Devil's Gate (Elder Races #4.6)(20)

“Then give us a chance to find out who really killed him,” Seremela said. Her eyes burned with repressed emotion but, Duncan was glad to see, her face and voice remained calm. “I’m—I’ve been a medical examiner. If I could examine the body, I can determine what type of poison was used and possibly learn a great deal more. I can guarantee you this much—even if Vetta’s snakes bit him repeatedly, they’re much too immature to carry enough poison to kill a mature Dark Fae male.”

“Keep a poisoned, rotting corpse here, in this heat?” said Malphas, his beautiful face twisting with distaste. “Oh no, Doctor. While your offer might carry a certain theoretical merit, there is no body left for you to examine.”

“What do you mean, there’s no body?” Seremela asked tightly. “What happened to it?”

“Thruvial’s own attendants lacked the proper Dark Fae herbs for preserving the dead. His remains turned so foul they were forced to burn him on a pyre yesterday.”

As Duncan listened, his mind raced. Discovering what the Djinn cared about was the key that would get them out of this trailer alive.

The Djinn didn’t care who killed Thruvial, and he didn’t especially care one way or another about using Vetta for a scapegoat, or he would have hanged her when Thruvial’s murder had first been discovered.

Why had the Djinn gotten involved in the first place? What did he gain from it?

Then Duncan had it, what Malphas cared about.

Earlier Wendell the pharmacist had even coined the term. Malphas owed his life to balancing power. As a first generation Djinn who was also a pariah, he lived with the constant risk of being hunted by others of his kind.

For the other Djinn, however, killing Malphas would be exceedingly difficult and costly. They would be reluctant to do so unless they were given no other choice.

When the others in Devil’s Gate had demanded action, Malphas had taken Vetta into custody and held off her execution for a few days, not because of a sense of justice, but because of a sense of self preservation.

All of that told Duncan a few things. The first was that Malphas did not expect to suffer any repercussions from Thruvial’s death because he hadn’t been involved.

However, Malphas would be involved in Vetta’s death if they hanged her. He had to be sure that death wouldn’t matter to anyone.

Duncan said, “This is the line you do not want to cross, Malphas.”

The Djinn turned those supernova eyes back onto Duncan. “You have my attention, Vampyre. Explain what you mean.”

“You may not belong to a particular House, but we do. Our House cares what happens to us, they know where we are and their associations are strong,” Duncan said. “Carling Severan is my maker, and while she no longer sits on the Elder tribunal, she still maintains connections and alliances with the most Powerful of the Djinn. Those connections include the head of the tribunal itself, Soren, and Soren’s son, Khalil of the House Marid. In fact you may have heard, once Carling and Khalil went to war together against a first generation pariah Djinn. They won.”

“I see,” said Malphas. His eyelids dropped over the blazing stars of his eyes, shuttering his expression.

Duncan told the Djinn, “Whatever happened to Thruvial is none of our concern. We are not here to solve a murder, to get involved or to placate the locals, no matter how much a sense of separateness or entitlement they seem to have acquired here at Devil’s Gate. We don’t have to justify taking an innocent girl away from a dangerous situation. You will not stop us from retrieving her, nor will you harm us in any way as we leave, because if you do, you would bring that kind of war down on yourself, and really, Malphas, when it comes right down to it, none of us are worth that to you.”

As Duncan talked, a quick patter of footsteps sounded outside. The Vampyre guard appeared in the open doorway, carrying a backpack on one shoulder while she held onto the arm of a young medusa with a tear-streaked face.

The medusa screamed, “Aunt Serrie!”

“Let go of my niece,” Seremela said. The Vampyre tossed the backpack to the floor and let go of Vetta who flung herself forward. Seremela snatched her close.

“You are quite right,” said the pariah Djinn with an angelic smile. “None of you are worth that.”

Seremela clenched the girl so hard the muscles in her arms jumped, while Vetta buried her face into her neck and sobbed. Seremela watched as the Djinn dissolved into black smoke that dissipated into nothing. Duncan pivoted on his heel toward her, his lean face composed but his eyes glittered with a dangerous light.

She said fiercely, “We’re done here, right?”

“We’re done,” he said. He sounded as calm as he always did, his rich voice mellow and soothing, but as he strode toward her he pulled his gun.

She sucked air, held Vetta tighter and said between her teeth, “What now?”

Sympathy darkened Duncan’s gaze as he reached her side. He gripped her shoulder and said, “Malphas has chosen to disengage, but that doesn’t mean anybody else at Devil’s Gate has.”

“Shit,” she muttered. Of course he was right. She looked around but the other Vampyre had disappeared as well.

Vetta lifted her head. Her eyes were smudged with streaks of black eyeliner, and her small, slender snakes were entirely subdued, curled quietly against her head. Seremela could see in her niece’s young, exhausted face the ghost of the five-year-old Vetta had once been.