“Banshees are so empathetic they can sense death before it ever happens, and they feel that pain so deep, so intense, that they can’t help but cry out. Werewolf daddies never leave their children, not for any reason. They mate for life and take care of their families. And trolls”—she looked over at the troll, flies buzzing around him, so drunk he’d shit himself—“okay, I reckon trolls don’t count. They’re not much good for anything. But vampires, all they need is blood to survive. They don’t even need to kill to feed. How’s that for civilized? Can you say the same thing about yourself? If you ask me, the only real ‘creatures’ in this place are human.”
Lavina squeezed her lips together. In the hazy light her face looked like a rumpled shirt, drooping and creased.
“I know what you think of me—of us.” Lavina glanced at Hubbard. He had twisted in his chair to face Westie and was spinning the knife Heck had been using to cut limes on the bar. Westie kept her machine loose in case she needed to take it from him. “I was sad to hear such things, but you heard what the mayor said about Olivia finding those earrings in the forest where she played.”
Lies! Westie wanted to shout, but Lavina couldn’t know Olive had admitted the Fairfields were killers, or she’d have to admit she’d been with the girl before her death.
Lavina continued, “I do fear that accusation has tainted our reputation with the sheriff. He’s been nosing about our business.”
“Why don’t you just go on and leave, then?”
“I’ve spent too much time with Emma. I want to see it through. Nigel may not like us, or even trust us, but he needs our money. I’ve seen that desperate hunger in his eyes.”
Westie wondered how Lavina planned to invest without money. They must’ve discovered their missing fortune by now. Olive knew; she would’ve told them. Or maybe she’d been telling the truth when she said she hadn’t told them. Westie couldn’t be certain.
While she chewed it over in her head, Lavina said, “You remind me of someone I used to know. Doesn’t she remind you of someone we used to know, Hubbard?”
“Can’t say I remember her too much,” he said.
Westie tensed, biting the inside of her cheek, tasting blood. Hubbard picked at his teeth with the knife.
Westie mashed her face into a scowl. “How exactly do I remind you of this person you used to know?” she asked Lavina.
Lavina chuckled, though her laughter quickly faded. “She was clever. She was a fighter, that girl.” She reached out and touched Westie’s hair. “The resemblance is astonishing. You even have the same color hair and eyes as her.”
The muscles in Westie’s neck tightened. She wanted to swat the woman’s hand away. Instead she continued to crush her cup with her machine until liquid spilled out and it was no more than a twisted piece of metal.
The suspicion in Lavina’s voice left no doubt that she knew exactly who Westie was. Westie looked into Lavina’s eyes again and saw the recognition, though neither was willing to out herself. “What ended up happening to the girl you used to know?” Westie asked.
Lavina turned back to her drink. “Oh, I don’t know. She’d lost her family, and her mind, I suppose. I’d like to think she found a new family . . . a better family.” She slid a look at Westie from the corner of her eyes. “I’d like to think she moved on to enjoy the rest of her life and left the past behind her.”
Westie tossed the metal remains of her cup over the bar into the trash bin. “Well, if the girl is anything like me, I imagine moving on with her life isn’t likely.” She stood and put her coin on the bar. “And anyone who crosses her ought to be scared,” she said, and walked out.
Westie kicked at rocks as she headed toward the livery yard to get her horse, the conversation she’d just had with Lavina replaying in her head. The Fairfields obviously knew who she was, so there was no sense in pretending anymore. She could’ve told Lavina and Hubbard exactly what she thought about them, or maybe even asked questions. Being that her hands were tied and there was nothing she could’ve done to have them arrested, they might’ve even given her answers.
A knot of voices grew louder the closer she got to the livery yard. Turning the corner, she saw a line of creatures waiting outside Doc Flannigan’s office. Fae were the only known healers in the creature world, but they were extinct, and since creatures and the Native Americans rarely got along, the doctor was their only option.
On the opposite side of the street, humans gathered in buildings, still in their mourning clothes, watching the creatures from windows.
Westie followed the line of creatures. Children wilted in their mothers’ arms, the color drained from their faces. The sheriff was out there too, in the muck of it. She’d always heard him talk about how creatures and humans had no business living together, but there he was, helping an elderly warg lady to the front of the line.
Vampires milled around without their shrouds due to the overcast day. There was one in front of her bent at the waist, vomiting blood into the street. Westie recognized him as one of Costin’s guards, the big vamp with the lazy eye who she’d choked with her machine.
“Hey,” she said to him.
His eyes sprang open and he took a step backward.
She held her hands up. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just looking for Costin is all.”
Tight-lipped and wary, he pointed toward the end of the line.