sprayed with cement coating. At the time, I had assumed some sort of cross with a gargoyle. Now I wasn’t so sure. This mysterious third party had creatures who could attack via the ground, moving through the earth as easily as trolls. That was bad on so many new levels.…
Wyatt’s face remained annoyingly neutral when I shared my thoughts. “I can see the goblin queens donating a few of their weaker warriors to experimentation if it meant gaining an advantage,” he said.
“Some advantage. The goblins have all but disappeared since we kicked their asses at Olsmill.” I said it lightly, but the truth of my statement was worrisome. Goblins were a matriarchal society, and while we’d killed one of their rare queens, she wasn’t the only one they had. The fact that most of the goblins had withdrawn from the city, or were at least hiding underground where we couldn’t find them, hinted at something big on the horizon. And I hated surprises.
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “Which means they probably have a plan we won’t see coming.”
“We need concrete information to give to the Triads,” he continued. “Something they can look into that’s more tangible than our leaps of logic.”
“I know.” I shot him a determined look. “So let’s get it.”
Chapter Four
I rummaged around in one of the drawers until I found a butter knife and a barbecue lighter, then returned to Token. He’d stopped crying. Blood still dripped from his wounded hand. He watched me squat in front of him, flick on the lighter, and heat the tip of the knife.
“Do you hurt?” I asked, choosing the simplest words I could manage.
“Yes,” Token replied. “Hurt.”
“Do you like to hurt?”
“No. Hate … to hurt.”
“Who’s your master?” Silence. I held up the heated knife. “Do you think this will hurt?” His too-human eyes flickered to the blade. Like a child who doesn’t understand about a hot stove, he just stared.
I swallowed, then pressed the tip to the skin on the back of his broken hand. He screamed. I jerked out of reach, wincing. Cruel, perhaps, but now he understood my threat.
“Hurts,” he said, betrayal in his eyes. “Why?”
“Who is your master?” After another pained, sulky glare, I started heating the blade again. “I will keep hurting you until you tell me. Do you want me to hurt you again?”
“No.” Such a human whine; it turned my stomach.
“Who is your master?”
He fidgeted, wriggled, whined, did everything except answer my question. I had no real desire to torture the thing further, but I needed this answer.
“Ask him differently,” Wyatt said. “I don’t think he understands what you want.”
Okay, fine. I waved the heated knife in front of him. “Token, what is your master’s name?”
Understanding dawned. “The … cur … ee,” he said, forcing out each sound.
I looked up at Wyatt; he shrugged, not recognizing the combination, either. To Token, I repeated it back. “The cur ee. This is your master’s name?”
“All name.”
“Come again?” No response. “What the hell does—?”
“Thackery,” Wyatt said. “Walter Thackery.”
“Yes,” Token said.
“Who’s he?” I asked.
“Master.”
“Not you.” I stood up and abandoned the knife and lighter on the back of the sofa. “Wyatt, who’s Walter Thackery?”
He held up his index finger in a “wait” gesture, dashed into my bedroom, and returned moments later with my laptop already open and booting up. He put it on the scarred table that served as our eating area. As soon as it was ready, he opened an Internet search engine and typed in the name.
“Thackery was a molecular biologist who worked and taught at the university, up until five years ago,” he said as news articles began to scroll across the computer screen. “He wasn’t even on the Triads’ radar until August of that year. Three days before classes were to resume, he cashed out all his stocks, liquidated his assets, issued his resignation, then disappeared with his wife and a boatload of cash. At the same time, the labs at the university were broken into and ransacked. A quarter-million dollars in equipment was stolen. The regular police never connected the two, but we did.”
“Why?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.
“Six months after the disappearance, Morgan’s team found Thackery’s wife in an alley, sucking a teenage boy dry, and killed them both.”
“His wife was a Halfie?”
“There was no way to know for how long, but Morgan reported she had a completely developed set of fangs, so she wasn’t new. Probably turned right before Thackery quit and dropped off the radar. We had no luck tracking him down.”
I reached around Wyatt, keenly aware of the slim pocket of air between us, and fingered the mouse pad. I clicked on a photo from a university benefit; the date put it at a few weeks before the disappearance. In the image, a beaming couple radiated their love for each other. Walter Thackery was tall, lean, with close-cut dark hair and dark eyes, a sharply chiseled jaw, and ear-to-ear grin. His wife (the caption named her Anne) glowed, even in the black-and-white image. Her dress was tasteful, her makeup and jewelry simple. She held one arm loosely around her tuxedo-clad husband’s waist. The other hand was draped across her flat belly, almost protectively. Poor woman.
“So that’s our bad guy?” I poked the screen right above Thackery’s too-handsome face. “Doesn’t really look like the sort to turn humans into goblins, does he?”
“Few people seem capable of murder until they actually pull the trigger. As far as I know, he’s been completely off the grid since his disappearance, but given those circumstances, and his scientific background, he’s a damned likely candidate.”
“Not to mention the admission of our hostage over there.” I fought against quick acceptance of this information. It was too easy, having the name of the bad guy in front of me, along with an identifying photograph. I was used to struggling for info, getting frustrated when I didn’t get it, and using that frustration to drive me even harder. This was weird.
“Thackery had the money and the means, not to mention the professional experience, to set up his own lab.” Wyatt shifted, facing me more directly. His eyebrows were furrowed, but he seemed more determined than annoyed. “This is something we can give the Triads.”
“But Rhys Willemy’s been researching Olsmill since we found it. Wouldn’t someone have made the connection by now?”
“Not necessarily. Memory’s a tricky thing, and like I said, no one’s had contact with Thackery for five years. The file probably hasn’t been looked at since his wife was neutralized. I might never have thought of it without Token.”
“Which brings us to problem number one with telling the Triads anything. How are you going to explain Jaron and Token to them?” I did not want to be the one to tell Amalie her personal bodyguard was dead, and that the killer was stuck to my wall.
“Lying by omission, I suppose. Amalie knows you’re alive, but I don’t have to tell them that’s why Jaron came to us. And I’m not exactly helpless, so they’ll believe that I subdued Token by myself.”
I grinned and poked him in the ribs. “They’ll probably be amazed you didn’t kill him yet, Mr. Not Helpless.”
“Part of me’s amazed you haven’t killed him yet.”
