I searched my memory, thinking about the city’s waterfront properties. No mills came to mind.
“I told you where he is,” Alex wailed. Tears pooled in his eyes. Bright spots of color flamed in his cheeks, standing out from his pallor. Blood dripped from his cut lip to his chin and dappled his shirt.
“The old mill,” I said.
“Let me go.”
I stood up and walked to the dresser. Each step echoed like thunder. I found the box of bullets labeled “A.C.” and fed two of them into the gun’s chamber. Anti coagulant rounds were hard to come by outside of the Triads. I walked to the back of Alex’s chair and held up the gun. His shoulders shook. My finger twitched.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” I said.
“Does dying hurt?”
My eyes tingled. I bit the insides of my cheeks, tried to ignore the heartache in his voice and keep focused. Alex was already dead; this wasn’t Alex. I was stopping a monster, putting down a rabid dog. Nothing more, nothing less. Lie to him, shoot him, and get it over with.
“Dying didn’t hurt the first time,” I said. “It’s all the shit leading up to it that’s painful.”
He bowed his head. I pressed the muzzle to the back of his neck. Clean shot, perfect kill, even for a Blood. My finger twitched. I couldn’t pull it. I couldn’t rationalize the kill.
“Do it, Chal.”
I closed my eyes.
“Let me go.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Save me.”
My finger squeezed. The gun roared. I screamed.
Chapter 25
14:00
“This is useless,” Nadia said, fingers tapping away at the keyboard of a laptop. “There are no mills in this city. No paper mills, no flour mills, not even a puppy mill. He lied to you.”
“Check anyway,” I snapped.
I had taken refuge in Rufus’s kitchen with cling peaches and a can opener while Nadia and Wyatt made themselves useful by looking into our only clue. The teeth of the opener cut an uneven path around the edge of the can. Thick syrup pooled. My stomach rumbled. Rufus really needed to shop more often.
Nadia shot me a glare over the edge of the laptop, which I promptly matched. With a brief nostril flare, she ducked her head. Wyatt stood behind her at the dining table, arms crossed over his chest, reading over her shoulder.
The file on Chalice had revealed nothing else useful in determining the actual existence of a teleportation Gift. She had a list of child psychology evaluations as long as my arm, as well as a handful during her teen years. And medical records for two E.R. visits in high school—drug overdoses that seemed more teen-related than Gift-related. It only confirmed that she had been a lonely, troubled woman long before Alex met her.
“The old mill,” Wyatt said, uttering the words for the tenth time since I’d relayed them. “Could it be a code for something else?”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure, maybe Tovin’s location is hidden in the text of the Hardy Boys’
“I’m serious.”
“Me, too. He said ‘old mill,’ okay?” I tossed the serrated can lid into the sink and plucked a fork out of the dish drainer. The peaches were warm and too sweet, but I ate them anyway.
“Nothing,” Nadia said. “No mills within city limits.”
“Did you search the suburbs? The mountains north of the city?”
She grunted and typed something else. I chewed on a peach, somewhat unnerved by the faint metallic taste of the fruit. Oh well. If Tovin didn’t kill me first, then botulism would.
“There’s nothing relevant there, Evy,” Wyatt said, after gazing at another page on the computer screen. “Nadia, try searching the maps for street names or buildings.”
“How about company logos?” I said.
“One moment, please,” Nadia said.
Fingers flew. The laptop buzzed. She and Wyatt leaned closer. The blue light of the monitor reflected in their eyes. I slurped down another peach. On the other side of the room, Rufus continued to sit quietly in his wheelchair. Patient, watching, not participating. It was downright spooky.
The rest of Rufus’s apartment was as spartan as a motel room. I found myself looking around for personal artifacts. Photographs or paperweights, even an old take-out bag that had missed the trash can. Something to prove a human being had lived here for a reasonable amount of time. He chose to live in a crappy part of town, but didn’t even make an effort to nest?
Then again, Wyatt lived in efficiency apartments and motel rooms rented by the week. Maybe all Handlers had nomadic tendencies.
My attention strayed to a simple white wall clock next to the ivory refrigerator. It was after two o’clock. Fourteen hours until smack-down, and we were still chasing our tails. Not even in the amusing-to-passersby way, just in the we’re-pathetic-and-have-no-leads kind of way.
“Except for a farmers’ open-air market that runs every Saturday morning from nine to twelve,” Nadia said, “we have nothing. No Old Mill Road, no symbology that makes sense. Tovin cannot logically be hiding in any of these places.” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “Perhaps you were too fast to execute the prisoner.”
“He didn’t lie,” I said. The peach can joined its lid, making a mighty clatter as it hit the stained sink.
“He is a half-Blood. They all lie. You were a fool to believe him.”
“I knew him before he turned, you Russian bitch. The change wasn’t taking; he was losing it. I was talking to Alex at the end, not the Blood, I’m sure of it, so back the hell off.”
She started to stand, fists balled by her sides.
“Will you two quit?” Wyatt said. “The bickering might be fun for you, but it’s not helping.” He put one hand on either shoulder and pushed Nadia back into the chair. She didn’t fight him.
I felt a strange twinge of jealousy at the manner in which he was touching her. Cursing myself a fool, I focused on the clue at hand and not on my hatred of Nadia. Our current need to join forces didn’t erase the fact that she’d once hunted me and been perfectly willing to kill me.
If folks thought regular bounty hunters had it hard, they should try serving warrants on goblins for a living. We made the most hard-core dog hunters look like pussycats.
“Olsmill,” Rufus said. It was his first contribution to our conversation in over thirty minutes. He still stared at the floor, a newfound alertness in his pale features. His eyes moved back and forth as if reading. Searching for an elusive memory.
We waited, a trio of blank stares.
“Is there more to that, or are we supposed to guess?” I asked.
“North of the city,” he said, strength in his voice. He looked up, right at me. “The Olsmill Nature Preserve closed down twenty years ago. The owners went bankrupt after their animals kept dying. No disease or apparent cause; they just up and died.”
An imaginary lightbulb went off in my brain. I bounced off the counter. “I know where that is,” I said. “It’s three miles out, along the Anjean. I’ve never been up to it, but I’ve been past the gate. If it’s the right direction, it can’t be very far from the location of First Break.”
“Which makes sense,” Wyatt said, excitement creeping in his voice. “The energy output of both First Break and all of the Light Ones living down there probably affected the animals and their heart rhythms.”
“Are the buildings still there?”
“I have no idea, but if they are, it’s a perfect hiding place.”
“Not to mention near a magical doorway.”
