I couldn't find my car keys.
I dragged my unwilling body out of bed a few hours past dawn and started searching the house, and my hazy memory, for my things. It wasn't surprising things had been misplaced, considering I last remembered passing out next to a dead man in a parking garage, arguing with an irritated—and murderous—demon. I did manage to find my purse, spotted with blood and dirt, thrown on the sofa with my ruined cardigan, but my keys alluded me still.
Elbow deep in the couch cushions and discovering nothing but lint, I swore aloud when my phone—another absentee object—started ringing. I followed the shrill noise to the refrigerator, where I found my phone abandoned on one of the barren shelves with a few handfuls of crumpled plastic wrap.
"Is there anything he doesn't eat?" I muttered as I picked up the phone, frowning at the unfamiliar number.
"Hello?"
"Gaspard."
I knew the voice on the line, but couldn't quite place it. "...yes?"
"I find myself in a quandary—a quandary questioning how you manage to remain employed for any length of time with any establishment," The Sin of Lust sneered, and I groaned, glancing up at the clock on the wall. My shift at Klau should have started hours ago.
"I'm busy." I sat on the floor and leaned on a cabinet, prodding the uncomfortable bandages binding my side. Everything ached, but staying in bed made me far too anxious, and yet I hadn't thought of going to work. It's a farce anyway.
"Oh, you're busy. How very unthoughtful of me." A door opened and closed in the background. "I gave you this job so you and—by extension—your Sin, would be under my watch." Thin veins of anger threaded the woman's derisive tone. The steady clack of her heels moved upon a solid surface, voices echoing beyond her. "If you are not here within the hour, I will personally break your goddamn arm. Or you're neck. We'll see where the mood takes me."
I fought the urge to fling the phone across the room. "I'm busy," I repeated, biting the inside of my cheek. "I was attacked yesterday."
The chorus of heel clicks abated. "What?"
"I said I was attacked yesterday." My temper rose and the sharp pain of my teeth cutting into my cheek did nothing to stop it. "I was sent home early by someone at Klau and attacked in the parking garage. It seems strangely suspicious, doesn't it? Like maybe you had something to do with it?!"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"God, you sound like my mother." I got to my feet and swayed, grabbing the edge of the table and balance my weak legs. The pervasive darkness that had taken to crouching in the anterior of my thoughts slid along my spine and across my ribs, putting pressure on my chest. It felt like a shadow with weight and I didn't understand where it came from. "Dammit, Amoroth!"
The woman didn't answer.
Loose mail on the counter fluttered as the air pressure in my small kitchen shifted, and suddenly the irritated CEO stepped from the Realm with her phone still held to her ear, her lavender eyes roving over the house, cataloging the meaningless details of my existence before she looked at me. She pressed the button atop her phone to drop the call.
"Nice house," she mocked as she crossed her arms below her chest.
"How do you even know where I live?"
"Those forms you fill out for HR are hardly confidential."
I scoffed, annoyed. "Figures. What are you doing here?"
Amoroth ignored me. She paced from the kitchen to the living room, then down the hall. I followed, once again asking the Sin what she was doing in my house and again receiving no response. Amoroth kicked the bottom of my bedroom's door and it sprang open to reveal the sight of my rumpled bed and the various bits of medical garbage I hadn't gathered yet. Dark stains peppered the carpet, and the depleted blood bag still hung on the headboard.
"It reeks in here," Amoroth complained, her nose wrinkled with distaste as she swiveled to face me. Her gaze lingered at the bruise on my throat before dipping to my middle. "Attacked, you say?"
"Yes." I retreated when she leaned into my space, her face too close to my own, my reflection vaporous and pale on the surface of her strange, searching eyes. "Wh—what are you doing?"
Amoroth hummed low, frowning, then straightened. "This wouldn't have anything to do with my problem, would it?"
"Your problem?" It clicked in my head. "The Klau Killer? No, not unless you orchestrated my sister's death."
"And if I did?"
"I'd kill you."
Amoroth met my hard, unwavering glower and laughed. "Don't insinuate that I'm the reason your life's gone to shit. I'm certain it was perfectly dreadful Darius or myself ever got involved." She flipped the veil of her brunette hair behind her shoulder. "Besides, you're hardly worth that kind of effort."
"Whatever." I stomped past Amoroth, having to twist sideways to avoid brushing against her. I didn't have to glance back to know she was following me.
"Where is Darius?"
"I don't know." Not completely true, but the semantics didn't matter to me, and I wouldn't verbally spar with a woman who grew bored with talking and resorted to throwing her opponents off rooftops.
