a woman coming from the opposite direction and apologised immediately. The woman looked at him in a way that made something crawl up the back of his neck — a wide, loose smile that didn't match the occasion or the expression in her eyes — before moving on without a word. Nerezza pulled him closer and kept her eyes on the woman's back until she was out of sight, not releasing her grip until then.
"That was a blood fey," she said quietly, as they walked on. "No one I recognise, but we need to tell Damien when we get back."
Neil nodded, still unsettled, and followed her toward Lovehearts.
He'd loved Lovehearts since he was small. It was a tiny, easy-to-miss café directly across from the town library — the library he'd visited constantly as a child, always arriving book in hand, always rewarding himself with a hot chocolate and one of Mrs. Maybelle's brownies. Mrs. Maybelle herself had seemed to exist outside of time, always the same: plump and warm-faced and perpetually mothering whoever sat down at her tables. Her brownies were, in Neil's entirely objective opinion, the best in the world.
He hadn't been back in a couple of years. He'd half-expected to find the place closed — it had never been busy, tucked away as it was, and the town library didn't draw the foot traffic it once had. But the lights were on, and the smell that hit him when he pushed the door open was exactly as he remembered.
The atmosphere inside was different, though. Tense and subdued, the usual warmth dimmed by something that had seeped in from outside. Mrs. Maybelle appeared immediately, ushering them to a table with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Those terrible murders, dear," she said, settling them into their seats. "Puts the heart of a frail old woman right under strain."
She didn't take their order. She never had to — anyone who came here came for the brownies. Neil watched her bustle away and hoped, with quiet sincerity, that she stayed exactly as she was for as long as possible. Some things deserved to be permanent.
When she brought the hot chocolate and the brownies, Neil asked for a box to take away as well. The castle could use something sweet. It might soften the mood, or at the very least give people something to think about other than the murders.
This was the eleventh. The eleventh that anyone knew about, anyway. The body had been left somewhere it would be found immediately — practically displayed. It wasn't carelessness. It was deliberate. The killer was playing a game, leaving the officials with enough to be frightened and not nearly enough to act. People were already turning on the police, frustrated and scared with nowhere useful to direct either feeling.
Neil wrapped his hands around his cup and thought about the woman with the smile.
A very strange time to be smiling, indeed.