Part 18 (1/2)
”You've never seen an imp race?” Now, that was curious. Imp races were standard fare in most polter kids' lives.
”There will be no imp racing in my house!” Adam yelled, glaring at me.
”Those are your pests; you take care of them!”
”I told you they were housebroken.”
”I don't care. I don't want them running around, getting into trouble.”
”Yeah, you wouldn't want anyone doing something unauthorized, like murdering someone,” Pixie said in a dry voice.
Adam bent a frown upon her. ”I could do with less lip from you.”
”Whatever.” She stood up and stretched. ”Since you ruined all the fun, I gotta go to the can.”
”They're really not harmful imps,” I told Adam. ”They're Australian. Very domesticated, not at all like the common European variety.”
”If you don't take care of them, I will,” he warned.
”Imp n.a.z.i,” my father muttered as he helped me round up the imps and replace them into their box.
”I imagine he's just as tired as the rest of us.”
Pixie had donated her scarf for the imps to curl up on. I tucked them away with her scarf before returning to my spot at the table and flipping open my notebook. I raised my eyebrows at Adam. ”Who's next?”
”Your father and the girl are the only ones left. We'll take her as soon as she comes back from the bathroom.”
I chewed on the end of my pen. It wasn't surprising that he had excluded his wards from the list of possible suspects. I had a feeling the only reason we had talked to Amanita was that we'd caught her in the bas.e.m.e.nt. ”What about Jules and Tony?”
”What about them?”
”Don't we interview them, as well? We did Amanita.”
Adam sat down across from me, and for a moment, weariness showed in his face. I knew he was tired-I certainly was, given the events of the evening and the lateness of the hour-but polters had deep reserves of strength that should have bolstered him. ”Jules and Tony aren't suspects.”
I hesitated, knowing I had to tread carefully. ”They aren't to you, but can you say without a shred of doubt that someone at the watch might not wonder if there wasn't some nepotism displayed on your part if everyone isn't treated to the same interview process?”
That brought him up short. He snorted but seemed to consider it.
”The truth has to be faced. They can interact in our world, they were alone at the time of the murder, and they had good cause to fear Spider and the diffuser after Sergei was killed, I'm sorry, Adam. That's means, opportunity, and motive.”
”That means nothing. You and I had all three as well, and we both agree we didn't do it.”
”I think it would be wise if we formally eliminated everyone.”
Adam sighed. ”Fine, but if you upset them, there'll be h.e.l.l to pay. You have no idea what horrible sorts of meals they can produce when they're not happy.”
”I'll use kid gloves, I promise,” I said, looking through the door at the empty hallway and staircase. ”What on earth can she be doing?”
”If she's anything like my daughter was, she'll be in there for hours.”
I sat back, intrigued by this unexpected glimpse into Adam's private life.
”I didn't realize you had a daughter. The League files didn't say you'd been married.”
”I haven't, and the League doesn't always know everything about people.
Take, for instance, the incident concerning you. There's remarkably little detail about it-just a note that you were charged with the extirpation of a six-year-old child, for which the penalty was wergeld.”
”You're trying to distract me from the subject of your daughter,” I said with a little smile.
”And you're trying to avoid talking about your past. It seems we both have things we'd like to keep private.”
My smile faded. ”True enough. I have an admittedly annoying curiosity about people. I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes. I was just surprised to hear you had a daughter.”
”She's in college. I don't see her often.” He was silent for a moment, then leaned forward, his breath brus.h.i.+ng my face as he asked, ”Why did you kill a six-year-old girl?”
I glanced at my father. He was chatting with Jules and Tony, who had come into the room to pick up coffee cups and empty plates. I didn't want to talk about what had happened so many years before, but somehow, I felt that Adam might understand what I'd gone through.
The familiar sensations of guilt and loathing rose at the memory. My hands cramped as I twisted the lace tablecloth tight between my fingers. I made a point of flattening my palms against my thighs. ”It was an accident. I was only six myself, which is why the League gave me a punishment of wergeld rather than banishment. They said I wasn't cognizant enough to know what I was doing.”
Adam nodded, saying nothing. I couldn't stand sitting still, so I grabbed a couple of tissues and started dusting a knickknack shelf that sat behind Adam.
”They were right about one thing: I didn't know what I was doing. Tami was my friend. She had a cruel streak, but I was a bit of a loner, being only half polter in a polter society. I didn't know I had the power to banish anyone to the Akasha, let alone destroy them. My parents didn't suspect anything. No one did, least of all me.”
My voice dribbled to a stop. I took a deep breath. ”One day we were playing around with Tami's father's scrying bowl. She thought it would be fun to use it to light a fire, only she wanted a live target, and decided her mother's cat was suitable for the experiment. I was horrified. I loved animals, and I wanted no part of the torture of a cat. I tried to get her to stop, but she caught the cat and hauled it and the bowl outside.”
The tissues were dirty. I tossed them into a waste-basket, moving it a few feet to the side. Strong emotions always made me feel antsy, as if my skin was itching, leaving me with the need to be doing something physical to work off the excess energy. Adam must have known well those feelings, for he said nothing as I flitted back and forth tidying things up, rearranging the various bottles on the sideboard.
”I tried to take the bowl away from her, but she just teased me that I wasn't quick enough or strong enough to keep up with her. She ran off with the cat and bowl, with me in hot pursuit. I fell at one point, skinning both knees badly, but even that didn't stop me. When I reached her, she had the cat tied down and was trying to position the bowl to catch the sunlight.”
The emotions I had felt thirty-odd years before were still as fresh in my mind as when I had originally felt them. ”Anger, pain, horror...they mingled together into one terrible moment that erupted when I managed to s.n.a.t.c.h the scrying bowl away from Tami, my emotions focused into the bowl until they exploded outward, knocking me back. When I shook the stars from my head and sat up, it was to find myself alone with the cat, Tami's terrified howl still echoing in my ears.”
Slowly I turned to Adam. His face was blank. I knew he was trying to encourage me to talk, much as if I was a suspect he was interviewing. I moved a few inches to the side of the now burnt lamp. ”At first, everyone thought my inadvertent eruption of power had banished her. Her parents got permission from the League to search the Akasha. They looked for her for three days before they gave up.”
If I closed my eyes, I could still see the scene in my head: my father, newly separated from my mother, drawn home by the tragedy. The two of them sitting side by side on our old green couch. Me hiding in the coat closet, eavesdropping as Tami's parents tearfully told mine that there had been no sign she had ever been to the Akasha. The look of horror on my mother's face as she realized that her daughter had destroyed another living being ... I turned away from Adam, the pain and shame of that moment still too much to share with anyone.
”Everyone was very nice to me. They said I wasn't at fault; I was too young to know what I was doing, too young to know how to harness my powers. But they worried that what could happen once, could happen again, that I'd get angry and out of control, and another innocent person would suffer. So the wergeld was bound to me, and I spent the next thirteen years being tutored in the art of transmortis anomaly extermination.”
”That's harsh for a child,” he said softly, his gaze holding mine. ”Thank you for telling me, Karma. The experience you went through was traumatic, but it's clear that it tempered you into a champion for those weaker than you, be it a cat or a spirit. It also validates my impression that you are incapable of truly harming anyone.”
I thought of the beings I'd cleaned and said nothing.
15.
”Houston, we have a problem.”