The Mech Who Loved Me(60)

"Do you think it was Winthrop who died?" Charlie asked.

"Want to check upstairs?" Kincaid suggested. "I'm fairly certain he kept rooms up there."

Charlie gave her the glimmer ball and then vanished.

"What are you thinking?" Kincaid murmured, leaning on the counter. She could feel his eyes upon her.

"Don't you think it's odd we came looking for a rare mushroom, and several hours later, someone kills the major?" A horrible thought struck her. "What if both events are connected? What if we lured a killer here?"

"I haven't seen anyone tracking us."

"Doesn't mean they're not there. I think this is our murder weapon. I think this caterpillar mushroom can kill a blue blood, and it's the reason behind David Thomas's death, and all the others. I also think-" She swallowed a little. "-it's the same thing someone injected into Zero." She turned, and stared in the direction of the guild. "I want to look at David Thomas's body again."



* * *

An hour after Ava pulled David Thomas's cold body out of storage at the guild, she found the injection site.

"It was in his hair," she said, pulling off her gloves and throwing them in the rubbish bin as Dr. Gibson slid the gurney containing Mr. Thomas back inside the chiller. Kincaid was waiting outside, quite content to leave this part of the investigation to her. If she wasn't mistaken he'd looked a little green around the gills when she suggested he could sit in on the second examination.

"I didn't even notice it." Gibson looked distressed.

"We weren't sure what was wrong with him," she pointed out. "When we were doing the initial autopsy we thought Mr. Thomas had been stricken by some disease, so we were looking for signs of that. Instead he was murdered-injected with a mysterious substance that kills blue bloods."

She'd neglected to mention the fact she suspected what had killed him. Caterpillar mushroom. Or Yartsa gunbu. A rare substance that came all the way from Tibet, which meant someone must have paid substantial money for it. Someone who knew the effect it had upon blue bloods.

And dhampir.

What precisely did it do? Did it rupture veins? And turn a blue blood's bluish blood even darker? It must also affect the craving virus, and its ability to heal a blue blood almost instantly. What a horrifying thought.

Gathering her reticule, she bid Gibson goodbye, and found Kincaid in the guild's foyer peering behind a curtain. "Hmm, did I hear a little mouse?"

What on earth was he doing? Ava paused and watched him from the shadows, hearing a small giggle.



       
         
       
        

"There it is again," he said, as though he couldn't see a pair of little shoes hiding behind the curtain.

Then a little girl darted out from behind the drapes, her coppery curls gleaming in the light as she ran across the foyer.

"Why, it's a big mouse," he said, as one of Garrett's twin daughters turned and rushed back the other way.

"I'm not a mouse!" she cried, her whole face crinkling up in glee.

Ivy, by the look of her curls. Grace's hair was a little straighter, and she was quieter than her sister. The twins were a regular feature in the guild, and often came down to see Ava in the laboratory, as she showed them how her instruments and microscope worked. They'd been born blue bloods, as Perry was infected with the craving, and trying to wrangle a pair of super-fast, very agile toddlers had been a lesson in patience for the Nighthawks.

Kincaid knelt on the carpet, waggling his fingers in front of his cheeks like whiskers. "You've an awfully squeaky voice," he said, "like a mouse. And such little ears, and a little nose...."

The thought struck her: he was good with children, trying to make himself smaller so he wasn't quite so intimidating. The smile on his face lit him from within, and the little girl waved her fingers like whiskers too, and then shrieked with laughter.

Ava's heart melted.

"There you are, Ivy," Garrett announced, striding down the stairs and catching sight of his daughter. "I've been looking all over for you!"

Kincaid handed her over, his smile softening. "Someone made her escape?"

"I can handle a half dozen miscreants in the London streets," Garrett drawled, kissing his daughter on the cheek, "but the second my back is turned, one of the twins takes it upon herself to flee. You look away for one second...."

"Aye." Kincaid scrubbed at the beginnings of his beard. "I've got many a cousin like that."

The two men locked gazes, and though they knew each other, they'd never officially met. Garrett extended a hand. "Garrett Reed. You're Ava's... companion." The hesitation was so minor it might as well not have been there, but Ava scowled at her guild master. He was no fool, and could probably smell her perfume.