"Why am I not surprised?"
I stood by the front door and surveyed the room, fist propped on my hips as I tried to decide where Darius had left the car keys. I pieced together his progression in my mind, theorizing he came through the front door with me half dead under his arm, dropped my bloody cardigan on the sofa, then continued to the bedroom. From there, I could only surmise that the Sin had robbed a hospital, administered aid to me, and then went to the fridge to devour its contents, where he'd inadvertently left my phone. But what about after that? Where were my damn keys?
The cat perched on the sofa's arm, tail twitching.
"Why are you dressed if you're not going to work?"
I shot Amoroth a withering glare. "I have somewhere to go."
"Where?"
"Does it matter?"
She shrugged and sat next to the cat on the sofa's arm with her legs neatly crossed. "No. I simply have the distinct impression Darius knows nothing about your planned sojourn." Amoroth wagged a manicured finger. "I want to know what you're hiding from him."
I went to the slumped armchair and dug underneath the seat, unearthing an old tube of chapstick and a forgotten bookmark but nothing else. Aggravated, I sat for a moment to catch my breath, rubbing my brow and waiting for the sudden rush of vertigo to dissipate.
Amoroth watched, her posture curiously slanted, teetering in half-thought consideration of rising. The cat, in turn, watched Amoroth with wide eyes. "Hrm..." the Sin murmured. The muscles in her slender throat tightened.
"I'm not hiding anything," I told her as I picked at the frayed cuff of my denim shorts. The stretched collar of my old, distressed shirt exposed the odd splotches of green and yellow bruises. "It's none of your business, anyway."
"Oh, I think I'm going to make it my business." The Sin moved too swiftly for my eyes to follow, and suddenly she held my keys with the ring pinched between her thumb and forefinger. My brows cinched together as I swore under my breath, unable to figure out where she'd found them. Damn her sharp eyes!
I dreaded her next words as the Sin rattled the keys together with a rather sinister grin on her face. "So...where are we headed?"
In the end, hunting for my keys proved fruitless, because Amoroth took one look at my dowdy car and turned up her nose. Twenty minutes, one twisted arm, and forced trip through the Realm later, Amoroth buckled me into her luxurious foreign car and started our impromptu trip. We coasted northward on the highway, Amoroth driving without a seatbelt—or a blinker, or any sense of general driving etiquette, and if the idea of traveling outside of her city distressed the Sin, she showed no outward sign. I openly stared at the woman as the highway merged with the interstate and our speed increased.
Verweald disappeared behind a swell of hills.
"Are you going to tell me what's in San Barkett?" she asked, her gaze switching from the road to my face, brow quirked. Unnerved, I straightened in my seat and averted my eyes.
"Something I need."
"That's hardly forthcoming."
"I didn't ask for you to come." I leaned on my elbow and watched the scenery whip by. The interstate wove through the cliffs and mountains, riding the extremities with the sparkling waters of the Pacific to our left and the sandy bluffs to our right.
"No, I invited myself—and seeing as how this is my car and I could potentially shove your skinny little body through the windshield while going well over the speed limit, you should be a bit more grateful for my magnanimous company."
"Hag," I murmured and I hunkered into my seat. She confused me. Amoroth was nothing if not explicitly self-serving, and so her behavior didn't fool me into believing this trip was for my benefit. The woman was gaining something—some insight, some nugget of information—she could manipulate to better her own situation.
Amoroth swerved suddenly, throwing me into the door. I sank my teeth into my lower lip to catch a yelp of pain as the freight truck she cut off blew its horn.
The Sin smirked.
"Why are you doing this?" I demanded, hating the sharp whine finding its way into my voice. "What could you possibly gain from playing chaperon today?!"
"You should check your tone, girl. Don't forget what you're dealing with." The temperature dropped and prickled my skin with sharp, frosty needles.
I rolled my eyes, unimpressed. "Please. I live with Darius. His temper tantrums are an art form."
Amoroth chuckled and the temperature returned to normal. "That they are, that they are...."
We were silent for some time. Quiet prevailed in the car, the tires whispering over on the rough freeway, and though Amoroth flicked on the radio at some point—Queen started crooning about a crazy little thing called love, and she immediately turned it off and seethed. "I'll kill him for touching my car...."
"Who?" I asked, frowning.
"Never you mind." Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. "Back to the issue at hand, Gaspard. Why can't you simply accept my generosity? Is my character so outrageous to you?"
I snorted. "Is that an actual question?"
Amoroth shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"
"Because I don't trust you. You're cruel and you're a liar."
