Betrayals (Cainsville 4)

"And you want to have dinner for him?" A sneering laugh in a female voice. "Do you like playing house with human boys, Damara?"

"This one? Yes. Very much. Skip the mockery, and tell me what you want. If you're offering to get me into Cainsville, the answer is no. I'm happy here. I'm safe here."

"No, actually, you're not."

A figure swooped from the darkness and I felt pain, incredible pain. Then I was lying on the pavement, and a voice whispered in my ear, "I'm supposed to do more, but I think that's enough. Sleep well, little Damara."

The vision ended, and I snapped back. I was on the floor. Well, mostly--Gabriel was propping me up, his fingers biting into my upper arms, anxious eyes over mine. I braced, expecting to be dropped, but he kept me there, holding me as he said, "I didn't try to bring you back. I thought whatever you were seeing was important. Or that it would be, to you."

I nodded, saying, "It was." His fingers went to my forehead and he exhaled softly.

"Barely warm."

"It was a quick one." I pulled up and looked at the lamia, dead on the chaise lounge. "Her name was Damara. There was a boy. Human. Toby. That's who..."

I trailed off, seeing Gabriel's expression of barely concealed impatience, and I gave a small, wry smile. I might hear that story and grieve for the girl who'd found a boy, found the best part of a very long and not very happy life, the girl who'd pulled forth that memory to comfort her as she died. Gabriel heard it and thought, Yes, yes, let's get to the important part.

"She knew her killer. It was a girl or a woman. Someone who knew what she was."

"Aunika?"

"It didn't sound like her voice or anyone I recognized. Damara was summoned to meet her attacker. She thought it was about moving to Cainsville. That was the entire conversation. She didn't see her killer. It was dark and the attack came from nowhere and-- No, wait. Her killer said she was supposed to do more, but she decided that was enough."

"Complete the ritual."

I nodded. "In my first vision, the lamia was...sliced open. This killer skipped that, which is how Damara survived to get here. She played dead."

But now she was dead, her glamour faded but not gone, leaving a girl covered in scales, a girl with a half-dozen stab wounds in her chest, a girl who'd used the last of her energy, not to get home for a final moment with her lover, but to cover her injuries with a glamour and get here to speak to us. Only we were too far away, and when we arrived, she only had energy left for those few final clues.

"We need to..."

I gazed at the body. We need to what? What do we do with a dead fae girl?

"I-I'll call Veronica," I said.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

"She will fade," Veronica said after I explained. "If you leave her where she is, the glamour will dissolve and eventually so will she."

"Which is why the other lamiae victims weren't found." I thought of the bodies in the tunnel. I still needed to

move them. As for why they hadn't faded, I'd ask about that, too, later.

"I would presume she doesn't look nearly as human now?" Veronica said.

I glanced over. I'd put my jacket over her, but could see her features changing, becoming more serpentine.

"No," I said. "She doesn't."

"That will last only an hour or so before she's gone."

"Where does she go? I mean, her spirit. To the afterlife?"

Silence.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm not trying to break our agreement. I'm just a little...shaken up."

"We don't go anywhere, Olivia," she said softly. "That is one part of the human lore that's true, which is why I hesitated. I thought you knew."