Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (5 page)

“Oh, yes, silly me. Here it is.” Sturluson trundled back over to us and handed Yellin a newspaper folded open to an inside page.

He watched her return to her seat, holding the clipping as though he weren’t quite sure what to do with it.

She smiled at him cheerily. “I think you should read it now, my dear.”

Yellin’s look of perplexity deepened into a frown, and he lowered his gaze to the page. His eyes moved quickly over the words, then slowed. I saw him stiffen. Whatever he was reading, he didn’t like it. When he looked back up at Sturluson, his face was pale. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Do you suppose someone’s trying to …” Sturluson turned to me, smiling. “What do you call it when a criminal attempts to blame another for his crime, Miss Ryder?”

“‘Frame’?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Thank you, my dear. Do you suppose someone’s trying to frame me, Mr. Yellin?”

He stared at her.

“Mr. Yellin?”

He startled. “I do not know, Miss … Miss …” He drifted to a stop, as though he’d forgotten her name.

“The resemblance is striking,” she prattled on, ignoring his reaction. “Then again, my methods are typical of my kind. Perhaps one of my kin is visiting.”

Yellin made a visible effort to gather himself.

“That would be …” He paused, clearly uncertain. “Does that actually happen? Visits? I thought … that is to say … um.”

This was bad. I’d never heard a Second say “um.”

Sturluson smiled over her teacup and said nothing.

Yellin gave himself a little shake. “This is quite disturbing, Miss Sturluson.”

“I couldn’t agree more, my dear. That’s why I wanted to be sure you were in the know.”

She gave me a wink, as though proud of her idiomatic usage. Then she set down her cup and sat back, lacing her fingers over her round belly and smiling warmly.

I looked from one to the other, confused and worried. Something was playing out in front of me — something serious — but I didn’t understand it.

After several seconds, Yellin set his cup and saucer down with an awkward clatter and rose.

“Miss Sturluson, I will discuss this matter with Lord Cordus as soon as possible. Goodbye.”

He barely waited for a reply before hurrying out of the house, beating me to the car by a good ten seconds.

When I reached the car, I glanced back. Sturluson was standing in the door of her cute little house, smiling and waving.

A shiver went up my back.

I got in the car and maneuvered out of the parking space. Yellin sat staring silently out the window as I drove. He must’ve been deep in thought — I had to ask several times if we should continue our scheduled visits.

“No, no, of course not. We must speak to Lord Cordus immediately.”

“But …” I paused, at a loss. “Has Lord Cordus come back?”

Yellin turned to look at me, blinking and glassy-eyed. With an effort, he seemed to come back to himself, and I saw something like fear wash over his face. Then it was gone, replaced by his customary look of annoyance.

“Never mind. I was speaking metaphorically.” He turned back to the dashboard.

Okaaay
.

“We could go back to the estate and meet with the others.”

“Absurd. This is not a matter to discuss with Nolanders. We will continue the day’s visits. I will deal with Miss Sturluson at a later time.”

I nodded and focused on getting us into Manhattan in one piece. It was hard to concentrate, though. I was getting that “we’re screwed” feeling in a big way.

Though Yellin seemed deeply shaken, he insisted on making the two visits he’d scheduled.

The first was a corner grocery — one of those essential NYC establishments where a tiny box of cereal can be had for $8.99. There he spoke briefly to the people who ran the place. To humans, they would’ve looked like a middle-aged Southeast Asian couple, immigrants from India or Pakistan, maybe. But they were using half-workings, so I could see their real appearance, as well. They were human, but were much stockier than their disguises — barrel-chested and muscular — with paler skin and heavy features.

I wondered if they were Neanderthals. Cordus had told me once that many hominid species persisted in the other world, so it seemed like a real possibility. I was fascinated and had to force myself not to stare.

Then we went to Central Park. That was nice. The early October weather was lovely: still sunny but with a hint of chill in the air. Yellin settled us on the bleachers on the third-base side of an unused softball field. He started scanning the nearby trees.

I got out my phone and went to the
New York Post
site. After a minute of searching, I was pretty sure I’d found the article Sturluson had shown Yellin. It was short and horrifying.

Yellin rose suddenly and headed across the diamond toward some trees on the left. I sat there watching him go, feeling a little ill.

What was Helen Sturluson, exactly? A walking vat of lye, sneaking around the city dissolving people and animals? Or maybe just people — if they hadn’t been able to recover any DNA, who’s to say the earlier remains weren’t human too?

Yellin paused to look back impatiently.

“Do come along, Miss Ryder.”

“Sorry.”

