“And so what can I do for you, Madeleine Force?” Ingrid refused to do the same and addressed the child by the name given the vampire in her heavenly past. They were in North Hampton now, in the early twenty-first century. None of that mattered anymore.
The girl settled back on the chair and crossed her tanned legs. “You know who I am.” She looked around with a smug air. “Interesting choice of environment, the armpit of the Hamptons. But this isn’t really the Hamptons, is it? Clever use of a disorienting space. Lucky I had a friend who can sniff them out somehow. Took us a while but we found this sad excuse of a town. That honky-tonk bar at our hotel was quite the scene on Friday night. You should tell your sister to cool it down a bit. I don’t mind getting spilled on once, but three times in one evening is too much even for my hardworking dry cleaner.”
Ingrid bristled. “What do you want, Mimi? That is what you’re called these days, isn’t it? I read the tabloids.”
“I want the same thing you’re doling out to the legions of unworthy. Help.” Mimi lost her cool fa?ade for a bit, and her face became grave as she tugged the hem of her skirt over her knee.
“What makes you think I would help you? The treaty between our kind doesn’t cover that sort of thing, you know that. Plus, I’m bound by our restriction, if you know your history.” Ingrid bristled.
“Oh, I don’t need your silly magic. Oliver had to talk me into meeting you, even. Apparently he’s met your sister before. Not that she remembered him last night, the sad sap. He was so disappointed.” She leaned over the desk and drummed her manicured fingernails in expectation.
Ingrid steeled a desire to swat her hand away. “So if you don’t need my magic, what are you here for?”
“I need to get a soul out of the Underworld. Trapped below the seventh circle by a subvertio. I’ve already tried and failed once before. I don’t mean to let it happen again.”
“You know the rules. Once the soul has been bound to Helda beyond the seventh, it is hers forever.” Ingrid sniffed. “You’re wasting your time; it’s impossible. Those are the laws of the universe.”
“But there’s got to be a way. A barter, an exchange, something,” Mimi said, desperation creeping into her voice. “I thought you might know. You guys have been around the longest.”
The witch sighed. The Fallen and their problems did not concern her. But Ingrid knew that if she did not get rid of this pesky vampire Mimi was likely to use her powers in the glom to cause disturbance and havoc around town—if she hadn’t already. Ingrid had her staff to worry about, not to mention the rest of the community. Sure, the rebel angels had been cast out of Paradise, but they had been practically given mid-world: they ran the whole show down here, while Ingrid’s people had been banished to the fringes. Mimi Force had no business toying with the Kingdom of the Dead.
“Please, Erda. I’m begging,” Mimi said, tears suddenly springing to her eyes. “I love him. I can’t lose Kingsley. If you have anything to share, anything that can help . . . I would be in your debt forever.”
Ingrid sighed. “Fine. There is a way to recover a soul beyond the subvertio. The Orpheus Amendment. Do you know it?”
“I thought that was just a myth,” Mimi scoffed.
“Sweetie, you’re a myth yourself,” Ingrid snapped. “Helda made an exception once, and since then the Orpheus Amendment has stood. Same rules apply. One look back and it’s over.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll take that risk,” Mimi said. She stood up and shook Ingrid’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Oh, and one more thing I forgot to tell you. The Orpheus Amendment demands a sacrifice in payment for the release of a soul,” Ingrid said.
“A soul for a soul,” Mimi nodded, looking sly. “Don’t worry, I was already aware of that part of it. I would never descend into Hell unprepared.”
Ingrid hoped she had not made a mistake in helping the young vampire. The Fallen could be a dangerous enemy and she was glad to see her go. In the end Mimi Force had wanted the same thing from Ingrid that her human counterparts did: a way out of an impossible situation. Ingrid could only point in the right direction. The rest was up to them.
chapter twenty-five
Finger-Pointing
Aside from the recent death of the socialite and Bill Thatcher’s bludgeoning, there had been no murders recorded in North Hampton since its settlement. Freya did not watch the news unless someone had the television set to a news channel, nor did she read the newspapers, so she did not know that Molly Lancaster was officially a missing person until Sal happened to mention to her the following week that the boys who were with Molly that night at the bar had been brought in for questioning by the district attorney.
“Wait—you’re telling me they think those boys had something to do with Molly’s disappearance?”
“Where have you been all week?” Sal scoffed, shaking the paper at her. He was better after his bout with what had turned out to be the flu, but his cheeks were still red and his eyes runny. He also seemed to have lost part of his good humor. When he returned to work he was short-tempered and easily annoyed.
Freya didn’t answer and continued to mix coltsfoot and columbine together for a new concoction. Bran was still away; they had been able to speak to each other briefly the other evening, but the connection had been bad and all she heard was gurgling and hissing from the wire. He felt farther and farther away from her every day. She had tried hard to avoid seeing Killian again, although he appeared in her dreams every night. If only she could see Bran again, but he would not return for a few more weeks.
She read the headline story: Derek Adam, Miles Ashleigh, Jock Pemberton, and Hollis Arthur had been brought in for questioning. Witnesses who were at the North Inn the night before the Fourth of July told the police that Molly acted out of character that evening, dancing wildly and “flirting with every boy in the place.” She had left the bar with Derek in Jock’s car with Miles and Hollis in the backseat. Through his lawyer, Derek declared that he and Molly had gone down to the beach to make out, but that he had left her there because she told him she had to meet someone else at the beach, a story that no one, including the reporter who intimated that the boys were lying to save their skins, was likely to believe. The boys ranged in age from nineteen to twenty-three years old, rich college kids whose families had deep North Hampton roots. The lead police investigator on the case, Matthew Noble, would not make any comment.
“Those poor boys,” Freya murmured.
“Boys?” Sal huffed. “They’re gonna fry. Who’s going to believe they just left that girl down at that beach? Please, you know they killed her and hid the body. They’re guilty.”
Freya looked up. She hadn’t realized she had spoken out loud and wondered why she felt sympathy for the suspects. Then she realized: she believed them. Molly had taken an Irresistible potion, a concoction that could never bring about any harm or violence to its taker. Freya had seen to that when she made it; it came built in with a powerful protection spell to make sure this sort of thing never happened. Whatever happened to Molly that evening had nothing to do with the love potion, which meant it had nothing to do with the boys she met at the bar.
She was certain the boys were telling the truth, that they didn’t kill Molly. But how could she prove it?