Part 14 (1/2)
She fussed for a moment about Adam's order. ”Oh, I wish I'd thought to bring the digital camcorder in with me. Couldn't I please run out to the car and get it? I swear I'll be right back, and won't talk to anyone.”
Adam shook his head. ”The seal can't be broken for another ten hours.
No one goes in or out until I'm satisfied.”
”But this is a highly important historic moment!” she said, waving her hand toward Jules and Tony, who were serving coffee and almond cake. My father sat next to Amanita, while Pixie was curled up in a window seat with her iPod, clearly distancing herself from everyone else in the room. ”Two, two genuine spirits are present, along with you poltergeists, and a ...”
She stopped, her face screwed up.
I watched her carefully before smiling. ”Finding it overwhelming?''
”Well, yes! I mean, who wouldn't!”
Who indeed? I wondered if she really was hiding knowledge of the Otherworld from us, or if she'd just happened to make a couple of lucky guesses. The best way to find out would be to give her enough rope, I decided.
If she wanted an audience, I'd play along, so I continued to nod as she went on.
”I'm still not sure...That woman there, she's a unicorn? How is that possible? Shouldn't she look like a white horse with a horn or something similar?”
”Unicorns have the ability to shape-s.h.i.+ft. They prefer the human form because it's much easier in today's world to be human than it would be to be a four-footed, supposedly legendary beast. I've never met one before to really discuss the issue, but it makes sense to me.”
”I suppose so.” She cast a doubtful glance at Amanita, took a quick picture of her, then tucked the camera back into her bag.
Adam cleared his throat. ”As you all know, I am a member of the watch of the Akas.h.i.+c League. I have been asked to investigate the death of Spider Marx before turning it over to the mundane police.”
”Mundane?” Savannah turned to my father.
Dad shot me a quick glance before answering. ”He means non-Otherworldian. Mortal-world police, in other words.”
”Oh.” Savannah nodded for Adam to continue.
He stood silent, his pale blue gaze moving quickly from person to person.
”Karma is also a member of the League and, as such, has been deputized to a.s.sist me with investigating. We will interview you all, one at a time.”
”I'm not a part of your underworld,” Meredith drawled from the room's most comfortable chair. I noted he had managed to possess himself of yet another gla.s.s of whiskey. ”I don't have to answer any of your questions. You have no right to interfere with Savannah or me, not to mention it's illegal to interview us without our lawyer present.”
”It's 'Otherworld,' not 'underworld,'” Dad corrected, not looking at Meredith, ”which you very well know.”
Meredith shot Dad a look that I found impossible to interpret. I made a mental note to have another talk with my father at the first opportunity.
”If this murder had taken place with only mortal people, in a mortal household, then yes, I would have to abide by mundane laws.” Adam leaned down over Meredith, forcing the latter back in his chair. ”But you are in my house, and there are no lawyers in the Otherworld. We're going to do things my way. Got it?”
I looked at the clock on the table. Ten hours to go. Time was slipping by.
12.
”I don't care about your Otherworld laws. We don't have to say anything to you without our lawyer present,” Meredith muttered stubbornly, his eyes narrow and hard.
”I don't mind talking to you,” Savannah said quickly. ”So long as you agree to answer a few of my own questions about poltergeists, and this Otherworld place that keeps being mentioned.”
”You will not talk to him without a lawyer,” Meredith snapped, glaring at his wife.
”Please don't use that tone with me,” she said, to my surprise. The Savannah who had been so fl.u.s.tered by everything hadn't struck me as a particularly self-confident sort of woman. ”I don't like it, and it's not necessary.
If I want to talk to Adam and Karma, I will.”
”You will not! Dammit, woman, I forbid you to speak to them!”
Adam held up a hand to stop the bickering, addressing Meredith with a stern eye. ”As I said, I am invoking the right of the watch to interrogate any possible suspects by whatever means is necessary. And I stress by whatever means. End of discussion.”
Savannah gasped at the threat in his voice. Meredith scowled, his eyes s.h.i.+fty. I knew he was planning something, but whether it was just a response to Adam's admittedly high-handed manner of dealing with the situation or it was driven by guilt was not clear to me. For the first time in my life, I wished I was a full-blooded polter. I would have given anything to be able to go into unbridled scary poltergeist mode and frighten the truth out of him. I looked with speculation at my father.
He raised an eyebrow at me, evidently aware of what it was I was thinking. ”It wouldn't do any good to have me fly at him,” he said in Poltern.
”He's not afraid of me. You could do it, though.”
Savannah leaped off the couch and gawked at my father in a very fine impression of someone nearly startled out of her skin. ”What on earth was that noise? Merciful G.o.ddess, are there more ent.i.ties here?”
”Oh, that. That's just poltergeist-speak,” Tony said as he whisked out from the kitchen with a tray. ”It's how they talk to one another, although honestly, how anyone is supposed to understand a bunch of raps and clicks is beyond me. Who's for fresh-baked cinnamon-almond croissants? Jules has coffee, as well.”
”That implies that Meredith is frightened of me,” I said slowly in Poltern, my toe cracking barely audible. ”Adam, yes. Adam is a figure of authority. But I certainly don't represent anything that would worry Meredith.”
Adam said nothing, but his eyes were full of questions as he watched Meredith select two croissants from the plate Tony offered.
Savannah spread a look amongst us, rubbing her arms. Her body language read true. Maybe I was imagining my sense that she was hiding something....
The evening had certainly been disquieting enough to skew my ability to evaluate people.
”Can't you smell the fear on him?” Dad sniffed the air. ”Every time he looks at you, it grows stronger.”
I did the same. ”No. The only thing I can smell is croissant.”
”If only I'd not fallen in love with your mother...you would have been a full-blooded polter, and would be able to sense the things we can.” He shook his head sadly, his face clearing when Tony offered him a powdered-sugar-dusted almond croissant.
”This is so ... strange. Different. Indefinable,” Savannah said, gesturing vaguely. ”I had no idea that a language could consist of clicks and knocks.
Might I ask what it is you're saying to each other?”
Adam shook his head when Tony offered him a plate, and clamped a hand on Meredith's shoulder instead. ”Nothing important. Since you object the most to being interviewed, why don't we get it over with?”
Meredith muttered some pretty rude things under his breath, but he evidently decided that resistance wasn't going to do him any good against Adam. I thanked Tony as I took a still-warm croissant and a cup of coffee, following the two men to our little interview cubbyhole.
”Well! While Adam and Karma are busy with the interviews, why don't the rest of us do our part to discover the truth of what happened to Spider?”
Savannah said in a bright, cheerful voice that clashed severely with the darkness outside, the late hour, and the dead man in the bas.e.m.e.nt.