I put away my phone and tried to shove Sturluson and little Thomas Kaits out of my mind. I couldn’t do anything about it. Yellin was a Second, and he was clearly taking the situation very seriously. He might be an ass to me and the other Nolanders, but he’d be all over something like this. For the Seconds, keeping humans in the dark about the existence of the other world was paramount. Weird stuff — especially weird stuff that resulted in human deaths — was always taken care of immediately.

Yellin’s strange behavior in the car came to mind.

No, I must’ve misunderstood it. He was a Second. Whatever was going on, he could handle it, and since it posed a threat, handle it he would.

I climbed off the bleachers and followed him over to one of the trees. A big hawk was perched on one of the lower branches. So far as I could tell, it was a real hawk.

Yellin put a barrier around us. Not that I could sense it, mind you — barriers are workings, so I was blind to them. But the guy always went through an elaborate ritual of concentration and deep breathing before creating a working. I couldn’t understand why he did that. It was the world’s biggest tip-off, and it’d sure be awkward to have to do that whole rigmarole in an emergency.

Eventually Yellin finished his routine and let out a deep breath.

His barrier must’ve been up because the hawk glided down to us and suddenly became a large, pinkish, winged creature — something like a cross between a man and a bat. I’d seen him before at Cordus’s court functions.

He and Yellin started speaking in Baasha. I was able to follow along reasonably well. Yellin was complaining about the pink bat-thing’s hawk disguise. The bat-thing nodded along and said he’d do better, but his stubborn expression undercut his words.

Yellin was unusually forthcoming when I asked him about it during our walk back to the car.

“That one very much needs to relocate to a less populous area. His inability to hold a female hawk as mate for more than a single season has been much remarked upon by the city’s bird-watchers.”

The powerful and mysterious Second Emanation, outed by suspicious bird-watchers. It never would’ve occurred to me.

“Wow. That must be frustrating.”

“Indeed, Miss Ryder, it is.”

“Why does he insist on staying here?”

“Pizza.”

“Excuse me?”

“He is an aficionado and finds the pizza in other places unacceptable.”

For a second, I felt a twinge of sympathy for Yellin — what a ridiculous situation. Then he snapped at me for walking too slowly, and my kind thoughts withered.

Incredibly, I’d found a street space on Central Park West, just north of Columbus Circle.

It’d given me a chill to see the Time Warner Center, with its twin spires, down the block. Cordus held court — the kind of court a king has, not a judge — in a penthouse suite near the top of the northern tower. Before he left town, he’d taken me along to court events a couple times. It clearly gave him no small satisfaction to show me off as his newest possession. I hated it.

Hated it, and yet the memory rose of standing in the elevator with Cordus as he slowly looked me over, taking in the results of the estate staff’s ministrations to my hair, skin, and dress. The image was powerful enough to make my heart rate spike. Something tightened like a hot fist deep in my belly.

Damn
. I shook my head.

We reached the car, and Yellin settled sullenly into his seat. After a few seconds, he shot me a frown.

“Are we leaving any time soon, Miss Ryder?”

“I was just thinking … should we go check out the building where they found that little boy? The one in the article?”

I flashed my phone at him, so he’d know I knew what the article said.

He made an exasperated noise. “No. That would be too dangerous for someone in training. I will send a team to investigate the building this evening.”

That seemed overly cautious, to me. After all, if I went with him, I’d have the protection of an actual Second.

“What might’ve made Miss Sturluson think she was being framed for the boy’s death?”

What I really wanted to ask was,
What the hell is she?
But Seconds were quite touchy about questions like that. I could see that even the more indirect phrasing I’d used rubbed Yellin the wrong way.

“Miss Ryder, the matter of Miss Sturluson is not your concern.”

“I can’t do anything to help?”

He laughed. It was a bizarre sound.

“She is of the Thirsting Ground — an entity of great power, far beyond the likes of you.”

The words “or me” seemed to hover unspoken at the end of his sentence. I shivered.

“What’s the Thirsting Ground? Does she hunt people?”

“Indeed, Miss Ryder, she hunts everything that lives. It is her nature.”

“Well, don’t we have to stop her?”

Yellin gave me an utterly fed-up look. “She has always been perfectly discreet. Please, Miss Ryder, let us not dawdle any longer. I have much work waiting back at the estate.”

I shouldn’t have been shocked. I knew Seconds didn’t care about human life for its own sake. But to hear it stated so baldly, with no apology or embarrassment — I was disgusted. And angry.

Yellin shot me another annoyed glance, then did a sort of double-take, really focusing on me. I watched his face register confusion, surprise, and finally fear.

I stared back at him until he abruptly looked away.

It was me. He was scared of me.

I glanced in the rear-view, half expecting to see something strange in the mirror, but it was just my same old face, slightly flushed from anger.

Mystified by his reaction, I started the car and drove home. The whole way, neither of us said a word.