"A liar?" The Sin laughed. "You certainly are a stupid girl, Gaspard. Trust. How simplistic. And perhaps I am misleading at times, but a liar? I'm never disingenuous in anything I do. Treachery is a domain of the human. Not a single Sin would take the time to lie to one of your kind, not when the truth is exponentially more entertaining." She paused, mouth twitching. "After all, Deceit is not a Sin, as far as I know."
"Yeah, I'm not going to believe that. You've been duping society for so long, you've started to dupe yourself. Why are you here, Amoroth? Don't you have an empire to rule?"
"Like you, maybe I require a break. No longer being human doesn't mean I don't experience stress or anxiety," she sniffed, and I couldn't tell if she was sincere or not. "My empire, as you put it, will last through the afternoon without my supervision. This excuse to step away from Klau's issues is well-timed, and I'll also manage to earn a favor from Darius."
"I take it you haven't found your killer yet?"
"Obviously not." The atmosphere chilled again as Amoroth's brow lowered.
"I know the police don't have any suspects. Do you?"
"Aside from you and your disobedient mutt?" she sneered, dodging around other commuters. We passed an emerald sign on the roadside proudly proclaiming that we'd exited Verweald County limits. "No. If I did, they would be dead. Innocent or not."
Well, that's not surprising. Giving it thought, I realized she feared Darius—because for all her flippancy, the Sin bluntly stated she would kill anyone she suspected of being the Klau Killer, and yet I still breathed. Amoroth could spew her sarcastic criticisms all she wanted, but there was a line—a demarcation—the Sin of Lust knew not to cross if she wanted to keep her head where it belonged.
"I have considered it could be your cult."
I blinked, startled. "W-what?"
"The imbeciles killing my employees. I have considered that your cult could be the perpetrator."
I hadn't known Amoroth gave my problems any thought at all. "What would they gain from antagonizing you?"
"Who knows?" Her hand started to twitch on the side of the wheel, her ring creating that obnoxious tapping sound. A white bandage encircled the visible part of her wrist and disappeared into her sleeve. "If they attempted to summon Balthier, they're obviously deranged enough to badger other Sins. Your attackers have all but vanished into the winds, and though Darius is basically a madman, he's also very old, and the old ones excel at hunting and tracking. If your cult can avoid his detection, then they're well-organized, or well-hidden." The tapping stopped. Amoroth exhaled, her voice laden with vitriol. "I suspect the mages are behind this. Those rune-sucking, impotent little men."
Mages? "They're dangerous, aren't they? They're not supposed to be in Verweald."
"Yes, and the day not-supposed-to-be stops a mage from doing exactly as he pleases will be the day the world ends."
"It doesn't make sense. You said yourself, mages aren't used in ritual callings—the Sins don't respond. Darius is convinced the cult had a vampire there, not a mage."
"If you don't think the syndicates are capable of constructing a human cult to act as their puppet, you are delusional." She stuck a threatening finger in my face, her tone brooking no argument. "The most recent murder from Klau was a Blue Fire Syndicate mole I had allowed to infiltrate the company."
"Why would you—?"
"I'm not going to explain to you the finer details of my business dealings and espionage, Gaspard. Just listen. The most recent murder victim was a mage. If the culprit were purely human and ignorant, the mage would not have died, because even incompetent mages are proficient enough to protect themselves from mundane attacks. I believe he was killed by a rival syndicate, the Gray Arcanum, for double-dealing information about his own syndicate. The Gray Arcanum has been petitioning for a foothold in Verweald for decades and, needless to say, they're quite put-out by my refusal."
I rubbed my temples as my thoughts descended into turmoil. "Are you saying my sister was indirectly killed by mages? That Darius and I should be looking for mages, not vampires?"
Amoroth returned her hand to the wheel. "I'm not saying anything. It's a theory—you do know how theories work, don't you? It's a bloody terrible theory, considering I can't just obliterate an entire syndicate and hope a swarm of Blue Fire enforcers doesn't descend on Verweald." She pouted, and I wrinkled my nose when I realized how very pretty the Sin was when not sneering or contemplating my doom. "A pity."
The Sin and I didn't say much else for the remainder of the journey. I stared out the windshield, tired but oddly invigorated by our conversation. Though not ideal, Amoroth had suggested a possible suspect for me and Darius to look into. The Gray Arcanum. It wasn't much—possibly nothing at all, but I'd been floundering for weeks, catching nothing but air in my hands. Now I had a name. It didn't matter if they were human or mage; those responsible for Tara's death would pay with their lives. If the Gray Arcanum was the orchestrator behind that grisly night, I would tear them apart at the seams.