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I picked up the thick, white china teacup. Said nothing.
He squeezed his eyes shut. His hand trembled as he set his glass down. "I was there," he mumbled. "Rigger Hall."
I'd known that, of course. He'd been a few classes ahead of me.
Like Christabel.
Great beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. "There was… a secret." His throat worked, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I don't know much, but…"
Rigger Hall was full of secrets, Eddie. I felt the glowing metal pressed against my skin again, heard Mirovitch's papery voice. Cleared my throat, set my teacup down. "Eddie…" My voice was harsh, harsher than it had to be. The glass of beer rang uneasily. I have got to get some kind of control over myself. My left shoulder burned dully as if in agreement. "Anubis et'her ka, don't do this to yourself."
His eyes flew open. "You don't tell me what I do or don't gotta do," he growled, leaning back. "I can't go home, I can't fuckin sleep, and people are dying. I got to get this done."
I shrugged. My heart beat thinly under my ribs, hammering with impatience and adrenaline combined. Picked up my teacup again.
He took another long gulp of beer. " 'S a wonder anyone made it out. I wasn't in it, not the Black Room."
I shuddered. His eyes flew open, as wide as I'd ever seen them. "No, not that one," he hurriedly amended. "No, that was the name of the Secret. 'Cause they met in that old shed off the lake. You remember?"
I nodded. Christabel's ghostly screaming rang inside my head, I pushed it away. "I remember." Cold sweat lay on my skin. Black Room, remember Rigger Hall. That's what Christabel meant.
His eyes were the eyes of a child reliving a nightmare. "You was in the cage?"
He meant the Faraday cage in the sensory deprivation vault under the school. It had been intended to help telepaths who needed a short-term respite from their gifts. Instead, it had been turned into a punishment. Psions—especially strong ones—can only stand a cage for a very short time before their psyches begin to crack under the lack of stimulation. If you weren't a telepath seeking relief, being in a cage was like being trapped in a black void—no light, no sound, and no access to the ambient Power that fed magickal and psychic talent. It is the closest thing to insanity I had ever known, and I still couldn't step into an elevator without shaking and feeling the walls close in. The cage of an elevator or hoverlift was uncomfortably similar to the cage of Mirovitch's Black Room. "Four times," I replied, husky.
"I had two. Two was enough."
"Never would have been enough," I forced out past teeth clenched so tightly my jaw hurt. If it was before Rio, would I shatter my own teeth and swallow them? The thought of the sensory-deprivation vault and the cage, and the blackness rising through me to eat at the very foundations of my mind—"Sekhmet sa'es, Eddie…" I swallowed dryly several times, my throat clicking. Got to get control. Goddammit, Da
"The secret… Christabel was one a 'em. I wasn', but I got friendly wi' one."
I waited. He would come to it in his own time. The least I could do was give him a few minutes to work up to saying whatever he had to say.
"Steve Sebastiano," he said finally. Was he blushing?
Now I had officially seen everything.
My jaw dropped. "You got friendly with Polyamour?" Polyamour the transvestite, one of the most famous sexwitches in the world? The sexwitch rumored to be so fantastic in bed that Hegemony heads and even some paranormals paid just to call on her socially? Her house took a healthy chunk of cash just to be put on the waiting list. Polyamour, who used to be Steven Sebastiano, a few classes ahead of me and already the source of whispers and rumor at school. I heard she'd been tutored by Persephone Dragonfly down in Norleans at the Great Floating House, and done an internship in Paradisse as part of an exchange program.
And one of her sexwitches had been a victim. The piece fell into place neatly, and I felt the little click of intuition inside my skull.
The first link in the chain, the first arc of the pattern, was always the hardest. It would only get quicker from here.
Thank the gods. I don't think I can stand to look at another dead body.
Eddie shrugged, looking down into his half-empty glass. "We was roommates. Bastian was one of Mirovitch's sexwitch stable. Fucked him up royal."
A sexwitch in Rigger Hall? "Fucked up" would be an understatement. "I'll bet. So what happened?"
Eddie's sleepy hazel eyes were haunted, no longer the eyes of a fully grown man. Instead, they were the deep wells of pain in the face of a terrified child.
I didn't need a mirror to tell me my own eyes were just as dark. Just as wide, and just as deep—and just as agonized.
"Mirovitch," I persisted, my throat dry and tight. "Who did him in?"
The Skinlin shrugged. "I du
"Like what?"
"Tig vedom deum." Eddie took down the rest of his beer in two long drafts. He was sweating. I could smell the fear on him, rank and thick and human. Was it any consolation that my own fear now smelled like light ci
My left shoulder began to throb again, evenly, almost comfortingly. "Part of the Nine Canons. Second canto, line four." I shifted on the vinyl bench, looking down at the remains of my second bowl of soup. I've lost my appetite. Go figure. "For sealing a spirit in its grave."
"And for short-circuiting a Feeder." Eddie's bushy eyebrows drew together. He glared at the table as if it had personally offended him.
"Any truth to the rumor that one of the students was a Feeder?" And why would that have jackshit to do with these murders? Mirovitch is dead. The Hall's closed down.
"I du
"There's a lot of shit you don't know." Frustration turned my voice sharp and angular. My teacup rattled slightly, I took a deep breath. Power swirled the air in lazy waving tendrils.
If I didn't know better, I'd say it's gotten stronger. I've gotten stronger.
I shoved that thought as far away as it would go. I didn't need another problem.
His eyes nickered up to my face, slid away. He could barely stand to look at my new face, and my heart squeezed inside my chest. "Don't ride my ass, Da
"Why are you afraid? You weren't part of it."
He shrugged. "Don't look like this thing's too fuckin selective, if it'll kill a normal."
Thank you, Eddie. I realized that was precisely what was bothering me. Why would whoever-it-was kill a normal to start off with? Unless it was practice, a dry run—but that didn't seem too likely. Once you've mastered Feeder glyphs and enough power to charge a Ceremonial Magick circle, dry runs lose their usefulness. The higher up you go, the more everything depends on Working perfectly under pressure—getting it right enough to work the first time.
"Unless the normal wasn't so normal." But the coroner's scans would have caught it, if he'd been a psion. I stared at my water glass, my index finger tracing a glyph on the table. A loose, spiked, fluid, twisting glyph in another magickal language.
A glyph scored into my own flesh. If I kept tracing it, fiddling with it, would I eventually get an answer? A whole year of longing hadn't brought me anything but grief.
Quit daydreaming, Da
"Seems like someone's cleaning up some loose ends, don't it? I called Bastian. He'll see you soon as you want." Eddie sank down further in his seat, studying me. "You lookin' better, girl."